Theory of Evolution and Mormons

[Joseph Antley]

My answer is somewhere in between the first two options in the poll. Actually, my answer is the first two options in the poll.

[RenegadeOfPhunk]

You think I would learn to not make long posts that require defending when I don't really have the time to do so.

Heh - no worries. I understand that feeling very well...

Reply whenever you have the time mate...

"Heebie-jeebies" referred to evolutionists in general and not Millier in particular.

Fair enough. You do have a point there when it comes to 'certain' atheists I think, but I don't think that charge can be leveled at Miller. Which I guess we agree on...

I understand that Miller and others think that teaching ID in schools will cause the collapse of western civilization or something that is very bad, but I don't think so.

I'm not sure whether teaching Intelligent Design, astrology or alchemy in science classes would lead to the 'collapse of western civilization'. But - for sure - it would:

* Deeply lower the quality of scientific education (and set your nations scientific standing back as a result)

* Cheapen the entire notion of 'science'

If this isn't a 'big deal' to you, then - well - fair enough. But I think it's fair to say it IS a big deal for many other people. And I'm finding it hard to understand why it wouldn't be a big deal to you either.

If you want to teach ID (or astrology or alchemy) in schools, well - I don't actually have an issue with that in principle.

But it should be in some kind of religious education class. NOT a science class.

I also don't think they fear the teaching of it as science so much as they fear the teaching of it at all.

I don't agree with this. I think if ID proponents were working to get ID taught in a 'religious education' class, Miller simply wouldn't care. At all...

...and neither would I...

"there is a certain non-scientific speculation on the origin of life, called Intelligent Design, which posits the involvement of a all-powerful and all-knowing creative force -- which however cannot be proven or disproven by the scientific method and is therefore out of the scope of our studies."

Fair enough. But since the statement above starts with:

"there is a certain non-scientific speculation on the origin of life..."

...then this wouldn't be being said in a science class - right? What would be the point if - by the admission of the statement itself - it's not scientific?

Oh - and of course evolution doesn't attempt to explain the 'origin of life' at all. All it claims to explain is the 'diversity' and 'complexity' of life forms...

but I did get the impression that he was enjoying himself kicking it around

...I think this very much depends on your point of view I guess.

Miller comes across to me as a genuinely nice guy - who is tackling a subject he is an expert of and cares passionately about with a bit of humour and good nature. That's how he comes across to me.

That doesn't seem to be the same thing as 'enjoying kicking [iD] around'. Or, well, maybe it does - but it changes the emphasis of intent - maybe. I'm sure if I was an 'ID proponent', maybe I'd see it differently...

Maybe if I were a flat-earthist, I'd see a good-natured, jovial 'dissection' of that idea a bit differently to others too. *shrug*

[krose]

I understand that Miller and others think that teaching ID in schools will cause the collapse of western civilization or something that is very bad, but I don't think so. I also don't think they fear the teaching of it as science so much as they fear the teaching of it at all.

Miller was on NPR's Science Friday last summer, discussing the harm of teaching ID/Creationism in school. It's interesting listening and not too long, and can be found here.

[Honorentheos]

You have to love science Fridays.

Regarding teaching ID in schools - I think the mistake that many theists make is that they can not see evolution as a non-faith based ideology. To those who view it scientifically, it is in line with all of the other sciences taught in schools and represents the best information that we currently have available based on theory and corroborating evidence. We do not have a perfect understanding of it, but none of the sciences are perfect. How one then incorporates this information into their belief system is up to them - whether you be Mormon, Christian, or unbeliever. Evolution is not REQUIRED to be a belief system in and of itself. That it has this implication has to do with how both believers and nonbelievers have chosen to use it.

ID, on the other hand, is based on a belief system. There is no way to bring it into the school curriculum without introducing certain beliefs that are based on theology rather than scientific theory and experimentation. They are not equal.

It seems best to just let them teach what the current theory and supporting evidence supports and then leave it to the individuals and their families to try and interpret it in the form of individual beliefs and theology.

[krose]

One area that I think people make a big mistake is in pointing out how perfect the earth's environment is for supporting life, as if it were designed for that purpose. To me that's backward thinking. Life is the way we know it because it has perfectly adapted to the earth's environment.

[BCSpace]

I am LDS and have no problem entertaining the notion that God created our physical bodies using the process of evolution. from one celled organisms, to slime, to fish, to reptiles, to mammals, to the common ancestor of man and ape, to man. There is no conflict whatsoever with evolution and LDS doctrine imho.

How do you reconcile the evolution of man from primates with a literal adam and eve?

What's to reconcile? A man is a literal spirit child of God combined with a phsyical body. Therefore, you can have evolution, even up to homo sapiens 200,000 or a million years ago and Adam can still be the first man because he would be the first homo sapiens with a spirit child of God animating his body.

Because of 2 Nephi 2:22, which makes a clear distinction between the creative period and when Adam was placed in the garden into a state of no death, there can be death in the world until God is ready, the creation finished, Adam and Eve in the garden, and everything now awaits the Fall.

I hope people can find a way to believe in evolution if they feel they must remain LDS.

Done! Though actually I believe in God and accept/subscribe to evolution as the way He created our physical bodies.

[Teancum]

What's to reconcile? A man is a literal spirit child of God combined with a phsyical body. Therefore, you can have evolution, even up to homo sapiens 200,000 or a million years ago and Adam can still be the first man because he would be the first homo sapiens with a spirit child of God animating his body.

.

So you think God evolved man from apes then at the right time placed Adam's spirit in some man born of a non child of God spirit mother? So what about all the earlier Homosapiens? They were not spirit children of God?

Because of 2 Nephi 2:22, which makes a clear distinction between the creative period and when Adam was placed in the garden into a state of no death, there can be death in the world until God is ready, the creation finished, Adam and Eve in the garden, and everything now awaits the Fall.

Done! Though actually I believe in God and accept/subscribe to evolution as the way He created our physical bodies

Huh? So there was no death till the non spirit child mother of Adam had Adam and God placed Adam's spirit child into this body? I do not understand your odd ideas here.

[Tarski]

I don't even see how option 2 is self consistent.

I am LDS and believe in evolution but I believe that man is from Adam and not primitive man

The theory of evolution includes/entails the idea the man has a common ancestry with other species.

Unless you think humans did not result from evolution at all and are unrelated to other animals. If so, then you have a lot of explaining to do as to why our DNA tells a different story than what you imagine. It tells of common origins. Do other primates have teeth, hair and saliva from one process (evolution) and humans by a completely different process --a separate, on the spot, design done by a being who, for Mormons, mysteriously has a primate body himself--a form that looks quite organic and evolved itself?

