The Jolly Nihilist has posted his thoughts on Coyne's latest book - Why Evolution Is True, which I've read - as well as Dick Dawk's The Greatest Show on Earth, which I don't.
He's attempting to convince us to accept Darwinian evolution. Strangely enough, he never tells us why we'd want to do that, if nihilism is true. Why not just leave everyone alone and cut butterflies into your ankles in the corner?
Anyway, the whole thing is an utter failure to interact with the creationist position in any meaningful way or to understand the problem of the internal critique for the Darwinian position.
I'd encourage you to read the post before continuing here, as this will be sort of stream-of-consciousness as you go down his post.
Creator is devious
Um, He told you exactly how it all went down in the Bible.
But you, in your intentional blindness and using pitifully limited methods, are looking for ways to prove Him wrong. You're deceiving yourself. Don't project your guilt onto others. Didn't your mother teach you that's not nice?
Let's see.
Assume uniformitarianism without argument? Check.
-With respect to tectonics. Check.
-With respect to half-lives. Check.
Assume you have any useful info about the quantity of decay at the time of creation. Check.
Jerry Coyne writes, “Several radioisotopes usually occur together, so the dates can be cross-checked, and the ages invariably agree.”
Circular self-reference as argument? Check.
Failure to interact with Henry Gee's In Search of Deep Time and mindlessly repeat old canards about the utility of the fossil record? Check.
Failure to interact with Cambrian explosion? Check.
By contrast, land mammals, reptiles, amphibians and freshwater fish would have extreme difficulty colonizing an oceanic island
Assume that it is definite that they were NEVER there and NEVER went extinct and that we just haven't yet found their fossils? Check.
Wasteful
Failure to take sin and the Fall into account, even though it's at the very heart of the Christian conception of redemptive history? Check and double-check. Atheists virtually never do this, and it's amazing.
Advance the conversation! Please! We're begging you.
Creator is idiotic
Presume to correct Him on sthg that you've never even gotten close to accomplishing yourself? Check.
Forget sin and the Fall (again)? Check.
recurrent laryngeal nerve of mammals
Argument from ignorance.
Here it is:
P1) Recurrent laryngeal nerve of mammals exists.
P2) I don't know why a creator would do it that way/I wouldn't've.
Ergo,
C) Stupid.
WOW! I'm bowled over by this forceful argumentation from Dick Dawk.
Finally, failure to interact with the EAAN? Check.
30 comments:
Part 1:
Um, He told you exactly how it all went down in the Bible.
Well, then either a literal reading of Genesis is wrong or human senses don't reliably detect an outside world, in which case we don't have a reason to trust a literal Genesis.
But you, in your intentional blindness and using pitifully limited methods
Humans are limited, therefore any way of knowing, whether it be studying nature or discerning what God wants from us will inherently also involve "limited methods."
You are unwittingly making an argument for radical skepticism, and as I'm sure you know, that makes the "limited methods shouldn't be trusted" position self refuting.
Assume uniformitarianism without argument? Check.
-With respect to tectonics. Check.
-With respect to half-lives. Check.
Hey, you're moving up in the world. These are actual science based objections to scientific questions, however, you misunderstand how Conye deals with it.
Circular self-reference as argument? Check.
No, not self reference. Independant reference. The fact that we have elements that are not at all dependent upon one another giving us nearly identical results is a strong indication that we can trust their reliability.
Failure to interact with Henry Gee's In Search of Deep Time and mindlessly repeat old canards about the utility of the fossil record? Check.
Gee never argues that we can learn nothing from the fossil record. Just that it's highly speculative to say "fossil X evolved into fossil Y."
And it's not like he's some sort of fringe scientist who has this view. Even PZ Myers has cast scorn on people lining up fossils while saying "this is how evolution happened." But this is completely different from saying "the complete absence of out of place fossils is a strong indicator for an old Earth and evolution."
Of course, I don't think Gee would exactly approve of you using his work to back up your position.
