Jack the Bodiless

Yes, it does. You obviously need to read more about evolutionary psychology. There is no reason to assume that evolution always produces perfection. It works with whatever those random mutations throw up. Humans may have somewhat skewed priorities at times, but all the impulses you mention are explainable by evolution. Both "good" and "bad" impulses can, under the right conditions, improve their owner's chance of success in life. Especially the urge to make money: if you could ask those folks if they seriously intended never again to enjoy the company of women, I'm sure they'd laugh at you. What do you think they wanted to DO with all that gold?

aberdeen

Apparently you haven't studied much history (or science). Here is what the Britannica says (I notice you provided no evidence for your claim that evolutionary theory explains evil--I've read E.O. White as well, who rationally explains absolutely nothing)

"Ethology, the study of behavior, has yet to find the evolutionary basis for man's aberrant conduct that allows him to kill members of his own species wholesale, which other species do not." --From Encyclopedia Britannica; "The Theory Of Evolution".

Here is what Cortez said: "We Spanish suffer from a disease of the heart which only gold can cure."

Here is what Sonny Barger said: "I've learned the hard way that to understand my heart is to understand the evil that lurks inside."

I feel sorry for people who assume the difficult task of explaining World War II Jews burning in ovens and the crucifixion of Jesus by survival of the fittest rationale--that is truly a hard road to travel if there ever was one.

lpetrich

aberdeen:
(quote)Science is self-correcting.

Science is so self-correcting that after several thousand years of science, scientists are still designing nuclear bombs. After 5,000 years of education, many educated people are still committing rape, murder and running airplanes into buildings. Yeah, science is a real example of self-correction.

And what is that supposed to prove?

I think you ought to marvel at how we got the ability to create nuclear bombs, airplanes, and tall buildings. What religion had ever come up with such abilities? Why has faith healing utterly failed to put the medical profession out of work? To name just one example.

aberdeen

As I noted in my book in article below, I am certain that the 200,000 or so dead and equal number or more maimed by the atomic bombs dropped on Japan are truly grateful for the marvels of modern science. As Dirty Harry might say, "Marvelous". I suppose we don't need any Human Rights as long as we have scientists such as yourself to marvel about.

QUESTIONS FOR GOD:
http://richardaberdeen.com/uncommons...onsforgod.html

Doctor X

Not that anyone is reading:

Methinks you do not know what the work "scholar" means.

Incidentally, that you can find fools does not render credibility unto you opinions.

Interlude

I will also take this moment to properly condemn [Splitting infinitives.--Ed.] the practice of trying to create truth by fiat. This is sort of a child's ipse dixit--if I can sneak in a statement, maybe people will think it is a fact . . . maybe they will not notice.

This practice is dangerous since it leads to more fallacies, peace without honor, and Congordian Wandering Body Rot.

In some cases . . . it leads to a love of country-western music . . . by that time one can only shoot the victim out of mercy.

There is no point on a debate/discussion board to engage in this practice.

--J.D.

Jack the Bodiless

Ethology is a "work in progress": it has problems, yes, but they relate to why some people follow some impulses while others follow different impulses.

However, none of this is relevant to the FACT that evolution HAPPENS: that evolution is REAL. The Bible doesn't explain the popularity of Britney Spears, therefore the Bible is false?

Evolution is the inevitable consequence of random mutation and natural selection. Given these, it WILL happen. These exist, therefore evolution DOES happen.

From your earlier post:
What part of "cosmic-ray induced mutations have nothing to do with natural selection" did you fail to understand?

Cosmic-ray induced mutations may or may not be relevant to EVOLUTION: IIRC, most scientists believe that radiation from natural radioisotopes is more important.

But, even if we correct your absurd claim that NATURAL SELECTION doesn't happen, we're left with an equally absurd claim that RANDOM MUTATIONS do not happen. Perhaps you could clarify your position on this? Which of these staements represents your position:

1. Natural radioactivity does not exist: hence, all manufacturers of Geiger counters are professional fraudsters.

2. Radioactivity exists, but does not affect living creatures at all. All claims to the contrary are fabrications made by people opposed to nuclear power because they secretly have shares in coal mines or hydroelectric plants.

3. Radioactivity exists, but it affects DNA in a non-random fashion under the direct guidance of God. May we assume that God rigs all other "random" occurrences too?

Considering all you've said about "evidence": you DO actually have some EVIDENCE that non-random mutations are happening, right?
You've never heard of microbes? You didn't know that they evolve too, and at a faster rate than WE do?
Yes, what causes natural selection is frequently observable. You're now arguing that a biologist wouldn't be able to see the difference between a normal cheetah and a legless one?
Evolution is fact, whereas the Bible is fiction. Your personal preferences (or mine) do not determine what is, or is not, reality.
It's much easier to explain the Holocaust via Christianity, because Christianity caused it. Hitler was a Christian who believed he was "doing the Lord's work" (his own words). German Christians blamed Jews for the death of Jesus: they also believe that the Jews went straight from the ovens of the death camps to the eternal fires of Hell.

aberdeen

Let me rephrase...

I feel sorry for people who equate Jesus with Christianity, as if that mess is somehow his fault. I also feel sorry for anyone who thinks observing a monkey with four legs is somehow proof of anything. When we are talking about proof, we are talking about proof of fundamental cause, not of results, such as two legs or three or four legs or the existence of bacterium--these are all results of an unseen process, not proof of the process.

