It takes intelligence and a brain to build a house or some other type of building. You have to have a plumber to build the plumbing. You have to have a trained electrician to wire the house. The frame of the house requires carpenters. Then there is the heating system, drywall, roofing, windows, carpeting, landscaping, painting, and the finishing touches.
The nervous system is far more complex than any electrical system. The digestive system is more complex than any plumbing system. Body fat is more efficient than insulation. Skin is more durable than paint, drywall, or carpeting. Also, our blood vessels, heart, and lungs are more complex than a heating and ventilating system.
We all know that it took intelligence to build the house we live in, and we say that we are here because of natural selection? I’m not saying that evolution didn’t happen, it could have, it’s just not what I believe; I’ll leave you to decide for yourself.
June 18, 2007 at 10:38 pm
Again, you display a misunderstanding of the Theory of Evolution – which has nothing to do with chance or mutations.
I suggest you go forth and do more research. Cheers.
June 18, 2007 at 11:05 pm
Chance and mutations was probably the wrong term to use.
June 18, 2007 at 11:51 pm
This is called the Argument from personal incredulity. It is a logical fallacy. Anything that follows the basic form of “I can’t imagine that X could happen, there fore X didn’t. It is illogical and not a reason to believe or not believe in anything.
So no matter what your personal feelings on the issue may be, it seems quite likely from the available evidence that biological evolution is the process that resulted in us.
June 19, 2007 at 12:41 am
I can’t imagine that X could happen, there fore X didn’t.
That’s not what I meant by this post. It may have sounded that way, but that’s not what I meant. I’ll see if I can reword it.
June 19, 2007 at 3:31 am
So an organism is a house?!
You don’t appear to understand the difference between analogy and homology…
Ignorance is bliss, I guess.
June 19, 2007 at 6:18 pm
I didn’t say that an organism was a house. I was comparing them. Yes there are major differences, but there are similarities also. Not that plumbing is the same thing as your digestive system, but that they do the same kind of job.
June 19, 2007 at 6:21 pm
You’re still using an analogy to take on evidence from homology (from a great many sources). The superficial similarities of your house analogy is a joke.
June 19, 2007 at 6:44 pm
One of the major differences is that we KNOW that the house had a builder. The evidence points the other way for life.
June 20, 2007 at 1:40 pm
Joe,
The same could be said of the rest of the typical creationist arguments from analogy (e.g. Mt. Rushmore, Stonehenge, archaeology, forensics, etc.). The same difference applies.
The real question, in my humble opinion, is why does anyone find this convincing in the first place? Do they even think about it before they say it? Is this evidence of an archaic Hyperactive design detector in the human psyche, or some failure to be able to apply basic logic, or ignorance (homeschooling?), or some combination thereof?
June 21, 2007 at 12:25 am
The only thing I was trying to get across was that I don’t see why you all think that all of these complicated things came about by random chance, mutations, and natural selection. These things are more complicated and intricate than things that man has invented and worked on for years, but has used his intelligence. But you say that everything here on this earth and space and the whole whatever is out there came about by some big bang billions of years ago, and so now here is beautiful us, with all our inventions, and technology, and understanding of science and physics and everything that we know.
June 21, 2007 at 2:45 am
Joe Geek,
I take it then that you don’t understand natural selection very well, and how self-ordering happens quite frequently in inorganic systems in nature.
It’s okay, of course, to have such a simplistic view of complexity, but don’t expect people to not call you on it, when you wield the ol’ “argument from personal incredulity.” (you don’t understand it, thus it can’t happen, end of story – that’s just poor logic)
June 21, 2007 at 3:35 pm
We think that because of one thing: EVIDENCE. We can see the development of modern species recorded in fossils. We can read the history of our own and other species. Study the evidence before you dismiss it. The evidence is what motivated a bunch of creationists to come up with the theory of evolution in the first place.
Evidence is what should always drive belief, not presuppositions and not incredulity.
June 23, 2007 at 4:46 pm
I fail to see any evidence of one animal changing into another in the fossil record, except fake ones between ape and man.
http://www.time.com/time/2007/crimes/3.html
So many evolutionists seem to treat evolution like a fact. As you said it is a theory. “…the theory of evolution in the first place.” Yes, creationism is a theory also. So why don’t we teach both evolution and creationism in public school? I do believe that there is evidence for both, so I think it would be fair to teach both. Maybe people don’t want to be bound to a god and that god’s rules. After all, with the theory of evolution, we can do anything we want since we’re just animals.
June 23, 2007 at 5:24 pm
Joe said: “We think that because of one thing: EVIDENCE. We can see the development of modern species recorded in fossils.”
Joe, nonsense. There are a couple words for your two statements above, but I will be polite and refrain from using them.
The fossil record fails to provide evidence necessary for the scientific method, which is why the numerous variations of EVOLUTIONARY THEORY exist. Furthermore, I cannot begin to list here the falsehoods that have been disproven by adherents to evolutionary theory, but remain in “science” textbooks throughout the US.
