Monday, July 9, 2012

The Evolutionist Speaks: Savor the Irony

People sometimes ask me if evolutionists are at all changing their minds given the overwhelming scientific evidence against their religious mandate. The answer of course is “no.” But there are some evolutionists, well one anyway, that at least acknowledges some of the evidence. That would be the one and only Lynn Margulis who illustrates just how far an evolutionist can go, but no further. In her 2011 Discover magazine interview, after stating that “All scientists agree that evolution has occurred,” the University of Massachusetts professor goes on to explain that natural selection “eliminates and maybe maintains, but it doesn’t create,” that she believed the textbook orthodoxy that random mutations lead to evolutionary change and new species “until I looked for evidence,” and that “There is no gradualism in the fossil record.” Kudos to Margulis for acknowledging the evidence. It seems strange to laud someone for stating the obvious, but that’s evolution for you. Margulis also recounts how evolutionists denigrated her for coming too close to the hypothesis of acquired characteristics—another example of how evolution has harmed science.

So why was Margulis an evolutionist? As usual it’s all about religion as Margulis unwittingly explains:

The critics, including the creationist critics, are right about their criticism. It’s just that they’ve got nothing to offer but intelligent design or “God did it.” They have no alternatives that are scientific.

Man has spoken (or woman in this case). Savor the irony. With metaphysical logic the evolutionist criticizes the others for their perceived metaphysics.

But who is the metaphysician, the one who rejects a priori certain answers or the one who follows the evidence wherever it leads?

Evolution always has been, and remains today, a religious theory, even for open-minded evolutionists such as Lynn Margulis.

261 comments:

  1. Is this the same Lynn Margulis who was an AIDS denialist who said "there is no evidence that HIV is an infectious disease"?

    http://www1.biogema.de/WEK/312-Margulis-final.pdf

    ...and who thought 9/11 was a conspiracy perpetrated by the Bush administration?

    http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=_mtDBCDwxugC&pg=PA182#v=onepage&q&f=false

    If so, mightn't we be advised to take her opinion with a little caution?

    That aside, I really do not see why Cornelius appears to be championing this woman. She accepts evolution just as any other biologist does - her opinion merely differs from the norm on what specific mechanism brings about initial speciation. Is it just random mutation and natural selection together? Is it, as she thought, symbiogenesis? Either way, she is not questioning life evolved, and nor is she suggesting un-/sub-/super- natural forces are at work. Indeed she specifically calls ID unscientific.

    With metaphysical logic the evolutionist criticizes the others for their perceived metaphysics.

    No she hasn't. How on Earth are you reading this quote? She is saying ID or 'Goddidit' is not scientific. Which is perfectly true.

    But who is the metaphysician, the one who rejects a priori certain answers or the one who follows the evidence wherever it leads?

    She didn't say ID/C was WRONG, she said it was unscientific. Big difference. ID/C involves (or, practically entirely consists of) a metaphysical claim which can never be tested or disproved. Thus there can never be any evidence for it. It is a claim science cannot speak to at all. It is an unscientific claim. It is by no means 'religious' to dismiss it as such.

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    1. Ritchie:

      She accepts evolution just as any other biologist does

      She *was* (not "is") an evolutionist, my mistake.

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  2. Lynn Margulis was right about the evidence pointing toward endosymbiosis for mitochondria and plastids, and then spent much of the rest of her career arguing AGAINST the tide of the evidence and developing highly imaginative and spectacularly wrong ideas, ala Acquiring Genomes.

    That's why creationists love Lynn Margulis. Here was someone with great scientific credentials, capable of good work, who, like creationists when confronted with evidence, was known to stick fingers in ears "la la la". It creates a false sense of division within science, and seems to validate the evidence avoidance approach of creationists.

    LM was no authority on the fossil record, which, where complete enough to pass judgement, shows both gradual and more punctuated trends.

    Benton, Michael. 2009. Paleontology and the History of Life. In Ruse and Travis: Evolution: the first 4 billion years.

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  3. "No she hasn't. How on Earth are you reading this quote? She is saying ID or 'Goddidit' is not scientific. Which is perfectly true."

    But metaphysically saying 'particles did it' is scientific???

    Evolution and the Illusion of Randomness - Talbott - Fall 2011
    Excerpt: The situation calls to mind a widely circulated cartoon by Sidney Harris, which shows two scientists in front of a blackboard on which a body of theory has been traced out with the usual tangle of symbols, arrows, equations, and so on. But there’s a gap in the reasoning at one point, filled by the words, “Then a miracle occurs.” And the one scientist is saying to the other, “I think you should be more explicit here in step two.”
    In the case of evolution, I picture Dennett and Dawkins filling the blackboard with their vivid descriptions of living, highly regulated, coordinated, integrated, and intensely meaningful biological processes, and then inserting a small, mysterious gap in the middle, along with the words, “Here something random occurs.”
    This “something random” looks every bit as wishful as the appeal to a miracle. It is the central miracle in a gospel of meaninglessness, a “Randomness of the gaps,” demanding an extraordinarily blind faith. At the very least, we have a right to ask, “Can you be a little more explicit here?”
    http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/evolution-and-the-illusion-of-randomness

    Nobel Prize-Winning Physicist Wolfgang Pauli on the Empirical Problems with Neo-Darwinism - Casey Luskin - February 27, 2012
    Excerpt: "In discussions with biologists I met large difficulties when they apply the concept of 'natural selection' in a rather wide field, without being able to estimate the probability of the occurrence in a empirically given time of just those events, which have been important for the biological evolution. Treating the empirical time scale of the evolution theoretically as infinity they have then an easy game, apparently to avoid the concept of purposesiveness. While they pretend to stay in this way completely 'scientific' and 'rational,' they become actually very irrational, particularly because they use the word 'chance', not any longer combined with estimations of a mathematically defined probability, in its application to very rare single events more or less synonymous with the old word 'miracle.'" Wolfgang Pauli (pp. 27-28) -
    http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/02/nobel_prize-win056771.html

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    1. Bornagain77 -

      But metaphysically saying 'particles did it' is scientific???

      One must assume naturalism to perform science. To not do so is indeed unscientific.

      The cartoon descirbed in your first quote makes that very point. At no point, when drawing up your hypotheses, can you call upon miracles, magic, or any non-naturlaistic forces. That just isn't scientific.

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    2. It is very strange that Darwinists are adamant that only their materialistic/atheistic worldview is 'scientific', while all other worldviews are not 'scientific', when materialism/atheism cannot even ground the scientific method in the first place:

      This following site is a easy to use, and understand, interactive website that takes the user through what is termed 'Presuppositional apologetics'. The website clearly shows that our use of the laws of logic, mathematics, science and morality cannot be accounted for unless we believe in a God who guarantees our perceptions and reasoning are trustworthy in the first place.

      Presuppositional Apologetics - easy to use interactive website
      http://www.proofthatgodexists.org/index.php

      Random Chaos vs. Uniformity Of Nature - Presuppositional Apologetics - video
      http://www.metacafe.com/w/6853139

      Epistemology – Why Should The Human Mind Even Be Able To Comprehend Reality? – Stephen Meyer - video – (Notes in description)
      http://vimeo.com/32145998

      Why should the human mind be able to comprehend reality so deeply? - referenced article
      https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qGvbg_212biTtvMschSGZ_9kYSqhooRN4OUW_Pw-w0E/edit

      Materialism simply dissolves into absurdity when pushed to extremes and certainly offers no guarantee to us for believing our perceptions and reasoning within science are trustworthy in the first place:

      BRUCE GORDON: Hawking's irrational arguments - October 2010
      Excerpt: For instance, we find multiverse cosmologists debating the "Boltzmann Brain" problem: In the most "reasonable" (materialistic) models for a multiverse, it is immeasurably more likely that our consciousness is associated with a brain that has spontaneously fluctuated into existence in the quantum vacuum than it is that we have parents and exist in an orderly universe with a 13.7 billion-year history. This is absurd. The multiverse hypothesis is therefore falsified because it renders false what we know to be true about ourselves. Clearly, embracing the multiverse idea entails a nihilistic irrationality that destroys the very possibility of science.
      http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/oct/1/hawking-irrational-arguments/

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    3. This epistemological failure of materialism extends into evolutionary naturalism itself:

      Should You Trust the Monkey Mind? - Joe Carter
      Excerpt: Evolutionary naturalism assumes that our noetic equipment developed as it did because it had some survival value or reproductive advantage. Unguided evolution does not select for belief except insofar as the belief improves the chances of survival. The truth of a belief is irrelevant, as long as it produces an evolutionary advantage. This equipment could have developed at least four different kinds of belief that are compatible with evolutionary naturalism, none of which necessarily produce true and trustworthy cognitive faculties.
      http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2010/09/should-you-trust-the-monkey-mind

      What is the Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism? ('inconsistent identity' of cause leads to failure of absolute truth claims for materialists) (Alvin Plantinga) - video
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yNg4MJgTFw

      The following interview is sadly comical as a evolutionary psychologist realizes that neo-Darwinism can offer no guarantee that our faculties of reasoning will correspond to the truth, not even for the truth he is giving in the interview, (which begs the question of how was he able to come to that particular truthful realization, in the first place, if neo-Darwinian evolution were actually true?);

      Evolutionary guru: Don't believe everything you think - October 2011
      Interviewer: You could be deceiving yourself about that.(?)
      Evolutionary Psychologist: Absolutely.
      http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21128335.300-evolutionary-guru-dont-believe-everything-you-think.html

      Here a Darwinian Psychologist has a moment of honesty facing the 'hard problem' of consciousness;

      Darwinian Psychologist David Barash Admits the Seeming Insolubility of Science's "Hardest Problem"
      Excerpt: 'But the hard problem of consciousness is so hard that I can't even imagine what kind of empirical findings would satisfactorily solve it. In fact, I don't even know what kind of discovery would get us to first base, not to mention a home run.'
      David Barash - Materialist/Atheist Darwinian Psychologist
      http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/11/post_33052491.html

      Only God can provide a coherent basis for physical law;
      https://docs.google.com/document/d/1N3rreCPgeJUrQRPt3WNoeYTdHPcVEUOHDBDXrDlWgzU/edit

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    4. Quotes of note:

      “Atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning...”
      CS Lewis – Mere Christianity

      "But then with me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man’s mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey’s mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?" - Charles Darwin - Letter To William Graham - July 3, 1881

      “It seems to me immensely unlikely that mind is a mere by-product of matter. For if my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true. They may be sound chemically, but that does not make them sound logically. And hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms.” J. B. S. Haldane ["When I am dead," in Possible Worlds: And Other Essays [1927], Chatto and Windus: London, 1932, reprint, p.209.

      In realizing atheism's failure to provide a foundation for either objective morality or scientific inquiry, it is interesting to point out that Christianity was necessary for the sustained development of modern science:

      Jerry Coyne on the Scientific Method and Religion - Michael Egnor - June 2011
      Excerpt: The scientific method -- the empirical systematic theory-based study of nature -- has nothing to do with some religious inspirations -- Animism, Paganism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Shintoism, Islam, and, well, atheism. The scientific method has everything to do with Christian (and Jewish) inspiration. Judeo-Christian culture is the only culture that has given rise to organized theoretical science. Many cultures (e.g. China) have produced excellent technology and engineering, but only Christian culture has given rise to a conceptual understanding of nature.
      http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/06/jerry_coyne_on_the_scientific_047431.html

      Christianity Gave Birth To Each Scientific Discipline - Dr. Henry Fritz Schaefer - video
      http://vimeo.com/16523153

      Christianity and The Birth of Science - Michael Bumbulis, Ph.D
      Excerpt: Furthermore, many of these founders of science lived at a time when others publicly expressed views quite contrary to Christianity - Hume, Hobbes, Darwin, etc. When Boyle argues against Hobbe's materialism or Kelvin argues against Darwin's assumptions, you don't have a case of "closet atheists."
      http://ldolphin.org/bumbulis/

      Science and Theism: Concord, not Conflict* – Robert C. Koons
      IV. The Dependency of Science Upon Theism (Page 21)
      Excerpt: Far from undermining the credibility of theism, the remarkable success of science in modern times is a remarkable confirmation of the truth of theism. It was from the perspective of Judeo-Christian theism—and from the perspective alone—that it was predictable that science would have succeeded as it has. Without the faith in the rational intelligibility of the world and the divine vocation of human beings to master it, modern science would never have been possible, and, even today, the continued rationality of the enterprise of science depends on convictions that can be reasonably grounded only in theistic metaphysics.
      http://www.robkoons.net/media/69b0dd04a9d2fc6dffff80b3ffffd524.pdf

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    5. Born -

      It is very strange that Darwinists are adamant that only their materialistic/atheistic worldview is 'scientific', while all other worldviews are not 'scientific',

      Science is a game of evidence. Finding it, and accounting for it. If you allow for miracles then you put yourself out of the reach of evidence. So of course a non-naturalistic worldview is unscientific.

      The website clearly shows that our use of the laws of logic, mathematics, science and morality cannot be accounted for unless we believe in a God who guarantees our perceptions and reasoning are trustworthy in the first place.

      It shows no such thing. If the laws of logic, mathematics and science (morality is the odd bird here) are regular and our perceptions are accurate, then there is no need to call upon a God. Everything is accounted for without one.

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    6. bornagain77: But metaphysically saying 'particles did it' is scientific???

      'Particles did it' is too vague to constitute a scientific hypothesis.

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    7. "(morality is the odd bird here)"

      Hmmm, no morality in Darwinian science? Well that certainly explains a lot!

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    8. Ritchie said

      "If the laws of logic, mathematics and science (morality is the odd bird here) are regular and our perceptions are accurate, then there is no need to call upon a God. Everything is accounted for without one."

      Everything except the laws of logic mathematics and science and the believe in our perceptions too.

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    9. Born -

      Hmmm, no morality in Darwinian science? Well that certainly explains a lot!

      Of course not. Morality is not a scientific issue. It is a philosophical one. Science is about discovering what IS, not what OUGHT TO BE.

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    10. Blas -

      Everything except the laws of logic mathematics and science and the believe in our perceptions too.

      Nonsense. Why on Earth should the laws of mathematics, science and logic (as well as our own perceptions) need a conscious overseer to keep them constant?

      Does a book need a conscious overseer to stop it turning itself into a frog? Does pain need a conscious overseer to keep it painful? Does air need a conscious overseer to stop it turning into tar? These ideas are ridiculous, and yet they are identical to the argument Born is asserting.

      And that is even before we touch on the fact that 'God does it' is no explanation at all. It terms of validity it is identical to 'It's magic'. 'God does it' is no better an explanation than asserting that logic and mathematics simply are constant, and that is a brute fact. Indeed, it is an inferior explanation because it requires a totally unevidenced (and 'unevidencable') and unnecessary being. As such, by principle of Occam's Razor, it is the inferior explanation.

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    11. Only God can provide a coherent basis for mathematics, physical law, and logic;
      https://docs.google.com/document/d/1N3rreCPgeJUrQRPt3WNoeYTdHPcVEUOHDBDXrDlWgzU/edit

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    12. Nonsense. 2+2=4. That is a brute fact. It does not require a God to exist for this to be so.

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    13. Nonsense. 2+2=4. That is a brute fact. It does not require a God to exist for this to be so.

      You are right, it not require a god, just any ole god, to be a brute fact, but it certainly requires God Almighty to be a brute fact!

      Taking God Out of the Equation - Biblical Worldview - by Ron Tagliapietra - January 1, 2012
      Excerpt: Kurt Gödel (1906–1978) proved that no logical systems (if they include the counting numbers) can have all three of the following properties.
      1. Validity . . . all conclusions are reached by valid reasoning.
      2. Consistency . . . no conclusions contradict any other conclusions.
      3. Completeness . . . all statements made in the system are either true or false.
      The details filled a book, but the basic concept was simple and elegant. He summed it up this way: “Anything you can draw a circle around cannot explain itself without referring to something outside the circle—something you have to assume but cannot prove.” For this reason, his proof is also called the Incompleteness Theorem.
      Kurt Gödel had dropped a bomb on the foundations of mathematics. Math could not play the role of God as infinite and autonomous. It was shocking, though, that logic could prove that mathematics could not be its own ultimate foundation.
      Christians should not have been surprised. The first two conditions are true about math: it is valid and consistent. But only God fulfills the third condition. Only He is complete and therefore self-dependent (autonomous). God alone is “all in all” (1 Corinthians 15:28), “the beginning and the end” (Revelation 22:13). God is the ultimate authority (Hebrews 6:13), and in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Colossians 2:3).
      http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v7/n1/equation#

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    14. Born -

      You are right, it not require a god, just any ole god, to be a brute fact, but it certainly requires God Almighty to be a brute fact!

      There is no distinction. 2 plus 2 would equal 4 whether your Yahweh existed or not.

      Essentially you are playing the infinite regression game. If you want to claim that everything needs to 'refer' to thinks outside themselves to 'explain' themselves (whatever those terms mean in this context), then you are just asserting a chain of circles, each 'refering' to something else to 'explain' themselves.

      We are now faced with either an infinite regression of circles, of a First Circle. Which, for some reason, is immune to the rule that everything needs to refer to something outside itself to explain itself.

      You might propose Yahweh as this First Circle. But that is nothing but speculative conjecture, and you Bible quotes to back it up just dogma. There is no evidence here.

      Far better to just accept this First Circle as a brute fact and accept that some things just ARE - at least until any evidence comes up to the contrary.

      And no, Bible quotes do not count as evidence.

      Please, please read the following link. As a rule I generally don't post links - I prefer to explain things myself. But I'd really, really like you to do me a favour and take a look that this please. It is a rather detailed, point-by-point explanation by a REAL MATHEMATICIAN as to why Goedel's Incompleteness Therum is not a proof for God, and that to characterise it as such is to wildly misunderstand it:

      http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2010/05/03/the-danger-when-you-dont-know/

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    15. Actually I consider chu carrol 'the real mathematician' to be a VERY BAD MATHEMATICIAN and to be a materialistic dogmatists just like you!

      But to get to 'first cause' that is timeless and spaceless why don't we visit physics and see how reality itself is structured so as to give us a better idea? (not that you will care about that either!)

