Atheists are you not using the "Natural Selection Did It!" concept?

Question

Atheists always say that Theists fill in the blank with "God" as the answer but i even heard about the so called "Natural Selection Did It!".

Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection may be able to explain how living creatures can evolve from one form to another, but it cannot explain how something that was not alive evolved into the first life on Earth.

Natural selection is too slow my dear to prove it right, there are no fossil records for the change but the DNA in every cell of every creature shows evidence of having been deliberately designed by an intelligent being.

Did you know that the eye has 40,000,000 nerve endings, the focusing muscles move an estimated 100,000 times a day, and the retina contains 137,000,000 light sensitive cells?

Charles Darwin said,

"To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree."



Evolution happened by chance or accident, is to move into an intellectual free zone. Now some will say evolution didn't happened by chance/accident. Then by what? Magic?

Answer 1

it isn't in those exact words, but I sort of agree, by the same token as Theists filling in the blanks with "God Did it", The atheist community readily uses "Evolution did it".



How could evolution be responsible for the first creature to twitch into existence? to be responsible for life from nothing? the short answer is that we haven't got a damn clue.



more detail explains that while we Don't know, we have some ideas and theories and like to develop them towards possible conclusions. Scientists never deal in absolutes. a fact is never truly a fact while it can be proven otherwise later in time when more and more advanced scientific method can expand or change them. Is it better to not know and learn with time and discovery, or to be given the answer and to be content?



I applaud your argument involving a study of fossils, though I fail to see how one can determine intelligent design through examining their DNA. If you would share the material you have used to come to this conclusion, images or scientific journals, I'd be thrilled to cross examine them and debate it with incredible interest.



and You misquoted Charles Darwin by not adding the rest of his quote. you should be careful with that, and so should He have. by leaving certain details unfinished, certain things can look quite harsh or contradictory...



Like so:

you must attack that town and completely destroy all its inhabitants, as well as all the livestock. Then you must pile all the plunder in the middle of the street and burn it. Put the entire town to the torch as a burnt offering to the LORD your God. That town must remain a ruin forever; it may never be rebuilt. Keep none of the plunder that has been set apart for destruction. Then the LORD will turn from his fierce anger and be merciful to you. He will have compassion on you and make you a great nation, just as he solemnly promised your ancestors. "The LORD your God will be merciful only if you obey him and keep all the commands I am giving you today, doing what is pleasing to him." (Deuteronomy 13:13-19 NLT)





Evolution. chance? accident? Magic? potentially all three. we might never know, but our whole thing is we like to keep trying to figure out how it all works.

Answer 2

but it cannot explain how something that was not alive evolved into the first life on Earth.



- And no one with functional brain cells ever says it does. Fundies like to throw that in to be irritating, but is is absurd.



Natural selection is too slow my dear to prove it right



- And it doesn't try to.



but the DNA in every cell of every creature shows evidence of having been deliberately designed by an intelligent being.



- It "shows" nothing, but you can make it look like that if you want.



Did you know that the eye has 40,000,000 nerve endings, the focusing muscles move an estimated 100,000 times a day, and the retina contains 137,000,000 light sensitive cells?



- SO?



Charles Darwin said,



- And if you included the rest of the quote it would show that your "world view" of your quote mine is absurd. But then as a fundie you are not going to include facts.



Now some will say evolution didn't happened by chance/accident. Then by what? Magic?



- No, magic is the religious view. Try cumulative chance or adaptive differential reproduction.



but do you know that Darwin was an agnostic why so?



- And I bet you thought that was an intelligent comment.



i think the high school mathematics what i studied is more than enough to prove Einstein and his disciplines wrong. (i mean the big bang)



- OF COURSE YOU DO, but then people with intelligence know how absurd you are.

Answer 3

"but it cannot explain how something that was not alive evolved into the first life on Earth." Evolution by natural selection isn't designed to explain that.

You're complaint is akin to someone stating that atomic theory doesn't explain the origin of the elements. You are incorrectly applying a theory to a realm it's not designed to explain.



"there are no fossil records for the change but the DNA in every cell of every creature shows evidence of having been deliberately designed by an intelligent being." A direct and deliberate lie.



"Did you know that the eye has 40,000,000 nerve endings, the focusing muscles move an estimated 100,000 times a day, and the retina contains 137,000,000 light sensitive cells?" So what?



"Charles Darwin said,



"To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree."" Read the very next sentence in that paragraph from On the Origin of Species. It will completely expose your quote mine.



"Evolution happened by chance or accident" Wrong. Evolution is not a random process. The selective forces are not random, but are completely dependent upon the environmental forces.



"Then by what? Magic?" No. You clearly don't understand what is meant by natural selection. I suggest you take a biology course.



"i think the high school mathematics what i studied is more than enough to prove Einstein and his disciplines wrong. (i mean the big bang)" Big bang cosmology has nothing to do with evolution nor natural selection. I will add Red Herring to your list of fallacies.

Also, Einstein didn't develop the big bang theory. Relativity is Einstein's baby.

Answer 4

Charles Darwin was a Victorian and didn't have access to genetic research and molecular biology. His theories were the foundation stone of evolutionary theory and the start of a process of mounting discovery that continues to this day. It's not the be all and end all. Neither was it ever meant to be. It's a bit like saying that aeroplanes are never going to be a useful weapon of war by only looking at the Wright Brothers' flyer for evidence.



