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Using evolution as proof of God's existence is something I find truly intriguing.

• TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
  It begs the question: who created evolution? (I’m not saying “God”; just asking a question).
  • rglover 5y ago
    Exactly. Evolution can't explain evolution.
    • tkot 5y ago
      Should we expect evolution to explain evolution, though? It reminds me a bit of the "falsifiability is not falsifiable" kind of argument - just like falsifiability doesn't apply to itself (it applies to science and falsifiability is a metascientific term), evolution is a biological term and doesn't apply to cosmogony.
    • mod 5y ago
      Perhaps it can. Put simply, (maybe) life that does not evolve gets out competed and dies out. I actually think that's the logical conclusion.
      • TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
        Yes, but how did the rules for evolution come about?
        • jacobr1 5y ago
          We can push the question further back. In the abstract, we can say that some form of evolution is going to occur whenever you have imperfect replication. That is the only criteria needed, and the "rules" emerge naturally such a start. You could ask, ok, why DNA based molecules and while not definitive, we have models around how their chemical precursors could become available in conditions similar to earths ancient past. You could ask why did earth have such conditions, and the answer is something like: many planets could have similar conditions, and given the size of the universe regardless of how common such conditions, one might expect them to arise like earth's somewhere. Ok, then you might ask what causes the universe have the types of stellar conditions and planetary formations and similar, to which we have cosmological models that generate these conditions from early energy states after the big bang. Ok, so then you ask what created the big bang, or the universe as whole? We don't have a great answer. But understanding how evolution itself comes to be doesn't require such a leap if we are will to accept an earlier starting point and start examining phenomenon from there.
        • gaganyaan 5y ago
          Consider that your question is based on a misunderstanding. There aren't "rules" of evolution, it's just our label for part of what happens when you leave a bunch of hydrogen sitting around for an extended period of time. It's emergent behavior. You're driving at some sort of god thing, but that's actually unrelated. Sure, you can make the argument that the universe was created by something else, but however the universe got created, one bit of emergent behavior from it is the process of evolution.
    • eeZah7Ux 5y ago
      [citation needed]
    • woodruffw 5y ago
      The word "evolution" describes a process we've observed in systems with heritable characteristics and environmental pressures that more or less randomly select for or against those characteristics. It doesn't need a prime mover per se, because it's a statistical phenomenon.
      • TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
        How did the laws or rules for that process come about?
        • woodruffw 5y ago
          The thing we call “science” is a loose collection of deductive, inductive, and abductive rules of inference, combined with empirical observation. A great deal of ink has been spent trying to determine the exact “laws” of science; Popper and Kuhn can probably help you with the details.
    • 5e92cb50239222b 5y ago
      Religious fanatics have used this argument for the past few million things that have since been explained by science. Will likely do so for the next who knows how many years until everything is explained.
      • rglover 5y ago
        It's a valid argument (prepending "religious fanatics" to discredit it is intellectually weak). Science is nothing more than humans finding explanation for what was already created. The worship of it leads to an ignorance of the "why" and "who," putting an overemphasis on the what, where, when, and how.
        • cmrdporcupine 5y ago
          Why? and who? are questions humans ask about their societies, families, and products. Assuming it applies to non-human natural phenomenon is quite intensely anthropomorphic and more than a little arrogant.
          • rglover 5y ago
            I shudder at the thought of your upbringing if curiosity is viewed as arrogance. I'm not assuming that it applies, those are just the best tools I have at my disposal for understanding right now. I patiently await the monolith that changes that (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHWs3c3YNs4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHWs3c3YNs4).
            • cmrdporcupine 5y ago
              My upbringing was evangelical Christian... thus my distaste for theological supremacism.
              • rglover 5y ago
                Yeah, that will do it (I have a close friend in the same boat and understand the distaste). It's difficult, but I'd urge you to separate your views of God from that point of view.
  • jacobr1 5y ago
    It is an emergent phenomena of imperfect replication
  • cmrdporcupine 5y ago
    Why do you start from the question of something needing to be "created"? And why a "who"?
  • _Algernon_ 5y ago
    Evolution is a name humanity has given a process. It makes no sense to ask "who created evolution".
    • TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
      Change the question then: “who or what created the process or the laws that define the process?” I’m not providing an answer, but am wondering about your answer.