      Further reflection on the quantum teleportation experiment:

      That a photon would actually be destroyed upon the teleportation (separation) of its 'infinite' information to another photon is a direct controlled violation of the first law of thermodynamics. (i.e. a photon 'disappeared' from the 'material' universe when the entire information content of a photon was 'transcendently displaced' from the material universe by the experiment, when photon “c” transcendently became transmitted photon “a”). Thus, Quantum teleportation is direct empirical validation for the primary tenet of the Law of Conservation of Information (i.e. 'transcendent' information cannot be created or destroyed). This conclusion is warranted because information exercises direct dominion of energy, telling energy exactly what to be and do in the experiment. Thus, this experiment provides a direct line of logic that transcendent information cannot be created or destroyed and, in information demonstrating transcendence, and dominion, of space-time and matter-energy, becomes the only known entity that can satisfactorily explain where all energy came from as far as the origination of the universe is concerned. That is transcendent information is the only known entity which can explain where all the energy came from in the Big Bang without leaving the bounds of empirical science as the postulated multiverse does. Clearly anything that exercises dominion of the fundamental entity of this physical universe, a photon of energy, as transcendent information does in teleportation, must of necessity possess the same, as well as greater, qualities as energy does possess in the first law of thermodynamics (i.e. Energy cannot be created or destroyed by any known material means according to the first law). To reiterate, since information exercises dominion of energy in quantum teleportation then all information that can exist, for all past, present and future events of energy, already must exist.

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    16. It is also very interesting to point out that the 'light at the end of the tunnel', reported in many Near Death Experiences(NDEs), is also corroborated by Special Relativity when considering the optical effects for traveling at the speed of light. Please compare the similarity of the optical effect, noted at the 3:22 minute mark of the following video, when the 3-Dimensional world ‘folds and collapses’ into a tunnel shape around the direction of travel as a 'hypothetical' observer moves towards the ‘higher dimension’ of the speed of light, with the ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ reported in very many Near Death Experiences: (Of note: This following video was made by two Australian University Physics Professors with a supercomputer.)

      Approaching The Speed Of Light - Optical Effects - video
      http://www.metacafe.com/watch/5733303/

      Here is the interactive website, with link to the relativistic math at the bottom of the page, related to the preceding video;

      Seeing Relativity
      http://www.anu.edu.au/Physics/Searle/

      Ask the Experts: What Is a Near-Death Experience (NDE)? - article with video
      Excerpt: "Very often as they're moving through the tunnel, there's a very bright mystical light ... not like a light we're used to in our earthly lives. People call this mystical light, brilliant like a million times a million suns..."
      - Jeffery Long M.D. - has studied NDE's extensively
      http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/beyondbelief/experts-death-experience/story?id=14221154#.T_gydvW8jbI

      The NDE and the Tunnel - Kevin Williams' research conclusions
      Excerpt: I started to move toward the light. The way I moved, the physics, was completely different than it is here on Earth. It was something I had never felt before and never felt since. It was a whole different sensation of motion. I obviously wasn't walking or skipping or crawling. I was not floating. I was flowing. I was flowing toward the light. I was accelerating and I knew I was accelerating, but then again, I didn't really feel the acceleration. I just knew I was accelerating toward the light. Again, the physics was different - the physics of motion of time, space, travel. It was completely different in that tunnel, than it is here on Earth. I came out into the light and when I came out into the light, I realized that I was in heaven.(Barbara Springer)

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    17. hypothetically traveling at the speed of light in this universe would be instantaneous travel for the person going at the speed of light. This is because time does not pass for them, yet, and this is a very big ‘yet’ to take note of; this ‘timeless’ travel is still not instantaneous and transcendent to our temporal framework of time, i.e. Speed of light travel, to our temporal frame of reference, is still not completely transcendent of our framework since light appears to take time to travel from our perspective. Yet, in quantum teleportation of information, the ‘time not passing’, i.e. ‘eternal’, framework is not only achieved in the speed of light framework/dimension, but is also ‘instantaneously’ achieved in our temporal framework. That is to say, the instantaneous teleportation/travel of information is instantaneous to both the temporal and speed of light frameworks, not just the speed of light framework. Information teleportation/travel is not limited by time, nor space, in any way, shape or form, in any frame of reference, as light is seemingly limited to us. Thus ‘pure transcendent information’ is shown to be timeless (eternal) and completely transcendent of all material frameworks. Moreover, concluding from all lines of evidence we have now examined; transcendent, eternal, infinite information is indeed real and the framework in which ‘It’ resides is the primary reality (highest dimension) that can exist, (in so far as our limited perception of a primary reality, highest dimension, can be discerned).

      "An illusion can never go faster than the speed limit of reality"
      Akiane Kramarik - Child Prodigy -
      Artwork homepage - http://www.artakiane.com/ -
      Music video - http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4204586

      Logic also dictates 'a decision' must have been made, by the 'transcendent, eternal, infinite information' from the primary timeless (eternal) reality 'It' inhabits, in order to purposely create a temporal reality with highly specified, irreducible complex, parameters from a infinite set of possibilities in the proper sequential order. Thus this infinite transcendent information, which is the primary reality of our reality, is shown to be alive by yet another line of evidence besides the necessity for a ‘first mover’ to explain quantum wave collapse.

      The First Cause Must Be A Personal Being - William Lane Craig - video
      http://www.metacafe.com/w/4813914

      What Properties Must the Cause of the Universe Have? - William Lane Craig - video
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SZWInkDIVI

      Psalm 115:2-3
      Wherefore should the heathen say, Where is now their God?
      Our God is in heaven; he does whatever pleases him.

      Steven Curtis Chapman - God is God (Original Version) -
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qz94NQ5HRyk

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    18. Born -

      If you think I'm going to read all that then you're crazy.

      There's just too much.

      Why don't you sift out the one - maximum two - sources that are relevant and we can discuss them.

      Actually I consider chu carrol 'the real mathematician' to be a VERY BAD MATHEMATICIAN and to be a materialistic dogmatists just like you!

      And who the Hell are you to judge? The one and only reason you have reached that conclusion is because his conclusions do not match your religious bias. You have provided no critical rebuttal of his reasoning - you are just declaring him wrong.

      You throw around enormous quantities of links in your posts, but there's simply too much to discuss. You post either Bible quotes (which is just religious dogma), Creationists misinterpreting science, or sometimes you cite actual scientific sources which you clearly don't understand and aren't making the point you think they are making.

      Stop with the information overload. It doesn't make your argument well-supported, it just makes having a discussion with you an enormous ball-ache.

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    19. Well Ritchie, since Chu-Carrol does not care if his math matches reality why should I care about what Chu-Carrol says about math? I cited empirical evidence from physics, which you refused to read, and you merely cited his opinion! Go figure!

      Moreover in the past, Chu-Carrol seemed to be one the main 'mathematicians' that neo-Darwinists always went to when confronted by the empirical research of Behe and/or by the mathematical work of Dembski and Marks. Yet we find he is qualified in neither:

      Are there any anti-ID writings that the Panda’s Thumb won’t endorse? - William Dembski
      Excerpt: Chu-Carroll’s expertise is in computer programming, where he has a Ph.D. How much math does he actually know?
      http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/are-there-any-anti-id-writings-that-the-pandas-thumb-wont-endorse/

      I simply don't consider Chu Carrol to be unbiased in his math and certainly don't consider him qualified to critique Godel's incompleteness theorem, but more importantly, at least for me as a non-mathematician, I don't find his conclusions to match what the empirical evidence itself is telling us about reality. ,,,

      What is really peculiar is that you accused me of religious dogmatism yet I provided empirical evidence from physics that certainly is very comforting to the incompleteness theorem, and the Theistic implications thereof, and yet you have provided no evidence that your materialism is true. i.e. In my book that makes you a materialistic (read religious) dogmatists! i.e. I see typical blatant hypocrisy on the atheist's part once again!

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    20. born -

      I simply don't consider Chu Carrol to be unbiased in his math and certainly don't consider him qualified to critique Godel's incompleteness theorem, but more importantly, at least for me as a non-mathematician, I don't find his conclusions to match what the empirical evidence itself is telling us about reality.

      You see that is exactly the problem. You aren't a mathematician. Which is fine - neither am I. But as such you are in no position to loftily pass judgement on Chu-Carroll's work and decide whether it is accurate or not. You are simply dismissing him as flat wrong because you disagree with his conclusions. You are simply taking it as red that anyone who disagrees with you must therefore be flat wrong. And if you could do that, I could present you with a ton of empirical evidence, and you would just dismiss it by the same reasoning.

      If you cannot citie specific objections to Chu-Carroll's argument then you have no grounds to just dismiss him as wrong.

      What is really peculiar is that you accused me of religious dogmatism yet I provided empirical evidence from physics

      And I assert that what you have provided does not objectively support your case. It is either irrelevant or wrong - a misrepresentation either or your part, or on the part of the person you are quoting. I realise that too is a blanket dismissal, but here's the thing - you have providewd too many links for me to go into any more detail! It's not that your 'evidence' in unassailable, it's just that there is too flippin' much. It covers 4 posts, for cryin' out loud! Do you honestly believe anyone is going to follow all of them? How many posts you think I would need to address them all one-by-one?

      I did however specifically ask you to sift out what you consider to be the one or two key pieces of 'evidence' so that I could tell you what is wrong with them, and you have failed to do so. I am beginning to think this is because you really do not understand any of this 'evidence' you keep providing. I'm not even sure you fully read them. I think you just have some archive somewhere where links are kept to certain popular ID topics and points, and you just copy and paste everything from that topic whenever you want to make a point. You are parrotting without understanding.

      ...and yet you have provided no evidence that your materialism is true.

      That is because I have never made that claim. I have never claimed to be a 'materialist'. You simply assume that I am - just because I am an atheist and I accept evolution. The idea that these three are not all synonymous is apparently totally beyond you.

      As for actual opinion on 'materialism' - Are there forces outside the material world? I really don't know. But the onus is surely on the person claiming that there are to prove their point, not on the materialist to prove theirs. As an atheist, I do not actually need to present arguments for atheism to prove my case - I just need to show why all arguemtns FOR God are flawed.

      Would the discovery of a non-materialistic for affect either my atheist or my acceptance of ToE? I really don't see why it would. Which is why I am constantly bemused that you keep dragging discussions on the topic of biology down to 'materialism'. Don't you realise you are fighting strawmen?

      Delete
    21. Well Ritchie, you called Chu Carrol a 'Real Mathematician' but I can find no PhD for him in math (he has a PhD in computer science as far as I can tell), Thus why do you call him a 'real mathematician'? Were you purposely lying for propaganda purposes, or were you just misinformed? He is merely a blogger offering a unqualified opinion! You certainly have to offer more than a blog post by a atheistic non-PhD in math to refute the clear Theistic implications of Godel's incompleteness theorem! A lot more!!! Perhaps something by the world famous mathematician George Chaitin? But Chaitin, though a Darwinist, certainly gets the theistic implications of Godel's incompleteness!

      Here is Chaitin on the infamous 'halting problem' of incompleteness for a Darwinian algorithm that he was trying to develop:

      At last, a Darwinist mathematician tells the truth about evolution - VJT - November 2011
      Excerpt: In Chaitin’s own words, “You’re allowed to ask God or someone to give you the answer to some question where you can’t compute the answer, and the oracle will immediately give you the answer, and you go on ahead.”
      http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/at-last-a-darwinist-mathematician-tells-the-truth-about-evolution/

      Here is the video where, at the 30:00 minute mark, you can hear the preceding quote from Chaitin's own mouth in full context:

      Life as Evolving Software, Greg Chaitin at PPGC UFRGS
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlYS_GiAnK8

      Moreover, at the 40:00 minute mark of the video Chaitin readily admits that Intelligent Design is the best possible way to get evolution to take place, and at the 43:30 minute mark Chaitin even tells of a physics friend pointing out that the idea Evolutionary computer model that Chaitin has devised does not have enough time to work. And Chaitin even agreed that his friend had a point, although, in typical Darwinian fashion, Chaitin still ends up just 'wanting', and not ever proving, his idea Darwinian mathematical model/computer program to be true!

      Chaitin, though a bit coy, further reflects his 'ID friendly' views here:

      Alan Turing & Kurt Godel - Incompleteness Theorem and Human Intuition - video (notes in video description)
      http://www.metacafe.com/watch/8516356/

      Further note:

      Kurt Gödel - Incompleteness Theorem - video
      http://www.metacafe.com/w/8462821

      Kurt Gödel - Incompleteness Theorem as it applies to material particles and the universe
      https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GN9MSnMhp6a67TvDvW1DusssdidK0Aq1qYC2updfqvw/edit

      THE GOD OF THE MATHEMATICIANS - DAVID P. GOLDMAN - August 2010
      Excerpt: we cannot construct an ontology that makes God dispensable. Secularists can dismiss this as a mere exercise within predefined rules of the game of mathematical logic, but that is sour grapes, for it was the secular side that hoped to substitute logic for God in the first place. Gödel's critique of the continuum hypothesis has the same implication as his incompleteness theorems: Mathematics never will create the sort of closed system that sorts reality into neat boxes.
      http://www.firstthings.com/article/2010/07/the-god-of-the-mathematicians

      The God of the Mathematicians – Goldman
      Excerpt: As Gödel told Hao Wang, “Einstein’s religion [was] more abstract, like Spinoza and Indian philosophy. Spinoza’s god is less than a person; mine is more than a person; because God can play the role of a person.” – Kurt Gödel – (Gödel is considered one of the greatest logicians who has ever existed)
      http://www.firstthings.com/article/2010/07/the-god-of-the-mathematicians

      Delete
    22. Ritchie said:

      "2+2=4. That is a brute fact."


      Metaphysically wha tyou said is equivalent to “God exists2. You need to read something about metaphysics, there are 2500 years of metaphysics hystory avaible.
      Or maybe you are the most brilliant metaphysist of our era. Then you can explain what “is”, what a fact “is” what 2, plus and equal “are?

      Delete
    23. A little more on how Godel's incompleteness theorem fits with what we observe for reality:

      Although General Relativity is confirmed as accurate to a stunning degree as a valid description of space-time:

      Einstein’s General Relativity Tested Again, Much More Stringently - 2010
      Excerpt: As Müller puts it, “If the time of freefall was extended to the age of the universe – 14 billion years – the time difference between the upper and lower routes would be a mere one thousandth of a second, and the accuracy of the measurement would be 60 ps, the time it takes for light to travel about a centimetre.”
      http://www.universetoday.com/56612/einsteins-general-relativity-tested-again-much-more-stringently/

      And although the foundation of quantum mechanics within science is now so solid that researchers were able to bring forth this following proof from quantum entanglement experiments;

      An experimental test of all theories with predictive power beyond quantum theory – May 2011
      Excerpt: Hence, we can immediately refute any already considered or yet-to-be-proposed alternative model with more predictive power than this. (Quantum Theory)
      http://arxiv.org/pdf/1105.0133.pdf

      None-the-less, General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics are both shown to be 'incomplete'. This following site, through a fairly exhaustive examination of the General Relativity equations themselves, acknowledges the insufficiency of General Relativity to account for the 'completeness' of 4D space-time within the sphere of the CMBR from different points of observation in the universe.

      The Cauchy Problem In General Relativity - Igor Rodnianski
      Excerpt: 2.2 Large Data Problem In General Relativity - While the result of Choquet-Bruhat and its subsequent refinements guarantee the existence and uniqueness of a (maximal) Cauchy development, they provide no information about its geodesic completeness and thus, in the language of partial differential equations, constitutes a local existence. ,,, More generally, there are a number of conditions that will guarantee the space-time will be geodesically incomplete.,,, In the language of partial differential equations this means an impossibility of a large data global existence result for all initial data in General Relativity.
      http://www.icm2006.org/proceedings/Vol_III/contents/ICM_Vol_3_22.pdf

      Delete
    24. Moreover, the space-time of General Relativity must somehow 'emerge' from the timeless and spaceless physics of quantum mechanics,,,

      LIVING IN A QUANTUM WORLD - Vlatko Vedral - 2011
      Excerpt: Thus, the fact that quantum mechanics applies on all scales forces us to confront the theory’s deepest mysteries. We cannot simply write them off as mere details that matter only on the very smallest scales. For instance, space and time are two of the most fundamental classical concepts, but according to quantum mechanics they are secondary. The entanglements are primary. They interconnect quantum systems without reference to space and time. If there were a dividing line between the quantum and the classical worlds, we could use the space and time of the classical world to provide a framework for describing quantum processes. But without such a dividing line—and, indeed, with­out a truly classical world—we lose this framework. We must ex­plain space and time (4D space-time) as somehow emerging from fundamental­ly spaceless and timeless physics.
      http://phy.ntnu.edu.tw/~chchang/Notes10b/0611038.pdf

      Yet General Relativity refuses to be 'unified' with Quantum Mechanics into a mathematical 'theory of everything'. Thus the mathematics of Quantum Mechanics is shown to be a 'incomplete' description of reality because of its inability to be reconciled with General Relativity. The conflict of reconciling General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics appears to arise from the inability of either theory to successfully deal with the Zero/Infinity problem that crops up in different places of each theory:

      Quantum Mechanics and Relativity – The Collapse Of Physics? – video – with notes as to plausible reconciliation that is missed by materialists
      http://www.metacafe.com/watch/6597379/

      THE MYSTERIOUS ZERO/INFINITY
      Excerpt: The biggest challenge to today's physicists is how to reconcile general relativity and quantum mechanics. However, these two pillars of modern science were bound to be incompatible. "The universe of general relativity is a smooth rubber sheet. It is continuous and flowing, never sharp, never pointy. Quantum mechanics, on the other hand, describes a jerky and discontinuous universe. What the two theories have in common - and what they clash over - is zero.",, "The infinite zero of a black hole -- mass crammed into zero space, curving space infinitely -- punches a hole in the smooth rubber sheet. The equations of general relativity cannot deal with the sharpness of zero. In a black hole, space and time are meaningless.",, "Quantum mechanics has a similar problem, a problem related to the zero-point energy. The laws of quantum mechanics treat particles such as the electron as points; that is, they take up no space at all. The electron is a zero-dimensional object,,, According to the rules of quantum mechanics, the zero-dimensional electron has infinite mass and infinite charge.
      http://www.fmbr.org/editoral/edit01_02/edit6_mar02.htm

      Delete
    25. Yet, if one allows God into math,,,

      The God of the Mathematicians – Goldman
      Excerpt: As Gödel told Hao Wang, “Einstein’s religion [was] more abstract, like Spinoza and Indian philosophy. Spinoza’s god is less than a person; mine is more than a person; because God can play the role of a person.” – Kurt Gödel – (Gödel is considered one of the greatest logicians who has ever existed)
      http://www.firstthings.com/article/2010/07/the-god-of-the-mathematicians

      ,,,as Godel strongly indicated must ultimately be done to keep math from being 'incomplete', then there actually exists a very credible, empirically backed, reconciliation between Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity into a 'Theory of Everything' that overcomes this zero/infinity conflict!

