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-- God to Man; "About Face!"

God to Man; "About Face!"

I have no comment on this one, it seems to speak for itself. Not that I'm trying to say one way is more right over the other. I just thought it was interesting.

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Famous Atheist Now Believes in God NEW YORK Dec 9, 2004 � A British philosophy professor who has been a leading champion of atheism for more than a half-century has changed his mind. He now believes in God more or less based on scientific evidence, and says so on a video released Thursday. At age 81, after decades of insisting belief is a mistake, Antony Flew has concluded that some sort of intelligence or first cause must have created the universe. A super-intelligence is the only good explanation for the origin of life and the complexity of nature, Flew said in a telephone interview from England. Flew said he's best labeled a deist like Thomas Jefferson, whose God was not actively involved in people's lives. "I'm thinking of a God very different from the God of the Christian and far and away from the God of Islam, because both are depicted as omnipotent Oriental despots, cosmic Saddam Husseins," he said. "It could be a person in the sense of a being that has intelligence and a purpose, I suppose." Flew first made his mark with the 1950 article "Theology and Falsification," based on a paper for the Socratic Club, a weekly Oxford religious forum led by writer and Christian thinker C.S. Lewis. Over the years, Flew proclaimed the lack of evidence for God while teaching at Oxford, Aberdeen, Keele, and Reading universities in Britain, in visits to numerous U.S. and Canadian campuses and in books, articles, lectures and debates. There was no one moment of change but a gradual conclusion over recent months for Flew, a spry man who still does not believe in an afterlife. Yet biologists' investigation of DNA "has shown, by the almost unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which are needed to produce (life), that intelligence must have been involved," Flew says in the new video, "Has Science Discovered God?" The video draws from a New York discussion last May organized by author Roy Abraham Varghese's Institute for Metascientific Research in Garland, Texas. Participants were Flew; Varghese; Israeli physicist Gerald Schroeder, an Orthodox Jew; and Roman Catholic philosopher John Haldane of Scotland's University of St. Andrews. The first hint of Flew's turn was a letter to the August-September issue of Britain's Philosophy Now magazine. "It has become inordinately difficult even to begin to think about constructing a naturalistic theory of the evolution of that first reproducing organism," he wrote. The letter commended arguments in Schroeder's "The Hidden Face of God" and "The Wonder of the World" by Varghese, an Eastern Rite Catholic layman. This week, Flew finished writing the first formal account of his new outlook for the introduction to a new edition of his "God and Philosophy," scheduled for release next year by Prometheus Press. Prometheus specializes in skeptical thought, but if his belief upsets people, well "that's too bad," Flew said. "My whole life has been guided by the principle of Plato's Socrates: Follow the evidence, wherever it leads." Last week, Richard Carrier, a writer and Columbia University graduate student, posted new material based on correspondence with Flew on the atheistic www.infidels.org Web page. Carrier assured atheists that Flew accepts only a "minimal God" and believes in no afterlife. Flew's "name and stature are big. Whenever you hear people talk about atheists, Flew always comes up," Carrier said. Still, when it comes to Flew's reversal, "apart from curiosity, I don't think it's like a big deal." Flew told The Associated Press his current ideas have some similarity with American "intelligent design" theorists, who see evidence for a guiding force in the construction of the universe. He accepts Darwinian evolution but doubts it can explain the ultimate origins of life. A Methodist minister's son, Flew became an atheist at 15. Early in his career, he argued that no conceivable events could constitute proof against God for believers, so skeptics were right to wonder whether the concept of God meant anything at all. Another landmark was his 1984 "The Presumption of Atheism," playing off the presumption of innocence in criminal law. Flew said the debate over God must begin by presuming atheism, putting the burden of proof on those arguing that God exists.

From http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=315976

One word: senility.

Heh, one could easily quib "there are no atheists in the foxholes",
but I too was once and atheist, born-again() deist (and at age 20 not 80!) so I can see validity of his turn. I wonder what brought it about for him though.

