Evolution: Non-Denial Denial?

[ERayR]

52 minutes ago, thesometimesaint said:

So very sad.

I thoroughly agree with you.  It is so very sad on both sides of this discussion.

[thesometimesaint]

Science is a strict mistress, but if you follow its rules you get to move out of the caves.

[JAHS]

The most accurate model for evolution I have seen so far:

[Jeanne]

Can someone tell me what is meant by "natural laws"..that is I have read that God worked with "natural laws" in the creation.  This is the only way as mentioned in previous post that made evolution/God and creation a co-existing thing. Did I not understand natural laws? 

[thesometimesaint]

3 minutes ago, Jeanne said:

Can someone tell me what is meant by "natural laws"..that is I have read that God worked with "natural laws" in the creation.  This is the only way as mentioned in previous post that made evolution/God and creation a co-existing thing. Did I not understand natural laws? 

Natural Laws come in two flavors. The laws of nature (IE; The effects of energy, matter), and Natural Law(IE; the political construct of men imposing their will on other men). 

[Jeanne]

3 minutes ago, thesometimesaint said:

Natural Laws come in two flavors. The laws of nature (IE; The effects of energy, matter), and Natural Law(IE; the political construct of men imposing their will on other men). 

Thank you...the first definition is what I was aiming for..and now I know I am not crazy..I appreciate it!!

[Ahab]

I still don't accept mainstream evolutionary theory just as I don't accept the idea that there was once a beginning to any kind of life form.

Things evolving in the sense of mutating is happening and always has happened and will continue to happen, though. Like a virus mutating to develop some properties that it didn't have before, for example.

Once "scientists" learn to accept the fact that there was never a moment when each kind of being did not exist then they will see how things always have been, with each kind of being going through what it has always gone through.  Eternal beings of various kinds reproducing themselves,  or not, with those they reproduce going through the same cycles their parents/ancestors went through.

[thesometimesaint]

26 minutes ago, Jeanne said:

Thank you...the first definition is what I was aiming for..and now I know I am not crazy..I appreciate it!!

Crazy helps sometimes.

[Jeanne]

10 minutes ago, thesometimesaint said:

Crazy helps sometimes.

That's my excuse

[thesometimesaint]

18 minutes ago, Ahab said:

I still don't accept mainstream evolutionary theory just as I don't accept the idea that there was once a beginning to any kind of life form.

Things evolving in the sense of mutating is happening and always has happened and will continue to happen, though. Like a virus mutating to develop some properties that it didn't have before, for example.

Once "scientists" learn to accept the fact that there was never a moment when each kind of being did not exist then they will see how things always have been, with each kind of being going through what it has always gone through.  Eternal beings of various kinds reproducing themselves,  or not, with those they reproduce going through the same cycles their parents/ancestors went through.

Exactly what is a biological kind?

SEE

 

[Ahab]

2 hours ago, snowflake said:

So if I were to tell you that I believe God did exactly as he described in Genesis, the creation, the flood, Adam and Eve etc, dinosaurs on the earth with humans, we would all agree that that is a religion. It is based on faith, and a belief that the Bible as the word of God.

Now take evolution, and I am supposed to "believe" that my great, great, great, great......grandfather was a rock, and you don't see that as a religion?  It takes a lot more faith to believe in evolution than it does to believe in God.  Now you can believe that animals change from one kind to another but can we observe that? Evolution is simply not science.  Science is defined as: The scientific method is a way to ask and answer scientific questions by making observations and doing experiments.  The "fossil record" is a bunch of  bones in the ground. Evidence that a particular animal existed in the past. It does not mean that that animal procreated. You need another animal with the exact same mutation to procreate with to pass on the genetic information into a specific population. All of that is an assumption, not observable, or testable evidence, just some bones.  Now you can "believe" that those animals changed over thousand of years but that is not science, that is a religion.

Same with the "big bang" (which does a death blow to the LDS eternal matter concept).  I am supposed to believe that all matter, time and space exploded from nothing?  Now that is clearly a religion as well (or a fairy tale).  Here's the difference, I will admit that mine is a religion.  Evolutionists will not admit that their "theory" is a religion. 

The theory of evolution is not a religion because religion is not just a theory, no matter what theory it is.  And science is not a religion, either. Science is just a tool some people use to try to figure things out, while religion is living by a specific set of beliefs.  But the set of beliefs are not the religion, itself, just as the theories of men are not science, itself.

But yeah, scientists do often mix their religion with the theories of men, and people who live their religion often do that just as well.