      The End Of Christianity - Finding a Good God in an Evil World - Pg.31
      William Dembski PhD. Mathematics
      Excerpt: "In mathematics there are two ways to go to infinity. One is to grow large without measure. The other is to form a fraction in which the denominator goes to zero. The Cross is a path of humility in which the infinite God becomes finite and then contracts to zero, only to resurrect and thereby unite a finite humanity within a newfound infinity."
      http://www.designinference.com/documents/2009.05.end_of_xty.pdf

      The Center Of The Universe Is Life - General Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, Entropy and The Shroud Of Turin - video
      http://vimeo.com/34084462

      Centrality of Each Individual Observer In The Universe and Christ’s Very Credible Reconciliation Of General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics - notes
      https://docs.google.com/document/d/17SDgYPHPcrl1XX39EXhaQzk7M0zmANKdYIetpZ-WB5Y/edit?hl=en_US

      Delete
    26. ,,Moreover there is actual physical evidence that lends strong support to the position that the ‘Zero/Infinity conflict’, that we find between General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics, was successfully dealt with by Christ in a 'singularity',,,

      THE EVENT HORIZON (Space-Time Singularity) OF THE SHROUD OF TURIN. – Isabel Piczek – Particle Physicist
      Excerpt: We have stated before that the images on the Shroud firmly indicate the total absence of Gravity. Yet they also firmly indicate the presence of the Event Horizon. These two seemingly contradict each other and they necessitate the past presence of something more powerful than Gravity that had the capacity to solve the above paradox.
      http://shroud3d.com/findings/isabel-piczek-image-formation

      Particle Radiation from the Body - M. Antonacci, A. C. Lind
      Excerpt: The Shroud’s frontal and dorsal body images are encoded with the same amount of intensity, independent of any pressure or weight from the body. The bottom part of the cloth (containing the dorsal image) would have born all the weight of the man’s supine body, yet the dorsal image is not encoded with a greater amount of intensity than the frontal image. Radiation coming from the body would not only explain this feature, but also the left/right and light/dark reversals found on the cloth’s frontal and dorsal body images.
      https://docs.google.com/document/d/19tGkwrdg6cu5mH-RmlKxHv5KPMOL49qEU8MLGL6ojHU/edit?hl=en_US

      Condensed notes on The Authenticity of the Shroud of Turin
      https://docs.google.com/document/d/15IGs-5nupAmTdE5V-_uPjz25ViXbQKi9-TyhnLpaC9U/edit

      footnotes:

      Wave function
      Excerpt "wave functions form an abstract vector space",,, This vector space is infinite-dimensional, because there is no finite set of functions which can be added together in various combinations to create every possible function.
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave_function#Wave_functions_as_an_abstract_vector_space

      Quantum Computing – Stanford Encyclopedia
      Excerpt: Theoretically, a single qubit can store an infinite amount of information, yet when measured (and thus collapsing the Quantum Wave state to a particle state) it yields only the classical result (0 or 1),,,
      http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qt-quantcomp/#2.1

      Verse and Music:

      Philippians 2: 5-11
      Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

      "In Christ Alone" / scenes from "The Passion of the Christ" - music
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDPKdylIxVM

      Delete
    27. Born -

      Well Ritchie, you called Chu Carrol a 'Real Mathematician' but I can find no PhD for him in math (he has a PhD in computer science as far as I can tell), Thus why do you call him a 'real mathematician'?

      While that's not an unreasonable point, let's not pretend this is a totally unrelated PhD. You need a great deal of understanding of mathematics for a computer science PhD. To imply maths is not his field is like saying human anatomy is not a person's field when their PhD is in Sports Science instead Human Biology.

      Besides, how many of the sources you have quoted come from people with mathematics PhDs? And I don't mean Godel himself, as the implications of his theory are being relayed to you via the good people at youtube, uncommondescent, metacafe, and the like. What makes you think these people are qualified to represent Godel's theory accurately? Or do you hold them to a different standard of evidence simply because you approve of their conclusions? If they support your theology then they are obviously good scientists who know their stuff, but if they don't support it then they are hacks who can be dismissed without actually listening to their argument; is that it?

      And then you go on to do what you always do and post another four pages of links. Really, Born, I don't know how I have to say this to you to get you to understand. Your posts are too long for any reasonable discussion. Who the Hell do you think has time to wade through all of that? Can't you just present the one or, at a push, two most relevant links if you want to back up your argument? Your massive shopping lists of URLs rather suggest that you don't understand the topic at hand at all because you simply cannot construct a relevant argument. Instead you simply copy and paste everything you can find on broadly the right topic.

      No doubt you think everyone is giving you a wide berth because your arguments are water-tight and your evidence is irrefutable. But such is not the case. The reality is that so few people here engage with you because you simply drown anyone who speaks to you with so many links that a sensible reply to every point raised is impossible.

      Basically, you're just spamming.

      Delete
    28. Blas -

      Metaphysically wha tyou said is equivalent to “God exists2

      I don't think I have. To assert that God exists is to assert the existence of a supernatural being with no supporting evidence whatsoever.

      What I am asserting is that we do not need a conscious overseer of the universe to keep all forces constant. Maybe those forces just ARE constant. What is the problem with this?

      Delete
    29. Ritchie said:
      "Blas:Metaphysically what you said is equivalent to “God exists

      Ritchie:"I don't think I have. To assert that God exists is to assert the existence of a supernatural being with no supporting evidence whatsoever."

      You have no idea of what you are saying. If you moves from sciencce to metphysics I strongly reccomend you to take a look at the long history of metaphysics.

      "What I am asserting is that we do not need a conscious overseer of the universe to keep all forces constant. Maybe those forces just ARE constant. What is the problem with this?"

      The first problem is that you do not know if they are constant.

      Delete
    30. Well Ritchie, you called it spam and yet the posts showed how incompleteness tied into physical reality in a overarching way and found resolution in the resurrection of Christ. Empirical resolution at that!. Moreover you denied I had cited any other preeminent mathematicians on incompleteness when I had cited George Chaitin specifically who has worked extensively in incompleteness. He certainly, in the videos of him, and in his quotes, I listed from him, gives a kind of coy, but forthright, acceptance to the Theistic implications of incompleteness, all the while his being a committed Darwinist! Go figure! ,,,

      Delete
  4. Cornelius Hunter: Evolution always has been, and remains today, a religious theory, even for open-minded evolutionists such as Lynn Margulis.

    The Theory of Evolution is a strongly supported scientific theory. Margulis called herself a Darwinist, but not a Neodarwinist. The former means accepting natural selection as an important mechanism of adaptation, while she used the term Neodarwinism to refer to the then current evolutionary paradigm of mutation and selection. She showed that mutation was not the only mechanism of variation, but that symbiotic relationships could transform organisms (such as her hypothesis that bacteria invaded cells and became mitochondria).

    Science doesn't have oracles. Individual scientists often have odd beliefs. Margulis made many important contributions to science, but not all of her ideas have equal scientific merit.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Many others have spoken about how poorly the fossil record supports gradualism.

    Gould and Elderidge even coined the term Punctuated Equilibrium as a guess as to why they couldn't find gradual evolution in the fossil record.

    How to reconcile the assumed fact of evolution with an uncooperative fossil record? Punctuated Equilibrium. They didn't coin the term because there wasn't a need. Get it?

    At least Gould and Elderidge and Marguilis and others were honest about the fossil record. They could at least call a spade a spade... something that the self-anointed defenders of Darwinism here avoid at all costs. If CH says 'good morning', these guys will call a team of weathermen in to show that he's wrong.

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    Replies
    1. "If CH says 'good morning', these guys will call a team of weathermen in to show that he's wrong."

      Actually these Darwin chihuahua's would first call CH an idiot and then post a link to empirical evidence that it is night time in Guam.

      and then they would accuse him of invoking "God did it",

      and then they would accuse him of committing a fallacious fallacy,

      and then accuse CH of being unscientific because he is positing a theory that cannot be tested by the scientific method,

      and then they would state that CH is delusional because scientists know that if what they observe is "its a "good morning", then they must remember that its just an illusion,

      and then they would say CH is a schmuck because "Good morning" is just a survival mechanism developed in early homosapian's evolution from gatherer to hunter.

      and then when nightfall comes they would say he CH is a fool because its obviously nighttime!

      Did I forget anything?

      Oh yeah, the reason their is no fossil record to support the theory of gradual evolution over time is because they were destroyed one "Bad morning" in the distant past!

      Delete
    2. PG:

      "If CH says 'good morning', these guys will call a team of weathermen in to show that he's wrong."

      Actually these Darwin chihuahua's would first call CH an idiot and then post a link to empirical evidence that it is night time in Guam.


      No. I see very little calling of CH an idiot by "Darwin chihuahua's" but I do see CH's supporter calling us Darwinists, well, chihuahua's. Pot, kettle?

      and then they would accuse him of invoking "God did it",

      Well, the ID of ID is widely proposed to be God, so that's scarcely unfair, is it? In fact, we are routinely accused of failing to include "God did it" in our range of hypotheses, owing to our "materialistic worldview".

      and then they would accuse him of committing a fallacious fallacy,

      Well, we do accuse him of committing fallacies, and of making fallacious arguments, when he does. I guess a "fallacious fallacy" might work out correct ;)

      and then accuse CH of being unscientific because he is positing a theory that cannot be tested by the scientific method,

      Well, I've never seen CH posit a theory, but certainly if he does, it should be testable.

      and then they would state that CH is delusional because scientists know that if what they observe is "its a "good morning", then they must remember that its just an illusion,

      Not any scientists that I know.

      and then they would say CH is a schmuck because "Good morning" is just a survival mechanism developed in early homosapian's evolution from gatherer to hunter.

      Not any scientists that I know.

      and then when nightfall comes they would say he CH is a fool because its obviously nighttime!

      Not any scientists that I know.

      Did I forget anything?

      Well you certainly didn't remember anything at all accurately.

      Oh yeah, the reason their is no fossil record to support the theory of gradual evolution over time is because they were destroyed one "Bad morning" in the distant past!

      um, no.

      Firstly, there is a fossil record to support the theory of gradual evolution over time and secondly, there is no reason to posit that that gradual evolution would proceed at a constant rate.

      We actually know, both from mathematical modelling and from actual observation, that it does not.

      Delete
    3. Neal Tedford: Gould and Elderidge even coined the term Punctuated Equilibrium as a guess as to why they couldn't find gradual evolution in the fossil record.

      Gould: Since we proposed punctuated equilibria to explain trends, it is infuriating to be quoted again and again by creationists -- whether through design or stupidity, I do not know -- as admitting that the fossil record includes no transitional forms. The punctuations occur at the level of species; directional trends (on the staircase model) are rife at the higher level of transitions within major groups.

      Would you care to retract your mischaracterization of Gould's position?

      Delete
    4. Neal Tedford: Many others have spoken about how poorly the fossil record supports gradualism.

      Those many others mostly study vertebrates or macroinvertebrates, where gaps between sampled populations are often 100,000 years or more. Documented gradual trends are more common in planktonic microfossils, where the fossil record, though not perfect, is about as good as it gets.

      Delete
    5. Zachriel, I didn't say that Gould believed the fossil record included no transitionals. Of course he does. My view on transitionals is they are just cherry picked by evolutionists using lots of guess work and assumptions. If living species are difficult to classify (sea squirt, etc), how reliable is classification of scattered bones?

      What I did say is that Gould's and Elderidge's PE attempts to explain away, in my opinion, the lack of evidence for gradualism within the fossil record.

      "Punctuated equilibrium (also called punctuated equilibria) is a theory in evolutionary biology which proposes that most species will exhibit little net evolutionary change for most of their geological history, remaining in an extended state called stasis. When significant evolutionary change occurs, the theory proposes that it is generally restricted to rare and geologically rapid events of branching speciation called cladogenesis. Cladogenesis is the process by which a species splits into two distinct species, rather than one species gradually transforming into another.[1]

      Punctuated equilibrium is commonly contrasted against the theory of phyletic gradualism, which states that evolution generally occurs uniformly and by the steady and gradual transformation of whole lineages (called anagenesis). In this view, evolution is seen as generally smooth and continuous.

      In 1972, paleontologists Niles Eldredge and Stephen Jay Gould published a landmark paper developing this theory and called it punctuated equilibria.[2] Their paper built upon Ernst Mayr's theory of geographic speciation,[3] I. Michael Lerner's theories of developmental and genetic homeostasis,[4] as well as their own empirical research.[5][6] Eldredge and Gould proposed that the degree of gradualism commonly attributed to Charles Darwin is virtually nonexistent in the fossil record, and that stasis dominates the history of most fossil species...

      If this is the case, then the transformation of whole lineages should be rare, as the fossil record indicates. Smaller populations on the other hand, which are isolated from the parental stock, are decoupled from the homogenizing effects of gene flow. In addition, pressure from natural selection is especially intense, as peripheral isolated populations exist at the outer edges of ecological tolerance. If most evolution happens in these rare instances of allopatric speciation then evidence of gradual evolution in the fossil record should be rare. " - wikipedia puncutated equilibrium.

      To me, its just a clever way to extend Darwins idea that the fossil record is incomplete. If the fossils aren't found, then it's because their rare. Why are they rare? PE.

      My point: "Eldredge and Gould proposed that the degree of gradualism commonly attributed to Charles Darwin is virtually nonexistent in the fossil record". Do you disagree with their assessment?

      Delete
    6. Neal Tedford: My point: "Eldredge and Gould proposed that the degree of gradualism commonly attributed to Charles Darwin is virtually nonexistent in the fossil record". Do you disagree with their assessment?

      Attributed somewhat incorrectly to Darwin.

      Darwin, Origin of Species: "the periods during which species have undergone modification, though long as measured in years, have probably been short in comparison with the periods during which they retain the same form."

      Darwin had enough on his hands to justify adaptive evolution, even over long periods of time, as scientists couldn't directly observe evolution, hence he concentrated on gradual processes working over geological periods. Darwin observed evidence of macroevolution and *predicted* microevolution, something that has been repeatedly verified in modern times. Ironically, ID advocates seem to think that Darwin extrapolated from microevolution.

      In any case, if many divergences occur in small, isolated populations, then this should be reflected in discontinuities in the fossil record. There is nothing ad hoc about this as allopatric speciation has both empirical and theoretical support.

      More important are examples of rapid radiations into new niches, which can create a wide amount of diversity within a short geological period of time. This will also create discontinuities in the fossil record, and make branching order difficult to reconstruct in retrospect.

      On the other hand, there are many clear examples of transitions, such as brain size in hominins.

      Delete
  6. Charles Darwin's use of theology in the Origin of Species is astounding, as documented by the Cambridge British journal of the history of Science...

    http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=8269309&fulltextType=RA&fileId=S000708741100032X

    To quote:

    "I have argued that, in the first edition of the Origin, Darwin drew upon at least the following positiva theological claims in his case for descent with modification (and against special creation):

    1. Human begins are not justfied in believing that God creates in ways analogous to the intellectual powers of the human mind.

    2. A God who is free to create as He wishes would create new biological limbs de novo rather than from a common pattern.

    3. A respectable deity would create biological structures in accord with a human conception of the 'simplest mode' to accomplish the functions of these structures.

    4. God would only create the minimum structure required for a given part's function.

    5. God does not provide false empirical information about the origins of organisms.

    6. God impressed the laws of nature on matter.

    7. God directly created the first 'primordial' life.

    8. God did not perform miracles within organic history subsequent to the creation of the first life.

    9. A 'distant' God is not morally culpable for natural pain and suffering.

    10. The God of special creation, who allegedly performed miracles in organic history, is not plausible given the presence of natural pain and suffering."

    For Darwin, theology was not a response to creationists, but to quote the article, "The essay concludes that this theology served as a handmaiden and accomplice to Darwin's science."

    Theology was Darwins "handmaiden" in his supposedly "scientific" masterpiece that is venerated among evolutionists even today. The same handmaiden arguments are still widely used today by evolutionists, even in this blog.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Neal Tedford July 10, 2012 8:05 AM

      Charles Darwin's use of theology in the Origin of Species is astounding, as documented by the Cambridge British journal of the history of Science...


      Nineteenth century Britain was a much more religious society than it is today. Darwin was concerned, with good reason, about the sort of reception his work was likely to get from the faithfull so it's not suprising in the slightest that he did whatever he could to disarm and deflect their criticism.

      Besides, you could strip all the theological references out of Origin and still leave the theory completely intact. So, whatever Dilley's rhetorical flourish about "this theology served as a handmaiden and accomplice to Darwin's science" is supposed to mean, theology was not an essential or even an ancillary part of the theory.

      Delete
    2. And even if it was, the test of the theory lies in how well it models the data, not in whether it produces nice theology.

      There are lots of nice theological theories about the way the world might work, but unless they model the data well, then they don't stand the test of time.

      Darwin might have claimed his theory was dictated to him by an angel, but if it models the data, no problem. If it doesn't, down the remorseless scientific pan it goes.

      Delete
  7. CH: People sometimes ask me if evolutionists are at all changing their minds given the overwhelming scientific evidence against their religious mandate.

    Well, there isn't "overwhelming scientific evidence" against evolution, and it isn't a "religious mandate" anyway.

    You keep saying this, and when we point out that both these things are false, you ignore us.

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  8. Neal: Many others have spoken about how poorly the fossil record supports gradualism.

    It supports "incrementalism" which is the important thing. Nothing in the theory states that evolutionary rates have to be constant, indeed, any modelling exercise will show that they won't be.

