On the thread entitled “Species Kinds”, commenter phoodoo asks:
What’s the definition of a species?
A simple question but hard to answer. Talking of populations of interbreeding individuals immediately creates problems when looking at asexual organisms, especially the prokaryotes: bacteria and archaea. How to delineate a species temporally is also problematic. Allan Miller links to an excellent basic resource on defining a species and the Wikipedia entry does not shy away from the difficulties.
In case phoodoo thought his question was being ignored, I thought I’d open this thread to allow discussion without derailing the thread on “kinds”.
Alan:
What offer?
Rudolf Steiner wrote about the evolution of human Æsthetic understanding and freedom from nature here.
Here is some of what he wrote:
He continues:
I know keiths would prefer to imagine the idea of God and earthly events as a straight forward case of cause and effect with the former being the direct cause of everything, but reality is very far from being as simple as that.
CharlieM:
The relevant questions are
1) what are God’s capabilities?
and
2) given those capabilities, does his behavior indicate that he is loving?
For most Christians, the answer to #1 is “he’s omnisicient and omnipotent”, and the answer to #2, if they’re being honest, is “No — his behavior indicates an appalling lack of love for his creatures.”
One way to get God off the hook is to argue that he’s very weak. Suppose, for example, that Satan is responsible for hurricanes and floods, and that God is too weak to prevent them and too weak to warn us about them, because every time he tries to do so, Satan steps in and prevents the message from getting through. God loves us and wants to help us, but he’s simply too weak.
That gets God off the hook for being an unloving ass. Unfortunately it also makes him a supernatural weakling, which is a hypothesis that most Christians are unwilling to accept.
How would you answer those two questions, and why?
Followed by:
If you don’t intend to make good on your offers, better not to make them.
You are castigating me for only noticing your new post some 2 hours or so after you posted it? For some of that time I was asleep. This morning, I happened to have some time to glance at TSZ around 8.30 am (French time) The trigger for noticing you had posted it was Rumraket’s comment with the the hilarious attachment. Ten minutes later I comment. Finally?
You really think there is justification for that “finally”?
Wrong again boy theologian.
Better, but still not getting it. If it’s not a contest, why are you trying to make it a contest?
LoL. Some people never learn.
In fact, there is a thread up now showing just how keiths fails to make good on his offers.
Keiths wishes God were good.
Keith doesn’t have any idea what he means by good.
keiths is perplexed by keiths.
)The relevant question would need to be what are God capabilties, attributes and goals?
2) given those capabilities,attributes and goals ,does God’s choices indicate the attribution of love is true?
Doubtful, the easiest response is “when informed Christians talk about the love of God they mean something very different from what is meant in the surrounding culture.”
it appears that the “species” discussion has run it’s course for now.
Thank you to all that participated. It was interesting I learned a lot.
peace
Alan:
keiths:
Alan:
Neither of those was an offer. The first was an incredulous response to the dumb questions you were asking, and the second was an exhortation for you to get off your ass and do your own thinking.
Now, will you spend the next month denying your mistake, or will you, for once, have the sense to accept it and move on?
keiths:
newton:
No, because if you ask Christians about God’s attributes, they’ll include “loving” in the list. We already know that Christians assume God is loving. What we want to know is whether God’s actual behavior fits well with that assumption.
The relevant question is about God’s capabilities. If God is powerful, then his observed behavior clashes with the assumption that he is loving. But as I explained to CharlieM above, a weakling God could still be compatible with the evidence:
keiths:
newton:
Did you miss the “if they’re being honest” part?
keiths,
See keiths Run.
Run keiths Run
Oh how he wishes he were in a jar of whip cream.
Does that make the running easier?
You’re not fooling anyone, phoodoo.
Nope.
But he doesn’t have to worry about falling.
What makes you think they are wrong, had much experience with infinite beings? A dog’s love for his master isn’t the same as human’s love for his child.
So we are talking about a God’s love for His creation from which He demands complete obedience, but in a twist he designed the creatures so they had the desire to disobey.
Weird love but love they might say.
newton,
You keep losing track of what we are discussing.