The goal for everyone should be to learn what the truth is, about everything, while rejecting the false theories of men.

Like how we all need to reject the idea that there was once nothing at all but God and then there was something more when the truth in the eternal perspective is that everything has always been just as it is now.

[bcuzbcuz]

1 hour ago, snowflake said:

So if I were to tell you that I believe God did exactly as he described in Genesis, the creation, the flood, Adam and Eve etc, dinosaurs on the earth with humans, we would all agree that that is a religion. It is based on faith, and a belief that the Bible as the word of God.

Now take evolution, and I am supposed to "believe" that my great, great, great, great......grandfather was a rock, and you don't see that as a religion?  It takes a lot more faith to believe in evolution than it does to believe in God.  Now you can believe that animals change from one kind to another but can we observe that? Evolution is simply not science.  Science is defined as: The scientific method is a way to ask and answer scientific questions by making observations and doing experiments.  The "fossil record" is a bunch of  bones in the ground. Evidence that a particular animal existed in the past. It does not mean that that animal procreated. You need another animal with the exact same mutation to procreate with to pass on the genetic information into a specific population. All of that is an assumption, not observable, or testable evidence, just some bones.  Now you can "believe" that those animals changed over thousand of years but that is not science, that is a religion.

Same with the "big bang" (which does a death blow to the LDS eternal matter concept).  I am supposed to believe that all matter, time and space exploded from nothing?  Now that is clearly a religion as well (or a fairy tale).  Here's the difference, I will admit that mine is a religion.  Evolutionists will not admit that their "theory" is a religion. 

First of all, the Big Bang, neither the theory nor the TV program, has anything to do with evolution.

Nor does evolution say your great, great....grandfather was a rock.

The fossil record is far more than a bunch of bones in the ground. I'm puzzled by your statement that dinosaurs didn't procreate. If you live in Utah you can visit the Museum of Moab. You will find ample information about dinosaur young, eggs, tracks of adult and baby dinosaurs, beside each other, etc. Etc. A simple search on the internet can provide pictures of dinosaur eggs, dinosaur chicks, dinosaur embryos, even dinosaur mothers found resting on top of their nest eggs.

If you ask you can find many areas in western Utah where you can pick up fossils just lying on the ground.

A walk along the beaches of the southern coast of England, from Dorset to East Devon, known as Jurassic coast, or Robin Hood's Bay, North Yorkshire, or West Sussex....and many more sites, you can fill your pockets with fossils of all kinds. Dover, the white cliffs, are completely made from shells.

 A visit to almost any Museum of natural history will provide everything from pieces to complete fossils of dinosaurs. Ask any knowledgable guide and they'll explain about dinosaur young, families and eggs. That, is procreation.

My acceptance of evolution is not a religion anymore than watching the news every day is a religion. A religion is belief in something, despite the evidence. Many people consider their religious faith as something extra special because they do not have, nor do they want, proof.

Show me the proof against evolution and I'll dump the theory of evolution in a second.

[Ahab]

4 minutes ago, thesometimesaint said:

Exactly what is a biological kind?

SEE

 

See the Bible, the first few chapters, to get an idea.

And may the force be with you.

[thesometimesaint]

So do you get your science from the Bible?

Here what the Bible says about genetics.

SEE https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%2030:25-43

[snowflake]

16 minutes ago, Ahab said:

The theory of evolution is not a religion because religion is not just a theory, no matter what theory it is.  And science is not a religion, either. Science is just a tool some people use to try to figure things out, while religion is living by a specific set of beliefs.  But the set of beliefs are not the religion, itself, just as the theories of men are not science, itself.

But yeah, scientists do often mix their religion with the theories of men, and people who live their religion often do that just as well.

The goal for everyone should be to learn what the truth is, about everything, while rejecting the false theories of men.

Like how we all need to reject the idea that there was once nothing at all but God and then there was something more when the truth in the eternal perspective is that everything has always been just as it is now.

I agree with you that truth is the ultimate goal. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life! Based on Genesis how do you come up with this idea that everything is eternal and has existed just as it is now? According to scripture there was a first day, that means there was a literal first day of creation. God spoke time, space and matter into existence through his voice.

