In a theological convo w/a teacher regarding evolution and creationism

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I was trolling a group of friends about the results of religious conditioning on the human psyche and a Rabbi, who also happens to be a science teacher, responded to me with a bit that didn't resonate with me. I wanted to see what any experts in the field of biology had to say about his comparison.

BACKGROUND:: Someone posted a comic. A boy goes to his father and asks where humans come from. His father responds with the story of Adam and Eve. The boy then asks his mother who responds with the theory of evolution. The boy returns to the father and tells him that mom said that humans evolved from apes. The father answers "that's her side of the family."

It's a funny joke but I found room to start dismantling the perspective the perspective.

Me: This is a perfect example of how belief in god can manifest an elitist mindset. As our technology advances we can see more and more that our DNA is biological data inherited from our primal ancestors. The faith based state of mind keeps people living with a certain kind of cognitive dissonance that is remedied by the idea that they are special because they are the direct descendants of the creator. Their ego is inflated from it and then they become offended if someone were to suggest that their biology is closely related to another living species. If they were to take on a less manufactured point of view they would see how they are connected to all living things. They may also see that an organized religion is not divine and only works to divide and control people. They may also begin to see how imperialism evolved into a massive control icon where basic living is dictated from the top down. They may also realize that studying the same things repetitively is actually a mild state of psychosis that reinforces their delusional state of mind.

Rabbi: Actually advances in technology help to disprove the theory of evolution.

Consider the new IPhone I'm willing to bet that the programming is very similar to the previous IPhone with some changes. Would anyone suggest that the iPhone evolved from the previous one? Of course not!

Looking an DNA keeping in mind that the genetic code comes from a four letters alphabet is it any wonder that there are similarity between organisms in their DNA?

Just like the IPhone needed a programmer to make the upgrades between the addition so to organisms need a programmer to make the upgrades between organisms. That programmer is Hashem.

If anyone can understand what exactly this comparison is saying please shed some light

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[+3] - farmerman - 10/15/2017"Free market" may sound like a lot but Ive been to countries that make the US internet play like a flicker picture running on a wood fired motor.

@RebCthulu,

It IS possible to believe in creation and evolution. It does require that you look at the Bible as a book of stories rather than a scientific text book.

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@RebCthulu,

RebCthulu wrote:

Rabbi: Actually advances in technology help to disprove the theory of evolution.

Child: Actually Rabbi, advances in technology do no such thing. Technology doesn't reproduce, so the analogy is completely specious.

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@RebCthulu,

My very competent dentist, a religious Jew, spends his time between drilling, lecturing me in exactly the same way as your Rabbi. (I am a captive 'thinker' he has gagged with a mouth full of equipment !). It seems that intellectual Jewish believers try to use the Kabbalah and gematria (semantic subtexts based on numerical values of letters) to justify their position. Cutting through the mysticism, his conclusion is that there must be 'a prime mover/designer'.
I think the point is that it is tough for believers to maintain their self integrity in the face of scientific advances and need to constantly re-confirm their 'bedrock'. I have argued elsewhere for the Pragmatist's position, that theism no longer has any business with 'science' and can be justified simply in terms of 'emotional need'. My dentist seems to be attempting to resolve his cognitive dissonance....understandable since his home life (multiple kids, no TV, chauvinistic practices etc) is also attributable to that 'bedrock'.

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@RebCthulu,

Quote:

Consider the new IPhone I'm willing to bet that the programming is very similar to the previous IPhone with some changes. Would anyone suggest that the iPhone evolved from the previous one? Of course not!

Actually yes.

The technology applied to new devices has way evolved when you compare the old ones with the new ones.

Before a computer was a wall to wall machine, with a program that required books similar to the old big size telephone books for learning how to use it.

Today, computers inside watches and phones replace and have more, better, and easy to learn programs than the old wall to wall computers.

Evolving means to expand, to unfold, a change from worst, inferior and simple status into a better, superior and more complex status.

Quote:

Looking an DNA keeping in mind that the genetic code comes from a four letters alphabet is it any wonder that there are similarity between organisms in their DNA?

The answer is as it follows. You use the same or similar construction materials to build homes, skyscrapers, building stores, etc.

The materials are cement, wood, glass, iron, plastic, paint, nails, etc.

Then, you have similarities between single houses with skyscrapers, because both use similar materials. The quality of the materials are different but the materials themselves are similar, like wood floors, perhaps different brands and finish, but wood floors in both constructions.

This is the explanation I have presented in 1999, when creating the theory of the recycling process of life on earth.

Quote:

Just like the IPhone needed a programmer to make the upgrades between the addition so to organisms need a programmer to make the upgrades between organisms. That programmer is Hashem.

Actually what Hashem has made is the first organisms.

Since their creation, the process throughout generations has not been "upgrading" but "degrading".

Our genetic composition is a degenerated one when is compared with the primeval genetic composition. The genetic structure of the first organisms was more complex. It is a fact that the primeval cells were more complex when compared with the current cells of the species.

On the other hand, our technology has evolved, but remember that this is about technology only, because when is about wisdom, men in the past were wiser than today's man.

In simple words, our organisms keep degenerating while our technology keeps evolving.

Quote:

If anyone can understand what exactly this comparison is saying please shed some light

I understand that your comparison falls in the category of "error".

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As I said on another thread, if Iphones had evolved in a darwinian manner from previous telephones, you would find a vestigial rotary dial in them.

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@Olivier5,

like a woodpeckers tongue retains its finchlike character but has 'added on" a long curving lingul "damp" that aids to protect the critters heqd from all that hammering into rotten wood.