[BCSpace]

So you think God evolved man from apes

Apes and man have a common ancestor yes.

then at the right time placed Adam's spirit in some man born of a non child of God spirit mother?

Yes, much like any other animal spirit.

So what about all the earlier Homosapiens? They were not spirit children of God?

Obviously in this scenario they could not have been. Thinking more about it one might ask why, if big brained homo sapiens have been around all these 100's of thousands of years, didn't civilizations and all their trappings appear much much earlier? The answer could be that not being spirit children of God (more like dolphins or neanderthals perphaps), their spirits made less use of the available brain.

Huh? So there was no death till the non spirit child mother of Adam had Adam and God placed Adam's spirit child into this body?

Correct. Notice that in 2 Nephi 2:22 the already created Adam was placed into the condition of no death. This implies a time in which there was not a state of no death (or implies the possibility of such).

I do not understand your odd ideas here.

Yes you do. We have discussed it at length on this and on Shades' board. You disagree but I think it's more because you can't stand the notion that an LDS person may have found the way to accept evolution without conflicting with doctrine than because of some flaw in my hypothesis.

[Honorentheos]

Apes and man have a common ancestor yes.

Yes, much like any other animal spirit.

Obviously in this scenario they could not have been. Thinking more about it one might ask why, if big brained homo sapiens have been around all these 100's of thousands of years, didn't civilizations and all their trappings appear much much earlier? The answer could be that not being spirit children of God (more like dolphins or neanderthals perphaps), their spirits made less use of the available brain.

Correct. Notice that in 2 Nephi 2:22 the already created Adam was placed into the condition of no death. This implies a time in which there was not a state of no death (or implies the possibility of such).

Yes you do. We have discussed it at length on this and on Shades' board. You disagree but I think it's more because you can't stand the notion that an LDS person may have found the way to accept accept evolution without conflicting with doctrine than because of some flaw in my hypothesis.

Just for my own understanding, BCSpace, do you consider other humans to have been in this condition of no death? or was there a local condition the we call the Garden of Eden where non-tellestial laws were in effect including death, but this was not a global state? And the only humans in this state were Adam and Eve? If the former, were procreative processes also stopped globablly or just locally?

I guess, at a more gut-check level, I'm trying to imagine Adam and Eve relating to their parents in some manner...

[Tchild2]

Done! Though actually I believe in God and accept/subscribe to evolution as the way He created our physical bodies.

BC, there is a much easier way to reconcile the science and the doctrines of the "fall" and how they relate to evolution. Just sweep away the doctrines and their teachings of the fall as "opinion" as Jeff K did on the now closed thread by Lostindc, post #231 Bored at work so I figured I would post my interesting site of the day regarding evolution;

"The fall is part of the process, not the reason for its existence. We have already established that the quotes that you pulled from various church leaders were opinion and not doctrine. Therefore you want to elevate opinion to doctrine. Sorry if your opinion of such elevation does not work out.

So you are upset that your opinion was not elevated to doctrine? Too bad.

Neato, presto, all buttoned up and problem solved.

[Droopy]

As far as man himself, we're the only inhabitant of this planet that is born without any natural means of defense. We have no fur to protect us from the weather, we have no claws to protect us from predators, infancy and childhood last for years and our physical strength is pathetic compared to other primates. Our feet, unlike the hooves and paws of other animals, are shredded unless we devise something for them. Our stomachs are not equipped with harsh gastric juices that kill bacteria and everything we eat or drink has to be relatively pure and/or cooked.

Actually this all makes perfect evolutionary sense.

Yes, of course it does. Everything makes perfect sense in an evolutionary context, which points out quite nicely on of the severest traditional problems with evolutionary theory when extended to such questions: its inherent circularity and unfalsifiability. Evolution, stretched to explain everything, hence explains nothing. The macroevolutionary claims of the theory cannot be verified empirically in any direct manner, and the fact that the theory can be tweaked post hoc ergo propter hoc, to accept any present observational evidence, simply means that no argument or evidence is allowed to critique the theory because every argument regarding it is proof of its truth; that is, our brains and CNS evoled precisely in such a way as would allow us intellectual skepticism of aspects of evolutionary theory. Hence, the theory is confirmed, and makes perfect sense form an evolutionary perspective.

The Alice-through-the-looking-glass nature of philosophical naturalism is a real philosophical problem for scientism of this kind because, as with other aspects of the human experience, its a self reinforcing perceptual loop. The frog in the well believes the well is the entire universe (not just its entire universe) because his perceptions are closed to all phenomena beyond it. The Gospel opens our perceptions - expands them beyond this particular, shall we say, frequency on a much larger bandwidth of existent reality.

Accessing this greater perceptual range, however, has certain requirements. Why so many refuse to so much as approach the possibility of such a perceptual expansion is a fascinating question, especially spiritually (the parable of the sower).

[Tchild2]

I like evolution topics, because IMO, we have a bona fide example of where a core doctrine taken literally, fails, and fails ever so miserably ("the fall"). Members like to point out that evolution is not doctrinal, and the members are free to accept the theories of evolution and that no conflict with the gospel need exist. I agree, insomuch that the gospel consists of esoteric and symbolic language. in Mormonism (and other Christian churches), it is both literal and symbolic concerning its truth claims.

However, when a church or religion makes very specific claims about the nature of our world, and those claims become doctrine, and that doctrine is later found to be in direct conflict with consensual science (evolution), well, we then get a lot of cog dis, mental gymnastics and contorted and stumbling / bumbling raionales. Evolution may not be doctrinal, but certain components of "the fall" most definitely are; Adam as the first man, living in a paradisicial garden of Eden, no death / mortality for Adam or us if "the fall" does not transpire.

This doesn't negate Christianity, that a savior exists, that we need atoning etc etc etc. Only that those who are telling us these things in the name of God, might be as wrong about all that, as they are concerning the literalness of what they have taught as "the fall". It shows that taken in any other way than literal, the Mormon cosmology works for religious purposes. However, that is exactly the way it has been given as truth; literally...and that can be a credibility breaker for some.

[BCSpace]

Done! Though actually I believe in God and accept/subscribe to evolution as the way He created our physical bodies.

