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TADIPATRI GURUKULA
Modern Science and its implications !
Answers by Shri Kesava Rao Tadipatri (KT) and Shri Prasanna Tadipatri (PT)
Q: If I am not wrong, most inferences in history are drawn from old artifacts that use symbols, not script, to communicate.That further weakens the inferences drawn, I'd think.But would you not accept that symbolic forms of communication indicate the presence of some language? And what would you conclude if from the archaeological record, you do not find any evidence of symbolic communication existing prior to 50-60,000 years ago, and a sudden innovation of "culture" at that time (that too in Africa, since nowhere else is there evidence of Homo sapiens existing at the time)? What makes you think that Sanskrit or any other proto-language existed before 100,000 years ago?
KT: In a legal system or the like, absence of evidence is taken as a proof or guideline for absence. But in archaeological matters, absence of evidence is never a proof of absence for obvious reasons like "may be the archaeologists have not obtained the evidence so far; maybe it is practically impossible to reach to the evidence; may be the evidence got destroyed, may be the current methods, even though are very advanced, are still not good enough, etc." Secondly, don't we accept the cyclic nature of time (yuga cycles), and that there is yuga pralaya, Mahayuga pralaya, etc. So, during those pralayas, won't the evidences also get destroyed? According to modern science, won't they hold to "continental shift theory"? Then the evidence that they are saying about Homo sapiens also becomes subjective. Isn't it?
Q: From science point of view, we do not know what language existed what time etc. What makes us think that the "cave man theory" happens only once? What if everything gets destroyed even after the super elevation of human scientific abilities and the cyclic process of cave man situation start all over again? If that were so, why can't there be a revival of Sanskrit language several times? Here is another question I wanted to ask as an implication of the concept of an endless cycle of creation and destruction - every pauruSheya grantha is considered to have been invented at a particular point of time, and eternal from then on (the category of nitya-anitya in Tattva-SankhyAnam).
KT: If something originated at some point of time, then that cannot be called nitya. There is no such thing as "eternal from then on" - that will be an oxymoron statement. Eternal includes beginningless and a beginning nullifies eternity. The "nitya-anitya" category means that in one form it is nitya and in another form it is anitya.
For, ex. the time - if we take a particular unit of time and specific reference, it has a beginning and end - like we say "the vyaya nama saMvatsara" ended. We will get another vyaya nAma saMvatsara afer 60 years, but this particular one had a beginning and end. The time itself is eternal. Similarly the paurushheya purANa-s, which are "nitya-anitya" are pravAhataH nitya, but strictly speaking anitya. Or they are nitya in their "suxma rupa" and anitya in their "sthUla rUpa". What does that mean? The intonations etc. are not preserved. They don't necessarily come back in the same form, etc. But they will reappear with broad concepts being the same.
Q: But you may note the following:
1. Every pauruSheya grantha is ultimately a finite sequence of syllables. Let L be the upper bound on the length of all the pauruSheya granthas that we know of, where the length of a grantha is defined by the number of syllables in it.
2. There are only a finite number of syllables (call it s).
3. It follows from 1 and 2 that there is only a finite number of possible pauruSheya granthas of
Length <= L. The exact value would be s^L + s^(L-1) + ... s + 1.
4. But we have an infinite cycle of creation and destruction going back in time.
5. This means that no matter how large a value you choose for L, some pauruSheya grantha would be repeated an unbounded number of times in the past, in which case, how is it pauruSheya?
KT: I don't know why you went thru all this pain? Surely, let a paurushheya grantha be repeated infinite times,let the pigeon hole theory be applicable. How does that prevent it from being Paurushheya? There need not be infinite versions of a Paurushheya text. There is no restriction that a paurushheya text cannot repeat infinite times.
Q: I don't know why you went thru all this pain? Surely, let a paurushheya Grantham be repeated infinite times, let the pigeonhole theory be applicable. How does that prevent it from being Paurushheya? If a pauruSheya grantha has always existed in the past (which means there was no time it was first composed), how is it pauruSheya?
KT: That is precisely the point. No one said that Paurushheya grantha existed at all times. Only thing is that to say that Paurushheya grantha came into existence at some point of time and existed for ever from then on is as bad as saying Paurushheya grantha has existed always. It comes and goes.
Q: What is the difference left between this pauruSheya text and the apauruSheya Vedas, which also are repeated in every creation cycle?
KT: Paurushheya text is composed by an author has a beginning and end. Apaurushheya vedas are not composed and in every creation cycle, they are reheard just as they were in earlier cycles (and hence called shrutis). In between the creation cycles, how are they preserved?
That part comes from the faith to a great extent that God, who is established by the vedas, carries them forward
(vaikuNThasyAkhilA vedA udgIryante.anisham yataH)
("The entire cannon of vedas are always [continuously] sung from the throat of the Lord").
The paurushheya granthas that are in accordance with these apaurushheya vedas, have therefore, their content supported by the eternal vedas. Hence the term "nitya-anitya".
Q: Only thing is that to say that Paurushheya grantha came into existence at some point of time and existed for ever from then on is as bad as saying Paurushheya grantha has existed always.It comes and goes. In that case, it should have been classified as anitya, and not nitya-anitya.
KT: No, for the reasons specified below.
Q: This is what Jayatirtha says in his sub commentary on the word "nitya-anitya" in Tattva-SankhyAnam:
KT: utpattimatve sati vinAsha-abhAvaH = Having birth but no destruction. As a starter, if we take the superficial meaning, one can deduce that there should be sevaral "correct/genuine versions" of each purANa, which we know is not true.
Sri Raghavendratirtha elaborates the above TIka in his Tippani (BhavadIpa):
purANAdipaurushheyagranthasya purushhairutpadyamAna/-
kramavattve.api tasya kramasyeshvarabuddhau vedakramasyevottarAvadhishUnyatayA
pratIyamanatvena vinAshAbhAva ityarthaH |
"Even though a certain content/order is made by some persons in the case of authored text like purAnA-s, etc., the purport of saying endless is due to its order/content having endless existence in Ishvarabuddhi, just like the vedakrama". So, this does not imply that we will have to end up with several correct versions.
Q: So pauruSheya granthas like Puranas have an origin but no destruction.But from the counting argument, we know that pauruSheya granthas can also be anAdi.
KT: How so? Doesn't "utpattimattve sati" imply sAdi?
Q: If you put the two together, you get some of them as both anAdi and nitya.
KT: Nowhere is it said "anAdi".
Q: Paurushheya text is composed by an author, has a beginning and end.This seems to contradict the above.
KT: No, it doesn't. Please see above.The paurushheya granthas that are in accordance with these apaurushheya vedas, have therefore, their content supported by the eternal vedas. Hence the term "nitya-anitya".
Q: I am unable to see any relationship between this and Jayatirtha's definition of nitya-anitya.
KT: If you see Rayaru's TippaNi, you will.
Q: Unfortunately, a lot of my Madhwa friends blindly oppose evolution (and the likes of big-bang) saying its controversial and many scientists themselves oppose it. But they never tell me which scientist opposes and where exactly is the controversy?
KT: I think that this topic has not much to do with Madhva philosophy and so I will just post this one mail and not continue with discussions in this list on this topic. It is indeed unfortunate that anti-scientific theory approach is taken by some on the basis of religion. On the other hand, there will be some people, who hesitate to oppose any theory that gets a "scientific" stamp, no matter how deficient those methods are. Wearing the garb of a king does not make one a king.
Similarly using scientific methods and teaching in universities alone will not make a theory "fully scientific" and "readily acceptable". It does not make sense to speak of "controversy" while investigating a theory. However "evolution theory" is still a theory only and it is "called scientific" because it uses "scientific thinking" and scientific methods like "genetic mutation", etc.
As for the scientists, who oppose that theory,
Please visit: http://www.intelligentdesignnetwork.org/
http://tinyurl.com/2khael
They also have scientific thinking and use scientific methods. A jIva passing thru many yonis is quite understandable. However the theory that a man's body evolved from a fish' body over several millions of years is not provable and hard to get convinced. This is where the religious thinking kind of gets in. It is heartening to think that our ancestors are great Rishis, but then if we go further back our ancestors are fish! Another example is the pet theory of giraffes for supporters of evolution.
http://natureinstitute.org/pub/ic/ic10/giraffe.htm
One of the first evolutionary thinkers, Jean-Baptist Lamarck, offered a short description of how the giraffe evolved in his major work, Philosophie Zoologique, which was published in 1809.
A little over sixty years later, Charles Darwin commented on giraffe evolution in the sixth edition (1872) of his seminal book, Origin of Species: "it seems to me almost certain that an ordinary hoofed quadruped might be converted into a giraffe. (pp. 177ff.)"
This theory has the following assumptions.
1. The other animals ate away the leaves at short heights.
2. Some quadruped animals (which could potentially become giraffes) started stretching their necks.
3. Over several thousand years, they got long legs and long necks.The problem with this theory is this.
Firstly, it is based on assumptions and imagination.
Secondly, was there any person/entity that let the other animals eat the leaves before the selected quadrupeds? Were there the same trees, with no leaves at lower levels, for those thousands of years? Won't there be new trees and again leaves at lowers levels. Always the chosen chain of animals must be left last at the trees so that they can continue their "stretching activity"! All this seems too far-fetched. Why this kind of theory is called scientific?
Q: I strongly feel that in today's times, this topic is much more relevant to Madhva philosophy than all the variety of advaitic purvapaxas that were important in the past, which were considered in detail by Madhvacharya, Jayatirtha and others.
KT: Since it is felt that there is relevance, I like to offer my comments from shAstra point of view. Our Acharya parampara did not just handle advaitic purvapaxas, but every kind of pUrvapaxa. In fact they have given us guidance and methodology as to how to approach the wrong information.
Q: ... so they end up creating a bad impression of their tradition by blindly dismissing it away. I have seen this happen in my university.
KT: That happens in many places too and that gives an indication of the weakness in them, but does not add strength to evolution theory.
Q: There is only one truth about what happened in the past. Evolutionary theory says that the human story was that of evolution in the last 50-60,000 years in Africa.There is only one truth [about one aspect] - Yes. To say what what Evolution theory says is true - that is jumping into conclusion. How can such an approach be called scientific?
KT: There is only one truth [about one aspect] - Yes.To say what what Evolution theory says is true -that is jumping into conclusion. How can such an approach be called scientific?
Q: On the other hand, Madhvacharya and his followers accept the Puranic time scales and a completely different account of human origins.There is a headlong collision between them here.
KT: So? How is it concluded that evolution theory is right? At least it is conceded in case of shrutis that the inner voice was heard by some privileged few and they all spoke the same kind of truth, though hailed from different parts.
Q: And what's more, Madhva philosophy says that Madhvacharya was a R^iju yogi, who knew everything about the universe.
