The Theory Of Evolution Is Incompatible With Christianity

[Diophantus]

Believing in science takes as much faith as it does to believe any religion.

No it doesn't. You at least have the possibility to "prove"/test scientific claims experimentally and prove mathematical ones analytically. You don't have that possibility with religion. You yourself can read the methods and results in the publication, you can draw your own conclusions from the photos, and one can replicate the experiments (more on that below) - since a lot of scientific work builds on previous work, if something upstream is wrong and not replicable, as a scientist it is discovered just by doing your job. If someone else's result is wrong (e.g. DNA theory of genetic inheritance) then your own experiment (gene splicing) won't work. Source: I worked as a research scientist.

there is no possibility for an individual to verify the claims of scientists

You don't need a lab to verify math or computer science publications, you can do that with your own head, pencil and paper. Even in the natural sciences you can read the methods and results, interpret the results yourself (does this photo/figure look like what they say it is), and sometimes the data/measurements are also provided in the Appendix so you can draw your own conclusions. There are also global databases that are used by labs worldwide, for example for genomic and astronomical data. If an expected result does not match the measured reality then that is investigated. There is also the filter of peer review - scientists are scrutinizing each others' claims all the time, especially for headline-making claims.

Other than believing there is no way to personally prove there is evolution, the age of the Earth or Universe, the Big Bang Theory etc.

One way science is verified is when scientific results are transferred to industry and verified in the real world. If a scientific result is wrong then the technology built on it doesn't work: cars stop running, satellites don't work, communication networks break down, etc. Religious people are very selective with what scientific results they accept and what they don't, forgetting that much of what they use was first discovered in a lab. But beyond that, science is also self-verifying because the competing labs at the many institutions in competing countries around the world build on and verify each others' results. If one lab's dating of an object shows 12MYA and another's shows 12KYA, then that is put into question.

There's also the fact that in order to be a scientist you have to have the aptitude to actually do that kind of work and report it. As cynical as I am about science, I trust that the authors' whose work I'm reading are at least as competent as the industry standard. I can't apply that same standard to desert people 4000 years ago.

 

[Diophantus]

The original cause MUST be a person, because the first act requires WILL. An impersonal process always requires another cause to have preceeded it.
There is no other logical explanation.

A lot of assumptions being made (the existence of a first cause, the necessity of a WILL for it). You didn't convince me, sorry.

“For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.”

"Dude it's obvious!" is not an argument.

 

[Lawrence87]

@Diophantus Science assumes that the conditions in the past were the same as the present, there is no proof of this, there is no way to prove this. Nor can science authoritatively claim anything about one off events in the past because there is no way to repeat them. Science assumes the existence of the external world. It assumes logical and mathematical axioms that are just assumed without justification or can only be justified in a circular fashion.

 

[NickK]

A lot of assumptions being made (the existence of a first cause, the necessity of a WILL for it). You didn't convince me, sorry.

OK, goodbye.

 

[DanielH]

One way science is verified is when scientific results are transferred to industry and verified in the real world. If a scientific result is wrong then the technology built on it doesn't work: cars stop running, satellites don't work, communication networks break down, etc. Religious people are very selective with what scientific results they accept and what they don't, forgetting that much of what they use was first discovered in a lab. But beyond that, science is also self-verifying because the competing labs at the many institutions in competing countries around the world build on and verify each others' results. If one lab's dating of an object shows 12MYA and another's shows 12KYA, then that is put into question.

To find someone with this much faith in the institution of science after the past two years, and to explain it as if we haven't heard this a thousand times from school, to news reports, to lectures from our normie friends and family... What you're saying isn't even true on a secular level as most technology and infrastructure you enjoy today was not brought to you by dudes in lab coats using the scientific method (basically totally discarded today anyways), it was found by an engineer or inventor messing around, or totally by accident.