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Originally posted by Yoepus Heh, one could easily quib "there are no atheists in the foxholes"

Yeah but all that demonstrates is the desperation and fear involved in theistic (or deistic) belief, especially the desperation and fear concerning our own mortality. It doesn't assist the case for God at all and I'm not sure why theists are so fond of employing it.

(That was a general statement, not really directing it at you.)

I'm pretty drunk right now, but I think this thread is going to be fun tomorrow ... I can't wait. Renegade, stop being a pussy and start participating once again . Opus has supplanted your rational authorative position but even he has been slacking as of late when it comes to the daily grunge or dismissing utter bullshit. What have you been up to?

Well after the Australian and American elections I've mostly just been sitting in a corner, rocking backwards and forwards while weeping quietly to myself. I haven't been following politics that closely lately (party through disillusionment, partly because - between uni and work - I haven't really had the time) and without speedracer around to boil up my blood, I haven't really had much to say.

I'll start participating again soon (not this weekend though, I don't intend to be sober for much of the next 48 hours) and I guess the first people on my headcracking agenda will be the conspiracy nuts that have started posting on here recntly for some reason. Get ready boys, not even your tinfoil hats will protect you from my bludgeoning hammer of "rational authoritativeness"... apparently.

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Originally posted by Renegade One word: senility.

Hehe, you took the words out of my mouth

Hello Renegade,

I suppose much like Yoepus, and as we've discussed before, I'd fall into the deist category. I followed much the same logic as Flew did when reaching his "new found" spirituality; I need an explaination for the beginning and for complexity.

To expand, and maybe it's just my feeble mind at work, I need something to satisfy my need for a "beginning." I'm a very linear being and for me, something had to be there at time = 0 to get things started. The idea of a constantly exploding and imploding universe for all of infinity is not a satisfactory answer for me. All the "stuff" around us (matter, energy, etc.) needs to have come from somewhere (again for my feeble mind to continue along it's blissful linear existance). Nature doesn't like vacuums and I don't like infinity.

Secondly, and as a bi-product of my biology/medicial education, I also have a desire to explain the complexity yet beauty of life and its physiology, down to the smallest of scales. Looking at the way in which DNA works, along with enzymes and other biological functions, the complexity yet beauty (subjective term, I know) is absolutely incredible to me. And no, evolution is not a good enough explaination for me at that level. On the macro level I have no problem with it, although scientifically it is actually facing many challenges in its current form, but at the microscopic level the amount of "prep-work" in terms of evolutionary history to develop functions of such complexity would be astounding.

That being said I also don't take the traditional religious view that god or (God) is around us 24/7 throwing little monkey wrenches into the cogs or our daily routines. He's not giving people cancer, causing plagues and floods or letting the occasional lucky dude win the lottery. If anything, he started things, gave a few nudges and sits back and watches the universe unfold via the fundamental laws of science and math.

Well, all the atheists probably think I'm just another nut job now, and all the religous folk think I'm blasphamous, so have at it boys.

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Originally posted by occrider I'm pretty drunk right now, but I think this thread is going to be fun tomorrow ... I can't wait. Renegade, stop being a pussy and start participating once again . Opus has supplanted your rational authorative position but even he has been slacking as of late when it comes to the daily grunge or dismissing utter bullshit. What have you been up to?

Even when you're drunk you manage to type so legibly and without grammar or spelling errors

Ooofff ... it's bad when I have to check the timestamp of my last post to discern what time I went to bed. Work is going to be brutal ...

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Originally posted by TruffleShuffle Even when you're drunk you manage to type so legibly and without grammar or spelling errors

Thanks but despite my years of practice "authorative" isn't a word, I have no idea why it's bolded, and I think it's a run-on sentence. Not too bad though ... you'll know when I'm plastered to the point of incomprehension when I start confusing "its" with "it's".

Oh yes, and as for the topic ... at 81 the guy is just trying to cover his bases.

Out of curiosity, why does time need an origin or a zero-point? Time and matter are inexorably linked as evidenced by Einstein, therefore if time cannot exist without matter, how can you conclude that there was a point in time where there was nothing and all of a sudden something was created?