    Gould and Elderidge even coined the term Punctuated Equilibrium as a guess as to why they couldn't find gradual evolution in the fossil record.

    This is a complete misrepresentation. What they found was equilibrium punctuated by more rapid rates of evolution. Which is exactly what you'd expect from Darwin's theory.

    How to reconcile the assumed fact of evolution with an uncooperative fossil record? Punctuated Equilibrium. They didn't coin the term because there wasn't a need. Get it?

    The fossil record wasn't, and isn't, "uncooperative". It merely indicates non-constant rates of change. Nothing in Darwin's theory predicts a constant rate of change - what it predicts is that populations will tend to track environmental change, which is exactly what we observe. Change the environment, and you will get rapid morphological change as the population optimises. Once optimised you will get equilibrium until the next change - unless there are feedback loops (which there often are).

    You are presenting problems that aren't actually problems, Neal.

    At least Gould and Elderidge and Marguilis and others were honest about the fossil record. They could at least call a spade a spade... something that the self-anointed defenders of Darwinism here avoid at all costs.

    They were all "self-anointed defenders of Darwinism" and I've yet to meet a dishonest one. Myself included.

    If CH says 'good morning', these guys will call a team of weathermen in to show that he's wrong.

    Obviously not. We show CH he is wrong when he is. Which he very often is. As in this post.

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    Replies
    1. "What they found was equilibrium punctuated by more rapid rates of evolution. Which is exactly what you'd expect from Darwin's theory."

      This is revisionism. Whenever a prediction from Darwinism is falsified, someone says, "well this is exactly what you'd expect!" Darwin certainly did not expect punctuated equilibrium. He expected gradualism.

      And indeed, I do not see how you quickly mutate the giraffe's neck at the same time as its compensatory cardiovascular system.

      Delete
    2. Collin: This is revisionism. Whenever a prediction from Darwinism is falsified, someone says, "well this is exactly what you'd expect!" Darwin certainly did not expect punctuated equilibrium. He expected gradualism.

      No, it is not. It is science. It is perfectly true that Darwin expected that evolutionary processes would be much slower than they turn out to be. That isn't surprising given that he had no idea of what actually caused either heredity or variation in the first place.

      But if you actually model his theory, mathematically, then it becomes immediately clear that the rate of evolutionary will fluctuate, pausing when equilibrium is reached.

      We also actually observe this, in the field and in the lab.

      What Margulis suggested, which was interesting, is that occasionally, there are major events, including symbiosis, which generate radically new composite organisms, and send evolution off in a new direction. Again, this was not predicted by Darwin, not surprisingly. That does not mean that Margulis was a "revisionist". It means she was a scientist. We now know far more about evolution than Darwin dreamed of.

      And indeed, I do not see how you quickly mutate the giraffe's neck at the same time as its compensatory cardiovascular system.

      Well, nor do I, and nor does anyone suggest it happened that way. What makes you think it happened "quickly"?

      And what, other than evolution, could account for the route of the giraffe's laryngeal nerve?

      Delete
    3. Elizabeth Liddle: What they found was equilibrium punctuated by more rapid rates of evolution. Which is exactly what you'd expect from Darwin's theory.

      Collin: This is revisionism.

      Darwin, Origin of Species: "the periods during which species have undergone modification, though long as measured in years, have probably been short in comparison with the periods during which they retain the same form."

      Would you care to modify your position based on this information?

      Delete
    4. Oh, well done, Zachriel.

      But I do think that Darwin would be surprised to learn that we can detect evolutionary adaptation (by his proposed mechanism) over the course of a single generation!

      The Grants' work really was awesome.

      Delete
    5. I was under the impression that Gould and Eldridge developed punctuated equilibrium to explain the fact that the fossil record does not show species-to=species change. If it happened that way, why don't we see it in the fossil record. The other evolutionary apologetic is that the fossil record is incomplete.

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    6. Well, your impression is wrong.

      For a start "species-to-species" change is a bit of an oxymoron. "Species" is a horizontal concept, not a longitudinal one. Speciation occurs when two lineages diverge, and there is plenty of evidence of lineage divergence in both the fossil record and the pattern of heritable features in extant populations. It's what the "Tree of Life" is all about, and is what Linnaeus revealed.

      There is also plenty of evidence in the fossil record for longitudinal evolutionary series.

      The "problem" that punctuated equilibrium "solved" was the observation that those rates of longitudinal change are not constant - that there are periods of rapid evolutionary change, punctuating long periods of stasis.

      If the periods of stasis represent the equilibrium of a population within its environment, and the periods of rapid change represent the periods of adaptation of a population to a new environment, this pattern is well-explained, and entirely in accord with Darwinian theory.

      In fact, you can model it (and I have) very easily - set your environmental criteria, and your population rapidly move to equilibrium ("optimise") and stay there. Change the criteria, and they rapidly move to a new equilibrium. All using nothing other than the Darwinian algorithm.

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    7. Here is the original paper:


      http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/ridley/classictexts/eldredge.pdf

      Why does it mention gaps in the fossil record?

      Delete
    8. I understand Dawkins was critical of punctuated equilibrium. His explanation for the gaps is that evolution happened somewhere else. The standard explanation for the gaps has been that the fossil record is incomplete.

      Delete
    9. natschuster: Why does it mention gaps in the fossil record?

      Because there are gaps in the fossil record.

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    10. And the gaps are where we would expect to see one species evolves into another, if that really happened. Punctuated equilibrium says that we don't see that in the fossil record because it happened too fast to get caught. The standard answer has been that the fossil record is incomplete, therefore it isn't an accurate record of what really happened. Either explanation is an apologetic.

      Delete
    11. Firstly, you are misunderstanding the concept of speciation.

      One species doesn't "evolve into another". Rather, two populations diverge, for a variety of reasons, and cease to interbreed; and then either drift alone, or drift plus differential adaptation, leads to the two lineages taking different directions.

      Sometimes one of the two will continue relatively unchanged, while the other changes more radically; sometimes both will change. But in both cases, the change-over-time of the lineages is a different phenomenon to the divergence of the two lineages.

      Clearly, because fossilisation is a rare event, the more rapidly a population changes ("evolves"), the fewer individuals from any one evolutionary stage will be fossilized. Therefore, there will always be more fossil examplars representing a slowly evolving evolutionary phase than a rapidly evolving one. This is not "an apologetic" - it is simple logic.

      However, we do see adaptation occurring when it occurs slowly. "Punk Eek" does not assert that evolutionary change only occurs rapidly, and is therefore not observed. It merely asserts that evolutionary change sometimes occurs rapidly - specifically when there is an environmental change, or a sub-population enters a new environmental niche, or there is rapid feedback between the environment and the evolving population, leading to gaps at precisely those times of rapid evolution.

      But we have many many instances of slower adaptation - long transitional series.

      We know, therefore, that adaptation occurs slowly. We also know that it occurs very quickly (because we can observe it in real time). Why should it not occur at intermediate rates as well? Too fast to leave a clear fossil record, but too slow to be observed over the course of a human lifetime?

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    12. natschuster: Punctuated equilibrium says that we don't see that in the fossil record because it happened too fast to get caught.

      And in smaller, isolated populations, which by chance, are unlikely to be fossilized. This is informed by population genetics, where fixation can occur much more rapidly in small populations, and by studies of allopatric speciation.

      natschuster: The standard answer has been that the fossil record is incomplete, therefore it isn't an accurate record of what really happened.

      Yes, and it is a fact that fossilization is a rare and happenstance event.


      natschuster: Either explanation is an apologetic.

      No. Both explanations have empirical and theoretical justification.

      Delete
    13. Doesn't evolution mean change over time? We start out with a uniform population. Then they drift apart into different populations. Then the different population undergo morphological change into organisms that are morphologically different. That's evolution, change over time. SO why don't we see that happening in the fossil record.

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    14. Elizabeth:

      Didn't Darwin say that sometimes an organism will develop an advantage over other members of the species, and outlive and out reproduced them? Then the process repeats until the result is an organism that is so different from the first that it is considered a new species? Isn't that what "The Origin of Species" is about? If that happened why wasn't it caught in the fossil record. Is it like a Goldilocks thing, not too fast, not too slow. So evolution is looking more and more like a fairy tale.

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    15. Natschuster: Doesn't evolution mean change over time?

      Well, that's one very broad definition in usage.

      We start out with a uniform population.

      Very unlikely but we could. I've run models where I started with populations of identical "organisms". But I don't think anyone has proposed that ancestral populations were anything like uniform. They were more likely to be deeply non-uniform, and became more so as reproductive fidelity improved, and as the most successful reproducers started to dominate the population.

      Then they drift apart into different populations.

      Well, depends where you are starting from. If we are talking about sexually reproducing populations (which it sounds like we are - "speciation" doesn't apply to non-sexually reproducing populations), then to be more precise, members of a sub-population ceases, for a variety of reasons, to breed as regularly with the main population than with within-sub-population members. As a result, the gene pools start to separate, and so "drift" - unbiased changes in allele frequencies within the two populations (original and sub-population) proceeds independently, as does any adaptation to local conditions, which may differ between the two groups. So having originally diverged for what might be purely mechanical reasons (e.g. separated by a stretch of water), where a a reversal of those reasons would restore inter-breeding, gradually the two populations become more different, until they no longer can interbreed, even if they were re-joined, physically.

      Then the different population undergo morphological change into organisms that are morphologically different. That's evolution, change over time.

      Well, they undergo independent "evolution" in the sense of "changes in allele frequency over time" and this will also tend to result in phenotypic changes, including adaptive changes.

      SO why don't we see that happening in the fossil record.

      We do. But only if it happens slowly enough in a big enough population that has a decent chance of leaving a lot of fossils in the record. If it happens quickly, as it will tend to do in populations that are either small offshoots and/or populations adapting to a novel environment, then we are very unlikely to find a clear record of the process.

      Delete
    16. continued....

      Didn't Darwin say that sometimes an organism will develop an advantage over other members of the species, and outlive and out reproduced them? Then the process repeats until the result is an organism that is so different from the first that it is considered a new species?

      I can't remember whether Darwin said exactly that, but it is true that terminology has changed a bit. We now tend to think of "speciation" as a process - the process by which one population diverges into two separately evolving lineages. So it's a horizontal concept. For the process by which one lineage changes over time, we usually use the word "adaptation". However, sometimes the main population will continue largely unchanged, as it is already optimised to a stable environment, while the sub-population adapts to a new niche. In that case, we might call the sub-population, after adaptation, a "new species" and its sister-population, the descendents of the populatoin from which it diverged, the "old species". But really what has happened is that we now have two species, where before there was only one, and both have undergone an equal amount of "natural selection" - but in the case of the "new" species, the selective pressure has been towards change, and in the second, conservative.

      Modern taxonomy tries to keep the same name for the same lineages (as did Linnaeus' system in fact), and add suffix terms as the branches bifurcate. Thus "mammal" would once have described a single population (had biologists been around to name them!), but now "mammal" describes a large clade, consisting of different "species" some of which bear a greater resemblance to the ancestral "mammals" than others, but all of which are equally closely related to that ancestral mammal population.


      Isn't that what "The Origin of Species" is about? If that happened why wasn't it caught in the fossil record. Is it like a Goldilocks thing, not too fast, not too slow. So evolution is looking more and more like a fairy tale.


      No. What looks like the Goldilocks story is the process of fossilisation. Which isn't surprising. Fossilisation is a Goldilocks process - it only happens when conditions are just right, and thus rarely. Fossils are therefore an extraordinarily sparse, and not even random, sampling of the creatures that have ever lived. Clearly, therefore, we will have a better sampling from organism types that were more numerous, i.e. from larger populations that remained unchanged for longer, than from small populations that were changing rapidly.

      Delete
    17. Fossils aren't rare. There are entire rock strata made entirely of fossils. I bought a number of fossil collection for very little money to use in my teaching. Transitional fossils, however, are very rare. And transitions between species are pretty much non-existant.

      Delete
  9. The materialist dogma isn't that "particles did it." It is that whatever the cause, anything acting with intelligence can and has been ruled out. This is asserted with all sorts of hand-waving rhetoric to make it sound scientific. Science observes intelligence and hypothesizes the unknown and unobserved, but if you combine the two then the result is arbitrarily called "supernatural."

    It's not just unscientific. It's anti-science in the truest sense. But you have to rule it out and mock it to give the vague, unsupported alternative its illusion of plausibility.

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    Replies
    1. badwiring: The materialist dogma isn't that "particles did it." It is that whatever the cause, anything acting with intelligence can and has been ruled out.

      Rubbish. I am a materialist and I often attribute effects to intelligent causes.

      This is asserted with all sorts of hand-waving rhetoric to make it sound scientific. Science observes intelligence and hypothesizes the unknown and unobserved, but if you combine the two then the result is arbitrarily called "supernatural."

      Please explain, preferably with a citation to support your aspersion on scientists.

      It's not just unscientific. It's anti-science in the truest sense. But you have to rule it out and mock it to give the vague, unsupported alternative its illusion of plausibility.

      What is "unscientific"? You seem to have a giant straw man here.

      Delete
    2. badwiring

      The materialist dogma isn't that "particles did it." It is that whatever the cause, anything acting with intelligence can and has been ruled out.


      Your ignorance is showing again Scott.

      Science hasn't ruled out intelligent causes. It just says that as of now there is no positive evidence for external intelligent involvement, and lots of positive evidence that such involvement is not necessary.

      If you have some positive evidence for ID, either present it or shut up about it. Not the "evolution can't explain this so ID wins by default" false dichotomy. ID's own positive evidence.

      Not a single person from the ID camp has been able to do so since their whole religious motivated charade started.

      Delete
    3. Your fellow darwinists don't seem to agree. Read their post.

      My name isn't Scott. That's just another alias I used on another blog. I think most of us do that, although not all. I don't have a problem with that, and I know you don't.

      That's the name I used the last time I held up the only civil end of a "discussion" between us. And on that occasion I challenged you to dig deep into that well of positive evidence you keep talking about. I remember what you came up with. Different colors of the same fish and those accursed, meaningless treehoppers. When it was time to put up or shut up, the best you could do was a paper where the author explicitly stated that what he found contradicted darwinist expectations.

      You've given all you've got, and I know that you're shooting blanks. Or, when determined to crush and mock your opponents in a debate, did you deliberately offer the weakest non-evidence you could find? Or did you not have time to ride the elevator down to the secured vault beneath the Arizona desert where they keep all the "real" evidence that you refer to endlessly but no one has ever seen?

      Would you like some positive evidence that what looks like design only countless times better really is design? Too bad. That is the default, and no one, least of all you, has seriously challenged it.

      Heard of the Steve Project? Nothing sums it up better. Thousands of biologists join together to affirm their united stance, except that if you actually read it you'll see that they carefully avoided mentioning a single specific detail of what it is that they all agree to.

      CH just politely mocks all the contradictions, failed expectations, vague assertions, and absurd stores that necessitate even more absurd stories. It's not positive evidence of anything. And the default response is that whatever he's deflating doesn't disprove anything because it wasn't really evidence in the first place. Of course it wasn't. No one wants to put that forward.

      What's really sad is that throughout that discussion you vehemently denied being yourself. You were ashamed of this identity. I can't blame you for that. But man (?) that is some serious self-loathing.

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    4. All that hot air and you completely forgot to post that positive evidence for ID.

      Just like every one else in the IDC camp for the last 20 years.

      Do you guys ever do anything except lie to yourselves and pat each other on the back?

      Delete
    5. Like I said, that's the default. challenge it if you can. Give me a reason to take it seriously that doesn't appeal to authority. You won't, and pointing that out is only fun for a few minutes.

      Delete
    6. badwiring I'm not Scott Andrews, really

      Like I said, that's the default. challenge it if you can.


      Your default is know by a much more common term;

      "God of the Gaps"

      Science has known it's a worthless excuse for intellectual laziness for a couple of centuries now. Maybe someday you creationist will catch on.

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    7. badwiring -

      Would you like some positive evidence that what looks like design only countless times better really is design? Too bad. That is the default,

      'Design is the default answer?' HA HA HA HA! That's hilarious!

      Do you have any idea what a default answer is and what it would take for an explanation to qualify as one?

      Heard of the Steve Project?

      Yep, sure have. The DI set up a petition asking for scientists with doubts about eovlution to sign it. In retaliation the Nation Centre for Science Education set up a petition asking for scientists to sign if the accepted evolution - but only if their name was a derivative of 'Steve'.

      The result? Accurate to May 2009, the NCSE's petition had over a thousand signatories, half of whom were specifically biologists. The DI, by contrast, had only ten Steves, only one of whom was a biologist.

      The conclusion? Despite what ID/C propagandists may tell you, the vast majority of the scientific elite (ie, the people whose job it is to understand biology) accept evolution. Evolution is not a fringe-belief, nor a theory in crisis. It is still the ID/C crowd and evolution-deniers (if they are not one and the same) who are very much in the minority.

      except that if you actually read it you'll see that they carefully avoided mentioning a single specific detail of what it is that they all agree to.

      You mean beyond this:

      "Evolution is a vital, well-supported, unifying principle of the biological sciences, and the scientific evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of the idea that all living things share a common ancestry. Although there are legitimate debates about the patterns and processes of evolution, there is no serious scientific doubt that evolution occurred or that natural selection is a major mechanism in its occurrence. It is scientifically inappropriate and pedagogically irresponsible for creationist pseudoscience, including but not limited to "intelligent design," to be introduced into the science curricula of our nation's public schools."

      Seems pretty clear to me.

      Delete
  10. Lynn Margulis' hypothesis of symbiosis was brilliant.

    She railed against a specific line of thought that regarded incremental genetic sequence changes as the only mechanism of genetic variance (which she called "neo-Darwinism".

    Quite right too, and we know know of many other mechanisms that give rise to hereditary variance.

    Her view was not anti "Darwinist", as she made clear, in so many words.

    She also made some terrible bloopers, e.g. her claims regarding HIV.

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  11. EL: "Her view was not anti "Darwinist", as she made clear, in so many words."

    Hmmmm, lets review what Margulis stated:

    “All scientists agree that evolution has occurred,” the University of Massachusetts professor goes on to explain that natural selection “eliminates and maybe maintains, but it doesn’t create,”

    Elisabeth, Would you like to retract your statement or are we both in agreement with her position regarding the creative powers of natural selection?