Let’s take a look at the most complex species on the planet – man. If natural selection actually exists, then why do so many diseased people remain living? Is it because man is able to use a God-given ability to think and create as God does and, therefore, is able to treat these diseases via the medicines man’s thought faculties allow him to create? What members of the primate family are treating disease or building hospitals? In fact, where is the fossil record of the necessary transitional forms between apes and man? Furthermore, if we look at the DNA between our so-called closest ape relative, we find a startling mathematical impossibility for the transitional form macro-evolutionary theory posits.
Now, if we look at micro-evolutionary theory (more accurately labeled “species adaptation”), we can find a number of different contemporary evidences that are supported by the scientific method. For example, the loss of human wisdom teeth is a result of dietary changes and even the evolution-adherent dentist will admit this “adaptation” exists. Additionally, the beak of our friendly bird that supposedly showed a macro-evolutionary change is also an example of this adaptation; this time it was caused by environmental factors, i.e., a lack of water. Once the water returned, the beak returned to its normal “shorter” length. Again, if anything, this demonstrates an intelligent “Designer,” not a hypothetical natural selection.
The bottom line is this: There is no recapitulation inside the human womb; there is no way one can use the scientific method to “prove” macro-evolutionary theory; and macro evolutionists believe in this theory based on their FAITH that these unseen changes occurred. Kinda’ reminds me of the faith those dumb Christians, Muslims, Jews, etc. use in approaching God, don’t you think?
June 23, 2007 at 5:54 pm
*chuckles*
Okay, if you gentlemen have already dismissed rational arguments regarding biology, then so be it.
Best wishes,
-Dan
June 23, 2007 at 10:22 pm
What rational arguments? I failed to see any.
June 24, 2007 at 2:08 pm
Oh I wasn’t presenting my own arguments, merely referring to arguments already in print, for any interested reader to study. Examples include biology textbooks, selected review articles in respected scientific journals, and books by leading biologists.
I failed to see any rational response to those, just ad hoc and arbitrary dismissal of them, from personal incredulity. (you don’t understand it, thus it can’t happen, end of story – that’s just poor logic)
June 25, 2007 at 10:32 pm
The variation to evolutionary theory exist because the details are being refined. None of the current evolutionary theories deny the fact of COMMON DESCENT.
pyratescove:
The fact that you can write off variations as “only adaptation” and still deny that evolution occurs is not very impressive. Macro vs. Micro evolution is a creationist ad hoc hypothesis reaction to the evidence for evolution that has amount in the last couple centuries.
Your argument against evolution is that diseased people keep living? I don’t even know how to respond to that. How does that contradict the theory of evolution?
One of the predictions of evolution is that infectious diseases that kill their hosts before they are able to spread will die out and that the least lethal diseases will have a survival advantage on that score.
Joe Geek:
Piltdown man was exposed as a hoax by scientists, because it DID NOT fit in with their theories on the origin of man as derived from the many fossil hominids which are NOT hoaxes.
November 25, 2007 at 7:59 pm
Greeting All,
A very interesting debate. Dan, you talk about “leading biologists.” The fact of the matter is, that most secular scientists today, whether they believe in God or not, accept Dawinism without question. This is not because evolution is an undisputed fact (which I do not believe), but because all scientists are expected to accept naturalism as the “be all” and “end all” of science.
Take human evolution and mutation, for example.It is held by evolutionists that genetic mutations are an avenue of positive change in living organisms. For example, Richard Dawkins’ book, The Blind Watchmaker, seeks to establish a godless cosmos of chance in which the appearance of design in life has occurred by accident, by the incremental accumulation of positive changes in genes. His evidence relating to biochemical genetics, however, consists of theoretical models of little relevance to the real world. Thus, the question remains: What do we actually see in the world around us when we use scientific tools of measurement and observation? Do we see this “blind watchmaker” at work in any real-life examples, or do we see the opposite? The poverty of the evolutionary theory is revealed in one well-researched area of biology–that is, the area of human genetics. It reveals how the facts unearthed by this research show mutations to be, not a “blind watchmaker,” but more truthfully analogous to a “blind gunman.”
Literally thousands of human diseases associated with genetic mutations have been catalogued in recent years, with more being described continually. A recent reference book of medical genetics listed some 4,500 different genetic diseases. Some of the inherited syndromes characterized clinically in the days before molecular genetic analysis (such as Marfan’s syndrome) are now being shown to be heterogeneous; that is, associated with many different mutations. As you probably know,
mutations are defined as random changes in cellular DNA. They change the genetic code for amino acid sequence in proteins, thus introducing biochemical errors of varying degrees of severity. Mutations have been classified as deletions (loss of DNA bases), insertions (gain of DNA bases), and missense or nonsense (substitution of a DNA base). If the mutations affect germ cells (male sperm), they will be passed to all the cells of the offspring, and affect future generations. Such mutations are called “germline mutations,” and are the cause of inherited diseases. Mutations also occur in other populations of body cells and will accumulate throughout a lifetime without being passed to the offspring. These are called “somatic mutations,” and are important in the genesis of cancers and other degenerative disease processes.
