The Truth About Evolution and Religion

[davidkroemer]

The above subject is the title of a YouTube video I uploaded. The
address is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKaF8vX6HXQ.
The phrase "The Truth" means I am revealing something disingenuous
about the ongoing controversy. I quote from mainstream biologist to
show the following: 
1) Evolution only applies to the bodies of
humans, not their souls. 
Biologists must admit that humans have
souls, but they don't have to 
admit the souls are spiritual. 
2)
Darwinian evolution only explains adaptation. It does not explain
common descent (macroevolution or the fact of evolution).

[davidkroemer]

[Belly Bionic]

I approved your message because it is related to the topic of the
group, even though it looked a bit spammy. Replying to yourself with
the exact same message just makes it look even more spammy. This is a
rather low traffic group, but that doesn't mean we tolerate spam.

1) Biologists do not have to admit any such thing. There is no
evidence that the soul exists.
2) Yes, actually it does. That you claim otherwise is only evidence
that you have either never read or read but did not comprehend Darwin
or any of those that followed him.

Also, if you're going to use big words, you might want to make sure
you know what they actually mean.

Disingenuous: –adjective
lacking in frankness, candor, or sincerity; falsely or hypocritically
ingenuous; insincere

On Jul 12, 7:01 am, davidkroemer <dkroe...@optonline.net> wrote:
> The above subject is the title of a YouTube video I uploaded. The

> address ishttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKaF8vX6HXQ.

[davidkroemer]

I suppose it was my fault there were double postings. I apologize. I
think I prove my points in the videos. I'll answer anyone who watches
the video and explains why it does not support what I said.

[The Belly Bionic]

Of course the video supports what you said, you made the video. What
you claim in the video is wrong. Your quotes are taken far out of
context, you make wild leaps of logic, and the video does nothing at
all except prove that you have no idea what you're talking about.

The Belly Bionic
belly...@gmail.com

[Drafterman]

-"Theology is the study of revelation..."

False. Theology, etymologically speaking, is the study of theism. In
practice, however, it is the study of religions (or a specific
religion, if prefaced by the name of that religion, such as Jewish
theology, or Catholic theology).

-"...and Fundamental theology is the study of reasons to believe in
revelation."

The only references to "Fundamental theology" are those made by
explicitly Christian (if not specifically Catholic) resources. Since
theology, as a generic "study of" is not limited to Christianity I
think this proposed definition warrants explanation and support.

Though, one wonders why a new term is warranted when "theodicy" and
"apologetic" already exist that serve this purpose.

-"We know we have Free will..."

No, we don't. Knowledge, epistemologically speaking, requires
justification. You admit that Free Will falls under "Fundamental
Theology" which, admittedly again, lacks empirical basis. So what is
the justification for concluding we have Free Will?

You attempt to support this assertion by saying that "we can make
ourselves the subject of our own knowledge". This is nothing more than
self-awareness an entirely different subject than free will.

You then pose the contradictory "We can comprehend free will, but we
can't define it." Adequate comprehension would seem to allow for
definition.

-"Another way of saying humans are embodied spirits is that humans are
'indefinables' that became conscious of their own existence."

This is a mishmash of different, otherwise unrelated concepts, simply
slammed together in a single phrase. What does being definable have to
do with being an embodied spirit? What does either of those have to do
with being conscious of our own existence?

Human children do not become self-aware until at least a couple years?
Does that mean they are not embodied spirits until then? If we find a
way to 'define' humans, humans will cease to be 'indefinable', will we
suddenly cease to be embodied spirits? This video is heavy on the bare
assertions, and light on the

support.

"[A]s far as science is concerned, evolution applies to the bodies of
human beings, not their souls."

This interpretation of the quote is misleading, since it implies that
science, either directly or indirectly, makes comment about the
existence of a soul what-so-ever. Science doesn't. As far as science
is concerned, the soul does not exist.

It would be as accurate to say that evolution does not apply to
unicorns and dragons.

-"[T]here is no scientific explanation for the Big Bang."

