Does God exist? (8 Viewers)

[BradCube]

I don't really consider it was environmental factors so much as the rapid blooming of life once certain pre-requisite structures had formed. Exponential growth (or rather logistic growth) is not an uncommon phenomenon in biology; in fact it's one of the cornerstones, and it's interesting that it WAS logistic rather than exponential.

Ahh, well that does make a good amount of sense. Once we hit multi-cellular organisms, it's not unsurprising that more and more complex organisms could evolve more rapidly.

Edit: Let it be known that I usually don't subscribe to any one idea about biology (or anything) entirely. I'm a strong believer in equilibriums; that many competing variables and functions are operating at once, and that only by considering all parts at once can you understand the whole. This is why I highly recommend any books on complexity theory, especially Frontiers of Complexity, as it covers these issues in a thoroughly engaging and logical format. Considerations like this, whilst more like the real-world itself, also produce results which often eliminate the flaws of models that consider only the parts separately.

I'm still yet to get through that book. I made a start, but lost interest quickly. I'll have to try again soon

 

[Slidey]

Yeah, it's not something you get through in one sitting. I think I'm only 2/3 of the way through it, and that took something like a year. I should really find it and finish it.

But even then I learnt so much and went on to research various topics in more depth, or seek clarification through google, etc.

It was worth every penny I paid for it, though; it opened my mind to a lot of ideas I had a basic intuitive understanding of but had never fully rationalised or put shape to.

 

[darkliight]

Bolding is mine.

It is odd because the explanation previously given to me of why none of these organisms had appeared up until the Cambrian period, was that they had no skeletal features that would help in their preservation. But clearly, if creatures that were "soft" (and therefore more easily eroded) were still found both before and during the period, then we should find a consistent transition and rise of new features in life forms leading up to the beginning of the cambrian period - rather than the "explosion" that is recorded.

Why? The most obvious explanation is that the probability of a creature leading to a fossil was much lower before this period, leading to less dots for us to connect. That was a big conclusion to jump to on your part.

If you mean, proof that these earlier creatures were found before and during the period, then unfortunately not. I originally read this from a book, so it's not something I can easily link. I would be more than happy to be proven wrong though.

Well, it's not much fun for me to run around refuting claims that are nonsense to begin with. I'm not saying that is the case here, but it's polite to give sources none the less, then we don't have to worry about proving or disproving a false claim

By transitional creatures, I simply mean creatures that demonstrate the changes between creatures before and then during the cambrian explosion. You've kind of answered this in the second part of your answer, although I wonder how we can rely on any fossilization dating method if you are essentially undermining the whole thing...

It's not hard to imagine that if you have a skeleton in one hand, and you try to compare that to a completely different type of fossil, you're going to be up to a bit more of a challenge than someone comparing a bunch of 'similar' skeletons, right? I didn't say anything about techniques or dating. It seems you're jumping to big conclusions from little posts here

 

[BradCube]

Why? The most obvious explanation is that the probability of a creature leading to a fossil was much lower before this period, leading to less dots for us to connect. That was a big conclusion to jump to on your part.

*Confused* Yes, probability is lower of finding a creature before this Cambrian period, but we have found fossils of creatures earlier than this period already. I don't understand why it would be any harder or less probable to find transitions from these creatures, to the ones found in the explosion.

You'll have to forgive me if I'm a little nonsensical at the moment - I'm dealing with a pretty heavy cold. Just wanted to promote a bit of discussion

 

[darkliight]

Well, you tell me about how many species have existed throughout time. Then you tell me about how many fossils we have representing all of these species.

I don't expect you to go and find me any numbers, but hopefully you realise the number of species far outweighs the number of fossils we have. What can we deduce? That transitional forms are going to be fairly few and far between.

Now, if you reduce the number fossils given in any particular time period (say pre-Cambrian, as a result of lack of skeletal structure for instance), then what can we say about the likelihood of us finding transitional forms in this period?

 

[BoilinOatRunner]

Indeed, so I will bring something up we discussed a long time ago - The Cambrian Explosion.

When we originally looked at the issue, I was questioning how it was possible for such a large "explosion" of various lifeforms to evolve so rapidly. From memory the conclusion we both came to was that since skeletal structures weren't around before this period, evidence of changes through evolution were lost. Hence there were changes but these weren't able to be shown until a more resilient structure (ie skeleton) was fossilized. In short, there was no change in the rate of evolution, just a distortion in the evidence of it.

I have a problem with this theory however (one that I read only a few weeks after the discussion). It seems odd that organisms that were that were relatively "soft" (without such complex structures) were found both before and during the Cambrian period, yet none of these transitional creatures have been. With this in mind, how do we explain this sudden explosion in life forms?