KT: So? The very fact that he is a R^iju yogi also calls for the fact that he knows what to do. He has to do deshakAlochita dharma. He has fulfilled the purpose of his avatAra and not teach biology, chemistry and genetics.
Q: This means that he would know the physical laws, chemical laws, biological laws and all the events in history as well. So there cannot possibly be a mistake in his writings (or the texts he is considering valid) even in matters concerning these material subjects.
KT: Is seeing conflicts tantamount to having mistakes in his writings. Is any claim of evolution proved so far?
Q: So if there is a conflict one sees, how is it not relevant to Madhva philosophy?
KT: Because none of the claims of evolution theory is proved so far.
Q:It has the potential to render everything else said by Madhva as "the product of a smart mind, that's all" (as an advaitic colleague of mine said) and not universal truth.
KT: Much less is the claims evolution theory. So, if neither of these is universal truth, then which one is universal truth?
Q: If Madhvacharya was not said to be a R^iju yogi, then perhaps it would be true that the question is not so relevant,
KT: The question becomes relevant, if any of the claims of evolution theory is proved. None is so far.
Q: ... but any person seriously studying biology is going to face a serious conflict here).
KT: Such person with scientific thinking must also be able to see the flaws in there.
Q: Whether perceptibly or imperceptibly, the reason why most people are not able to seriously have faith on traditions is because of the widening gap between them and science.
KT: Not at all. In fact, the kind of emphasis that our Acharya gave on "parIxita pratyaxa" bridges every kind of gap between his teachings and science.
Q: The gap is least in Buddhism, where attempts have been made to reconcile,
KT: That is a gross misunderstanding. Which flavor of Buddhism are you talking about? How is the reconciliation made? In fact, if anything, with its xaNika vAda, it is most distant from science. It ignores pratyaxa to a great extent.
Q: which is why even stalwart atheists like Richard Dawkins make a clarification in their books and lectures that their arguments are not against Buddhism,
KT: It is impossible to master even one school. It is a grave mistake to imagine that "these stalwarts" have an encyclopedic knowledge of every school to pass such judgements - hence they are hasty, illogical and total trash.
Q: One Madhva scholar I asked (who is a professor and was very active on VMS lists in the past, and has even published books on Dvaita) is today following Buddhism for the same reason. To me, it shows that all the philosophy of Tattvavada he knew, including Nyaya and the polemical works against advaita and V.advaita, were of no use when it came down-to-earth to a conflict with science.
KT: I know who you are talking about and a lot of people also know about the facts. Which proven fact of science so far has caused any conflict?
Q: Science affects our life today the most and its influence is only going to increase in the future. So be it. Science and philosophy can go hand in glove. There need not be any conflict.
KT: So be it. Science and philosophy can go hand in glove. There need not be any conflict.
Q: However "evolution theory" is still a theory only. In scientific circles, "theory" does not mean "just an educated guess" as it means in ordinary parlance. It refers to the best explanation for facts at hand that has been arrived at by following the scientific method.
KT: And every scientific theory also goes along with its practical experimentation and provability.Just because, something is scientific, it does not have to be true. It was very scientific that light travels in straight lines thru all mediums and many theories were developed also.There after it is proved that it is not so. The greatness of science is that it has potential to change. So evolution theory itself can evolve and say totally different from what it says now. Unless something is proved thru experiment and verified, one cannot accept it.
Q: There are many friends of mine who have Ph.Ds or have joined faculty positions in universities but do not believe in the moon landing, because such a belief is required by some ISKCON teachers.
KT: What has moon-landing to do with evolution and what has ISKCON to do with our discussion? Moon landing is a verified fact. Every person who believes in it, need not himself go to the moon, but has enough information, which he can digest as per one's own ability. "One who believes in science has to believe in evolution, since it is scientific" is like saying "One who believes in vedanta has to believe in Advaita, since it is vedantic". Similarly just because some ISKCONites and some remotely placed orthodox persons not having much touch with the external world do not believe in moon-landing, it is rash to jump to the hasty conclusion that the strong believers in Dvaita school do not believe in moon-landing. If that were not the claim, then the topic is uncalled for either.
Q: It is not that in their respective fields, these people are not scientific. Even if they are, that does not mean their claims about moon landing hoax are to be believed...
KT: In the same line, even if evolution-proponents are scientific, it does not mean their claims about evolution are to be believed, unless they are supported and verified by experiments. To prove that the homo sapiens existed only about 50-60 thousand years ago, have they built any time-travel machines that travel back in time and took the entire earth surveying photos and returned with evidence?
Q: (unless they have proper arguments, not just the ones aired on FOX-TV that have been rebutted based on scientific arguments by others). Richard Thompson, who holds a Ph.D from Cornell University in Statistical Mechanics, gives arguments like the moon rocket getting diverted to an invisible planet of Rahu by demigods, or some such thing.
KT: Now you can gauge my purpose. Just as you can trash their some of the theories, even though they are scientists, with proper scientific thinking you can also trash the evolution theory.
Q: Marcus Ross would readily agree that there is a headlong collision between his young-earth belief and the evolutionary account. I trust that you would yourself side with an older earth.
KT: Same argument as above. When you could see the ridiculousness in some of the "pseudo-scientific theories", same can be done in this "pseudo-scientific theory of evolution".
Q: To be precise, evolution says that man's body and fish's body evolved from a common ancestor.
KT: If it is so precise, it must have enough capacity to create an experiment, which generates needed reverse genetic mutations and create the common ancestor, and simulate thru billions of times of acceleration, the necessary genetic mutation and thru the same ancestor create a fish and create a man too. If the science does not have any such capability, how can it be "precise"?
Q: And an evolutionist would ask you to look at the bewildering variety of breeds of dogs that have resulted from artificial selection over just centuries and ask you to imagine what would happen if the process was continued for millions of years (this is how Darwin begins his Origin Of Species).
KT: That is where the crux of the argument lies. So the whole theory is built around "imagination". How can a variety of dog breeds lead to the argument of common ancestor for fish and man?
Q: He would say that you are finding it hard to be convinced because it is hard to visualize a vast scale of time like a billion years. Human mind cannot capture the difference between a billion or a billion with more zeros added at the end (10 billion, 100 billion ...), because it cannot capture how vast 1 billion or 10 billion years actually is. So the effect of gradual evolution for such a long time (3.5 billionyears) is not within the scope of our intuition which only captures very short timescales.
KT: Now you can imagine the consequence of such an argument. Just extend the same argument on the other side. A man can evolve into Brahman. Why indeed every sentient entity can evolve into Brahman. Human mind cannot capture a billion or billion with more zeros added, but with enough zeros after billion, most of the living things can evolve into Brahman. Some may perish on the way. This is not within the scope of our intuition.
Q: This is where the religious thinking kind of gets in. It is heartening to think that our ancestors are great Rishis, but then if we go further back our ancestors are fish! What is heartening need not decide what the truth is.
KT: Sure and at the same time that is what triggers our thinking as well. What is labelled as truth, without any verifiability, need not be truth either.
Q: Doesn't Jayatirtha say that just because Devadatta is thirsty doesn't mean there is water in the desert?
KT: Precisely. Just because evolution is labelled as scientific does not mean there is truth in it.
Q: Further, when we talk about R^iShis, their greatness lies in their being great souls (and not their body per se). If a great soul like Satyavati can be born from a fish, and if Lord Vishnu can appear as a fish, then why should it be disheartening if billions of years ago, our ancestors were fish-like?
KT: The disheartening part is not about the soul, but about the body. The Lord appearing as Fish is to show His all mastery and not that he has evolved of something or something evolved of Him. The seed (sperm) from which Satyavati was born was not that of a fish, but is that of the king Uparichara.
Q: For that matter, some scholars in some traditions have also said that perhaps when our ancestors were fish-like, that is when God appeared as a fish to deliver us. They see an "evolutionary progression" in the dasha-avatAras.
KT: That was thrown as rubbish, because God is all complete in all the avatAras and so there is no question of evolution in there. Neither Darwin nor Wallace came up with the idea of natural selection based on giraffe's necks.
Q: Neither Darwin nor Wallace came up with the idea of natural selection based on giraffe's necks.
KT: Why would nature select some way or the other? Is there a sentient intelligence in the nature? If that were so, can't it design independently rather than the path of evolution? Where is a proof for any of these?
Q: Further, it is important to know not just evolutionary theory, but also the history of its development.
KT: Sure it is important to know, but that does not have to mean that it is true.
Q: Note that the author himself says towards the end - "The evolutionary biologist Dobzhansky's famous statement that "nothing in biology can be understood except in light of evolution" is a grand claim, which I believe is, in the end, true.
KT: So all you are doing is replacing one belief with another.
Q: Evolution theory comes in two sizes - micro & macro. Micro-evolution theory is the core theory that was put forth by Darwin, which is the duo of Natural Selection & Struggle for existence. (you can read about this, there is plenty of resource on internet over this).
KT: If you read thru them, you will realize the amount of self-contradictions among Evolutionists themselves.
Q: In short, this is the theory if you remember from school days, which says, the Giraffe's neck got elongated in trying to reach the fruits on tall trees. The same trait was passed down to generations and that is why today Giraffes' have long necks.This theory (microevolution) is PROVEN.
KT: If this were true, please read : Quote: Lamarck's theory (50 years before Darwin gave his theory) was completed discredited by the experiments of Weismann in the early 1900s, which showed that acquired characteristics are not inherited (just because I acquire strong muscles by exercise doesn't mean that will be passed on to my children).
Neither Darwin nor Wallace came up with the idea of natural selection based on giraffe's necks. Unquote: This shows that the proponents of Evolution Theory themselves don't believe this. So much for "PROVEN" and scientific nature of these theories. Also please read my objections on this giraffes' neck theory. Further, the internet resources and some books do indicate that Darwin rejected this theory.
For ex. see: http://www.kenanmalik.com/essays/fallacy
2. (The long neck of a giraffe, for instance, evolved by the animal stretching its neck to browse on the foliage of trees, and its offspring being subsequently born with longer necks.Darwin rejected this idea of the 'inheritance of acquired characteristics'. )
Also see: http://skepdic.com/refuge/funk3.html
3. (Francis Hitching, an evolutionist and author of the book "The Neck of the Giraffe", stated: "For all its acceptance in the scientific world as the great unifying principle of biology, Darwinism, after a century and a quarter, is in a surprising amount of trouble A London Times writer, Christopher Booker (who accepts evolution), said this about it:
"It was a beautifully simple and attractive theory. The only trouble was that, as Darwin was himself at least partly aware, it was full of colossal holes.