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Originally posted by occrider Out of curiosity, why does time need an origin or a zero-point? Time and matter are inexorably linked as evidenced by Einstein, therefore if time cannot exist without matter, how can you conclude that there was a point in time where there was nothing and all of a sudden something was created?

Time needs a zero point for me, because I like to think of the universe as linear, primarily because I myself am linear. Sure, I could say that "things have just been around forever," but that is not a satisfactory answer for me. I aknowledge the space-time continuum, but I still need to know where that space-time came from. For some people I realize that passing it off to eternal existance is sufficient, but I need something more concrete. I just find it hard to comprehend linear beings living in an infinite universe. Show me the beginning.

I know that if you don't have matter (space) you don't have time, so if infact the universe is not infinite (time-wise), we don't need to worry about time before matter came into existance, but how and when did it, if that is the case. How did matter arise to begin time, or time to begin matter?

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Originally posted by NeoPhono I know that if you don't have matter (space) you don't have time, so if infact the universe is not infinite (time-wise), we don't need to worry about time before matter came into existance, but how and when did it, if that is the case. How did matter arise to begin time, or time to begin matter?

What is the edge of the Earth? What is the edge of the Earth before the Earth formed? What you're asking is non-existant because there is no concept of "before" and then "after" with respect to time when time does not exist. If you want to embrace time as an absolute concept, such that there would be a discernable "before" and "after" to your question, than one can logically conclude that matter is absolute and infinite as some would describe that god guy.

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Originally posted by occrider What is the edge of the Earth? What is the edge of the Earth before the Earth formed? What you're asking is non-existant because there is no concept of "before" and then "after" with respect to time when time does not exist. If you want to embrace time as an absolute concept, such that there would be a discernable "before" and "after" to your question, than one can logically conclude that matter is absolute and infinite as some would describe that god guy.

I agree, but there is an "after," after time existed, and you can take that time back to a point just after time existed and ask, "What made this happen?" That's what I'm asking. Time does not necessarily have to be absolute as in infinite; however it needs a starting point if it is not. I want to know what happened at that starting point.

I would imagine that you would have to say that "god" is infinite, or else you would run into the same problems (at least I would) that I am proposing now. However, if we are going to conceed this, it would seem to make our discussion pointless, since an infinite deity could sustain an infinite or finite universe, and we would be just falling back on a "god" to explain either case.

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Originally posted by NeoPhono I agree, but there is an "after," after time existed, and you can take that time back to a point just after time existed and ask, "What made this happen?" That's what I'm asking. Time does not necessarily have to be absolute as in infinite; however it needs a starting point if it is not. I want to know what happened at that starting point. I would imagine that you would have to say that "god" is infinite, or else you would run into the same problems (at least I would) that I am proposing now. However, if we are going to conceed this, it would seem to make our discussion pointless, since an infinite deity could sustain an infinite or finite universe, and we would be just falling back on a "god" to explain either case.

Your question of causality once again tries to explain the existence of time before time. Nothing caused it to exist. It just exists. To be honest, I can't properly explain it because time is so fundamentally relative to me and I lack the physics to explain atemporal concepts. It's like me asking you what caused the number system to exist? What created 2+2? If everything has a temporal origin and causality can you explain to me who/what/when was 2+2 created? You simply can't apply temporal relativity to a situation where temporal relativity does not exist. What you're trying to do is to divide a number by 0, or find the square root of -1. You could make the claim that some value must exist ... anything right? But it doesn't. They are meaningless in the subset of the number system.

