The Darwin Spin Off

[Ted McGregor]

I found this inspired quote : " Do onto others ... then run ! "  - Benny Hill

[Theresa Tennyson]

This sourced website is going to be far more productive than anything any of us are going to say here:

https://www.sciencemeetsreligion.org/evolution/

[Robin Kiyori]

As a Polytheist pagan who believes in Evolution but also side eyes how Darwinism eventually lead to Eugenics. I'm just gonna sit here and sip some juice.

[Talligurl]

I dont know what is confusing about it.

[Madelaine McMasters]

14 hours ago, Ceka Cianci said:

So, if you witnessed lets say, a car accident and seen who hit who.. You wouldn't be set in your mind on what happened?

After a lifetime of "seeing" my own eyes and ears deceive me, and reading about all the ways in which our brains ignore or misinterpret what's right in front of us, I asked my cousin, an FBI agent, how much she trusted eyewitness testimony...

"Not much".

There are, of course, situations in which we can fairly trust our senses, but we should always harbor a little skepticism.

Some years ago, I noticed that I was having more "close calls" when exiting my driveway in my car. I'd not see the rare approaching jogger, cyclist or vehicle even though I was looking both ways before entering the road. My brain has repeated that scan so many times, it was happy to use its internal model of a traffic free road rather than take current data from my eyes. I've modified my scan habit to include consciously thinking of those close calls. I can't trust myself to enter the road on autopilot.

Still, I know that new habit isn't enough. I'm sure I'm making the same errors then I drive well worn routes. Now I try to switch up my routes to frequented destinations so my brain doesn't get complacent.

Ceka, look at your question from the standpoint of people who cause car accidents. How many times were they at fault because their eyewitness account of the situation in the seconds before the accident was wrong?

Edited March 14, 2021 by Madelaine McMasters

[Arielle Popstar]

11 hours ago, Nalates Urriah said:

A simulation… The Matrix… There are actually serious people looking at that possibility. (Ref) Did you notice that frame reset!?!

 

Almost would beg the question that we are not even the mote in God's eye but simply a figment of his imagination.

[Madelaine McMasters]

15 hours ago, Aquila Kytori said:

https://www.sciencemeetsreligion.org/evolution/information-theory.php

If this second theory, (William Dembski) is the one you are referring to when asking why "Information Theory and the math and time issues"  are not included in the Extended Synthesis then perhaps the following quote from the above mentioned article would explain why :

" Introduction

Both traditional creationists and intelligent design scholars have invoked probability and information theory arguments in criticisms of biological evolution. They argue that certain features of biology are so fantastically improbable that they could never have been produced by a purely natural, "random" process, even assuming the billions of years of history asserted by geologists and astronomers. "

I skimmed the information theory article and was reminded of a lecture I can't now find. I'm probably remembering it wrong, but I recall the lecture being about the improbability of functional proteins arising from random chemical processes. There were a whole bunch of assumptions made by someone (the presenter might have been discussing Dembski from your linked article) about many factors in that probability, which was built up something like Drake's equation for estimating the probability of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe.

There were presumptions about energy and entropy that the presenter questioned, along with availability of suitable chemicals in the "soup". I think, off the top of his head, he was able to cut the exponent of the claimed improbability dramatically by discounting refuted presumptions in the probability model. Still, the improbability was daunting. Yet the presumption remains that it happened because we're here to both observe and be, the result.

What really caught my attention though, was the mention of a new discovery of a process for producing proteins (or a precursor step?) that was 7000x more efficient/likely than anything seen before. That got me thinking about the Drake equation and our ability to detect planets around stars.

Over the last few decades, vastly more sensitive measurement techniques have allowed us to determine that most stars have planets, rather than perhaps just our own. That has caused a massive change to the Fp (fraction of stars with planets) coefficient of the Drake equation. If I remember that protein lecture correctly, our understanding of the initial steps to create life is still so incomplete as to allow for surprises like a 7000 fold increases in the likelihood of some required step occurring in nature.

