Ok, this is not all in complete seriousness, but there is another side to the usage of the term "Theory".
People are stating that the word Theory is used to only describe something that has been well proven over a long period of time. As in "Evolutionary Theory". If that were the case, we would never see the term "new Theory" used, especially from universities.
But google tells us that people use this phrase all the time. Even in universities. Here's one near the top of Google's results: "Princeton paleontologist produces evidence for new theory on dinosaur extinction." If its new, how can it be a theory?
The belief involved is right
under your nose. The very assumption that
life was "designed" is a belief. I'm not talking about belief that the
creator is God, I'm talking about belief that there was a creator at
all.
If I look at a mouse trap, I can come to the conclusion that it was
designed and not the result of random processes. The question
is: is the process of determining whether or not something is
"designed" a scientific process or not. Many great scientists
believed in God. Their belief, however, did not prevent them
from being great scientists.
Yes, it is *possible* that
there was a creator. However, there are also
a lot of other possible explanations. To pick out the "designer"
explanation without any evidence and without any way to test it,
requires belief.
Is it possible to proceed scientifically on the question of whether a
thing is designed without addressing the question of the Designer?
This happens in law cases all the time where the court choses
to address one issue but not another. It should be possible
for scientists to do the same thing.
Say, for example, you just look
at two possibilities for why life
exists. On the one hand, you have the possiblity that it was created by
an intelligent designer. On the other hand, you have the possibility
that there are an infinite number of universes representing every
possible configuration of matter (therefore, our configuration has to
exist). Now, I'm pretty sure that there is no test you can do to
determine which of these explanations is more accurate. Without such a
discriminator, you can't include either one in your model of the
universe unless you take it on faith. That is what makes ID
unscientific. Scientific theories have to be testable, or you can't
distinguish the more accurate ones from the less accurate ones.
I'm glad you brought up that scenario. Maybe you can explain
to me why in the discipline of astronomy, someone can hypothesize
infinite universes and no one bats an eyelid. How is infinite
universes a testable hypothesis? How is infinite universes
scientific? But when someone mentions that something looks
more like it was designed than it looks like the result of random
processes, suddenly we've entered into the realm of the unscientific.
Is there a test you can do to
see if life was designed? The ID folks
don't seem to be able to come up with one, or if they have they're
apparently keeping it a secret.
I don't know. Is there? Maybe we should dedicate
some research to this question. Oh, I forgot, we are not
allowed to even ask the question of whether something might be
designed. Unscientific, you know.
they
take a bacterium that
cannot digest a certain sugar or protein,
expose it to the chemical they're testing, and then try and grow it on
the metabolite it couldn't digest. They measure the number that CAN
grow -- the number that were damaged by the chemical and in repairing
that damage managed to gain the ability to live on something they
couldn't previously -- and that's a direct indication of how strongly
mutagenic the chemical is. If evolution didn't exist, the test wouldn't
work, and as I said, it's used hundreds (if you count chemicals) or
millions (if you count bacteria) of times every day all across the
world. The test works.
I would agree that the test you describe really does indicate the
ability of a chemical to mutate cells.
However, this is an instance of micro-evolution: changes within a
species. When most people talk about "evolution" I think they mean the
"Origin of Species." And as you mentioned, speciation is a tricky line
to draw.
One thing to keep in mind is that there may be various reasons why a
particular bacteria cannot digest a certain sugar or protein. There may
be repressor genes in the bacteria preventing it from metabolizing
those particular substances. If one of the repressors is disabled via
mutation, then the bacteria may be able to start metabolizing the
substance.
But this type of mutation (disabling a repressor) is not exactly the
type of mutation could explain evolution. In other words, the bacteria
already had a basic capability, but that capability was repressed.
It did not evolve a new capability that had never been seen before in
its ancestry.
To answer the larger question of evolution, you must be able to explain
where that basic capability came from to begin with. I don't think the
type of test you describe necessarily reveals this type of mechanics
which must
be at work over the long course of evolution. But it
may.
Best of luck! That's a huge project. I had a project like that of my own for a while.
Then I decided to re-use the Catholic code base. The amazing thing is that the original developers didn't even know how to program. They didn't know a thing about software engineering. In fact, it was the last thing on their minds. But somehow the 12 of them (oops, make that 11), with the help of their Lead Architect, created a system that has actually lasted all of these centuries. Nothing short of miraculous!:)
And
you know what? My Great Dane does not mate with my Chiuaua. So I
guess those are two different species as well.
No,
they are not. They are able to interbreed, maybe some things don't
'fit', but you can fertilize an egg of one of them with the sperm of
the other and if you'd let it come to term it will result in a fertile
dog.
But most evolutionists define speciation it terms of whether two group
are observed to interbreed. Not if they can interbreed.
This is one thing that make speciation observations somewhat
controversial.
Why are so many creationists such shameless liars?
1. I'm not a creationist.
2. Quote #79 is about Robert A. Millikan. I've never heard of him. I
was quoting someone named Charles Darwin. Maybe you've heard of him.
