The romance between Christianity and the physical sciences has not been a painless one since at least the Renaissance. From the 17th century to the 21st century Christianity and physical science have quarreled over astronomy, geology (twice), biology, psychology, and cosmology. Of course, the most serious squabble between science and Christianity, since the 19th century, has been over Darwinian evolution, and the original article and my response to it, demonstrates, I think, how divided Christianity has been over the idea that life on earth has evolved.
In an article entitled, “The Neo-Catholic Planet of the Apes,” Christopher Ferrara, insists that neo-Darwinism (ND), especially as popularized by the likes of Richard Dawkins and other New Atheist writers, and the theory of evolution (TOE) generally, undermine the whole of the Christian faith. And in articulating this vision Mr. Ferrara has a three-fold argument: (i) the TOE is empirically false and conceptually muddled, (ii) the TOE cannot be reconciled with the plain statements of Genesis’ early passages and doctrines that have been born from those passages, especially original sin, and (iii) the denial of design in nature is virtually the denial of God—this conviction is tacitly assumed throughout the article.
What can one say about this argument, beyond the obvious historical fact that it is, more or less, unchanged in form since at least 1860—although, Bishop Wilberforce’s historical portrait on the subject of evolution is not at all flattering, he was not an obscurantist, for he denounced the TOE for what it was in his own time—largely conjecture.
I should state, at the outset, that I agree with Mr. Ferrara that ND, understood in reductionist and scientific dualist terms, is incompatible with Christianity—it is, more or less, a speculative naturalistic metaphysical thesis after all. However, reductionist, dualist, and purely speculative forms of ND, by which I mean theses that advocate a metaphysics of naturalistic materialism as the message of evolution, is not the TOE, which, simply put, is Darwin’s theory of evolution, as developed in the light of Mendelian genetics and our understanding of the place of DNA in the transmission of inherited information. And Mr. Ferrara seems determined to equate the logical incoherence and mendaciousness of reductionist, scientific dualist, and adaptationist forms of ND with the TOE, as his article intimates rather clearly, which I think is an inappropriate and intellectually second-rate, exceedingly second-rate really, isomorphism, ceteris paribus.
Truth be told, overlooking the false synonymy, Ferrara’s implicit argument (iii) advocates the notion that God can be located somewhere out there in the cosmos, in the natural order, a cause among causes, which very well may be heresy, at least when Ferrara’s argument is interpreted in terms of classical Christianity (I’ll expound on this in the second post). But let us try to meet the initial thrust of his argument, (i) and (ii), on its own terms.
For starters, at least in my own research, Richard Dawkins is in the minority among evolutionary biologists in thinking that the explanation of complex design is the central problem in evolutionary biology, although many adherents of the New Atheism probably agree with Dawkins on this point (which is unsurprising given their metaphysical commitments.) I say that because no one even knows what a good fit between organisms and environment means as a question, much less explain it.
Of course, most evolutionary biologists believe natural selection to be responsible for complex design, as complex design is popularly understood, but complex design is a rather vague concept with no clear way to understand it in a biological sense. Not to mention, Dawkins’ explanation of complex design rests on a number of tendentious assumptions about the causal primacy of genes and an inherently problematic adaptationism—for instance, a lock and key understanding of niches. Of course, Dawkins is an imbecile (The Selfish Gene has to be the worst “science” book ever written. And it is certainly the worst metaphor in the literature for how evolution works), so there’s that.
The point is, though, that the problem of explaining complex design is a conceptual confusion. Indeed, the problem of explaining complex design is only a problem for a specific understanding of the TOE—reductionist, dualist, and purely speculative neo-Darwinism, where metaphysical commitments control scientific hypotheses. Insofar as that is true, I would argue that the problem of explaining complex design is a pseudo-problem for most of evolutionary biology—it works grammatically as a question but it is meaningless nonetheless.
Also, as mentioned above, Mr. Ferrara equates a very specific understanding of neo-Darwinism (e.g., the understanding of Dawkins, Jerry Coyne, Daniel Dennett, Steven Pinker, Sam Harris et al) with the TOE, and that is a false equivalence relation. That sort of neo-Darwinism does not equal the theory of evolution. And I don’t see how it could. Reductionist, dualist, and purely speculative forms of ND are basically metaphysical theses, and adaptationist forms of ND have serious conceptual and empirical difficulties, but the TOE does not equal those explanations of evolutionary history, although the TOE has certain metaphysical assumptions built into it—regularity of nature, intelligibility of the world, and so forth and its own problems. But the central tenets of Dawkinsian ND, so to speak, have more to do with a naturalist metaphysics than with a strictly scientific account of natural phenomena—ideas about determinism, materialism, ultimate purpose, etc.
The TOE, as Kim Sterelny and Griffiths suppose, on the other hand, merely “stipulates, that variation, heritability, differential fitness, and conditions admitting of cumulative selection resulting in selection on organisms, produce gradual change in populations over time. Such gradual change, continued over long periods of time results in both adaptation and differentiation as distinct populations become adapted to distinct environments,” and of course at some point speciation occurs, usually when two populations are reproductively isolated. Of course, there is a lot to unpack in that statement, and some of it is up for debate like the degree to which selection is operative, the nature of speciation, and so on, but the basic idea—life on earth evolved—is not up for debate, and nothing in the scientific literature proposes such a thing.
Yet still others state the TOE even more simply (too simply for my taste) and claim that evolution is simply changes in gene frequencies within populations, which is basically what most reductionist, dualist, and adaptationist neo-Darwinists would claim, although, to my mind, that overestimates the evolutionary “specialness” of the gene—the gene is not the only unit of selection capable of forming lineages over evolutionary time. But I digress.