    .

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    Replies
    1. Hmmmm, let's review what Margulis stated:

      "I am a Darwinist"

      Oops, PG

      Delete
  12. EL: "Her view was not anti "Darwinist", as she made clear, in so many words."

    Hmmmm, lets review what Margulis stated:


    I'm trying to find the actual quotation, and will post the link when I do, but Margulis frequently made it clear that she was not anti-Darwinist, but anti "neo-Darwinist".

    “All scientists agree that evolution has occurred,” the University of Massachusetts professor goes on to explain that natural selection “eliminates and maybe maintains, but it doesn’t create,”

    Well, she's absolutely right, in the sense that natural selection is the term we give to heritable differential reproduction, not the term we give to the mechanisms that generate those differentials. Personally I think her attack on "neo-Darwinism" was a straw man, but she had a good point.

    Elisabeth, Would you like to retract your statement

    No, but I will try to find the quotation in question.

    or are we both in agreement with her position regarding the creative powers of natural selection?

    In the sense I have given, yes. My own view is that it makes no more sense to ascribe "creativity" to "natural selection" than it does to ascribe it to mechanisms of variance. What is creative is what they jointly result in, which is heritable differences in the probability of reproductive success in the current environment. Without variance-generating mechanisms there could be no differentials and therefore no natural selection. Equally, without selection there could be no cumulative evolution of neat solutions to the problems of survival within a given environment.

    They are two sides of the same coin.

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    Replies
    1. The quotation is in the link I posted above.

      cheers

      Delete
    2. Here it is:

      Margulis began graciously by acknowledging the conference hosts and saying, “This is the most wonderful conference I’ve ever been to, and I’ve been to a lot of conferences.” She then got to work, pronouncing the death of neo-Darwinism. Echoing Darwin, she said “It was like confessing a murder when I discovered I was not a neo-Darwinist.” But, she quickly added, “I am definitely a Darwinist though. I think we are missing important information about the origins of variation. I differ from the neo-Darwinian bullies on this point.”

      Delete
  13. Replies
    1. Worth quoting the whole passage in Troy's citation, I think:

      Lynn Margulis: Although I greatly admire Darwin's contributions and agree with most of his theoretical analysis and I am a Darwinist, I am not a neo-Darwinist. One of Darwin's major insights is the recognition that all organisms are related by common ancestry. Today direct evidence for common ancestry — genetic, chemical, and otherwise — is overwhelming. Populations of organisms grow and reproduce at rates that are not sustainable in the real world, and therefore many more die or fail to reproduce than actually complete their life histories. The fact that all the organisms that are born or hatched or budded off do not and cannot possibly survive is natural selection. Observable inherited variation appears in all organisms that are hatched, born, budded off, or produced by division, and some variants do outgrow and outreproduce others. These are the tenets of Darwinian evolution and natural selection. All thinking scientists are in complete agreement with these basic ideas, since they're supported by vast amounts of evidence.

      So there you go, Cornelius.

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    2. Gee Elisabeth, I cant believe you got your lab coat in a twist over my "Good morning" schtick about how CH or others cannot even say a word without Darwin defenders challenging each component of a statement, even if we are just innocently saying "Good Morning". The fact that you meticulously went line by line with a serious and intentional critique of each component of my schtick just proved my point and actually demonstrated the level of commitment you "Darwin Defenders" are willing to go to confront anyone with opposing view points.

      However,I find it very interesting that Darwin needs its Bulldogs, when other scientist are capable of defending themselves just fine!

      Something to think about!

      .

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    3. PG

      Gee Elisabeth, I cant believe you got your lab coat in a twist over my "Good morning" schtick about how CH or others cannot even say a word without Darwin defenders challenging each component of a statement, even if we are just innocently saying "Good Morning".


      So what you're saying is that you're just a trolling clown and that no one should take what you write seriously.

      Got it.

      Delete
    4. PG

      However,I find it very interesting that Darwin needs its Bulldogs, when other scientist are capable of defending themselves just fine!

      I imagine Darwin would find it a little tricky seeing as how he's dead.

      I'm constantly surprised at how God needs his followers to fight his battles for him.

      Something for you to think about...

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    5. However,I find it very interesting that Darwin needs its Bulldogs, when other scientist are capable of defending themselves just fine!

      Haven't you heard that Darwin passed away some time ago? That has reduced his capacity to defend himself somewhat. Or do you think he is capable of defending himself from the afterlife?

      Regardless, Darwin is not considered some kind of prophet. If you think otherwise, perhaps you're projecting. Some of Darwin's ideas, like the importance of natural selection, have stood the test of time, while others haven't, but evolutionary biology has progressed enormously in the mean time. Not that you would learn about that on this blog by the professional liar Cornelius Hunter.

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    6. From the general public's perspective I will tell you why Darwin needs his bulldogs.

      In forming an opinion on evolution Currently the public has to traverse the various choices of mechanisms at opposite sides of "the same coin" that drive evolution, from the theory that it is natural selection acting upon undirected random mutations to the new radical Natural Genetic Engineering theory which insists that random mutation and natural selection play an insignificant roll, and that the genome is "cognizant" and "sentient" fully capable of making its own purposeful decisions on its future direction based on information being received from inside and outside its domain and environment.

      And here is the kicker, all the while its being shoved down the general public's throat that evolution is a fact and as Thorton state, "But with just a few little details need to be worked out"

      IMHO, That is simply insulting the general public's intelligence.

      But hey, what if we dumb Creationists see the light and embrace the eminent evolution scientist Dr. Shapiro's theory that evolution is not driven by random mutations and natural selection, but its driven by intelligent design, the intelligence deriving from the cognitive sentient genome.

      And even Though we new evolutionists would then use Dr Shapiro's empirical evidence as proof that Creationists were right all along about RM and NS, and that we were right all along that we were intelligently designed, we would be one happy family, Right?

      In the mean time can we just say our new position is that our wonderful eminent evolutionary scientist Dr. James Shaprio has provided peer reviewed papers that evidence that all Darwinists are completely wrong about RM and NS driving evolution, and that Evolution is purposeful, intentional, and driven by intelligent design, but with “just a few little details need to be worked out" (like how did the genome actually evolve sentience.)

      Would you all then just leave us alone because we are all on the same page regarding some aspects of evolution is a fact, right?

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    7. But hey, what if we dumb Creationists see the light and embrace the eminent evolution scientist Dr. Shapiro's theory that evolution is not driven by random mutations and natural selection, but its driven by intelligent design, the intelligence deriving from the cognitive sentient genome.

      That isn't Shapiro's theory at all. Why don't you email Shapiro and ask if he endorses your portrayal of his ideas? Here's $100 to your favorite charity if you succeed.

      Delete
    8. PG

      From the general public's perspective I will tell you why Darwin needs his bulldogs.


      Science needs its bulldogs to defend against scurrilous attacks by ignorant but devious religiously motivated Fundies. Fundies who are dead set on dumbing down science standards and getting their Creationist idiocy forced into public school science classrooms. Fundies who will stoop to any manner of lies, quote-mines, deliberate fraud, anything to make an end run around proper scientific methodology.

      You guys will be welcome into the scientific community only when you start following the same protocols and pass the same critical vetting required of every other scientific idea. Until then PG, you and the rest of your Liar for Jesus buddies can go suck eggs. You're not wrecking this country's scientific credibility with your religious driven stupidity. Not on my watch.

      Delete
    9. PG -

      Thornton's rebuttal sounds like a conspiracy theory, but I'm afraid it is true. The entire history of ID/Creationism is one of religious Christians trying to get their religious dogmas taken seriously as science and be taught in schools.

      Need we remind you of the Wedge Document controversy?

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wedge_strategy

      This is why Darwin needs his defenders - because there is a populous and well-funded institution set up specifically to rubbish his ideas. Their arguments are flawed, their proposals and not even scientific, and their methods are often underhanded, but they make a lot of noise and they chant their fallacies so often and so loudly that a sizeable portion of the the generally scientifically illiterate masses listen.

      Now could you please speculate on why an omnipotent God would need His followers to defend him? It was only a semi-faceteous remark. The implications really should trouble you if you stop to think about them for a minute.

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    10. PG: Gee Elisabeth, I cant believe you got your lab coat in a twist over my "Good morning" schtick about how CH or others cannot even say a word without Darwin defenders challenging each component of a statement, even if we are just innocently saying "Good Morning". The fact that you meticulously went line by line with a serious and intentional critique of each component of my schtick just proved my point and actually demonstrated the level of commitment you "Darwin Defenders" are willing to go to confront anyone with opposing view points.

      Yes, indeed, I have a high level of commitment to correcting the copious misrepresentations and unwarranted slurs on the integrity of good scientists that I see in this blog and elsewhere. To turn round and say that this proves your point that Darwin needs defending is childish in the extreme. Darwin needs defending (or evolutionary science needs defending anyway - Darwin is long dead) simply because his ideas are repeatedly attacked without foundation by people who seem to have little understanding of evolutionary science, and a high level of paranoia about its theological implications. Which are no more scary than the implications of cosmological science or geological science, or any science that falsifies the idea that Genesis is a literal account of creation.

      Evolutionary science does not imply that a God did not intentionally create the world and its inhabitants. It merely explains how it was happened.

      However,I find it very interesting that Darwin needs its Bulldogs, when other scientist are capable of defending themselves just fine!

      And I find it very interesting - and very frustrating - that Darwin is the focus of some theists' ire, whereas others get off scot-free. Darwin's theory is neither more nor less threatening to theism than any other scientific theory.

      But it is far more frequently misrepresented as the Enemy. Weirdly, quantum mechanics is equally misrepresented, often as Proof of God.

      Cosmology comes in for both - Big Bang is taken as Proof of God; multiverse theory as Proof of the Desperation of Atheists.

      But misrepresentation is misrepresentation, whether it is done to support theism or attack atheism.

      Something to think about!

      And I offer you the above, in return.

      Delete
  14. Zachriel quoting psalms from his bible "Origin of Species"....very good. I bet you can recite it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    2. You should hear when Zach uses a Gregorian Chant and incense,it really makes Darwin's words come alive. Some feel however,that his insistence on wearing a speedo when reciting takes away from the overall effect.

      Delete
    3. Yes, but speedos are obligatory in French swimming pools these days. Where else but in the land of the surrender monkeys are you going to have a decent Darwinian baptism?

      Delete
    4. Supremo :):)

      If he does that I'm renouncing.

      Delete
    5. I love the French,especially their bread and frites. Ahh,boulangeries. The apex of civilization

      Delete
    6. Patisseries. Don't forget patisseries

      Delete
    7. Never, chocolate eclairs and pain de chocolate, vive la France!

      Delete
    8. Troy: Yes, but speedos are obligatory in French swimming pools these days.

      Oh boy, yes. I well remember a miserable rainy day in Brittany, when we finally found an open indoor pool, resulting in one happy small girl and two miserable small boys debarred on account of their baggy shorts.

      Eventually we found a Mammouth that sold speedos, which my son then refused to wear.

      Finally we compromised with a navy blue pair of underpants.

      Delete
  15. Here's an exciting new development in the computational genomic field that should strike fear in the hearts of all evolutionists:

    Searching Genomic Data Faster

    As a software engineer, I'm surprised it took so long to develop this tool as it seems such an obvious necessity. This tool will make it at least an order of magnitude faster to do comparison searches through vast databases of genomic data. Get ready for very rapid progress in our understanding of genetic coding. We are on the verge of making disrupting/game/changing discoveries in the field of biology that threaten to overturn the apple cart, so to speak. And there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. As for me, I will be watching the whole thing unfold with a smile on my face and a bag of Cheetos.

    And here's a quote from the MIT News article showing that not even die-hard MIT evolutionists can help using the word 'design' within the same sentence as 'evolution'. The mixing of the two concepts would be funny if it weren't so pathological:

    Exploiting redundancy

    The researchers’ compression scheme exploits the fact that evolution is stingy with good designs. There’s a great deal of overlap in the genomes of closely related species, and some overlap even in the genomes of distantly related species: That’s why experiments performed on yeast cells can tell us something about human drug reactions.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Louis,

      I have a question. I read it is impossible to poison an opossum, they are immune to snake venom. Why does the designer love possums more than little children,ponder that when you eat your Cheetos .

      Delete
    2. Velikovskys,

      Let me answer with another question. What will you do when the genomic data reveals unmistakable proof that life on earth was designed by not just one but multiple designers? How will you answer the question you posed above?

      You see. I already know the answer to the question and I'm completely satisfied with it. I also know that you already have your mind made up and decided that there were no designers. However, it took me a long time to arrive at my current understanding. There is no way I'm going to hand it over to you on a platter just to see you trample it under foot like a swine. If you get my drift.

      Delete
    3. Louis Savain July 10, 2012 10:23 PM

      Velikovskys,

      Let me answer with another question. What will you do when the genomic data reveals unmistakable proof that life on earth was designed by not just one but multiple designers? How will you answer the question you posed above?


      In my case, if the genomic data revealed that life on Earth was the product of multiple designers - which I don't believe for a moment - it would simply kick the origins issue down the road apiece. All it would do is raise other questions like:

      What planet did the designers come from?

      How did life originate there?

      Who designed the designers or is it designers all the way down?

      Are there possums on other planets?

      What did we do that was so bad that we deserved punishment by software engineer?

      Delete
    4. Ah,give a man a fish and you feed him for a day,teach him to fish and you feed him forever.

      On the contrary Louis,a designer is not beyond the realm of possibilties, However that doesn't prove the TOE incorrect.I will admit that much of the world could be explained by multiple designers often working at odds with one another

      In your view is it piece work? That is, one designs eyes,another ears or each one in charge of the whole thing? A designer of plate tectonics, or a designer of bunnies?

      Delete
    5. Ian,

      I believe William Craig has irrefutably proved the if a possum exists somewhere in the multiverse,it exists everywhere. Therefore since there is a possum named Spoom( a frothy sorbet for the less cultured) living in my backyard,possums exist on other planets.

      Or at least we cannot ignore the possibility without taking a metaphysical position, therefore religion drives non belief in the extraterrestrial possums,and it matters

      Delete
  16. Elizabeth,

    Rubbish. I am a materialist and I often attribute effects to intelligent causes.

    Okay. Then I wasn't referring to you, just the countless examples in which the suggestion that intelligence may have played a role in the origin or development of life is responded to as an inherently religious appeal to the supernatural?

    I commend you for being better than that. But in order to score a point you feign ignorance of the entire debate. Have you never heard of the proceedings in Dover? When someone proposes critical analysis of scientific theory in public schools, you know, teaching the process rather than a specific conclusion, guess on what grounds the Eugenie Scott objects, and count how many biology professors and famous darwinist authors come forward to argue that weighing the evidence doesn't make one a religious zealot.

    I can understand wanting to pretend all that doesn't exist. But aside from everything else, why does science need to be protected from science?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Well, you didn't say "may have played a role in the origin or development of life".

      You seemed to think that scientists don't ever consider "intelligence" a cause - but clearly we do.

      The reason I, and other scientists, don't consider "the suggestion that intelligence may have played a role in the origin or development of life" is a viable hypothesis is that there is no evidence to support the existence of an intelligent agent at that time who could have done it.

      Which is precisely why we tend to respond that the ID case is "an inherently religious appeal to the supernatural".

      The only possible intelligent agent who could have "played a role in the origin or development of life", given the lack of evidence for such an agent, is a "supernatural" one - one who leaves no trace of its existence other than its handiwork.

      So it's not that scientists have some inbuilt resistance to considering intelligent causation - we don't. It's that we require evidence of an intelligent agent if we are to infer intelligent causation.

      In the absence of such evidence, we seek non-intelligent causation. Darwin's genius was to propose just such a causal mechanism - a mechanism that can produce exactly the kind of complex, fit-for-purpose output that we would generally associate with intentional, intelligent design.

      We know it works (because we have seen it in action, in real time); and we know that the observed distribution of heritable features is consistent with a family tree (i.e. in a nested hierarchy), which is what the mechanism requires.

      Therefore we have a model that is more parsimonious and much more explanatory than an intelligent agent for which we have no evidence.

      I hope I have clarified my position.

      Delete
  17. badwiring I'm not Scott Andrews, really

    I commend you for being better than that. But in order to score a point you feign ignorance of the entire debate. Have you never heard of the proceedings in Dover? When someone proposes critical analysis of scientific theory in public schools, you know, teaching the process rather than a specific conclusion, guess on what grounds the Eugenie Scott objects, and count how many biology professors and famous darwinist authors come forward to argue that weighing the evidence doesn't make one a religious zealot.


    That wasn't what happened in the Dover trial. The Dover trial was about some dishonest Creationists changing a Creationist book into an ID one with a simple Word Replace, then lying about it to get Creationism taught in public schools. They got their hats handed to them, and rightly so.

    I can understand wanting to pretend all that doesn't exist. But aside from everything else, why does science need to be protected from science?

    It doesn't. It needs protecting from religiously motivated bottom feeders trying to sneak their anti-science Creationist crap into public schools.

    If you IDC clowns spent 1/100 as much time doing actual research to support your claims as you do bellyaching about how unfair science is, you might possibly get somewhere.

    ReplyDelete
  18. To the evolutionist boneheads on this blog (any evolutionist on this blog).

    You guys keep getting spanked on a daily basis. Currently, scientific discoveries and the results of scientific research continue to affirm vast and deep levels of design and irreducible highly integrated complexity in living organsisms and systems. It is only getting worse for you. All this hot wind coming out of your pie holes is just pathetic. The inellectualizing, rabbit trail blazing, and nasty name calling etc is just amazing to watch. What a bunch of losers. You appeal to the supposed authority coming from rapidly dying psuedoscience that has been built vastly more on unverified and unverifiable assumptions than on empirically demonstrated results. The most logical and reasonable inference from all levels of observable science is that living things were designed for the purpose of functioning in the ways that they do.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Troy July 10, 2012 3:18 PM

    PG quote
    "But hey, what if we dumb Creationists see the light and embrace the eminent evolution scientist Dr. Shapiro's theory that evolution is not driven by random mutations and natural selection, but its driven by intelligent design, the intelligence deriving from the cognitive sentient genome." -PG

    Troy quote:
    "That isn't Shapiro's theory at all. Why don't you email Shapiro and ask if he endorses your portrayal of his ideas? Here's $100 to your favorite charity if you succeed."