Why are so many Slashdotters such incredible ignoramuses?
Then
why is science atheistic materialism because none of its rules involve
God?
Science is not atheistic materialism. But atheistic materialism leads
to bad science. Haven't you heard of the recent case of the Korean
scientist who admitted to fraud in his research? Bad science does
happen.
Of course, science has built-in correction mechanisms, which is one of
its primary strengths. But sometimes these mechanisms don't work. Take
the example of Richard Sternberg. He is an evolutionist
who holds two Ph.D.'s. He was also managing editor of Proceedings
of
the Biological Society of Washington,
a peer-reviewed journal from the
Smithsonian Institute.
Richard appears to have been an even-headed editor who was open to
having an occasional provocative article in his journal. Unfortunately
for Richard, he seems to have been unaware of the extremely violent
reaction that can occur when ideas challenging the conventional dogma
of evolution are put forth,
no matter how good the reasons.
A paper was submitted to him by Stephen Meyer in favor of intelligent
design. Following standard procedures, he submitted the paper to the
peer reviewers of his journal. All the peer reviewers found it
acceptable, and being an open minded guy, he decided to go ahead and
publish the ID paper in his journal. (An occasional provocation is good
for science, right?)
The response was immediate and horrific. It included many articles
written by scientists around the world blasting Sternberg for his lack
of judgment. And note that it was Sternberg who was blasted, not
Meyers who wrote the offending paper. Not the peer reviewers who
reviewed the paper. Sternberg. And nary a peep about the merits of the
paper itself.
Dr. Sternberg no longer has his job, and his career (two Ph.D.'s!) is
in the gutter.
This is not how science is supposed to work. These
"chilling effects" on the free and scientific flow of ideas makes it
very difficult for any ideas in opposition to Neo-Darwinism to be
examined in a truly scientific manner.
As far as I can tell, evolutionary science is broken.
Consider this quote from a recent editorial at USAToday:
Evolutionists used to
style themselves the champions of
free speech and academic freedom against unthinking dogmatism. But
increasingly, they have become the new dogmatists, demanding
judicially-imposed censorship of dissent.
Now, Darwinists are trying to
silence debate through persecution.
At Ohio State University, a graduate student's dissertation is in limbo
because he was openly critical of Darwin's theory. At George Mason
University, a biology professor lost her job after she mentioned
intelligent design in class. At the Smithsonian, an evolutionary
biologist was harassed and vilified for permitting an article favoring
intelligent design to be published in a peer-reviewed biology journal.
Those who think they can stop
the growing interest in intelligent
design through court orders or intimidation are deluding themselves.
Americans don't like being told there are some ideas they aren't
permitted to investigate. Try to ban an idea, and you will generate
even more interest in it.
you're going to get an F if you
can't apply the decidedly materialistic rules of science to produce
verifiable results.
There is nothing wrong with the materialistic rules of science. Science
makes statements about observable (material) phenomenon. Science must,
however, remain silent in areas where is
has no expertise. This includes discussion of anything outside of the
material world. For example, God.
The problem arises when atheistic scientists try to
make science atheistic. Atheism is different from
Agnosticism. The latter makes no definitive statements about
God. Science could therefore be said to be agnostic. The former,
however, makes the definite assertion that God doesn't
exist. And this statement is certainly outside of the realm
of science. This personal bias ca
BTW,
did you know that the gene that controls eye development in both
vertebrates and insects is 94% identical. That's not just two different
species. That's two different phyla. 94% the same. So, the design
constraint is that you must use more or less the same gene controller
for the development of the insect eye and the vertebrate eye. How's
that for a design challenge?
Every design has constraints, but none of them require the optic nerve
to go where it does. Squid eyes, for example, have no blind spot, can
see in very dim light, are more sensitive to color differences than
ours and move the lens rather than bending it (preventing focusing
problems, like the ones that lead to reading glasses) - and have no
known major downside.
Well, a
squid is neither a vertebrate nor an insect. And humans do not descend
from the family of squids, now do they. Next time, listen more closely
to the assignment.
Evolution is a fact. Neo-Darwinism is not.
You seem like a smart guy. Open your mind. It's good for you.
Go
to the toy store.
Buy a bag of marbles--at least a double
handful.
Go to the shoe store. Get a shoebox.
Toss the marbles into the shoebox. Be certain to do this randomly!
Observe as the marbles spontaneously arrange themselves into the exact
same arrangement as a beehive, and, hey-presto! What have we got? Why,
order from chaos, of course!
This whole ``order can never
arise from randomness'' thing is pure bullshit. How do you think
entropy works? If an ordered state is more stable than a disordered
one, then the ordered state will persist where the disordered one
won't. It's why astronomical bodies are (generally) spherical, it's why
crystals are so pretty, and it's why you're here. So get over it,
already: your god is completely superfluous, thankyouverymuch.