The point is that the TOE is not a metaphysical thesis, it is not a theory about metaphysical reality, it is simply a theory about the workings of the natural world; it is merely a theory about the process of life’s diversification, about its causes and mechanisms, not some master philosophy about the whole of reality. And, as such, the TOE is of a completely different nature than the propositions of a reductionist and dualist ND. Indeed the TOE is a collection of factual statements, not philosophical ones. Of course, factual questions have repercussions for philosophical views, and so perhaps our digression had a point.
The Fossil Record and Transitional Forms
Mr. Ferrara states, “The innumerable transitional forms preceding emerging new species that Darwin expected the fossil record to show were never forthcoming, even though evolution by small mutations conserved by natural selection would logically produce vastly more transitional than terminal forms.”
Of course, this is true in part. While it is estimated that somewhere between 20 million and 4 billion species have existed on earth in its history, we only have record of about 250,000 or so fossil species, which puts us at possessing around less than 1 percent of the fossil record.
So, yes, the fossil record is incomplete, but the problem is that for the majority, probably around 90 percent, of the history of life, all species were soft-bodied, and soft-bodied parts of plants and animals are not easily fossilized, because once an organism dies, it is usually destroyed by bacteria, weather, other creatures, and so forth. (Think of a dead carcass on the side of the road.) So, very few organisms were and are even fossilized, and of that number even fewer are actually discovered—could you, dear readers, find your buried childhood pets, which is orders of magnitude more likely than finding thousands of millions of years old fossils?
Indeed it is not at all surprising, taking into account the large number of soft-bodied species to have existed and the amount of time involved in the evolution of life on earth, that we don’t have more information on transitional forms.
However, even though the fossil record is tremendously incomplete, we do have enough fossil evidence to give us a good idea about how evolution occurred within lineages, something for which Mr. Ferrara says he has no objection in principle. A few examples:
- (a) Over an 8 million year period there is clear evidence in the fossil record that the species Globorotalia conoidea evolved.
- (b) Trilobites. Clear evolutionary change in the pygidial ribs.
- (c) Pseudocubus vema. Clear evolutionary change in thorax size.
And how lineages broke away from each other. A few examples of transitional forms:
- (d) Tiktaalik roseae—intermediate between (lobe-finned fish) Eusthenopteron foordi and (tetrapod) Acanthostega gunnari. This transitional form is noticeable in its limbs and ribs, which has a bone structure between that of the lobe-finned fish and the tetrapod. And there are numerous others between fish and amphibian.
- (e) Archaeopteryx lithographica. Intermediate between reptile and bird.
- (f) Sinornithousaurus millenii. Intermediate between modern birds and its ancestors.
- (g) Microraptor gui and Mei long—more intermediate bird-reptile creatures
- (h) The whale fossil record—we have a great fossil record of transitional whales.
- (i) Sphecomyrma freyi—transitional ant.
- (j) Haikouella lanceolata—transitional snake.
- (k) Hyracotherium to Equus—fossil record of the horse
- (l) Hundreds of fossil homininds
These examples should make perfectly clear that evolution occurred, and the fossil record demonstrates this by showing gradual change within lineages (a-c), the breaking off of lineages (d-l), and transitional forms (d-l).
The Cambrian “Explosion”
Ferrara continues: “…the “Cambrian explosion,” in which the basic body plans of the animal phyla appear abruptly in the fossil record without prior incipient stages, confounds evolutionists to this day, despite their flimsy attempts to explain away this massive embarrassment for their beloved theory.”
First, there seems to be some scholarly agreement that there was an explosive diversification of animal life early in the Cambrian. However, there is a difference between diversification—number of species—and disparity—more basic body plans. Mr. Ferrara’s understanding of the Cambrian depends upon the latter, and disparity is a rather murky concept. I am not even sure disparity is a real and biologically important property. It seems, at least to me, that disparity is more eisegesis than exegesis, as NT scholars say. That is, more of a projection onto (reading into), than an objective feature of nature (reading out). But even if it is an objective feature of nature, how does one measure disparity? Or how is it genealogically informative? Gould tried to formulate it precisely, so that it might be tested, but failed, does Mr. Ferrara have some clarification on the matter? None is offered in the article, and I doubt any could be.
Second, a number of the creatures found in the Burgess fauna have been reclassified and put in extant phyla. So, the degree to which disparity was greater—more body plans—is questionable indeed, at least among arthopods (insects, crabs, and kin), which is Gould’s exemplar. Indeed the status of this “explosion” remains a matter of controversy—the Precambrian animals only failed to survive to our time, and were soft-bodied, so we haven’t detected them in the fossil record, which gives us the appearance of an explosion, is one famous explanation for the “explosion”. Also, the relation between the Cambrian fauna and the Ediacarian fauna, its predecessor, is highly contested—Edicarian fauna was present worldwide, so there was animal life before the Cambrian.
Third, as Ridley has pointed out, it seems straightforwardly fallacious to infer from features that are currently exemplified to greater disparity in the Cambrian. How do features that are now present have any bearing on greater disparity then? That is, the fact that chelicerates and trilobites look a certain way now does not say anything about greater disparity in Cambrian, because what importance is a trait that allows us to distinguish between chelicerates and trilobites now have to do with disparity in the Cambrian?
Fourth, no one rules out, not even Dawkins, that a major evolutionary change can occur in a single generation—by some wildly advantageous mutation or cataclysmic event or what have you. Everyone just agrees that such changes are exceedingly rare, and that most adaptive change occurs in a long series of small alterations—cumulative selection—as the record of the history of life bears out, even Gould agrees with this aspect of the TOE. And nothing in Mr. Ferrara’s article contradicts that belief.
