I think I am being misconstrued. I am not going to look science in the face and say I do not believe in evolution. However, the right question to ask is, what forms the basis from which other things evolved? How did these things come into being? Unless we want to go back to side with Aristotle's theory of spontaneous generation. Something somewhere brought about the life that later evolved to give rise to others. Instead of clear gulf, what I see is a link between the two.
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I'm not sure in what way and I didn't understand that from your comment, so I'd appreciate a more on the nose clarification. ;)
That is indeed a fascinating question, but while it has some connection to evolution, it is not withing the scope of evolution. Whatever the answer to that question is, it's unlikely for it to discredit the ideas we have about evolution because they are clearly supported by evidence. It's the process that takes life from simplicity to complexity and we have very good reason to be certain this is what indeed happened with life on our planet. It's a fairly well understood mechanism and we can also simulate it in other contexts and see that it works reliably on the proper scales.
There are things in science we have discovered and things that we are yet to discover. Our ideas about how life started (if that's what you are talking about) are slowly taking shape and we are constantly finding new pieces of the puzzle. What's important to understand is that when we don't know something yet, it is illogical and unreasonable to assume an imaginary make-belief answer to put in place of it. When the answer is "we don't know yet" this is by no means a proof of the existence of god, a creator or anything else. Before we understood how lighting worked, it was attributed to all kinds of deities, but we now know those assumptions and leaps of imagination were unreasonable and more importantly blatantly wrong. We shouldn't be repeating this mistake over and over. If you are a scientist, you should start getting comfortable with the idea that there are indeed things we don't know because the job of science is to start chipping away at them, not to try and insert a fairy-tale as the answer instead.
When we don't know, we don't know. You don't assume anything before you know - it's as simple as that. Everything else tends to be faulty logic.
Don't you see how much of non-answer this is? What created that something that everything started from? It doesn't solve anything, it just pushes the question one step further down the line without providing a real answer or even worse, into an infinite regress. I asked you some very clear questions and you for some reason chose not to address in any way. What you are implying here is an assumption that I argue is unreasonable and fallacious. That's why I'm asking you again, what direct evidence do you have to make that assertion?
I'm honestly not sure what you mean here. What's the gulf and what are the two things on either side of it?
Interesting argument. Points well taken. That however will not change my belief as much as I am sure my post will not change yours. At what point in our lifetime do you think science will discover the origin of life? If it does happen in my lifetime, perhaps I will change my belief, If not, well....I will rather take the status quo to my grave. Nice engaging you
Why would you be sure of either and why do you say it as if that's OK. A scientist should be able to change any of their belief in light of evidence. If I didn't think minds cannot be changed, I wouldn't engage in conversation. On one hand, I hope you could be swayed by evidence and logic (you are scientist after all, right?) and I know for certain I am ready to abandon any of the positions I currently hold if I am presented with convincing evidence. Anything you have decided to hold true no matter what is a detriment to your scientific effectiveness as this means that you are willing to overlook contradicting evidence and that's not how you do science.
Quite possibly, your religious beliefs don't have a direct reflection on your field of study and you might be doing proper scientific work, but put your religious beliefs under the same rigor as evolution has been subjected to and tell me if they hold up. In all of my comments, I ask you for evidence and you have firmly decided not to provide any. I guess at least to an extent you realize you don't have any and that holding religious beliefs is actually unreasonable.
There is a very clear difference between simply mentioning that all the evidence points to the fact that evolution is indeed the process which directly led to us being here now and making the unsubstantiated assertion that it was some specific god that made it all. One is based on evidence and is reasonable and the other one is ideological belief based on indoctrination. That's why I think trying to present evolutionist and creationist as similar in any way is fallacious and possibly intellectually dishonest.
There's no way for me to know that, how could I ;) But it's not like we have zero knowledge about it. You might want to look into what we know already and what processes that might have taken part in that we are slowly starting to understand. It's really fascinating stuff.
The big question that I think you should ask yourself is why would you hold a specific belief before the evidence is in? Why would you want to believe something you don't have a good reason to?
There is no status quo on the matter really...
Same here. :) Though I have to admit that the fact that you didn't even address my questions and calls for evidence is a bit frustrating ;)
I can only hope that the scientist in you would win over.
OK. I guess I missed your question unintentionally. Can you please go over it again?
That can certainly happen with comments of this length ;)
I guess my questions boil down to "What is the evidence you have for a creator?" and if it's anywhere near the evidence we have for evolution.
Well. Let us say I do not have any scientifically tenable evidence. The basis of evolution that has not been evidenced for is what we religious people normally refer to as creator. You can call it a mere hypothesis but that is what I am holding on to until proven otherwise. I hope I have honestly addressed your question
Yes, thank you for your honest answer.
What I honestly don't understand is why would anybody, especially a scientist, willfully hold a position that they understand is not supported by any evidence.
As far as science goes, that's objectively the wrong approach, don't you think? Aren't we supposed to withhold belief until the hypothesis becomes supported by an overwhelming amount of evidence and reliability?