But you're kind of asking the wrong guy to rationalize time as a fundamental concept to you because I don't even believe that we live in a temporal universe. I think that time is simply a relativistic construct that we have created to help explain before and after. I've been reading a lot of Carlo Rovelli who describes an atemporal universe:

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"I think the world does not 'evolve in time' in any sense. I think that worldlines do not imply temporality, not anymore than a rope (which is one dimensional as a worldline) does." "Suppose now I take the usual general relativistic picture of the universe *with* the gravitational filed. Let me assume for simplicity that your line has a starting point S and an ending point F. *If* there is the gravitational field, the different points along the line are distincted from each other by the fact that they are a different metric distance (computed along the line) from the starting point S. In other words, there is a variable that grows along the curve, and which depends on the metric. More technically, a point along the line can be well determined in a diffeomorphism invariant way; by giving it distance from the origin: therefore the line is a set of points that have physically distinguishable properties. In this case I would say that the line represents either a rope at one instance of time, or a segment of a physically one dimensional history of a point particle." In such a universe, if only a single point particle existed there would be no relative motion, and no local time or space. As complexity builds in the universe, changes in relative spatial separation of point particles occur. For example, let's look at a complex system � assume that a human being hits their thumb with a hammer. The traditional temporal explanation is that the hit triggers a nerve response that microseconds later sends a signal to the brain, which microseconds later feels pain. All of this is said to take place over "time". In an atemporal model things are different. The hammer hit occurs in a sub-system (the thumb), the transmission of the signal occurs in a larger sub- system (the nerve path), the pain occurs in yet another sub-system (the brain), all of which are contained in a single massive complex system � the human being. The steps from hit to pain do not occur over time, rather they represent motion through sub-systems in a single complex system called a human being. Not unlike a child's set of nested boxes, each system is both an independent physical entity while at the same time being part of a single physical entity � the human being. Everything is due to motion within a single complex spatial system � the human being. It is admittedly very difficult to recognize how the steps from hit to pain can occur without the passage of time, yet it is clear that they can. Complex events do not evolve over time, rather they represent complex systems that quite literally grow in 4D space. The series of physical steps from hitting your thumb to feeling pain represent nothing more than motion in space that builds a single event (painful hit to thumb) by "growing" the event from a simple sub-system (thumb) into a larger sub-system (thumb-nerve-brain) within the complex system � human being. The potential consequences of living in such an atemporal universe are staggering. For one thing complex systems "grow" as events unfold, yet once the event is "complete" the state of the complex system changes and the event "disappears" from the physical universe. The fact that an event "does not exist � exists � does not exist" has many implications for physical and non-physical existence that must be very, very carefully considered if they are to be understood (see www.ws5.com/spacetime). We should also note that while the atemporal model may fully explain classical events, at first glance it does not seem to explain quantum effects. The Schrodinger equations require a fundamental variable "time", yet the Heisenberg equations do not require "time". Dirac apparently believed that, as he wrote on a blackboard: "The Heisenberg picture is the right one". Therefore quantum mechanics are consistent with an atemporal model. I believe that we will find that Cramer's Transactional Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics http://mist.npl.washington.edu/npl/...iqm/TI_toc.html will prove to be more than an "interpretation". The general idea is that there is an atemporal interaction between advanced and retarded waves in space-time that provides a mechanism whereby what is commonly called the future interacts with what is called the past and present. When equilibrium is reached between advanced and retarded waves, there is an objective collapse of the state vector, without subjective triggers like measurement (Copenhagen interpretation). What we see as quantum entanglement, particle-wave duality, etc., would be fully consistent with such a model. Indeed, I think we will find that all quantum effects represent atemporal fluctuations in the gravity field.

But out of curiosity, why do you reject notions of absolute and infinite time yet are quite willing to accept an infinite and absolute god?

Dud, these threads get so long so fast.

No wonder I never debate in these things...

Well, occrider beat me to post. But what he's saying is basically right, it's incorrect to assume that time ever had a beginning, or that it is infinite or linear for that matter. Like the surface of the Earth, time can be limited yet without a beginning or the end. Try thinking of time as a fixed spacial dimension. So instead of, say, having a movie that portrays how sun grows from a disk of gas, shines, dies out, think of it as a 3D picture with a sequence of suns in various stages of development lined up one after another. Now, you can wrap that picture around itself, make loops and curves, anything you want. Infact, whereever a massive object appears, that line is curved, maybe even to the point of mingling with another part of the line. Our movement through time can simply be seen as having a sequence copies of ourselves posted on different points on the time axis where time is a static variable. Such a copy is generally very similar to the ones next to it, but is dependant on the copies from the previous value on the axis. Basically you should think of it as a static 4D graph or space. Sort of like when you have a function that is describing the relation of two variables witha a temporally uninhibeted factor as a parameter. Like, say relation between U and I, with R as a parameter.

