The Philosophy Discussion Forum

Posted: **Thu Jul 09, 2026 2:31 pm**

MikeNovack wrote: ↑Thu Jul 09, 2026 1:41 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Jul 09, 2026 3:45 am
MikeNovack wrote: ↑Wed Jul 08, 2026 11:35 pm You really don't understand evolution.
I don't think anybody really "understands" it, because it's not a coherent theory.

Giraffes
I never mentioned them. I think, though, you'd have to puzzle out what they ate while they were "evolving" long necks. The African savannah, I have seen. Giraffes, I have seen. I'll bet I know a lot more about both than you will in your lifetime.
You imagine that the trees in the savanna were created that way?

So which "evolved" first: the giraffe, so that it could be tall enough to reach the trees it needs to eat (the top branches), or the tree, so that it would make it necessary for the giraffe to have a long neck? Or did they grow together, at exactly the right pace for the stretching of giraffe necks and the increasing height of the associated foliage? And exactly when did you observe, measure and record scientifically this process of tree and neck growth?

Or is this a non-scientific "just so" story, called "How the Giraffe Got Its Long Neck?"

If evolution were not "coherent", then how could I have modeled it with beads/dice.

Well, as I pointed out, because you didn't actually "model" it; in truth, you actually mis-modelled it, representing something very different from the evolutionary case. By constraining the types of beads possible, you took on the "God" role in your model, essentially. But Evolution requires no such constraints -- something like randomness and a universe of practically infinite alternate possibilities; and hence an undefinable number of possible outcomes, and an undefinable number of bead-environments that could be possible.

So I'm afraid that the outcome you calculated so easily doesn't "model" what it claims to model, at all. Rather it oversimplifies the case and tilts the results in the direction of a too-simplistic conclusion. Sorry to be blunt, but that's what it does.

Might I humbly suggest that you consider that both secularists and people with other notions of deity consider your Christian concepts of deity incoherent.

Well, in response, may I humbly point out that what somebody "considers" is not actually very important, if their "consideration" is merely arbitrary and itself not rational. So if their "considering" is to count for anything, we'd have to know their reasons.

On what basis do you think such suppose the idea of God is "incoherent"? It seems a funny word to apply to a coherent worldview. I can explain why their views are incoherent; can they explain why they think mine is?

Posted: **Thu Jul 09, 2026 2:51 pm**

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Jul 09, 2026 11:13 am
Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Thu Jul 09, 2026 8:11 am Evolution is not a theory...
Yeah, it is.

Evolution is a demonstrable fact. It is the hypotheses that attempt to explain evolution that are theories. In the same way, the fact that bodies with mass are attracted is not a theory, you can see it and measure it; it is the explanations of the phenomena that are theories.

Posted: **Thu Jul 09, 2026 3:03 pm**

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Jul 09, 2026 11:27 am
Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Thu Jul 09, 2026 7:48 am Well, the thing with teleology is that it puts the cart before the horse. Of course the size of the Moon is ideal for the kind of world and life we have.
That's exactly the sort of argument I indicted. It's the "of course," when there is no "of course" about it.

There is, because life evolved to cope with the exact conditions it has to cope with. It is atatement of fact.
The question as you frame it is why are the conditions so perfect for us? Your answer is that God made the universe so that a tiny part of it suits us. My answer is that we evolved to suit the conditions.

Posted: **Thu Jul 09, 2026 3:04 pm**

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Jul 09, 2026 2:31 pm
So which "evolved" first: the giraffe, so that it could be tall enough to reach the trees it needs to eat (the top branches), or the tree, so that it would make it necessary for the giraffe to have a long neck? Or did they grow together, at exactly the right pace for the stretching of giraffe necks and the increasing height of the associated foliage? And exactly when did you observe, measure and record scientifically this process of tree and neck growth?

<<<<< trees existed, having evolved LONG before giraffes evolved. Since mature trees start from seeds, trees would exist of all heights from zero to mature height. Yes there ARE exceptions, ones that start as epiphytes like the banyan.