Last, and perhaps most importantly, the Cambrian explosion has to do primarily with animal life. Single-celled organisms and plant life are excluded. If anything this should diminish any extravagant claim about the diversification of life during the Cambrian; we should be very careful about privileging our evolutionary theory too much in favor of one area of evolution–metazoan. For instance, vascular plants evolved on land after the Cambrian, which means that plant diversity did not peak in the Cambrian. Also, bacterium, the most common organism, has very great disparity, in Gould’s sense, at the present time, given how very different their basic metabolic systems are, so why prejudice our talk about disparity in favor of metazoan evolution? Why not say we have greater disparity in the Holocene than at any other epoch?
Gould, Adaptationism, RNA, and Cells
Ferrara maintains: “…that model is under increasing pressure from revisionists within the evolution establishment who know a loser when they see one. In 1980 the late Stephen Jay Gould of Harvard, then the world’s most renowned evolutionist, reluctantly conceded that it would seem that model “as a general proposition, is effectively dead, despite its persistence as textbook orthodoxy.””
But Gould is not challenging evolution as such, but a certain understanding of evolution that places undue importance on natural selection and the causal primacy of genes: adaptationism. For Gould, chance plays a more important role than genes. In fact, chance plays a huge role when populations are small—this is the basic idea of genetic drift. Also, mass extinction looms large in Gould’s thought in explaining evolutionary history. That is, survival is more about good fortune than fitness. As a result, selection plays a less powerful role for Gould, because selection needs a good amount of variation, and Gould thinks the amount of variants available to any population is limited.
In Gould’s mind, as Sterelny has made clear, species spend most of their life never-changing in body or behavior. Evolutionary change happens quickly, in bursts. Species come into existence, remain phenotypically the same, and then either go extinct or break off into other species. This is punctuated equilibrium.
Gould is also skeptical of Dawkins’ gene selectionism, because he doubts genes have a large enough effect on organismal fitness over, say, features of the environment.
So, sure, there are differences within evolutionary theory, between Gould et al and Dawkins et al, but Gould never questions the TOE as such, rather Gould is criticizing certain assumptions of and inferences drawn from the TOE that he thinks are conceptually confused, empirically lacking, and/or methodologically imprudent. Indeed Gould’s biggest criticism of adaptationism might be about its methodology—adaptationists tell just-so stories—a hypothesis about what a trait’s selective history might have been and what function it has now as a result.
However, nowhere does Gould question the basic biological fact that life has evolved over long periods of time.
Yet Ferrara continues: “Evolution’s credibility problem begins at the very beginning of evolutionary time: protein synthesis is impossible without the chromosomal DNA “code,” but DNA depends on proteins for its tightly coiled structure, self-repair, and the direction of protein synthesis itself—a classic chicken-and-egg dilemma. Worse, in a cell the DNA code imparts information to RNA for the assembly of proteins by a process called transcription. But how did DNA “evolve” this function without RNA already being present to serve as the transcript, and how did RNA arise without its DNA complement, especially in view of RNA’s highly unstable nature?”
That says nothing about the credibility of evolution as such, it disputes a very bad idea of how evolution works, that is, Dawkins’ gene selectionism. But it does not dispute evolution as such. Indeed it is no real surprise that the first molecule of life was not DNA, it was something like RNA, and that is a well-known fact in evolutionary biology.
Moreover, we know that RNA can play both roles—can have both the information-carrying capacity and the ability to catalyze chemical reactions. Indeed, one of the RNA catalysts that we know about has precisely the sort of activity that would be required at the beginning of life, as Cech and Altman demonstrated. Which is to say, it has the ability to construct other RNA molecules properly. And this discovery solves the chicken-and-egg problem because these RNA molecules—ribozymes—can fill the two roles of heredity and metabolism, roles usually filled by DNA and proteins. So it is perfectly plausible that RNA was serving this function at the beginning of life, so to speak, and other macromolecules like DNA and proteins came along later in the process.
But, of course, we don’t know, exactly, how life began. But we do know that reflexive chemical processes, in the absence of life and in early earth environmental conditions, can give rise to organic compounds, and recent work has demonstrated how ribosyme RNA molecules could have brought about that RNA evolutionary phase, so to speak.
However, Ferrara contends, “…there is the building block of animal life, the eukaryotic cell. Evolutionists have no credible explanation for how mindless processes could produce a biological world-within-a-world…”
Well, to borrow from Ayala, once RNA molecules were configured that could propagate by copying themselves but were susceptible to some error or mutation in the synthesis of new RNA molecules, then natural selection would happen, presumably, leading to more extensive molecular configuration and eventually to cells. First, of course, simple cells like bacteria (prokaryotes), and later to more advanced cells like animals (eukaryotes). One basic kind of prokaryote is the archaebacteria, which have a strange metabolism. This means that archaebacteria can survive in extreme environments and in incredible ways, for example, in deep ocean hydrothermal vents. The other kind is eubacteria, which are the bacteria that live in us and in our food, and the eubacteria are what the eukaryotes branched off from.
Now, as Ayala and Sober have argued, natural selection is just the differential reproduction of differing hereditary variants. So, once there were primitive cells capable of reproduction, some would, in theory, reproduce more effectively than others. Hence the traits of the cells that reproduced more effectively would increase in frequency amongst the population at the expense of those that reproduced less effectively. And the ones that reproduced more effectively were more than likely the ones that had a more precise heredity and more efficient metabolism.
While these occurrences are extraordinary, perhaps, even miraculous, to some extent, there is nothing in the above explanation that requires the intervention of occult forces, and nothing in the explanation violates any aspect of classical Christianity, properly understood.