BC, there is a much easier way to reconcile the science and the doctrines of the "fall" and how they relate to evolution. Just sweep away the doctrines and their teachings of the fall as "opinion" as Jeff K did on the now closed thread by Lostindc, post #231

Why would I want to do that? It's just as easy and better to realize that the scriptures distinguish between a creative period and a created state of no death. I don't have to sweep any doctrines aside at all and my explaination vis a vis the existence of such doctrine and the existence of the scientific theory become the easiest explaination of all. On top of that, I've just obeyed the scriptural injunction to learn about all things in and about the world. Indeed, the yoke is easy and the burden light.....

I like evolution topics, because IMO, we have a bona fide example of where a core doctrine taken literally, fails, and fails ever so miserably ("the fall").

I don't think this really is the case. I think it's more a case of what is the actual doctrine anyway? Sure we can think of some of these things as metaphorical, but the facts can still remain, even in the face of science, that there was a garden (a state of no death) that there was a tree of knowledge in opposition to the tree of life, and that there was a Fall, etc.

Above all, as we've discovered before, where it might fail is where we start to deny the historicity of these events.

[BCSpace]

Just for my own understanding, BCSpace, do you consider other humans to have been in this condition of no death? or was there a local condition the we call the Garden of Eden where non-tellestial laws were in effect including death, but this was not a global state? And the only humans in this state were Adam and Eve? If the former, were procreative processes also stopped globablly or just locally?

I can imagine either a local or a global condition. If not local, then how were Adam and Eve cast out? If not global, then how does the entire world fall? I trend local.

As for the "preAdamites", I hypothesize that not being able to compete with the newer and funkier (humorous cultural reference) homo sapiens, they died out.

I guess, at a more gut-check level, I'm trying to imagine Adam and Eve relating to their parents in some manner...

No details given obviously, but perhaps they were taken as infants and raised in the garden?

[Tarski]

I like evolution topics, because IMO, we have a bona fide example of where a core doctrine taken literally, fails, and fails ever so miserably ("the fall"). .

Quite so. Man didn't fall. He rose.

[Droopy]

I like evolution topics, because IMO, we have a bona fide example of where a core doctrine taken literally, fails, and fails ever so miserably ("the fall").

The Fall only fails literally if a philosophical or metaphysical naturalist makes claims to knowledge of the condition of the natural world countless eons ago that he really doesn't have and which evolutionary theory and geology cannot provide him in any direct way to any substantial degree of certitude. I think bc is onto something here similar to something I've been onto for a number of years now, as far as a theoretical reconciliation of evolution of life and of the developmental history of the earth. If the earth is roughly 4.5 billion years old, and was created in a Telestial or natural state, then what do we make of Church and scriptural teachings claiming that their was no death in the world before Adam, and that the Fall encompassed the entire earth? Well, if we read the scriptures carefully, and keep in mind that as of yet, all we have are fragments of the Gospel; enough to save and exalt us if we allow but hardly anything but a scratching of the surface, and if we remember that the Gospel comes to us line upon line, here a little, and there a little, and that faith is the first principle of the Gospel, and must interact with direct revealed knowledge for that knowledge to be of much use to us, then we can look at the language of the teachings relative to this question and infer some really large gaps in that which God has revealed to us thus far. Those gaps have a distinct purpose, as does the important knowledge that has been revealed.

I think it quite likely, and indeed, to reconcile what we know of the physical history of the earth, probable, that the term "creation" as used when discussing the creation of this earth in Genesis and other scriptural accounts, cannot pertain to a single, linear, seamless creative act but a large array of various "creations" that, although have continuity over time and are connected to each other by both time and certain features of the earth (geological, chemical etc.), are severely differentiated from one another by clear demarcation lines (mass extinctions, ice ages, planet altering meteor impacts, plate tectonics etc.). Between these demarcation lines are vast numbers of unique life forms that appear suddenly in the fossil record, are then wiped out in vast die offs, followed by a new period in which new forms appear, usually with some slight overlap from previous epochs, suddenly again, proliferate and expand, and then disappear in like manner.

I think many LDS have always interpreted Moses 1:35 as having to do with the Lord specifying only an account of "this earth"; that is, this planet to Moses. What if, however, by "this earth" the Lord meant not just the planet itself as contrasted to other planets (which he may have meant as well) but various stages or phases of this planet's development (earths) in which biological and geological conditions varied widely. These "earths" or "creations" were preparatory; human beings had no place on the earth in these preparatory ages.

Now, my theoretical speculation here is simple and straight forward. At some point, the entire earth was raised to a Terrestrial state (yet another "creation" as I am interpreting the texts here) for the purpose of Adam's fall and a subsequent return of the earth to a Telestial condition. This time, however, a vast change had occurred in that Adam and Eve, unlike any of the other human sub-species or human-like creatures that had existed before, was like us; they were in full measure the spirit son and daughter of God the Father. They were acceptable organisms and vehicles for the mortal probation of God's children.

Hence, the scriptures are coherent and there is no logical inconsistency between the Gospel account and geological science. The entire earth was, for a time, a Terrestrial world, and there was no death among any of the life forms inhabiting it. The Dinosaurs and other similar creatures were long extinct, and never partook of that Terrestrial condition. However, as the earth and all creatures upon it were created spiritually before they were created physically, all biological organisms can be thought of as having "fallen" at some point by being placed in a mortal sphere.

Now, what evidence would have been left by such a change? What would count to a modern scientist as evidence that the earth, for even one second, had been a Terrestrial sphere as LDS understand it? What would count as evidence that the Fall occurred?

For a methodological naturalist, this poses no problem, as only his methodology is naturalistic, concentrating of empirical phenomena because that is all it is capable of doing as a methodology. The philosophical, or metaphysical naturalist, however, presupposes ultimates that the methodology is quite over its head in attempting to comprehend, and this is where all the trouble starts, because scientism extends empirical science and judgments of what constitutes evidence of what perceived phenomena into areas in which it is actually quite helpless to register any serious claims to knowledge.

However, when a church or religion makes very specific claims about the nature of our world, and those claims become doctrine, and that doctrine is later found to be in direct conflict with consensual science (evolution), well, we then get a lot of cog dis, mental gymnastics and contorted and stumbling / bumbling raionales.

You make exactly the same mistake as Gould here, confusing those aspects of reality with which science deals with reality itself, as a totality, which may have many more levels of actual manifestation than just the one with which empirical science is concerned (because, given inherent human perceptual limitations, and the fact that science is a human creation, is the only level of reality with which science can be concerned).

This doesn't negate Christianity, that a savior exists, that we need atoning etc etc etc. Only that those who are telling us these things in the name of God, might be as wrong about all that, as they are concerning the literalness of what they have taught as "the fall". It shows that taken in any other way than literal, the Mormon cosmology works for religious purposes. However, that is exactly the way it has been given as truth; literally...and that can be a credibility breaker for some.