Not NECESSARY for the giraffe to have evolved a long neck, just did so.
I have observed tree growth form seed, Trees evolved to grow tall not to avoid leaves being eaten but to not be overgrown by other plants/trees.
The savanna tree isn't competing with other trees but it had already evolved to be a tree (not a shrub). It is the lack of competition that causes
the savanna tree to be relatively short, because the mechanism "grow taller" is evolved to not waste resources if not being shaded.>>

Or is this a non-scientific "just so" story, called "How the Giraffe Got Its Long Neck?"
<< No, ordinary science. Not a "just so story" like the story of some deity creating the universe (the PARTICULAR version of creation).>>

So I'm afraid that the outcome you calculated so easily doesn't "model" what it claims to model, at all. Rather it oversimplifies the case and tilts the results in the direction of a too-simplistic conclusion. Sorry to be blunt, but that's what it does.
<< Pay attention. Did you not see (clearly stated) that the model was not of the general process as takes place in biology but the general process
itself. Are you saying that the model was incorrect for that?" A simple model for a simple GENERAL process. >>

Might I humbly suggest that you consider that both secularists and people with other notions of deity consider your Christian concepts of deity incoherent.
Well, in response, may I humbly point out that what somebody "considers" is not actually very important, if their "consideration" is merely arbitrary and itself not rational. So if their "considering" is to count for anything, we'd have to know their reasons.

On what basis do you think such suppose the idea of God is "incoherent"? It seems a funny word to apply to a coherent worldview. I can explain why their views are incoherent; can they explain why they think mine is?

<< Same error as above. You are confusing specific with general. It's NOT any and all notions of deity they consider incoherent. It is YOUR
presented reasons for a deity like the one in which you believe. Belief in GOD does not imply belief in a deity resembling how you
believe God to be.

WHY should a deity who created the universe be at all concerned with how some individual hairless ape behaves? Rejection of a deity as
perceived by Christianity is not rejection of deity. You are making the same mistake as those misguided folks who consider themselves to
be atheists because they reject deity as understood/described by the religion in which they were raised and are now rejecting (and that
religion taught it was the one and only true religion and that no deity could be other than that religion described/understood) >>

Posted: **Thu Jul 09, 2026 3:09 pm**

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Thu Jul 09, 2026 2:51 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Jul 09, 2026 11:13 am
Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Thu Jul 09, 2026 8:11 am Evolution is not a theory...
Yeah, it is.
Evolution is a demonstrable fact. It is the hypotheses that attempt to explain evolution that are theories. In the same way, the fact that bodies with mass are attracted is not a theory, you can see it and measure it; it is the explanations of the phenomena that are theories.

The point is, a measured evolution is a relative phenomenon. You finite human with your relative measurement ruler cannot measure the absolute. You with your little wooden ruler wasn’t there at the beginning when all of this evolution process sprang into action. So any attempt by something finite to measure the infinite is absurd.

Water is wet is a fact. Now all you have to do is make your own water from nothing like God did, then we’ll be talking some real sense.

Posted: **Thu Jul 09, 2026 5:21 pm**

MikeNovack wrote: ↑Thu Jul 09, 2026 3:04 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Jul 09, 2026 2:31 pm So which "evolved" first: the giraffe, so that it could be tall enough to reach the trees it needs to eat (the top branches), or the tree, so that it would make it necessary for the giraffe to have a long neck? Or did they grow together, at exactly the right pace for the stretching of giraffe necks and the increasing height of the associated foliage? And exactly when did you observe, measure and record scientifically this process of tree and neck growth?
trees existed, having evolved LONG before giraffes evolved.

Ah. So the trees were already tall, but the giraffes aspired and aspired. The shorter plants they fed on were somehow...just not good enough. Perhaps generation after generation of short-necked giraffes even starved -- but somehow still reproduced -- while each generation tried harder and harder to get to those top leaves they'd never yet eaten, because the already-evolved banyan trees were too tall for them...

And you have proof of this? You have scientific evidence, because you were there, or scientists were, and they recorded the data that proves these short-necked, starving, but aspiring and reproducing proto-giraffes came this route you're describing?

Or is this a "just so" story, again?