Part II next…
NEO said:
Very well done, and I think, argued. 🙂
I’m certainly not qualified to argue it, and besides I think I agree with you, so far, a least. When I was about nine, I read the ‘creation myths’ of my Scandinavian ancestors, and found them roughly as persuasive as Genesis, and more romantic, to boot! 🙂 I still fail to see how anyone can seriously doubt that evolution happens, although I make the distinction than some one/thing (read God) wrote the rules, and for me conciousness of conciousness, so to speak, relates almost exactly to Originall Sin, and is a major change in kind, if that makes sense.
I’d guess that I’m running ahead here, and so I’ll quit, and merely say how interesting this is, and that I thank you. 🙂
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No Man's Land said:
Thanks Neo. 🙂 And, yes, tomorrow will come the more controversial part–how does one reconcile polygenism, which the TOE seems to lead to, with original sin and other doctrines?
In fact, I had originally told Chalcedon that I would break up the piece into shorter posts but I wanted to get to the more controversial polygenism part, as quickly as possible.
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ginnyfree said:
Easy answer No Man’s Land. You simply cannot reconcile polygenism with the Genesis accounts because they are not made of the same stuff. (pun intended – I hope you laugh) The Genesis accounts of the origins of mankind are monogenistic, that is they rely on there being a single set of parents of mankind, namely Adam and Eve. Polygenism is a system that supports multiple points of origin for various races and so multiple sets of originating parents. Sure you could posit that one of those sets of parents are Adam and Eve, but it distorts and subverts the Genesis accounts to a polygenistic system that blends science and religion to come up with whatever suits the person positing or a justification for alternative religions and their explanations of the origins of mankind. Catholics cannot do thusly and remain in communion with the Church. There are fundamental aspects of the Genesis accounts of Creation that must be believed with divine and Catholic faith. If you don’t believe, then you are no longer in communion and should abstain from the Eucharist until you do once again accept what the Church teaches. Protestants are free to disbelieve as they will, either according to their own understanding of all of this stuff or they can adopt whatever line of reasoning is common to their particular denomination. They are basically free to believe whatever their hearts and minds accord them as truth. I don’t recommend it though. It is much more profitable for the soul to obey and submit to the authority of the One true Church Christ founded upon the rock of St. Peter. Works for me! God bless. Ginnyfree.
P.S. I recommend you read Humani generis. It is available here: http://www.ewtn.com/library/ENCYC/P12HUMAN.HTM
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No Man's Land said:
Thanks for the comment Ginny. I intend to make an attempt at reconciliation, so we will have to see. 🙂
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David B. Monier-Williams said:
Alabama passes!
NML you’re obviously well informed and erudite. However, after the first three paragraphs I shut down. It was like finishing listening to a sermon way before the preacher.
Like Sf declared in the previous comment, I’ll let God sort it out, as for me I’ll stay with the Eucharist.
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ginnyfree said:
Roll on Crimson Tide! Sorry couldn’t resist. My hubby was a southerner.
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David B. Monier-Williams said:
The expression comes from the old days of the National Presidential Conventions where the Presidential Candidate was chosen unlike today. It happened when the State’s Favorite Sons were voted on and the State Roll-Call was taken. Alabama being the first State alphabetically would say, “Alabama passes to the illustrious State of …”
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No Man's Land said:
As it happens, I am originally from Alabama–born and bred, as they say.
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No Man's Land said:
Of course, I cannot endorse the Roll Tide. How about a War Eagle?
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No Man's Land said:
Thanks David. Sorry for the post being overly long and technical. Unavoidable, I suppose.
I think tomorrow’s post will be much more interesting for everyone here, as it will wade into the waters of doctrine and tradition.
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Servus Fidelis said:
NML thank you for this post though it is far over my head to respond to in kind. You would have to come down to my level for me to do so and I think that might be a bit hard for you.
I am a simple man who, in school, was told that my aptitude was in math and science though I did not pursue it because to me it seemed fine up until we hit upon the theoretical realms of science during my day. It then became laborious . . . so I remain a common man with no university degree and what I know I learned by thinking about a subject or from others via conversation, books, lectures or videos. So you see that you must stoop a bit if you are going to get me to plainly see how much of this we actually know and how much is speculation on what is at best abstract ‘facts’ or theories.
I don’t mean that in a snarky way either. I speak of the mystical reality that we are part of. There is no explanation for an atom joining with other atoms to form a cell and become living; eating other atoms and transforming them into energy and then excreting other atoms that are not needed. This could be translated up to through all the classifications of life. Also, the oddest problem for me to grasp might be the change of the single cells to multi cell organisms and then the strange mutation to have some with female genitalia and others with male genitalia . . . occurring right on cue and each being able to find one another and know what to do both physically and internally in the production of new life. In other words, species changes seem a bit of a fantasy to me though changes within a species makes sense.
I will await your next installment and hope it explains better what you say is not in contradiction to classic Christianity. I am assuming you will address polygenism in this text.
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No Man's Land said:
Thanks SF. And to have avoided academia may have been a blessing, I dare say. You seem a quite capable thinker. Universities can muck that up, if they’re not careful.
Tomorrow, dear friend. Really this was just necessary pain, an attempt to make clear that the TOE is a theory about the workings of the natural world, and a good one at that, that requires no occult forces to get along, so to speak. But tomorrow I’ll hopefully deliver more in the way of what you want.
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Servus Fidelis said:
And thank you NML as I believe I am at least getting the general direction and points you are making though I suspect to fully understand it I would have to read all those you have mentioned and bone up on all the latest findings or theories that may be held in esteem these days. I’ll do my best to try to follow the arguments and thank you again for attempting this courageous post as there are strong feelings present when faith, reason, science and theorems collide. Finding full compatibility may not be possible but hopefully we will all get a better understanding of the present state of thinking in this area of scientific inquiry.