Gee:
Creationism is manifest rubbish and the creationists can go hang - no amount of reasoned argument will ever convince them
And yet I try anyway. Oh well.
Failure to interact with Cambrian explosion? Check.
Two things: firstly, again pointing to the Cambrian explosion does nothing to adress the fact that there are no out of place fossils. (After all, there is nothing under creationism that would prevent seeing T Rexs in the Devonian Stratum, but plenty under evolution that doesn't allow for it.)
Secondly, while you have seen "Darwin's Dilemma" and I haven't, I think I can safely assume it's just an elaboration of the century old creationist complaint that the major phyla appeared "too suddenly" (along with Douglas Axe misrepresenting the implications of his own research for flavor.)
Probably the most succinct response to this idea came from Marine Biologist Wesley R. Elsberry:
I personally like my "at once"s to refer to events significantly shorter than ten million years.
A more nuanced answer is that while our precambrian fossil record is indeed not as complete as we might wish it were, it is worlds more complete than it was in Darwin's day, and does in fact show a slow build up in the diversity of organisms to the "explosion."
Donald Prothero does a great job explaining the Cambrian explosion (which he refers to as "the Cambrian Slow Burn") in a chapter in his book "Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why it Matters."
A word of warning if you choose to pick it up, though. The opening chapter includes a few jabs at Genesis using some secular scholarship that he seemed to have a somewhat superficial understanding of. I found it a bit off putting, so I could imagine a Christian would find it doubly so. Otherwise, it's the single best popular explanation of what the fossil record can teach us about evolution.
Part 2:
Failure to take sin and the Fall into account, even though it's at the very heart of the Christian conception of redemptive history? Check and double-check. Atheists virtually never do this, and it's amazing.
Well, you can't measure or test for the effect of sin vs. a sinless world. And since we are studying basically scientific questions, these things are therefore understandably ignored.
But perhaps you can help enlighten us: how was the nature of the observable world different pre-fall?
Here it is:
P1) Recurrent laryngeal nerve of mammals exists.
P2) I don't know why a creator would do it that way/I wouldn't've.
Ergo,
C) Stupid.
WOW! I'm bowled over by this forceful argumentation from Dick Dawk.
I never quite understand why creationists think that:
P1) An intelligent designer would do X
P2) X is seen in biology.
C) Biology is intelligently designed
is a sound argument, while
P1) An intelligent designer WOULDN'T do Y
P2) Y is seen in biology.
C) Biology ISN'T intelligently designed
is presuming far too much about the creator to be sound.
Here's the problem, if all "bad design" arguments are unsound because they presume things about the designer we can't possibly know with our puny human brains, then all "design" arguments are equally unsound because they ALSO require us to presume things about the nature of the designer of biology/the universe. It's basically a complaint that cuts the throat of your own position.
Finally, failure to interact with the EAAN? Check.
As even Plantiga would tell you, the EAAN is completely irrelevant when you are discussing whether or not evolution is true. EAAN doesn't say evolution is false, it simply argues that evolution is a defeater for naturalism. As the last two letters in the acronym indicate, it's an argument against naturalism, not against evolution.
By the way, I can tell that you are really letting the Discovery Institute influence you.
Back in March, you referred to people who accept evolution as "evolutionist" and you didn't use the term "Darwinist" once.
March 29th
I have been corrected by evolutionists that ToE is not random.
25th
ISTM that evolutionists' best strategy to attack EAAN is to call into question this idea that it's plausible that a person holding bizarre beliefs like the "large, cuddly pussycat" or the 1600-meter race would have no connection to their behavior.
16th
apparently evolutionists find it very significant that they can exercise their powers of assumption with Hox genes as their foil.
But this month, the term "evolutionist" isn't be found at all, but Darwinist is to be found repeatedly, like the title of this post and...
3rd
So late this week I was laughing at Darwinists
1st
Dear Darwinists
Not exactly the best of performances from our Darwinist friends.