There's also the fact that in order to be a scientist you have to have the aptitude to actually do that kind of work and report it. As cynical as I am about science, I trust that the authors' whose work I'm reading are at least as competent as the industry standard. I can't apply that same standard to desert people 4000 years ago.

Is this the "industry standard" you're referencing?

But when they looked more closely, they found that most of these papers, even those in top-tier academic journals, were not reproducible. In 2011, German researchers in the drug company Bayer found in an extensive survey that more than 75% of the published findings could not be validated.

The veracity of what "desert people 4000 years ago" wrote is confirmed in Jesus Christ, the Church, lives of the saints, and even "science" itself.

 

[The Penitent Man]

A lot of assumptions being made (the existence of a first cause, the necessity of a WILL for it). You didn't convince me, sorry.


"Dude it's obvious!" is not an argument.

Nobody is trying to convince you. The point of the passage is that you either get it or you don’t. You accept truth or you reject it. You’re clearly not an “Orthodox Inquirer,” that’s a lie, so who do you think you’re convincing? You are here under false pretenses to proselytize for your god, Science. Good luck.

 

[Diophantus]

You’re clearly not an “Orthodox Inquirer,” that’s a lie

You know even less about me than you know about the origins of the universe.

 

[Lawrence87]

You know even less about me than you know about the origins of the universe.

Forgive me for saying this, but the implication here is that you do know something about the origins of the universe. Even if we grant everything in the scientific paradigm, we still don't know how it began, or what caused it, or what is beyond the limits of our understanding. Science is just as clueless about it as you claim the religious are

 

[NickK]

You know even less about me than you know about the origins of the universe.

How are you an Orthodox inquirer? Honest question. Tell us something about your journey to Orthodoxy.

 

[Cavalier]

No it doesn't. You at least have the possibility to "prove"/test scientific claims experimentally and prove mathematical ones analytically. You don't have that possibility with religion. You yourself can read the methods and results in the publication, you can draw your own conclusions from the photos, and one can replicate the experiments (more on that below) - since a lot of scientific work builds on previous work, if something upstream is wrong and not replicable, as a scientist it is discovered just by doing your job. If someone else's result is wrong (e.g. DNA theory of genetic inheritance) then your own experiment (gene splicing) won't work. Source: I worked as a research scientist.


You don't need a lab to verify math or computer science publications, you can do that with your own head, pencil and paper. Even in the natural sciences you can read the methods and results, interpret the results yourself (does this photo/figure look like what they say it is), and sometimes the data/measurements are also provided in the Appendix so you can draw your own conclusions. There are also global databases that are used by labs worldwide, for example for genomic and astronomical data. If an expected result does not match the measured reality then that is investigated. There is also the filter of peer review - scientists are scrutinizing each others' claims all the time, especially for headline-making claims.


One way science is verified is when scientific results are transferred to industry and verified in the real world. If a scientific result is wrong then the technology built on it doesn't work: cars stop running, satellites don't work, communication networks break down, etc. Religious people are very selective with what scientific results they accept and what they don't, forgetting that much of what they use was first discovered in a lab. But beyond that, science is also self-verifying because the competing labs at the many institutions in competing countries around the world build on and verify each others' results. If one lab's dating of an object shows 12MYA and another's shows 12KYA, then that is put into question.

There's also the fact that in order to be a scientist you have to have the aptitude to actually do that kind of work and report it. As cynical as I am about science, I trust that the authors' whose work I'm reading are at least as competent as the industry standard. I can't apply that same standard to desert people 4000 years ago.

You truly miss my point as I conceded some science especially practical science is verifiable. Mathematical proofs do not verify science because no physical action is proved by it. For instance tell me how I can without faith in what has been presented by scientists verify evolution? I studied engineering science there wasn’t anything I learned I couldn’t personally verify through a physical experiment. How can I do that with evolution?

 

[Diophantus]

For instance tell me how I can without faith in what has been presented by scientists verify evolution?

Easy: examine the molecular (genomic) evidence and construct phylogenetic trees from it.