And thanks for the vote of confidence for my feeble attempt to think in areas where I have no expertise. Appreciate it. 🙂
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No Man's Land said:
Thank you, SF. 🙂
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No Man's Land said:
Also, in regards to the formation of a living organism from a single-cell, that is not at all implausible really. I mean we all did it ourselves in nine months, as Haldane’s anecdote reminds us.
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Servus Fidelis said:
It did but that does not cause me any consternation: the prototype of all cells which are alive and make up all of life as we know it is the great mystery as is the jumping from such simplicity to male and female organisms which gives me pause among other things.
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No Man's Land said:
Very true. It is a bit of apples and oranges, I agree.
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Servus Fidelis said:
Yes, I agree. Once genetics is involved within a species the whole argument is less contentious.
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ginnyfree said:
Yow! I have to catch my breath after reading all that. This is all too much for my pea brain. No thanks. I feel no compulsion to try and reconcile my faith with all this mad science. I believe the Genesis accounts. They have God as their Author. Science of this type has man for authorship and only serves to confuse. Youzers. This stuff is to me, truly, No Man’s Land! Thanks for sharing and for your personal bravery in wading into the morass of scientific reasons for the non-existence of God and their proofs of the mythology of Genesis. My temperament will not allow me to go there. God bless. Ginnyfree.
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No Man's Land said:
Hi Ginny, I apologize if the post was overly technical and long.
I, too, believe the Genesis accounts, properly understood. Indeed I touch on this very theme in my next post.
Also, in the way of a teaser, there are no scientific reasons for God’s non-existence or (yikes!) existence. In fact, this will be a common concern of tomorrow’s post. Suffice it to say, one cannot locate God out in the physical world, for God is not another being among beings, a cause among causes, he is both the transcendent actuality and the Logos immanent in all things; both beyond being and being itself. God is not a contingent being, so you won’t find him in instances of seeming causal discontinuity like the origin of DNA and eukaryotic cells. Indeed I think positing that one will find God there very well may be a case of what Catholics like to call material heresy.
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njb4725 said:
An interesting post, NML, and welcome aboard the contributors’ train. Would you mind declaring your own denominational (or no no denominational) background? I think it will be difficult to engage with you without knowing more of your intellectual convictions and commitments.
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chalcedon451 said:
Nicholas – if you look on the ‘about’ page you will find more detail. C
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No Man's Land said:
Thank you, Njb.
I was raised Protestant and I am in the process of becoming Orthodox.
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njb4725 said:
Thanks. I’m a non-denominational Protestant (I currently attend a Baptist church), with leanings towards Calvinism.
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No Man's Land said:
Okay, my very close friend is non-denominational. I recently attended his church and I enjoyed it a great deal.
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njb4725 said:
🙂 One of my best friends is Russian Orthodox, which is not surprising given the fact that he is Russian, but he also has attended Protestant churches during his undergrad in England.
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No Man's Land said:
🙂 I think it is good to experience a range of Christian services. Reminds one that we are not so different after all (or we are very different after all). Either way, we get to know one another, and that is usually a good thing.
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njb4725 said:
Yes, and I myself have attended Orthodox, Catholic, Anglo-Catholic, URC, Elim, etc. services, so I feel I have a basic idea of how things are across the board, which makes it easier to relate to the people here at AATW.
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No Man's Land said:
I have also attended a number of different Christian services, although I cannot say that I have attended an Anglican service. Maybe an Episcopal service or two when I was in high school.
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njb4725 said:
From what I gather, the Episcopal Church in the States is quite different from the Anglican Church in the UK, even though they are part of the same communion. And of course, we have the disestablishment question in our country. It seems to me nothing is ever simple with Anglicanism – except the universality of tea and cake.
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No Man's Land said:
Yeah, it is something I don’t know much about.
But tea and cake, I can do.
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No Man's Land said:
Reblogged this on No Man's Land.
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Bosco the Great said:
Say good brother No Man, you should become a politician.
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No Man's Land said:
Not really my cup of tea, Bosco
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theophiletos said:
This is a very important topic for discussion, and I’m delighted to have an expert to present these issues, but you might need to lower the octane if any actual discussion is to occur, rather than merely presentation. My PhD is in history, not evolutionary biology! I’ve also never seen a reason I should read Dawkins et al., or the refutations of Dawkins et al. by Ferrara et al., so parts of your post felt like I stepped into the middle of a conversation that had already started a while earlier. I’ve read the post through, and I think I understood much of it, so I’ll respond in turn to various parts.
I do not know how are you are using the following terms and phrases, or even whether they are technical terms, but you seemed to be using them in ways which I could not infer from my general use of the language and the context: (1) “reductionist”; (2) “scientific dualist” as used of ND; (3) “adaptationist” and “adaptationist forms of ND” (does this just mean the explanation of evolution in terms of adaptation to fit environments?); (4) “complex design” – if this is not a technical term, I would have expected more variation in expression; (5) “chelicerates”; (6) Gould’s definition of “disparity” – you refer to it but never give it.
You also describe ND as “purely speculative.” Can you clarify what makes ND more speculative than the broader TOE?
When you write, “the basic idea—life on earth evolved—is not up for debate,” I would like to know “up for debate among *whom*?” For surely it is up for debate among Christians and the general public, which is who you find yourself among here, even if scientists do not debate it. But I would also wish to distinguish two senses of the ambiguous phrase “life on earth evolved”: (1) species of living organisms experienced evolution to at least a minor degree; or (2) the origins and present diversity of life must be explained by evolution alone. These are two very different assertions, and most Christians I know accept (1) and reject (2).