“Regarding Darwin's Origin of Species, he observed: "We have here the supreme irony that a book which has become famous for explaining the origin of species in fact does nothing of the kind." )
Pls see: http://discovermagazine.com/1997/mar/howthegiraffegot1084.html
(Darwin was the first to propose that long necks evolved in giraffes because they enabled the animals to eat foliage beyond the reach of shorter browsers. That seemingly sensible explanation has held up for over a century, but it is probably wrong, says Robert Simmons. Simmons, a behavioral ecologist at the Ministry of Environment and Tourism in Windhoek, Namibia, believes giraffes developed long necks not to compete for food but to win mates.) Look at the credentials of these people and the authenticity of the sites and the conclusions made.
Q: Plenty of lab experiments back this theory and even some modern medicinal principles depend on this.
KT: How can lab experiments back Giraffes' neck theory and how can modern medicineal principles depend on the Giraffes' long neck or its theory?
Q: But considered a better possibility in comparison to Creation Theory or Intelligent Design theory.
KT: The CT or ID may be bad, but Evolution theory is worse. It thrives on assumptions. Let us even grant everything that evolution theory says - that man and fish and every creature can evolve out of a common ancestor. Now why is it again assuming that it is the only way to form the humans? If today, humans and fish coexist, why couldn't they co-exist million years ago also? If it is argued that some fish did not go thru genetic mutation, by the same token without a need for genetic mutation, the man could have existed a million years ago.
Q: One need to be cautious about what disagreements between evolutionists are about - it is not about the fact of evolution itself, nor about natural selection being a mechanism for it.
KT: That is a defective kind of reasoning. Firstly it is not some unimportant disconnected aspect. It is the basic building block itself. Secondly the question is not whether it is important or not, but the claim that one says it is "scientifically proven" and the other says "no" is a fundamental difference.
Q: It is about resolution of particular details.
KT: I am not talking about particular details, but am talking about the break in the conclusion itself. An advaitin can point out how dvaitins disagreeing over whether or not Sanjaya fought in the Mahabharata war is a "self-contradiction among dvaitins". This is highly flawed logical reasoning.
It is like "pR^ishhTatADanAddantabhaN^gaH".
The methodology applied to philosophy and sciences are different. The disagreements in philosophy are well recognized. They are subjective and not universal. They are interpretational and depend upon the acceptance of set scriptures and rules. The kind of verifiability that exists there is totally different from the verifiability in science. Comparing the two is like comparing apples and oranges. If someone says "I can prove scientifically that Sanjaya fought in the war", one can immediately dismiss that as trash.
Q: But the fact is that this detail has nothing to do with the validity of dvaita philosophy.
KT: Not only that. If someone talks about whether Sanjaya had 100 arrows with him or 200, whether he went in his own chariot or took someone else's chariot, they are all irrelevant. But on the other hand, if one talks about whether there is only one jIva or many jIvas, that is critical to philosophy. Similarly, giraffes' neck is due to evolution or not, is it micro-E or not, is micro-E acceptable or not - these are important. Further, there should not be disagreement about existence of scientific proof itself.
Q: I think what he was referring to was microevolution, not the particular example of how giraffe's neck evolved.
KT: It does not matter, what garb one gives, the topic here is about the statement of "PROVEN". If one scientific community says "It is scientifically proven" and another scientific community says it is wrong, that is a big blow to the theory itself. If one says that "just as in philosophy, Sanjaya's fighting in war is interpretational, this is also interpretational", then that is tantamount to saying that it is balderdash. One can compare the conclusions drawn by philosophy and science, but cannot mix up the methodology adopted therein. It is not a question of how important it is to the theory of evolution. It is a question of reliability in the scientific realm itself, where it has been given that science is verifiable. If it is "PROVEN" by science, then the entire scientific community must accept it. It is ok, if some illiterate villagers reject that. The fact that another scientific community either rejects it or questions it arises, only when that part of the theory is not proven. There is no way out. Period.
Q: It does not assume that - till someone comes up with a better alternative mechanism equally consistent with evidence, it would stay as the de facto scientific explanation for it.
KT: This is an oxymoron statement. There is no question of "assuming" after someone comes up with a mechanism. The mechanism of Evolution itself is broken. It tells how "every living entity" came out of a common ancestor. How did the common ancestor come into existence? How did other living entities evolve out of this common ancestor following the mechanism as enunciated by evolutionists? How many kinds and how much in number of these common ancestors were there? If they claim that the common ancestors came out of the blue, then same thing applies to others as well. Just because something is not available for science, it cannot assume that it does not exist. That is like a cat closing its eyes and thinking that the world does not exist.
Q: This goes against the fossil record. If you had fossil evidences for Homo sapiens existing several millions of years ago, the position on human evolution would be changed.
KT: Are there fossil records for every single living thing that existed? As mentioned earlier, in this kind of situation, absence of evidence is not an evidence for absence. Why indeed? If one takes the entire Mesozoic period, millions of dinosaurs existed. How come the modern man finds less than a few thousand (if not a few hundred) fossils of dinosaurs. The oldest human fossil was initially 10000 years old, then 50000 and then 160000 year old. During that time, there must have been at least a few thousand homo sapiens. Between then and 10000 years ago, there should have been millions of homo sapiens. What happened to the fossils of all those? The very approach that if a living being existed, its fossil must be found is terribly flawed. In the past few thousands of years, trillions of living beings existed and if the fossils for them all have to exist on earth, there would not be any place for the current living things and that will fill up many "earths' space". Thus it is not even worth calling the evolution theory a pseudo-science, leave alone a verifiable science. Even a pseudo-science must have some common sense and logical reasoning behind it, which the evolution theory lacks completely.
Q: Also, genomic data points to a common ancestor of all humans ~100,000 years ago, and the common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees at ~6 million years ago. So archaeology and genetics tell the same story.
KT: If two puranas tell the same story, one accepts it. So, do you wish to concede the status of Agama pramANa for evolution?
Q: What matters in this case is fossil evidence.
KT: How can fossil evidence prove evolution? If the fossil of creature A is similar to that of creature B, you conclude A came out of B. Even in case of identical twins T1 and T2, one does not say T1 came out of T
2. What a joke? When convenient (as in primates), this "similarity approach is taken). What about between reptiles and aves?
Q:...argue for existence of humans several million years ago, since it conflicts with fossil evidence.
KT: The very argument that human fossil must be present if human existed is defective as shown above.
Q: ... So do Madhvas accept it [evolution] or not?
KT: What a strange question? If a religious leader, intellectual, and a founder of a philosophical school gives two statements one accepting and one rejecting the moon-landing, at two different times, that actually happened and reported in all details, do you expect a uniform consensus among several thousand people about an unproven, purely theoretical and imaginative theory? I can think of atleast 4 categories - blind believers, blind rejecters, scientifically thinking believers and scientifically thinking rejecters.
Q: No one is going to accept that the biologists who have made so much advancement in the field of medicine, genetics and other fields of biology are making a gross error when it comes to evolution in the very principle of following the scientific method and coming up with a scientific theory!
KT: You yourself claimed that there are some ISKCON ph.D's, who don't believe in moon-landing! So, what has strength in one to do with weakness in other? Pooling "moon- landing and advancement in medicine and genetics" with evolution theory is not going to fly. The former group is proven and verifiable, but the latter is neither proven nor verifiable. In fact it goes against every conceivable factor of common sense.
Q: These theories and the new tools developed by science to overcome the limitation of ordinary eyes did not exist in Jayatirtha's time.
KT: But logical reasoning existed then and now. Just because a theory is developed by some so called scientists, it is not to be taken for granted. Every good theory of science was proven. This theory was never proven, but due to chest thumping, somehow, sent a wrong message that it is proven. Look at the ridiculousness. If a fish has to transform into a whale, it has to travel thru amphibian form to reptile form to Aves form to Marine mammal form! And Evolution has a proof for it thru many means and one of them is fossil records! How can punctuated equilibrium come to any rescue? All PE can do is to delay the process or pause it for many thousand years.
Q: Evolutionists already claim to have given the proof...
KT: To see if the rice is cooked or not, one need not go thru every grain. Just seeing their approach sends goose bumps. Both in those times and these times, we show the flaws in Advaita. How many accept it? Same way, we are showing the ridiculousness of evolution. How much effect is there? It will always be a waste.
Q: to Einstein that you can find on the web - it was quoted to me by the ex-Madhva I mentioned.
KT: That ex-Madhva thought that Madhvas believed in 5 elements, where as Chemistry gave more than 100 elements. The problem was "pancha bhutas" was translated as "five elements" and it was not even realized that the problem was in translation.
The one he referred is a spurious one: see http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Talk:Albert_Einstein
Charvaka would have even less problems. So, that is the best for such an approach.
Q: Possible, but is this how you would reconcile it with dvaita today? This way, all scientific theories can be wished away.
KT: Is it? Can you wish away gravitational theory? Can you wish awya Newton's laws of motion? Can you wish away many other thousands of scientific theories that have been proven? Dvaita does not have any problems with them. It is evolution that was never proven. Further it is against common sense as well. Microevolution is an indisputable fact that can be observed today. Drug resistance is a global major health concern, and even recently, the global concern about bird flu was due to possible mutant virulent strains emerging by evolution. Macroevolution is an extension of the same principles governing microevolution across much longer time spans.
KT: This is gross cheating - trying to put the proven and unproven entities under one umbrella and push it. Drug resistance, genetic engineering, bird flu vaccines are proven. Neither micro-E nor macro-E is proven. Even Giraffes' neck is a controversy!
Q: No, but fossil evidences and genetic evidences point to this very strongly. And by the same argument you use, has anybody built time-travel machines and returned with evidence that Ramayana happened 1 million years ago? Has anyone even found fossil records supporting events of Ramayana dating to 1 million years ago?
KT: Thanks for making your position. We believe in Ramayana thru Agama PramANa and make no claims that it is scientifically proven. If you bring E-theory to same status and treat E-theory books as Agama, I have no comment at all. That is another school.
Q: No one is going to accept that the biologists who have made so much advancement in the field of medicine, genetics and other fields of biology are making a gross error when it comes to evolution in the very principle of following the scientific method and coming up with a scientific theory!
KT: This is like saying “No advaitin is going to accept that Sankaracharya, who has made so much advancement in Sanskrit, will be making such gross error in the interpretation of Upanishads!”. They are going to say - how is it that more than 80% of the Hindus believe in Advaita today, considering that over 90% of them were non-advaitins before Shankaracharya postulated his theory? Otoh, they point out how disbelief in Advaita is correlated with lack of education in philosophy (specifically ontology and epistemology). What has advancement in one to do with blunder in the other? Looking at two similar fossils 20 million old and 30 million old and coming to the conclusion that one species came from the other saying “may be it took 10 million years for that.” - How reliable is that?