A presumption that evolution is wrong because our understanding of chemistry and biology makes it so unlikely as to be impossible is vulnerable to incomplete understandings of chemistry and biology.

Like you, I don't see the Royal Society wanting to throw out the baby with the bathwater. The scientific community has suspected errors and omissions in Darwin's theories for quite some time.

The road trip to a better, more comprehensive theory will contain the usual in-car bickering and back seat driving of any large family, but the introduction of "design touches" here and there would, I think, ultimately be unwound as it has so many times before. To me those "design touches" feel like admissions of the creator's weakness. Any creator capable of making the sort of universe we inhabit should, I hope, be intelligent enough to get it right from scratch. Stepping in along the way to nudge or tweak suggests a set of initial conditions and rules that weren't well thought out. That's my expertise, I don't need competition.

;-).

[Nalates Urriah]

17 hours ago, RunawayBunny said:

In Islam they believe Isa (Jesus) they also believe their holy book (Bibble) god's message, but they say it is changed and corrupted..

Ironic.. it says that Islam also changed and shifted many directions.

Islam is interesting. Islam's Isa and Christianity's Y'shua are very different at foundation level ideas.

They say The Pentateuch/Torah, Psalms, and the Gospels are Allah's words given to the people of the Book. Sura 6, verse 115 says Allah's words cannot be changed. But, since the Quran and Gospels completely disagree about Jesus death they claim the Christians corrupted the Book and some accept the idea since Allah never said he would protect the 'written' words forever the Pentateuch/Torah, Psalms, and the Gospels were altered. However, they don't apply the same standard to the Quran.

If one accepts those interpretations, the the question arises of when the bible was changed. We have bible manuscripts dating back to about 250 BC for the Torah. The New Testament manuscripts of the Gospels that survived date to about 150 to 250 CE. We can push those dates into the first century if we include quotes of the Gospels by others in their writing.

Mohamed lived around 600 CE. I would assume they had not changed in Mohamed's day as he makes no mention of the corruption.

One can show the writings of bible scripture have not changed from the oldest known writings to today.  So, we have an evidentiary problem.

Whatever the case, the Quran and Bible cannot be made to agree and while both of those religions may be false only one or the other could be true. And the disagreement between the two is at core belief level.

I am interested in where you got the idea Muslims think the Quran has changed. But this should go to PM or another thread.

[Alwin Alcott]

4 minutes ago, Nalates Urriah said:

One can show the writings of bible scripture have not changed from the oldest known writings to today. 

 

this is simply not true, we have loads of scrolls, fragments and other sources that are showing changes, innocent writing mistakes and alterings for political/theological reasons.
Around 1707 Mills found already around 30.000 differences in the, than known, sources, modern investigation and studies estimate that in all known sourses ...there are about 400.000 (!)
Not all have a important impact, but there are for sure quite a few passages in the current used Bibles that are not accurate.

(source B. Ehrman )
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misquoting_Jesus
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bart_D._Ehrman

[Rowan Amore]

6 minutes ago, Alwin Alcott said:

this is simply not true, we have loads of scrolls, fragments and other sources that are showing changes, innocent writing mistakes and alterings for political/theological reasons.
Around 1707 Mills found already around 30.000 differences in the, than known, sources, modern investigation and studies estimate that in all known sourses ...there are about 400.000 (!)
Not all have a important impact, but there are for sure quite a few passages in the current used Bibles that are not accurate.

(source B. Ehrman )
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misquoting_Jesus
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bart_D._Ehrman

This part was particularly interesting and I suspected that from a young age.