    PG responds:

    Shapiro on Random Mutation:
    "What I ask others interested in evolution to give up is the notion of random accidental mutation."
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-a-shapiro/jerry-coyne-fails-to-unde_b_1411144.html
    -Comment section


    Shapiro on Natural Selection:
    "My argument remains that the innovative process in evolution is rapid natural genetic engineering rather than gradual selection of small changes over long periods of time. This argument does not deny a role for selection. I simply assert that it is unrealistic to ascribe a creative (virtually deus ex machina) role to natural selection."
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-a-shapiro/theory-of-evolution_b_1294315.html


    Shapiro on Cell cognition:
    "Recent postings have provoked numerous questions about my application of the term "cognitive" to cell regulatory processes. I base this usage on the notion that cognitive actions are knowledge-based and involve decisions appropriate to acquired information. It is common today for molecular, cell and developmental biologists to speak of cells "knowing" and "choosing" what to do under various conditions. While most scientists using these terms would insist they are just handy metaphors, I argue here that we should take these instinctive words more literally. Cell cognition may well prove itself a fruitful scientific concept."
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-a-shapiro/cell-cognition_b_1354889.html

    Well I think that just about covers it completely Troy!

    So I request you send the $100 to the Association for Retarded Citizens in hopes that it will help Thorton!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Nice PG,

      You certainly are taking it up a notch,I am curious to see if your beloved lets the post survive.

      Delete
    2. So lets summarize,
      Shapiro is an eminent evolutionary scientist who has provided overwhelming empirical evidence that completely disputes that RM and NS plays any significant roles in the evolutionary process, and he provides overwhelming evidence that cognitive cells are knowledge-based and involve decisions appropriate to acquired information.

      So we can correctly conclude that anyone who rejects RM + NS and accepts that evolution is a purposeful decision making process are are doing it based on the most current discoveries in evolutionary science.....

      Wow!


      .

      Delete
    3. It's summer vacation. All the high school age Fundies are out of class for the semester and need something to do. So we get PG and bpragmatic and a few more clueless young knee-biters.

      Delete
    4. Sounds to me as though some people here haven't read any Shapiro.

      I'm a great admirer of Shapiro.

      His work does not support ID.

      Delete
    5. PG, Thanks for the succinct quotes from Shapiro. I have a friend on FB that is a big Shapiro fan and will appreciate their 'to the heart' nature very much.

      Delete
  20. For me, the BIGGER question is WHY would an evolutionist admit the evidence for Darwin's myth was lacking if there's an alleged "mountain" of it, as evolutionists are so often heard to proclaim? ;-)

    We've been asking to see any part of this alleged mountain, but it's never produced. One must first ASSUME the darwinian myth is a fact and only then are their eyes opened to the alleged "evidence"

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Could you perhaps first say what you mean by "Darwin's myth"?

      What exactly is it that you think is not true?

      Delete
    2. Could you perhaps first say what you mean by "Darwin's myth"?

      What exactly is it that you think is not true?


      I don't believe random chance (mutations aka genetic mistakes) can build complex biological traits from even a functional genome let alone non-living matter. There is no evidence this has occurred, as Margulis pointed out.

      So, why would she (an evolutionist) say the evidence was missing (something we've been saying for years)if it allegedly has evidence? And why is this evidence never apparent unless you first ASSUME darwin's "theory" as a given?

      Delete
  21. National Velour

    For me, the BIGGER question is WHY would an evolutionist admit the evidence for Darwin's myth was lacking if there's an alleged "mountain" of it, as evolutionists are so often heard to proclaim? ;-)

    We've been asking to see any part of this alleged mountain, but it's never produced.


    Shown to you for about the tenth time

    Evidence for Macroevolution

    Now go ahead and lie for the eleventh time that no one has presented you with some evidence.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thorton, please cite any one of the 29 evidences that you think makes the case for neo-Darwinism. All the 29 evidences fall apart upon scrutiny!

      For instance, part of his first 'evidence'; THE FUNDAMENTAL UNITY OF LIFE, is on DNA, yet,,

      A Critique of Douglas Theobald’s - “29 Evidences for Macroevolution” by Ashby Camp
      Excerpt: There is yet another reason that the universality of the genetic code is not strong evidence for evolution. Simply put, the theory of evolution does not predict the genetic code to be universal (it does not, for that matter, predict the genetic code at all). In fact, leading evolutionists such as Francis Crick and Leslie Orgel are surprised that there aren’t multiple codes in nature.
      - Biophysicist Cornelius G. Hunter
      http://www.trueorigin.org/theobald1b.asp

      Biophysicist Hubert Yockey determined that natural selection would have to explore 1.40 x 10^70 different genetic codes to discover the optimal universal genetic code that is found in nature. The maximum amount of time available for it to originate is 6.3 x 10^15 seconds. Natural selection would have to evaluate roughly 10^55 codes per second to find the one that is optimal. Put simply, natural selection lacks the time necessary to find the optimal universal genetic code we find in nature. (Fazale Rana, -The Cell's Design - 2008 - page 177)

      etc.. etc.. etc..

      Thorton, perhaps you can cite a evidence that does not backfire so badly against Theobald???

      Delete
  22. ba77,

    It is the weak critiques you cite that backfire. The effective universality of the code across life is indeed strong evidence for universal common descent. Completely identical codes across life is indeed not a specific prediction from common descent, but we would expect all codes to be derivable from a common ancestral code. Indeed that is the case we see.

    Yockey's "search probabilities" are yet another example of creationist misconception of probability and history. No search for a code was employed. There is a chemical affinity between codons and amino acids that provides a deterministic influence on the code to an extent. Pre-LUCA selection for effective code is also a distinct likelihood. So once again, just as in Dembski's nonsense, we have: 1) inappropriate use of pure chance as a foil; 2) inappropriate conception of evolution as a blind search with no environmental input or context; 3) the Lotto winner's fallacy of post-hoc calculation of pre-event probabilities excluding past events which have indeed already happened.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Whatever anaxyrus. You make up stories with no empirical backing as to any code, much less a 1 in 10^70 code, arising by neo-Darwinian processes, and yet we know for a fact that minds can generate a code,,, and you have the audacity to claim you are being rational?

      Delete
    2. That the consensus code is the only one that works is fallacious. And Yockey's 1 in 10^70 is based upon fallacious assumptions. There is chemical affinity between codons and amino acids; the laws of chemistry as well as selection pushed the code to adaptation. As this code is just organic chemistry in action, it need not have been intentionally designed.

      Codes indeed have been intentionally designed. In every case, intentional design has been produced by an animal with a brain. The code predates animals by 3 billion years, so we can be confident that the code was not designed.

      Although Yockey's probability calculations are meaningless, he still mainained scientific philosophy: "there is no need for an Intelligent Designer in evolution" (Information Theory, Evolution, and the Origin of Life)

      Delete
    3. anaxyrus said
      "There is chemical affinity between codons and amino acids;"

      No, there is no affinity between the codon and the specific aminoacid. Only the aminoacyl-tRNA sintases keep the relation aminoacid codons.

      "the laws of chemistry as well as selection pushed the code to adaptation. As this code is just organic chemistry in action,"

      No, it is not just organic chemistry in action. Because nucleic acids and proteins are not related by the laws of organic chemistry, nucleic acids do not require proteins and proteins do not reuire nucleic acids outside life.

      Delete
    4. Blas,

      1. Mediated affinity is still affinity. But yes, all the matchmaking is with tRNA.

      2. The cell provides a chemical environment where nucleic acids provide information used to make proteins. That this does not occur outside of life does not imply that there is more than chemistry going on. This is what life ultimately is, catalysis.

      Delete
    5. Yarus et al. 2009. RNA–Amino Acid Binding: A Stereochemical Era for the Genetic
      Code. Mol. Bio. Evo. 69:406-429.

      "Using recent sequences for 337 independent binding sites directed to 8 amino acids and containing 18,551 nucleotides in all, we show a highly robust connection between amino acids and cognate coding triplets within their RNA binding sites."

      Delete
  23. So where is the evidence for a mind-possessing agent that generated this particular code, ba77?

    Other than a made up story, that is?

    ReplyDelete
  24. "So where is the evidence for a mind-possessing agent that generated this particular code, ba77?

    Other than a made up story, that is?"

    Well, You are my evidence Elizabeth! Since you in your few sort sentences have generated far more functional information than can reasonably be expected by the entire material processes of the universe, over the entire history of the universe, then I can reasonably conclude, with no pain of irrationality, that you have a mind that is completely transcendent of the material processes of your brain. Furthermore, since you are contingent being who has not always existed, yet you have a mind which is transcendent of your brain, then I can conclude that your mind, which is completely transcendent of any material basis, must have arisen from a first 'necessary Mind', which has always existed and is transcendent of any material basis. Otherwise, on pain of irrationality, one is forced into a infinite regress of minds!

    note:

    Dr. Warner Gitt, starting at the 3:00 minute mark of the following video, touches on how this infinite regress argument from information confirms Theism:

    Dr.Werner Gitt Ph.D."In The Beginning" Part 3 of 4
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBV_DGGex-Q

    further notes:

    "A code system is always the result of a mental process (it requires an intelligent origin or inventor). It should be emphasized that matter as such is unable to generate any code. All experiences indicate that a thinking being voluntarily exercising his own free will, cognition, and creativity, is required. ,,,there is no known law of nature and no known sequence of events which can cause information to originate by itself in matter. Werner Gitt 1997 In The Beginning Was Information pp. 64-67, 79, 107."
    (The retired Dr Gitt was a director and professor at the German Federal Institute of Physics and Technology (Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt, Braunschweig), the Head of the Department of Information Technology.)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Book Review - Meyer, Stephen C. Signature in the Cell. New York: HarperCollins, 2009.
      Excerpt: As early as the 1960s, those who approached the problem of the origin of life from the standpoint of information theory and combinatorics observed that something was terribly amiss. Even if you grant the most generous assumptions: that every elementary particle in the observable universe is a chemical laboratory randomly splicing amino acids into proteins every Planck time for the entire history of the universe, there is a vanishingly small probability that even a single functionally folded protein of 150 amino acids would have been created. Now of course, elementary particles aren't chemical laboratories, nor does peptide synthesis take place where most of the baryonic mass of the universe resides: in stars or interstellar and intergalactic clouds. If you look at the chemistry, it gets even worse—almost indescribably so: the precursor molecules of many of these macromolecular structures cannot form under the same prebiotic conditions—they must be catalysed by enzymes created only by preexisting living cells, and the reactions required to assemble them into the molecules of biology will only go when mediated by other enzymes, assembled in the cell by precisely specified information in the genome.
      So, it comes down to this: Where did that information come from? The simplest known free living organism (although you may quibble about this, given that it's a parasite) has a genome of 582,970 base pairs, or about one megabit (assuming two bits of information for each nucleotide, of which there are four possibilities). Now, if you go back to the universe of elementary particle Planck time chemical labs and work the numbers, you find that in the finite time our universe has existed, you could have produced about 500 bits of structured, functional information by random search. Yet here we have a minimal information string which is (if you understand combinatorics) so indescribably improbable to have originated by chance that adjectives fail.
      http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/reading_list/indices/book_726.html

      Delete
    2. Another day, another 20,000 words of batspit77 C&Ped meaningless vomit.

      And so it goes.

      Delete
    3. They shouldn't have installed wifi in the loony bin.

      Delete
    4. ba77: Well, You are my evidence Elizabeth! Since you in your few sort sentences have generated far more functional information than can reasonably be expected by the entire material processes of the universe, over the entire history of the universe, then I can reasonably conclude, with no pain of irrationality, that you have a mind that is completely transcendent of the material processes of your brain.

      Sorry ba77, but your premise is faulty. Your conclusion is therefore invalid.


      Furthermore, since you are contingent being who has not always existed, yet you have a mind which is transcendent of your brain, then I can conclude that your mind, which is completely transcendent of any material basis, must have arisen from a first 'necessary Mind', which has always existed and is transcendent of any material basis. Otherwise, on pain of irrationality, one is forced into a infinite regress of minds!

      Well, no. Since I have not always existed, and had no mind before I had a brain, and have no reason to think I will continue to have a mind after I cease to have a brain, then it seems more reasonable to conclude that my mind is not independent of my brain, but rather, what my brain actually does.

      There is therefore no "infinite regress" at all - the material universe brings forth intelligence, not the other way around.

      Delete
    5. Well, Elizabeth, as usual, you are blatantly wrong once again. ,,, I will not trouble you with empirical evidence since you don't care what the evidence says anyway!

      Delete
    6. Oh, I do, ba77.

      It's just that I evaluate evidence carefully, whereas you seem to simply C&P anything that you think might support your position, without, apparently, even reading it, sometimes.

      Delete
    7. I definitely disagree that you carefully analyze anything in a unbiased manner. In fact you are one of the most dishonest people I have ever met as to evaluating evidence. At least with the likes of Thorton there is no doubt that he is being dogmatically biased, but with you, you couch your biased dishonesty in flowery language and manners which I find even more disgusting than Thorton's manners as hard as that is to do!!!

      Moreover, just which part of your brain is the self aware part that is doing this careful evaluation? Better yet which part of your material brain is generating more functional information than the entire material processes of the universe over the entire history of the universe, every time you write a few sentences, and why can't we ever get material particles to ever do this 'magic' of information generation, that your material brain does semi-automatically, to do it in a test tube? As usual you simply have no basis for your assertions!!

      Delete
    8. ba77 is going to the hot place, according to Matthew 7: 1-5.

      Delete
    9. What Did Jesus Really Say on Judging People? - Turek - video
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKF8fhPFrLM

      Delete
    10. God help me, I was curious, so I went to ba77's youtube link. Hilarious. The guy screaming in the video is identified as Frank Turek.

      Here are some recent comments:

      Why is this man yelling? Are the people in the audience hearing impaired? This guy is talking a lot of mumbo jumbo. I rated him a "thumbs down."
      ...
      im sure this makes all the christians feel better for being unchristian

      Delete
    11. I watched the video too. Hilarious but also depressing. Jesus wasn't a sissy, he was tough! This is how many Americans get brainwashed into becoming mean-spirited anti-intellectual assholes.

      Delete
  25. I definitely disagree that you carefully analyze anything in a unbiased manner. In fact you are one of the most dishonest people I have ever met as to evaluating evidence.

    I'd like you to either support or retract that slur, ba77.

    I am honest. Give me one piece of evidence that demonstrates otherwise.

    At least with the likes of Thorton there is no doubt that he is being dogmatically biased, but with you, you couch your biased dishonesty in flowery language and manners which I find even more disgusting than Thorton's manners as hard as that is to do!!!

    Well, if you find me disgusting, that's a shame. Fortunately, it's not my problem.

    Moreover, just which part of your brain is the self aware part that is doing this careful evaluation?

    I'd say it's a whole network of parts, but one important region implicated in self-awareness is the medial pre-frontal cortex. But I'm no "reductionist" - I'm a systems neuroscientist, and I'd say that the capacity to evaluate is the property of the system - the thing we usually refer to as the "mind". Parietal cortex is important for magnitude estimation, and the striatum for error monitoring. But they all work together in a series of never-ending re-entrant loops.

    Better yet which part of your material brain is generating more functional information than the entire material processes of the universe over the entire history of the universe, every time you write a few sentences, and why can't we ever get material particles to ever do this 'magic' of information generation, that your material brain does semi-automatically, to do it in a test tube? As usual you simply have no basis for your assertions!!

    It is you who are making baseless assertions, ba77. Where are the calculations that support yoru assertion that my brain must be "generating more functional information than the entire material processes of the universe over the entire history of the universe" for my case to be true?

    Please show your working.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sorry Elizabeth but it is not a slur so I will not retract!!,,, I've seen you go down this track many times before on UD. ansd When shown in excruciating detail, by people far more patient than I, how you are being dishonest, you simply deny that you are being dishonest!. In fact, you were banned from UD, after wearinff out the paitence of Job, partly because of your dishonesty. For a sample of the dishonesty that led to Liddle's being banned from UD:

      Elizabeth Liddle Channels Humpty Dumpty - Barry Arrington - August 2011
      http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/elizabeth-liddle-channels-humpty-dumpty/

      Mind is not brain Elizabeth!

      A neurosurgeon confronts the non-material nature of consciousness - December 2011
      Excerpted quote: To me one thing that has emerged from my experience and from very rigorous analysis of that experience over several years, talking it over with others that I respect in neuroscience, and really trying to come up with an answer, is that consciousness outside of the brain is a fact. It’s an established fact. And of course, that was a hard place for me to get, coming from being a card-toting reductive materialist over decades. It was very difficult to get to knowing that consciousness, that there’s a soul of us that is not dependent on the brain.
      http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/he-said-it-a-neurosurgeon-confronts-the-non-material-nature-of-consciousness/

      In The Wonder Of Being Human: Our Brain and Our Mind, Eccles and Robinson discussed the research of three groups of scientists (Robert Porter and Cobie Brinkman, Nils Lassen and Per Roland, and Hans Kornhuber and Luder Deeke), all of whom produced startling and undeniable evidence that a "mental intention" preceded an actual neuronal firing - thereby establishing that the mind is not the same thing as the brain, but is a separate entity altogether.
      http://books.google.com/books?id=J9pON9yB8HkC&pg=PT28&lpg=PT28

      “As I remarked earlier, this may present an “insuperable” difficulty for some scientists of materialists bent, but the fact remains, and is demonstrated by research, that non-material mind acts on material brain.” Sir John Eccles - Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1963

      Do Conscious Thoughts Cause Behavior? -Roy F. Baumeister, E. J. Masicampo, and Kathleen D. Vohs - 2010
      Excerpt: The evidence for conscious causation of behavior is profound, extensive, adaptive, multifaceted, and empirically strong.
      http://carlsonschool.umn.edu/assets/165663.pdf

      etc.. etc.. etc..

      Delete
    2. ba77: Sorry Elizabeth but it is not a slur so I will not retract!!,,, I've seen you go down this track many times before on UD. ansd When shown in excruciating detail, by people far more patient than I, how you are being dishonest, you simply deny that you are being dishonest!.

      So all you have is that other people claim to have said so.

      Right.