Q: evolutionary theory is a serious purvapaxa
KT: Yes, it is and surprisingly, it is one of the easiest of many. I was quite astonished at the total lack of common sense and I kind of expected much more concrete points. Quite strangely, they have committed serious blunders from step 1 itself and to cover themselves, they are creating confusion in the minds of people. By introducing PE, they thought that they answered many objections. All that PE does is that it justifies the delay. If the basis itself is not true, where is the point in justifying the delay or defining a pause? Their enormous faulty assumptions.
1. If a species existed, it must produce a fossil. What happened to fossils of trillions of animals?
2. If there is similarity, one came from the other. What kind of similarities? Take your pick? No, take the pick of E-theory.
Q: That "parIxita-pratyaxa" so far has not proved to me that evolution is wrong.
KT: "parIxita" includes common sense and fundamentals. Pls see above how common sense is completely sacrificed. Charvaka can also perceive that evolution does not pose any threat to his theory. Is that a criterion?
Q: hardcore atheist like Dawkins is going to say that there is a difference between a belief in a Flying Sphagetti Monster and a belief that Neptune orbits the sun.
KT: Precisely. Belief that "if just in the span of few centuries there can be so much difference in the morphology of dog breeds, then what to speak of the difference after millions of years." is precisely like a belief in a Flying Spaghetti Monster. The kind of vyApti Evolution is engaging is nothing short of shocking. The force fit is not possible between a crocodile and a flying bird. What kinds of animals are brought to fill the gap?
Q: Such a simulation is way beyond the capacity of modern computers. Secondly, consider this experiment. I toss a coin 1000 times and get a specific sequence of heads and tails, and show that sequence to you, claiming that it was generated by random coin tosses. You do not believe it, and ask me to repeat it. Now, the probability that a repeated trial will generate the exact sequence as earlier is 1/2 raised to the power of 1000. I would have to repeat the experiment 2^1000 times if I expect to reproduce the same sequence again, which is way beyond the "universal probability bound" and is as good as infinity in practical terms. So it is unreasonable to expect evolutionists to build an immensely more complex simulation and that too reproduce specifically a fish and a man from it.
KT: The "natural selection" has done the task of "tossing" and created the random genetic mutation. The process is to be repeated by you by "placing the coin" exactly as your recorded event. So, you don't do the tossing. That must simplify the task tremendously if your claims are true.
Also another flaw in this theory. For every sequence of heads and tails, there is a complementary sequence. Do you know what that means? For every random genetic mutation, there is complimentary genetic mutation. So for every "evolution process", you theoretize, there is a "devolution process" (or reverse evolution process) meaning by that a fish must be able to "reverse evolve" out of a man. The appearance of similarities does not conflict and gives exactly same kind of supprort to this "devolution theory". All the data and principles of evolution can be applied here. This can be applied for macro-devolution as well.
Originally the giraffes existed and after exhausting the leaves of tall branches, there was need to get under short trees and bushes and tried to shrink or shorten their necks and eventually resulyed in short neck hoofed animals. Strange it may sound - because we are used for hearing only the other way.
Q: there are no transitional fossils between two species, say A and B. When a transitional fossil C is found, then they change their claim, and say that there is no transitional fossil between A and C, and between C and B! Is this a proper argument?
KT: Just because two fossils have some similarities (that evolutionist wishes), you conclude that species A came from B. Is this a proper argument?
Q: This way, the more transitional fossils are found, the more they claim they are not there.Are you going to reject dvaita because 8 interpretations of the Gita are missing (shAstra says there are at least 10 and Madhva only gave 2).
KT: Is this even a right comparison? No one is talking about transition between 10 meanings. First of al dvaita is not claiming its validity from the presence of all 10 meanings, where as Evolution is claiming its validity from the transition. Infact that is the very backbone of Evolution. If that is not true Evolution is gone. If the 8 other meanings are not stated, still Dvaita is unaffected. Dvaita does not claim scientific proof; evolution does. The entire argument in PE is so misplaced. It does not grant any grace. It is akin to "filibuster". It is only question of time. That entire evolution theory is going to crash under its own weight.
Q: Of course no evolutionist would say that birds evolved wings in a flash.
KT: Nor anti-evolutionists are making claims to prove that they evolved in a flash. If you think 100 billion years are not enough, add as many zeros as you like. In these several billion years, how did the transition process take place? What evidence do you have for this transition?
Q: You are repeatedly looking at these events of evolution of flight, brain, etc as coming about in a few moments or so,
KT: Did any of the mails look like that? Did the fossils get created a few moments ago? No one is saying things happen in a flash. How are gills developed gradually over several billion years? What kind of evidence for this? What happened to several billion creatures of several million kinds in between two very different kinds? According to your own theory, absence of fossils for all those intermediary ones implies their absence.
Q: On the other hand, it is design that has no research program in biology
KT: I see. So the measuring stick is research programs?
Q: and adds nothing of value to it.
KT: Nor the evolution theory adds any.
Q: If ID proponents were to take over biology, then none of the recent advances would have been made.
KT: It is like the rooster claiming to be the cause of sun-rise. None of the advances has any thing to do with the fictional evolution theory, which is full of flaws. A drug researcher or a vaccine developer or a genetic engineer need not be an evolutionist. Even if by chance, there is one, it does not mean that his work knowledge needs evolution theory. How come there is no huge opposition to Newton's laws of motion, gravitational laws, Kepler's laws of motion, moon-landing, magnetism theories, sound theories and light theories, but there is opposition to evolution theory among educated class, some of them are biologists themselves. Initially the claim was that they are Christians or blind theists or the like. When the other kinds also started opposing, still the same old excuse is being given. Then a gradual shift is made "People don't understand it properly".The serious objections are never answered satisfactorily. This did not happen with any other branch of science.
Q: historical origins. And none of the present leaders of any tradition I have seen is familiar with the details of evolutionary theory, so they end up creating a bad impression of their tradition by blindly dismissing it away. I have seen this happen in my university.
PT: This is somewhat unfortunate--I think people should be familiar with the arguments for and against Darwin's Theory of evolution. I've been following this for a number of years, and at this point feel that the arguments (fossil record, irreducible complexity) overwhelmingly work against evolution. In fact the arguments in support of evolution are rather flimsy--similarities among creatures are used as evidence of common ancestry. What people don't realize is that similarities need not point to a common ancestor, but a common Designer. That and too much is made of minute variations (microevolution) among creatures.
Yes, of course creatures change over time, but the claim that these small changes/fluctuations are evidence that ALL life forms are descended from 1 single life form...that's simply not warranted either by common sense or the fossil record. The fossil record is probably the strongest argument against evolution--we find all kinds of life forms (reptiles, fish, insects, mammals, dinosaurs) literally "pop up" in the fossil record, no evidence of gradual evolution from a common ancestor.
For example, the differences among modern day reptiles (snakes, turtles, alligators) are the same as oldest turtle, snake, alligator fossils we find (that is, the oldest turtles are still identifiable as turtles, etc.). According to evolution we would expect that going back in time, all these creatures converge on a common ancestor, but there's no evidence of that. Same with fish & mammals.
In fact, it's worth pointing out that the oldest fish appear the same time all the animal phyla appear. There's a period of time in life's history called the "Cambrian" when certain members of almost all the different animal phyla "pop up" in the fossil record.
How can evolution explain all the animal phyla(note: not all animals, just a few members of each phylum) appearing *at once* in the fossil record? If one ignores the fossil record and still insists that there's evidence for evolution, then that's not science!
Q: There is only one truth about what happened in the past. Evolutionary theory says that the human story was that of evolution in the last 50-60,000 years in Africa. On the other hand, Madhvacharya and his
PT: I have often wondered about how to resolve the conflict. The unfortunate thing is that people on both sides are oblivious about the other. Scientists don't care much for the view that humans are specially created. People who study shastra don't care much about the evolutionary view of mankind. It would be nice to get some kind of dialogue between the two, to understand more about our origins.Testability is a very important part of science, so I would be interested in hearing--how does one *test* whether human beings were specially created or whether they share a common ancestor with other primates, evolved through a series of random mutations. As far as I know there is no "test" that can be done. I don't know all that much about ancient human fossils and how apelike they are, but the argument from human language is the most interesting--throughout human history we don't find the evolution of language from more primitive forms, we find the reverse.
From highly complex languages like Latin & Sanskrit, we get simpler vernacular languages--French, Spanish, etc. and Hindi, Telugu, Kannada,etc. In fact Wester linguists argue that the hypothetical language Indo-European (if there was one) that Latin, Greek & Sanskrit came from was even more sophisticated!!
Of course, we certainly don't accept that Sanskrit came from another language, rather it is anaadi. However, it's interesting isn't it...to try to explain how simple caveman speak evolved into modern day languages, the problem gets worse and worse, because the further back we go in recorded history the more sophisticated (grammar-wise) language seems to get.
Q: were of no use when it came down-to-earth to a conflict with science. Science affects our life today the most and its influence is only going to increase in the future.
PT: Science, when based on evidence, when well-tested is not a problem. Even according to our own Siddhanta, we give a lot of weightage to pratyaksha: when there is a conflict between our own direct perception and shaastra, importance is given to pratyaksha (for example the issue of jiva-ishwara bheda when resolving certain shruti vakya-s). The problem comes not with science, but when people present their own beliefs, their own views AS science (though it is not). When scholars, people at universities, people with PhD's say that something is the truth about our origins, it has a sort of "scientific" label attached to it and is accepted blindly, without question. Darwinian evolution is a perfect example of that--the view that all life arose from a single ancestor through a series of mutations is often accepted without question, and opposing views are not even allowed to be mentioned or taught in schools.
Q: However "evolution theory" is still a theory only In scientific circles, "theory" does not mean "just an educated guess" as it means in ordinary parlance. It refers to the best explanation for facts at hand that has been arrived at by following the scientific method.
PT: Yes, I've heard the "Theory of Evolution" being compared to the "Theory of Gravity". Huge difference though--gravity is very easily tested. If I show you something like the echolocation in bats (they bounce sound waves off of walls, then use the info to navigate in pitch darkness)...then ask you...did that mechanism come about simply by a series of random mutations? Or was it purposefully designed by a higher Intelligence? One can't simply go to a lab, run an experiment, and do some tests to conclude "yes, it did come about through a series of random mutations over a period of millions of years". Fossil record doesn't help because the oldest bats look just like modern day bats. How does one "test" whether evolution brought about this creature or whether it was specially designed?
Q: Marcus Ross would readily agree that there is a headlong collision between his young-earth belief and the evolutionary account. I trust that you would
PT: The people who oppose evolutionary theory are not just young earth Creationists. There's also an Intelligent Design movement (www.discovery.org) not affiliated with any religious organization. They are not concerned with the age of the earth--but simply study the scientific evidence to determine if life was designed or not.