Not NECESSARY for the giraffe to have evolved a long neck, just did so.

Okay: so now they're short-necked, starving, but aspring and reproducing, ARBTIRARY giraffes, growing their necks unnecessarily, by straining for leaves they'd never eaten...

This story gets more fun as it develops.

Did you not see (clearly stated) that the model was not of the general process as takes place in biology but the general process itself. Are you saying that the model was incorrect for that?" A simple model for a simple GENERAL process. >>

Too simple, I'm afraid. It doesn't represent any general process.

Might I humbly suggest that you consider that both secularists and people with other notions of deity consider your Christian concepts of deity incoherent.
Well, in response, may I humbly point out that what somebody "considers" is not actually very important, if their "consideration" is merely arbitrary and itself not rational. So if their "considering" is to count for anything, we'd have to know their reasons.

On what basis do you think such suppose the idea of God is "incoherent"? It seems a funny word to apply to a coherent worldview. I can explain why their views are incoherent; can they explain why they think mine is?
It's NOT any and all notions of deity they consider incoherent.

I said "mine."

It is YOUR presented reasons for a deity like the one in which you believe. Belief in GOD does not imply belief in a deity resembling how you believe God to be.

I haven't presented my reasons. So I'm amazed you suppose you're able to foresee them in this way. So far, all I've argued is that the existence of God is a reasonable postulate, based on the evidence, particularly, of irreducible complexity. I haven't yet argued for a particular "God," save to point out that polytheism is incoherent. And it is.

So now, why do you suppose there are people who find, say, plain monotheism incoherent?

Rejection of a deity as perceived by Christianity is not rejection of deity.

True enough. If "perceived" mattered, we could all have our own gods.

You are making the same mistake as those misguided folks who consider themselves to be atheists because they reject deity as understood/described by the religion in which they were raised and are now rejecting (and that religion taught it was the one and only true religion and that no deity could be other than that religion described/understood) >>

I've done nothing of the sort. All I've argued for is that there is good evidence to support monotheism, and not enough logic for polytheism. I've said nothing beyond that...yet.

But if you think monotheism's incoherent, let's have your reasons. I've given you solid reasons for rejecting polytheism, so it only seems fair.

Posted: **Thu Jul 09, 2026 7:43 pm**

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Jul 09, 2026 2:31 pm So which "evolved" first: the giraffe, so that it could be tall enough to reach the trees it needs to eat (the top branches), or the tree, so that it would make it necessary for the giraffe to have a long neck?

There are none so blind as those who will not see.
https://savegiraffesnow.org/evolution-of-giraffes/
Evolution is a fact. Any world view that denies it is wrong.

Posted: **Thu Jul 09, 2026 8:34 pm**

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Jul 09, 2026 5:21 pm
Ah. So the trees were already tall, but the giraffes aspired and aspired. The shorter plants they fed on were somehow...just not good enough. Perhaps generation after generation of short-necked giraffes even starved -- but somehow still reproduced -- while each generation tried harder and harder to get to those top leaves they'd never yet eaten, because the already-evolved banyan trees were too tall for them...

Absolutely not. You are rejecting YOUR notion of evolution and thinking that is a refutation of evolution.

That there were tall trees with leaves on top IRRELEVANT. Evolution has no "goal".

Relevant that there were young trees (hence shorter than fully grown trees) with leaves just out of reach of the propto-giraffe species. By which I mean out of reach of proto-giraffes with average neck length. But because of normal variation, some proto-giraffes had necks just a little shorter than average and some with necks just a little longer than average. These latter had a survival/reproduction advantage over those with just average length necks and those an advantage over those with shorter than average length necks. So differential survival/reproduction meant the percentage of the population with longer than average length necks increased. That means the average neck length has increased. Repeat, repeat, repeat for many generations. At SOME POINT and even longer neck fails to confer a survival/reproduction advantage (greater clumsiness balances out being able to reach yet higher into the trees?)