Only if you think the doctrines and understandings of those doctrines are in some final, static state and have no more to tell us, and have no more developmental history then what we already have. Doctrinal development need scare nobody away from the Church. It doesn't mean the doctrines change (they don't) or must become logically inconsistent with previous interpretations, but it does mean that our understanding of them and there scope expands enlarges, and matures.

And we do need to separate doctrine from opinion. The young earth LDS creationism of JFS, McConkie etc. is not doctrine, and butts heads with the general acceptance of evolution by other GAs. The official position of the Church has always been, as has been stated, that there is no official position.

[Stargazer]

The video Honorentheos linked to was pretty good:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/...e/l_011_01.html

Yes, it is an interesting video.

To use a computer analogy, sounds like you are saying that the kind of software that runs in a modern PC was already 'in the programming' of the first valve computers.

...after all - even today it's still all 1's and 0's.

I'm a software developer, so I guess I'd love to use that as an analogy, but it's a difficult analogy because software and hardware do not actually form an analogous pair with DNA and the body. The body is the self-assembling expression of the DNA (and other factors such as RNA), whereas hardware and software are separably and externally designed components which manage (most of time) to work together to fulfill the purposes of the designer. I'd use the computer analogy if I were trying to argue my side of the question of evolution -- intelligent designer (or at least so we hope), namely me! Yikes, sometimes my software doesn't run...

When you speak of the software in the first valve computers (for the sake of the perplexity of US readers here, "valve" is the British English term for a vacuum tube -- which transistors replaced) was not designed to replicate like DNA is, and could not self-generate like living systems can. However, AI researchers have attempted to build software that could act like living organisms and vary their programming (and thus behavior) in response to the environment of their operating system and hardware. This is really not going to help either of us, though, so I'd like to stay away from it.

One of the more knowledgeable biologists around here can correct me if I'm wrong (on this point, or any other point!), but I'm pretty sure that if you go right back to the very first 'simple' single celled organisms - their DNA molecules were - and always have been - of the same basic structure as ours, and all other living creatures. In that sense the 'potential' for both colourations - yes - were 'present' in the 'moth genes', but only in the same sense that any type of creature is 'potentially' in the genes of any other creature!

Any imaginable piece of software is 'potentially' present in my PC - right now. (Noting the limitation of it's hardware - maybe we'll talk more about that if you reply )

All I have to do is choose the right sequence of 1's and 0's and then run the code.

To say both colourations were 'in the moths genes' - to me - seems no more meaningful than the statement above.

No, the dark coloration was already coded in the moth's genome, but was not the dominant expression until light colored peppered moths began to be gobbled up at a greater rate by the moth's predators. If you read the Wikipedia article on alleles here, you can see what I am trying to say. The point is, the allele for dark coloration was already present as a normal variation, albeit one that was recessive, i.e. would not be expressed unless both coloration alleles were present -- and as more moths without the dark coloration allele died before reproducing, along with the increasing numbers of moths with both alleles present which survived to reproduce, the dark colored variant began to predominate. Once industrial pollution was reduced significantly, the reverse of the process occurred.

The point in bringing this up was to demonstrate that biology textbooks were using this example as "evidence" of evolution when it was nothing more than another example of Mendelian genetics, simple inheritance if you will. But this was just a side issue.

Was the example meant to be an example of speciation? Or was it just an example meant to demonstrate creatures changing to match their environment...?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4708459.stm

I almost feel like I have to cut to a chase in order to get across what I was trying to say in my original post, instead of answering piecemeal, but I'm going to stick with it.

As far as the peppered moth is concerned, that's just creatures changing to match their environment, and changing to a form already existing in their genes.

As far as the butterflies in the linked article are concerned, I have no particular objection to what the biologists are saying. And it appears that a process of speciation is occurring here.

I don't know if I have been making myself clear on this, or not, but I am not necessarily arguing against speciation, per se, but I have serious doubts that it is happening without some form of outside intervention. The butterfly article speaks of a particular apparent speciation occurring without an obvious driving force behind it (such as geographical separation), and here I am left to wonder (with the biologists, I might add) why is this happening? I'll come out and say I think God is doing it; the biologists would likely only say that some unknown factor is behind it. Semantics, in a way, but my interest in the mechanism comes about because of the biochemistry involved in these things. This brings me back to the flagellum.

Do you have a time reference for the point in the video you are talking about here...?

32:15

Miller talks about the middle ear structure in pre-whales changing from a form suitable for air hearing, to one that works underwater for whales.

If it because the 'details' of how exactly this change are 'proposed' to have occurred don't seem logically sensible to you? Is it because you don't believe Natural Selection could make those kinds of changes - ermm - 'naturally'?

Or is it that you think it's possible, but that the evidence isn't 'strong' that it actually happened?

No, no, I believe it happened. I'm talking about mechanism, the "how", not the fact of the happening. And this leads back to our flagellum.

This is a very interesting statement. Why would adding one 'part' (Might need to make it clear what you mean by part') suddenly make the type-3 secretory system non-functional as a type-3 secretory system?. Why would it not be a 'secretion organ' with a 'small', extra function added...?

..or do you believe the jump from type-3 to flagellum would have to be made in one step? If so, why?

This is kind of the heart of the matter. The type-3 secretory organelle has a function and a purpose. Miller speaks of bacteria that use this organelle to emit substances, and that this emission is useful in some fashion to the bacteria, possibly even important to survival. Now, Miller spoke of removing 40 of the 50 parts of the flagellum, only to find that what was left constituted another, different, organelle, the type-3 secretory organelle.

Miller stopped here, and admired the edifice thus far created, which was to show that there was functionality present after all, despite the ID arguments. I attempted to explain how this was a straw man argument, but my explanation must not have been very good, because Tarski completely missed the point and started wandering along after plate tectonics and soil erosion. You missed it, too, sorry to say, when you wrote:

Kenneth Miller took apart the Irreducible Complexity argument according to it's exact wording.

And if Behe really meant what you think he meant, then - well - it just makes Millers defense irrelevant - because Behe would be attacking a straw-man version of evolution. Evolution doesn't claim that an evolved part has to perform the same exact 'task' in later generations. All that matters is that it was 'functional' in any way that benefited the survival of earlier generations.

Amen to the notion that it matters that the part be functional enough to benefit the organism sufficiently to ensure survival -- but more to the point, actually, that it does not encumber the organism to the point of early (i.e. pre-reproduction) termination.

