Creation / Evolution Debate and Spiritual Development

[bylto]

Hi. I have written an article at my site about the creation/evolution debate and my conclusion has definite spiritual implications. I would love to hear what others make of this issue and possibly give some feedback on my belief. Simply put I believe

THE UNIVERSE ITSELF IS A LIVING, ONGOING PROCESS OF CREATION.

God expresses itself through evolution, and as time progresses we develop more and more of the Godlike attribute of CONSCIOUSNESS. Continue raising you Level of Consciousness, it benefits the whole world.

Mark

Build Your Life To Order ™ » Blog Archive » The Creation vs Evolution Debate - The Solution (Well, To My Satisfaction)

[The Probabilist]

Welcome to the forums. I, at least am liking what you write and I would be honored to have you keep posting your thoughts on your blog and these forums.

It's a good read and resonates well with my perspectives. So, unfortunately I don't have anything more to add that would help raise your consciousness on this matter in return. Everytime I read about insights that at least at this moment are greater than me, I can't but feel humbled about the beauty of all that is, no matter how it came to be.

[gberardi]

Wow, thanks for posting that one! I actually never thought about the way evolution works to reduce info and never adds more, and it looks like something to research. Up until now, I never got too deep into how evolution works, and I am a bit embarrassed by my lack of knowledge now. I mean, if someone came up to me and said that evolution was dead, I would consider him/her to be crazy and willing to make leaps in logic to be comfortable with his/her faith. How similarly was I acting without realizing it?

[bylto]

Thanks so much for your replies, they mean a lot. The Probabilist, I am equally honored to hear your feedback friend, thank you. Your right, 'All That Is' is beautiful and if we understand ourselves we understand that we are 'All That Is'. It's all a beautiful unfolding. gberardi, thanks for reading it and being honest, just to be clear, I believe in the process of evolution, it's just the mechanisms that don't add up for me, intelligence must be present. Yes I will staying Probabilist although I can't commit as much time as I would like to doing this as I still work full-time (though I hope not for too much longer)

Mark

[Akashic_Librarian]

"if you want to get to 10 and you have 6, no amount of subtraction or re-arranging numbers will take you there, you must add to what you have."

Thats amazing. Pure rational thought, the basis of evolution is almost disproved in that very sentence. Bravo!

[TimDineen]

Wow. I have to say that you have some truly inspired work. I was just about to start a new thread pondering the purpose of humanity as a whole, and then I read your blog post and there it was. We live to become one with all.

In reference to the actual evolution question,
I've always believed that, if anything, evolution was proof of God. Not exactly God as a seperate intelligence influencing us, but more like a wave, like a pattern drawing us back to our divine nature. God is perfection, evolution is the process of attaining perfection. That's my two cents.

[bylto]

Thanks again for the kind comments. Yes Tim I agree, this Presence draws us to it, to really Know our true identity. This is what is really meant by 'God calling you', though we can always choose not to listen for the moment we all will in our own time, the outcome of this game is guaranteed no need for worry.

[Joshiepoo3000]

There is no evidence for macro evolution only micro evolution. For those lost subjective realists out there, evidence are objects in objective reality. This makes them exist. For the believers out there, God is a trinity. The father is time and space. He said, "I am alpha and omega; what was, what is, and what is to come." Jesus also claimed this, because He is part of the trinity. Time and space is objective reality. Substitute God for it in the definition for "to exist." Exis- having a place in God. The Father is objective reality, which means He is there whether you know it, believe it, think it, or not. Things exist in our universe whether we know it or not. This is objective reality. Discovery would never happen if everything were subjective as Subjective Realists believe. Jesus is the Son of the Father, or space and time. The holy ghost is happiness and hope on earth. If you have hope in the Son, you have the holy spirit in you. I believe the holy spirit is Jesus' after he died. That is how it was left here. If macro evolution were correct, then, through the processes of natural selection, there would be no more bacteria or simple life forms. They would have died out, because more complex organisms would have multiplied in numbers rapidly without any competition. Micro evolution is the only evolution.

