Do you believe in Darwinian evolution?

[KO2134]

Just Curious?

 

[dmurawsky]

At first, I was planning on saying yes. However, there's a lot more to evolution than Darwin ever considered. Calling it "Darwinian Evolution" is a very specific portion of evolutionary theory. So, no, I don't believe in "Darwinian Evolution". It's very dated at this point. However, evolution in general? Absolutely. There is clear evidence in the genetic record for it, and we are still evolving to this day.

 

[coachn]

How does Darwinian Evolution differ from Actual Evolution?

 

[JJones]

I voted unsure because the modern theory of evolution has...well, evolved since Darwin came up with his original theory. I also voted this because the theory will continue to change as more information comes to light.

It's probably because I'm about to be a biology teacher (Lord willing) but to me, denying evolution is like denying gravity. We may not know how it works but we know it's there.

 

[RedTemplar]

I don't know how everything has come to be. But The Great Architect is behind it all.

 

[Blake Bowden]

I don't know how everything has come to be. But The Great Architect is behind it all.

My thoughts exactly.

 

[BryanMaloney]

How does Darwinian Evolution differ from Actual Evolution?

First, evolution is Not A God, so It Does Not Have To Be Capitalized. Darwin's original model, that of evolution by natural selection, can be seen as a special case of modern evolution models, just as Newtonian physics can be seen as a special case of modern physics. In Darwin's model, "fitness" was the only criterion for evolution, and Darwin also had some progressivism in his model (the idea that what exists now is and must be "better" than what came before). Darwin also had no biochemical mechanisms. The modern synthesis states that evolution of species is simply change in frequencies of alleles over time, due to whatever cause. If enough changes amass in a population, it may become sufficiently different to be considered a new species. Issues like natural selection or "fitness" are entirely secondary. Modern evolution models posit no inherent direction and no criterion that considers anything to be "better" than any other--just more common. After all, if a comet smacks your continent, you are no less "fit" for having been killed by it, just unlucky.

 

[BEDickey]

I do believe in evolution in regards to animals and the animal kingdom, but believe Humans to be an exception to it. IMHO forces in the ancient past acted upon humans and created them as we we know know them as opposed to evolving to where we are.

 

[BEDickey]

First, evolution is Not A God, so It Does Not Have To Capitalized.

In my studies I have found that in "scientism", the figure of "god" was replaced by evolution, some people look upon it as a type of "god" with Darwin as its "prophet". I would urge people to look up "disciples of the mysterium" for more about what I am talking about.

 

[Michael Hatley]

Sure I do - insomuch as the general principle and not to be held to granular details or other men's interpretations.

Same as my answer to the Supreme Being question.

 

[coachn]

Originally Posted by coachn How does Darwinian Evolution differ from Actual Evolution?

First, evolution is Not A God, so It Does Not Have To Be Capitalized.

Yes, Evolution is not a god or God, but Evolution IS God's Way of Raising His Middle Finger to almost every Environmental Change.

 

[dfreybur]

Sure I do - insomuch as the general principle and not to be held to granular details or other men's interpretations.

Right.

When it comes to what he meant - Read his actual book. It's amazing in how much it covers and how far he saw into future progress. Even though he had no idea of the mechanism that has since been worked out. For a lot of statements about Darwin it's very clear many people have not read his book. Assertions about what he missed that I found in the book when I read it. Assertions about what he stated that didn't appear in the book when I read it.

When it comes to the evidence - Disagreeing with evolution is like disagreeing with inorganic chemistry. We now have genetic engineering that works and that will work better over time. The mechanism that has been worked out will be revised and tinkered with but it is rock solid. In the face of that belief or disbelief has to mean something else.

With the usual option that the universe could have been created at any point looking like it's much older. I've never known how to address such an approach other than that religion and science address different topics so they shouldn't be in conflict so such conflicts must have explanations. It's how I view the creationist stance.

The biggest weakness in the arena is the definitions of "species" that have always been poor. In his book he addresses the topic better than I've seen.