To survey the mutation problem, it will be helpful to consider a few examples of how mutations work their biochemical havoc. In the cardiovascular system, it has long been recognized that high cholesterol content in the blood is associated with degeneration and narrowing of large and medium-sized arteries. This process is called “atherosclerosis” and is a leading cause of heart disease. This disorder has been traced to mutation of a gene coding a transmembrane receptor protein. All body cells need cholesterol for their membranes, so a certain amount is necessary and good. However, defects of this receptor protein result in high blood levels of cholesterol through a feedback loop. This results in rapid atherosclerosis, sometimes resulting in fatal heart disease in childhood.
A second example is a common genetic disease, cystic fibrosis (CF). This multisystem disease cripples children and leads to early death. It damages the lungs, digestive organs and, in the male, the vas deferens (spermatic duct). Its differing effects, from mild to severe, are in part due to different types of mutation affecting one key gene. In addition to this fairly common mutation, over 200 other mutations of this gene have been described. Just a few of these are associated with the more severe forms of the disease, which lead to early death from lung infections. Other mutations or combinations of mutations lead to lesser disease states, like chronic pancreatitis or male infertility.
Let’s consider cancer. The link between carcinogenesis and genetic mutation has become much clearer. Carcinogens (agents causing cancer) also tend to be powerful mutagens (agents producing mutations). The discovery of “oncogenes” and “tumor suppressor genes” has shown how this relationship works. Basically, these genes are concerned with regulation of the cell cycle. The oncogenes drive the process of cell replication forward, while the tumor suppressor genes hold it back. Both are necessary for proper cell function and growth. But mutational damage to components of both systems may produce an uncontrolled growth of cells, which is cancer. This phenomenon may be compared to a car in which there is damage to the gas pedal, causing it to be stuck “on,” while the brakes are damaged at the same time. These mutations are usually acquired over decades; so cancer is mainly a disease of old age. However, studies have shown that inherited germline mutations of key oncogenes or tumor suppressor genes can predispose persons to development of cancers in childhood.
Do mutations have any positive results?
With this array of human diseases that are caused by mutations, what of positive effects? With thousands of examples of harmful mutations readily available, surely it should be possible to describe some positive mutations if macroevolution is true. These would be needed not only for evolution to greater complexity, but also to offset the downward pull of the many harmful mutations. But, when it comes to identifying positive mutations, evolutionary scientists are strangely silent.
The mutation responsible for sickle cell anemia has been put forward as an example of evolution. The problems with this are obvious, as the sickle cell mutation, like the many other described hemoglobin mutations, clearly impairs the function of the otherwise marvelously well-designed hemoglobin molecule. It can in no way be regarded as an improvement in our species, even though its preservation is enhanced in malaria-endemic parts of Equatorial Africa by natural selection.
Even more strangely, the process of cancerous cellular degeneration has been vied as a Darwinian form of mutation! Again, this idea fails to hold up under scrutiny. Malignant cells can hardly be considered to be an improvement over their normal counterparts. They are “fitter” only in their replicative activity, but even this is just an exaggerated use of already existing cellular machinery. In many other important ways, they have degenerative features. They show no gain of information, but generally a loss or disorder of functions.
What conclusions may be drawn from these few examples, and countless others like them? First, that the human mutation problem is bad and getting worse. Second, that it is unbalanced by any detectable positive mutations. To summarize, recent research has revealed literally tens of thousands of different mutations affecting the human genome, with a likelihood of many more yet to be characterized. These have been associated with thousands of diseases affecting every organ and tissue type in the body. The medical descriptions of many forms of inherited disease have a common theme: 80-90% of cases have affected individuals in the family tree, but the remaining cases are sporadic–the result of ever increasing numbers of new mutations. In all this research, not one mutation that increased the efficiency of a genetically coded human protein has been found.
Instead of a “blind watchmaker,” the mutations behave like a “blind gunman,” a destroyer who shoots deadly “bullets” randomly into beautifully designed models of living molecular machinery. Sometimes they kill. Thus, the “blind watchmaker” is an illusion. Worse than that, it is the intellectual and moral equivalent of an idol–an invention of the imagination, to which superhuman powers are falsely ascribed.
This research affirms the reality of the past Biblical curse of decay and degeneration on the world of nature, as stated in both the Old and New Testaments. We know that “mixed race” marriages are beneficial in that they tend to replace some of the lost DNA, but in simple terms, the loss of genetic information that continues through harmful mutations from one generation to another will continue unabated. This simple fact makes a complete nonsense of human “evolution” which would require massive amounts of new information to be added to the genome in order to allow this fictional upward evolutionary progress to occur.
It also highlights the grim reality of the future hopelessness of the human race without the saving intervention of Christ. Mutations continue to slowly harm us. Each generation has a slightly more disordered genetic constitution than the preceding one, and no amount of eugenics can reverse this process of decay. Gene therapy may mask the effects, but it will not reverse the underlying degenerative process.
Bill Gibbons
May 25, 2009 at 2:28 am
Bill I am with you. there is much secular disagreement.
http://willohroots.wordpress.com/2009/03/08/evolution-the-secular-holly-grail/
but when we shine a light on it the non-Gog crowd goes ape. I don’t think that that however, proves their point.