Evolution is clearly a religion, look at how upset some people get when you point it out to them. We simply don't observe animals turning into different animals, dog babies are always dogs. In my genetics class at University we bred fruit flies for a whole term and were able to get flies with curly wings, no wings, black eyes, red eyes, small abdomens etc... the point being we bred them every way possible and put them under extreme conditions to do so.  Here's the kicker, they always came out as fruit flies and to this day they are still fruit flies. Now evolutionists will say "we need a few thousand or ten thousand years" to make this happen and that is my point, that it is not observable, it is an assumption that they will change "kinds". New genetic information is not created by selective breeding (or by natural selection), the only way to get new genetic material is via mutations and the DNA molecule has built in "checks" to prevent mutations.  Mutations are always bad to organisms. 

[pogi]

On March 24, 2016 at 11:33 AM, Gray said:

Can you point me to something where genetic and evolutionary scientists are framing this in the same way you are? Just for some context.

Thanks!

Sure, I will point you to some papers that discuss what I am talking about.   

This paper suggests that for genetic convergence to happen, there must be limited genetic material and limited substitutions.  Well, the findings here don't seem to be limited to a few genes and substitutions.  It lead one researcher to say, "We had expected to find identical changes in maybe a dozen or so genes but to see nearly 200 is incredible."

 "...identifying so many examples where it produces nearly identical results in the genetic sequences of totally unrelated animals is astonishing."

Group leader, Dr Stephen Rossiter, said: "These results could be the tip of the iceberg. As the genomes of more species are sequenced and studied, we may well see other striking cases of convergent adaptations being driven by identical genetic changes."

Did I read that right?  Evolution being driven by identical genetic changes? How could this be?  Since when is evolution driven by "identical genetic changes"?  I thought it was driven by "random" genetic changes followed by natural selection acting on those random changes.  Am I wrong?

If these researchers were surprised by "200" identical genes, imagine their shock when they read the article I linked to earlier where not hundreds, but "thousands" of identical genes were found to converge in two unrelated species!

In every paper that I have ever read, the reaction is always the same, "shock", "surprise", "astonishing", "unexpected", "incredible".  In the same papers, the researchers always say that the chances of this happening are "vanishingly small".  In fact, this paper goes as far as to say "The chance that the same set of mutations evolved at the same positions in different populations is minuscule if not null."  The researcher in that article suggested that it doesn't really happen.  She argues that the genes were probably inherited from a distant ancestor.  Unfortunately for her, other studies have proven that theory wrong.  One study of the sonar in bats and dolphins have shown that "this ability arose independently in each group of mammals from the same genetic mutations."

This has lead some scientists to suggest that this "...affords an ideal system for studying the predisposition of particular genes for a given novel function".  

Other scientists said the same thing: "Cases of repeated evolution offer the opportunity to circumvent the limitation imposed by evolutionary contingency and ask to what extent genetic evolution is biased to preferentially follow certain mutational paths during the course of adaptive evolution."

Are these scientist really talking about genetic mutations being "biased", or "predisposed", having "preferential" paths to a "given novel function"?  This sounds like a major shift from random mutation and genetic drift.  It almost sounds like they have been programmed or designed for a specific function, doesn't it?

Back to the bats and dolphins study, This discovery was said to be "bittersweet."  Why? Because it screws up what we know about family trees.  We can't really say definitively what is related to what any more.  No clear genetic path back to one ancestor, like we predicted there would be.  They say, "no family trees are entirely safe from these misleading effects". and "we currently have no way to deal with this."

 

P.S. - Gray, read my next comment as well before responding.  It goes along with this one.

Edited March 25, 2016 by pogi

[snowflake]

1 hour ago, bcuzbcuz said:

First of all, the Big Bang, neither the theory nor the TV program, has anything to do with evolution.

Nor does evolution say your great, great....grandfather was a rock.

The fossil record is far more than a bunch of bones in the ground. I'm puzzled by your statement that dinosaurs didn't procreate. If you live in Utah you can visit the Museum of Moab. You will find ample information about dinosaur young, eggs, tracks of adult and baby dinosaurs, beside each other, etc. Etc. A simple search on the internet can provide pictures of dinosaur eggs, dinosaur chicks, dinosaur embryos, even dinosaur mothers found resting on top of their nest eggs.

If you ask you can find many areas in western Utah where you can pick up fossils just lying on the ground.

A walk along the beaches of the southern coast of England, from Dorset to East Devon, known as Jurassic coast, or Robin Hood's Bay, North Yorkshire, or West Sussex....and many more sites, you can fill your pockets with fossils of all kinds. Dover, the white cliffs, are completely made from shells.

 A visit to almost any Museum of natural history will provide everything from pieces to complete fossils of dinosaurs. Ask any knowledgable guide and they'll explain about dinosaur young, families and eggs. That, is procreation.