That kinda removes the need for the beginning or the end, because it's like looking at our own 3D space and wondering how the 3D space looks outside of a 3D space. Nevertheless, it does not remove the question why everything is existing the way it is. Or why it is existing at all.

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Originally posted by occrider But out of curiosity, why do you reject notions of absolute and infinite time yet are quite willing to accept an infinite and absolute god?

I'm going to get myself in a hole here, I realize that, but I reject the idea of infinite time because I perceive myself, and the universe around me to be linear in nature. However, I have no perception of "god," only inferences to his existance based on what I would call secondary observations; his indirect actions. I believe one of his actions to be the creation of existance, and since I see existance as linear, you would need to have an infinite "god" to create a finite universe. If not it would seem you would need to find a creator for "god," since I don't believe things just "popped" into existance, as I believe it would be easy, yet defeatist to say.

You can rewind the big bang, or rewind my life (theoretically) and they both at least to appear to travel along time. I said before that I could just "give in" and say that time is infinite, however that is not something that I feel satifies my curiosity or need for understanding as I percieve the world around me, much the same way the "subset" explaination you quoted also does not satisfy me. I will admit that my understanding of this theory is limited, but it almost seems like he has given another rationalization for what we percieve to be time, more than an explaination that changes my understanding of it. I have many questions about this theory. If everything is merely expanding and shrinking subsets, how are we able to order them chronologically (I know this seems contradictory, but how is ordering things by time and by subset any different in objective reality)? Is it by the size of these subsets? How are we able to pick a point in the future and then have two seemingly independent actions take place at the same time? More importantly, what is the benefit of perceiving time in this manner? How would we order our lives, how would it change it, why would we want to switch to this understanding of time when it seems not to offer any benifits?

Well, the existance of a god doesn't really explain much. The only thing that could by some standards be considered a god would be some sort of an infinite-dimensional infinite space inside of which our own space-time exists. Sort of like a coordinate system for the graph. But what is the purpose of such an infinity? Why does it itself exist? In other words, the question is not really why anything we experience exists, the question is why does a god exist? The only answer we can give is "it just does", and it is not any more satisfactory than the same answer to the previous question on why does our little 4D universe exist as well.

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Originally posted by DrUg_Tit0 Well, the existance of a god doesn't really explain much. The only thing that could by some standards be considered a god would be some sort of an infinite-dimensional infinite space inside of which our own space-time exists. Sort of like a coordinate system for the graph. But what is the purpose of such an infinity? Why does it itself exist? In other words, the question is not really why anything we experience exists, the question is why does a god exist? The only answer we can give is "it just does", and it is not any more satisfactory than the same answer to the previous question on why does our little 4D universe exist as well.

I agree. I think that what we are all presenting is our different rationalizations of time. Each one is unique, each one satisfies the individuals need for explaination, and each is equally unproveable. I believe in a finite time subset, within an infinte set, as you have stated. It acts much as you have said, as a coordinate system for our "finite time" graph. Compounding my belief, yet to me simplifying it, is the existance of a "god." "He" is infinite to go along with the infinite time set, but is able to create and function in the finite time subset as well. However, as I have stated, I don't believe "him" to be some dude that is constantly pushing buttons. "He" wrote the fundamental laws of nature (much like 2+2=4 as said before) and kicked things in motion. I understand this may sound incredible to some, but it is well within my reasoning to believe this. However, I believe it to be just as incredible and superfalous to create alterenate time perceptions and constructs in order to do away with the need for a "creator." In the end these beliefs are all equally unprovable and dependent I believe on the education/philosphy of the individual. Makes good discussion material however.

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Originally posted by occrider I'm pretty drunk right now, but I think this thread is going to be fun tomorrow ... I can't wait. Renegade, stop being a pussy and start participating once again . Opus has supplanted your rational authorative position but even he has been slacking as of late when it comes to the daily grunge or dismissing utter bullshit. What have you been up to?