      And are you surprised that I deny that I am dishonest?

      Of course I do. I am not dishonest. I ask again: where is the evidence that I am dishonest?

      I may be wrong - but being wrong is not the same as being dishonest.

      Clearly, however, I don't think I am wrong. If I did, obviously I would change my mind.

      In fact, you were banned from UD, after wearinff out the paitence of Job, partly because of your dishonesty.

      Nobody told me why I was banned. It was a silent banning. I just found myself unable to post one day. Nobody at UD had the guts to say why.

      For a sample of the dishonesty that led to Liddle's being banned from UD:

      That did not lead to my being banned from UD. I posted for months after that post by Barry. The post that I assumed led to my banning (my last post) was a criticism of Barry.

      I can only conclude that Barry can't tolerate criticism. This is not a good thing.

      Mind is not brain Elizabeth!

      I understand that that is your view, ba77. However, I see no robust evidence (evidence that stands up to scrutiny) that mind is not a product of brains, and plenty that it is.

      Therefore, while I do not rule out the possibility that minds are independent of brains, my working inference from the evidence is that they are not.

      Delete
    3. And please can you answer this question, ba77:

      Where are the calculations that support yoru assertion that my brain must be "generating more functional information than the entire material processes of the universe over the entire history of the universe" for my case to be true?

      Please show your working.

      Delete
    4. Sorry Elizabeth, since I am well aware that you are intimately aware of the calculations, I will just chalk it up to you being purposely dishonest once again. You can chase your own tail in a circle, I shall not!

      Delete
    5. I am completely unaware of these calculations. Frankly I don't think they exist. I think you are bluffing.

      But you can easily prove me wrong by providing them, or a link to them.

      Unless you do, I shall chalk it up to your own dishonesty.

      Or, at best, your unwillingness to support your assertions.

      Delete
    6. Sorry Elizabeth but it is not a slur so I will not retract!!,,, I've seen you go down this track many times before on UD. ansd When shown in excruciating detail, by people far more patient than I, how you are being dishonest, you simply deny that you are being dishonest!. In fact, you were banned from UD, after wearinff out the paitence of Job, partly because of your dishonesty.

      You are being dishonest to yourself, BA. Deep down you know it. You cherry-pick rubbish from creationist websites to comfort yourself into believing that your screwed-up life is nothing compared to the wonderful eternal afterlife with Jesus. You suppress your homosexual feelings (you admitted to that on UD) because some christian turd told you those feelings are evil. Wake up dude. It's not too late to be yourself.

      Delete
    7. And thank you troy for defending Elizabeth's alleged honesty with a dishonest ad hominem.

      Delete
    8. Alleged honesty? You are so deluded you think that anyone who doesn't buy your self-serving fairy tales must be dishonest. It's all about yourself isn't it? You used to be self-centered because you needed your fix. Now it's all about your salvation. It's still about you.

      Delete
    9. To further highlight how dishonest Elizabeth is in these debates, she fakes ignorance on the calculations for information here,

      "I am completely unaware of these calculations (for information). Frankly I don't think they exist."

      Yet, Elizabeth seems to be aware enough of the calculations for information to claim a violation of Dembski's universal limit on CSI (Complex Specified Information, which is a more stringent definition of Szostak's functional information)

      The Skeptical Zone
      Excerpt: "That means, clearly, that if we randomly generate many series of 500 coin-tosses, it is exceedingly unlikely, in the history of the universe, that we will get a product that exceeds 10^60."
      http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/?p=576

      And this:

      Evolving CSI
      Excerpt: based on Dr. Liddle's interpretation of Dembski's paper, this exercise clearly demonstrates that a simple subset of known evolutionary mechanisms is more than capable of generating sequences of bits that exhibit what he (Dembski) seems to be claiming is CSI.
      http://www.softwarematters.org/coin-product.html
      http://www.softwarematters.org/coin-product.html

      So which is it Elizabeth do you know enough about the calculations on information to violate the limit Dembski had set? Or are you being blatantly dishonest once again?

      Evanescence - lies
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxHP9-fEuRk

      Delete
    10. ba77 I note that you have not attempted to address my question.

      Amongst all your links, surely you must have a link to the calculation you refer to.

      Delete
    11. OK, cross-posted:

      Of course I am aware of Dembski's CSI calculations. I also, in the thread you link to, demonstrated how a simple evolutionary algorithm could achieve it, in a few thousand generations.

      Now, will you please link to a calculation that supports your assertion that my brain must be "generating more functional information than the entire material processes of the universe over the entire history of the universe" if my case is true.

      Because the calculation you refer to above says no such thing.

      I can only conclude that either you do not understand the calculation, or that you are being dishonest.

      Either way, you should have the humility to stop casting aspersions on other people's integrity.

      Delete
    12. do you know enough about the calculations on information to violate the limit Dembski had set, Or not?

      i.e. Did you violate Dembski's limit? If not, I will then give you kairosfocus link on calculating chi!

      Delete
    13. How to calculate Chi_500, a log-reduced, simplified form of the Dembski Chi-metric for CSI
      Excerpt: 6 –> So, the idea of the Dembski metric in the end — debates about peculiarities in derivation notwithstanding — is that if the Hartley-Shannon- derived information measure for items from a hot or target zone in a field of possibilities is beyond 398 – 500 or so bits, it is so deeply isolated that a chance dominated process is maximally unlikely to find it, but of course intelligent agents routinely produce information beyond such a threshold.
      http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/how-to-calculate-chi_500-a-log-reduced-simplified-form-of-the-dembski-chi-metric-for-csi/

      And lo and behold Elizabeth was all over that thread!

      What part of this did you not understand Elizabeth?

      is beyond 398 – 500 or so bits, it is so deeply isolated that a chance dominated process is maximally unlikely to find it, but of course intelligent agents routinely produce information beyond such a threshold.

      Delete
    14. So summary, Elizabeth knows enough about calculating information to claim she has violated the universal probability threshold for information, set by Dembski, yet, with me in a different setting, she does not know enough to know that intelligent agents routinely produce information beyond such a threshold.

      How convenient! Case Closed!

      Delete
    15. ba77: What part of this did you not understand Elizabeth?

      is beyond 398 – 500 or so bits, it is so deeply isolated that a chance dominated process is maximally unlikely to find it, but of course intelligent agents routinely produce information beyond such a threshold.


      What you don't seem to understand is that this is an assertion, not a calculation.

      I demonstrated in the very thread you cited that a "chance-dominated process" was perfectly capable of generating 500 bits in a few thousand generations.

      The "chance-dominated process" in question being the Darwinian algorithm.

      So summary, Elizabeth knows enough about calculating information to claim she has violated the universal probability threshold for information, set by Dembski, yet, with me in a different setting, she does not know enough to know that intelligent agents routinely produce information beyond such a threshold.

      Sure they do. And so do non-intelligent agents, as I demonstrated on that thread.

      My position is simply that non-intelligent processes are, among other forms of information, capable of producing intelligent systems.

      Delete
    16. And I'd like to ask you, ba77, until you can come up with some actual evidence of dishonesty on my part, to desist from calling me a liar.

      As I said, I am capable of being wrong, and thus of saying things that are untrue. So are you.

      That does not make either of us liars. It simply means we are both capable of being wrong. And who amongst us is not?

      A liar is someone who states something as true that she knows to be untrue.

      I don't do that. Ergo, I am not a liar.

      Delete
    17. "I am not a liar."

      and yet

      "I am completely unaware of these calculations (for information). Frankly I don't think they exist."

      and yet

      "I demonstrated in the very thread you cited that a "chance-dominated process" was perfectly capable of generating 500 bits in a few thousand generations."

      So you are completely unaware of the calculations and don't think they exist and yet you calculated that you have broken the threshold.

      That is called being a liar where I grew up Elizabeth! Your sure to follow response denying that you have lied is called equivocating and rationalization in my neck of the woods!

      Evanescence - lies
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxHP9-fEuRk

      John 14:6
      Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.

      Delete
    18. ba77, if you think I was lying there, you must think I'm an extraordinarily bad liar!

      I asked for calculations 'that showed my brain must be "generating more functional information than the entire material processes of the universe over the entire history of the universe" for my case to be true'.

      You have provided, nor linked to, any such calculations.

      You have referred to calculations that show that information of 500 bits are vanishingly unlikely to be generated by a random process in which each possible "draw" is equiprobable and independent.

      That is not a calculation that computes the amount of functional information generated by the entire material processes of the universe over the entire history of the universe. Indeed, it is the claim of IDists that purely material processes cannot produce even 500 bits over that period!

      And clearly my brain produced more than 500 bits while writing that sentence. Well, I hope it did.

      But in any case, as the thread of mine that you linked to shows, random, non-intelligent processes can perfectly easily generate more than 500 bits, provided that those processes are not equiprobable independent draws.

      And any simple science experiment will tell you that their are countless non-intelligent processes that are not equiprobable independent draws.

      So it seems you have misunderstood the calculation you thought supported your point, and so, when I said I was unaware of any calculatoin that did so, you assumed I was lying.

      I was not.

      There is no such calculation, that I know of. The calculation I do know of, and to which it turns out you were referring, doesn't support the point you made - and is not even the calculation you described.

      So I am not a liar; the explanation for the apparent discrepancy is that you made a serious error.

      Please consider that possibility in future before you start calling other people liars.

      Delete
    19. Matthew 7:3

      And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?

      Delete
    20. Anyone still wonder why I refer to this incredibly rude addle-brained C&P queen as "batspit"?

      Delete
    21. "Your sure to follow response denying that you have lied is called equivocating and rationalization in my neck of the woods!"

      aka 'Wack a mole time' with the ever slippery Liz, of which thousands and thousands of words have been wasted! :) To which was one reason, among others, she was finally banned from UD!

      I wonder since you don't even know a straight out lie when you are doing it does that make you a pathological liar rather than just a compulsive liar?

      Delete
    22. To clarify as to how the 500 bit universal limit is found:

      Dembski's original value for the universal probability bound is 1 in 10^150,
      10^80, the number of elementary particles in the observable universe.
      10^45, the maximum rate per second at which transitions in physical states can occur
      10^25, a billion times longer than the typical estimated age of the universe in seconds.

      Thus, 10^150 = 10^80 × 10^45 × 10^25. Hence, this value corresponds to an upper limit on the number of physical events that could possibly have occurred since the big bang.

      How many bits would that be:
      Pu = 10-150

      so

      -log2 Pu = 498.29 bits

      Call it 500 bits

      Thus, Elizabeth either had no clue as to what she was actually calculating when she claimed to break Dembski's 500 bit universal threshold, or else she was unashamedly lying to me. I simply cannot accept that Elizabeth is that naive in her calculations of the 500 bit limit, especially given her extended time on UD, thus I can only hold that she is purposely being dishonest with me in denying she knew of the calculation. But if she concedes that she really had no clue as to what she was calculating when she claimed to break Dembski's 500 bit threshold, then I will gladly concede she was not purposely lying but was only ignorantly mistaken.

      Of note, far bigger fish than Elizabeth have tried to break Dembski's universal limit of 500 bits. Here was the most sophisticated try to develop a successful evolutionary algorithm!

      Climbing the Steiner Tree--Sources of Active Information in a Genetic Algorithm for Solving the Euclidean Steiner Tree Problem - 2012 - Winston Ewert, William A Dembski, Robert J Marks II
      http://bio-complexity.org/ojs/index.php/main/article/view/50

      Robert Marks has a very informative interview:

      "Darwin or Design" with Dr. Tom Woodward with guest Dr. Robert J. Marks II - video
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yoj9xo0YsOQ

      Delete
    23. ba77 "Your sure to follow response denying that you have lied is called equivocating and rationalization in my neck of the woods!"

      aka 'Wack a mole time' with the ever slippery Liz, of which thousands and thousands of words have been wasted! :) To which was one reason, among others, she was finally banned from UD!


      Could you please link, ba77, to the reasons I was banned from UD? I'd like to know what they were.

      I wonder since you don't even know a straight out lie when you are doing it does that make you a pathological liar rather than just a compulsive liar?

      Actually, it would make me not a liar, ba77. If you don't know you are lying, you aren't lying, are you?

      We can only tell the truth as we see it. If we are wrong, then we will be telling an untruth, but we won't be telling a lie. As I pointed out.

      So please stop with the unsupported attacks on my integrity, ba77. Although frankly, I think it says more about your integrity than it does about mine. Think about it.

      Delete
    24. Ba77:
      If you would actually read the rebuttals to the arguments you copy and paste (or even the arguments themselves) you might discover that what you think are “lies” are in fact valid counter arguments.
      But let me take your post above in detail.
      To clarify as to how the 500 bit universal limit is found:

      Dembski's original value for the universal probability bound is 1 in 10^150,
      10^80, the number of elementary particles in the observable universe.
      10^45, the maximum rate per second at which transitions in physical states can occur
      10^25, a billion times longer than the typical estimated age of the universe in seconds.

      Thus, 10^150 = 10^80 × 10^45 × 10^25.
      Hence, this value corresponds to an upper limit on the number of physical events that could possibly have occurred since the big bang.

      Probably. I accept the number for the purposes of argument, anyway.

      How many bits would that be:
      Pu = 10-150

      so

      -log2 Pu = 498.29 bits

      Call it 500 bits

      Well, I’m not quite following the Pu part, but sure, -log2 of 1/10^150 = 498.29 bits.
      But voodoo math is voodoo math. The issue is not what the answer to the calculation is, but what it represents. Do you know?
      Thus, Elizabeth either had no clue as to what she was actually calculating when she claimed to break Dembski's 500 bit universal threshold, or else she was unashamedly lying to me.
      You have a great big excluded middle there, ba77. You forgot about the possibility that you yourself have no clue what you are calculating, and that it isn’t what you thought it was, and that in fact Elizabeth is correct.

      Delete
    25. continued...
      I simply cannot accept that Elizabeth is that naive in her calculations of the 500 bit limit, especially given her extended time on UD,

      And indeed I am not. In fact, I didn’t even calculate the “500 bit limit”. I am perfectly happy to accept that –log2 of the reciprocal of the highest possible number of events in the history of the universe is equal to around 500. The issue is what this means.

      thus I can only hold that she is purposely being dishonest with me in denying she knew of the calculation.

      In that case you are making a fallacious inference, because there is a possibility you have not considered, which is that you yourself are mistaken. The fact that you cannot seem to tell me what the answer “500 bits” actually means, is suggestive here.

      But if she concedes that she really had no clue as to what she was calculating when she claimed to break Dembski's 500 bit threshold, then I will gladly concede she was not purposely lying but was only ignorantly mistaken.

      First of all, the calculation of the bit-threshold is trivial, given the Seth Lloyd estimate. What is more complicated is calculating the bit-value of a given string. However, using Dembski’s own definition of CSI, I calculated that the string that resulted from my Darwinian algorithm exceeded 500 bits of CSI. You are welcome to come and comment on the thread, or to comment on it here if you have any problems with my calculation.
      However, you do not need to see my calculation to understand Dembski’s mistake. His “universal probability threshold” is merely the probability that a string of 500 bits will be generated by a random process in which each string generated is both equiprobable and independent. Nobody disputes that such processes have an vanishingly small chance of producing 500 bits of CSI. What we dispute is that all material processes consist of independent draws from equiprobable distributions. It is patently false. If it were true, the universe would consist of grey goo.

      Of note, far bigger fish than Elizabeth have tried to break Dembski's universal limit of 500 bits. Here was the most sophisticated try to develop a successful evolutionary algorithm!

      Climbing the Steiner Tree--Sources of Active Information in a Genetic Algorithm for Solving the Euclidean Steiner Tree Problem - 2012 - Winston Ewert, William A Dembski, Robert J Marks II
      http://bio-complexity.org/ojs/index.php/main/article/view/50

      Robert Marks has a very informative interview:

      "Darwin or Design" with Dr. Tom Woodward with guest Dr. Robert J. Marks II - video
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yoj9xo0YsOQ


      It is trivially easy to produce a GA that generates CSI. Marks and Dembski agree, but argue that information has been “smuggled in” via the fitness function. Of course information is contained in the fitness function, but the fitness function is merely a proxy for the natural environment. Of course, you could argue that only a Designer could create a universe that did not consist of grey goo. But in that case, why single out poor old Darwin? Given the non-living, non-uniform information-rich universe that we observe, information can be generated by, among other things, fitness functions. And demonstrably is. I’d actually argue that it’s how human intelligence works.

      Delete
    26. So are you saying you actually knew of the calculation but decided not to mention that you knew of it because it was voodoo math? But that would still make you a liar wouldn't it Elizabeth since you claimed you did not know of any calculation and did not even think one existed!

      "But voodoo math is voodoo math."

      That's a laugh considering that Darwinists have no mathematical basis. In fact I can see why you, as a dogmatic Darwinist, would want to deny any probability measure as 'voodoo math' for probability measures surely reveal Darwinism as bankrupt.:

      Nobel Prize-Winning Physicist Wolfgang Pauli on the Empirical Problems with Neo-Darwinism - Casey Luskin - February 27, 2012
      Excerpt: "In discussions with biologists I met large difficulties when they apply the concept of 'natural selection' in a rather wide field, without being able to estimate the probability of the occurrence in a empirically given time of just those events, which have been important for the biological evolution. Treating the empirical time scale of the evolution theoretically as infinity they have then an easy game, apparently to avoid the concept of purposesiveness. While they pretend to stay in this way completely 'scientific' and 'rational,' they become actually very irrational, particularly because they use the word 'chance', not any longer combined with estimations of a mathematically defined probability, in its application to very rare single events more or less synonymous with the old word 'miracle.'" Wolfgang Pauli (pp. 27-28) -
      http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/02/nobel_prize-win056771.html

      The Universal Plausibility Metric (UPM) & Principle (UPP) - Abel - Dec. 2009
      Excerpt: Mere possibility is not an adequate basis for asserting scientific plausibility. A precisely defined universal bound is needed beyond which the assertion of plausibility, particularly in life-origin models, can be considered operationally falsified. But can something so seemingly relative and subjective as plausibility ever be quantified? Amazingly, the answer is, "Yes.",,,

      cΩu = Universe = 10^13 reactions/sec X 10^17 secs X 10^78 atoms = 10^108

      cΩg = Galaxy = 10^13 X 10^17 X 10^66 atoms = 10^96

      cΩs = Solar System = 10^13 X 10^17 X 10^55 atoms = 10^85

      cΩe = Earth = 10^13 X 10^17 X 10^40 atoms = 10^70

      http://www.tbiomed.com/content/6/1/27

      Programming of Life - Probability - Defining Probable, Possible, Feasible etc.. - video
      http://www.youtube.com/user/Programmingoflife#p/c/AFDF33F11E2FB840/8/kckv0wVBYpA

      Delete
    27. cΩe = Earth = 10^13 X 10^17 X 10^40 atoms = 10^70

      but 10^70 Would make even a single novel protein out of limits for Darwinian processes according to Axe!

