Future of Christianity in US

[watchamadoodle]

Macroevolution is a snake-oil term cultivated by creationists who have absolutely no intent to address the theory of evolution properly, and instead want to co-opt the verbiage of the scientific realm in order to prop up their own baseless predrawn conclusions or drag scientific theory down to their own level of sloppy false-equivalence and inaccurate representation of reality.

If you think there is any real fundamental difference between "microevolution" and "macroevolution", you really are relying on the worst sort of creationist shill. I'd ask for some sources to back up your claims, but hopefully none from Answers in Genesis, CARM.org, whyevolutionisfalse, or some other such nonsense site that contains a mission statement asserting the acceptance of biblical accounts of life regardless of what current science might say.

I used to have difficulty imagining how a mutated gamete and a non-mutated gamete could successfully match-up if the mutation changed the length of the chromosome (especially in the middle). That is how I classified macroevolution.

As I dug down into the details of mitosis, meiosis, proteins, etc. I started to feel more comfortable that the proponents of evolution were not pulling the wool over my eyes.

I was imagining DNA more like a program executable when in fact DNA is more like a library of functions (for making proteins). These functions can be rearranged in the library and new functions can be added without catastrophic results. (Unfortunately I know almost nothing about biology and biochemistry, so I must use computer analogies to visualize. But I feel more comfortable with evolution now.)

My sister's PhD is in developmental microbiology and she is suspicious about macroevolution. So even smart and educated people can have trouble understanding evolution unless they make a special effort. Many people are too busy with other responsibilities to invest that effort.

[FatAndFaithless]

So even smart and educated people can have trouble understanding evolution unless they make a special effort.

I really don't think it's that hard to understand. There are countless easy-to-understand explanations out there. Out of curiosity, is your sister a member of a religious denomination that doesn't accept evolution?


I'm not sure how one can be suspicious abotu "macroevolution" when it's not a real scientific term.

[watchamadoodle]

So even smart and educated people can have trouble understanding evolution unless they make a special effort.

I really don't think it's that hard to understand. There are countless easy-to-understand explanations out there. Out of curiosity, is your sister a member of a religious denomination that doesn't accept evolution?


I'm not sure how one can be suspicious abotu "macroevolution" when it's not a real scientific term.

My sister grew-up as an Episcopalian and now she is a Lutheran. I think she believes that evolution happened with God's help instead of totally trial and error. She got her BS in biology from MIT, so she is very smart (IMO). I think she simply has never been very interested in evolution. She worked on genetic engineering for a while, so she should be far better equipped than me to understand evolution if she tried.

[FatAndFaithless]

I really don't think it's that hard to understand. There are countless easy-to-understand explanations out there. Out of curiosity, is your sister a member of a religious denomination that doesn't accept evolution?


I'm not sure how one can be suspicious abotu "macroevolution" when it's not a real scientific term.

My sister grew-up as an Episcopalian and now she is a Lutheran. I think she believes that evolution happened with God's help instead of totally trial and error. She got her BS in biology from MIT, so she is very smart (IMO). I think she simply has never been very interested in evolution. She worked on genetic engineering for a while, so she should be far better equipped than me to understand evolution if she tried.

Well..ignoring the part where you said evolution is "trial and error"...

It's rather shocking to see someone with a biology degree from such a good university not really care about or understand evolution. I'd be interested to know if she went to MIT with her pre-drawn conclusions about evolution (from her church most likely). There are a handful of PhD-carrying "scientists" who don't accept evolution, but when pressed on the fact, it usually boils down to either:
1) Complete misunderstanding of what evolution actually is. (From which the non-terms macro and microevolution spring)
2) An honest (thought intellectually dishonest) statement of faith, in which they had entered the field already accepting the word of their bible or church as true, and that any information to the contrary is simply dumped into the rubbish bin of cognitive dissonance.
or 3) Utterly dishonest representation of evolution, usually entailing attachments of morality or philosophy (sometimes with the obligatory Hitler reference) thrown in.

[watchamadoodle]

It's rather shocking to see someone with a biology degree from such a good university not really care about or understand evolution. I'd be interested to know if she went to MIT with her pre-drawn conclusions about evolution (from her church most likely).