So why the complete change in terminology? Does "Signature in the Cell" come with a crib sheet that gives people tips on how to talk about evolution that makes it sound unfavorable? Is reading all that Intelligent Design material just seeping in your mind and coming out in unexpected ways?
jft,
either a literal reading of Genesis is wrong or human senses don't reliably detect an outside world
False dilemma. The 3rd option is that they DO reliably detect the outside world, but they are not infallible and must submit to a better knowledge as their standard for knowing.
Humans are limited, therefore any way of knowing
An empty throwaway line. You don't really hold to that in real life; if you did, you wouldn't hold so strongly to ToE.
You are unwittingly making an argument for radical skepticism
Yep, ON YOUR WORLDVIEW. My worldview is very different, but you don't understand my critique apparently.
These are actual science based objections to scientific questions, however, you misunderstand how Conye deals with it.
You read Coyne's book?
No, not self reference. Independant reference.
Within the same self-referential paradigm. Judging age by one standard and then comparing the standard to the thing you just judged is not helpful.
Gee...Just that it's highly speculative to say "fossil X evolved into fossil Y."
You read Gee's book?
He said it was so speculative as to be worthless as far as creating a taxonomic framework for the "tree of life". Proposed a completely diff method for that. He'd given up on the fossil record for that purpose.
But this is completely different from saying "the complete absence of out of place fossils is a strong indicator for an old Earth and evolution."
Is it now? And how do you know that?
I don't think Gee would exactly approve of you using his work to back up your position.
Seriously, don't be so dense.
I'm not using him to "back up my position". I've simply cited his argument to counter your relevant contention. I even talked with him directly, and he said I hadn't misstated his position.
I personally like my "at once"s to refer to events significantly shorter than ten million years.
Very convenient. And I admire your faith that Darwinian processes can accelerate to many times faster than they normally run whenever it's convenient for your position.
well, you can't measure or test for the effect of sin vs. a sinless world.
That's a good reason not to take materialistic scientism as one's worldview.
how was the nature of the observable world different pre-fall?
It wasn't wasteful. Creation was "very good". No harmful mutations, death, movement toward death (ie, aging and disease), etc.
all "design" arguments are equally unsound because they ALSO require us to presume things about the nature of the designer of biology/the universe.
Cute. But wrong.
Your first argument is better stated: Things are designed b/c they show the telltale signs of design and DON'T show telltale signs of randomness (ie, information is present). Ergo, designer.
Besides, don't you realise that I think I have good reason to identify what the Designer would do? I'm a Christian!
You don't, so I don't know where you get off trying to repeat my theistic maneuvering.
EAAN doesn't say evolution is false, it simply argues that evolution is a defeater for naturalism.
Not so. I sorta doubt "even Plantinga would tell me" this, to be honest. EAAN is a defeater for ALL thoughts, given ToE, not just naturalism. It's an internal critique of naturalism, but as he says at the beginning of his lecture, ToE and naturalism are (strange) bedfellows. That's not my problem; it's yours.
you are really letting the Discovery Institute influence you.
That may well be. I am halfway thru Signature in the Cell, and we've had some ID events come thru my area university recently. I talked to Dr Meyer some face to face and several Darwinist professors.
I've noticed, though, that my terminology changes, somewhat w/o my notice. I don't know why that is. Might be b/c I kind of go on these ToE kicks, talk about it for a while, then move on to other topics, then come back to it and I've forgotten some of my easy shorthand (like "ToE"). I use derogatory terminology for it b/c it fits, and I especially enjoy emphasising that materialism, naturalism, and ToE are fideistic positions, devoid of any rational foundation or much, if any, evidence to back them up.
But anyway, I value DI for its utility in shooting holes in Darwinism, not for guiding me to a competent worldview. That's not their strong point.