Q: To be precise, evolution says that man's body and fish’s body evolved from a common ancestor. And an
PT: Well, both are correct according to evolutionary thought--we share a common ancestor with a fish that was a fish (amphibians evolved from some kind of fish-like ancestor, which interestingly enough people are still trying to find evidence for). I think it is highly unlikely that everything needed for movement on land would evolve gradually (the muscles, joints, etc.). What can a creature do if it has the joints, but no muscles to move the bones, or the muscles & joints, but the right signals from the brain to control movement on land are not there? On the other hand, a designer would be able to make sure all of these are there at once, all working as well as calculate how strong the limbs have to be to support the creature on land, etc. Design seems so much more logical than random mutations.
Q: evolutionist would ask you to look at the bewildering variety of breeds of dogs that have resulted from artificial selection over just centuries and ask you
PT: Artificial breeding has been around for a very long time, long before Darwin published his views. You can breed all the dogs you want, but you will only get different combinations of dogs, nothing else. The problem for evolution is the appearance of *new* structures, *new* mechanisms, *new* functionality. When you're breeding these creatures, you're just mixing & matching what's already there.
Q: to imagine what would happen if the process was continued for millions of years (this is how Darwin begins his Origin Of Species). He would say that you are finding it hard to be convinced because it is hard to visualise a vast scale of time like a billion years. Human mind cannot capture the difference between a billion or a billion with more zeros added at the end (10 billion, 100 billion, ...), because it cannot capture how vast 1 billion or 10 billion years actually is. So the effect of gradual evolution for such a long time (3.5 billion years) is not within the scope of our intuition which only captures very short timescales.
PT: Yes, it can be difficult to fathom what happens to creatures over such long periods of time. But the fossil record is there for us to examine. Over & over again we find creatures appearing at certain points in life's history, then until they go extinct or until modern times, they change very little. Ants from hundreds of millions of years ago look like ants today. For creatures that have gone extinct, like dinosaurs, if you look at the lifetime that a creature has been on the planet they've changed little. These changes can't be used as evidence of common ancestry or the evolution of new organisms. And you mention 3.5 billion years--the bacteria that appear then differ very slightly from bacteria there today...again & again creatures pop up, then show stasis until they disappear or until modern times.
Q: gave his theory) was completed discredited by the experiments of Weismann in the early 1900s, which showed that acquired characteristics are not inherited
PT: If evolutionary biologists *really* understood that acquired characteristics are not inherited; they can see how absurd it really is for a creature to evolve a beneficial mutation. Let's take as an example something like the evolution of flight.
One view is that creatures attempted to fly by jumping out of trees (arboreal), the other is a ground-up view (cursorial): creatures ran around flapping their arms and somehow evolved aerodynamic wings. On the surface it seems rather absurd that creatures can evolve flight...but let's see how absurd it really is. You see, if a creature's arms were to become more "wing-like", though it might help the creature it unfortunately doesn't get passed on, because it's not encoded in the DNA. But if the genes (DNA) controlling the shape of the arms were to change as the creature is jumping around/running around trying to fly...that's great for the creature's children but of no use for this particular creature (who's more likely to get injured trying to fly).
So take your pick...evolution through a series of highly unlikely mutations or design by a Higher Intelligence who understand aerodynamics. The idea that creatures are specially designed for flight is much more logical, because only those creatures fully equipped for flight attempt to fly. No need to rely on chance mutations.
Q: Let us grant that there is a problem with the given explanations of mechanism for evolution of a giraffe's neck. But what does that imply? It is known now that
PT: There's an even more serious problem with the evolution of a giraffe's neck.The heart needs to be powerful enough to work against gravity, pumping blood up a long neck to the brain. But then, if the giraffe bends its neck down, now the force of the blood being pumped, combined with gravity...that's enough to make the giraffe's head literally burst!! How does one compensate for that?
There's this structure in the giraffe's brain called the 'rete mirabile'--literally 'miraculous net': it acts as a sponge, reducing the pressure from the force of the blood. It takes someone with foresight to design that, NOT unintelligent forces in nature. Imagine a giraffe intermediate that didn't have a powerful enough heart--the blood wouldn't make it to the brain.
Or imagine an intermediate with a heart that pumped blood to the brain just fine, but as soon as the giraffe bends down to take a drink...the blood pressure is so strong, its head bursts! How would that be an evolutionary intermediate? Could the compensatory mechanism have evolved later or did it have to be there from the start?
Q: Note that the author himself says towards the end - "The evolutionary biologist Dobzhansky's famous statement that "nothing in biology can be understood except in light of evolution" is a grand claim, which
PT: Nope, you can completely reject evolutionary biology and still understand all the mechanisms underlying living organisms. Does the biological structure of organisms change if one believes in separate creation? Does rejecting the view that all life forms evolved gradually mean that we can't study biology? Of course not!
In fact the view that life is designed provides more insight into biology. No longer do we need to look at some of the sophisticated structures out there and say "random mutations did it", we can see the hand of a far more Intelligent Designer at work.
In fact evolution can be shown to be an impediment to science--the whole concept of vestigial structures or junk DNA is an argument from ignorance. We don't understand how certain structures work, and those are taken either as vestigial remnants from some long-lost ancestor, or evidence of poor design. Proponents of Intelligent Design want to understand those structures, figure out why they're there. Nature has no sense of purpose. An intelligent Designer does.
Q: work to do before we get there, and we should not be satisfied with short-cut evolutionary "explanations."
PT: And we have to seriously consider the possibility that life might not be a result of evolution at all, but rather design. After all...a scientific theory is supposed to be testable right?
Q: You seem to be attacking the truth of evolutionary theory. So do Madhvas accept it or not?
PT: Do Madhva's accept Intelligent Design? Throughout all of Sri Madhvacharya's works, one sees this concept of a higher force, higher intelligence behind the origin of the entire Brahmanda (in fact not just the origin, but "vishvasthiti, pralaya, sarga, mahavibhuti, vrtti, prakasha, niyama, aavrti, bandha, moksha " all come from Him).
Intelligent Design is the concept that a cetana (sentient, intelligent being) rather than jaDa (unintelligent natural forces) is behind the origin of life on this planet (some proponents of Intelligent Design even extend that to the origin of not just living creatures but planets, celestial bodies), and they try to detect this using the scientific method.
You can see that Intelligent Design and Sri Madhva's siddhanta are in perfect agreement: "na ca karma vimaamala kaala guNa prabhrteeshamacittanu taddhiyataH | chidachittanu sarvamasau tu hariryamayediti vaidikamasti vachaH ||"
Sri Madhvacharya has clearly criticized the view that non-sentient entities: time, the inherent nature of things, these things are not capable of performing the role of a Creator. Rather there is a higher force, an intelligent one that controls all this.
Of course, one point worth noting is that Intelligent Design seeks to show that there is an intelligent cause behind the universe, through *scientific means* (study of biology, fossils, etc.), in Sri Madhva's philosophy we understand the Intelligent Designer through shaastra. However the conclusion is one and the same isn't it? Both are unequivocal in saying that only something Intelligent could have produced the world we see around us.
Unfortunately, the evolutionary view is so dominant and widespread that people are hesitant to even question it. But in the end, the evolutionary view holds that life is nothing more than a result of random mutations, and we shouldn't accept it so willingly. Take a look at the approach that proponents of Intelligent Design take, showing that there is a purpose behind why creatures are designed the way they are, versus the approach critics of intelligent design take, who try to show that the designer was incompetent (the appendix is poorly designed, we have junk dna, etc.).
How can someone who worships God with faith & devotion even think of making some of the arguments some proponents of evolution make--ridiculing the Designer, arguing that living creatures are poorly designed, etc.
Yes, there are people who try to combine evolution & their faith in God (He created various creatures through evolution), but I think that with a careful study of the fossil record, there's not much evidence to show life evolved gradually over time.
Q: "..But it is my best understanding that evolution is not a myth.Yes, there are aspects about it that are not well understood (just as there are in any other field of knowledge), but it is on the whole correct, when applied to its own realm."
PT: Not well understood? The problem is not that we don't fully understand how life evolved, the problem is that people don't even want to consider the idea that various life forms were separately created, even when the fossil record supports it:
http://www.allaboutthejourney.org/fossil-record.htm
Basically, the theory that life evolved gradually over time has two serious difficulties.One is the fossil record, the other is the concept of "irreducible complexity"--biological structures that you can show did not evolve gradually over time because each and every part of the system has to be there. There is an excellent book by Professor Michael Behe called "Darwin's Black Box" that explains this in detail.
Q: (http://dvaita.info/pipermail/dvaita-list_dvaita.info/2006-April/001569.html ),
"The link above talks about "Intelligent Design" theory, which is not just controversial but plain stupid. Stupid because, the name itself invites ridicule as it is known since several centuries that the "Argument by Design" is a logically flawed position...Therefore, Maadhvas must refrain from associating with "Intelligent Design."
PT: I know of no logical flaw with the argument by design--in fact we use this all time. All the complex machines we use every day--we haven't seen them actually be designed, nonetheless we know that there is some intelligent designer behind it (it's an inference since it's not directly observable). Why can't we make the same inference for the biological structures in nature?
There are quite a few people who bash Intelligent Design, but please do not be swayed by them. Evaluate intelligent design and evolution on their own grounds not based on whatever's most popular. The arguments for Intelligent Design are based on Pratyaksha & Anumana. In Sri Madhva's philosophy, we can understand Sri Hari through shastra adhyayana(Agama). So in a way, by combining the scientific arguments for Intelligent Design with Sri Madhva's philosophy, we can understand the Being who created life through all 3 pramanas (as long as there is no conflict among them) and gain a greater appreciation for Him.
Q: Micro-evolution theory is the core theory that was put forth by Darwin, which is the duo of Natural Selection & Struggle for existence. (You can read about this, there is plenty of resource on internet over this).
PT: Just a clarification on natural selection--natural selection simply preserves certain traits. "survival of the fittest". It doesn't explain how the advantageous traits came about. Were they designed? Or did they come about by random mutations? The evolutionary view holds that life is a combination of random mutations which are then favored (preserved) by natural selection. But saying that the fittest creatures survive & continue to reproduce really doesn't tell us much, and that's all natural selection is! The real problem is the *origin* of those traits, and natural selection can't help there.
Q: In short, this is the theory if you remember from school days, which says, the Giraffe's neck got elongated in trying to reach the fruits on tall trees. The same trait was passed down to generations and that is why today Giraffes' have long necks.
PT: This is kind of a simplistic view. As I pointed out in my earlier e-mail, it isn't good enough for the giraffe's neck to just get longer. A giraffe's neck is several feet up and the heart has to be powerful enough to pump blood up that high to the brain. Simultaneously, the blood flow needs to be controlled when the giraffe bends its neck down, otherwise the pressure would be too strong.There's so much involved, that, whereas a designer can take all this into account, how can something unintelligent, either random mutations or natural selection, come up with that.