I would say, yes my sister probably had pre-drawn conclusions against evolution when she went to MIT, because she was a Christian. When Christians say they believe in evolution, they probably really mean they believe in intelligent design through a process mimicking evolution (the noodly appendage of the flying spaghetti monster orchestrating the mutations). That is what I believed when I was a Christian, so I assume she might believe similarly. Now my sister is an MD, so she is very busy and focused on that. Her previous boyfriend was the son of a pastor, and her current husband is a Christian, so that probably helped keep her in the fold.

I don't know if you have ever been a Christian, but cognitive dissonance makes it possible to think you believe all kinds of crazy things without confronting the contradictions.

[FatAndFaithless]

I'm familiar with cognitive dissonance, we see it every day on this forum. It's just a bit distressing to see someone who uses the principles of biology to help people while also having such a flawed view of such a basic and essential part of biology.

[Esquilax]

esquilax: Well I am impressed you looked up something having to do with the book. I dont buy your argument against fine tuning. It seems to me one of those things where one could argue that your assumptions/beliefs before looking at the data could push you either way. If you decide there is no way fine tuning exists, it never will.

You misunderstand my contention. The problem is that the way fine tuning arguments are formulated presumes that fine tuning exists without demonstrating it, the standard one that Hugh Ross uses being "the universe's physical constants are such that if they were slightly different then life would not be possible. Without being fine tuned by an intelligent agent, there's no way such an improbable thing could happen!"

I have no particular issue with arguments from fine tuning that have evidential backing, it's just that the ones Ross uses don't bother with evidence at all. Improbable events are still possible events, and the probability of this particular universe being the outcome is exactly as high as the probability of any other; it's really not that unusual a claim, so saying "it's improbable!" does absolutely nothing to discount natural means, or advance the case for fine tuning. More importantly, the argument itself is entirely unproved: consider the first premise, that the improbability of a specifically life-allowing universe implies fine tuning. Where in that premise is the justification for assuming that a life-allowing universe is special or significant in any way? Where is the justification for the assertion that a life allowing universe was a "success" state for the universe, for which it is possible to fail? Hell, where is the justification for the conclusion, that a fine tuning agent is the only possible, or even one of the possible, solutions to this problem that fine tuning defines into existence by assuming fine tuning is true?

Since when has "X is improbable," exclusively led to, or even hinted at, the presence of an intelligent designer? If I draw a hand of five cards out of a deck, it's improbable but doesn't need a designer. Designers have never been the exclusive sources of improbable events, why would I assume fine tuning based on simply being pointed to yet another improbable event?

Assumed conclusions. That's the problem.

And yes, macroevolution is a theory where parts of the findings can be falsified. They somebody can come up with the next best thing.

Macroevolution is not a thing in science. If you look it up you'll never see it mentioned in scientific resources, only creationist ones. Insofar as it is a thing, it's a defunct term describing merely a change in scale; "macro" changes were just a series of "micro" changes added up.

As it stands, you might want to drop the term entirely. It's not a thing.

[Jhayward]

Fatandfaithless and others: Clearly I struck a nerve using the term macroevolution. reworded, I could just call it evolution that we cannot observe in process in a laboratory today. it extends back to origins, and as I understand it (physicist/engineer, not a biologist), the further back one goes in time, the more of a reach it is... And the more true questions remain. I think everyone can agree that not all the steps from first life to human beings are well understood. there are a number of explosions of life that were observed... And then there's that migration to human beings which is quite significant, I think, albeit maybe not anatomically or in terms of DNA.

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Tonus: One cannot prove that its settings are tunable with science... Science can't do it. science is awesome but fundamentally limited.

[FatAndFaithless]

What quesitons, exactly?

If it's simple questions like "when did X happen" or "how long did it take species Y to emerge", then those are questions that can be answered with further investigation using our current methods and theories. But if you're talking about nebulous, quasi-unfalsifiable ponderings like "how can we prove it wasn't a god" then those questions are inane and irrelevant.

[LostLocke]

Why humans?
The "migration" to chimps and lions and wolves and bears and whales..... is also pretty significant.