We’re talking about what most Christians would say if they honestly answered my questions:
I am not a Christian. My experience with infinite beings, or lack thereof, is utterly irrelevant to the question of how Christians would respond, if they were being honest, to the questions I posed above.
keiths,
If Christians were being honest, they would tell you you are too stupid to know what you are talking about.
But maybe they are too polite.
phoodoo,
I’m still interested in hearing your answers to my questions.
It’s your chance to set me straight.
I predict, instead, that you will run away from them.
phoodoo,
Why worship a God of whom you are so deeply ashamed?
If his behavior embarrasses you so much that you’d prefer to talk about something — anything — else, isn’t that a sign that worship is, er, inappropriate?
Or are you pulling a Sal, figuring that if you suck up to God, no matter how reprehensible his behavior is, you might get something out of the deal?
keiths,
You still don’t know what you mean by good huh?
Not around here
And I said they would say what divine infinite love means in the view of Christian scholars is different than an anthropomorphic view of love. So to judge God as unloving because nature is indifferent to humanity is erroneous.
Now some might say I can’t worship such a God in which case they no longer would be included in the ” most Christians” category.
newton,
No, because
a) most Christians don’t even know what most Christian scholars think, and would be alarmed if they did; and
b) we were discussing what most Christians themselves believe, not what they think that Christian scholars believe.
Here’s my comment again:
Of course most Christians (and believers generally) would hesitate to acknowledge that God’s behavior is unloving. Hence the proviso “if they’re being honest.”
As for what Christian scholars think about whether God is loving, and in what sense, I’d be happy to discuss any particular views you have in mind.
Vincent brought up Edward Feser’s view that God is more like the author of a novel and less like a character within it. Like Vincent, I don’t think that gets God off the hook.
keiths,
I know this is getting off topic but as fifthmonarchyman says the thread seems to have run its course so I’ll reply here. You asked:
Not even God can be all powerful and be all loving. The creator God gives up omnipotence in order to allow created beings the freedom to become co-creators through their own efforts. To have total control over another is not an act of love. A supreme autocrat does not give others any freedom, but freedom is necessary for love. Nobody can give true love by compulsion.
But those who are given the freedom to love are obviously also free to rebel. We are given the choice between selflessness and selfishness, and the former takes much more strength of character than the latter. And it is not just humans who choose to rebel. From Revelation 12 – “And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels”.
Yes. Christ shows His love by making the ultimate sacrifice. And His suffering is not confined to His passion and crucifixion spoken of in the Bible, I believe it goes far beyond that.
Ask yourself how your views on life and death would change if you believed in the reality of Christ.
From the Bhagavad Gita, The Way of Knowledge”
So that was irony! 🙂
BTW @ phoodoo,
Returning to the topic of the thread, can I suggest that you, too, might find some answers, or at least some better questions, by taking a look at Jerry Coyne’s Why Evolution is True.
Alan,
Um, no.
keiths, 🙂
CharlieM:
Sure he can. The mere possession of power isn’t unloving.
He doesn’t need to give up his omnipotence. He can simply choose to allow us some freedom.
Again, the mere possession of power does not require one to exercise it at every opportunity.
Alan Fox,
Perhaps to answer some of your questions, you should read Sean Hannity’s “Let Freedom Ring”.
Alan Fox,
Or perhaps “Confessions of a Shopaholic” by Sophie Kinsella.
phoodoo,
Is that a deal? You read Coyne. I read Hannity and we see who can ask the best questions.
Who is this Hannity BTW?
phoodoo,
Am I sensing irony again? 🙂
keiths, boy theologian.
Alan Fox,
Ok, but to make sure you are fully caught up, you will also need to get:
The Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic
Shopaholic Abroad
Shopaholic and Baby
Shopaholic and Sister
Shopaholic Ties the Knot
and
Mini-shopaholic.
Let me know when you get through them so we can discuss in depth.
Species of a Shopaholic?
How about the use of power? Can you use your power in a way that dictates everything that others do and still give them unconditional love?
In order to give someone the freedom to go against your wishes can you still say that you have total power over them? Do you have children? What you are saying is that a person can choose to hand power over to another person while still retaining total power. It does not make sense.