Q: This theory (microevolution) is PROVEN. Plenty of lab experiments back this theory and even some modern medicinal principles depend on this.
PT: Yes, minute changes are accepted.
Q: Macroevolution is when you say amoeba got transformed to Human being over a very long period of time (billions of years). However, macroevolution (with which tattvavada has head-on collision) is NOT PROVEN. But considered a better possibility in comparison to Creation Theory or Intelligent Design theory. Former is a Christian agenda and latter is a 'secularized' form of the former. I would not give lot of credence to either of them and they are laughable.
PT: Why do you say laughable? What is "laughable" about Intelligent Design? If you're a Dvaitin--you certainly accept that there is some Cetana cause behind the origin of the universe, how does that differ from the claim by proponents of Intelligent Design that there is an intelligent cause behind the origin of life?
When you look at either the giraffe's neck, or the wings of a bird, the human brain, the list goes on and on, does it really seem that strange to conclude there is a designer behind it? Instead of life being a result of random mutations (which are later favored by natural selection), according to Intelligent design it's purposefully designed.
We see plants & animals specially suited for certain habitats. Fish with gills to filter oxygen from water, cacti to retain water in dry deserts, bats with echolocation to navigate in pitch-dark caves, etc. Doesn't it make more sense to say these creatures are specially designed for their habitats by someone who knows what kinds of structures are needed where?
Natural selection can't explain how any of these traits came about, and saying "random mutations" seems far too unlikely--why should exactly the right mutations take place at exactly the right time in life's history.
Q: From strictly a tattvavada point of view, concluding macroevolution from microevolution premise amounts to 'ati-vyapti dosha'.
PT: Definitely, minute changes in organisms cannot explain the origin of the higher level classifications of organisms. That is, we may find evidence of creatures changing over time, but we can't extrapolate this to explain how all creatures evolved from a common ancestor.
Q: These kinds of arguments can convince some of us who are already convinced of tattvavada. But someone has to work on this and provide a better alternative to Intelligent Design to make a mark.
PT: Why do you want a "better" alternative to Intelligent design? If life is not a result of unintelligent forces (natural causes), then it must be a result of intelligent causes. There's no 3rd option! If life is not a result of small minute changes accumulating gradually over time, well then life must have appeared suddenly. There certainly aren't natural processes that can cause life to appear. But designers are certainly capable of producing fully-formed creatures.
The view that creatures are just "created fully-formed" may seem strange, especially if we've been taught evolution our whole lives, but if that's where the scientific evidence leads, why not follow it?
Q: intelligence behind this brahmANDa. Theistic Evolution (Francis Collins, Joan ROughgarden) is an alternative that is much more in line with mainstream science.
PT: Theistic evolution is certainly not in line with the scientific evidence. People don't even want to question the theory of evolution, and that is part of the problem. If God had acted through evolution, then in light of the fossil record we must ask ourselves "why did He hide all the evidence for evolution? Why distort the fossil record to show creatures suddenly appearing then remaining basically the same until they disappear". I don't think People who argue for theistic evolution have even looked at any of the evidence against evolution.
Q: historical accounts of dvaita and science. Thus, I do not see any reason to favor it over Theistic Evolution, particularly because both allow for chance as a fundamental mode of explanation.
PT: The conflict between intelligent design & evolution is often seen as one between chance and design. Proponents of design argue that life was *purposefully* designed (natural forces have no purpose or intelligence and thus cannot design life), whereas proponents of evolution argue that random mutations given enough time (and preserved by natural selection) brought about all life. The overemphasis on chance is with evolution not design.
Q: Theistic Evolution is even more scientific than intelligent design.
PT: On what basis? How does theistic evolution explain the fact that ALL the major animal phyla appear at the same time in the fossil record? How does theistic evolution explain the fact that entire evolutionary trees are missing, not just isolated links here and there.
Take reptiles--turtles, lizards, snakes, alligators all appear in their present forms, no evidence of common ancestry. Take the variety of mammals out there--primates, bats, horses, elephants, etc. No evidence of common ancestry.
Take fish--lungfish, jawless fish, sharks all appear in the fossil record in their present forms. If God really acted through evolution....why **hide all the evidence** for evolution?!
Theistic evolution is problematic because it clearly contradicts what we know about the fossil record--that over and over again creatures appear suddenly, then remain the same over time. Where's the evolution?
As for the scientific nature of gradual evolution versus the sudden appearance of lifeforms, one must understand that there are certain biological structures that need a variety of components to function correctly. Unless they're there all at once, the whole system is useless. In an earlier mail, I gave as an example of limbs for walking. Think about how many different components are at work--there are pairs of muscles to control movement in both directions, which receive signals through nerves from the brain to contract, pulling on bones connected to one another by a joint with ligaments.
How can such a system evolve gradually in a step by step manner? Unless the joint is there, no movement can occur. Without the nerves, signals can't reach the muscles. Without coordination from the brain movement can't be synchronized. It makes sense that such a system was designed all at once, rather than through gradual evolution.
Q: On the contrary, a scientist would be most willing to spend time defending why evolution is correct. No one teaches in the classroom that evolution cannot be questioned on the basis of scientific evidence. No
PT: Quite the contrary. A scientist at the Smithsonian was recently humiliated and fired for allowing an article on intelligent design to be published in a peer-reviewed journal. All he wanted was to raise some of the issues proponents of ID were discussing, but merely questioning evolution was too much for some people to take. One of the lead scientists at the National Center for Science Education doesn't want the evidence showing the abrupt appearance of life forms (such as the Cambrian Explosion) to even be presented. Why? Because that would be "confusing" to students. Of course! If evolution is taken as an unquestionable truth, and one allows evidence challenging it, it does seem confusing, right?
Q: evolutionist would take offence at being asked why he can't be wrong (unlike most religious people who respond in a very personal way).
PT: There is an element of faith when it comes to evolution because claims like "all life on this planet evolved from a common ancestor", or "millions of years of mutations accumulated to produce the lifeforms we see"...these are not testable the way actual scientific theories can be tested. When people question it, they are ridiculed, simply dismissed by saying "the evidence is overwhelming", or labeled as fundamentalists. My personal favorite so far of the evidence for evolution is a question asked in Time magazine to Prof. Pinker from Harvard University.
This individual is supposed to be one of the leading experts in cognitive science at a rather reputable school. When asked "What is the evidence for evolution?", he could have pointed out anything he liked about the human brain, something from biology. Instead, after talking about why we get goose bumps, he proceeds to talk about how religion caused 9/11! Believe it or not, his response to "what is the evidence for evolution" was some nonsense about how religion caused the 9/11 attacks, religion has given us witch burnings, and so much more garbage that you would never have expected from a Harvard Professor. If this is the response we get when we ask "what is the evidence for evolution", I think the theory of evolution is in big trouble!
Q: ID does not add anything more valuable than what Theistic Evolution could do, and it is just an argument of incredulity. Stephen Jay Gould had said
PT: It is NOT an argument from incredulity. The argument from design is used quite routinely in other branches of science. If an archaeologist comes across some ancient artifact, looks at its intricacy & complexity and concludes that someone intelligent designed...is it because he "doesn't understand how natural causes produced it"?
We must understand that there are *2* explanations for the origin of anything--one is natural causes (which lack intelligence), the other is intelligent cause. Whenever even the slightest bit of knowledge or planning is required, natural causes cannot be of any use. Knowing how to design the human brain, to coordinate all the various activities in the human body that takes an engineer to design. Knowing how to design the wings of bird such as to give it lift, requires someone with a knowledge of aerodynamics. Natural causes simply cannot explain any sophisticated structure we find in biology.
Q: that people should not think evolution does away with God. Evolution can be seen as an intelligent mechanism of creating species. What is wrong with this?
PT: But that's just the problem. Evolution is NOT an intelligent mechanism. Evolution simply relies on hoping that exactly the right mutation takes place at exactly the right time--chance. Consider how long the DNA molecule is, and how many genes are on it--what are the chances that a mutation will occur in just the right place to give the creature exactly the right advantage it needs?
This also ignores the problem that creatures for certain habitats need to have exactly what they need right from the start. A fish can't gradually evolve gills over time. How would it breathe with a gill that isn't yet fully functional? Or think of something like the webbing produced by a spider--it has to be perfect from the start: sticky enough to catch prey, not too sticky so the spider doesn't get caught on it, strong enough to support the weight of the spider, yet flexible enough to shrink & stretch with the blowing wind. There are millions of things in nature that we can find which simply could not have evolved because they have to be there all at once right from the start.
Q: Where does evolution ridicule God? Just because atheist evolutionists do it doesn't mean it is
PT: If you look at the arguments against intelligent design, even those who claim to be theists (like Prof. Miller) have looked in nature for examples of poor/incompetent design to try to support evolution. How else to refute "Intelligent" design? By showing the designer was incompetent.
Q: inherent in the theory itself. Francis COllins is a Christian, a great scientist and believes in evolution (and he calls ID as Pseudo-Science). See his book "Language of God".
PT: Has Francis Collins bothered checking the fossil record? I think he's still caught up in the idea that somehow the genetic evidence supports evolution. I would like to ask him "If evolution is really a testable scientific theory, through genetic studies, how does one test whether the various creatures we see were separately created or evolved from a common ancestor".
Q: There is no such conspiracy theory anywhere. Such people would never be able to do original research and advance our knowledge of biology if this was the attitude they had. It is the evidence that matters.
PT: The situation with evolution in modern biology can be compared to that of Advaita in Indian thought. Advaita was (and still is so prevalent) though the whole problem of avidya is there, (how Brahman and jiva can be one and the same, one affected by avidya, the other not) still people do not want to give up on it. It's that firmly entrenched. Despite all the fossil evidence, despite the fact that all animal phyla appear at the same time in the fossil record, despite the fact that almost all life forms appear suddenly in the fossil record, display "stasis" (as acknowledged by even evolutionary paleontologists) for their duration on the planet, still one does not want to conclude that the fossil record does not support evolution. It's not really a conspiracy...it's more a stubborn refusal that people have--they don't want to even think that there could be anything wrong with their own views.
Q: On the contrary, how does it resolve any of the conflicts mentioned any more than Theistic Evolution?
PT: It is actually consistent with the fossil record, which I'm assuming theistic evolution either ignores or would have to say something like "God hid all the fossil evidence for evolution to make it look like creatures were separately created". It can definitely explain the origin of those "irreducibly complex" mechanisms pointed out earlier. If you do some study in biology you can easily find several mechanisms that require a variety of different components to function...remove any one of them and the whole system cannot function. It's these complex systems that had to have arisen all at once, not gradually.