Here's another experiment for you. Go to the toy store. Buy a bag of
white marbles and a bag of black marbles. Now, put the white marbles in
your shoe box, on the left, and then put the black marbles in the shoe
box on the right. Now put the cover on and shake well. Open box. Are
the white marbles on the left and the black ones on the
right? No? Repeat. Continue this until the marbles are
segregated again. Make out your will because you will
probably die before you produce this outcome.
Now, what is the difference between your experiment and mine? Well,
your's depends on energy state and mine doesn't. But guess what? The
information encoded in DNA does not depend on energy state. Oh yes, the DNA
molecule itself depends on energy state. But not the information encoded in it.
DNA is a neutral medium. It can encode anything. It can encode the
Encyclopedia Britannica. The point to remember is that the information encoded in DNA does not depend
on energy state.
So, in fact, my experiment more closely models the information
structure of DNA. Your experiment is meaningless and irrelevant when
discussing
biological information.
Besides, your
meiosis/mitosis example is flawed in the "observation"
stage. Lots of organisms have multiple phases in their life cycle, and
it isn't unreasonable to think that sexual reproduction may have
stemmed from a longer life cycle phase where a meiosis-produced cell
had a significantly longer lifespan than the average egg or sperm,
where the combination of two cells with half the chromosomes formed one
cell. Sexual reproduction is so widely seen, among both plants and
animals, that it most likely arose very early in evolutionary history,
probably with few- or single-celled organisms.
I'm glad that you used the term "most likely". Unfortunately, "most
likely" doesn't count as E-V-I-D-E-N-C-E. And besides, I wasn't really
talking about meiosis, I was talking about the independent
evolution of two complementary (male and female) reproductive systems.
Repeatedly. Which experiment was it that showed that these evolved
according to the Darwinian model?
Where is the E-V-I-D-E-N-C-E?
But what you're saying is
this: given the observations of mitosis and
meiosis, the hypothesis is that the evolution hypothesis is wrong. The
prediction is that any test of evolution will bear out that the
evolution hypothesis is wrong, ergo, intelligent design is right.
This is most certainly NOT what I am saying. I believe that evolution
is a fact. I do not believe that the Darwinian model is a fact. What I
am asking is: where is the E-V-I-D-E-N-C-E that irrefutably supports
the Darwinian model? Where is the evidence that forces me to
support the Darwinian model and nothing else?
This stems from a
fundamental misunderstanding (on the part of the
churchgoing masses who are told about ID as "scientific support" for
creation) or misappropriation (on the part of ID's authors and primary
proponents) of the scientific method. Tests of predictions rarely
provide "positive proof" (meaning we can conclude that a hypothesis is
right if the prediction is tested true) of a hypothesis, because it's
usually a question that, if not impossible to answer, is orders of
magnitude more difficult. Rather, the survival of a hypothesis through
many, many tests of "negative disproof" (meaning, we can only conclude
the hypothesis is not wrong if the prediction is tested true) is what
leads to a hypothesis becoming accepted as a trustworthy basis for
further science. But ID proponents turn this on its head, requiring
evolution to pass some test of positive proof, rather than survive many
tests of negative disproof (which it already has). They use the lack of
such a positive proof test as evidence that evolution is wrong, and
because of their assumption of mutual exclusivity, conclude that ID is
right.
Your explanation certainly sounds sincere, but is simplistic.
You might be interested in Thomas Kuhn's The
Structure of
Scientific Revolutions for a
more insightful discussion of the scientific process. With my apologies
to Thomas, an extremely simplified version goes something like this.
normal
science:
scientists work inside of a prevailing paradigm. In fact, lacking a
paradigm -- a framework or model of the way things are -- scientific
activity doesn't make much sense. So what if light bends when it goes
by the Sun? If you don't have a model of mass and gravity (general
relativity) that makes sense of that particular piece of information,
you are likely to chalk it up to a fluke of the measurement. Only when
there is a meaningful paradigm in which information can be meaningfully
interpreted will it be given any scientific validity. Studies have
repeatedly shown that when a person perceives something which does not
fit in with their current world view, it is largely ignored. And this
occurs with scientists as well. Data which does not conform to the
current paradigm is largely overlooked -- or explained away. (And
certainly, you would not be able to get a sizable research grant which
does not expand upon or bring greater precision to the current paradigm
-- working outsi
Then you might know that, at least for Catholics, it is expected that they use their reason fully in the investigation and acceptance of their faith.
It is quite analogous to the way that scientists "blindly" accept the scientific method, but are expected to use their reason fully to understand the how the universe works.
Michael Behe -- author of "Darwin's Black Box" -- for example, started out talking about fossil whales. Why weren't there intermediary whale forms between mesonychids and true whales? Oops -- over the next 20 years many, many steps in between turned up.
Its amazing how a 10-year-old book can be 20 years out of date. And how the index has no entry under "whales".
The fact that ID requires belief is what makes it nonscientific. ID requires belief because it is untestable.
I am not an ID proponent, but I could just not let your statement by without commenting.
