Pericles,
In your last post you’ve misquoted me several times, or are at least misreading what I’m saying.
 
1st misquote: << Your answer, Dan S de Merengue, to everything that cannot be explained by science is "it was God wot dunnit". This doesn't actually illuminate anything, does it?>>
 
I never said ‘it was God wot dunnit’ (even when you fix up the spelling). While, of course, I affirm the long held Christian doctrine of creation, I didn't say anything as simplistic as your comment. In my last several posts, I never even mentioned the word God except to directly answer (or try and clarify) a question that you asked me about God. I remember about five posts ago I mentioned the perception of God as seen from an evolutionist’s point of view: the evolutionist says “man’s brain created God” rather than it being the other way around. But these are the only times in numerous posts that I even mention the G word.
 
2nd misquote: << what evidence are you using to support your belief that "God made the universe in six days". Your answer is "because I believe that he did".>>
 
This was the first time you’ve asked this specific question. Without giving me a chance to answer, you supplied an answer for me, putting words in my mouth.
 
3rd misquote: <<It wasn't I who made the assertion "I can prove the origins of the universe".>>
 
Well, it certainly wasn’t I who said that. If I remember saying something close to this statement, it was, “Not that we can ever prove our faith through science …’.
 
You are making caricatures of what I am saying. Your imagination is running away with you. If you want to oppose what I am saying, then that is fine.  Oppose what I actually say. But you’re changing the nature of what I said.

Salty,
Philosophically, you seem to be wanting to have a bet each way.
 
This is the why I see it. Either the properties of matter and energy are enough to account for what is in the universe, or they aren’t. Either, at the base of all things there is mind and personailty, or there is matter and physics alone. It’s one or the other. What I’ve just said is pretty simplistic, but I’m trying to boil it down to clear choices. I don’t have a lot of time for the position that wants to mix and match. Look at Paley’s watch, found washed up on a beach. Either someone made it, or nobody made it. But I don’t subscribe to the idea that it was a bit of both, both somebody and nobody made it.
 
And while I’m on this topic, Pericles,
This does relate somewhat to what you were saying. If natural processes cannot explain the origin of something, then it is evidence of the supernatural by the law of the excluded middle. So it’s not a god of the gaps type argument. If it’s either heads or tails, then what we know with increasing surety showing that it is not heads becomes  evidence for it being tails.
 
Salty,
With your example of the human children, each set of genes is unique to the individual, but they were given by a recombination of genes from those already present in the parents. Nothing new has come about. It’s not helpful to talk of “occasional undetectable improvements.” If they’re undetectable, then they’re undetectable. We start to guess, and must confess, we’ve entered the world of the purely theoretical.
 
I don't like your chances of spelling Webster's dictionary by throwing scrabble tiles in the air. To consider this possibility after more than a moment's reflection is to abandon all healthy skepticism or to invoke miracles without God.

Thanks, AJ, for supplying the link.
 
It helps to confirm my point. For if the writers of that page were so confident about the amount of evidence they have for ‘upward’ evolution, why would they offer the Lenski experiment and place it on the top of that list? Using such an example is clutching at straws.
 
http://creation.com/bacteria-evolving-in-the-lab-lenski-citrate-digesting-e-coli
 

Dan S de Merengue:
"Either the properties of matter and energy are enough to account for what is in the universe, or they aren’t".

For what it's worth, Dan, I agree with you, "they aren't"! at least not according to what we currently know. Materialism fails utterly to account for consciousness, for instance.
This is a fascinating subject and hope to have time tomorrow to elaborate

Dan S,

Two bob each way? Yes, and no. My propositions were not frivolous, but I believe worthy of consideration. I will try to clarify.

"Either the properties of matter and energy are enough to account for what is in the universe, or they aren’t."

Squeers says no, and uses "consciousness" as an example, "at least not according to what we currently know". Fair enough.

Difficult, since all science knows is not yet everything, and probably never can be, and since life is so complex - consciousness, reasoning, memory, eyesight,.. Amazing.

My understanding is that the physical universe may be adequately explained by the properties of matter and energy, and the known physical laws pertaining to these. The universe is comprised of matter and energy, it exists, it is in balance, and it is subject to understood scientific laws. Therefore, it is explainable both in fact, and in operation. Hence, I don't believe we need to know any more to accept that its composition and nature are satisfactorily explainable as not requiring any "outside" influence for its effective functioning. How it came to be this way is another question.

Life. Simple life has been "created" in a repeatable laboratory experiment from basic organic and inorganic components. Some stages were probably involved, a form of manipulation, but nonetheless basic G A T C genes formed from basic matter, and a combination formed which was alive. Hence, where the basic components and conditions are present, life can evolve of itself from otherwise inert matter.

Conscious life. It can be demonstrated that even the simplest lifeform reacts to its environment, and that the higher, or more complex the lifeform, the more complex and adaptive are its reactions. It proceeds logically that as all life reacts to its environment, then the highest reactions of the highest lifeforms will be dramatically more complex, up to and including conscious awareness - as a natural component of life itself, and not requiring any outside influence.

Therefore, the universe and all its contents, including life, may be explained satisfactorily, as natural and not requiring outside influence.
TBC>

Ah, Dan, the "can't see it, it don't exist" argument. Not so. Two ordinary parents, of average intelligence and only basic music capability conceive a musical genius. So?

More easily demonstrable - mankind has developed physical characteristics favourable to their environment, as Africans are black due to high concentration of skin pigment cells, whereas Nordics are pale skinned, due to a low concentration of skin pigment cells. Why? Because the skin colouring was most conducive to their individually different environments. How? Genetic evolution due to the influences of natural selection. What was the natural selection determinant? The body requires vitamin D, which is produced in the skin on exposure to sunlight, but in excess concentration vitamin D is harmful. The lighter Nordic skin allowed sufficient reaction from weaker normal exposure to sunlight, and the darker African skin prevented over-exposure which would have produced dangerous levels of vitamin D in the body. African babies are also lighter skin coloured to ensure they get sufficient vitamin D for effective bone formation, and progressively turn darker as only lesser levels of vitamin D are required for normal health to be maintained.

Study of the genetic makeup of Nordic and African peoples has identified a genetic variation responsible for the difference in skin colour. There is no evidence for parallel creation of different races, and there is evidence of genetic variation between peoples who migrated in different directions from a common origin.

As all genes may be mapped in identifiable strings comprised of the basic GATC components, evolutionary changes may be scientifically identified.

I still contend that the existence of the Earth and of life on Earth, only by virtue of the necessary components and conditions being available, within a virtually infinite and amazing universe, is a fluke of such magnitude as to allow the possibility of some outside influence of some kind, at some stage in time.

Websters? With enough throws probability dictates.