Proposed a completely diff method for that. He'd given up on the fossil record for that purpose.
on this point, just to be clear - you are aware Gee wasn't the original person to propose the use of cladistics, nor is it a recent idea (it's been around since the 1950s) - I think a guy called Willi Hennig is credited with being its originator.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willi_Hennig
I'm also not sure why you'd expect every person who you debate with to have 'interacted with Gee' as I'd be surprised if that many scientists knew who he was never mind laymen, and therefore it's not that likely you'd come across many people aware of his book (especially as it isn't one of the founding texts in cladistics).
And I admire your faith that Darwinian processes can accelerate to many times faster than they normally run whenever it's convenient for your position.
Where supported by evidence - noone just picks an arbitrary pace for evolutionary processes then claims that it's therefore a fact they can run that fast
besides, why would you complain about that given that you need ultra-fast evolution to be true - on a creationist view it would be a requirement that they could run at breakneck pace given that every living organism around today was the result of repopulation from a single pair (or 8 if you count Noah's family/humans) of ancestors left after the flood, and this occurred only in about 4,500 years. it would have to happen so fast it would be like watching one of these
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flip_book
.
EAAN is a defeater for ALL thoughts, given ToE, not just naturalism.
It's supposed to be an argument against holding to both natural selection and naturalism, it's not an argument against common ancestry.
However, since Christianity essentially proposes the existence of the equivalent to Descartes' evil demon in the shape of the devil, and that God can alter facts about the world whenever he feels like it, please tell us how it follows that we could know our senses are reliable if we assumed the truth of Christianity (bear in mind if you were being tricked by an evil demon, how would you know God's word/the bible was also true, or given that the bible states god is deceptive, how would you know you aren't being deceived when you assume he wouldn't deceive you? After all choosing the 'correct' form of Christianity could simply be the result of a deception, couldn't it)?
You can't really criticise a non-Christian view for any problems it might have on that front whilst ignoring obvious faults that are present in the Christian alternative.
ie, information is present
are you aware that there is more information in random noise than there is in patterned sequences?
eg
abababababab
has less information than
j23fhc716rmn
since the former can be expressed as 'ab x 6' while the latter has to be expressed as is.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolmogorov_complexity
Also, "Things are designed b/c they show the telltale signs of design"
is the whole failure point of the ID movement - IC was supposed to be a 'telltale sign of design' but it turned out there were IC things that can arise by way of biological/chemical processes, and the systems that were supposedly IC (eg the blood clotting cascade) turned out not to be.
None of Dembski's many versions of CSi have stood up to mathematical rigour either and his 'law of conservation of information' has turned out not to be a law at all.
it's also worth reading Jeffrey Shallitt's critiques of ID attempts to use information theory
http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2009/10/jonathan-wells-3.html
So i think jft's argument is absolutely fine here.
eg
abababababab
has less information than
j23fhc716rmn
And neither have very much. ID doesn't appeal just to complexity, you know.
IC was supposed to be a 'telltale sign of design' but it turned out there were IC things that can arise by way of biological/chemical processes, and the systems that were supposedly IC (eg the blood clotting cascade) turned out not to be.
I don't grant that, not at all. Perhaps on naturalism, that might be the case, but naturalism is irrational. ANYthing is an example of design, on Christianity.
But granting naturalism, which the ID-ers do, you can SAY that it's been proven that these systems are not IC, but to me they're just wishful thinking on your part. They're just-so stories; it went this way b/c we say so.
And neither have very much.
That's not exactly the point...
You use the word information, but it seems clear from your failure to grasp this point that you aren't using it in any precise or meaningful way as regards biology (which is exactly the sort of thing that has been pointed out to the ID movement).
But granting naturalism, which the ID-ers do, you can SAY that it's been proven that these systems are not IC, but to me they're just wishful thinking on your part. They're just-so stories; it went this way b/c we say so.
So let's get this straight - the empirical data (ie published work in journals) that IDists claimed supported the notion of irreducible complexity (IC) (they maintained there was no data to support the idea that the factors in the IC systems could be removed or found elsewhere) is all correct, yet all the data collected by pretty much the exact same methods and tested to the exact same set of standards which was shown to refute IC (ie published work in journals) is false. care to tell us how you determined the former was all correct and the latter all false?