If you take the type-3 secretory organelle, which is functional, and add the one part of the flagellum that "plugs into" the secretory organelle, suddenly you do not have a functional secretory organelle, you have a plugged secretory organelle. Can the plugged organelle still secrete? Maybe, but I'd guess it can't secrete much. Look at Miller's argument starting at about 41:00. To start with, he mistates the idea behind irreducible complexity. He says that irreducible complexity means that the parts comprising the component don't each have a function. That isn't what IC means. IC means that if you have a functional component and take a single step towards the new target component, suddenly the functional component is no longer functional as it was, but worse, the new structure isn't functional as the target either, meaning the organism does not have the benefit of either -- making it presumably less viable. You can argue that the intermediate form isn't as unsurvivable as all that, and it's conceivable you're right, but by and large, according to conventional biology, virtually all mutations are bad mutations, so we can assume this one is too.

Miller's entire argument about the flagellum and the type-3 secretory system is a bad one anyway. On Dawkins own website, while praising Miller for his efforts, one poster debunks this particular argument as poor, because type-3 secretory systems are not found on bacteria that also have flagella:

In the discussion debunking the "irreducible complexity" of the bacterial flagellum, p. 132 of TGD tells us that components of the type III secretory system were commandeered in the evolution of bacterial flagella. However, the TTSS is found only in some parasitic strains of Gram negative bacteria while flagella are found in Gram positive and Gram negative bacteria and archea. Is it not more likely that components of the bacterial flagellum were commandeered in the evolution of the TTSS as an adaptation to parasitism rather than the reverse? While the example does illustrate the concept under discussion, it appears to be in the wrong direction.

Added on edit: Even though Dawkins' argument against Behe is correct, the TTSS example appears to me to be a poor one because it does not refute Behe's claim of the "irreducible complexity" of the bacterial flagellum.

http://richarddawkins.net/forum/viewtopic.php?=&p=262640

I have more, but no time to finish the thought.

[Tchild2]

The Fall only fails literally if a philosophical or metaphysical naturalist makes claims to knowledge of the condition of the natural world countless eons ago that he really doesn't have and which evolutionary theory and geology cannot provide him in any direct way to any substantial degree of certitude.

Science and evolutionary theory do not concern themselves with philosophical and metaphyscial claims or knowledge, thus they cannot fail in that regard. The literal doctrines of the fall, can fail, insomuch that they leave the realm of philosophical or metaphysical...which they have in the case of the LDS cosmology.

I think bc is onto something here similar to something I've been onto for a number of years now, as far as a theoretical reconciliation of evolution of life and of the developmental history of the earth. If the earth is roughly 4.5 billion years old, and was created in a Telestial or natural state, then what do we make of Church and scriptural teachings claiming that their was no death in the world before Adam, and that the Fall encompassed the entire earth?

What is made of it, is what has been literally taught, at least concerning the church's stated beliefs and doctrines concerning the fall. Very specific, tangible and literal physical conditions; Adam was physically immortal, he needed to fall so that we could have mortality (the 2/3 faithful who were to come to earth), no death either physical or spiritual. The physical no death is very important in Mormon doctrine because it introduces the need of a savior whose atonement would save us from that mortality that Adam wrought upon future humanity. A reality that we see already existed without any need or help from Adam. We also see that Adam's form was already in the works eons before God "placed" him wholly formed in the garden.

Well, if we read the scriptures carefully, and keep in mind that as of yet, all we have are fragments of the Gospel; enough to save and exalt us if we allow but hardly anything but a scratching of the surface, and if we remember that the Gospel comes to us line upon line, here a little, and there a little, and that faith is the first principle of the Gospel, and must interact with direct revealed knowledge for that knowledge to be of much use to us, then we can look at the language of the teachings relative to this question and infer some really large gaps in that which God has revealed to us thus far. Those gaps have a distinct purpose, as does the important knowledge that has been revealed.

Droopy, it isn't about the gaps or what we are missing, it is the literal interpretion that is the problem. Philosophically, the genesis account is rich, layered and full of metaphorical, even poetic metaphysics concerning the nature of man. Problem is, inspired prophets speaking for God created doctrines based on a much more limited literal reading and made it doctrine, fixed and immutable.

I think it quite likely, and indeed, to reconcile what we know of the physical history of the earth, probable, that the term "creation" as used when discussing the creation of this earth in Genesis and other scriptural accounts, cannot pertain to a single, linear, seamless creative act but a large array of various "creations" that, although have continuity over time and are connected to each other by both time and certain features of the earth (geological, chemical etc.), are severely differentiated from one another by clear demarcation lines (mass extinctions, ice ages, planet altering meteor impacts, plate tectonics etc.). Between these demarcation lines are vast numbers of unique life forms that appear suddenly in the fossil record, are then wiped out in vast die offs, followed by a new period in which new forms appear, usually with some slight overlap from previous epochs, suddenly again, proliferate and expand, and then disappear in like manner.

Allegorically, symbolically and metaphorically the Genesis book of the creation, can be viewed in all sorts of ways, dissected, discussed and pondered upon, but when it is made literal doctrinally, the finality of its interpretation becomes fixed.

I think many LDS have always interpreted Moses 1:35 as having to do with the Lord specifying only an account of "this earth"; that is, this planet to Moses. What if, however, by "this earth" the Lord meant not just the planet itself as contrasted to other planets (which he may have meant as well) but various stages or phases of this planet's development (earths) in which biological and geological conditions varied widely. These "earths" or "creations" were preparatory; human beings had no place on the earth in these preparatory ages.

Sure, Moses 1:35 can mean whatever a person or religion wants, but again, we are dealing with very literal interpretions that run polar opposites of what consensual science now tells us about our world, and yours is a metaphysical interpretation attempting to reconcile or replace a literal one that is now doctrine.

Now, my theoretical speculation here is simple and straight forward. At some point, the entire earth was raised to a Terrestrial state (yet another "creation" as I am interpreting the texts here) for the purpose of Adam's fall and a subsequent return of the earth to a Telestial condition. This time, however, a vast change had occurred in that Adam and Eve, unlike any of the other human sub-species or human-like creatures that had existed before, was like us; they were in full measure the spirit son and daughter of God the Father. They were acceptable organisms and vehicles for the mortal probation of God's children.

Again, this seems to be a metaphysical type of interpretation, which is perfectly fine, but it has come too late to the doctrine party.