There is no proof that Natural Selection is the fundamental cause of observable changes. I don't particularly care whether or not the claimed processes of Natural Selection are correct or incorrect. If one wants to claim that the Designer has created a process we call Natural Selection that brings species into being, I have no quarral with that, although the evidence remains shakey at best. My quarrel is with the baboons of science who try to pretend that everything happens "naturally" all by itself (as if that would be natural) apart from the input of the Grand Designer. That was, is and will remain complete monkey science devoid of any empirical or other evidence, as well entirely devoid of logical, common horse or monkey sense or any other rational of the grand whatever.

This is my last comment today, as I am busy with other things.

Jack the Bodiless

It's really very simple.

We have an apparent "problem": the existence of complex organisms. And we have a solution to that problem: evolution.

We know that evolution happens.

Is it the ONLY thing that's happening? Is there another X-factor at work? We cannot tell.

But, given that evolution is happening, the claim that something else is ALSO happening is an unsupported claim that requires EVIDENCE.

So far, evolution appears to be sufficient. In fact, it appears to be MORE than sufficient: when we compare the genetic similarity of humans and chimps with the current rate of mutation, we see that they could have diverged rather more recently than the fossils suggest that they did.

Tom Sawyer

aberdeen,

Although we have not been around for millions of years to see the evolution of our species happen, we know the processes that cause it to happen and we've seen them at work.

Whether it's studying bacteria in the lab, breeding race horses, planting crops or fighting diseases we use these processes to our advantage to obtain the results we desire. Although this is artificial, it works because we are manipulating processes that are already present naturally. If race horses that run fast did not pass the qualities, whatever they may be, that make them run fast onto their offspring then there would be no money is putting champion race horses out to stud, because there'd be no reason to assume that their children would run fast as well. Since there is a greater chance that they will, we are able to use this process to our advantage and breed other fast horses. The same idea applies to planting certain crops to increase a field's yield, because of this natural tendency of organisms to pass their traits onto their offspring, certain strains of wheat will produce more food per acre than other forms of wheat.

This is because organisms pass a copy of their DNA onto their offspring. This is not a perfect process. If Microsoft produces one million copies of Windows XP, there is a chance that some of the CDs would have a copying error. Sometimes this error is major and will cause the CD not to work; sometimes it is minor and will cause the background to be green instead of blue. These CDs are then sold throughout the country. Those who get a CD that doesn't work will throw it out and it will never be copied. Those that get a working CD can then copy those CDs and give them to their friends or sell them at a discount. The person who gets the CD with the green background can copy and sell it just as easily as the people who have the CD with the normal background. If people like Windows with a green background, then he will distribute more copies of it. The people who get it will now all have a working copy of Windows with a green background and can in turn make copies of it to distribute to their friends. some of these copies will, for whatever reason, not copy perfectly and the process begins again.

It is the same for living things. If a certain species has one million offspring, there is a chance that the DNA copying to the next generation will have a copying error. Sometimes this error will mean that the offspring is not viable and will either die or be sterile, so it will never pass it's altered DNA onto a new generation. Sometimes it will still be a viable entity and will be able to pass the altered DNA onto a new generation and the process will begin again. If the changes brought about by the new DNA give it some sort of advantage over other creatures, the new creatures will prosper. After numerous generations, some entities will have their DNA altered to a point where they will not be recognizable as the original entity that they derived from.

That's all that evolution is. We know how it works and we've seen the results of it's work. The evidence that it occurs is enormous and there is no (credible) evidence that it does not occur.

However, a common point that is made is that just as we can manipulate this process to breed faster race horses or better crops, how do we know that no one else has manipulated this process to create better species, namely us? The answer is that we don't. The series of changes that resulted in us could have either come from totally natural processes or through outside help from some agency (usually defined as God by people in our culture). The reason that scientists generally discount the actions of an outside agency in the process (called Intelligent Design) is because there is nothing to suggest that this outside agency exists. The process works perfectly well without the inclusion of this agency, so it is not needed for the process. That means that we have a process that works without intervention and nothing to suggest that this intervention occurs. From a scientific standpoint we have to assume therefore, that there is no interference in this process from any outside agency. If additional information comes to light which shows that our evolutionary history had a point at which there was interference from some non-natural force, then we would be forced to conclude that human evolution did not happen purely due to natural selection, no matter how many times we've felt intellectually superior by arguing that it did. Since no such evidence has yet come to light, it is a perfectly reasonable conclusion that no agency has ever interfered in the process.

There are gaps in our knowledge of evolution where we don't know what occured or why. There have been other gaps in the past which have since been explained through natural processes. That being the case, it is reasonable to assume that the current gaps in our knowledge can also be explained through natural processes. It's possible that some of them cannot and can only be explained through the actions of an outside entity. Until evidence to that effect comes to light, however, it is reasonable to discount it as a cause, which most people here do.

DMB

This is an odd list. Yes, science has brought us healthy drinking water. For centuries, people died from water-borne diseases. It's only within about the past 150 years that science has led to an understanding of how such diseases are spread and how to purify water to render it safe, to say nothing of effective treatments for many of these diseases.

Scientists are warning of the dangers of global warming. It's those like G.W. Bush's friends who might have to clean up their acts if effective measures were taken, who resist the whole idea.

Human beings have made other species go extinct for a long time. Our huge population growth has destroyed the habitat of many species over the past 100 years. How is this the fault of scientists? Let me guess -- they shouldn't have purified water or cured diseases; then he population would be lower.

If we accept the dietary stuff in Leviticus as an attempt on the part of the putative creator to get the Jews to eat healthily, why did this same creator give men foreskins and then want them cut off soon after birth? If it's a health thing, why not create male humans without foreskins in the first place?