I'm at a loss as to how you think the ID movement supported irreducible complexity if it wasn't by appeal to mainstream scientific studies (or lack of), given that several of them are on record as saying that they did this. Behe wrote a whole book about it!
How else would they know what the parts of the blood clotting cascade were, never mind whether they were IC and what function they performed if not by the exact same methods that eventually refuted them? You can't reasonably claim science showed what the BC cascade was composed of, how the parts interacted etc, yet claim it failed when it was shown that these parts actually did numerous non-BC functions as well and that other organisms had simpler versions of the same thing.
2nd, Behe said even in principle IC systems can't arise stepwise - yet the Mullerian 2-step approach is an easy hypothetical refutation of this.
So both logically and evidentially the ideas are false - hardly a 'just so-story', which is especially rich given your claim about ultra-fast evolution being make believe even though you need it to be true to support your own worldview!
ANYthing is an example of design, on Christianity.
First, even if we agree everything is designed that still doesn't tell us if it's good design or bad design - it just tells us that things are designed, not that they are any good.
This claim also fails since you need a point of comparison between designed and undesigned objects - if everything is ultimately designed then how do you determine the 'tell-tale signs of design' if a tank of sludge is designed just as a walking talking living organism is?
False dilemma. The 3rd option is that they DO reliably detect the outside world, but they are not infallible and must submit to a better knowledge as their standard for knowing.
Firstly, you just argued that something can be"reliable" and "not infallible" at the same time, which just totally destroys your argument that we shouldn't trust the scientific method because it is limited, and therefore not reliable. So thanks for that.
Also, how can we know that that "infallible" standard even exists? If even though we can observe tree rings formed every year, and we can count them back going twelves thousand years, but that DOESN'T mean that the Earth is at least twelve thousand years old, then perhaps even though I can read words, and read the creation account in Genesis, that DOESN'T mean that Genesis is a creation account. Perhaps it has the "appearance of a creation account" like the earth has an "appearance of age."
That's why believing that the earth is under ten thousand years old is a defeater for beleiving that the Bible is true.
You don't really hold to that in real life;
Of course I don't. I'm FINE with "limited" ways of knowing. You are the one who is arguing that every "limited" way of knowing should be thrown in the garbage heap. But you clearly don't hold to that, because you believe that you are looking at a computer screen right now, even though using your eyes for seeing is a "limited method."
Like I said, and it still stands, saying that "Science is limited, and therefore shouldn't be trusted" is a self refuting idea.
. My worldview is very different
Really? Does your worldview hold you to be omniscient? Because that is the only way to argue that "limited" ways of knowing are unacceptable while simultaneously arguing that you are capable of knowing anything at all.
I've simply cited his argument to counter your relevant contention.
Actually, no. Pointing out that biostratiography is completely consistent with evolution when it doesn't have to be doesn't at all relate to Gee's arguments, which more relate to the limits to what we can infer about individual fossils. You can't keep retreating to Gee as a means of avoiding a simple, straightforward question:
Why are there ZERO fossils in the strata that would contradict the evolutionary story?
This isn't about constructing evolutionary scenarios about what involved into what, it's about how every fossil we have every discovered is exactly where it should be if evolution were true.
But since the distinction between palentology and biostratiography is a fairly subtle one and you apparently suffer from a particularly nasty case of Morton's Demon, I fully expect you to misunderstand it again.
And I admire your faith that Darwinian processes can accelerate to many times faster than they normally run whenever it's convenient for your position.
Firstly, we've witnessed extremely rapid evolution. Like when Italian Wall lizards evolved cecal valves in order to adapt to a vegetarian diet in just a few dozen generations.
Secondly, the Cambrian explosion just isn't the magic "poof" of life that creationists misrepresent it to be. Here's Stephen Westrop's OU lecture on the matter
That's a good reason not to take materialistic scientism as one's worldview.
