Mike Beidler (from "The Creation of an Evolutionist" blog) continues his hamhanded and question-begging romp through the Truth Project. I comment here.
It quickly becomes clear that Tackett desires to extend his anti-evolution bias to sociology, claiming that desirable, orderly social systems could not have evolved via natural means
Why isn't it reasonable to demand that the Darwinian who makes the positive assertion that natsel acting on random mutations is what is responsible for desirable, orderly social systems SHOW US HOW IT HAPPENED? Is asking questions "bias", according to you?
evolution is anything but random.
Don't obscure the issue. MUTATIONS are random, and so a part of it most definitely is random.
Natsel apparently operates according to natural laws (ie, repetitive natural processes), so the astute reader would like to know specifically to which natural laws the Darwinian would appeal to form desirable, orderly social systems.
These things only appear random as a result of our limited ability to ascertain their direct causes or calculate particular magnitudes.
Are you appealing, by faith, to the variegated inscrutable forces of nature? Can you identify them for certain? You claim that they're there, but are just guessing. So this is faith, right?
Why is this superior to the Christian faith, even if I were to grant that Christian faith is blind?
So what if the best aspects of human civilization arose through "cultural selection"?
Well, it has a ton to do with it IF we're asking about ethics and the foundation for morality.
But maybe we're not, so...
What's wrong with God taking the best of human societal structures—products of eons of cultural evolution—and declaring them to be ideal?
And now you're ascribing to God sthg that He never said He did. In fact, He claimed in the Bible precisely that He did that whole thing a different way, but on the word of your blind faith in "modern science", you're perfectly willing to overturn that. It's easy to see where your real faith lies.
Although ideal human societal structures may indeed reflect certain aspects of God's triune nature as revealed in Scripture, it is not necessary for them to have been "created" de novo in the Garden of Eden, as a literal interpretation of Scripture would suggest.
And it certainly doesn't matter that God SAID He did it that way!
God's "divine stamp" didn't come upon human social order until after our fundamental ethos arose naturally.
Reconstructing human history based on your blind faith presuppositions. No proof, no evidence, no historical textual evidence (excepting that to the contrary), but a sure statement based on what you think you know about NOW. I don't have to point out how much this is naked faith, and it ain't faith in Jesus.
To assert that a snapshot of 15th-century BC Israelite society (commanded by God Himself through Moses) and the culture of those who support Focus on the Family represent the same divine social order is to deny both anthropological reality
??? You need to define your terms much more clearly. What do you mean by "divine social order"? If you mean the laws of God and the recognition that God speaks, then you need to prove your assertion, not assume it.
the theological diversity so evident throughout Scripture.
Which is almost always code for "the contradictory ways that Scr expresses itself", devoid (as here) of any supporting argumentation.
Tackett's claim for objective, scientific support for the ideal Christian society flies in the face of established scientific and historical fact.
You mean the scientists who were there, who observed the events in question, who don't make naked assumptions of uniformitarianism and naturalism to then read BACK ONTO the historical events as written? Oh, who are they?
He ignores the fossil record.
And bully for him. Prove that any one fossilised organism had even one child. Just one.
He ignores the evolutionary history embedded in our DNA.
It takes a real ignoramus to go this far, to assume that our DNA expresses "history", when there is no reason to presuppose that history is displayed in our DNA, that it did in fact develop evolutionarily. Maybe DNA is just DNA, and maybe it was designed and you're seeing a pattern or similarity where none really exists.
He ignores the findings of anthropology.
Said the guy who is ignoring the most archeologically reliable and archeologically best-attested and transmitted writing of antiquity.
5 comments:
Rho:
Prove that any one fossilised organism had even one child.
This would be a valid argument if evolution claimed that an individual fossilized organism was an ancestor to a different species. But that's not what evolution claims. Evolution claims that the species represented by the fossil is an ancestor species to a different species. A valid argument against evolution would have to claim that all members of the ancestor species failed to reproduce.
"the most archeologically reliable and archeologically best-attested and transmitted writing of antiquity."
Are we thinking about the same "writing of antiquity?"
NAL,
Actually the "fossil record" argument is frequently used FOR TENS, and here I'm arguing a counterpoint - that w/o the presumption of TENS, there's no reason to say that the fossil "record" supports TENS. It's begging the question.
If indeed each "species represented by the fossil is an ancestor species to a different species", you've given away the farm in spite of yourself. You can't be an ancestor unless you have children. Sorry.
Landon,
The headline news in this book is easy to pick out: there is no evidence for the existence of Abraham, or any of the Patriarchs; ditto for Moses and the Exodus; and the same goes for the whole period of Judges and the united monarchy of David and Solomon.
Oh, I didn't think to take books into account that beg the very question for which they're claiming to be giving input. Silly me!
Rho said: "w/o the presumption of TENS, there's no reason to say that the fossil "record" supports TENS"
It appears that you have a problem with science, in general. All scientific theories are formed by assuming hypotheses and then performing experiments to test the predictions of the hypothesis to determine if the evidence is compatible.
Without the presumption of general relativity, there's no reason to say that the visible bending of starlight during an eclipse is compatible with general relativity. Okay, that's a true statement. But it does not mean that general relativity must be rejected for begging the question, does it?
As for the particular point in question, consider the claim that you and I are actually brothers. Imagine that our parents died and left no direct evidence of their existence. However, a dozen people, all childless, who claim to be our aunts and uncles, submit DNA samples to compare with ours. Based on comparing their DNA to ours, we have a very high chance of finding an inconsistency if we were not brothers. Therefore, if the evidence is compatible, we can conclude with a high degree of certainty that we share parents, even if our parents left no direct record. So my point is that the evidence left by childless individuals can still be extremely valuable in answering questions of common ancestry.
Hi NSC,
It appears that you have a problem with science, in general.
It's fair to say I have a problem with a great deal of MODERN science, yes, b/c it strays into the realm of philosophy, into scientism.
All scientific theories are formed by assuming hypotheses and then performing experiments to test the predictions of the hypothesis to determine if the evidence is compatible.
Quite. So when you can't, you know, perform repeatable procedures and observe their results, you should know better than to act like you can say "Science says..." and then assert a result you can't scientifically access.
Science is also, at its core, logically fallacious.
But it does not mean that general relativity must be rejected for begging the question, does it?
I don't see why it's not fair to say "what we observe is consistent, usually, with general relativity", but going beyond that, especially to where we can't observe (like the past, or in most of the universe) or to make statements like "it will definitely be like this in the future" and you go beyond what science can say.
So my point is that the evidence left by childless individuals can still be extremely valuable in answering questions of common ancestry.
Do you mean to apply that to the fossil record problem?
To what DNA in the fossil record do you refer?
Evolution depends on organisms having offspring. If you can do nothing more than assume that fossil X had offspring, why should I give any credence to that assumption, especially when evolutionists go on and on about MOUNTAINS AND MOUNTAINS of evidence?
Post a Comment