My acceptance of evolution is not a religion anymore than watching the news every day is a religion. A religion is belief in something, despite the evidence. Many people consider their religious faith as something extra special because they do not have, nor do they want, proof.

Show me the proof against evolution and I'll dump the theory of evolution in a second.

I'm sorry, I'm not saying that dinosaurs didn't procreate, of course they did. What I am saying is that evolutionists will pick out a fossil or a skeleton and come up with all kinds of stories about these bones and call it "science".  It is impossible to say if the specific bones they are referencing had offspring. All that "science" can tell us is that a particular fossil was found at a particular location and what it looks like, size, length, weight etc.  Science cannot say that it (specific fossils) had offspring, that is what I am inferring to say so would be complete speculation. We can't say if it did or didn't procreate.

As to your statement that religion is a belief in something, despite the evidence I would not agree with at all.  This all depends on what you consider evidence as well.  Now, would you consider hundreds of complete dinosaur skeletons evidence of a flood? Or how about soft tissue being found in a dinosaur skeleton?

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/dinosaur-shocker-115306469/?no-ist

Maybe the dinosaurs were around when humans were too, just like Genesis states.

[Ahab]

1 hour ago, snowflake said:

I agree with you that truth is the ultimate goal. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life! Based on Genesis how do you come up with this idea that everything is eternal and has existed just as it is now? According to scripture there was a first day, that means there was a literal first day of creation. God spoke time, space and matter into existence through his voice.

Evolution is clearly a religion, look at how upset some people get when you point it out to them. We simply don't observe animals turning into different animals, dog babies are always dogs. In my genetics class at University we bred fruit flies for a whole term and were able to get flies with curly wings, no wings, black eyes, red eyes, small abdomens etc... the point being we bred them every way possible and put them under extreme conditions to do so.  Here's the kicker, they always came out as fruit flies and to this day they are still fruit flies. Now evolutionists will say "we need a few thousand or ten thousand years" to make this happen and that is my point, that it is not observable, it is an assumption that they will change "kinds". New genetic information is not created by selective breeding (or by natural selection), the only way to get new genetic material is via mutations and the DNA molecule has built in "checks" to prevent mutations.  Mutations are always bad to organisms. 

1) Genesis 1:1 is talking about the beginning of the creation of this planet, not an ultimate beginning of all things as if there was one.  This was not the very first planet that was ever created by our kind of being and there never has been one of those.  No very first planet created, ever. Our kind of being has always created planets and our kind of being always will, forever. We are all children of planet creators and some of us will go on to become parents to other children of planet creators.  And we will know where to get any kind of living being there is in all of existence to put on the planets we will create in the future.   It is our destiny, or at least it will be for some of us, as we go on following in the footsteps of our Lord and our Father.

2) Yeah, some people do get clingy and very emotional about their thoughts and feelings, don't they. Still though, technically, evolution is not a religion. And I think I've already done a pretty good job explaining the main difference between living a religion and just getting and holding onto an idea.

[bcuzbcuz]

5 minutes ago, snowflake said:

 

  Now, would you consider hundreds of complete dinosaur skeletons evidence of a flood?

Or how about soft tissue being found in a dinosaur skeleton?

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/dinosaur-shocker-115306469/?no-ist

Maybe the dinosaurs were around when humans were too, just like Genesis states.

Complete dinosaurs as evidence of a flood? Well, that would depend. If dinosaur and mammal and human skeletons were all mixed up, helter skelter, then I would look for evidence of a flood. Take a look at how all things, mammals, humans, boats and cars are all mixed up from the earthquake and tsunami from southern Thailand from 2004. 

The fossil evidence though, is neatly layered. You won't find any trilobites mixed in with rabbit skeletons, or jurassic fossils mixed in with kangaroo skeletons. Of course, I'm referring to undisturbed layers and not just fossils lying on the open ground.

And no, there is absolutely zero evidence of humans and dinosaurs co-existing, despite some interpretations of Genesis.

[pogi]

Here is one more link for you Gray.  This statement (which I just hand typed from the link) from Richard Dawkins in his book The Blind Watchmaker (written before the discovery of genetic convergence), perhaps best explains the reason for the shock and surprise of these new genetic discoveries.  He said:

Quote

Dolly’s Law is really just a statement about statistical improbability of following exactly the same evolutionary trajectory twice (or, indeed, any particular trajectory), in either direction.  A single mutational step can easily be reversed.  But for larger numbers of mutational steps, even in the case of the biomorphs with their nine little genes, the mathematical space of all possible trajectories is so vast that the chance of two trajectories ever arriving at the same point becomes vanishingly small.  This is even more true of real animal with their vastly larger numbers of genes.  There is nothing mysterious or mystical about Dollo’s Law, nor is it something that we go out and ‘test’ in nature.  It follows simply from the elementary laws of probability.