Hence, the scriptures are coherent and there is no logical inconsistency between the Gospel account and geological science. The entire earth was, for a time, a Terrestrial world, and there was no death among any of the life forms inhabiting it. The Dinosaurs and other similar creatures were long extinct, and never partook of that Terrestrial condition. However, as the earth and all creatures upon it were created spiritually before they were created physically, all biological organisms can be thought of as having "fallen" at some point by being placed in a mortal sphere.

I don't know Droopy, do LDS leaders, prophets and apostles who are charged with revealing the nature of God and his gospel say this also? To me, and from I have read and heard, they have done nothing but reiterate the literal version that is their doctrine.

For a methodological naturalist, this poses no problem, as only his methodology is naturalistic, concentrating of empirical phenomena because that is all it is capable of doing as a methodology. The philosophical, or metaphysical naturalist, however, presupposes ultimates that the methodology is quite over its head in attempting to comprehend

, and this is where all the trouble starts, because scientism extends empirical science and judgments of what constitutes evidence of what perceived phenomena into areas in which it is actually quite helpless to register any serious claims to knowledge.

Droopy, it isn't science that is interpreting Genesis, but religion trying to bring something that was never literal, and making claims about the Genesis book that are, and those claims have become interlinked with the whole of the Mormon Cosmology. They are so foundational as to be unable to unravel, and literally defending them must be maintained.

You make exactly the same mistake as Gould here, confusing those aspects of reality with which science deals with reality itself, as a totality, which may have many more levels of actual manifestation than just the one with which empirical science is concerned (because, given inherent human perceptual limitations, and the fact that science is a human creation, is the only level of reality with which science can be concerned).

Only if you think the doctrines and understandings of those doctrines are in some final, static state and have no more to tell us, and have no more developmental history then what we already have. Doctrinal development need scare nobody away from the Church. It doesn't mean the doctrines change (they don't) or must become logically inconsistent with previous interpretations, but it does mean that our understanding of them and there scope expands enlarges, and matures.

I think all agree that religious scripture has more layered meaning to the "spiritual" seeker and all sorts of deep metaphysical interpretations can arise. That is the problem with the LDS leader's past claims. Instead of allowing that freedom and refraining from literalness, the leaders did the exact opposite by enshrining a doctrinal viewpoint based on very literal interpretations.

Whew, that tired my brain a bit. I couldn't hit every point, but an interesting viewpoint Droopy.

[Droopy]

Science and evolutionary theory do not concern themselves with philosophical and metaphyscial claims or knowledge, thus they cannot fail in that regard. The literal doctrines of the fall, can fail, insomuch that they leave the realm of philosophical or metaphysical...which they have in the case of the LDS cosmology.

Any claim that evolutionary theory explains the origins of mind, feelings, emotions, and specific intellectual frames of mind, beyond simply claiming that evolution provided the biological and biochemical framework for these phenomena, and then claims that from this it can be concluded that all human artifacts including art, music, morality, ethics, religion, and culture can be understood as epiphenomena of evolutionary processes, is a philosophical claim and grounded in a priori assumptions about the world that are ultimately metaphysical.

What is made of it, is what has been literally taught, at least concerning the church's stated beliefs and doctrines concerning the fall. Very specific, tangible and literal physical conditions; Adam was physically immortal, he needed to fall so that we could have mortality (the 2/3 faithful who were to come to earth), no death either physical or spiritual. The physical no death is very important in Mormon doctrine because it introduces the need of a savior whose atonement would save us from that mortality that Adam wrought upon future humanity. A reality that we see already existed without any need or help from Adam. We also see that Adam's form was already in the works eons before God "placed" him wholly formed in the garden.

No, we did not exist already. The Cro-Magnon's and Neanderthals were not human beings as Adam was a human being, and were clearly not a part of the the specific drama of creation, fall, and restoration of which we are a part. That is what I'm saying, and I'm not at all sure what scientific evidence or facts you think could count as evidence of the contrary.

Droopy, it isn't about the gaps or what we are missing, it is the literal interpretion that is the problem. Philosophically, the genesis account is rich, layered and full of metaphorical, even poetic metaphysics concerning the nature of man. Problem is, inspired prophets speaking for God created doctrines based on a much more limited literal reading and made it doctrine, fixed and immutable.

The problem here is that you are attempting to use science, a distinctly limited and myopic view of the universe (as useful as it certainly has been) to critique Gospel claims of historical processes or events that it is wholly unclear science would have to tools or means to discern were those historical events to be considered literal. In other words, I'm not at all clear upon what basis you can use evolution or geology to debunk the literalness of the Fall and the Terrestrial condition of the earth at some point. What criteria would science use to make such a judgment? What would count as evidence? What is a Terrestrial condition anyway? How would science judge its presence or absence historically?

Allegorically, symbolically and metaphorically the Genesis book of the creation, can be viewed in all sorts of ways, dissected, discussed and pondered upon, but when it is made literal doctrinally, the finality of its interpretation becomes fixed.

Sure, Moses 1:35 can mean whatever a person or religion wants, but again, we are dealing with very literal interpretions that run polar opposites of what consensual science now tells us about our world, and yours is a metaphysical interpretation attempting to reconcile or replace a literal one that is now doctrine.

OK, first of all, science does not work by consensus. This hobby horse has grown old, state, and rancid in its incarnation within AGW pseudo science, and I'd like to nip it in the bud in this discussion. What any group of scientists decide by consensus groupthink or by peer group vote is moot. Science is amenable to the evidence and the evidence only, not consensus, and the evidence, grounded in the limitations of scientific methodology and human perception, can go only so far. The literalness of our interpretation is not the problem. The problem is only in your interpretation of what the scriptures actually mean and what the scientific evidence actually means in relation to the scriptures. You're assertion regarding the Moses passage is a case in point. I would choose to interpret it in a manner that retains both its literalness (required within a Gospel context) and its harmonizability with the evidence of the sciences. You would prefer to interpret both the scriptures and the science in a manner that forces both into unalterable conflict. Why you prefer this interpretation, I don't know, but that preference is a matter of the a priori world view assumptions I've previously mentioned.

I don't know Droopy, do LDS leaders, prophets and apostles who are charged with revealing the nature of God and his gospel say this also? To me, and from I have read and heard, they have done nothing but reiterate the literal version that is their doctrine.