I know I've been slackin' here a lot. Just isn't quite as exciting right now politically. Oh sure there's a few comments here and there, like Rummy's recent idiotic statement, but I don't think the shit's gonna start hitting the fan until the new Congress comes in and Bush gives his SOTU address in January. Right now I'm just enjoying slacking off both here and at work. I'm about to quit in 3 months, so I'm starting to lose a bit of motivation.

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Originally posted by NeoPhono Secondly, and as a bi-product of my biology/medicial education, I also have a desire to explain the complexity yet beauty of life and its physiology, down to the smallest of scales. Looking at the way in which DNA works, along with enzymes and other biological functions, the complexity yet beauty (subjective term, I know) is absolutely incredible to me.

And to me.

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And no, evolution is not a good enough explaination for me at that level.

Why not? It's algorythms are utilized for future research all the time. Does it explain everything at the micro level right now? Of course not, no more than astronomy explains everything at the cosmic level. But it certainly is the best explanation of phenomena at both the micro and macro level. Nothing else comes close, including the ol' insertion of I-don't-know-how-it's-done-therefore-godidit.

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On the macro level I have no problem with it, although scientifically it is actually facing many challenges in its current form,

Such as?

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but at the microscopic level the amount of "prep-work" in terms of evolutionary history to develop functions of such complexity would be astounding.

It certainly is astounding, but it also works nicely into the theory very well. I tend to think the astonishment factor gets a bit conflated by the likes of those Intelligent Design theorists so they can have a much greater audience of incredulousness. It is truly astounding, but a great deal of it is still fairly explainable. I think it's a bit unfair to science to insert "godidit" wherever we cannot fully explain things. Thankfully those insertions are becoming less and less.

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Well, all the atheists probably think I'm just another nut job now, and all the religous folk think I'm blasphamous, so have at it boys.

I don't think you're a nut job at all. In fact I'm very tempted to share some of your sentiments, esp. since I consider myself a deist believer of sorts. I just like to separate my unsupported beliefs from my personal astonishment on biological complexity though.

There are several modern day "problems" with the current theory of evolution. I'm not saying evolution doesn't take place, but the way we think it does is coming into contention. I took an entire course on this a few years ago, "Modern Topics in Biology," but my retention has not been the best.

First, it has been shown that evolution is not a gradual process, as once thought, where generations lead to further generations due to the reproductive success of ancestors and these reproductive "improvements" are passed on (natural selection). Rather, there are speciation events that are random and have nothing to do with reproductive success. These primarily include natural disasters such as large volcano eruptions or meteor impacts. One notable example is the Cambrian explosion (although I believe there are three other "explosion" examples), where after a meteor impact you had a speciation event that was caused by remaining inhabitants spreading to fill open niche, not reproductive success.

Second is the idea of mutation driving evolution. It has been mathematically shown that there are not enough beneficial mutations per time to give rise to evolution the way we have seen it. There are many times more harmful mutations then beneifical and even the beneficial ones have a very small chance of being passed on and eventually assimilated into a population. You can infer how many mutations it would have taken to get from the beginnings of life to where we are today, and you can see the mutation alone falls hopelessly short.

Basically modern evolution theory is transforming from one driven by mutation and natural selection to one driven by random speciation events. It is not a gradual mutation over time that leads to higher fitness, but random events that lead to "species selection" in which chance plays the most important role.

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Originally posted by NeoPhono There are several modern day "problems" with the current theory of evolution. I'm not saying evolution doesn't take place, but the way we think it does is coming into contention. I took an entire course on this a few years ago, "Modern Topics in Biology," but my retention has not been the best.

IOW, it's a dynamic theory?

But in no way has the central argument of the theory changed - mutation and natural selection arises changes in a population over time.

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First, it has been shown that evolution is not a gradual process, as once thought, where generations lead to further generations due to the reproductive success of ancestors and these reproductive "improvements" are passed on (natural selection). Rather, there are speciation events that are random and have nothing to do with reproductive success. These primarily include natural disasters such as large volcano eruptions or meteor impacts.