Q: others can't.The arguments for Intelligent Design are based on Pratyaksha & Anumana. So is Theistic Evolution that way.
PT: No, you misread my statement--I said *based on * pratyaksha and anumana. That means that one takes the evidence out there and sees what logical conclusion can be made from it. If theistic (or atheistic) evolution were true, then one must imagine that there were all kinds of evolutionary trees that for some inexplicable reason just aren't there. To accept theistic evolution, one must completely ignore the state of the fossils, then believe that such evolutionary trees existed, without any pramana--that is "kalpana gaurava". So instead of being based on pratyaksha and anumana, it rejects the evidence we have (pratyaksha) and has a logical flaw. I don't see that as being the same.
I find it interesting that throughout the whole response, you haven't made any comments on the fossil record at all. As far as I know, that's one of the most clear cut ways to "test" whether life evolved from a common ancestor or not, and it's precisely that evolution fails, and fails quite spectacularly. Unless evolution has been established, we can't move on to theistic evolution.
Some of you may have seen the long list of links on the page and may have gotten the impression that the evidence for evolution is somehow enormous. I'll take one of the links given to show how some proponents of evolution reason and you judge for yourself what the "evidence for evolution" is like:
See http://home.entouch.net/dmd/transit.htm
The point that is being made here is that there is supposedly some kind of evidence linking fish to amphibians. What is the evidence? Read the link that was given *carefully*
Some paleontologists found a couple of jawbones and tried to imagine what the rest of the creature looked like!! Using fancy names like Obruchevichthys, Densignathus rowei, one is made to think that there is actual evidence representing a line of transitional forms!!
If one is trying to explain how the fins of a fish evolved into the limbs of an amphibian, of what *possible* use can finding nothing more than a jaw (in fact, in some cases, not even a whole jaw was found--half of a jaw was used as a transitional form linking fish to amphibians!)
This is nothing new for certain evolutionary paleontologists. A while back there was a case of "Nebraska Man"--someone found a tooth, then turned that single tooth into evidence that humans evolved from ape-like ancestors. Except the tooth turned out to be a pig's tooth, and ever since, creationists like to joke "evolutionists made a man out of a pig, and the pig made a monkey out of man". Yet another case of imagination and speculation taking precedence over actual evidence--a skull was found which, upon analyzing carefully, was supposed to be some kind of whale. When the rest of the creature's body was found, it turned out to be not even the least bit whale like--it had 4 hooves. So what to do? This fossil, pakicetus, then became "evidence" that whales evolved from hoofed mammals!
Are proponents of evolution becoming smarter? Are they "evolving"?
1) Someone finds 1 tooth, based on some colorful imagination, this is presented as evidence that man evolved from apelike ancestors. It turns out to be a pig's tooth.
2)Now, instead of using just 1 tooth, several teeth...about half a jaw is found.This is said to be evidence that amphibians evolved from fish. Soon a whole jaw is found, and this is classified as yet another "link" in the chain from fish to amphibians.
3)Not just 1 tooth, not just half a jaw, but a whole skull is found, and based on studying its ear bones, they imagined that the rest of the creature was some sort of a whale. What was their conclusion when it turns out the creature had four hooves and appeared to be a land mammal? Well, clearly whales once had hooves & ran on land!
http://www.scienceagainstevolution.org/v6i2f.htm
When will proponents of evolution rely on actual fossil evidence instead of their wishful thinking/imagination? Who knows?
Q: ultimately right. Blind belief on either side is undesirable. Ok, I'm glad that we agree here--blind belief is definitely not good. I hope you take a critical look at the evidence for evolution, just as you do for separate creation.
PT: Ok, I'm glad that we agree here--blind belief is definitely not good. I hope you take a critical look at the evidence for evolution, just as you do for separate creation.
Q: Have you asked evolutionists for their response to Michael Behe's idea of "irreducible complexity"? If
PT: As far as I know, that seems to be the only real way of testing whether a biological system evolved in a step by step fashion or appeared all at once. Yes, there has been some criticism of Behe (of course, he questions the idea that certain biological systems could have evolved step by step, mutation by mutation). One biological mechanism he talks about is the blood clotting system and why the various components of it need to be there all at once, or the whole system cannot function (thus could not have evolved). There was criticism, and Behe responds to the criticism here.
http://www.arn.org/docs/behe/mb_indefenseofbloodclottingcascade.htm
I think that rather than trying to test whether biological systems could have evolved in a step by step fashion, or whether they had to appear at once, with all the vital components there, instead most proponents of evolution simply assume that this is true, even when there are difficulties with the evolution of certain structures.
I'm not that familiar with biochemistry, so it's hard for me (and probably others) to follow much of the debate on a molecular level, but even from the perspective of certain organs, take for example getting from a 2 chambered to a 3 chambered heart, it doesn't seem likely that one can simply evolve from one to the other. Rather the whole system needs to be designed at once from scratch:
http://www.ideacenter.org/contentmgr/showdetails.php/id/1113
Q: fossil records overwhelmingly work against evolution, how is it that it is one of the main evidences used by evolutionists in *support* of their theory?
PT: http://www.allaboutthejourney.org/fossil-record.htm
Darwin himself said that "Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links?Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps is the most obvious and gravest objection which can be urged against my theory".
http://www-acs.ucsd.edu/~idea/archives/punceq.htm
A prominent evolutionist remarked for the origin of fishes, "this is one count in the creationists' charge that can only evoke in unison from paleontologists a plea of nolo contendere [no contest]." If the fossil record is one of the main evidences to support the theory, then I shudder to think of what the rest of the evidence is like.
Q: Your questions have been all answered by evolutionists on talk.origins. Rather than write anything from my own side, I will give specific links to their answers.
PT: I'm sorry--have you heard of the site www.trueorigins.org? That site is meant as a response to talk.origins.
Q: Detailed response to Behe and his book on "irreducible complexity": Have you even read the book "Darwin's Black box"? Without even reading the book, how can you simply put up a couple of links for it and just dismiss it? Do you first of all understand the concept of irreducible complexity?
Behe is simply taking Darwin's own suggestion as to how his theory can be tested--"if it can be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not be put together by numerous successive slight modifications then the theory of evolution by natural selection would break down all together". You can find plenty of such structures in nature, and Behe points out a handful in his book. I strongly recommend actually reading the book, instead of just its criticisms. And I'm not quite sure I understand *why* you have an objection to the concept of irreducible complexity. It's an interesting concept--systems that are comprised of several interdependent parts must all be there at once, otherwise the whole system can't function. If it came about in a step by step fashion, all the intermediates would be non-functional until you finally get something that works.
Q: Those similarities are backed up by biogeography. In fact, the evidence of biogeography patterns (how species are distributed across the world) coupled to similarities across species is such strong evidence for the evolution of species, that it was sufficient
PT: So we have two views--evolution of species from a common ancestor and their separate creation. How on earth do similarities provide evidence of one over the other?
Are you suggesting that there would be NO similarities if creatures were separately created?
Why would a designer somehow be forced to design creatures in such a way that no two of them are similar?
The "similarity is evidence for evolution" is repeated so often, and people cannot even conceive that similarities can be due to a common design. If we look at various works of art designed by an artist, various compositions by a composer, various machines designed by an engineer--don't you notice similarities among them? Why *wouldn't* there be similarities among all of God's creations?
In fact, if you reject common ancestry, you can explain the similarities even better--we find similarities not just among creatures that supposedly share a common ancestor (such as marsupials), but also among creatures that are unrelated (there are marsupial versions of placental mammals that look very similar). In the evolutionary view, we're forced to accept certain similarities as evidence of common ancestry, then other similarities as mere coincidence (it's just a coincidence that the wolves in Australia resemble wolves in North America though one is placental the other is marsupial).
If there is a designer separately creating various creatures A, B, X, Y, he can make A & B similar to each other, X &Y similar to each other, but also A &Y similar to each other as well. We can take all the similarities as pointing to common design, we don't need to pick & choose among them the way the evolutionist does.
Q: Further, this argument of yours is in one sense even against ID (whose arguments you are giving in the rest of your mail) - ID *does not* rule out common descent with modification - it only introduces design as a mechanism for it. This point has been quite clearly
PT: Yes, there are proponents of intelligent design who do support the idea of common descent (I think Behe does in fact, which is a bit strange). Creatures appearing separately in the fossil record in their present form, that is, tracing back the fossils, if there's no indication that they evolved from a common ancestor, then this definitely fits with intelligent design, however without coming up with something absurd like punctuated equilibrium, it's hard to make sense of why creatures appear and then stay the same during their duration on the planet.
http://www.ideacenter.org/contentmgr/showdetails.php/id/1136
Q: biogeography makes your argument meaningless - there is no reason for similar species to be found geographically adjacent if they did not evolve by common descent. Why is Australia completely devoid of…
PT: Now why are you engaging in these kinds of silly arguments? No reason why similar species should be found adjacent to each other? So if one creature is specially created in a particular place, if any other creature is created there, then it should bear no resemblance to what's already there. If there is a 3rd creature that's created, it should bear no resemblance to the first two, etc...Why should a Designer create like this? It seems silly and pointless.
Q: primates (till their artificial introduction by man)? Why is Easter Island's fauna or the fauna of islands known to be geographically isolated from other regions so different?
PT: Now you're imposing yet another condition on the designer. He can't create creatures in the same location that bear any resemblance to one another. If he creates creatures in a particular location that are completely different from creatures anywhere else, then you're saying that's a problem as well. If organisms have to be created such that they are neither similar to each other nor different from creatures elsewhere, how on earth is a designer supposed to make ANY creatures??!!!
Q: What people don't realize is that similarities need not point to a common ancestor, but a common Designer. See above.
PT: See above? I don't see any arguments against a common designer? All I see is arbitrary criteria that creatures in the same location must be created with no similarities whatsoever, or that primates should have been created in Australia, etc.If not, it becomes an argument for evolution.
Q: atheism. The director of NHGRI and the leader of the Public Human Genome Project (Francis Collins) believes in God, and that evolution is theistic. So does Stanford University Evolutionary Biologist Joan Roughgarden.They are NOT ID proponents and argue against ID. If you believe in Theism, it does not imply you must believe in ID. See
PT: Yes, I know there are people (like Prof. Miller from my very own university) who argue against intelligent design (I think one of Miller's arguments was something along the lines that elephants went extinct and this somehow counts as an argument against intelligent design. Needless to say, I disagree. Are creatures supposed to be designed such that they never go extinct?)
Theists criticizing intelligent design makes absolutely no sense whatsoever--why would someone who believes in God (presumably as a creator) argue against the idea that life was created? Why would someone who believes in a higher Intelligence criticize the idea that living creatures were designed by an intelligent being and not by random mutations & natural selection.