From what I have read, ID requires no belief other than the belief in the scientific process (which is, as a matter of fact, a belief).
Pray tell, what belief is it that ID requires? If you answer "a Designer", then you would be wrong. Anything I have read about the topic from its advocates (which, admittedly is not that much) steers well clear of even mentioning a Designer. They mention the evidence for design, but make no statement about who or what the designer might be. For all that is said, it could be My Favorite Martian.
Of course, for some people, even the wiff of a designer is too much. And so they jump to conclusions. But be careful of the straw man arguments that you set up for yourself. As far as I know, ID advocates argue for the evidence of design, but deliberately remain silent on the topic of the designer.
But a lot of scientists do indeed say that evolution is a fact, seeing as they watch it happen on a daily basis in microbiology laboratories and drug/chemical testing facilities all across the world.
Scientists witness evolution on a daily basis? Really? At the origin of which new species are they habitually present?
You clearly do not understand what a scientific theory is, nor what science is. You never hear real scientists saying "Evolution is fact!" because it isn't. The theory of evolution doesn't say "There is no supreme being". Teaching evolution theory does not say "A supreme being cannot exist". The theory of evolution doesn't even mention supreme beings.
Intelligent design, on the other hand, is not a scientific theory by any definition and therefore should not be taught in a science class because it simply isn't science. Whether you're Christian, Muslim or an atheist, it makes no difference - ID is *not* a scientific theory. If intelligent design is to be taught, then it should be taught either in a philosophy class or a religious studies class. It has no place in a science class because it simply is not science.
I am not aware of any public figure who is an advocate of Intelligent Design that uses the term "supreme being" or even mentions that or any similar concept. In fact, my experience is that they quite deliberately steer clear of the issue.
Since you are rather strongly implying that proponents of Intelligent Design do make explicit mention of concepts like "supreme being" and depend on such references to make their case, please provide links to such instances.
Actually, ID (before it was
hijacked by Creationism) technically
belongs in a philosophy course. Creationism belongs in a sociology
course. And the book of Genesis belongs in a mythology course.
And where would you put the following statement:
The greatest
scientific advance of the last 1,000 years was providing the evidence
to prove that human beings are independent agents whose lives on earth
are neither conferred nor controlled by celestial forces. Although it
may be more conventional to measure scientific progress in terms of
specific technological developments, nothing was more important than
providing the means to release men and women from the hegemony of the
supernatural.
My response is that when they remove their atheistic materialism from
the science room, I will remove my faith. But not one moment sooner.
BTW, that statement came from the scientific journal Cell.
If you are not astounded, then you have probably already been
assimilated.
Okay
here's one for you: explain the eye. It either works or it
doesn't. There is no evolutionary intermediate form that would function
so how could it have evolved?
Classic mistake.... the 'I don't know how so it is impossible without
devine intervention' excuse.
Science has already demonstrated that you need only a few modifications
to allow normal brain tissue to become light sensitive.
Does that also include all the necessary neurological adaptations that
are necessary so that the organism can actually make sense of those
light pulses? I didn't think so.
And an eye with a few
components still can give you an advantage over
others that don't have it:
-Take out the muscles that move it around, you would have to turn your
head to look at different things, but it would still be usefull.
-Take out the focussing stuff, you would only see a few things really
clear, but when a large blob comes at you at high speed you might step
aside while someone without this less usefull eye would get hit/eaten.
Oh
yeah, that's assuming that
there is optical/motor coordination which is necessary to make that
primitive eye the least bit useful. And if it is not useful,
why, again, would it have selective advantage?
-Take out color, black and
white tigers still look dangerous enough
without the yellow.
-Take out the transparent stuff and place a thing layer of skin in its
place, you would get even worse focusing but one could still see blobs
moving around.
Once
again, an eye is not all
that useful and would have no adaptive advantage unless you also have
all of the neurological wiring in
place so that the organism can make cognitive sense of any light pulses
that might stimulate its nervous system, and initiate any motor
activities that it thinks would be useful in a response to those light
pulses.
-Remove the fluid stuff and
place the retina close to the skin, you
could still detect sudden changes in the lighting.
Do them all and you are very close to the simple lightsensitive
braincell.
An organism does not live by a simple lightsensitive braincell alone.
I am not saying that is the way
it happened, but I could think a
possible path up in a few seconds without the need to drag some higher
being into the picture.
Good for you. But there is one other
thing that science requires:
E-V-I-D-E-N-C-E. Your wishful hypothesis is just that -- unless you can
cough up some evidence.