Here, is a link to many current theories surrounding the problem (courtesy of wikipedia )

I have absolutely no problem with the cambrian explosion having researched it properly and I'll leave the answers to deal with your problems to Slidey. What I'll do instead is throw the question back at you... Ok so there's this 'sudden explosion', how does this prove a creator / disprove evolution? So what you're saying is that God for some reason... created a bunch of creatures... then decided a few million years later to create a bunch of others in a (sorry I'm going to be rough, this is from memory) 200 million year 'explosion'?

I'm sorry but even if the cambrian explosion was a huge problem for evolution (I really don't think it is) it goes no way to being further evidence for a creator... We'd just have to try and discover what naturalistic element made so many creatures be created so fast in that period of time and other than that the theory of evolution works fine.

 

[Kwayera]

Also, it comes down to (as has been said) the chance of a specimen being fossilised. The Burgess Shale (which recorded parts of the "explosion" - a more accurate term would be 'radiation') and Ediacarian (which recorded just before the "explosion", with mainly soft-bodied organisms, and is thus important as it is VERY rare to find soft-body fossils) deposits were unique in their depositional environments: low energy, extremely soft sediment with a high sedimentation rate. Not a particularly common state, and if you couple that with the actual probability of a specimen being fossilised even WITHIN this environment - we're lucky to have those deposits!

Also, with regards to soft bodies and transitional fossils - well, I don't really know what you're trying to ask, so I'll just talk and hope I come to a suitable answer for you.

The "explosion" (or rather "radiation") lasted 70-80 million years, and is generally regarded to be the point in which a very important anatomical feature first evolved: jaws. This is likely to have stongly influenced the huge development and radiation of body plans - especially the development and refinement of chitin, and exoskeletons in general.


Note: this info may be 4 years out of date, i.e. the last time I studied it. Lol.

 

[BradCube]

Well, you tell me about how many species have existed throughout time. Then you tell me about how many fossils we have representing all of these species.

I don't expect you to go and find me any numbers, but hopefully you realise the number of species far outweighs the number of fossils we have. What can we deduce? That transitional forms are going to be fairly few and far between.

Now, if you reduce the number fossils given in any particular time period (say pre-Cambrian, as a result of lack of skeletal structure for instance), then what can we say about the likelihood of us finding transitional forms in this period?

You will have to forgive me for even asking this, but most here know that I have very little to no scientific background. Could you explain what methods we currently employ to discover existing species apart from fossils and predictive knowledge (ie based on current models, this species should have existed here and looked like.. etc).

I would normally search for something like this this but being that it is such a basic starting point, frankly, I wouldn't know where to even begin.

 

[Kwayera]

You will have to forgive me for even asking this, but most here know that I have very little to no scientific background. Could you explain what methods we currently employ to discover existing species apart from fossils and predictive knowledge (ie based on current models, this species should have existed here and looked like.. etc).

I would normally search for something like this this but being that it is such a basic starting point, frankly, I wouldn't know where to even begin.

AFAIK, there's fossils, predictive models and DNA analyses of current organisms.

 

[BradCube]

I have absolutely no problem with the cambrian explosion having researched it properly and I'll leave the answers to deal with your problems to Slidey. What I'll do instead is throw the question back at you... Ok so there's this 'sudden explosion', how does this prove a creator / disprove evolution? So what you're saying is that God for some reason... created a bunch of creatures... then decided a few million years later to create a bunch of others in a (sorry I'm going to be rough, this is from memory) 200 million year 'explosion'?

I'm sorry but even if the cambrian explosion was a huge problem for evolution (I really don't think it is) it goes no way to being further evidence for a creator... We'd just have to try and discover what naturalistic element made so many creatures be created so fast in that period of time and other than that the theory of evolution works fine.

Well, basic idea behind it goes, that if evolution cannot explain what happened to start all the diversity in life, then when have no other reasonable natural answer and so we fall back to the idea that God must have intervened to kick things along. Essentially, God-of-Gaps theory. Although I must admit that when so many people rely on Science-of-Gaps I'm not really all that bothered by such a proposition.

Also, I must make mention that the assumption that there must be a naturalistic answer seems quite circular in arguing against the existence of the supernatural.

 

[Kwayera]

Well, basic idea behind it goes, that if evolution cannot explain what happened to start all the diversity in life, then when have no other reasonable natural answer and so we fall back to the idea that God must have intervened to kick things along. Essentially, God-of-Gaps theory. Although I must admit that when so many people rely on Science-of-Gaps I'm not really all that bothered by such a proposition.