Another misleading interpretation. (As a side note, the quote is not
displayed long enough for reading while the video is playing. This is,
if intentional, is dishonest, if unintentional, a sign of bad video
editing.).

Hawkings is simply saying that anything prior to the Big Bang could
not affect events after it and, thus, we cannot determine what that
explanation is. He is not saying that such an explanation does not
exist, just that we cannot determine what it is.

Implicit in this statement is that we cannot do so with science as it
currently is, since our scientific theories break down at a certain
point. It is not clear that there is even a "Creation Event" at
Time=0. The only valid answer with regards to questions about this
period is "I don't know."

-"Proof of God..."

More rubbish about Free Will. First, those philosophers did not prove
God's existence. They presented arguments, but all of those arguments
are inherently flawed, including the "First Mover" argument referenced
in the video.

-"We always knew an infinite being created the universe of finite
beings"

No, no we didn't.

-"The Big Bang, however, is a reason to believe in the Bible, because
it says that God created the universe from nothing."

The Big Bang is ultimately silent on the exact creation mechanism of
the universe so does not support a "universe from nothing"
interpretation.

Furthermore, just because some mythological text may, through some
convoluted interpretation, agree with science, that does not validate
that myth. This is called "equivocation" and it is a fallacy. No
scientific theory identifies the cause of the universe (or even
stipulates that the universe needs a cause). Thus the Bible is NOT
supported by science.

-"Electron: Nothing inside"

False. We do not know if there is anything inside an electron or
anything not inside. Current scientific models depict it as being
fundamental and indivisible but, intellctually, we do not know if this
is ultimately the case.

-"There is no scientific explanation for the origin of life"

Patently 100% false. There are numerous scientific explanations for
the origin of life. We just don't know which one is true, if any are.
But they are all proposed explanations and they are all scientific in
that they are within the realm of scientific possibility supported by
what we know about the early Earth. Furthermore, this is the subject
of abiogenesis, NOT evolution.

-"Neanderthals are the most well-known hominids"

I disagree. I would say that modern humans are the most well-known
hominids.

-"The most complex [organisms] are homo sapiens"

No basis is provided for this bare assertion. No objective, clear
definition for "complex" is provided with which to even judge it. In
any event, this is false by any existing definition of "complex".

Complexity is usually defined by the number of parts or an intricate
arrangement. In order to apply this to biological organisms you have
to identify the unit of measure for "part". Differentiated organs?
Different types of cells? Number of chromosomes?

Marbled lungfish have 130,340 million base pairs (a unit of measure
for DNA sequences) while humans only have 3,000 million. Not most
complex there.

Humans are rather simply, comparatively, on a physiological level as
well. Amphibians can adapt live in two drastically different
environments, humans can't. Many insects go through one or more stages
of metamorphosis, humans don't. Many organisms can alter their sex
throughout their life, humans can't. We're pretty much stuck with the
form we have and that's pretty simple. We don't have the most hairs,
the most ears, the most eyes, the most noses, the most limbs, the most
hearts. In just about any measurement, you can find a non-human that
is more complex.

-Second law of Thermodynamics and the "odds" of producing a protein.

Nothing in evolution or biology violates the second law of
thermodynamics. Living organisms cannot exist without a steady,
external, supply of energy. Without that energy we do indeed, succumb
to decay and become more entropic as our bodies break down.
Furthermore, the production of ordered biological organisms releases
enough heat into the universe to raises its entropy on the whole in
greater magnitude than it is reduced due to such creation. Localized
decreases in entropy are not prohibited by the 2nd law, so long as the
overall entropy does not decrease.

The reference to the "odds" of produced a protein (with the
implication that this is phenomanoly rare) only shows that, perhaps,
you should data that is newer than 1969. Recent studies show that the
universe may be geared toward the natural production of those amino
acids, using those very same laws of thermodynamics.

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2009/07/the-dna-code-new-research-show-life-hardwired-in-universe.html

-"The small probability of getting a single protein by random chance"

Then we should be thankful it isn't up to pure random chance. The laws
of physics provide a filtering mechanism by which certain things are
more likely to happen than others.