The whole 'irreducibly complex'
stuff is a joke,
Ha ha, I'm laughing. I'm still waiting for someone to show me how
random activity can produce order. I'm all ears. For example, there are
two kinds of biological reproduction: asexual (mitosis) and sexual
(meiosis). Now, meiosis is the more advance form, and so therefore,
presumably, mitosis somehow evolved into meiosis. But the first time
meiosis (accidentally?) happened, it would not really have had any
survival benefit. So there is no reason that it should be
"selected" into the population. It performed the same function as
mitosis. And besides, for meiosis to survive, it needs the support of
two completely different but complimentary reproductive
systems: one male and one female. So we have the situation where
meiosis has no real survival benefit. Plus, the infrastructure
needed to support it did not exist at all. So this aberrant
mutation is one of the many which vanished in the fog of
history, right? Well,
no, apparently not. But Neo-Darwinism can't explain why it should have
survived at all, let alone how two completely independent
reproductive systems evolved simultaneously to support it. I would be
very impressed if you could show me evidence that a random process
managed all that.
the being that is
supposed to do that sort of stuff would need to be even more complex...
So, you don't think there might be any aliens out there that are more
advanced than us?
You
see? If you'd had a better
grounding in science, you wouldn't be
confused about this. EVERYTHING isn't taught in science class...
SCIENCE is taught there-- natural explanations supported by evidence
using the scientific method!
And did you know that science is rooted in natural
philosophy?
If you drop a stone and it falls to the ground five times, will it fall
to the ground the sixth time?
Logically speaking, the answer is "no". That would be because you
cannot reason logically from the specific (five instances) to the
general (the sixth instance). This is the fallacy
ofinduction.
You can only reason logically from the general to the specific
(deduction).
If there is no logical
reason reason that the stone will fall the sixth
time, then what reason is there?
There is only a philosophical
reason. We see that the universe behaves
in an orderly way, and we assume that it will continue to behave this
way because it was somehow constructed this way. This is natural
philosophy
and
it is the only justification we have in putting any faith at all in the
scientific method.
Maybe folks should be required to study a little philosophy before they
are allowed to study science.
Slashdot Mirror
But I would be interested in what you mean by "God went through this elaborate lie to trick us."
That certainly doesn't sound like you are giving God much of the benefit of the doubt.
Ok, this is not all in complete seriousness, but there is another side to the usage of the term "Theory".
People are stating that the word Theory is used to only describe something that has been well proven over a long period of time. As in "Evolutionary Theory". If that were the case, we would never see the term "new Theory" used, especially from universities.
But google tells us that people use this phrase all the time. Even in universities. Here's one near the top of Google's results: "Princeton paleontologist produces evidence for new theory on dinosaur extinction." If its new, how can it be a theory?
The belief involved is right under your nose. The very assumption that life was "designed" is a belief. I'm not talking about belief that the creator is God, I'm talking about belief that there was a creator at all.
If I look at a mouse trap, I can come to the conclusion that it was designed and not the result of random processes. The question is: is the process of determining whether or not something is "designed" a scientific process or not. Many great scientists believed in God. Their belief, however, did not prevent them from being great scientists.
Yes, it is *possible* that there was a creator. However, there are also a lot of other possible explanations. To pick out the "designer" explanation without any evidence and without any way to test it, requires belief.
Is it possible to proceed scientifically on the question of whether a thing is designed without addressing the question of the Designer? This happens in law cases all the time where the court choses to address one issue but not another. It should be possible for scientists to do the same thing.
Say, for example, you just look at two possibilities for why life exists. On the one hand, you have the possiblity that it was created by an intelligent designer. On the other hand, you have the possibility that there are an infinite number of universes representing every possible configuration of matter (therefore, our configuration has to exist). Now, I'm pretty sure that there is no test you can do to determine which of these explanations is more accurate. Without such a discriminator, you can't include either one in your model of the universe unless you take it on faith. That is what makes ID unscientific. Scientific theories have to be testable, or you can't distinguish the more accurate ones from the less accurate ones.
I'm glad you brought up that scenario. Maybe you can explain to me why in the discipline of astronomy, someone can hypothesize infinite universes and no one bats an eyelid. How is infinite universes a testable hypothesis? How is infinite universes scientific? But when someone mentions that something looks more like it was designed than it looks like the result of random processes, suddenly we've entered into the realm of the unscientific.
Is there a test you can do to see if life was designed? The ID folks don't seem to be able to come up with one, or if they have they're apparently keeping it a secret.
I don't know. Is there? Maybe we should dedicate some research to this question. Oh, I forgot, we are not allowed to even ask the question of whether something might be designed. Unscientific, you know.
they take a bacterium that cannot digest a certain sugar or protein, expose it to the chemical they're testing, and then try and grow it on the metabolite it couldn't digest. They measure the number that CAN grow -- the number that were damaged by the chemical and in repairing that damage managed to gain the ability to live on something they couldn't previously -- and that's a direct indication of how strongly mutagenic the chemical is. If evolution didn't exist, the test wouldn't work, and as I said, it's used hundreds (if you count chemicals) or millions (if you count bacteria) of times every day all across the world. The test works.
I would agree that the test you describe really does indicate the ability of a chemical to mutate cells.
However, this is an instance of micro-evolution: changes within a species. When most people talk about "evolution" I think they mean the "Origin of Species." And as you mentioned, speciation is a tricky line to draw.