Actually both can occur. Take the famous peppered moth for example. No reproductive isolation was necessary at all, just a mutation within that population. But in regards to speciation, of course this can occur as a result of reproductive isolation. If that's not common evolutionary thought, I don't know what is. But is it exclusive to geographical barriers? Absolutely not. Speciation occurs when a pop'n of a given species has a reproductive barrier or some sort that prevents hybridization with the other members of the species, whether it be a gradual thing such as an increase in hybrid incompatibility between populations over many generations (peppered moth), a sudden geographical separation and differential environmental pressures cause a barrier to gene flow so that after only a few generations even if the populations were reunited they are incompatible (geographical isolation), or it can also be sympatric based on changing host specificity, or some behavioral change necessitated by occupation of a novel or marginal niche, etc etc etc.

Many definitions of isolation.

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One notable example is the Cambrian explosion (although I believe there are three other "explosion" examples), where after a meteor impact you had a speciation event that was caused by remaining inhabitants spreading to fill open niche, not reproductive success.

There's a great deal of unknown about the CE to make such a conclusion just yet. A variety of other environmental factors also likely played a role:

(1) a distinct fluctuation of carbon isotopes around
the Proterozoic-Cambrian,
(2) a dramatic increase of the d34S curve,
(3) an increase of the global sea-level,
(4) a distinct rise of the phosphorite production,
and
(5) a slow increase of oxygen in the atmosphere from
late Proterozoic to early Phanerozoic times.

http://www.uni-wuerzburg.de/palaeon...casu8.htm#explo

As to how these events occurred, via a meteorite or some other cosmic phenomenon is still a bit of a guess, but it's still a bit of a mystery. But in regards to evolution, that of course occurs when allele frequencies change within a gene pool. Speciation separates gene pools permanently (which can change allele frequencies), reproductive isolation interrupts gene flow, which allows speciation to occur. Again, this is common knowledge in evolution.

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Second is the idea of mutation driving evolution. It has been mathematically shown that there are not enough beneficial mutations per time to give rise to evolution the way we have seen it. There are many times more harmful mutations then beneifical and even the beneficial ones have a very small chance of being passed on and eventually assimilated into a population. You can infer how many mutations it would have taken to get from the beginnings of life to where we are today, and you can see the mutation alone falls hopelessly short.

But you're leaving one critical factor out here in referring to evolution: natural selection. While true the mutation rate (harmful/neutral/beneficial) would certainly NOT favor or explain in any manner the gradual changes we see today, the second critical factor, natural selection does. It weeds out those harmful mutations, while positively selecting the beneficial ones. And the neutrals more or less tend to just come along for the ride.

And something else needs to be considered about mathmatical models of past mutation events - we really don't have very good figures regarding "beneficial" mutations at all, let alone have enough worthwhile info. regarding past mutation rates and pop'n sizes. So any calculations on such past events are really more or less than inferred guesses from what we know of mutation rates today, which you seem to agree to as well. But let's take a look at Wright's calculations:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq...y.html#mutation

Here's the equation:

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First a mutation occurs in an individual, creating a new allele. This allele subsequently increases in frequency to fixation in the population. The rate of evolution is k = 2Nvu (in diploids) where k is nucleotide substitutions, N is the effective population size, v is the rate of mutation and u is the proportion of mutants that eventually fix in the population.

Now let's look at the beneficial mutations:

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Most new mutants are lost, even beneficial ones. Wright calculated that the probability of fixation of a beneficial allele is 2s. (This assumes a large population size, a small fitness benefit, and that heterozygotes have an intermediate fitness. A benefit of 2s yields an overall rate of evolution: k=4Nvs where v is the mutation rate to beneficial alleles) An allele that conferred a one percent increase in fitness only has a two percent chance of fixing. The probability of fixation of beneficial type of mutant is boosted by recurrent mutation. The beneficial mutant may be lost several times, but eventually it will arise and stick in a population. (Recall that even deleterious mutants recur in a population.)