 Ehrman concludes that various early scribes altered the New Testament texts in order to de-emphasize the role of women in the early church

[Luna Bliss]

[Luna Bliss]

11 hours ago, Ceka Cianci said:

So, if you witnessed lets say, a car accident and seen who hit who.. You wouldn't be set in your mind on what happened?

https://www.ncsc.org/trends/monthly-trends-articles/2017/the-trouble-with-eyewitness-identification-testimony-in-criminal-cases

https://www.jkphoenixpersonalinjuryattorney.com/science-says-eyewitness-memory-car-accident/

[Alwin Alcott]

4 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

Ehrman concludes that various early scribes altered the New Testament texts in order to de-emphasize the role of women in the early church

not only there, also the "mistaken" role of the woman that most know : Maria Magdalene
pope Gregorius 1 (591 AD)teached she was the same as the unnamed sinful woman mentioned in the gospel.
It took till 1969 to change that and till 2016 for the full rehabilitation.
 

[Rowan Amore]

8 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

Precisely why I can not take the bible as the word of any god.  Men, under the guise of being inspired by god, using the bible as just another way to lessen women's standing in the world.  

[Nalates Urriah]

33 minutes ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

I skimmed the information theory article and was reminded of a lecture I can't now find. I'm probably remembering it wrong, but I recall the lecture being about the improbability of functional proteins arising from random chemical processes. There were a whole bunch of assumptions made by someone (the presenter might have been discussing Dembski from your linked article) about many factors in that probability, which was built up something like Drake's equation for estimating the probability of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe.

Drake's equation is a major detriment to scientific thought. If all the guesses and assumed numbers are taken out... there is no equation. It is simply his unfounded guess based on unsubstantiated guesses. So far we have no evidence it is even a good guess. But that is arguing opinion.

Quote

There were presumptions about energy and entropy that the presenter questioned, along with availability of suitable chemicals in the "soup". I think, off the top of his head, he was able to cut the exponent of the claimed improbability dramatically by discounting refuted presumptions in the probability model. Still, the improbability was daunting. Yet the presumption remains that it happened because we're here to both observe and be, the result.

Douglas Axe spent 12 (?) years researching the probability of protein formation based on experimental data. He covers the results in his book Undeniable. While he pushes Intelligent Design I can't find the flaws in his testing methodology and so far I haven't found another microbiologist that can refute his work. The odds against spontaneous useful protein formation are phenomenal.

The presumption it happened is a great example of begging the question rather than logically examining it. People seem to miss the idea the question is how did it happen? They go with, it happened therefore this must be the answer. Not proof.

Quote

A presumption that evolution is wrong because our understanding of chemistry and biology makes it so unlikely as to be impossible is vulnerable to incomplete understandings of chemistry and biology.

...ummm.... yeah. Presumptions are problems. It has been interesting how many people in this thread have totally missed the point and then argued with me about the point of what I was saying.

The Royal Society of London has moved on from Darwin's hypothesis and is thinking of new explanations for how life evolved. That I say that triggers people. I attribute that trigger to the mental conditioning people are being subjected to as I have no other explanation for why seemingly reasonable and well educated people would hide from evidence and and rave on and make personal attacks.

You and only a couple of others have been sane and added to the conversation.

Quote

The road trip to a better, more comprehensive theory will contain the usual in-car bickering and back seat driving of any large family, but the introduction of "design touches" here and there would, I think, ultimately be unwound as it has so many times before. To me those "design touches" feel like admissions of the creator's weakness. Any creator capable of making the sort of universe we inhabit should, I hope, be intelligent enough to get it right from scratch. Stepping in along the way to nudge or tweak suggests a set of initial conditions and rules that weren't well thought out. That's my expertise, I don't need competition.

Yeah... that is pretty much the point... we know way more than Darwin so we should have a way better hypothesis.

 

[Nalates Urriah]

24 minutes ago, Alwin Alcott said:

this is simply not true, we have loads of scrolls, fragments and other sources that are showing changes, innocent writing mistakes and alterings for political/theological reasons.
Around 1707 Mills found already around 30.000 differences in the, than known, sources, modern investigation and studies estimate that in all known sourses ...there are about 400.000 (!)
Not all have a important impact, but there are for sure quite a few passages in the current used Bibles that are not accurate.