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@cameronleon,

Quote:

Evolving means to expand, to unfold, a change from worst, inferior and simple status into a better, superior and more complex status.

Exc3pt when it downt. In biology life doesnt alway seek the "bbest qnd highest" form. It mrely adapts with wht its alrdy got.
As Olivier so nicely stated, if cell phones evolved like life, most all of its earlier plans would be "retained " as "fossil structures" and many physical structures , being derivative,would be retained in the body of the phone.

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@farmerman,

The newer terminology has Creationism being substituted by the theory of "abrupt appearance". They are trying to incorporate as much science as they can so punctuated equilibrium is now a "tool" in their box of "evidence'

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@farmerman,

" In biology life doesnt alway seek the "bbest qnd highest"

If it did it would have created humans without the drive to cause mass extinctions and possibly commit suicide via war.

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@edgarblythe,

WR Bird's books The Origin of Species Revisited(vol I and II) are just such discussions about evolution v Creationism . Bird was the lawyer who tried USSC case on the Louisiana requirement to teach "Creationism" in science class

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@farmerman,

Quote:

Exc3pt when it downt. In biology life doesnt alway seek the "bbest qnd highest" form. It mrely adapts with wht its alrdy got.
As Olivier so nicely stated, if cell phones evolved like life, most all of its earlier plans would be "retained " as "fossil structures" and many physical structures , being derivative,would be retained in the body of the phone.

False.

Species has not the capability to control their changes.

It is the environment the one changing the species.

Species just survive in front of the changes in the environment.

Example, flying ants nesting near the mouth of a volcano will lose their wings and walk only over ground.

The change was not initiated by the ants who "decided:" to lose their wings. But, it is the volcano fumes, the toxins in the air and floor that caused the mutation and losing of a characteristic in those ants.

And, of course, comparing smart phones with the observable degenerative path of species is completely wrong.

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@cameronleon,

Quote:

It is the environment the one changing the species.

You being obtuse by design or just by "not understanding"??.
This implies that you accept natural selection but dont "GET" the fact tht, in biology, the "Fossil genes" will be preserved as "junk DNA"

Youre maybe 1/3 the way

Oliviers nalogy was just that, an analogy using something that we KNOW is designed qnd built by humans. What Olivier was saying is that IF a cell phone evolved like biological organism, it would retain its "fossil" structures within its phenotype.

Try to follow the bouncing ball Quahog

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@farmerman,

Quote:

You being obtuse by design or just by "not understanding"??.
This implies that you accept natural selection but dont "GET" the fact tht, in biology, the "Fossil genes" will be preserved as "junk DNA"

False again.

Because natural selection is about "favorable changes only" and in small (short) steps.

That is what Darwin concluded.

And Darwin was dead wrong.

Quote:

Oliviers nalogy was just that, an analogy using something that we KNOW is designed qnd built by humans. What Olivier was saying is that IF a cell phone evolved like biological organism, it would retain its "fossil" structures within its phenotype.

False again.

The smart phones indeed have evolved, while species just degenerate.

The analogy is not only wrong but a contradiction.

Quote:

Try to follow the bouncing ball Quahog

Why do I have to follow your stupidities?

Sheeesss!

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@cameronleon,

that above drivvle just displays that you haven't spent much time reading , let alone understanding findings in the evolution of development and genetics that have been made in the last 50 years or so.
Perhaps you should talk to gungasnake , hes similarly vested in maintaining a high standard of ignorance.

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@farmerman,

the hypotheses of "abrupt appearance" and "continuous creation" are ways that much of scientific evidence is being wrangled to fit the religious bases of these hypotheses.

One must first maintain a worldview which is intelligently designed, then all that follows can be coopted.

Hardly scientific , it uses some of the phenomenology of how stuff like the fossil record leaves us.But, paleogenetics throws some major buckets of water on the ideas of these two hypotheses.

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@RebCthulu,

Quote:

They may also see that an organized religion is not divine and only works to divide and control people.

It's way off the topic but it does serve to show you are guilty of the same bias you ascribe to those who believe.

Not to mention that it's complete bullshit.

Happy trolling...

1 Reply

@RebCthulu,

Judaism teaches that Genesis and the other four books of Torah are neither history nor science books. It also teaches that science is the proper way to study His universe. Creationism has never been a part of Judaism.

“You will certainly not doubt the necessity of studying astronomy and physics, if you are desirous of comprehending the relation between the world and Providence as it is in reality, and not according to imagination.” ~ Maimonides

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@cameronleon,

Quote:

Because natural selection is about "favorable changes only"

No, you are only partially informed. Darwin was most conscious of the struggle for life in evolution. He was most frustrated that folks , when, viewing extinction evidence(fossils). " ... they Must invoke cataclysms to explain it"
He was quite sold on the concept that
"Extinction is the norm and evolution is merely a minor exception"
(I think Sagan said that last one).
Youve got a long way to go to attain a "Darwin Scholarship" status.

There is a quote from Morse Peckhams (ed) Variorum of Darwin's six editions of the "...Origin of Species..." that Darwin supposedly said that(and I paraphrase from a waterlogged memory)
"It is not the strongest or most intelligent species that survives, but the one most receptive to change"...
There is a debate as to whether this is functionally correct sinc eds. 3 through 6 were futzed with by Darwin publishers.

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@Leadfoot,

wer'e in a dock near Lunenberg that has wifi. Clever people these Canajuns. Why the hell dont they have that on the Chesapeake or Delaware bays??

1 Reply

In a theological convo w/a teacher regarding evolution and creationism

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