My version is just as literal as theirs, its just a basic theoretical expansion that takes geology and biology into account. The Church has no official position on these specific matters, and the scriptures are incomplete; they do not, and were not intended to give us a full and complete account. There is much room for expansion of our doctrinal knowledge without any need to assume logical contradiction of factual conflict. The apparent conflicts are real, but as the Gospel is verily true, the appearance of conflict must have a resolution. This is where faith in Jesus Christ comes into play. Do we trust him implicitly that he has told us the truth thus far, and that he will reveal to us greater truth as we are prepared to receive them? If so, we can endure our logical and historical conflicts well. If not, we may "lose our faith" and leave the Kingdom.

Droopy, it isn't science that is interpreting Genesis, but religion trying to bring something that was never literal, and making claims about the Genesis book that are, and those claims have become interlinked with the whole of the Mormon Cosmology. They are so foundational as to be unable to unravel, and literally defending them must be maintained.

I'd like to know upon what basis you claim to know to what degree, or in what way the original ancient writers intended their words to be taken literally or not.

I think all agree that religious scripture has more layered meaning to the "spiritual" seeker and all sorts of deep metaphysical interpretations can arise. That is the problem with the LDS leader's past claims. Instead of allowing that freedom and refraining from literalness, the leaders did the exact opposite by enshrining a doctrinal viewpoint based on very literal interpretations.

You still seem fixated on comments or interpretations of GAs that are not doctrinal, binding, or supported by the unanimity of the Brethren. All who were baptized and confirmed members of the Lord's Church were given the Gift of the Holy Ghost. Part of the reason for that gift is precisely to prevent or minimize the kind of splashing around in the water we tend to do when faced with Gospel challenges to our favorite nostrums. I've been through it all as well. I was solidly pro-evolution in me childhood and youth. Then I discovered JFS and McConkie, and became a full blown LDS young earther.

Now, I've tentatively come full circle, accepting evolution, but with some clear limitations in some areas, and a rejection of irreducible, blind random chance as the primary driver of evolutionary change (whatever "random" actually means).

I've had to do something, because I know the Gospel is true, and the literalness of these teachings cannot be thrown out without throwing out foundational concepts of the Gospel upon which the rest of the edifice is based. Knowing that the Gospel is true as a system prevents having to know every detail of it, including when it comes into apparent contact with other facts or evidences in the empirical world. Hence, my faith remains intact.

[RenegadeOfPhunk]

Yes, it is an interesting video.

Well, let's trace this back to where this particular part of the conversation started - from post 44:

I have read where some evolutionary biologists, upon being told that the mathematical likelihood of my wife's pretty green eyes having come about through blind chance was too small given the time required, responded that it was obviously not too small, because it happened. QED. Which as you can see is a circular argument.

...just a quick comment on this quote:

'Blind chance' is a straw-man. Evolution is not 'blind chance'. Evolution is a process that ALWAYS ensures that creatures more suited to survive in their environment in later generations will develop. Always. No 'chance' about that - it WILL happen...

If you don't belevie evolution .via natural selection could do it, then feel free to claim that:

"Evolution .via natural selection could not do it".

But claiming that 'blind chance' could not do it is something we would all agree on and that no-one (in their right mind) would argue with.

...no more than somebody would argue that water particles form into puddles 'by chance'.

...but then moving on to post 54:

I want a defense of the development of the human eye (for example) by random mutations and not an attack on ID and its nefarious promoters.

...so - you were given a robust defense of the 'development of the eye' (not 'developed' by random mutations of course - they can't 'develop' anything in and of themselves, no more than water particles without gravity would form puddles) and your response was - simply - 'interesting'...?

...that's it...?

I'm a software developer, so I guess I'd love to use that as an analogy, but it's a difficult analogy because software and hardware do not actually form an analogous pair with DNA and the body.

I could have been more clear here. I wasn't attempting to form an analogy between software and hardware. I was attempting to form an analogy between the 'code' of a piece of software and what that software 'does'. (i.e. the actual results of running that software).

I think that works pretty well for the point I was trying to make.

In my analogy I think computer hardware would actually be more analogous to the 'environment' in which organisms live in.

Yikes, sometimes my software doesn't run...

You too huh? I'm a Software Engineer too...

As an aside - just out of curiosity - what kind of languages do you use. Mine's usually C++, but been moving into C# lately...

When you speak of the software in the first valve computers (for the sake of the perplexity of US readers here, "valve" is the British English term for a vacuum tube -- which transistors replaced) was not designed to replicate like DNA is, and could not self-generate like living systems can.

Yeah - the analogy isn't perfect. You could try and analogise with the 'self-replicating' bit by limiting the definition of 'software' to the kind of 'organism simulators' you describe - and also include things like computer viruses etc. - but I wasn't trying to build that mechanism into my analogy. I was only going after the idea of what 'potential' information could be present given some kind of 'coding / encoding' medium. (Software / DNA etc.)

My point is that all kinds of future software are 'potenially' ready to run in my PC. It just requires the right code.

Similarly, all kinds of organisms were ready to appear from the very first instance of the DNA molecule. The only reason they don't 'spring' out instantly is that large, improbable features (that will benefit survival) can't just spring out by 'blind chance'. (the thing you accuse natural selection of being - which it isn't). It takes gradual changes where each change brings some (small) bit of extra survivability potential - or at the very least doesn't significantly impede it.

No, the dark coloration was already coded in the moth's genome, but was not the dominant expression until light colored peppered moths began to be gobbled up at a greater rate by the moth's predators.

I think you're probably right on this one now that I read what you've posted and thought about it - the dark colouration would probably be best thought of as an existing 'function' in the gene setup that simply needed to be 'adjusted'. I understand what you mean, and I conceed.

In my software analogy, this would be like adjusting a #define, or a registry setting.

The point in bringing this up was to demonstrate that biology textbooks were using this example as "evidence" of evolution when it was nothing more than another example of Mendelian genetics, simple inheritance if you will. But this was just a side issue.

I don't accept that it isn't an example of evolution. But I do accept that it isn't evidence of the kind of 'macro-evolution' that ID'ers commonly demand...

Can you clear one thing up for me - at this point...

Do you beleive in Common Descent? I mean seperate from issues like Natural Selection, do you beleive - or not beleive - the evidence that tells us that all organisms on this planet are 'related'?

...is it that you beleive in Common Descent, but 'evolution by natural selection' isn't enough to explain it? Or do you believe that there are gaps between species? (No direct link between reptiles and mammals, dinosaurs and birds etc. etc.)

That isn't what IC means. IC means that if you have a functional component and take a single step towards the new target component, suddenly the functional component is no longer functional as it was, but worse, the new structure isn't functional as the target either, meaning the organism does not have the benefit of either -- making it presumably less viable.