One thing to keep in mind is that there may be various reasons why a particular bacteria cannot digest a certain sugar or protein. There may be repressor genes in the bacteria preventing it from metabolizing those particular substances. If one of the repressors is disabled via mutation, then the bacteria may be able to start metabolizing the substance.
But this type of mutation (disabling a repressor) is not exactly the type of mutation could explain evolution. In other words, the bacteria already had a basic capability, but that capability was repressed. It did not evolve a new capability that had never been seen before in its ancestry.
To answer the larger question of evolution, you must be able to explain where that basic capability came from to begin with. I don't think the type of test you describe necessarily reveals this type of mechanics which must be at work over the long course of evolution. But it may.
Best of luck! That's a huge project. I had a project like that of my own for a while.
:)
Then I decided to re-use the Catholic code base. The amazing thing is that the original developers didn't even know how to program. They didn't know a thing about software engineering. In fact, it was the last thing on their minds. But somehow the 12 of them (oops, make that 11), with the help of their Lead Architect, created a system that has actually lasted all of these centuries. Nothing short of miraculous!
But most evolutionists define speciation it terms of whether two group are observed to interbreed. Not if they can interbreed. This is one thing that make speciation observations somewhat controversial.
Quote #79 of the Quote Mine project [talkorigins.org].
Why are so many creationists such shameless liars?
1. I'm not a creationist.
2. Quote #79 is about Robert A. Millikan. I've never heard of him. I was quoting someone named Charles Darwin. Maybe you've heard of him.
Why are so many Slashdotters such incredible ignoramuses?
Science is not atheistic materialism. But atheistic materialism leads to bad science. Haven't you heard of the recent case of the Korean scientist who admitted to fraud in his research? Bad science does happen.
Of course, science has built-in correction mechanisms, which is one of its primary strengths. But sometimes these mechanisms don't work. Take the example of Richard Sternberg. He is an evolutionist who holds two Ph.D.'s. He was also managing editor of Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, a peer-reviewed journal from the Smithsonian Institute.
Richard appears to have been an even-headed editor who was open to having an occasional provocative article in his journal. Unfortunately for Richard, he seems to have been unaware of the extremely violent reaction that can occur when ideas challenging the conventional dogma of evolution are put forth, no matter how good the reasons.
A paper was submitted to him by Stephen Meyer in favor of intelligent design. Following standard procedures, he submitted the paper to the peer reviewers of his journal. All the peer reviewers found it acceptable, and being an open minded guy, he decided to go ahead and publish the ID paper in his journal. (An occasional provocation is good for science, right?)
The response was immediate and horrific. It included many articles written by scientists around the world blasting Sternberg for his lack of judgment. And note that it was Sternberg who was blasted, not Meyers who wrote the offending paper. Not the peer reviewers who reviewed the paper. Sternberg. And nary a peep about the merits of the paper itself.
Dr. Sternberg no longer has his job, and his career (two Ph.D.'s!) is in the gutter.
This is not how science is supposed to work. These "chilling effects" on the free and scientific flow of ideas makes it very difficult for any ideas in opposition to Neo-Darwinism to be examined in a truly scientific manner.
As far as I can tell, evolutionary science is broken.
Consider this quote from a recent editorial at USAToday:
you're going to get an F if you can't apply the decidedly materialistic rules of science to produce verifiable results.
There is nothing wrong with the materialistic rules of science. Science makes statements about observable (material) phenomenon. Science must, however, remain silent in areas where is has no expertise. This includes discussion of anything outside of the material world. For example, God.
The problem arises when atheistic scientists try to make science atheistic. Atheism is different from Agnosticism. The latter makes no definitive statements about God. Science could therefore be said to be agnostic. The former, however, makes the definite assertion that God doesn't exist. And this statement is certainly outside of the realm of science. This personal bias ca
Every design has constraints, but none of them require the optic nerve to go where it does. Squid eyes, for example, have no blind spot, can see in very dim light, are more sensitive to color differences than ours and move the lens rather than bending it (preventing focusing problems, like the ones that lead to reading glasses) - and have no known major downside.
Well, a squid is neither a vertebrate nor an insect. And humans do not descend from the family of squids, now do they. Next time, listen more closely to the assignment.
Evolution is a fact. Neo-Darwinism is not. You seem like a smart guy. Open your mind. It's good for you.
Go to the toy store. Buy a bag of marbles--at least a double handful. Go to the shoe store. Get a shoebox. Toss the marbles into the shoebox. Be certain to do this randomly! Observe as the marbles spontaneously arrange themselves into the exact same arrangement as a beehive, and, hey-presto! What have we got? Why, order from chaos, of course!
This whole ``order can never arise from randomness'' thing is pure bullshit. How do you think entropy works? If an ordered state is more stable than a disordered one, then the ordered state will persist where the disordered one won't. It's why astronomical bodies are (generally) spherical, it's why crystals are so pretty, and it's why you're here. So get over it, already: your god is completely superfluous, thankyouverymuch.