(source B. Ehrman )
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misquoting_Jesus
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bart_D._Ehrman

😅 You're funny. You added "...alterings for political/theological reasons..." I don't recall Ehrman saying that the 400k variations he found were for political or theological reasons. I may misremember, point me to the quote if I did.

Pick one of the changes and start a new thread.

In that thread you should define your idea of change. Then note what Ehrman considers a change.

You may also want to read near the end of his book where Ehrman writes,

Quote

To be sure, of all the hundreds of thousands of textual changes found among our manuscripts, most of them are completely insignificant, immaterial, of no real importance for anything other than showing that scribes could not spell or keep focused any better than the rest of us.

😆

[Nalates Urriah]

4 hours ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

This sourced website is going to be far more productive than anything any of us are going to say here:

https://www.sciencemeetsreligion.org/evolution/

I have now read a good portion of the material you linked to. They are arguing opinion. Lots of interesting thinking. Nothing to define objective answers.

[Theresa Tennyson]

23 minutes ago, Nalates Urriah said:

 I have no other explanation for why seemingly reasonable and well educated people would hide from evidence and and rave on and make personal attacks

 

Do you have an explanation as to why people would hold themselves up as unbiased when both they and their sources show a strong tendency to want to temper their findings to suit a pre-existing and non-scientifically-derived worldview?

[Madelaine McMasters]

22 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

https://www.ncsc.org/trends/monthly-trends-articles/2017/the-trouble-with-eyewitness-identification-testimony-in-criminal-cases

https://www.jkphoenixpersonalinjuryattorney.com/science-says-eyewitness-memory-car-accident/

A couple years later, we had a little exchange over this...

 

[Alwin Alcott]

1 hour ago, Nalates Urriah said:

To be sure, of all the hundreds of thousands of textual changes found among our manuscripts, most of them are completely insignificant, immaterial, of no real importance for anything other than showing that scribes could not spell or keep focused any better than the rest of us.

 

1 hour ago, Nalates Urriah said:

I don't recall Ehrman saying that the 400k variations he found were for political or theological reasons. I may misremember, point me to the quote if I did.

 

1 hour ago, Alwin Alcott said:

 innocent writing mistakes and alterings for political/theological reasons.
Around 1707 Mills found already around 30.000 differences in the, than known, sources, modern investigation and studies estimate that in all known sourses ...there are about 400.000 (!)
Not all have a important impact, but there are for sure quite a few passages in the current used Bibles that are not accurate.

 

i nowhere said those numbers were all political/theological changes.
Still fact is you were wrong with your unchanged statement for the Bible, so i suggest you come with proof the sources exactly tell what you stated.
And please don't come with the TR (Textus Receptus) what is partly a late medieval re tranlation of a poor latin version. Which isn't a real surprise, people in that time simply didn't háve the better sources as we recovered in the last 200/300 years. In special the Dead Sea scrolls and the Nag Hamadi gaver surprising results. For the good order; my statements are mainly about the New Testament. We'r blessed with pretty accurate versions from the first half of the big book.

Edited March 14, 2021 by Alwin Alcott

[Arielle Popstar]

1 hour ago, Luna Bliss said:

And yet that verse stands in contrast to women leaders and teachers in both the old and new testaments. There is both a translation difficulty as well as contextual pointers that in this particular instance were directed at specific women within that church and was not to be used as a rule for all women everywhere.:

Paul is addressing specific issues with specific women in a specific community. His restriction of their teaching cannot be viewed as a universal command without contradicting his comments regarding women both in close context as well as in other books in the New Testament, as David Freedman notes:

The “occasional” nature of Paul’s letters must be taken into consideration when evaluating such difficult texts as 1 Cor 14:34–35, or its parallel in 1 Tim 2:8–15. In both cases, Paul and/or the Paulinist who wrote these verses is dealing with problems in the Pauline communities. The rulings given apply to specific problems of women disrupting the worship service, or usurping authority over others. In both cases, the abuses are being ruled out, but this does not foreclose the issue of whether or not women who did not abuse their privileges might speak or exercise authority if it was done in a proper and orderly manner. . . . In fact, in view of the evidence that various women were Paul’s co-workers in the Gospel ministry it is unlikely that these texts were ever intended to do more than rule out certain abuses. Link