I simply didn’t understand Ridley’s argument in your exposition. The sentence, “It seems straightforwardly fallacious to infer from features that are currently exemplified to greater disparity in the Cambrian,” seems straightforward enough (pending a definition of disparity), but who was talking about “features that are currently exemplified”? You do not quote Ferrara talking about such a thing; in your quotes, he seems to be discussing only the Cambrian period. So is this argument relevant? If so, how?
Without meaning to defend Ferrara (whose article I have never read), I do wish to disagree with a few points of your refutation of his argument.
[A] You refute Ferrara’s argument about rarity of transitional forms by appealing to the small proportion of living forms which are attested in the fossil record, which you explain by reference to soft-bodied organisms. Ferrara is not complaining that the fossil record is missing a few transitional forms, but, if I understand correctly, that it has (almost?) no transitional forms whatever. Ferrara’s argument works as an objection even if restricted only to non-soft-bodied (we might say “fossilizable”) species, where the plethora of instances of terminal forms would lead one to expect transitional forms between *them*. The refutation fails to address that case of increased probability of fossilizability.
[B] More cogent, you give a list of transitional forms (d-l), and here I will diverge entirely from Ferrara’s argument to make my own as a historian. Experimental scientists tell us how the world tends to work, for example, that state X will give rise to state Y under certain specified circumstances, or with a certain probability, or whatever. The past, of course, is not susceptible to experiment (unless someone does manage to invent time travel). Historians see the evidence of the past and attempt to infer the most likely chain of events which produced this evidence. Seeing state Y, coupled with the modern scientific demonstration that state X produces state Y, is insufficient to conclude that state X occurred before state Y. Instead, it is necessary to evaluate the relative probability of alternate states X1, X2, etc., each of which could have produced state Y. But of course the evaluation of the relative probability of a potentially infinite set of possible causes depends upon the starting assumptions. You listed as metaphysical assumptions of the TOE only those things which make TOE possible, not those assumptions which make it likely, which are just as much philosophical as factual (indeed, while I recognize such a distinction in broad brush-strokes, I find most assertions are both). To put this in mathematical terms, one can think of the fossil record as presenting clusters of points, and the explanation is the line, or set of lines, which connects those points. The “transitional forms” (d-l) which you list are clusters of points between other clusters of points, but the points themselves cannot tell you they are connected. Indeed, there is an uncountably infinite set of sets of curves which could connect the points (or leave them disconnected). Not how *do* we know, but how *can* we know that the fossils you appeal to as “transitional” forms were in fact transitions between the clusters of points to which you refer, and not simply separate species with independent origins which became extinct?
Finally, in my own lay reading on the subject of evolution (which I do on occasion; it just has no reason to include Dawkins, though I should perhaps spend more time with Gould), the topic of speciation has particularly interested me, as that seems to be the bone of contention in the distinction I made five paragraphs ago. I’ve come across the results of experiments demonstrating speciation in fruit flies. But is the observed “speciation” anything more than that fruit flies don’t mate with those who aren’t around their own food? There seems to be an implicit teleology in these discussions that species necessarily diversify. But have there been “de-speciation” experiments? Are the results of speciation permanent divergence?
I’m not entirely sure that a coherent notion of “species” can itself be salvaged given the premises of macro-evolution, but I’ll leave that to people like you who are more invested in the practice of it.
Thank you for a thought-provoking piece! I look forward to reading the sequel! (Although I would ask that you define more of your terms for a lay audience…)
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No Man's Land said:
Thank you for the comment Theophiletos! Good reply.
Well, I am no expert. 🙂 I have had the good fortune of studying under a couple of really good philosophers of science, one of whom is quite well-published in the philosophy of biology, which afforded me the opportunity of being paid by the university to do research in a number of different areas of philosophy of biology. But I am not an expert in the field. Indeed I am not even published in the field as it stands now, although I am hoping that changes soon.
As for [1] reductionism, it is just reducing some whole area of study to a single abstract area within the whole, like reducing biology to physics or psychology to physics. Also the reduction tends to leave the person articulating the reduction out of the reduction, so to speak.
As for [2] scientific dualism, it is where intentionality, be it personal, rational, moral, or what have you, is introduced into a theory developed from studying non-intentional things like planets or rocks or plants or single-celled organisms or what have you. Think of something like sociobiology.
[3] adaptationism–I am thinking of both empirical adaptationism–where natural selection is the most powerful factor in evolutionary history, and most biologically significant features are shaped by it–and explanatory adaptationism–where the existence of adaptations is the central problem in evolutionary biology.
[4] complex design is an organisms fit with the environment–its adaptedness; good design, so to speak. But this doesn’t really capture what I am driving at here. Let me see, in obvious cases there does seem to be a clear complex adaptation, like eyes for seeing, but in less obvious cases it is difficult to say how some trait could be an adaptation like jealousy or my chin or what have you. But these traits are very clearly complex in a certain sense, but it is hard to say in what way natural selection shaped them, so it is difficult to think of them as adaptations or good design, even though they clearly are. Does that make sense?
[5] chelicerates are arthropods (scorpions, spiders, crabs, etc)
[6] Gould’s definition of disparity is the space that represents the physical forms of all actual and possible organisms. Basically, more body plans. But you could write a book on this. Gould’s idea is called morphospace.
Of course, some of these terms are either highly technical or terribly murky or both, which usually means I have to use the terms crudely (or not really define them at all, so as to not confuse readers or lose myself in tangents) in essays of this nature.