But unlike love where the more that you give does not depreciate the love you possess, with any definition of power you care to mention by relinquishing an amount to another that amount is taken from the one who gives.
Are you not a physical scientist of some sort? Do you think you can charge your phone without taking the power from some external power source?
That’s a controversial label, that Alan hopefully will have more insight into soon.
phoodoo,
One apiece is fair. Remember, I make the rules round here!
Alan Fox,
Its part of a series. You are not going to learn by trying to take shortcuts Alan.
Don’t worry, her books are much more popular than Coyne’s.
phoodoo,
Well, OK.
But it has to be in a one-to-one relationship with all Coyne’s output. I think I should choose which Coyne book you read first. And I’ll read the Miss Hannity book you choose. Or you could nominate a different author and book.
I came across yet another problem with the species as reproductively isolated groupings idea. Instead of relying on painstaking phenotypic study “Taxonomic vandals” are now relying just on phylogenetic trees and geographic isolation to claim the discovery of new species.
quote:
Another approach is based on a theory called “allopatric speciation,” or the evolution of new species through geographic isolation.
The theory states that when animal populations are physically separated without opportunities to interbreed, they can grow genetically distinct. Over time, the populations can become separate species—meaning, in simplistic terms, that they can’t successfully reproduce with each other. This is a widely-accepted theory, but not proof in itself. Without DNA samples and a detailed examination of several individuals from each population, it’s not so much a discovery as it is a clue.
Taxonomic vandals have been known to take full advantage of this theory to make “discoveries,” says Hinrich Kaiser, a researcher at Victor Valley College in California. To find and name new species, they will search for geographic barriers that cut through the range of an existing species, such as rivers or mountains. If the species populations look different on either side of the barrier—on one side they’re red and on the other side they’re blue, for example—vandals will automatically declare them two separate species.
end quote:
The result is that you end up with competing groupings and a “parallel nomenclature” in taxonomy this sort of thing is causing big problems with conservation and science.
quote:
Confusion created by parallel nomenclature complicates any process that depends on unambiguous species names, such as assigning conservation statuses like “Endangered” or “Threatened.” As the authors write in the Nature editorial, how a species is classified by taxonomists influences how threatened it appears, and thus how much conservation funding it’s likely to receive. As the authors of the editorial write: “Vagueness is not compatible with conservation.”
Parallel nomenclature could also make it more difficult to acquire an export permit for research, taxonomists say. “If you are in one country that uses vandalistic names and try to export an animal, your import and export permits won’t match, which means animals get held up when you cross borders,” Thomson said.
end quote:
from here
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-big-ugly-problem-heart-of-taxonomy-180964629/
Of course instead of revisiting the jacked up definition of species that is the root cause of the mess the article recommends setting up a “taxonomic commission” with dictatorial powers to declare which groupings qualify as genuine species.
You know your definition is inadequate when you need to get a quasi-governmental organization involved to make sure a “taxonomic vandal” is not “discovering” hundreds of new species from his mother’s basement . 😉
peace
fifthmonarchyman,
“Taxonomic vandals” is a pejorative term used by one side in the argument between fans of the “biological” and “phylogenetic” species concepts. Your idea of species is actually fairly close, as far as I can see, to the “phylogenetic” concept. So it isn’t clear to me why you’re complaining about those vandals. By your lights, they’re doing the Lord’s work.
Of course you don’t understand the article you quote, and you don’t care. All you care about is that those dang evolutionists are messing things up. You don’t even have a species concept. You don’t have any idea what a species is, but you think God does, and that’s good enough for you. But it isn’t good enough for conservation biology unless you can get God on the phone.
well then you don’t see it very clearly.
If I was in charge taxonomy would be based solely on phenotypic considerations. I would remove phylogentic speculations from the equation entirely.
My position is the opposite of what you think it is.
go figure
I never implied any such thing.
Like most folks here you seem to think you are defending “science” from horrid fundamentalists and that belief has prevented you from even understanding what is being said by the other side.
It’s a pity you seem to be a smart guy it would have been nice to have a dialogue with you
peace
I would look in the works of thsoe involved in crating the modern synthesis, but according to John the modern synthesis is just population genetics.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-categories/