Progressive Creationism vs Darwinian Evolution

Origins This debate is not about whether or not God exists, because one possibility is that God exists but acts entirely through natural law. I leave open the possibility that God acts through laws of nature to create to create our universe and through repeatable laws of nature to evolve life in tiny niches within the universe. Pro's position is that God not only exists, but acted outside of consistent natural law to create the universe and to intervene when natural evolution didn't work to produce his desired result. I argue that if God exists, he could manage to operate entirely through nature. Pro argues that he either couldn't operate according to self-realizing mechanism, but rather intervened repeatedly to carry out the goals. Pro has the burden to prove that alternative natural explanations are not possible, so that God must have used magic from time to time to help matters along. The God of the Gaps theory is one that accepts all of science that is established, but calls upon God to answer the questions that science has not resolved. I presented several theories of how the universe might have been created consistent with the known data about the universe. That they are plausible to expert cosmologists means that Pro's claims that there must have been a magical cause is disproved. Pro says that multiverse must have a finite beginning because it is expanding. My response was that no one has claimed, let alone proven, that the multiverse is expanding. Pro only restated his claim without evidence of a requirement that the multiverse is expanding. I quoted cosmologist Stephen Hawking that his theory provided an unbounded but finite universe. Finite means it's not expanding. Pro finally argued that multiverse and other theories are untestable. We don't know that. Various theories have been advanced on how to test them, including ways to detect remnants of past universes, methods for penetrating into parallel universes, and even methods for creating new universes in the laboratory. Pro raised his testability argument in the last round –a new argument-- without supporting evidence, so it suffices that I deny the claim. However, let's suppose that there is no way to test the scientific alternatives. If so, that means the problem remains an unsolved problem of science. It does not mean that we are then obliged to accept a magical solution. The Pro argument starts by assuming that humans are special in the universe and then derives from that the notion that the universe was built especially for us. That's like Adams' intelligent puddle believing the ground was build to conform to his shape. In the proper perspective, the universe is extremely hostile and we happen to have a suitable tiny niche. Pro then argued that the universe is designed for life other than carbon, but there is no evidence that the universe is any less hostile to other life forms. In R4, Pro's first argument is about giving a “how” to the causal agent as distinct from earlier creationism. My best guess is that he claims to have described what God did when intervening and helping evolution. That doesn't answer my objection that it is magical and not in accord with the laws of nature. If it is entirely within the laws of nature, it isn't a creationist theory at all. I challenged why if everything must have a finite past, that God must have a finite past as well. He says it has something to do with the difference between a noun and verb, but doesn't say what word is claimed to be confused. Whatever escape that is allowed for a dvine being could be applied to a much simpler theory that does not postulate a being of infinite complexity and power. There is no way to test a God of the Gaps theory. God is said to “explain” that which science has not explained. Science keeps closing gaps, but until everything is explained there will always be gaps for God to fill in with magical intervention. Progressive Evolution Predictions Pro predicted all of evolution occurred in six one thousand year periods. I referenced an article giving the time line of evolution over a period of 3.6 billion years. Pro predicted that the genetic ancestry of humans will be traced back not to one woman, but rather to four. Due to the way mitochondrial DNA from the woman is passed down, this can be tested and has been. Mankind is traced back to one woman. Pro claimed that species gone extinct are replaced with five types of animals with back bones. The evolution of insects proves that wrong. Pro claims mutations destroy species. His referenced article on prairie chickens applies to nothing but prairie chickens, and Pro did not argue otherwise. Since the larger prairie chicken population thrives despite mutations, the problem plaguing the small population must be, as I argued, inbreeding rather than mutations. The authors attribution to “lack of genetic diversity” confirms that. Pro told us that species would all perish by cumulative mutations if God did not intervene. I cited horseshoe crabs, which are all but immune to mutation. Are horseshoe crabs therefore preferred creature of God? We also know that ants, termites, squid, and krill have a larger biomass on than humans. Perhaps those are Gods favorites. Pro cites a paper called “The Intelligent Design of Evolution.” It has nothing to do with human evolution, but rather has to do with chemical engineers synthesizing a catalyst for a specific function. They design a molecule that will selectively mutate to do the job rather than creating a profusion of molecules and sorting through them. "Intelligent design" was a play on words, referring to the chemical engineers who designed the molecule. Pro cites a creationist article on why breathing and eating through a single esophagus is a good design, giving me a reading assignment rather than his argument. The creationist article says a two tube arrangement would fail because congestion could not be cleared. Dolphins have the two-tube arrangement, for whom it works quite well, so the objections are invalid. The creationist article also says the human neck would have to be an inch wider, as if that's not possible. If we had wider necks, we would have evolved to love them. Critiques of Darwinian Evoilution Pro says that Darwinian evolution predicted an eternal universe, but it only treats only how species evolved. He's says complex organisms have been disproved as having evolved from simple organisms through mutation and random selection, but the evidence from fossils and DNA show that's what happened. Darwin thought evolution was always slow, but even his contemporaries disputed the rate, and the the evidence is that sometimes a dramatic environmental change will spark quicker evolution. The common decent of life, which Pro says is disproved, is clear in the fossil record and dramatically confirmed by DNA sequencing. Pro never argued anything about “panda's thumb” or “pseudogenes” so his claims are baseless. The theory of evolution never said anything about whether junk DNA should exist or not, so that more utility has been found by scientists in non-coding DNA has no bearing on our debate. Non-coding DNA, independent of its function, provides unique genetic markers that trace the precursors of modern species and proves common decent. Contrary to Pro, the theory of evolution never claimed that man descended from apes. The theory is that there is a common ancestor. Pro gave no references that Darwinian evolution predicts what he says it does. Darwinian theory never said man decended from apes. The Debate Pro gave me reading assignments for God's exemption from being caused, and another for the paper on intelligent design that he misunderstood. I think arguments outside of the debate are a conduct violation. I think he lost sources by failing to source many of his claims and for using sources that did not support his arguments. I think he lost arguments by his prediction being proved wrong, and failure to meet the burden of proof.