[Megan]

Like the Probablilist said, it all just resonates with where I am presently.

Several things are coming to mind to talk about later--plasma universe, epigenetic change, Stuart Kaufman, etc., but it's late. I'm really glad you posted your article--really inspiring and yeasty!

Josh, here we are again. I didn't get a chance to tell you that I appreciated how open-hearted and non-judgmental you remained on that other thread, may it rest in peace. That's inspiring too!

Yay for this thread!

[Michael Chui]

Originally Posted by Akashic_Librarian

"if you want to get to 10 and you have 6, no amount of subtraction or re-arranging numbers will take you there, you must add to what you have."

Thats amazing. Pure rational thought, the basis of evolution is almost disproved in that very sentence. Bravo!

I agree; well put. It's too bad it suffers from a disconnect from the preceding point, which I quote: "Even in the very rare case where a mutation is beneficial it is because of a decrease in the amount of information."

Information is not arithmetic. You cannot count bits of information and add them all up into a total sum. Similarly, you cannot subtract information from a whole such that there is less information.

Let's take the English alphabet (kindly provided by my keyboard) and randomly generate (semi-random: my hands) an encoded sequence:

LSDJAHFLUIARHIOUARHFKLASJERHFLKASJEHFLAK

I deleted one character such that there are now 40 characters in the sequence. Is there information in this sequence?

Yes and no.

Yes. I notice things like "LSD" is the first three characters, an acronym for a drug. "FLAK" is the last four, a type of shrapnel. "JER" is a name. "FLU" is a disease. "IOU" is an abbreviation for debt. And so on. Try this yourself: you can find dozens. Perhaps I even interpret it into a secret message. Perhaps it's a ROT-13 encryption (though there aren't any 40-letter words that aren't chemical names or German, to my knowledge).

But, no. Taken as a whole, I cannot pass it to someone else and expect them to decode it the same way; it was hardly encrypted.

Asking you this binary question, "This sequence contains information, yes or no?", the answer varies based on circumstance and interpreter. That is the nature of information. The actual sequence has not changed. This is an important point.

In a genetic sequence, evolution depends upon mutations. Mutations, in this case, can be simulated by randomly changing one letter of the sequence to another. Let's say I do a lot of mutations and eventually come up with this new 39-letter sequence:

FORGODSOLOVEDTHEWORLDHEGAVEUSHISONLYSON

Did we lose information, or did we gain information? After all, we even lost a letter! (Maybe it mutated into a period.) The correct answer is: It depends entirely on the context (a Roman would be quite perplexed) and the interpreter (read: Forg od solo ved'th eworl d'hega...).

You would have a hard time counting to 6, here, let alone 10.

It cannot be stressed enough that what natural selection actually does is get rid of information.

So we come around full circle to this notion that eliminating genes for, say, short roots is an elimination of information. There is a second problem to this argument, but I am less equipped to address it, since I am trained as an information scientist, not as a genetic one.

The crux of the problem is this: there is no such thing as The Short Root Gene. There is no Blue Eye Gene, or Red Hair Gene, or Tall Gene (what, is there a six-foot gene, a five-foot gene, and a four-foot gene?) High school biology teaches us how dominant and recessive genes will create the probability for potential outcomes. What it does not inform us of is that a gene is not totally responsible for anything.

You notice, after all, that they do not actually make a connection between the four chemicals, abbreviated ACGT, and those pretty little matrices. That's because there isn't one. Well, not one that an undergraduate college student specializing in biology and genetics could be reasonably expected to design and process in a year, never mind the average high schooler.

This gets into the area where I'm ignorant.