Also, I must make mention that the assumption that there must be a naturalistic answer seems quite circular in arguing against the existence of the supernatural.

Well, the Gaps for the God-of-Gaps to reside in is always shrinking, you know. Some stuff science doesn't know yet and that is okay. It doesn't immediately beg for "OMG THAT MEANS GOD DID IT!" to be screamed out. We used to not know that the world wasn't flat and that we orbit the sun, not the other way around. Now we do.

 

[BradCube]

AFAIK, there's fossils, predictive models and DNA analyses of current organisms.

Awesome. Thanks.

So from those we take out fossils and predictive models (since we can't use the theory of evolution as proof of itself) and we are left with DNA analysis.

Could anyone recommend any reading on how this process works, or any other predictive models which wouldn't be circular to our original discussion?

 

[BoilinOatRunner]

Well, basic idea behind it goes, that if evolution cannot explain what happened to start all the diversity in life, then when have no other reasonable natural answer and so we fall back to the idea that God must have intervened to kick things along. Essentially, God-of-Gaps theory. Although I must admit that when so many people rely on Science-of-Gaps I'm not really all that bothered by such a proposition.

"God of the Gaps... theory" is an absolutely terrible 'proposition'. Hey science! You don't have the answer to something! Therefore - God. BTW evolution can explain, there is life before/after the explosion, all we'd need is an explanation for why it'd speed up so much. There are other 'problems' with evolution (thus why we have people still doing the science)... this is to be expected.

Also, I must make mention that the assumption that there must be a naturalistic answer seems quite circular in arguing against the existance of the supernatural.

Until there's a naturalistic answer I'd just say "I don't know", that's what science looks for... we can't look for a supernatural answer, if you want to look for a supernatural answer we would look at something like the cambrian explosion and say "ELVES DID IT" and that's the end of the conversation.

 

[Kwayera]

Awesome. Thanks.

So from those we take out fossils and predictive models (since we can't use the theory of evolution as proof of itself) and we are left with DNA analysis.

Could anyone recommend any reading on how this process works, or any other predictive models which wouldn't be circular to our original discussion?

Well DNA analysis is itself limited, because it leaves out the giant chunk of organisms with no living relatives. It ALSO has, inherently, some measure of predictive models involved.

 

[TacoTerrorist]

"God of the Gaps... theory" is an absolutely terrible 'proposition'. Hey science! You don't have the answer to something! Therefore - God. BTW evolution can explain, there is life before/after the explosion, all we'd need is an explanation for why it'd speed up so much. There are other 'problems' with evolution (thus why we have people still doing the science)... this is to be expected.

Please tell me how science can explain how the universe was sparked and formed out of nothing and how the earth has a perfectly designed ecosystem. Evolution and theism do not have to be enemies.

 

[darkliight]

Well, basic idea behind it goes, that if evolution cannot explain what happened to start all the diversity in life, then when have no other reasonable natural answer and so we fall back to the idea that God must have intervened to kick things along. Essentially, God-of-Gaps theory. Although I must admit that when so many people rely on Science-of-Gaps I'm not really all that bothered by such a proposition.

This is a really bad way to think.

When we come across a problem, there are exactly two possible positions we can take.
1) There must be a supernatural explanation for this (god of the gaps if you prefer).
2) There must be a naturalistic explanation for this (science of the gaps if you prefer).
For many many thousands of years, many people have been content with option 1. But that path is an intellectual dead end. If we make that assumption, then we are simply done - problem solved in terms of the supernatural. It wasn't too long ago that we learned option 2 was so much more rewarding though. It has delivered so much. Compare the average life expectancy of the dark ages compared to today, for instance.

 

[BoilinOatRunner]

Please tell me how science can explain how the universe was sparked and formed out of nothing

I can give you some theories that don't require a personal god... actually a shit load of them.

and how the earth has a perfectly designed ecosystem.

Do you really think it's that unlikely given the amount of planets in the universe?

Evolution and theism do not have to be enemies.

Sure, I agree.

 

[darkliight]

Please tell me how science can explain how the universe was sparked and formed out of nothing and how the earth has a perfectly designed ecosystem. Evolution and theism do not have to be enemies.

The Earth doesn't have a perfectly designed ecosystem. How many extinction events can you name off the top of your head? At least one I imagine.

 

[TacoTerrorist]

^ It is mysteriously incredibly effective given how it was apparently formed by an explosion.

 

[BoilinOatRunner]

^ It is mysteriously incredibly effective given how it was apparently formed by an explosion.

Sounds to me like you're making a colossal strawman there... I mean, there's a fair bit more than just an explosion.