For just the same reason, it is vanishingly improbable that exactly the same evolutionary pathway should ever be travelled twice.  And it would seem similarly improbable, for the same statistical reasons, that two lines of evolution should converge on exactly the same endpoint from different starting points.

 

I think that pretty well sums it up.  In light of the magnitude of recent discoveries of genetic convergence, either Dolly's Law is wrong, or the theory of evolution is wrong.  I will place my bets on Dolly's Law being right.  It is a "Law" after all, while evolution is just a non-falsifiable "theory".

If two genes have a vanishingly small chance of converging from different starting points, the chance of thousands of genes converging, I think diminishes from "vanishingly small" to "nil".  I think it is evidently clear that something else is going on here besides random mutation and natural selection.  

 

 

Edited March 25, 2016 by pogi

[RevTestament]

On 3/23/2016 at 8:39 PM, Cold Steel said:

Ordinarily I enjoy presentations by FairLDS, but recently I've been trying to make sense of Darwinian evolution and found this address by Stephen Peck. Entitled Why Evolution and LDS Thought are Fully Compatible, I thought there might be some relation between the title and the content. But if there is, I'm afraid I'm missing it. I'd hoped it might help me in some discussions with some atheists, also my understanding of the topic. On the one hand we LDS have a pronounced view of Adam, the Prince, the Ancient of Days, Michael the Archangel, Eve's Main Squeeze. The first man, who brought sin into the world and head of the first dispensation. 

On the other, we have man existing supposedly for millions of years. Neanderthals, Lucy and the Taung Child. Completely indisputable, you can't argue with science! Only I didn't find anything useful in his address. Is evolution a cold, hard fact? If so, where does Adam come in? How old is the oldest writing extant? How do we know man has been here for millions of years? And how do we know Lucy and the Taung Child are related to man and not just some unrelated creatures? 

Can anyone help me out?

not much  with that video, I'm afraid. He says "I see no conflict" but does not address how his concept of LDS fits his view of science at all that I heard.

So, I will be blunt - I basically do not see a conflict between a view that evolution exists and that the Bible is true. I believe the "conflict" exists between how people interpret the Bible(scripture), and evolutionary theory. 

I don't see the LDS view on Adam as being our "father" is inconsistent with accepting the existence of evolution. Genesis also named someone the father of all who play the lyre and the flute. I don't believe even they viewed it as being some literal, biological inheritance... Rather, he was father of music, as passed down to the generations. He was where music started. To me Adam is where "the Word" of God started. He was the first to hold the priesthood of God. He was the first to make a covenant with God in the which he realized his own nakedness together with Eve. Presumably before Adam and Eve God had no dealings with "man." You mentioned Lucy. Lucy was not even Homo. She was a lot like a two-legged chimpanzee. And we certainly cannot be sure at all that she is in the direct line of descent. Other creatures such as one called Australopithecus robustus, apparently were not. Anyway, we have no recorded history before Adam - no writing,  and therefore no recorded history, and little to no history of agriculture or other civilization. 

Before 4400 BC, archaeology has turned up some small settlements in the Levant with solid-walled housing, but although they collected some seeds, there is little evidence that they farmed or had domesticated animals to do so. Essentially, writing and agriculture began with Adam. Before he was created, the Bible says God "could find no man to plow the ground." Essentially, the Bible tells us we are each created the same way... from the dust even though it recognizes we are formed in the belly. 

I thought LDS recognized that Gen 2-3 was the "spiritual creation" as compared to the "temporal creation" of Gen 1 in which we find God making man and woman.  The whole story of Adam and Eve uses symbolism - I don't believe in any physical tree of knowledge of good and evil. The story is teaching us about the word of God coming into the world - but that is a dual edge sword. We will break it and so must die, but it is the only way we can become like God. Anyway, it has little to do with the physical creation of man. To mix the two is short-sighted.