[/QUOTE]Same as my answer to the Supreme Being question.[/QUOTE]

Exactly. There are puzzles that remain unresolved and some of them always will be unresolved.

Is the universe itself set up to generate life that evolves to self awareness and eventually to awareness of the divine? Answering that is beyond the kenn of modern science. This is how I view the question of creation, or one of the ways I view the question as there's also the question of what time means when it appears to have a beginning that had something going on before time began (whatever something that nonsensical could mean).

How did life emerge from non-life? Science does continue working on that. It might or might not be answered eventually but it is secondary to the previous question.

Was our genetics tinkered with somehow to influence our form? That's what I would like to think folks mean by "intelligent design". Unless that means the universe is set up to evolve life etc. A universe set up to evolve life etc would not automatically lead to us if by us you mean humanity. A universe where genetics get occasional miraculous tinkering tends to point in the direction of us. Then again I take "us" as aware beings who perceive the divine not as humanity in particular. If some day we encounter aliens who look like spiders but who think about the divine to me they too are in his image because to me his image is about thought not about details of form.

 

[BryanMaloney]

One thing about reading Origin of Species: It is an example of some excellent 19th-century science. It is not an accurate portrayal of current evolutionary theory, no more than a medical textbook from the middle 1800s should be taken as normative for modern medicine. I would recommend What Evolution Is by Ernst Mayr. It was published in 2001.

 

[Michael Hatley]

I've skimmed some of Darwin's original, but by the time I got to him, Freud and the later thinkers I was already fairly happy with a rather "impressionist" view of metaphysics in general. I blame it on the granularity of the early philosophers, then hitting Spinoza, and then wandering to the Transcendentalists before hitting them. By that point I figured pretty well noone has it all figured out and I stopped caring much about the details and more being interested in general concepts for their own sake.

Like the concept of pandeism, for example - an offshoot of deism. Classic deism (of which many of the founders of this country as well as our order in this country were, and it was a thought process prevalent during the Enlightenment in general) as we understand it (or at least, as I do) posits that God created the Universe and then took a step back. Presumably either to observe his Creation or to deal with other matters or whatever.

Pandeism takes a bit of a spin on some Eastern thought, some of which posits that God destroyed himself/herself/itself in order to create the universe - slaps it together with deism, and posits that God *became* the universe.

Which is an interesting thought, to me, because of the Big Bang and whatnot. It is entirely feasible to me that if all matter in the known universe were scrunched into one mass, why, sure and it could be sentient. And a lot more sentient than us. It is an interesting idea anyway.

Now that doesn't satisfy questions of other dimensions, membrane like realities, time and on and on. But the general idea is interesting, especially when you overlay ideas like evolution, Freemasonry and so forth into the mix. A great plan, set in motion from starting point A. Maybe it is even cyclical, as many in the East believe.

Such a system allows for free will too, at least from certain angles taken at it - as opposed to a fellow bent over the chessboard and nudging pieces, if you will. Rather a grand formula, set in motion - with Chaos/free will/chance nudging the pieces.

So for me, evolution fits into the system the same way that E=mc2 does. I understand the general idea of relativity in layman's terms. Same with black holes, quantum mechanics and so on. Tools of the Great Architect to build the vast creation we see before us.

Or maybe, these things are in themselves - in aggregate, the Supreme Being.

Woops, rambling :001_smile:

 

[jwhoff]

Science most state it premise. That premise is then tested and EVOLVES into further science. The genome now appears before us. Surely, it will not be the final truth. After all, the Mercury capsule was a marvelous thing when I was in elementary school. Still, I doubt it will get us to Mars.

 

[jvarnell]

Science most state it premise. That premise is then tested and EVOLVES into further science. The genome now appears before us. Surely, it will not be the final truth. After all, the Mercury capsule was a marvelous thing when I was in elementary school. Still, I doubt it will get us to Mars.

I believe everything is a hypothesis and we believe the hypothesis we are closest to is right in our mind. We will never know the truth we will just think we do. But with all that said I believe Darwin had one main thing wrong and that it was not by chance we evolved and we were gided by our creator. Or nudged in the right direction.