Are you proposing the 'definition' of "irreducible complexity"? Or are you talking about what conclusion could sensibly be drawn from finding an 'Irreducibly Complex' structure?

The definition I have for 'Irreducible Complexity' (from Darwin's Black Box) is:

"A single system which is composed of several interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, and where the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning"

Notice that the definition Behe gives does not match what you just said.

If by 'effectively cease functioning' - Behe means that it can no longer perform 'any' function, then Miller dismantled that argument. Actually, the argument is really no different in essence than the old 'What good is half an eye' arguments that have been around for decades... Nothing new really...

If he meant 'doesn't perform the original function' then Behe is attacking a strawman of evolution, and the concept is worthless.

If you take the type-3 secretory organelle, which is functional, and add the one part of the flagellum that "plugs into" the secretory organelle, suddenly you do not have a functional secretory organelle, you have a plugged secretory organelle.

How do you know that any possible change that gets you any closer to any part of the flagellum will plug up the secretory system?. What is your evidence for this? I'd like details please...

Any 'first step' doesn't have to produce a whole new function. All it has to do is not render old parts 'functionless'.

You can argue that the intermediate form isn't as unsurvivable as all that, and it's conceivable you're right, but by and large, according to conventional biology, virtually all mutations are bad mutations, so we can assume this one is too.

Who cares how many 'bad' mutations there are? The bad mutations will lower the organisms chances of survival and therefore those 'bad' mutations are not likely to be passed on and will be weeded out. Bad mutations can 'flash into existence' as often as you like - but they will just as quickly flash back out of existence.

'Bad' mutations could outnumber 'good' mutations by all kinds of potential ratios. But it doesn't matter - because only good mutations will actively be 'collected' in future generations by natural selection... Only good mutations will 'stick around'.

To go back to my coloured ball senario earlier, it doesn't matter what the ratio of black ball to other ball colours is. As long as you are picking out black balls and there are more multi-coloured balls continually being added to the pool, the 'non-black' balls will always be 'weeded out' and the black ball count will always increase. The ratio between the colours in the 'random ball pool' can affect the rates of increase, but the increase itself is inevitable.

In the discussion debunking the "irreducible complexity" of the bacterial flagellum, p. 132 of TGD tells us that components of the type III secretory system were commandeered in the evolution of bacterial flagella. However, the TTSS is found only in some parasitic strains of Gram negative bacteria while flagella are found in Gram positive and Gram negative bacteria and archea.

I must admit to not knowing the nitty-gritty to the kind of detail that would allow me to form a judgment on this point.

I'll research this a bit and get back to you...

EDIT: Hmm - reading over what you posted again:

On Dawkins own website, while praising Miller for his efforts, one poster debunks this particular argument as poor, because type-3 secretory systems are not found on bacteria that also have flagella

...if I'm reading this right, I actually don't see the problem. The parts that are homogeneous to the type-3 secretory system in the flagellum don't have to perform the same task as they did in their ancestors. Why do you believe this to be so? It obviously appears to be a stumbling block for you - I'm just not sure why...

The objection above sounds like saying:

'Bats don't have arms, so how could their wings have evolved from the limbs of their wing-less ancestors...?!'

[Tarski]

Any claim that evolutionary theory explains the origins of mind, feelings, emotions, and specific intellectual frames of mind, beyond simply claiming that evolution provided the biological and biochemical framework for these phenomena, and then claims that from this it can be concluded that all human artifacts including art, music, morality, ethics, religion, and culture can be understood as epiphenomena of evolutionary processes, is a philosophical claim and grounded in a priori assumptions about the world that are ultimately metaphysical.

I guess it is a sort of an assumption that the magical tales, spirits, ghosts, and myths of religion X or Y are not necessary to explain things that are by this point clearly grounded in natural phenomena such as nervous systems. But it is not an a priori assumption since evidence comes in to play. It is an extremely consistent and successful working hypotheses -nay it is much more, many details are already known about how mind, feelings, emotions, and specific intellectual frames of mind are instantiated by brain states. The "no ghost" assumption has rewarded us handsomely.

[BCSpace]

Quite so. Man didn't fall. He rose.

The ancient Greeks seem to have seen it that way however, they are comming from the serpent's perspective. The partaking of the fruit in the garden of the Hesperides was seen as the lighting up of the world with knowledge and is represented in Zeus' lightning bolts. However, the serpent is worshiped for bringing this knowledge (Zeus - Adam is represented as a serpent early on) and the wresting away of authority from Noah and his Yahweh believing sons and the taking of their daughters (the Nerieds - Amazons) to wife by Hercules/Nimriod/Gilgamesh and his father, Cush, and others are celebrated as great victories.

[littlechild]

Ya wanna whip me up some music time visuals while you are at it? Sorry, I just cannot engage in meaningful dialogue with posters who condemn evolution without even having the most rudimentary knowledge of what it really is and is not (not referring to you.) In my case, I did not believe in evolution (at least not the point of speciation) until I was well into my adult and parenting years. At first it was very upsetting for me to come to a realization that our species did actually come about through evolution as did every other life form. I see no mechanism in life that would prevent the number of small genetic changes from becoming so great that speciation would eventually occur. Over time though, I have come to believe that the "heresy" of evolution and natural selection is what gives our species all the advantages that we currently enjoy. I'm not sure I even believe in "guided evolution" persay as much as I believe in a divine creator who understands precisely how to prepare a world through natural means that is ideal for the carrying out of His plan for His spirit children. I don't look for acceptance or respect from the scientific community. I just believe what I believe, and I don't really try to cross all the t's and dot all the i's. No need to do that in this life time!

I understand your position, and I understand enough about evolution to realize that it is all a guess mixed with circular reasoning. The Darwinian Tree of Life has no fixed form - it changes depending upon who is drawing it. They even have created computer programs to generate new ones. This is not even scientific in my view. Either they have PROOF, or they have speculation. It's ok to be that way , provided they would be willing to say that the jury is still out and it has yet to be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. But they don't do this; what they do is claim they have OVERWHELMING evidence, which they don't. And they ridicule and harass others who question their science. This is most unscientific of them to do. I don't demand that they give up their beliefs, I demand that they LIVE up to them. And provide consistent incontrovertible evidence. They have not done so.

As a matter of fact there are quite a few scientists who disagree with Darwin, they disagree with the notion that species can change their morphology, and they have actually conducted experiments which discredit evolution as an viable hypothesis.

[Kyle]

Littlechild, do you think that evolution is possible?