How do I deal with the teaching that the seven days or at least the 7 seals deal with the world in its "temporal existence." BCSpace actually addressed this issue, and I invite others to do so as well. Did the world have some kind of other "natural" existence? Apparently, some have distinguished between temporal and eternal. Or perhaps the scripture is only speaking of a defined 7000 year period of the earth's temporal existence. Revelation does seem to imply that the battle of Gog and Magog will occur afterwards. Anyway, suffice it to say that I see attempts to literally interpret these things as doomed to failure. Evolution in terms of physical change to adapt to "natural" pressures or forces exists. Let us take a simple example of corn. Who can find a giant yellow sweet corn 2000 years ago? Why not? because man had not selectively bred it yet. Is man a natural force within the realm of nature? How about the hundreds of varieties of food now available to us - usually, bigger, sweeter, tastier, less astringent, etc. Many of these are not grown from seed exactly because that is too unpredictable ie there is too much genetic variety to suit our tastes. But new varieties often come from such seeds. It's there, it's all round us. In my view when God created genetics which show mutation and change in humans, He created "evolution."
 

 

[pogi]

30 minutes ago, RevTestament said:

I don't see the LDS view on Adam as being our "father" is inconsistent with accepting the existence of evolution.

I find the doctrine that Adam was in fact created after the physical order and image of God, to be inconsistent with evolution.  That would suggest a deterministic course of evolution from the beginning.  That is contrary to the theory of evolution.  Funny, because the recent discoveries of convergent genetic evolution has led some scientists to suggest that genes may indeed be "predisposed" or "biased"  towards a "given novel function".  Sounds deterministic to me!

Edited March 25, 2016 by pogi

[thesometimesaint]

4 hours ago, snowflake said:

I agree with you that truth is the ultimate goal. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life! Based on Genesis how do you come up with this idea that everything is eternal and has existed just as it is now? According to scripture there was a first day, that means there was a literal first day of creation. God spoke time, space and matter into existence through his voice.

Evolution is clearly a religion, look at how upset some people get when you point it out to them. We simply don't observe animals turning into different animals, dog babies are always dogs. In my genetics class at University we bred fruit flies for a whole term and were able to get flies with curly wings, no wings, black eyes, red eyes, small abdomens etc... the point being we bred them every way possible and put them under extreme conditions to do so.  Here's the kicker, they always came out as fruit flies and to this day they are still fruit flies. Now evolutionists will say "we need a few thousand or ten thousand years" to make this happen and that is my point, that it is not observable, it is an assumption that they will change "kinds". New genetic information is not created by selective breeding (or by natural selection), the only way to get new genetic material is via mutations and the DNA molecule has built in "checks" to prevent mutations.  Mutations are always bad to organisms. 

If you have to posit any God or Godlike force to make science work it is no longer science but religion.

Macro-evolution in the lab.

SEE http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section5.html

SEE https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14094-bacteria-make-major-evolutionary-shift-in-the-lab/

There are several ways for  new genetic material to be formed. That mutations are always bad to organism has been proven false.

SEE

 

[thesometimesaint]

1 hour ago, pogi said:

I find the doctrine that Adam was in fact created after the physical order and image of God, to be inconsistent with evolution.  That would suggest a deterministic course of evolution from the beginning.  That is contrary to the theory of evolution.  Funny, because the recent discoveries of convergent genetic evolution has led some scientists to suggest that genes may indeed be "predisposed" or "biased"  towards a "given novel function".  Sounds deterministic to me!

SEE

As to convergence.

SEE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convergent_evolution

[RevTestament]

5 hours ago, pogi said:

I find the doctrine that Adam was in fact created after the physical order and image of God, to be inconsistent with evolution.  That would suggest a deterministic course of evolution from the beginning.  That is contrary to the theory of evolution.  Funny, because the recent discoveries of convergent genetic evolution has led some scientists to suggest that genes may indeed be "predisposed" or "biased"  towards a "given novel function".  Sounds deterministic to me!

That is but one interpretation of evolution. Can God "selectively breed" man to be in His image like He planned, much like we do with various foods we wish to make more palatable? Evidence shows the  "man-creature" has evolved with fairly recent offshoots such as Neanderthalensis. I don't see the particular difficulty with that being part of Gods design. The very design of DNA leads to a certain "predeterminism." We dont expect a horse to be born of a woman. The design of DNA causes each animal to be born after its own kind - like the Bible says - yet within our DNA are mutations which make us different than males of other haplogroups, etc So to be plain I dont accept a form of evolutionary theory that concludes we all formed by pure chance; I definitely see God as part of the process - that He designed our genetics - which allow a certain amount of mutation and "evolution." I believe the only reason this upsets people is that  they have a predetermined view of the story of Adam and Eve which does not fit. As LDS though we are taught that the story of Adam and Eve is the spiritual creation and not the temporal - yet a temporal interpretation seems to persist...