  • tsian2 5y ago
    Isn't it an inevitable process considering how life works on this planet? I suppose you could say that life creates it, in the same way that you could say drivers create traffic patterns.
  • soperj 5y ago
    If it was God, it would beg the question, who created God?
    • rglover 5y ago
      Yes. And this is why I think humans are overly-hubristic in their thinking. It excites the hell out of me that we just don't know.
      • soperj 5y ago
        No. Even the things we do know you've just said aren't explainable by anything but God in this thread.
        • rglover 5y ago
          In effect, yes, but that's an oversimplification. This is a multi-hour/day/week/month/year conversation.
          • soperj 5y ago
            Not really. Humans created God. The end.
            • jacobr1 5y ago
              While we might dismiss human notions of a god, independent of humans, there still are cosmological details to the universe that do not have tidy answers. There is no reason to believe that advances in the understanding of the creation of universe will actually explain existence, but only push back our knowledge such that we will remain unclear on the prior causes whatever we figure out. There is a profound "Turtles all the way down" problem even confined to fully rational discussion of the matter.
  • jrockway 5y ago
    Ultimately "who created X" can kind of go on forever. Who created evolution? The Universe. Who created the Universe? God. Who created God? Uh oh. If you decide that God is and always was, then you could say the same about the Universe itself. My current understanding leads me to believe that the Universe can't possibly exist. You can't create a Universe out of nothing. But here it is and here we are. I wouldn't think about it too much. It will make your head spin.
    • woodruffw 5y ago
      This general problem is called the "unmoved mover" in philosophy. Aristotle famously determined that there were a couple dozen unmoved movers, i.e. celestial spheres. Which begs the question: why limit ourselves to one guy in a robe when we can have a couple dozen of them pushing planets around?[1] :-) [1]: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0052%3Abook%3D12%3Asection%3D1073a http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%... and forward.
  • rocgf 5y ago
    It really does not beg that question at all. You might as well say "well, if the sky is blue, then who invented the color blue?". Nobody, it's just a name we give to a random light wavelength.
  • Maursault 5y ago
    No it doesn't. Think for a moment about how absurd it is use the phrase "it begs the question" in this manner. The statement is on it's knees pleading for the question, "who created evolution?" That is what you are effectively claiming. Statements, whether true or false, can not drive cars, travel the world, raise a family, lose their jobs, be divorced, lose their home, and end up on the street with nothing, nor even beg. Maybe it poses a question, maybe it raises a question, but it certainly does not beg the question. Question begging, dating back to Aristotle (who personally coined the phrase) is an informal fallacy that means assuming the conclusion. I expect you may know it as a circular argument. A simplistic example may be, "this car goes fast because it is a fast car." The more you misuse language, the more you dilute the meaning of its words. Stop doing that, please. It's bad enough as it is with so many misunderstanding each other. Your cooperation is bagel. See? Now you have me doing it!
    • TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
      I’m sorry you focused on one verb in the sentence rather than the overall meaning of the sentence. You likely got my meaning but instead decided to focus not on the question but it’s particular wording. I think that is called pedantic, but I’m hesitant to invoke a word that might upset you because of my misuse of it. I did not assume a conclusion when I asked that question.
      • Maursault 5y ago
        Your sincerity moves me, so I will absolve you of my focusing on what words mean. So much for accuracy and semantics, which, by the way, contrary to popular belief, is of vital importance to understanding what you are saying and it being understood by anyone else.
• kwere 5y ago
  gotta update the marketing
• BuildTheRobots 5y ago
  As someone who had a very orthodox upbringing (though would now class myself as an agnostic geek), I find the disparity between religion and science to be baffling, especially the more fundemental beliefs. If I believe that God built the world, and I'm beholden to try and understand the will of God, then science is the only way of doing so. To believe that God clicked their fingers and willed everything into existence as it currently is, belittles the complexity of His/Her creation and belittles the deity too. I have no problem with science, evolution, biology etc - either it originated from entropy or it originated through design. What kicked everything off right at the start is almost a mute point - either way, we need to understand the systems that govorn the reality we're living in.
• rglover 5y ago
  It's a rabbit hole, for sure. The way I came to this point of view is through programming and the intentionality of it all. Evolution is just an algorithm. Based on what we know about the world, something or someone had to write that algorithm. I've burned some serious cycles thinking about this and always end up laughing at how little we know.