 

[Rowan Amore]

2 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

And yet that verse stands in contrast to women leaders and teachers in both the old and new testaments. There is both a translation difficulty as well as contextual pointers that in this particular instance were directed at specific women within that church and was not to be used as a rule for all women everywhere.:

Paul is addressing specific issues with specific women in a specific community. His restriction of their teaching cannot be viewed as a universal command without contradicting his comments regarding women both in close context as well as in other books in the New Testament, as David Freedman notes:

The “occasional” nature of Paul’s letters must be taken into consideration when evaluating such difficult texts as 1 Cor 14:34–35, or its parallel in 1 Tim 2:8–15. In both cases, Paul and/or the Paulinist who wrote these verses is dealing with problems in the Pauline communities. The rulings given apply to specific problems of women disrupting the worship service, or usurping authority over others. In both cases, the abuses are being ruled out, but this does not foreclose the issue of whether or not women who did not abuse their privileges might speak or exercise authority if it was done in a proper and orderly manner. . . . In fact, in view of the evidence that various women were Paul’s co-workers in the Gospel ministry it is unlikely that these texts were ever intended to do more than rule out certain abuses. Link

 

The point being that bible thumpers often pull crap like this out of the Bible to prove some ridiculous point.  I've also seen them find passages denouncing homosexuals.  People interpret the bible to fit their agenda claiming "it's in the Bible!  It's the word of god!".  Hogwash, I say!!!

[FairreLilette]

16 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

And yet that verse stands in contrast to women leaders and teachers in both the old and new testaments. 

This is one of the problems I have with the Bible - it contradicts itself, as well as things taken as scriptures which are not a scripture they are a lineage or a poem for some examples.  Or, as Luna eluded to, a parable.  Prophesy also.  The OT was included to show it's prophecies not be sola scriptura, imo.  As well as what Rowan is saying "to manipulate" others.  Not to mention while being sinning hypocrites themselves.  The Popes and priests used to be in the brothels among other things.  Babies aborted and buried in the churchyard.   And, they want tithe when Jesus is a free gift from God.  

Edited March 14, 2021 by FairreLilette

[Arielle Popstar]

16 hours ago, Drayke Newall said:

You say the Bible is inspired. If that is the case so is the Sumerian texts of which predate the bible and are near identical between the Gilgamesh Epic and early Torah books.

History books and texts are not inspired simply because they happen to mention real people and/or gods but because they have the ability to change people's lives. The Bible for example has the verse:

12For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it pierces even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It judges the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

The Sumerian texts are not known to inspire people to better behaviour. Gilgamesh in fact is actually nimrod mentioned in the Bible and is considered a rebel and tyrant. There is also the Book of Jasher that parallels the bible and is considered a secular history of the Israelites. It isn't inspired either though it mentions God.

 

[roseelvira]

Timothy was not one of the original 12 apostles.  Note  the first person Jesus appeared to was Mary Magdalen after  he rose from the dead 

{ The  timothy 2:12 vs  was a personal  view on. a situation  from the writer  of that verse ,,, the writers opinion }

 NOTE  Jesus made it very clear women  are  to be held  as high as the  men  and respected   loved valued and cherished .  His first miracle was done  for Mary his mother,  etc  when they were going to stone a woman and Jesus began to write the   sins of the  men  who wanted to stone  the   woman   in the sand  shaming the men      then Jesus  said  if any of you are  without fault or sin  then you throw the first stone  as he continued to write the sins of the men who   wanted to stone  the woman  ..... the men  were  embarrassed   and  left .     Jesus saying to the woman  now where are the men  who want to condemn  you ,,,, no one here  so go ,,,

 

 

Edited March 14, 2021 by roseelvira
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