 

[dfreybur]

The genome now appears before us. Surely, it will not be the final truth.

Physics changed when the two relativities hit. Both are edge cases. Did SR and GM invalidate Newtonian-Galilean physics? It did in the edge cases so it's a matter of where to draw the borders.

Inorganic chemistry changed when QM hit chemistry. But all of the formulae from before QM still work without change. Inorganic chemistry pre-QM is not incorrect. Knowledge of it has been made deeper without actually invalidating it.

We now have genetic engineering. The field will change vastly over time. Whether this is the model of pre-SR physics or pre-QM chemistry is a matter of borders.

In science all observations have error bars. All theories have error bars. The error bars for genetic engineering are tiny. The molecular model for living organisms is incomplete but the part that we do know is no more subject to belief or disbelief than the inorganic chemistry of a lead-acid battery.

None of which says there's been no tinkering of our genetics by subtle influences of the divine. None of which says the divine didn't set up the universe to evolve life that thinks about the divine.

 

[BryanMaloney]

Much of the history of science consists of "definition of a special case". In science, a "special case" is a situation in which a simplified model works "well enough for our purposes". The special case fits inside the "more general case". Thus, Aristotelean physics is a special case of Newtonian physics, which is, itself, a special case of both relativity (at large scale) and quantum (at small scale) physics. Likewise, there are also situations in which a scientific concept becomes redesigned in order to better fit new data. For example, the old practice of phrenology in its expression of bumps on the skull reflecting personality has been thoroughly invalidated. However, the underlying premise has been validated: Specific areas of the brain have specific functions, including on personality. They just aren't reflected through bumps in the skull. This is, by the way, the actual "theory of phrenology", that specific areas of the brain have specific effects on human ability and behavior. It was a mechanism of phrenology that was discredited. Unfortunately, the crackpots of the present day only remember the mechanism and forget the underlying theory.

 

[BryanMaloney]

I've skimmed some of Darwin's original, but by the time I got to him, Freud and the later thinkers

Darwin, Freud, et al, are only of historical interest. They have all been superceded by working science. From my perspective, they are not "later thinkers", they are "early workers".

 

[dfreybur]

Darwin, Freud, et al, are only of historical interest. They have all been superceded by working science.

Matter of how you learned the terminology. The way I learned science Galilean physics was refined by Newton, Newtonian physics was refined by Einstein and Bohr. What I consider an example of being superseded is the philostigon theory of combustion being replaced by the oxygen theory of combustion. Thus to me Darwin and Mendel were refined by Watson and Crick who have since been refined by all sorts of genetic engineering and the so-called "modern genetic dogma". I do *not* like how the word dogma is used in that scientific expression but the fact that it's now called engineering says that going forward all scientists expect it to be refined as Einstein did to Newton but never overturned as happened with philostigon.

Another example of overturning what I call superseding was from epicycles to Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Newton, Einstein for orbits. The epicycle theory was shown incorrect the others were shown approximations that needed refinement but that were not at their core incorrect. It is my suspicion that dark matter and/or dark energy are nearing the epicycle point - The observational evidence for dark matter and the discovery of additional regular matter both grow in a currently unmatched pair. It looks like we're nearing a point when the evidence says what we called dark matter is this and the theory can move forward like when genetics was linked to evolution, or no what we called dark matter is that others stuff and the theory has to be replaced like when oxygen combustion replaced philostigon.

Thus to me modern cross breed farming, genetic engineering and efforts to categorize life by tree of descent are all "Darwinian evolution" in the same sense that calculating orbits for Jupiter probes (they do use special relativity for Jupiter probes) is "Galilean physics". I just put a goat leg roast on the smoker and I made a sauce/paste that includes specially bred yellow tomatoes and specially bred dried powdered Hatch chiles (plus several other ingredients). Modern cross breed farming doesn't care in the least if I believe in its Darwinian methods or not.