This appears to be repetitious problem for theists. Because their Bible (or other holy work) is static and unchanging, they think science must work the same way when it most certainly doesn't. One must remain with the cutting edge, because theories are refined, revised, challenged and even ditched on a weekly basis. Pointing to 150 year old research and saying "I can see gaps in it!" is about as useful as pointing to a medieval castle and saying "I don't think this will stop an aeroplane getting past!"



You use the language of biology in your assault on modern evolutionary synthesis, but you do not understand it. If you did, you wouldn't have asked the question as it's answer would be self evident.



Edit:



Erm, your mathematics knowledge obviously didn't stretch very far. You do know that Einstein rejected the Big Bang theory in favour of the steady State theory of the universe? He didn't live long enough to see the Big Bang theory supported by substantial evidence.

Answer 5

No one says natural selection created the first self replicating molecules.



Also, quote mining Charles Darwin makes it obvious you are just being dishonest.



Here's it in full,



"To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of Spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree. When it was first said that the sun stood still and the world turned round, the common sense of mankind declared the doctrine false; but the old saying of Vox populi, vox Dei ["the voice of the people = the voice of God "], as every philosopher knows, cannot be trusted in science. Reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a simple and imperfect eye to one complex and perfect can be shown to exist, each grade being useful to its possessor, as is certain the case; if further, the eye ever varies and the variations be inherited, as is likewise certainly the case; and if such variations should be useful to any animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, should not be considered as subversive of the theory."



EDIT @ Additional Details...



*Ruffles hair*



Now get out of here you scamp!



@ Cerra



"How could evolution be responsible for the first creature to twitch into existence? to be responsible for life from nothing? the short answer is that we haven't got a damn clue."



No, the short AND CORRECT answer is that evolution can't, didn't and has never been claimed to have done that.

Answer 6

Well, props to David for posting the full quote.



So ignoring the fact that the way you've framed the question was deliberately disingenuous; you're content on falling back on the ol' "We haven't figured out how this works yet so until we do, the smart thing to do is assume that god did it"?



You could make the argument a lot more compelling by actually backing up remarks like this: 'but the DNA in every cell of every creature shows evidence of having been deliberately designed by an intelligent being.'



How so, exactly?



It's difficult to argue when you don't seem to know what abiogenesis is either.

Answer 7

The Theory of evolution does not say anything about how life started, just how it got to its current state, so your rant is meaningless.



As far as Darwin's quote goes, you are bringing up the argument from irreducible complexity. Darwin didn't have all the answers, but that was over a hundred years ago. That problem with his theory has been addressed:



The precursors of complex systems, when they are not useful in themselves, may be useful to perform other, unrelated functions. Evolutionary biologists argue that evolution often works in this kind of blind, haphazard manner in which the function of an early form is not necessarily the same as the function of the later form. The term used for this process is "exaptation".



You do need to continue your education, because while you understand some of the topics, you clearly do not fully understand them. And your "magic" comment highlights this perfectly. I am not going to spend 15 minutes typing something you might not even read. If you are interested in the truth, follow the links

Answer 8

You don't seem to realize that your argument is nothing new. Every instance of intelligent design has been refuted. Your beliefs won't change nor challenge what is knowledge.



If you honestly think intelligent design has the merest shred of evidence, then would you like to explain why no one at all that is credible is screaming that evolution is a fake?



And by the way? No fossil records explain the existence of the Neanderthal, the cro-magon, the homo erectus, the homo habalis, right? There are hundreds upon thousands of fossils, of transitional forms.



If you think something takes too long so it can't be proven right, you've shown your lack of knowledge and your pathetic understanding of evidence.



It doesn't happen by chance or accident. It happens by natural selection. Idiot. You don't even have the slightest bit of understanding of evolution. As you kindly put it: Get educated.

Answer 9

The difference is that natural design is a proven concept, while god isn't.



By the way, nice quote mining of Charles Darwin. Read the next few sentences.

Answer 10

These questions you raise have been addressed already by the scientific community using evidence as well as repeated experimentation.

You cannot seriously compare the "God did it", with "Natural selection was the cause", and still claim intellectual honesty.

These questions will be better raised in the Biology section, Atheists are not scientists, they are people who don't hold a belief in God.

Answer 11

Evolution and natural selection is strong evidence of life forms adapt and change due to the environment, it gives us an idea of how humans came to be, it does not explain what happens during the first stages of life. At least there is some credible evidence for natural selection, unlike believing in something due to faith and faith alone.

Answer 12

Natural selection isn't supposed to explain abiogenesis. That being the case your argument has no validity. It's the biological mechanism that causes evolutionary change so if you want to discuss it you need to confine yourself to discussing the relevant topic - evolution of species.

Answer 13

the eye has evolved many separate times in different species throughout evolution - it take about 50k generations. get educated and feel the difference

Answer 14

No, the laws of physics did it.



To put it in terms more on your level of thinking so you might be able to comprehend, natural selection is more like a begotten son of physics.

Answer 15

Its dim to associate evolution with atheism. You do realize that we have many eminent Christian evolutionists?

Answer 16

Evolution is true