 

[Lawrence87]

Easy: examine the molecular (genomic) evidence and construct phylogenetic trees from it.

That only works if you presuppose that similarity in genetics implies common ancestry. I mean you can explain that evidence using the evolutionary model, but it is not proof of it. In other words you have to believe the assumption based on evolution that explains the evidence, but one could easily say that there might be an alternative explanation to this fact.

 

[inthefade]

Easy: examine the molecular (genomic) evidence and construct phylogenetic trees from it.

Is this an experiment (reproducible) where you can prove it?

 

[Diophantus]

That only works if you presuppose that similarity in genetics implies common ancestry.

What else would it imply? There is no other way billion basepair genomes occur in nature except through replication, i.e. descent from a parent. With mutation this will lead to divergence with successive replications.

 

[Lawrence87]

What else would it imply? There is no other way billion basepair genomes occur in nature except through replication, i.e. descent from a parent. With mutation this will lead to divergence with successive replications.

Well there you are presupposing naturalistic materialism.

A God might create different kinds using similar genetic code. You've taken the explanation off the table, therefore you presuppose it has to have a blind, naturalistic explanation.

 

[DanielH]

Easy: examine the molecular (genomic) evidence and construct phylogenetic trees from it.

Life isn't a Lego set. "Science" will never be able to create life. They can steal life maybe (HEK-239), they can even mimic it, but they cannot create life.

What else would it imply? There is no other way billion basepair genomes occur in nature except through replication, i.e. descent from a parent. With mutation this will lead to divergence with successive replications.

I've done some woodworking. If I, as a creator, make a table, I might then use same system (joinery, materials, glue, and the same tools) to make a chair. They are completely distinct however. A chair is not a table, though they may have similarities, and their only common ancestor is in me as a creator. They did not originate from a common ancestor, a primordial chair-table, if you will. In just this way, a Creator would make us, the creation, in similar ways from person to person, and from animal to animal. Programmers might use the same bit of code in two completely different applications, that doesn't mean those two programs have a common program as an ancestor and that program created two new programs, their real common ancestor is the programmer.

 

[Diophantus]

Is this an experiment (reproducible) where you can prove it?

First of all not all science is experimental (e.g. observational astronomy, ethology), so it's a very poor "gotcha". But yes I can. Given a set of genomic sequences, my null hypothesis would be that there is no relationship between those sequences, with the alternative hypothesis being the opposite. I then construct some phylogenetic trees based on similarity between the sequences and see if the result could be due to chance (p < 0.05). If it isn't, I reject the null hypothesis. Since the only way that sequences can replicate is from an organism, the similarity has to be because of common descent, therefore similar sequences must have a common ancestor.

 

[Cavalier]

Easy: examine the molecular (genomic) evidence and construct phylogenetic trees from it.

That is not a physical proof. How can I personally verify the veracity of the so called genomic evidence. If you have a logical brain as you claim you can discern both my original point and it’s continuation in the dialogue.

 

[Cavalier]

What else would it imply? There is no other way billion basepair genomes occur in nature except through replication, i.e. descent from a parent. With mutation this will lead to divergence with successive replications.

God created it that way.

 

[inthefade]

First of all not all science is experimental (e.g. observational astronomy, ethology), so it's a very poor "gotcha". But yes I can. Given a set of genomic sequences, my null hypothesis would be that there is no relationship between those sequences, with the alternative hypothesis being the opposite. I then construct some phylogenetic trees based on similarity between the sequences and see if the result could be due to chance (p < 0.05). If it isn't, I reject the null hypothesis. Since the only way that sequences can replicate is from an organism, the similarity has to be because of common descent, therefore similar sequences must have a common ancestor.

Not a gotcha, I was asking a question. Science is using the scientific method no? Wouldn't that require an experiment?

All this "experiment" determines is that the sequences are similar. Not that they share a common ancestor. That is an assumption.