When I say ND is purely speculative I mean there is no analogical referent to some of its terminology. For instance, the selfish gene. I have no idea what this means because genes cannot be selfish, but we are left with the impression that they are selfish in some biologically important way. Again, genes are not free to do anything at all in the moral sense, so it makes no sense to say genes are selfish. But some people build elaborate theories about human nature on this premise. I dare say you could probably read their worthless drivel on an atheist blog or in the New York Times science section.
When I say that the idea that life on earth evolved is not up for debate, I mean that it is not up for debate in the scientific literature. Mr. Ferrara was selectively quoting biologists and others in the field of evo-biology, especially Gould, to support his claims, but those scientists’ opinions taken in the proper context do not repudiate the TOE, but only criticize certain details of the theory. Perhaps I should have made that clearer.
Ridley’s argument is that one cannot use features that now index major arthropod lineage, for instance, to infer greater disparity in the Cambrian. Just because the segmentation pattern now serves as a means to distinguish one arthropod from another does not show that it is a trait important in itself for measuring disparity.
[A] Well, a transitional species is not equivalent to an ancestral species, it is merely a species with a mixture of traits from organisms that lived both before and after it. So in the case of the reptile to bird transition we should find early reptiles with some birdlike traits, and we should find them after reptiles had already evolved, but before modern birds.
The significance of the fossil record is not so much in how many transitional fossils we have, but in the way it has allowed us to verify predictions about different species and when we should expect them to appear in the fossil record. For instance, scientists predicted that birds evolved from theropod dinosaurs, and, sure enough, we discover theropod dinosaurs with feathers at the predicted period. So it is the dating and physical appearance to some extent that is important. However, if, for instance, we found rabbit fossils in the Cambrian, that would be a defeater for evolutionary theory.
[B] See [A]. The transitional species could be an evolutionary cousin or what have you. What you need are a mixture of traits appearing at the right time. And by right time I mean before or after, within reason, of the species in question. For example, some feathered dinosaurs continued to persist after more birdlike creatures had evolved, but those later feathered dinosaurs still help tell us where birds came from.
The most plausible account of species is that they are lineages between speciation events. But the concept of species is another technical and murky one. Indeed there are about five serious conceptions of species ranging from the phenetic species concept–intrinsic similarities between organisms– to the phylogenetic and evolutionary species concept–segments of the tree of life. For me, something like the biological species concept–reproductive isolation–supplemented by the ecological species concept–ecologically isolated–or by something else is probably is the right account here.
So, yes, speciation does usually occur when species are reproductively or demographically isolated, although it does not always work that way. Furthermore, the notion of an ecological niche is another problematic component of any species account, because you want to talk about species being in competition with one another over the same resource as being evolutionarily significant but that requires one to cash out niches. So it is all a bit hairy here.
Hope this helps. 🙂
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Bosco the Great said:
Wow. You must be smart
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No Man's Land said:
No, my dear Bosco, I am not any smarter than anybody else, I don’t think. It is just a technical subject, so the jargon can be alienating and prejudiced in favor of a certain group of people. Or it can, as in this case, make me seem smarter than I am.
Thanks.
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Bosco the Great said:
So my new friend, tell me, do you believe god created man in one day or do you believe life evolved? Thanks in advance.
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No Man's Land said:
I believe God created man by evolutionary processes. So, to answer your question, I don’t think God created man in one 24-hour day and I do think life evolved.
Now, if by day you mean something nonliteral, then my answer would probably be different.
And you’re welcome.
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Bosco the Great said:
When I first got saved, I still thought life evolved. Its the only sane idea. But as soon as I looked at the numbers, in hi school at that, I realized evo was impossible.
Ive been chatting with evo people recently. the wont talk about how the first life formed. They say that is not part of evolution. What they don’t want to say is that they don’t have any idea how life formed and all they want to deal with is natural selection. Silly sons of bitches. the first life had to evolve. Don’t tell me evo has nothing to do with the first life.
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No Man's Land said:
Sure, the first life evolved.
But trying to find God at the beginning of life is just as silly as trying to find God in a box of Wheaties. God is not a contingent being, so you can’t locate him in the natural world. It is kinda like trying to find Oscar Wilde in the characters of The Picture of Dorian Gray.
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Bosco the Great said:
One of my best friends is a dyed in the wool atheist. He says that maybe this god directed evo to make all that we see. he also cant spell deoxyribonucleic acid. I want you to tell me with a straight face that DNA formed in muddy water, and that all the enzymes needed for duplication and a body all just happened to be in the same little space, even though they repel each other.
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No Man's Land said:
I think something like RNA did, sure. I think other macromolecules like DNA and proteins came along later in the process.
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Bosco the Great said:
I was dead sure life evolved myself, until I got my first smattering of real science. there are some things we know. There are lots of things we don’t know. but we have the macro world down pretty good. As far as we know DNA controls all life here on earth. the first life had to have it. I don’t expect you to tell me how it formed in muddy water. I just put the question out there for someone to tell me it happened. then, I want them to tell me physics broke down for this to happen. Please tell me you believe in raw chemistry. Please tell me you believe in Van der Walls forces. Please tell me you believe in numbers. Even the simplest protein is 150 daltons. Whats the chance of a billion of the identical molecule forming in the space of the head of a needle? I am not expecting an answer because there is none. Im just putting this out for food for thought.
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No Man's Land said:
Bosco, in my post I talk about this very thing:
“Moreover, we know that RNA can play both roles—can have both the information-carrying capacity and the ability to catalyze chemical reactions. Indeed, one of the RNA catalysts that we know about has precisely the sort of activity that would be required at the beginning of life, as Cech and Altman demonstrated. Which is to say, it has the ability to construct other RNA molecules properly. And this discovery solves the chicken-and-egg problem because these RNA molecules—ribozomes—can fill the two roles of heredity and metabolism, roles usually filled by DNA and proteins. So it is perfectly plausible that RNA was serving this function at the beginning of life, so to speak, and other macromolecules like DNA and proteins came along later in the process.