So it comes down to a 2% chance of fixation. Seems pretty small at first. Well let's break it down to a hypothetical example. I can't take credit for this example, but I saved it from a blog a while back: Let's say I'm Joe Q. Organism. In my genome there's about 20,000 active gene sites, but since I have 2 copies of each chromosome, I actually have 40,000 mutatable genes. Adding up my conspecifics and me comes to one million organisms in my generation. That's 40,000,000,000 mutatable gene copies total in the gene pool.

Now according to Wright, every one of those genes has about a one in 10,000 to one in 100,000 chance of mutating. Let's go halvsies so we'll estimate that each gene has a one in 45,000 (that's half of the difference between 10,000 and 100,000) chance of mutating.

So far we have, on average, 888,888 mutations in the entire gene pool. Wright says that one in 1000 of those is benefical, so we have almost 900 beneficial mutations. Two percent of those will fix, so 18 beneficial mutations from that population will become permanent.

18 mutations out of one generation of one million conspecifics. Sure, that's not a lot. But in three years (for example), when this generation has hit sexual maturity, that million will have dwindled to maybe a tenth of that. Then they'll have another million children, or ten per organism. 180 of those individuals have the beneficial mutations from the last batch, and there's another 18 mutations this time.

Over 500 million years, it adds up. For our hypothetical population of organisms that's 3 billion benefical mutations. And you're telling me you don't think 3 billion benefical, permanent mutations are going to constitute significant evolutionary change to a population of organisms? I hardly think so.

And finally, the mutation rates measured within organisms is in line with the DNA differences seen between organisms. IOW, the rate at which mutations occur in an organism matches up with the span of time since common ancestory. Here's just one abstract that evidenced the mutation rate in fruit flies with the changes seen in the fossil record and with extant fruit fly species. The final conlusion is that the mutation rate is sufficient to result in the DNA differences we see between species:

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Mol Biol Evol. 2004 Jan;21(1):36-44. Epub 2003 Aug 29. Temporal patterns of fruit fly (Drosophila) evolution revealed by mutation clocks. Tamura K, Subramanian S, Kumar S. Center for Evolutionary Functional Genomics, Arizona Biodesign Institute, and School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, USA. Drosophila melanogaster has been a canonical model organism to study genetics, development, behavior, physiology, evolution, and population genetics for nearly a century. Despite this emphasis and the completion of its nuclear genome sequence, the timing of major speciation events leading to the origin of this fruit fly remain elusive because of the paucity of extensive fossil records and biogeographic data. Use of molecular clocks as an alternative has been fraught with non-clock-like accumulation of nucleotide and amino-acid substitutions. Here we present a novel methodology in which genomic mutation distances are used to overcome these limitations and to make use of all available gene sequence data for constructing a fruit fly molecular time scale. Our analysis of 2977 pairwise sequence comparisons from 176 nuclear genes reveals a long-term fruit fly mutation clock ticking at a rate of 11.1 mutations per kilobase pair per Myr. Genomic mutation clock-based timings of the landmark speciation events leading to the evolution of D. melanogaster show that it shared most recent common ancestry 5.4 MYA with D. simulans, 12.6 MYA with D. erecta+D. orena, 12.8 MYA with D. yakuba+D. teisseri, 35.6 MYA with the takahashii subgroup, 41.3 MYA with the montium subgroup, 44.2 MYA with the ananassae subgroup, 54.9 MYA with the obscura group, 62.2 MYA with the willistoni group, and 62.9 MYA with the subgenus Drosophila. These and other estimates are compatible with those known from limited biogeographic and fossil records. The inferred temporal pattern of fruit fly evolution shows correspondence with the cooling patterns of paleoclimate changes and habitat fragmentation in the Cenozoic. (emphasis mine). www.pubmed.com

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Basically modern evolution theory is transforming from one driven by mutation and natural selection to one driven by random speciation events. It is not a gradual mutation over time that leads to higher fitness, but random events that lead to "species selection" in which chance plays the most important role.

Well like I mentioned earlier, gradualism and reproductive isolation are not mutally exclusive in the overall process itself.

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