Let's say you have a group of ten genes, and you have this trait for red hair. Why do you have red hair? There is no single gene responsible for it: let's say we pick one at random and alter it. Suddenly, we may not have red hair. Instead, we might have six toes on each foot. When we say that mutations are generally not beneficial, you can see why: perhaps a mutation would produce an infant with only one lung. A beneficial mutation is not an evolutionary advantage: it's a survivable change. This is why incest is frowned upon: it increases the likelihood of deformed children. Mutants.

So, getting back to the original point.

Genes are not merely carriers of information, eliminated willy-nilly by the harsh fiat of natural selection. Within human beings (a single species!), we have an amazingly diverse representation, from skin, eye, and hair color, to physical size, mental disposition, even handedness. And yet our genetic structures are almost identical.

Yes, genes are an analogue for words, and perhaps species are paragraphs. Novels, even. And in these words, we have but four letters.

And yet, with these four letters, we represent every species on this planet. Information comes from the interpretation of these letters, these words. ACGT TGAC GTCA may mean a dark-skinned nomad to a desert, but it may mean a fair-haired sailor to the Arctice ice. Information is derived from context and its interpreter.

It's not 1+1. The oxymoron, "a deafening silence," comes to mind. An absence is as informative as a presence.

[Megan]

By Michael:

Information is derived from context and its interpreter.

Epigenetic adaptation is not a universally accepted idea, is it, Michael, but is somewhat forced from the failure of the genome project to come up with enough genes for genes to be deterministic?

You obviously know a great deal about this, Michael, and I'm just as obviously dabbling, but interested.

Craig Venter:

We simply do not have enough genes for this idea of biological determinism to be right.

The wonderful diversity of the human species is not hard-wired in our genetic code.

Our environments are critical.

[Michael Chui]

Originally Posted by Megan

Epigenetic adaptation is not a universally accepted idea, is it, Michael, but is somewhat forced from the failure of the genome project to come up with enough genes for genes to be deterministic?

You obviously know a great deal about this, Michael, and I'm just as obviously dabbling, but interested.

Oh, I spent about a year and a half arguing fiercely for creationism and eventually found myself more and more on the wrong side, scrabbling for a purchase and hunting desperately for arguments that had a chance. I didn't know all this about information science until the past two years.

Universal acceptance isn't really a feasible goal for any theory; we should never accept any theory as True. At least, not if we're scientists. The best we should do is work with it until it breaks, and then try to come up with a new theory. The theory that Gene 27893 controls the length of your roots broke, so we came up with a new one: epigenetics. Is it somewhat forced? Sure. The goal of science is to squeeze every theory until it snaps, and based on where, when, and how it snaps, to come closer to the truth, or at least come closer to the right question to ask.

In all likelihood, epigenetic theory will similarly snap in the next decade or two, but we'll have learned much from the mistakes in that theory and continue on the quest to understand life.

Every science goes through similar bits. Copernicus snapped Ptolemy's model. Einstein snapped Newton's. Keynes snapped Smith's. Godel snapped Hilbert's. And so on. It's not that the latter was wrong and the former right. It's that the latter model wasn't quite as accurate as the former one. Biological determinism is a rather annoying model, suggesting that life is algorithmic. Robert Rosen would disagree, I think, and advocate systems thinking. Except that he's inconveniently dead. Fortunately, he left behind papers, books, and a admirably tireless daughter. Freeman Dyson, in Infinite In All Directions, lambasted Schrodinger's "What is Life?" for its over-emphasis on the consideration of replication (genes) over metabolism (processes). Epigenetics, in one sense, is a return to metabolism and might be a union between the two.

But I have to reiterate: I'm not a genetic scientist. I know very, very little about genes, and even less about epigenes. Hell, Firefox keeps telling me it's not a word.

[Megan]

Well, to be clear, though I am a theist, I'm not arguing for creationism (far less young earth creationism). No amount of science, information science or otherwise, is going to prove or disprove creationism. Science, as well as religion, runs into the problem of infinite regress:


Turtles all the way down - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Science is based on philosophical and methodological materialism (not that that is a bad thing, you understand), and, by definition, cannot answer metaphysical questions. That, of course, doesn't keep some zealots from crossing the line into metaphysics, but you basically can't get there from here, IMO.

