Behe, Swamidass, and Berean

Depends on when the pool shot happens. If it involves setting up the initial conditions of the universe at the Big Bang, then he never actually touches evolution. If it involves creating the first cell and the initial conditions on Earth, he is involved, but only once and never subsequently. In either case he hasn’t been involved for billions of years, which is the crucial distinction to be made.

Why? What would you prefer? “Twiddling”?

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actually we do. if both chimp and human had very similar genome in the first place then we can get basically a similar result.

here is one example in the scale to feather transition. according to this paper at least 5 genes ( Sox2 , Zic1 , Grem1 , Spry2 , Sox18)are necessary to change a scale into a feather:

and if its true then evolution cant evolve a feather by small steps.

@John_Harshman:

And you think I’m obtuse?

Here you are, positing a divine entity that is responsible for the existence of all Creation (don’t worry, I’m just saying you are “positing”, not “asserting”) - - and you have the unctuous sophistry to say he isn’t even touching Evolution?

You crack me up. How brittle a semantic universe are you using, anyway?

God is elbows deep in Evolution, and in everything else. Get over yourself.

The Hubrus of Faith in full display.

@gbrooks9 Watch at least the last 3 minutes of this

https://youtu.be/oSNE02hwwSM

If humans and chimps started with a very similar genome (which we still have now BTW), then we might expect that within-human and within-chimp variation followed the same pattern, if mutations were responsible for all genetic variation within species. This is a premise that AIG YECs are rejecting in favour of the idea of “created heterozygosity”.

However, this would have little effect on the fixed differences between the species, unless you’re proposing that humans and chimps basically started out with the same genome sequence, and then diverged as a result of mutations, in which case you’re basically arguing for evolution.

The conclusion is that the nucleotide differences that separate humans and chimps were caused by mutations, simple as that. This implies that humans and chimps started with the same genome (or close enough), and then diverged as a result of mutations. This is a description of evolution and common descent, I just don’t see how you can have a viable creation model with these characteristics.

this is what i said, but without a common descent. if they were almost identical (basically like now but a bit more similar) then we should find the same result.

Not just “a bit” more similar. The spectrum of all nucleotide differences between humans and chimps is consistent with mutations, implying that mutations are responsible for all nucleotide differences. So humans and chimp ancestors would require practically identical genomes. Now the difference (on the single-nucleotide level) is approximately 1%, so it would have to be <0.1% in the ancestors to have a good chance of matching the spectrum for mutations. At that point human and chimp ancestors would be more similar to one another than 2 modern humans are to each other - do you see why this is problematic for a creation model?

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To be honest, I am starting to wonder. Mistaking pointless ridicule for argument is certainly a symptom.

Still trying to find out what you mean by that.

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Johnny!

God is the Creator of all things.
Some of the things are living creatures.
He created them.
To do so, he designed 100% of their genetics.
What to him is millions of years of Evolution he did in an instant.
But he chose every single mutation experienced by a population.
And he chose a path of common descent for these creatures.

What does it mean for God to create things?

Whatever you were thinking earlier this morning … that God “doesn’t even touch Evolution” ?
Well, now imagine the complete opposite. That’s what it means to be 100% involved in something.

@John_Harshman.

actually its not a problem. as far as i remember the difference between some ancient homo species and modern humans was even larger then the difference between human and chimp, and they were still humans, so bascially we are talking about a majority of neutral mutations.

Thank you for attempting to clarify. However, just saying the same thing over and over isn’t clarification, and the smug condescension isn’t helping either.

In what sense did God create living creatures? In what sense did he create you? In what sense did he choose every single mutation? Making Adam out of dust, if we are to take that literally, is clearly a creative act in which the causal chain leads immediately to direct divine action without prior causes in the world. But you are the immediate result of purely worldly causation: a couple cases of gametogenesis leading to embryogenesis, with a few germ-line replication errors folded in. Where are the specific acts of design or creation in that? I truly do not know what you’re trying to say, and this repetition is not helping.

How did he implement that design? How does that implementation differ from letting the universe take its course?

How? When? Even the mutations in junk DNA?

How? When? Are you saying that every speciation event is divinely ordained? In what way?

Citation please.

Do you think the ancestors of humans and chimps were almost identical in terms of their phenotype? Were chimp ancestors more human-like? Or were human ancestors more chimp-like?

I’m really astonished that you’re even entertaining this idea.

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Start with one thing and focus.

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Does “elbows deep” have deep Theological meaning?

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We see them diverge earlier in the fossil record as well. As predicted by evolutionary theory.

So human and chimp ancestors were nearly identical at the genetic level, but still had significantly different phenotypes? How exactly did that work?

You also have to content with the issue of time. If mutations were really responsible for all (or even the vast majority) of the nucleotide differences separating humans and chimps, then think how long this process would take in order to get to the divergence we see today. We can measure mutation rates empirically today. To fit all the mutations into a YEC timeline this mutation rate would have to be sped up by a factor of more than 1000x in the past. Does that seem plausible to you?

I haven’t seen @Peter_Berean since post 125. I wonder if he is still reading these comments.

Johnny!

You have the misfortune of trying to squeeze detailed responses from the mind of a Unitarian Universalist. I should inform you that we “UU”-ers have invested most of our time thinking about just how to spell out the name of our denomination!

As you know, we used to be two different New England denominations… who merged because they kept finding themselves at all the same protests, rallies and Meditation tournaments (just kidding about that last part).

Why don’t you follow @swamidass’s advice and return to the thread [extract depicted below!] where you and he did a nice job of touching on the high points… and you didn’t besmirch Joshua with comments about his inability to communicate.

I think that went rather well… especially the part where you and I agreed about things… that was good too.

When I’m convinced that you are not simply trying to crucify me gently with your interogatories, I may be persuaded to offer a few hypotheticals, but really, yours are as good as mine, should you ever entertain the idea of a divine being.

**[ Be sure to click on the image to maximize font size … or download the image, cut it into 2 or **
three separate images for greater clarity. Souvenier autographs available upon request. ]
o o o o o o o

(@John_Harshman)

as we can see with the mouse-rat comparison- different genomes dont necessarily
mean similar phenotypes. so human ancestor may had different genome, but it can still had similar phenotype.

indeed. it doesnt fit naturally with a yec model. i actually refer to millions of years.