-"Evolution applies only to the bodies of humans, not their souls."

I will expand this statment for effect:

"Evolution applies only to existing living organisms, not souls,
dragons, unicorns, faeries, elves, dwarves, orcs, goblings,
werewolves, vampires, nymphs, dryads, ettins, ogres, hags, slaad,
kobolds, gnomes, gnolls, hobgolbins, owlbears, etc..."

The response is, "So?" why should evolution address things not known
to exist?

-"Darwinian evolution only explains adaptaion, not common descent"

We've learned a lot in the past 150+ years since Darwian. I suggest
you try and learn something too. Common descent is evident on genetics
alone, evolution supports that notion by providing the mechanism by
which a common ancestor can produce descendents of such variety.

-"There is no scientific explanation for the origin of life or the Big
Bang."

Already addressed but I wonder what this has to do with Evolution.
These are subjects regardnig abiogensis and cosmology, respectively,
and are independent of the theory of evolution.

[davidkroemer]

You are confusing two statements: 1) humans are embodied spirits 2)
humans have souls.
The first is a matter of common sense, but a scientists can say free
will is an illusion, humans are collections of molecules, etc. if they
want. But a scientist can't deny humans have souls. They need the
metaphysical analysis of form/matter (soul/body) to explain why
science is able to investigate embodied spirits.

Your remarks indicated that you realize Darwinism doesn't explain
common descent. Thus, you are not a victim of the hoax that my video
exposes.

> http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2009/07/the-dna-code-new-researc...

[DreadGeekGrrl]

On Jul 14, 8:02 am, davidkroemer <dkroe...@optonline.net> wrote:
> You are confusing two statements: 1) humans are embodied spirits 2)
> humans have souls.
> The first is a matter of common sense, but a scientists can say free
> will is an illusion, humans are collections of molecules, etc. if they
> want.

The first statement is not at all common sensel. Humans are
*embodied*, this much is true, but there is no empirical evidence for
a soul or spirits. None. Zip. Zilch. Bupkis. If you *believe* in
such a thing, that's your own look-out, but there is no good reason to
believe in them. Free will very well may *be* an illusion. As Dan
Dennett (echoing Dan Dennett) points out in "The Blank Slate", if you
had free will, in the sense that most people mean it, there would be
absolutely no constraints upon what you would do. Your will is not
free to the degree that you allow social constraints to guide your
actions. Secondly, we may have 'as-if' free will. Meaning that
while, in principle, our actions *could* be deterministic in that if
you had an absolutely complete picture of the workings of the Universe
AND sufficient computational ability then you might be able to
determine the course of action of any given human being at any given
point. However, since no entity *has* either and since certain
observable (and observed) features of the Universe make it impossible
to have the former (here I'm thinking of both implications of non-
linear systems and of quantum uncertainty) we can treat humans as
having free will for any practical purpose. However, NONE of this
*requires* invoking such non-empirical entities as souls or spirits or
what-have-you.

>But a scientist can't deny humans have souls.

Yes we can. Humans don't have souls. There's no empirical evidence
for souls and so, lacking that, the smart thing to do is to take the
null hypothesis that they do not exist until *different* evidence
(meaning some evidence at all) rolls in.

> They need the
> metaphysical analysis of form/matter (soul/body) to explain why
> science is able to investigate embodied spirits.

This is not even wrong. Actually, to the degree that this statement
actually says anything coherent it is not even wrong.

> Your remarks indicated that you realize  Darwinism doesn't explain
> common descent.

Again, not even wrong. Darwinism *absolutely* explains common
descent. What is more, the modern synthesis (meaning Darwinism +
molecular biology + genetics) demonstrates that Darwinian theory is
confirmed by observation. If there is common descent then we should
expect to see the following:

1> Genetic similarity between different living things with more
closely related creatures having more genes in common. Do we observe
this? Yes, as a matter of fact we do. We share around 98% of our
genes with chimpanzees. In fact, we share 98% of both our coding and
non-coding sequences with chimpanzees. We share about 96% of our
genes with gorillas. We share about about 85% of our genes with
dogs. This is *precisely* the kind of things we should see. We
should see that we would share more genes with any randomly chosen
mammal, then with any randomly chosen avian. We should see that we
share more of our genes with ANY animal than with ANY plant (and we
do--we still share more than half our genes with, say, a banana).