I think that it is more due to some kind of stubborn notion of clinging to religion and clinging to evolution. Let's not forget the origins of evolutionary thought--it was meant as a substitute for the idea of separate creation.
Look at Dawkins own quote: "Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist" http://bevets.com/evolution.htm
Evolution is inherently atheistic, why do we have to somehow reconcile the idea that life was designed with evolution? Is there some evidence that stands in the way, something that makes it hard to reject evolution?
Q:That and too much is made of minute variations (microevolution) among creatures.
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB901.html
PT: Some clarification on the term "speciation". What exactly is the precise definition of a species? We humans go out into the world, classify creatures to make sense of what we see around us. Kingdom, phylum....all the way down to the level of a species.
It's simply a classification system, and has nothing to do with the origin of organisms. The working definition of a species is 2 creatures that "normally" don't breed with each other.
Why normally? Because there are creatures like whales & dolphins that can be made to breed with each other. Same with ligers (lions & tigers). We've already classified them as different species, so that classification isn't going to change. On the other hand, if a creature undergoes a slight mutation such that it can't breed with the original population, suddenly a "new species has evolved", and someone gets the idea of taking this to a creationist and asking "how do you explain this?". The idea of separate creation is not that all **species** on this planet were separately created, but rather that certain basic types of organisms were separately created, that then "evolved" into all the life forms we see. What we call a species probably doesn't correspond to what was originally created.
So how does one determine what creatures were separately created? As I've pointed out before, fossil record. Trace back the mammals in the fossil record. Sure there's horse evolution, bat evolution, elephant evolution, primate evolution, but when we try to link all these to a common ancestor, do we have even a partial evolutionary tree?
You see, it's not missing links, but *missing evolutionary trees*. Rather than assuming a common ancestor & saying the evidence somehow disappeared or punctuated equilibrium or whatever, why not take the fossil record as it is? If creatures with different body plans (we categorize them as different phyla) all appear at once (in the cambrian), why say that they evolved from a common ancestor? Contrary to the link you gave, there IS a barrier to large change. If there weren't why are the bacteria today, after 3.5 billion years of evolution, still the same?
Why are ants from 25 million years ago still the same as today? Why are bats from 60 million years ago the same as today? I jotted down something about lungfish, horseshoe crabs appearing in the fossil record in their present form several hundred million years ago, but I want to get a longer list of creatures. Why don't you get a book on paleontology, look at the dates that creatures appear in the fossil record, and see for yourself whether the small changes since the time they appeared can explain the appearance of the creatures.
Not sure if I put this link earlier, but here's a more detailed account of some of the problems with the fossil record:
http://www.ideacenter.org/contentmgr/showdetails.php/id/839
Q: The fossil record is probably the strongest argument against evolution Evolutionists take it as a strong argument against design and for evolution.
PT: That's funny...if it were such a strong argument why are people so reluctant to teach about the Cambrian explosion? The answer is simple--the various phyla are supposed to be the branches of the evolutionary tree, yet we find members of each appearing at around the same time, with NO evolutionary predecessor. If the fossil record were really a strong argument for evolution do you think you would be seeing "isolated" evolutionary trees?
Instead of just showing you how horses change over time, they would try to link all the mammalian orders and show you fossil evidence of that--think of how much more devastating that would be for someone who believes in separate creation!! Did you try tracing back all the reptilian orders that I mentioned? While we're on reptiles, how about dinosaurs--are evolutionists going to come up with some evolutionary tree for how gigantic creatures like a Tyrannosaurus, Brontosaurus, etc. evolved? Or are they going to tell you that these creatures more or less "pop up out of nowhere", then stay basically the same until they go extinct?
Q: Answered at http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CC/CC201.html You are wrongly expecting "phyletic gradualism" where evolution posits "punctuated equilibrium".
PT: Do you think there's any way to convince an evolutionary biologist that life did not evolve from a common ancestor? If there is a series of gradual successive changes throughout life's history, fine then we can agree that it would be evidence for evolution. But when there's not, then we simply say that "evolution happened quickly, we aren't supposed to find any fossils"?
You're basically saying that the sudden appearance of new organisms AND the gradual appearance of creatures over time constitutes evidence for evolution!
Once again, look at the evolutionary reasoning in that article: "Sudden appearance in the fossil record often simply reflects that an existing species moved into a new region"
When we see all those examples pointed out earlier--bats, fish, turtles, frogs, dinosaurs alligators all appearing suddenly in the fossil record, we're supposed to come to the conclusion that they "already existed, but moved into the region from somewhere else".
Tell me where on earth did the fish in the sea live before they "moved into the new region"? And to explain the sudden appearance of dinosaurs in the fossil record, all we have to do is say the moved in from elsewhere?
Q: Further, fossil records don't show that species "pop up" in an instant - those are "geological blinks" of time, which correspond to geological periods often millions of years old.
PT: Ok...you're right...they're geological time periods. Still...where are the evolutionary trees? Go to a museum and see for yourself if there are even fragmented evolutionary trees linking all mammals to a common ancestor, or reptiles to a common ancestor. Same thing for birds as well--in the "Wonder of God" by Roy Abraham Varghese, he points out an interesting observation that songbirds show up in the fossil record with no evidence of evolution through common descent.
When I say creatures pop up, I mean that there's no evidence of some gradual evolutionary tree. Saying that it's punctuated equilibrium rather than phyletic gradualism doesn't address the question of whether creatures evolved from a common ancestor or not.
If creatures were specially created throughout life's history, what else would we expect from the fossil record?
Q: There's a period of time in life's history called the "Cambrian" when certain members of almost all the different animal phyla "pop up" in the fossil record.
Answered at http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CC/CC300.html
PT: Once again, please try to read the links you post. "There are transitional fossils within the Cambrian explosion fossils." If you find a variety of creatures, with varying degrees of similarity, yet they all appear in more or less the same geologic time period, would you really consider them transitional? Look at the language that's used in the article-- "flowering plants, by far the dominant form of land life today, only appeared about 140 Mya"
Why do they say that flowering plants "appeared"? Tell me, what evolutionary/natural process causes plants, or animals, or any other creature to appear? Or are you going to reiterate the idea that it's what we'd expect according to punc eq?
One issue is that almost all *animal* phyla appear at around the same time. But the bigger issue is the appearance of new creatures as opposed to descent from a common ancestor. And this happens over & over again throughout life's history.
Why should all creatures be created at a single time?
Creatures can't be created afterwards?
We have a concept of cyclic srishti, pralaya. Doesn't this fit in line with that?
The abrupt appearance of life forms, then their relative persistence over time is what one would expect if creatures were specially created--what's the problem with this view of gradual progression?
Why should common descent be inferred when there's no warrant for it in the fossils?
Instead of the 1 or 2 fossils that are presented as supposed transitional forms, we should find them in the thousands. Where are they? It can't be due to the rarity of fossils. A single excavation led to some 500 salamander fossils (not surprisingly salamanders from 150 million years ago look basically like a salamander skeleton you'd find today)
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000B4786-FE72-1C5A-B882809EC588ED9F
Just think of how many fossils *overall* have been found for all the different creatures on this planet, and yet the transitional forms that are presented are 1 or 2 here and there. Even those are usually problematic.
Q: As far as I know there is no "test" that can be done. I don't know all that much about ancient human fossils and how apelike they are, You can read "The Dawn of Human Culture" by Richard Klein - it explains hominid fossils (and what they tell us) in detail in a way non-specialists can understand.
PT: Regarding human origins, I think it's quite clear whether "theistic evolution" or special creation of man is more consistent with Dvaita siddhanta. According to evolution, we share a common ancestor with apes--the common ancestor communicated through monkey-sounds/grunts/etc, and human language evolved from THAT. Yet, what do we hold is the origin of our Sanskrit language, devabhasha? Ask any Madhva scholar if he thinks that the Sanskrit language evolved from caveman grunts/monkey sounds over a period of millions of years. He'll laugh at you, but certainly won't try to reconcile the evolutionary origin of language with the divine origin of language.
It's interesting to point out that not just in our culture, but also Greeks, Romans, Jews, they had a concept of divine origin for language, not a gradual modification of some primitive primate sounds. If our languages really evolved over time from something primitive, wouldn't some culture have preserved that bit of history? Why do we only find the divine origin of language across cultures?
If one accepts that humans & apes were separately created, there's no need for such a lowly origin for human language, but rather that human beings alone were specially created with the ability to truly communicate. Sanskrit no longer needs to have evolved from grunts! Isn't special creation of humans much more in line with our Siddhanta?
Q: but the argument from human language is the most interesting--throughout human history we don't find the evolution of language from more primitive forms, we find the reverse. From highly complex languages like Latin & Sanskrit, we get simpler vernacular languages--French, Spanish, etc. and Hindi, Telugu, Kannada,etc. Answered at
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CG/CG110.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CG/CG111.html
PT: Oh, you can refute the very first line of that right? The first known languages were written? Surely you accept that the Vedas were passed down by word of mouth long before the actual script was there. Languages are becoming less complex in terms of *grammar*. Look at the decreasing grammatical complexity from ancient tongues like Sanskrit, Latin, Greek to vernaculars. This is the natural progression of language that people drop endings, simplify the structure (already I see this with the Marathi we speak at home--we've managed to lose gender entirely!).
What you should think about is how things like grammar: verb tenses, noun forms would get there in the first place.Think about an ancient culture before the origin of Latin, Greek, Sanskrit. Say the language is "simple" in that each noun does not have 14/21 different forms, but maybe just singular or plural. How do we get to the stage of people declining all their nouns? Does someone come up with a set of noun cases, go around trying to get people to use certain suffixes?
That's difficult for modern man let alone primitive man.Yet that's precisely what's needed to explain the origin of such complex languages. You see the problem is that languages have a natural tendency to degenerate over time--grammatical rules become simpler because that's easier for people. For the evolution of language, the reverse is needed...and we have no reasonable way of explaining this continuous increase in the grammatical complexity of a language from nothing to ancient languages, then all of a sudden there is a turn around from ancient times to now.
Q: How does one "test" whether evolution brought about this creature or whether it was specially designed? Doesn't your statement cut both ways?
PT: Well, apparently tests like irreducible complexity, the fossil record are not good enough--if you want, you come up with a way to test whether creatures are designed or whether they evolved. See, proponents of evolution are eager to discredit intelligent design, saying it's not testable, yet they don't bother testing their own views--that's what I find annoying. Ok, this is a rather lengthy; I’ll see if I can respond to the rest later. I've already been at this for several hours! I hope you don't take any of my remarks personally--I'm criticizing the theory of evolution, the evidence (more likely, lack thereof) that's presented in support of it, as well as trying to argue that we shouldn't be so eager to embrace it.
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