At a concept level, evolution is just "if a difference is associated with a higher percentage of survival/reproduction then that difference over time will increase in the population". Expressed at THIS LEVEL nothing said that we are talking about Biology. That's why my example with beads a perfectly valid model to conduct the experiment. If you think not, explain what part of the concept you think was violated when substituting "difference in color of bead" for "difference.

Posted: **Thu Jul 09, 2026 9:02 pm**

MikeNovack wrote: ↑Thu Jul 09, 2026 8:34 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Jul 09, 2026 5:21 pm
Ah. So the trees were already tall, but the giraffes aspired and aspired. The shorter plants they fed on were somehow...just not good enough. Perhaps generation after generation of short-necked giraffes even starved -- but somehow still reproduced -- while each generation tried harder and harder to get to those top leaves they'd never yet eaten, because the already-evolved banyan trees were too tall for them...

Absolutely not. You are rejecting YOUR notion of evolution and thinking that is a refutation of evolution.

No, I'm questioning your story. And it doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. What's more, it's got nothing genuinely scientific behind it -- no measurements, reproducibility, testability, evidence, observations...

But this is the universal way, with the Evolutionist myth: as soon as one asks for the intermediate stages, the progression from one entity to another, it starts to get totally speculative and implausible. And as bad as it is for intraspecies development (like long-necked giraffes), it gets downright absurd for inter-species development (like men from fish).

Evolution has no "goal".

That would be right. It couldn't. It could not even "care" whether any given species survives or not.

But you suppose the giraffes had a goal, the top of banyan trees. However, for generation after generation, they couldn't get there, apparently, because according to you, the trees were already tall. So there was no survival advantage to yearning for a longer neck.

And we must wonder what happened to all those failed proto-giraffes. There must have been millions or billions of generations of them. We should be miles deep in giraffe fossils, one would think...all in various stages of failed proto-development...Or when they failed to be tall enough, did evolution take a left turn, and make them all into modern zebras or hippos?

You see...it just gets absurd when you try to describe those middle stages.

...my example with beads a perfectly valid model to conduct the experiment. If you think not, explain what part of the concept you think was violated when substituting "difference in color of bead" for "difference.

I did. I don't suppose you read it?

You're constraining the number of alternatives artificially...you're "playing God," in trying to model a process that's supposed to have no God in it. To model it properly, you would have to suppose an infinite number of different colours, and an infinitely variable environment in which they were having to match.

But the problem with infinity is that no matter how many times you roll the dice, there are always infinite "other ways" the thing can turn up. So it explains, precisely, nothing.

Posted: **Fri Jul 10, 2026 7:24 am**

The human creation must have already existed within the mind of God. Evolution was just the processing tool used to manifest the creation into actuality. God is the light source pure energy that must remain hidden to become frozen physical matter in its creation. Creation was God’s fractured mind that divided into infinite parts of itself.
Same applies to the fractal of Gods light that was modelled into a physical human form, this human form already carries the mind of god enabling the creation of non biological objects to manifest from a mind that was already passed on from the original source which is the infinite light of God. . for example: let’s take an aeroplane

this object already exists in the mind of man that’s an extension of Gods mind. The aeroplane won’t function or fly until all its parts are assembled correctly together as a fully functional whole object. The parts as well as the instructions for the aeroplane already existed in the mind of its creator, but it took time and space for the actualisation of the aeroplane to become reality. Aeroplanes don’t just pop into existence out of thin air, no, it takes a creator mind with an idea to manifest the idea. The idea exists first, creation is secondary, which is all the evidence needed for a creator.
The idea of the aeroplane already existing fully intact, and the evidence is the actual aeroplane in full flight. That’s how the material world is able to manifest, it’s the prototype of the model already existing fully formed in the mind of God.

What does AI say about this…

AI
The idea that a proto-model of the human form pre-exists in the mind of the Divine touches on concepts explored in both ancient philosophy and theology.In philosophical traditions, such as Platonism, this concept is connected to the Theory of Forms. Plato argued that non-physical, perfect ideals—or "forms"—of all things, including humans, exist eternally in a higher realm, with physical manifestations serving as mere imperfect copies.Theological interpretations expand on this:Divine Intellect: In scholastic philosophy, such as Thomism, it is posited that the universe and humanity exist eternally as perfect concepts within the intellect of God. The physical creation of humankind is the external realization of this internal blueprint.Imago Dei: The Abrahamic concept of the imago Dei (the "Image of God") suggests that human attributes—such as the capacity for reason, morality, and relational love—were deliberately pre-designed to reflect the nature of the Creator.