2> We should see the same gene doing the same thing in different
animals. There are animals that all use the gene called "eyeless" (it
actually does the exact *opposite* of what it appears to do). If you
take the eyeless gene from, say, a fruit-fly and copy and paste it
into the genome of, say, a rat in the appropriate location the rat
will grow eyes. These eyes will be rat eyes because 'eyeless' doesn't
specify "grow these kinds of eyes", rather it specifies "grow eyes
here". If you splice the eyeless gene onto the complex that specifies
what to put on, say, the rat's tail you'll grow a rat with an eye on
its tail. However, not ALL animals use 'eyeless' to specify where to
grow eyes. There are, if memory serves, half-a-dozen different
sequences through the animal kingdom specifying eyes. NONE of them
are the same and, in fact, they don't appear to be related to one
another at all meaning that eyes arose *at least* six times
independently.

3> We should see vestigial and homologous structures. The coccyx is
what is left over from when our ancestors had tails (you'll notice
that monkeys have them, apes do not). Whales and other cetaceans have
vestigial legs, etc.

Now, I'm curious, how *else* do you explain the genetic similarities
between different species and the *non-arbitrary* distances between
different phylum? (By non-arbitrary what I mean is that there are NO
plants that are genetically more similar to us than ANY animal. There
are NO fish that are genetically more similar to us than ANY mammal.
If there were not common descent we should expect to see arbitrary
genetic distances that make no sense but, instead, we see entirely
*non-arbitrary* distances as I explained above.) How *else* do you
explain vestigial and/or homologous structures? How *else* do you
explain that, for instance, all of the chordates are built along more
or less the same body plan? (symmetrical bodies with limbs radiating
out from a spine, the five bones in the human hand are analogous to
the five bones at the tip of the avian wing etc.)

All of your gobbedly-gook may *sound* nice but it is not at all
accurate and is scientifically meaningless.

Cheers
DGG

[Drafterman]

On Jul 14, 11:02 am, davidkroemer <dkroe...@optonline.net> wrote:
> You are confusing two statements: 1) humans are embodied spirits 2)
> humans have souls.

The video seems designed to invite this type of confusion. Fix it.

> The first is a matter of common sense,

I disagree that it is. More importantly, though, what is common sense
is irrelevant. Common sense is a vague term that can be used in one of
two ways: A) popular belief about what is reasonable (hence "common")
and B) a reasonable belief that is basic and obvious that it *should*
be popular, but often isn't (hence "common sense isn't common"). In
either event, what is common sense is irrelevant for the establishment
of truth. Truth is not established through popularity, ruling out the
first meaning. If this "truth" is basic and obvious, then this can
easily be shown. When it is shown it is no longer necessary to refer
to it as common sense, thus ruling out the second meaning.

In short: prove it.

> but a scientists can say free
> will is an illusion, humans are collections of molecules, etc. if they
> want. But a scientist can't deny humans have souls.

Sure they can. No scientific theory posits the existence of any soul.
This lack of mention is not surrendering to the idea that souls exist,
but cannot be addressed by science, but rather an implicit statement
that, souls don't exist by any measurement established by science.

> They need the
> metaphysical analysis of form/matter (soul/body) to explain why
> science is able to investigate embodied spirits.

Science doesn't investigate emobdied spirits, so no explanation is
necessary.

>
> Your remarks indicated that you realize  Darwinism doesn't explain
> common descent. Thus, you are not a victim of the hoax that my video
> exposes.

Your video is nothing more than a string of faulty reasoning.

And you failed to explain whatever difference between embodied spirts
and souls you think there is.

> > and are independent of the theory of evolution.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[Vanessa Hutcheson]

DreadGeekGrrl is right, this is either a deliberate twisting of what was said or a sheer lack of understanding. Either way, quote mining at its finest.