But, of course, we don’t know, exactly, how life began. But we do know that reflexive chemical processes, in the absence of life and in early earth environmental conditions, can give rise to organic compounds, and recent work has demonstrated how ribosome RNA molecules could have brought about that RNA evolutionary phase, so to speak.”
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Bosco the Great said:
You are aware that only enzymes can create RNA, or even DNA, or even enzymes them selfs.
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No Man's Land said:
Bosco, did you miss the part about catalyzing chemical reactions? Or about ribozymes? It is in the stuff I posted in the comments.
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No Man's Land said:
I am talking about ribozyme (catalytic) RNA molecules.
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Bosco the Great said:
Im not expecting an answer, but how did the first DNA overcome the Van der Walls force?
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No Man's Land said:
Why do you ask questions you don’t expect answers too?
I am not a biochemist, but I thought DNA was stabilized by the van der Waals forces?
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Bosco the Great said:
yes, I missed what ever you said in the comments. I cant follow your train of thought. its all over the place. Im glad that you came here to express your self. and I enjoy it.
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No Man's Land said:
Well, I don’t know how you missed it, it was in the first sentence.
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Bosco the Great said:
Ill go back and look. And I believe you are not a biochemist.
One day, I got fed up with my proff at Cal State LA. I asked her to go and get the head of the bio dept and I wanted to ask him a question. Which came first…….the chicken or the egg. I forgot his answer.
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ginnyfree said:
Bosco dear, need I remind you? You’re a Catholic (even though that won’t alter your bad reputation, as you well know we got plenty of bad Catholics these days) and all Catholics know it wasn’t the chicken or the egg that came first, but the Rooster! Sheesh. God made the rooster, then his mate the hen and they happily made eggs together. So much for evolutionary theories. Too much study is not good for the brain. Some men lose their minds in the process of trying to get too smart. God bless. Ginnyfree.
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Bosco the Great said:
gOOD SISTER GINNY, LOTS OF EDUCATED SCIENTISTS believe in evo. I used to. But these scientists don’t want to talk abut van der Walls. The chance of DNA and the enzymes forming in the space od a head of a needle are impossible.
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Bosco the Great said:
Good brothers Theo and NoMan, you guys are made for each other.
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theophiletos said:
I thought you were the one with the science background! I’m just a historian attempting to follow the argument.
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Bosco the Great said:
Youre doing better than me. I don’t understand one word he said.
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Bosco the Great said:
Only smart people believe slime mold turned into Marilyn Monroe.
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No Man's Land said:
Slime-mold didn’t turn directly into Marilyn–it was a long (and guided) process.
But why shoe-horn God in on this? Surely, if he can create the Universe from nothing, he can breathe life into man via evolutionary processes, right?
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Bosco the Great said:
Evo says slime mold turned into Marilyn Monroe. Don’t snow me.
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No Man's Land said:
🙂 Well, we don’t know exactly what it was. But, yeah, I just meant that it wasn’t a spontaneous event.
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Bosco the Great said:
I want you to be honest. tell everyone here that you believe slime mold turned into Marilyn Monroe.
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No Man's Land said:
I do, with the qualification that slime mold is understood as representing whatever it was.
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Bosco the Great said:
Good brother No Man has earned my respect. he freely admits slime mold turned into Marilyn Monroe. its hard for me to get catholics to admit they bow before graven images even though we all know they do.
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Bosco the Great said:
Theres a fine line between evo and natural selection. Good brother Darwin thought selection was evo. Looks can be deceiving. A finch is still a finch.
Lets look at evo theory. It says that an animal was separated from the rest of the world by natural barriers. So it evolved to be different. OK. So the earth was partitioned into a billion different ecosystems for billions of yrs. Sorry. This wasn’t the case. A billion oceans? Please, don’t make me laugh. I know, it makes more sense that everything formed by itself than a god creating it. hey, I believed in evo even after I was saved. It was when I looked at DNA that I realized evo wasn’t possible. Any idiot can see that DNA didn’t form by accident.
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No Man's Land said:
Bosco, that is not what evolutionary theory says.
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Bosco the Great said:
Don’t post while drunk.
Evo says DNA formed by random chance. Don’t insult my small intelligence.
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No Man's Land said:
Okay, what does that matter?
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Bosco the Great said:
It doesn’t matter one bit. What matters is that you ask Jesus to show you himself. Then you will understand all
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ginnyfree said:
Oh Bosco, you’re impressive. I think NML has struck a nerve. You don’t believe in “EVO.” There is small hope blooming…………God bless. Ginnyfree.
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Bosco the Great said:
Good sister ginny, he dosent bother me. hes here for a reason. He needs to ask Jesus for the answer and im here to tell him to ask Jesus. I don’t have the answers. Jesus does.
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No Man's Land said:
I don’t think DNA formed by accident, but it is an accidental property. Of course, DNA didn’t drop out of the sky like manna from heaven either.
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Bosco the Great said:
Uh, could you be more vague?
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No Man's Land said:
DNA didn’t form by accident.
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Bosco the Great said:
Then you presuppose a god? If it didn’t form by accident, then god did it. Im going to report you to the atheist society. they are going to drum you out.
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No Man's Land said:
Bosco, I am not an atheist.
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Bosco the Great said:
These big evo thinkers are nothing but god haters. They believe that the laws of nature don’t work. Entropy. They think things get more complicated as time goes by. We have never seen a star born, but we doo see stars die. Everything is winding down, not building up/
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