It goes without saying that scientific theories are provisional, including epigenetic adaptation theory, and will give way in time to more comprehensive theories. As Thomas Kuhn pointed out in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, science moves forward when the old guys die off.

The salient point here is the fact that even after the Human Genome Project rendered genetic determinism an "inoperable term" (sorry, couldn't resist that), the old guard scientists still cling to it, shades of Kuhn. Epigenetic theory is heretical still--just ask Firefox.

So, if most of the scientific community clings to genetic determinism, and you can't get enough information from genetic determinism to make, say, a lung, then the people who advocate factoring in process have a point. And so do the creationists.

We can't just move the goalposts and say, "Oh, yeah, we always factored in process," because we didn't and we mostly still don't.

So Freeman Dyson, Stuart Kaufman, Candace Pert, Mark Baldwin, Rupert Sheldrake, Matt Ridley, Mae-Wan Ho, Stephen Jay Gould, Bruce Lipton, etc., are the exceptions right now.

A New Paradigm for Life Beyond genetic determinism
Richard Strohman, Berkeley, California

Most observers commenting on the sequencing of the human genome, after their shock and surprise, fell back to genetic determinism. One exception was the distinguished Harvard biologist Stephen Jay Gould, who wrote in the New York Times:

"The collapse of the one gene for one protein, and one direction for causal flow from basic codes to elaborate totality, marks the failure of [genetic] reductionism for the complex system we call cell biology."

Article: A New Paradigm for Life

By Michael: Yesterday 07:33 PM

Epigenetics, in one sense, is a return to metabolism and might be a union between the two.

In short, genetics alone does not tell us who we are, or who we can be. While, as Gould says, the reductionist theory of genetics has collapsed, the dynamic-epigenetic point of view retains genetics as part of a new paradigm for life, one that has striking implications for the future of the life sciences.

Article: A New Paradigm for Life

'Neo-Darwin' is rolling over in his grave, and Lamarck is jumping up and down.

As the above article asks:

Where is the programme for life?

One comes to the startling discovery that the coherent organism is in a very real sense completely free. Nothing is in control, and yet everything is in control.

Thus, it is the failure to transcend the mechanistic framework that makes people persist in enquiring which parts are in control, or issuing instructions....
--Mae-Wan Ho

Selected Works of Dr. Mae-Wan Ho

[takkaria]

All knowledge runs into the problem of infinite regress eventually, not just science and religion. Regardless, science is defined as dealing with that which can be proven or disproven; and so things which are unproveable are outside of its domain (as I'm sure you're well aware).

However, I want to address the bad understanding of science that's been shown higher up in this thread that young earth creationist arguments usually have. I have no problem with people believing in Genesis if they like, but I do wish they wouldn't distort science to try and prove it. So, here goes:

I've always interpreted claims of no new information ever being created as claims that the amount of genetic material is increased. If this is actually what is meant (which it isn't most of the time, because generally people claiming this have no real understanding of biology, and no desire to learn, and are merely repeating what they have heard elsewhere), then there are cases to disprove it. Huntington's disease is one, where a gene is repeated too many times. Sure, it's not a beneficial mutation, but it's an addition. Other than that, though, Michael's post on context and information is brilliant and shows the problem of interpretation really well. (Actually, I think it's one of the most lucid things I've read on the issue anywhere.)

Also, from that blog post, it links to two articles on evolution and genetics. Please don't read them; they are unscientific (there is talk of the "fallen world" in there) and make use of logical fallacies liberally. Find something else to read.

Originally Posted by Joshiepoo3000

If macro evolution were correct, then, through the processes of natural selection, there would be no more bacteria or simple life forms. They would have died out, because more complex organisms would have multiplied in numbers rapidly without any competition.