Since this ignores my contention that pointing to "sin" is an unscientific objection to a scientific question, I'll just assume you agree that it's useless to scientifically determine the nature of the world given Christianity.
If you want to argue against science as a whole as a means of determining how we got here, that's fine, but don't alternate between arguing against science and arguing using science. Arguing using scientific principles one moment and then arguing that its useless to determine the real state of things the next is a little dizzying and inconsistent.
It wasn't wasteful. Creation was "very good". No harmful mutations, death, movement toward death (ie, aging and disease), etc.
That's a little interesting to think about scientifically. So telomeres never shortened? Were Adam and Eve biologically immortal like the Turritopsis nutricula? Or when they not even die if they tripped and a dinosaur spike ran through their heart? If there was no death, what did they eat? Are plants not "alive" under the Christian worldview? Or perhaps, since there was no suffering or death, they didn't eat anything at all (what exactly would be the point?) Then why exactly do we have digestive systems? It can't be so they could eat for pleasure, because you don't need a digestive system to enjoy the taste of food. If Malaria didn't exist prefall, wouldn't that mean that Plasmodium would have had to evolved into existence within the last six thousand years? Wouldn't that completely falsify the theories of DI members like Dembski and Behe on what evolution is capable of? (after all, a whole new genus evolved in just the last few thousand years)
I kid, but seriously: If YEC is true, why is it obviously horse plop?
Things are designed b/c they show the telltale signs of design and DON'T show telltale signs of randomness (ie, information is present). Ergo, designer.
Ok, so you are allowed to speculate on what constitutes signs of "intelligence" but not on what constitutes signs of "unintelligence (i.e. either undesigned or at the very least, designed by a dimwit)." Got it.
I sorta doubt "even Plantinga would tell me" this, to be honest. EAAN is a defeater for ALL thoughts, given ToE, not just naturalism.
He most certainly would, as I don't think he has ever used it as an argument against evolution, just naturalism. EAAN has absolutely no effect on theistic evolutionists, nor does it simply make the evidence for evolution dissolve. If EAAN is successful, then it doesn't follow that evolution is false, just naturalism.
But anyway, I value DI for its utility in shooting holes in Darwinism, not for guiding me to a competent worldview.
I kind of like the Discovery Institute too. Firstly, because they provide a lot of entertainment in the profoundly dumb things its fellows say, but also because it obviously represents creationism's last stand. Once you are forced to deny that you think that the Christian God is the one who slapped the flagellum on the ass of a bacterium in order to even make an attempt at having a seat at the table of respectable ideas (no no, it was a "designer"), you basically have nowhere to go but oblivion and obscurity.
'Gee: Creationism is manifest rubbish and the creationists can go hang - no amount of reasoned argument will ever convince them'
Couldn't have put it better myself. Oh, wait a minute ...
Couldn't have put it better myself. Oh, wait a minute ...
Scientist, journalist, gentleman, and Google Alerts enthusiast.
No, just an incorrigible EgoSurfer. Sad, I know...
Did I miss sthg? Who was claiming that Gee thinks creationism or ID were good or had any merit? Reading comprehension, people, it's called reading comprehension. Should've taken that class around age 7-8, somewhere around there.
Dr F said:
yet all the data collected by pretty much the exact same methods and tested to the exact same set of standards which was shown to refute IC
Argument from authority.
The ad hoc "the structure was built from pre-existing structures that were adapted to use, later" is a weak argument, but I know it's the best you've got. One reason it's weak is that you can't demonstrate that new info comes into existence thru your mechanism. Another is that you can't demonstrate that's how it happened, but rather "Well, this is how I think it could've happened." For ppl who claim you have overwhelming evidence on your side, "could've happened" isn't nearly good enough to sustain that standard.
by appeal to mainstream scientific studies
Sorry, I'm not sure how this is relevant.