      Yeah you better call that voodoo math , can't have Darwinists held to any rigid account can we Liezabeth?

      Delete
    28. ba77 So are you saying you actually knew of the calculation but decided not to mention that you knew of it because it was voodoo math? But that would still make you a liar wouldn't it Elizabeth since you claimed you did not know of any calculation and did not even think one existed!

      No, I am not, ba77. Please read my posts.

      I'm saying that calculating the "UPB" is trivial, assuming the Seth-Lloyd number, but is not the relevant calculation here.

      All the UPB gives you is the probability of a 500 bit string emerging from 10^150 random draws from a uniform pdf in the time the universe has had so far.

      I wanted your calculation for the amount of "functional information [generated by] the entire material processes of the universe over the entire history of the universe", including all the information generated by random non-independent draws from non-equiprobable pdfs.

      As well, of course, as your calculation for the amount of functional information you estimated my brain must have produced, if my brain was producing it.

      As for your citation of Pauli (why can't IDists every give primary sources? It's weird): that quotation was from a letter written in 1955, other words, only a couple of years after the discovery of the structure of DNA and several years before the discovery of the codon in 1961.

      And indeed, given knowledge at the time, he was quite right: "chance" is not an explanation (pace Monod) - it is something that needs to be estimated.

      Which is precisely what geneticists have been doing ever since - computing frequencies and mechanisms of molecular changes.

      When Pauli wrote that, we had no idea of mutation rates (or even mutation mechanisms) and quantitative genetics was in its infancy.

      Delete
    29. ba 77 but 10^70 Would make even a single novel protein out of limits for Darwinian processes according to Axe!

      And Axe is wrong. Perhaps you should read my thread on TSZ.

      Yeah you better call that voodoo math , can't have Darwinists held to any rigid account can we Liezabeth?

      You are being an asshole, ba77. I have not lied, and you have provided no evidence that I have. In fact you haven't even demonstrated that anything I have said is untrue, let alone that I have stated any untruth deliberately (which is what a lie is).

      By "voodoo math" I mean fancy calculations that output a number that is then misinterpreted. 500 bits may be the correct answer to the calculation performed. That does not mean that it is the quantity of "functional information [generated by] the entire material processes of the universe over the entire history of the universe". Any more than the fact that 2+2=4 tells you the price of tea in China.

      The math tells you the probability of a 500 bit string being generated by random independent draws from a flat pdf.

      Nobody claims that it can be. What we claim is that far more than 500 bits can be generated by random non-independent draws from non-flat pdfs.

      With which the universe is stuffed.

      Delete
    30. ba77: until you either support, with direct evidence, or retract, your allegation that I have lied, I will not respond further to your posts.

      There is simply no point.

      Delete
    31. But Liez, you claimed you did not know of any calculation and did not think one existed. And then you say you knew of the CSI limit that Dembski had in place. I call em as I see em Liez.

      "When Pauli wrote that, we had no idea of mutation rates (or even mutation mechanisms) and quantitative genetics was in its infancy."

      Okie Dokie, what have we learned since Pauli?

      More from Ann Gauger on why humans didn’t happen the way Darwin said - July 9, 2012
      Excerpt: Each of these new features probably required multiple mutations. Getting a feature that requires six neutral mutations is the limit of what bacteria can produce. For primates (e.g., monkeys, apes and humans) the limit is much more severe. Because of much smaller effective population sizes (an estimated ten thousand for humans instead of a billion for bacteria) and longer generation times (fifteen to twenty years per generation for humans vs. a thousand generations per year for bacteria), it would take a very long time for even a single beneficial mutation to appear and become fixed in a human population.
      You don’t have to take my word for it. In 2007, Durrett and Schmidt estimated in the journal Genetics that for a single mutation to occur in a nucleotide-binding site and be fixed in a primate lineage would require a waiting time of six million years. The same authors later estimated it would take 216 million years for the binding site to acquire two mutations, if the first mutation was neutral in its effect.
      Facing Facts
      But six million years is the entire time allotted for the transition from our last common ancestor with chimps to us according to the standard evolutionary timescale. Two hundred and sixteen million years takes us back to the Triassic, when the very first mammals appeared. One or two mutations simply aren’t sufficient to produce the necessary changes— sixteen anatomical features—in the time available. At most, a new binding site might affect the regulation of one or two genes.
      http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/more-from-ann-gauger-on-why-humans-didnt-happen-the-way-darwin-said/



      Population genetics is addressed in further detail here:

      Science & Human Origins: Interview with Dr. Ann Gauger - podcast

      Delete
    32. See also:

      Genetic Entropy – Dr. John Sanford – Evolution vs. Reality – video (Notes in description)
      http://vimeo.com/35088933

      It is also extremely interesting to note, the principle of Genetic Entropy, a principle which stands in direct opposition of the primary claim of neo-Darwinian evolution, lends itself quite well to mathematical analysis by computer simulation:

      Using Computer Simulation to Understand Mutation Accumulation Dynamics and Genetic Load:
      Excerpt: We apply a biologically realistic forward-time population genetics program to study human mutation accumulation under a wide-range of circumstances.,, Our numerical simulations consistently show that deleterious mutations accumulate linearly across a large portion of the relevant parameter space.
      http://bioinformatics.cau.edu......aproof.pdf
      MENDEL’S ACCOUNTANT: J. SANFORD†, J. BAUMGARDNER‡, W. BREWER§, P. GIBSON¶, AND W. REMINE
      http://mendelsaccount.sourceforge.net

      Whereas, neo-Darwinian evolution has no rigorous mathematical foundation with which we can rigorously analyze it in any computer simulation; in any supposed ‘Evolutionary Algorithm’ (much less in real time in life):

      Refutation of Evolutionary Algorithms
      https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1h33EC4yg29Ve59XYJN_nJoipZLKIgupT6lBtsaVQsUs

      Accounting for Variations – Dr. David Berlinski: – video
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aW2GkDkimkE

      Delete
    33. "until you either support, with direct evidence"

      "I am not a liar."

      and yet

      "I am completely unaware of these calculations (for information). Frankly I don't think they exist."

      and yet

      "I demonstrated in the very thread you cited that a "chance-dominated process" was perfectly capable of generating 500 bits in a few thousand generations."

      i.e. you further equivocation and rationalization does not sell with me Liez! I've known your deceptive ways far too long!

      Delete
    34. ba77: But Liez, you claimed you did not know of any calculation and did not think one existed. And then you say you knew of the CSI limit that Dembski had in place. I call em as I see em Liez.

      Sorry, ba77, but that is neither support nor a retraction of your allegation. I have told you clearly what calculation I was asking for. The calculation of the CSI limit is not that calculation, as I have clearly explained.

      Therefore, I was not lying when I said I knew of no such calculation - and you have still not provided one.

      Please re-read my post, and either provide the calculation I asked for, or concede that you, like I, know of none. In either case, please retract your accusation that I have lied.

      Delete
    35. OK, as you seem to be struggling with this:

      The calculation that gives you the maximum number of bits of CSI likely to be generated by a series of independent draws from a flat pdf in 10^150 trials (which is what the calculation you refer to is, and which I readily concede I know about, rather intimately)

      IS NOT THE SAME AS

      a calculation that gives you the the number of bits of CSI generated by material processes over the entire history of the universe, where those processes include series of NON-independent draws from NON-flat pdfs.

      I knew of the first. I do not know of the second.

      The second calculation is what I asked for.

      Ergo, I did not lie. Ergo, you must retract your allegation that I did.

      Delete
    36. And if you still don't understand the difference between those two calculations, at least have the humility to consider the possibility that the problem my lie in your own understanding, not my integrity.

      Delete
    37. Liez your own words condemn you! 500 bit CSI IS a UPB calculation for functional information period! i.e. the calculation is exactly for the entire material processes of the universe over the entire history of the universe! De Nile is a river in Egypt Liez not a practise in science in which you get to twist facts! You further deceptively claim Axe was wrong. Seeing as you are so confident in your claim you should have no problem listing the specific studies where ORFan genes and novel protein sequences were generated by purely neo-Darwinian processes:

      A survey of orphan enzyme activities
      Abstract: We demonstrate that for ~80% of sampled orphans, the absence of sequence data is bona fide. Our analyses further substantiate the notion that many of these (orfan) enzyme activities play biologically important roles.
      http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2105/8/244

      Widespread ORFan Genes Challenge Common Descent – Paul Nelson – video with references
      http://www.vimeo.com/17135166

      From Jerry Coyne, More Table-Pounding, Hand-Waving - May 2012
      Excerpt: "More than 6 percent of genes found in humans simply aren't found in any form in chimpanzees. There are over fourteen hundred novel genes expressed in humans but not in chimps."
      Jerry Coyne - ardent and 'angry' neo-Darwinist - professor at the University of Chicago in the department of ecology and evolution for twenty years. He specializes in evolutionary genetics.
      http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/05/from_jerry_coyn060271.html

      These New Protein Findings Are a Problem Even According to the Evolutionist’s Own Numbers - Cornelius Hunter - March 2012
      Excerpt: And the numbers are even smaller for de novo genes found in humans. The time allowed goes down to about 5 million years and the effective population size goes down by at least two orders of magnitude, to about 10^5. So in this case the upper and lower limits become 10^14 and 10^10, respectively. And while these estimates are optimistic, they fall short by more than 50 orders of magnitude. The numbers don’t add up. The evolution of de novo genes can only count on from 10^10 to 10^18 attempts (and that’s optimistic). But the number of attempts that are required is estimated to be 10^63 and 10^77. This isn’t even close. These numbers show astronomical problems, yet evolutionists are certain their idea is a fact.
      http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2012/03/these-new-protein-findings-are-problem.html

      Delete
  26. Of 'serendipitous' note to the 1 in 10^70 optimal code of DNA. As God would have it, this little problem for Darwinists of accounting for the optimal code just came up 'coincidentally' on ENV:

    With New Research, the Genetic Code Looks More and More Like a Deliberate Choice - July 11, 2012
    Excerpt: Even though the natural genetic code is "conserved through all of life," experiments such as these show that other codes are possible. If natural DNA were the only solution to the problems posed by biological information storage and retrieval, it might be argued that nature had to converge on it. But the researchers concluded that natural DNA does not represent a one-and-only solution. Though they don't say this, it surely gives more the appearance of a deliberate choice.
    http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/07/with_new_resear061911.html

    ReplyDelete
  27. Simple test:

    Every assertion by evolutionists can be linked in some way to one or more of the ten theological arguments that Darwin gave in Origin of Species.


    http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=8269309&fulltextType=RA&fileId=S000708741100032X


    "1. Human begins are not justfied in believing that God creates in ways analogous to the intellectual powers of the human mind.

    2. A God who is free to create as He wishes would create new biological limbs de novo rather than from a common pattern.

    3. A respectable deity would create biological structures in accord with a human conception of the 'simplest mode' to accomplish the functions of these structures.

    4. God would only create the minimum structure required for a given part's function.

    5. God does not provide false empirical information about the origins of organisms.

    6. God impressed the laws of nature on matter.

    7. God directly created the first 'primordial' life.

    8. God did not perform miracles within organic history subsequent to the creation of the first life.

    9. A 'distant' God is not morally culpable for natural pain and suffering.

    10. The God of special creation, who allegedly performed miracles in organic history, is not plausible given the presence of natural pain and suffering."

    Any evolutionists want to take the test?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Just to be fair,Neal,as an ID proponent would you take the same test? That way we can judge more accurately the basis of both " theories".
      Thanks

      Delete
    2. Every assertion by evolutionists can be linked in some way to one or more of the ten theological arguments that Darwin gave in Origin of Species

      I'll raise you one there: any assertion by anyone can be linked in some way to an argument put forth in any book that has ever been written.

      Take the test.

      Delete
    3. I don't get the test - what are we supposed to do?

      Delete
    4. Elizabeth, any assertion about evolution will do. For example, "Evolution is considered a fact because (fill in the blank). Or, "(Fill in the blank) is strong evidence for evolution".

      Delete
    5. OK, I've done that - I've submitted three. See below.

      Cheers

      Lizzie

      Delete
  28. I'm game to play.

    Let's use Dr Hunter's recent quote mine:

    “Evolution is change in gene frequency.”

    Is there a prize?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Space flight is putting on a NASA suit.

      Delete
    2. Creation Science is a fat ignorant pastor bloviating between bites of his jelly donut.

      Delete
  29. If the goal is to find an evolutionary claim that isn't obviously linked to any of those theological ideas, I'll have a go too:

    1. When self-replicators replicate with heritable variance in reproductive success in the current environment, the most reproductively successfully variants will come to dominate the population.

    2. The morphological and genetic features of organisms are distributed as a nested hierarchy, strongly suggesting universal common descent.

    3. Populations of organisms sometimes split into two sub-populations in which within-sub-population breeding is more common than between-sub-population breeding; when this happens, the two populations will start to evolve independently (independent changes in allele frequency) until eventually they will no longer interbreed even when placed in the same environment.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Elizabeth, what would you say is the functional difference between a wolf and say, a daschund given that we know there is a reversible and irreversible state of "Evolution"?
      (I'd like to hear your thoughts on this, thanks!)

      Delete
    2. OK, sure , except I'm not sure I understand your question.

      What do you mean by "functional difference"? Clearly there are many differences (both genetically and phenotypically) between a wolf and a dachshund, although I suspect that a dachshund would probably be able to successfully impregnate a wolf given a following wind. But I'm no expert on canids.

      And functionally, wolves can do things that dachshunds can't, and vice versa (dachshunds can get down badger setts; wolves can run a lot further than your average dachshund).

      So I don't actually think they are irreversibly speciated yet (though well on the way), and I have pointed out functional differences.

      However, I suspect this answer isn't what you are looking for - can you clarify?

      Delete
  30. Calling all "evolutionists".
    You can and do try to "blow the facts off" with name calling, rabbit trail diversionary tactics, uncalled for "intellectual" rumination, setc. etc. etc. But no amount of verbosity is sufficient or even necessary in this dialogue.
    Your puny life experience related perspectives are fully unmeaningfull when arguing the realities associated with these topics. Stop calling your preferred philosophies, SCIENCE.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Your Mom's gonna be pretty ticked when she finds out you've turned off the 'Child Lock' feature and are using her computer again.

      Delete
    2. bpragmatic: have you noticed that there has been at least as much "name calling" directed at "evolutionists" on this thread as the other way around?

      And ba77 almost certainly wins the verbosity stakes as well.

      Delete
  31. bpragmatic

    Calling all "evolutionists".
    You can and do try to "blow the facts off" with name calling, rabbit trail diversionary tactics, uncalled for "intellectual" rumination, setc. etc. etc.

    PG responds:

    Actually bpragmatic,
    Not all evolutionists and atheists who frequent this blog engage in anti-social behaviors. If fact you don’t have to look very far to see the major culprit. It is obvious that the majority of the evo-trolling is being done by our very own angry atheist who I will anonymously call “T”. But you can’t really blame him for spewing his venom in an effort to disrupt civil discourse because you see “T” knows that as soon as he leaves the comfort of his home, he is re-entering a society that because of his atheism, looks upon him with disdain. He knows very well that society view his beliefs as closely associated with the 3 most famous atheists that immediately come up to mind Stalin, C. Mao, and Jeffrey Dahmer. Of course we all know that atheists have made major contributions to society however it’s the rude obnoxious rabid atheists like ”T“ who cause us to immediately negate any willingness to acknowledge their accomplishments. Can “Darwin’s God” bloggers be blamed for rationalizing that all atheists must be like “T”, after all “T” knows that his actions only serve to confirm society’s a priori beliefs about atheism. This is why when society are scientifically polled and asked their opinions about atheism they respond that they trust atheists less than Muslims even after America was still reeling after 911, and in another recent scientific poll indicated that atheists are trusted less than rapists. “T” knows all of this and he has concluded that no matter what contributions he makes to society, this is ultimately how he is viewed. That can create a tremendous amount of shame for “T” and fuels his justification to lash out at society and especially the religious. Unfortunately his type of trauma is the major reason why atheists have the highest rate of suicide and sadly, there are not too many fellow atheists that "T" can turn to. In fact, nationally, the atheist movement using all the resources at their disposal to form the first all world Atheist rally, attracted an attendance less than an average big Sunday church picnic. So thank God that “T” is here safe with us venting his anger and shame on this blog under the auspices of protecting Darwin and science from those Creationists, rather than dealing with his pain alone in more nonconstructive ways. So have pity on “T”. Just remember when he is lashing out in his posts, the more angry and hateful his posts, the more shame and hurt he is dealing with. In fact when you see that “T” submits an angry post that must be reflecting his harboring shame, just disregard his post and only respond “I pity You”. Im sure he would really appreciate it.

    And well, from the look of all his posts today, He needs a lot of pity!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. HAHAHAHAHA!

      Boy, somebody sure needs a diaper change and a nap! :D

      Let me know when you finally come up with the IDC explanation for the patterns of spatial and temporal distribution in the fossil record, K?

      BTW, I'm not an atheist.

      Delete
    2. "He needs a lot of pity!"

      angry "T" has pity

      Mr. T - I pity the fool
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJnKm6ftPu0

      Delete
  32. Neal Tedford in the AM:

    Simple test:

    Every assertion by evolutionists can be linked in some way to one or more of the ten theological arguments that Darwin gave in Origin of Species.


    Neal Tedford in the PM:

    Space flight is putting on a NASA suit.

    Does that mean that I won the contest?

    ReplyDelete
  33. Probably worth pointing out that a definition is neither a claim nor an assertion of fact.

    It is merely a clarification of terms.

    ReplyDelete