Not really. There's a comparison with tools here. If I have a basic saw (a piece of metal with teeth), then that's simpler than a powersaw. The powersaw wouldn't have come about without someone inventing the saw first, but the saw's still around. Basically, just because something more advanced from something less advanced, doesn't mean there's not a niche for the simpler of the two. Powersaws would be overkill most of the time. (Indeed, while you are a big macro-organism, there are many micro-organisms inside your gut that help digest your food for you.)

[tim]

Originally Posted by Akashic_Librarian

"if you want to get to 10 and you have 6, no amount of subtraction or re-arranging numbers will take you there, you must add to what you have."

Thats amazing. Pure rational thought, the basis of evolution is almost disproved in that very sentence. Bravo!

You know there's only a 2-bit difference between 6 and 10 in binary? Rearranging bits will definitely get you from 6 to 10 .

Just to add to takaria's last post, that it is a distortion of science to claim that via the mechanisms of evolution no new information can be produced:

New information being gained via evolutionary mechanisms has been observed in many different areas. In populations of organisms we're constantly observing increases in genetic variety. On the organism level we have examples like the bacteria that evolved a mechanism for digesting nylon (which didn't exist until the 30's), or an antarctic fish which survives through 'antifreeze' proteins in the blood. On the genetic level we have observed many mechanisms by which information can be increased; a great example would be gene duplication.

*Shrug* Creationists won't hear a word of it though.

[bylto]

I believe that when a set of chromosomes is copied and retained it is called ‘polyploidy’. This is merely a ‘duplication’ of information but it does give an extra opportunity for mutations to occur. If this mechanism was a factor in the evolution of life we would expect life forms with the most DNA to be at a great advantage for upward evolutionary change. However, man has only 46 chromosomes (yet we are most advanced), butterflies have 380, a fern (plant) has 1200. It doesn’t seem to add up.

I've never heard of the antarctic fish that survives through 'antifreeze' proteins in the blood. I have heard of another 'beneficial' mutation to cave fish, they are blind. This is often used as proof for evolution as they are descendants from 'seeing' fish and there is no use for sight in their lightless environment. However, this again is a downward change. The eyeless fish even have an advantage over the others. This is because, as fish bump into rocks and cave walls in the darkness, the eyed ones would be likely to injure their eyes. The delicate tissue of eyes is prone to injury, which would allow harmful bacteria to enter, leading to infection and often death. The eyed fish would thus have a lesser chance of surviving to produce offspring. Those fish carrying the ‘eyeless’ genetic defect would have a greater chance of passing it on to the next generation. After many generations one would expect to observe more eyeless fish than fish with eyes, which is exactly what we do observe. Phew.

By the way, I believe in evolution. I believe in increases in genetic information but I don't believe we know how they occur. My theory is that this is inextricably linked to increases in levels of consciousness.

[Megan]

By bylto, Today 09:09 AM

By the way, I believe in evolution. I believe in increases in genetic information but I don't believe we know how they occur. My theory is that this is inextricably linked to increases in levels of consciousness.

And increases in levels of consciousness are inextricably linked to interaction with the environment?

Where is the programme for life?

[Joshiepoo3000]

If you read up on the study and deciphering of DNA, scientists are finding it more and more convincing that nature never created itself. It is just too complex. Symbiotic relationships cannot be explained by evolution. Protein and DNA have a symbiotic relationship. They are paradoxes. Macroevolution does not occur and has very little evidence. Evidence that is misinterpreted if anything. Microevolution is more convincing. Natural Selection is a foundation of evolution that is so flawed, it should bring the whole house down. If natural selection were true, then bacterial should not exist. Less complex organism should also not exist. Darwin's Black Book puts the whole theory on ice.
On the subject of levels of conciousness:
I see it more as phases of conciousness. Levels of conciousness sound too much like a world of warcraft character. So someone reaches a level 25 conciousness and can now obliterate everyone elses mind? It just sounds silly.