Besides, haven't you noticed by now I have a little bit of a anti-authority attitude and prefer ARGUMENTS rather than the surrounding noise?
even if we agree everything is designed that still doesn't tell us if it's good design or bad design
Good design and bad design are still design, remember?
if everything is ultimately designed then how do you determine the 'tell-tale signs of design' if a tank of sludge is designed just as a walking talking living organism is?
It's important to keep in mind that I say that right out of my Christian presuppositions. The ID argument is different, and I don't know if I'd expect Meyer or Dembski to make an ID argument for a tank of sludge. But since it's a TANK, which doesn't appear in nature, I'd say there's a decent argument to be made even on the ID basis.
(cont)
jft said:
you just argued that something can be"reliable" and "not infallible" at the same time, which just totally destroys your argument that we shouldn't trust the scientific method because it is limited, and therefore not reliable
False leap. Prove your senses are reliable. Forget infallible. Just reliable.
how can we know that that "infallible" standard even exists?
On naturalism, it doesn't, but neither does reliability.
On Christianity, it's a fundamental axiom.
If even though we can observe tree rings formed every year,
You THINK you observe them.
You THINK they mean something.
You ASSUME the tree started out as an acorn and wasn't created with some of the rings already in place.
I can read words, and read the creation account in Genesis, that DOESN'T mean that Genesis is a creation account.
Tree rings are hardly analogous to objective text, as we have in the Bible.
If you want to argue "appearance of creation acct", substantiate your argument. (Not that I've ever really met an atheist who showed much capability of properly interping the Bible.)
I'm FINE with "limited" ways of knowing
And I'm very happy for you that you have such strong faith.
But you clearly don't hold to that, because you believe that you are looking at a computer screen right now, even though using your eyes for seeing is a "limited method."
You keep slipping in between worldviews, as if they're equivalent. I think my senses are reliable b/c I hold to Christian presupps. You hold to naturalistic ones, and I don't see a good reason to think your eyes or brain are reliably communicating to you about reality, on your presupps.
Does your worldview hold you to be omniscient?
No, God is. His revelation is sufficient, not exhaustive.
Why are there ZERO fossils in the strata that would contradict the evolutionary story?
Why should I accept your acct and interp of the fossil "record".
Prove any of the fossils you've seen were well adapted to their environment.
Prove any of them had children.
it's about how every fossil we have every discovered is exactly where it should be if evolution were true.
Not the Cambrian ones, cited in the Darwin's Dilemma DVD.
"Oh, but in that case, evolution just went really really fast." Sure it did. Pretty convenient to say that, AFTER the challenge is made. But no, you just "modify" the hypothesis to match what you actually find.
Morton's Demon
A bad caricature of the Christian position, I see. I'm supposed to be daunted by someone refusing to deal with the presuppositional challenges to his own worldview and strawmaning the Christian position?
Like when Italian Wall lizards evolved cecal valves in order to adapt to a vegetarian diet in just a few dozen generations.
Oh, whom have you met who denies that lizards can evolve into...lizards? I'd like to talk to them. URL?
Since this ignores my contention that pointing to "sin" is an unscientific objection to a scientific question
No, it's a HISTORICAL question. And the Fall of Man is a historical event.
You haven't observed anythg close to what ToE claims, so you appeal to what happenED (you assume) in history. At least try to be consistent.
but don't alternate between arguing against science and arguing using science.
That's a dumb thing to say. What science is good for, it's good for. What it's insufficient for or where it's superseded by a better way of determining truth, I use the better method.
Were Adam and Eve biologically immortal like the Turritopsis nutricula?
Not like that. They were just biologically immortal. There's no modern comparison.
Or when they not even die if they tripped and a dinosaur spike ran through their heart?
That's a good question. I'd assume they wouldn't, since death wasn't present in the Earth yet.
If there was no death, what did they eat?
Fruits and nuts.
If Malaria didn't exist prefall, wouldn't that mean that Plasmodium would have had to evolved into existence within the last six thousand years?
Weren't you just arguing that "Italian Wall lizards evolved cecal valves in order to adapt to a vegetarian diet in just a few dozen generations"? