New film tackles evidence for evolution

[Selaphiel]

The problem is that once you believe that there is such a thing as objective reality and that there are such things objective truths, then you posited a metaphysical claim (namely that the correspondence theory of truth is an adequate test for truth).

Now the question becomes, which worldview can adequately appropriate and support such a belief? It is a matter of who has the best explanation, not who can prove it objectively.

AMR

Affirming Creationism over a scientific worldview is however not a solution to this. That would be postulating an absurd descriptive account of biological diversity and cosmological origins. To say that we need a metaphysics that supports the possibility of objective truths and then to affirm Creationism seems to me to be a self-contradiction, because your solution would undermine the possibility of knowing objective truths because Creationism is a critique of the scientific description of the world based on revelation.

There are of course a wide variety of philosophies that include a correspondence theory of truth. It is not as if the choices are atheism versus Creationism or even atheism versus Christianity. The same goes for morality:

If morality exists, it must have an objective standard.

Evolution cannot produce such a standard.

Who on earth claims that the theory of evolution is even supposed to produce such a standard? The theory of evolution is a scientific theory that seeks to explain the mechanisms behind the diversification of life. It says nothing about the existence of a reality that can ground objective morality. You might as well attack the germ theory of disease or the theory of electromagnetism for not producing such a standard. It is a metaphysical question, not a scientific one.

The solution is to include the theory of evolution, as well as other well established scientific theories, into our metaphysical speculations. That way we can try to provide rationally coherent systems that accounts for both mankinds experience of a moral dimension as well as well as the fact that mankind is a part of the biological continuum as described by the theory of evolution.

 

[Stripe]

What can be asserted without evidence can be denied without evidence. I merely rejected your naked assertion.

So you think there is no morality.

Gotcha.

I don't know, Stripe. I'm just pointing out that no such claim to absolute exclusivity isn't a part of evolutionary theory. For instance, evolution doesn't, by itself, explain the genesis of life, as far as we've been able to figure out.

So perhaps you need to be seeking the truth instead of seeking to defend evolutionism. :up:

You are arguing that something can be called objective, despite the fact that it can't be demonstrated by any objective means, and the fact that there is substantial disagreement about what it entails, and no obvious way to decide that some group of people are more right about it than others. That sounds pretty subjective to me. It's at least functionally subjective.

That's a pretty lame argument. Was it an argument against what I said, or are you just looking for stuff to say?

You may not like subjectivity in moral discussions, but you can't just discard it without reasoning, especially when presenting and discussing other people's ideas.

I did no such thing. :idunno:

If you have an idea of what would be morally appropriate in a certain setting, we can discuss that. However, you've leaped well away from the subject matter.

Evolution is the only game in two when it comes to how life develops. That it cannot account for morality is reason to reject that evolution is responsible for the diversity of life we see.

Love isn't an objective reality.

Really?

You think love is not real?

Sad.

How about logic? What physical test would you posit to show that logic exists?

You could look at the physiological symptoms of love. You could develop some technology to read and interpret brain states. You might even infer that they are likely in love. But you can't experience someone else's being in love.

Therefore it doesn't exist? :AMR:

Affirming Creationism over a scientific worldview is however not a solution to this.

Creationism is a scientific worldview, you question-begging moron.

To say that we need a metaphysics that supports the possibility of objective truths and then to affirm Creationism seems to me to be a self-contradiction, because your solution would undermine the possibility of knowing objective truths because Creationism is a critique of the scientific description of the world based on revelation.

English, dude. English. :up:

There are of course a wide variety of philosophies that include a correspondence theory of truth. It is not as if the choices are atheism versus Creationism or even atheism versus Christianity. The same goes for morality:

And some people believe people are descended from aliens. Next time you want to go :blabla:, try and make it about something relevant.

Who on earth claims that the theory of evolution is even supposed to produce such a standard?

Evolutionists: Unable to follow a conversation since 1886.

I did, you moron. If evolution cannot account for morality, it has failed as an account of the development of life.

The theory of evolution is a ... theory that seeks to explain the mechanisms behind the diversification of life. It says nothing about the existence of a reality that can ground objective morality.

Thanks for making my point. :up:

Evolutionists think they can just sweep reality under the carpet when it comes to challenges to their precious theory. Abiogenesis: "Oh, that's not evolution." Morality: "Oh, evolution doesn't go there."

You might as well attack the germ theory of disease or the theory of electromagnetism for not producing such a standard.

However, we didn't do that. Try and deal with what has been said instead of what you wish had been said.

It is a metaphysical question, not a scientific one.

Nope. Not if you want evolution to be the source of all life's diversity. If you want to claim evolution, you have to account for reality. If you want to compartmentalize, you have no credibility.

There are a few rational options open to you:
1. Admit there is more to the diversity of life that evolution can account for,
2. Deny that morality exists, or
3. Reject evolution as it cannot account for reality.

Choose well.

The solution is to include the theory of evolution, as well as other well established scientific theories, into our metaphysical speculations. That way we can try to provide rationally coherent systems that accounts for both mankinds experience of a moral dimension as well as well as the fact that mankind is a part of the biological continuum as described by the theory of evolution.

So, what scientific test do you propose to show the existence of morality?

 

[kmoney]

Spot on. :thumb:

If morality exists, it must have an objective standard.

Evolution cannot produce such a standard.

Therefore, if evolution is claimed as the only source of the development of life, the claim is falsified by the existence of morality (not to mention all the numerous other non-physical realities).

What is your definition of morality?

 

[The Barbarian]

Evolution is the only game in two when it comes to how life develops.

Wrong. There are scores or maybe hundreds of religious doctrines that all differ on that. Evolution is the only one that is based on scientific evidence.

That it cannot account for morality is reason to reject that evolution is responsible for the diversity of life we see.

That sounds stupendously stupid, Stipe. So if chemistry can't account for morality, we need to reject atoms? You can't really be that dumb, can you?

What's wrong with the Christian take on it? God uses nature to make our bodies, but gives us our souls directly.

Won't you even think about that? It would solve a lot of problems for you.

Creationism is a scientific worldview, you question-begging moron.

C'mon, Stipe, even many honest creationists admit the evidence supports evolution, but regard their interpretation of Genesis as overriding that. Would you like to learn why?

Evolutionists think they can just sweep reality under the carpet when it comes to challenges to their precious theory. Abiogenesis: "Oh, that's not evolution." Morality: "Oh, evolution doesn't go there."

In science, theories are responsible for the claims they make. You might as well whine about chemistry not explaining the origin of matter. Evolution is indifferent to the way life began. Darwin, for example, suggested that maybe God just created the first living things.

I noticed, BTW, that you failed to step up and tell us what you though was the most convincing argument in that silly video. I think everyone knows why.

 

[Lighthouse]

Another crackpot video "proving" God is wrong.

:AMR:

 

[rexlunae]

So you think there is no morality.

No, I think that there is nothing meeting your definition. And you've been able to do nothing to demonstrate it so far. AMR actually suggested an approach that you could use, if you were so inclined.

 

[glorydaz]

Affirming Creationism over a scientific worldview is however not a solution to this. That would be postulating an absurd descriptive account of biological diversity and cosmological origins. To say that we need a metaphysics that supports the possibility of objective truths and then to affirm Creationism seems to me to be a self-contradiction, because your solution would undermine the possibility of knowing objective truths because Creationism is a critique of the scientific description of the world based on revelation.

There are of course a wide variety of philosophies that include a correspondence theory of truth. It is not as if the choices are atheism versus Creationism or even atheism versus Christianity. The same goes for morality:



Who on earth claims that the theory of evolution is even supposed to produce such a standard? The theory of evolution is a scientific theory that seeks to explain the mechanisms behind the diversification of life. It says nothing about the existence of a reality that can ground objective morality. You might as well attack the germ theory of disease or the theory of electromagnetism for not producing such a standard. It is a metaphysical question, not a scientific one.

The solution is to include the theory of evolution, as well as other well established scientific theories, into our metaphysical speculations. That way we can try to provide rationally coherent systems that accounts for both mankinds experience of a moral dimension as well as well as the fact that mankind is a part of the biological continuum as described by the theory of evolution.

Theories are all well and good, but when I look out the window I see substance and evidence. Pigs producing pigs and rose bushes producing roses. :think:

Gen. 1:11-12
And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

Gen. 1:21-23
And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.

Gen. 1:24-25
And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

Gen. 1:26-28
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.​

 

[Stripe]

What is your definition of morality?

I think what I have said already outlines it pretty clearly.

I think that there is nothing meeting your definition.

That is because you reject my definition without reason.

Begging the question is no way to conduct a rational conversation. What you have to do is acknowledge the way I understand the world and show how it might not be the case.

Defining the challenge out of existence will not cut it.

And you've been able to do nothing to demonstrate it so far.

Again with the impossible demands. That morality exists cannot be demonstrated by some physical test.

AMR actually suggested an approach that you could use, if you were so inclined.

Which just shows you have paid no attention at all to what I said.

AMR has said only a couple of things, both of which directly echo what I presented.

The question is: Which worldview can adequately support the existence of morality? It is a matter of who has the best explanation, not who can prove it objectively.

Given that you reject the existence of morality, it is difficult to see what relevance you have in this debate.

 

[resurrected]

:AMR:

another couple posts and maybe he'll get hisself banned for another year

 

[musterion]

I've seen some good anti-evolution films (most of them, actually) but for a sheer right-between-the-eyes eye opener, nothing tops the one done on polonium halos in granite. A bit on the dry side but stunning in its simplicity. Still has not been refuted.

 

[The Barbarian]

Theories are all well and good, but when I look out the window I see substance and evidence. Pigs producing pigs and rose bushes producing roses.

And the occasional speciation, which most creationists have now admitted happen.

Rather pronounced crack in the foundation.

 

[The Barbarian]

I've seen some good anti-evolution films (most of them, actually) but for a sheer right-between-the-eyes eye opener, nothing tops the one done on polonium halos in granite.

Most creationists have stopped using that one; once it became clear that the granite they took the halos from, was exposed to radiation from elements in the surrounding rock, and that the supposed primordial rock was demonstrably intrusive, formed in faults of sedimentary rock that would have to be older, the story fell apart.

Another PRATT, which comes up from time to time, but is easily dismissed by summarizing the evidence.

In Gentry's model, any rock looking vaguely like a granite and carrying the label Precambrian is considered to be a "primordial" rock. True granites are themselves evidence of significant crustal recycling and elemental differentiation (see for example, Taylor and McLennan, 1996), and cannot be considered primordial. A little detective work by Wakefield (1988) showed that at least one set of rock samples studied by Gentry are not from granites at all, but were taken from a variety of younger Precambrian metamorphic rocks and pegmatite veins in the region around Bancroft, Ontario. Some of these rock units cut or overlie older, sedimentary and even fossil-bearing rocks.

Gentry provides no explanation for how polonium alone finds its way into biotite and fluorite, or why radiation damage haloes in these minerals are common in areas of known uranium enrichment, but rare where uranium abundance is low. Gentry's hypothesis would seem to suggest that there should be a uniform distribution of all polonium isotopes in primordial rocks, or at least no particular spatial association with uranium. Gentry (1974), himself, notes that haloes have not been found in meteorites or lunar samples, rocks known to be very low in uranium abundance. Lorence Collins (1997) has noted these and several other contradictory situations between the polonium halo hypothesis and observed geological relationships in the field...Perhaps the most damaging challenge to Gentry's hypothesis comes not from what has been observed, but from what is missing. Of the three major, naturally occurring radioactive elements, uranium, thorium, and potassium, two - uranium and thorium - are marked by decay series involving alpha particle emissions. Gentry's polonium haloes are attributed to alpha particle decay of the polonium isotopes Po-210, Po-214, and Po-218, all part of the uranium-238 decay chain. Thorium-232 decays to stable Lead-208 through a series of steps which include two additional polonium isotopes, Po-212 and Po-216. Thorium has an elemental abundance between three and four times that of uranium in the Earth's crust. Also, in areas of uranium enrichment, such as those from which Gentry's halo samples apparently have come, thorium is also enriched. These thorium decay series polonium isotopes have alpha decay energies well within the range documented for uranium-series polonium decay. Thus, polonium isotopes which result from the decay of naturally occurring thorium-232 should also produce characteristic haloes. In fact, according to Gentry's model, all polonium isotopes should be represented equally. However as Collins (1997) points out, Gentry has identified only halos for those isotopes of polonium associated with the decay of uranium-238; halos attributable to polonium-212 and polonium-216 are not found. Additionally, haloes attributable to the two polonium isotopes in the decay series of uranium-235 (Po-211 and Po-215) are also missing. Uranium-235 currently comprises 0.71% of naturally occurring uranium (uranium-238 makes up 99.3%); 3 billion yeas ago, uranium-235 accounted for greater than 3% of natural uranium isotopes.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/po-halos/gentry.html

The notion that igneous rock overlaying fossil-bearing rock could be "primordial" is hilariously wrong. An then there is the problem of the missing isotopes which would have to be there if Gentry's theory is correct. No one seems to have come up with a way to make this one work.

 

[musterion]

Most creationists have stopped using that one

Names.

once it became clear that the granite they took the halos from, was exposed to radiation from elements in the surrounding rock,

The radiation that caused the halos found in solid rock came from outside the rock when it was still fluid, instead of from within it?

You really don't see your problem there?

 

[Stripe]

I've seen some good anti-evolution films (most of them, actually) but for a sheer right-between-the-eyes eye opener, nothing tops the one done on polonium halos in granite. A bit on the dry side but stunning in its simplicity. Still has not been refuted.

Gentry’s explanation has four problems. First, to form a distinct 218Po halo, about a billion 218Po atoms concentrated near a point, must undergo heat-releasing alpha decays, half of which would occur within 3.1 minutes. The great heat generated in such a tiny volume in just 3.1 minutes would have easily melted and erased that entire halo. Second, polonium has 33 known radioisotopes, but only three (218Po, 214Po, and 210Po) account for almost all the isolated polonium halos. Those three are produced only by the 238U decay series, and 238U is often found near isolated polonium halos. Why would only those three isotopes be created? Third, polonium atoms or their 222Rn parent flowed between sheets and frequently lodged in channel walls as those mineral sheets were growing. In other words, the polonium was not created on Day 1 inside solid rock. Fourth, isolated polonium halos are sometimes found in intrusions. These strata were laid down during the flood, long after creation. Sometime later, the magma cut through the layers, then slowly cooled and solidified. Only then could polonium halos form. Halos could not have formed minutes or days after creation.

-source.​

 

[The Barbarian]

Barbarian observes:
Most creationists have stopped using that one

Names.

Can't think of one with any credentials (other than Gentry) who still uses it.

The discovery and documentation of the three types of Po radiohalos in the biotites within three granitic plutons that were clearly sourced and formed during the Flood year falsifies the hypothesis for the formation of these Po radiohalos and their host granitic rocks during the Creation Week...It is arguably beyond dispute that these three granitic plutons were intruded as hot magmas during the Flood, and that therefore these radiohalos found in them formed subsequently, during the Flood and thereafter.
http://globalflood.org/papers/2003ICCradiohalo.html

Snelling (a YE creationist, remember) also cites the work of Kurt Wise, showing evidence contrary to Gentry's assumptions.

Wise, K.P., Radioactive Halos: Geological Concerns, Creation Research Society Quarterly, 25 (1989), pp. 171-176.
from: ANDREW A. SNELLING, Ph.D, Presented: Fifth International Conference on Creationism August 4-8, 2003

Barbarian observes:
once it became clear that the granite they took the halos from, was exposed to radiation from elements in the surrounding rock,

The radiation that caused the halos found in solid rock came from outside the rock when it was still fluid, instead of from within it?

Some creationists think so:

there are now significant reports of 210Po as a detectable species in volcanic gases, in volcanic/hydrothermal fluids associated with subaerial volcanoes and fumaroles, and associated with mid-ocean ridge hydrothermal vents and chimney deposits [73, 92, 112], as well as in ground waters [61, 91]. The distances involved in this fluid transport of the Po are several kilometers (and more), so there is increasing evidence of the potential viability of the secondary transport of Po by hydrothermal fluids during pluton emplacement, perhaps in the waning stages of the crystallization and cooling of granitic magmas.
(same source)

You really don't see your problem there?

You mean trying to fit together all the contradictory stories from different creationists? As you see, even most creationists don't buy it any more.

 

[Ask Mr. Religion]

I would be open to that sort of demonstration utilizing morality.

Would your criteria for evaluating such a demonstration be that you would consider my belief, meaning you test it for logic, rationality, plausibility, etc?

I assume you would you be willing to engage on this in an isolated forum, as in a One on One with the aforementioned stated condition that the one who has the best explanation prevails?

AMR

 

[Tinark]

Why do the fundie Christians here spend so much time arguing against something they don't believe in? Are they angry at evolution?

 

[Tinark]

Spot on. :thumb:

If morality exists, it must have an objective standard.

Evolution cannot produce such a standard.

Therefore, if evolution is claimed as the only source of the development of life, the claim is falsified by the existence of morality (not to mention all the numerous other non-physical realities).

Morality is the extremely strong personal opinions people have about human behavior they approve and disapprove of. Adding in the word "objective" to any of this is superfluous.

 

[Tinark]

Exactly. The problem is that evolutionists are singularly determined to reject God, so they cannot even entertain the possibility of a nonphysical reality, even to take part in a rational debate.

The problem is that fundie Christians are singularly determined to reject evolution, so they cannot even entertain the possibility that we all descended from a single-celled life form, even to take part in a rational debate.

 

[kmoney]

I think what I have said already outlines it pretty clearly.

I clearly saw that you believe objectivity is a necessary part of it. If you've said more than that I haven't seen it. Is your definition basically something like, an objective standard of what ought to be done and not done? Or, an objective standard for right and wrong?