Posted: **Fri Jul 10, 2026 8:07 am**

God didn’t need creation to be. Being is already perfectly existing as everything all at once, which only goes to prove, that nothingness can never be a reality. That also solves the problem of something out of nothing. There never was nothing in the first place. This evidence even goes without saying.

So what is creation exactly, it’s desire. God desired to reflect himself as infinite fractals of light, beautifully illustrated in the image of the prism, where pure white light energy splits into the many colours and attributes of original divine source. If there had been no desire, then there would have been no desire for procreation. But the evidence of procreation is overwhelmingly self evident. This chain reaction of formlessness formed was inevitable born of its own will to desire. This had to be because nothingness was impossible as the evidence for something is clearly blindingly obvious.

Posted: **Fri Jul 10, 2026 10:21 am**

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Jul 07, 2026 7:19 pm...this is the universal way, with the Evolutionist myth: as soon as one asks for the intermediate stages, the progression from one entity to another, it starts to get totally speculative and implausible. And as bad as it is for intraspecies development (like long-necked giraffes)...

I am under no illusion that Mr Can will read this, much less understand, but for anyone interested in how giraffes came to have such long necks:
(Spoiler alert: it has nothing to do with their

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Jul 09, 2026 5:21 pm...yearning for a longer neck.)

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/rsos ... ion-of-the

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Jul 07, 2026 7:19 pm...it gets downright absurd for inter-species development (like men from fish).

Everything Mr Can says about evolution is absurd. Anyone interested in transitional fossils could start here: https://darwin200.christs.cam.ac.uk/tra ... al-fossils

Posted: **Fri Jul 10, 2026 2:11 pm**

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Fri Jul 10, 2026 10:21 am Everything Mr Can says about evolution is absurd.

Feel free to move on, then...but you're still wrong.

Posted: **Fri Jul 10, 2026 2:36 pm**

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Jul 10, 2026 2:11 pm
Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Fri Jul 10, 2026 10:21 am Everything Mr Can says about evolution is absurd.
Feel free to move on, then...but you're still wrong.

Feel free to prove it.

Posted: **Fri Jul 10, 2026 3:12 pm**

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Jul 09, 2026 9:02 pm
You're constraining the number of alternatives artificially...you're "playing God," in trying to model a process that's supposed to have no God in it. To model it properly, you would have to suppose an infinite number of different colours, and an infinitely variable environment in which they were having to match.

But the problem with infinity is that no matter how many times you roll the dice, there are always infinite "other ways" the thing can turn up. So it explains, precisely, nothing.

Irrelevancies.

Perhaps most serious is your "playing God in trying to model a process that's supposed to have no god in it". No IC, science is not supposing anything about pink unicorns. Science only supposes things about things which exist in the material world. It is YOU who see "evolution" as evidence against God (as you understand God). The scientists do not.

<<But the problem with infinity is that no matter how many times you roll the dice, there are always infinite "other ways" the thing can turn up >>

No IC, no matter how many times I roll the de there are only SIX ways it can turn up.

Look, we could have conducted the experiment with black and white mice. Just return each surviving mouse to the colony and let reproduction be the natural way. You insist on wanting to include multiple differences at the same time? Fine, let the differences be white fur vs black fur, long fur vs short fur. Two dice (the survival advantages need not be the same).

But really important so I will repeat. As a scientist I am not presenting "evolution" as evidence against any god. Science has nothing to say about "God created the universe" because that statement says nothing about the material things of the universe. But yes, the statement "God created the universe with 6000 stars and 5 planets and one moon" is subject to science, which might be able to prove more stars, more planets, more moons. However, in doing so the scientist is not arguing against there being a god, just incidentally against people who had such a specific belief tying their god to features of the material universe.

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