Here's another experiment for you. Go to the toy store. Buy a bag of white marbles and a bag of black marbles. Now, put the white marbles in your shoe box, on the left, and then put the black marbles in the shoe box on the right. Now put the cover on and shake well. Open box. Are the white marbles on the left and the black ones on the right? No? Repeat. Continue this until the marbles are segregated again. Make out your will because you will probably die before you produce this outcome.
Now, what is the difference between your experiment and mine? Well, your's depends on energy state and mine doesn't. But guess what? The information encoded in DNA does not depend on energy state. Oh yes, the DNA molecule itself depends on energy state. But not the information encoded in it. DNA is a neutral medium. It can encode anything. It can encode the Encyclopedia Britannica. The point to remember is that the information encoded in DNA does not depend on energy state.
So, in fact, my experiment more closely models the information structure of DNA. Your experiment is meaningless and irrelevant when discussing biological information.
I'm glad that you used the term "most likely". Unfortunately, "most likely" doesn't count as E-V-I-D-E-N-C-E. And besides, I wasn't really talking about meiosis, I was talking about the independent evolution of two complementary (male and female) reproductive systems. Repeatedly. Which experiment was it that showed that these evolved according to the Darwinian model? Where is the E-V-I-D-E-N-C-E?
But what you're saying is this: given the observations of mitosis and meiosis, the hypothesis is that the evolution hypothesis is wrong. The prediction is that any test of evolution will bear out that the evolution hypothesis is wrong, ergo, intelligent design is right.
This is most certainly NOT what I am saying. I believe that evolution is a fact. I do not believe that the Darwinian model is a fact. What I am asking is: where is the E-V-I-D-E-N-C-E that irrefutably supports the Darwinian model? Where is the evidence that forces me to support the Darwinian model and nothing else?
This stems from a fundamental misunderstanding (on the part of the churchgoing masses who are told about ID as "scientific support" for creation) or misappropriation (on the part of ID's authors and primary proponents) of the scientific method. Tests of predictions rarely provide "positive proof" (meaning we can conclude that a hypothesis is right if the prediction is tested true) of a hypothesis, because it's usually a question that, if not impossible to answer, is orders of magnitude more difficult. Rather, the survival of a hypothesis through many, many tests of "negative disproof" (meaning, we can only conclude the hypothesis is not wrong if the prediction is tested true) is what leads to a hypothesis becoming accepted as a trustworthy basis for further science. But ID proponents turn this on its head, requiring evolution to pass some test of positive proof, rather than survive many tests of negative disproof (which it already has). They use the lack of such a positive proof test as evidence that evolution is wrong, and because of their assumption of mutual exclusivity, conclude that ID is right.
Your explanation certainly sounds sincere, but is simplistic. You might be interested in Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions for a more insightful discussion of the scientific process. With my apologies to Thomas, an extremely simplified version goes something like this.
Did he say "design"? Obviously, this belongs in the philosophy classroom!
May I suggest reading Faith and Reason by Pope John Paul II.
Then you might know that, at least for Catholics, it is expected that they use their reason fully in the investigation and acceptance of their faith.
It is quite analogous to the way that scientists "blindly" accept the scientific method, but are expected to use their reason fully to understand the how the universe works.
Its amazing how a 10-year-old book can be 20 years out of date. And how the index has no entry under "whales".
I am not an ID proponent, but I could just not let your statement by without commenting.
From what I have read, ID requires no belief other than the belief in the scientific process (which is, as a matter of fact, a belief).
Pray tell, what belief is it that ID requires? If you answer "a Designer", then you would be wrong. Anything I have read about the topic from its advocates (which, admittedly is not that much) steers well clear of even mentioning a Designer. They mention the evidence for design, but make no statement about who or what the designer might be. For all that is said, it could be My Favorite Martian.
Of course, for some people, even the wiff of a designer is too much. And so they jump to conclusions. But be careful of the straw man arguments that you set up for yourself. As far as I know, ID advocates argue for the evidence of design, but deliberately remain silent on the topic of the designer.
Scientists witness evolution on a daily basis? Really? At the origin of which new species are they habitually present?
Intelligent design, on the other hand, is not a scientific theory by any definition and therefore should not be taught in a science class because it simply isn't science. Whether you're Christian, Muslim or an atheist, it makes no difference - ID is *not* a scientific theory. If intelligent design is to be taught, then it should be taught either in a philosophy class or a religious studies class. It has no place in a science class because it simply is not science.
I am not aware of any public figure who is an advocate of Intelligent Design that uses the term "supreme being" or even mentions that or any similar concept. In fact, my experience is that they quite deliberately steer clear of the issue.
Since you are rather strongly implying that proponents of Intelligent Design do make explicit mention of concepts like "supreme being" and depend on such references to make their case, please provide links to such instances.
Or STFU.
Then why does Google report 183,000 web pages from universities for the phrase "new theory".
And where would you put the following statement: My response is that when they remove their atheistic materialism from the science room, I will remove my faith. But not one moment sooner.
BTW, that statement came from the scientific journal Cell. If you are not astounded, then you have probably already been assimilated.
Ha! that's a good one. There is no evidence that micro-evolution has anything to do with macro-evolution.
This has been observed, e.g. several new mosquito species have evolved in the London subway.
And you know what? My Great Dane does not mate with my Chiuaua. So I guess those are two different species as well.
To say that is to suggest that evolution is a fact. That is fine by me because I believe that evolution is a fact.
But what you say says nothing about whether the Neo-Darwinian explanation of evolution is in the least bit accurate.
Evolutionists seem to make statements like these frequently, as if they bolster Neo-Darwinism. They do not.
Neo-Darwinism is, as much as I can tell, a bunch of nonsense.
I believe that evolution is a fact. I also believe that Neo-Darwinian theory is nonsense.
I am stating this just to let you know that not everyone who disagrees with Neo-Darwinism is a fundamentalist/creationist.
Open your mind. It's good for you.
God is mildly amused at your clever use of logic. But he is not mocked.
Okay here's one for you: explain the eye. It either works or it doesn't. There is no evolutionary intermediate form that would function so how could it have evolved?
Classic mistake.... the 'I don't know how so it is impossible without devine intervention' excuse.
Science has already demonstrated that you need only a few modifications to allow normal brain tissue to become light sensitive.
Does that also include all the necessary neurological adaptations that are necessary so that the organism can actually make sense of those light pulses? I didn't think so.
And an eye with a few components still can give you an advantage over others that don't have it:
-Take out the muscles that move it around, you would have to turn your head to look at different things, but it would still be usefull.
-Take out the focussing stuff, you would only see a few things really clear, but when a large blob comes at you at high speed you might step aside while someone without this less usefull eye would get hit/eaten.
Oh yeah, that's assuming that there is optical/motor coordination which is necessary to make that primitive eye the least bit useful. And if it is not useful, why, again, would it have selective advantage?
-Take out color, black and white tigers still look dangerous enough without the yellow.
-Take out the transparent stuff and place a thing layer of skin in its place, you would get even worse focusing but one could still see blobs moving around.
Once again, an eye is not all that useful and would have no adaptive advantage unless you also have all of the neurological wiring in place so that the organism can make cognitive sense of any light pulses that might stimulate its nervous system, and initiate any motor activities that it thinks would be useful in a response to those light pulses.
-Remove the fluid stuff and place the retina close to the skin, you could still detect sudden changes in the lighting.
Do them all and you are very close to the simple lightsensitive braincell.
An organism does not live by a simple lightsensitive braincell alone.
I am not saying that is the way it happened, but I could think a possible path up in a few seconds without the need to drag some higher being into the picture.
Good for you. But there is one other thing that science requires: E-V-I-D-E-N-C-E. Your wishful hypothesis is just that -- unless you can cough up some evidence.
The whole 'irreducibly complex' stuff is a joke,
Ha ha, I'm laughing. I'm still waiting for someone to show me how random activity can produce order. I'm all ears. For example, there are two kinds of biological reproduction: asexual (mitosis) and sexual (meiosis). Now, meiosis is the more advance form, and so therefore, presumably, mitosis somehow evolved into meiosis. But the first time meiosis (accidentally?) happened, it would not really have had any survival benefit. So there is no reason that it should be "selected" into the population. It performed the same function as mitosis. And besides, for meiosis to survive, it needs the support of two completely different but complimentary reproductive systems: one male and one female. So we have the situation where meiosis has no real survival benefit. Plus, the infrastructure needed to support it did not exist at all. So this aberrant mutation is one of the many which vanished in the fog of history, right? Well, no, apparently not. But Neo-Darwinism can't explain why it should have survived at all, let alone how two completely independent reproductive systems evolved simultaneously to support it. I would be very impressed if you could show me evidence that a random process managed all that.
the being that is supposed to do that sort of stuff would need to be even more complex...
So, you don't think there might be any aliens out there that are more advanced than us?
I don't disbelieve evolution but neither
You see? If you'd had a better grounding in science, you wouldn't be confused about this. EVERYTHING isn't taught in science class... SCIENCE is taught there-- natural explanations supported by evidence using the scientific method!
And did you know that science is rooted in natural philosophy?
If you drop a stone and it falls to the ground five times, will it fall to the ground the sixth time?
Logically speaking, the answer is "no". That would be because you cannot reason logically from the specific (five instances) to the general (the sixth instance). This is the fallacy ofinduction. You can only reason logically from the general to the specific (deduction).
If there is no logical reason reason that the stone will fall the sixth time, then what reason is there?
There is only a philosophical reason. We see that the universe behaves in an orderly way, and we assume that it will continue to behave this way because it was somehow constructed this way. This is natural philosophy and it is the only justification we have in putting any faith at all in the scientific method.
Maybe folks should be required to study a little philosophy before they are allowed to study science.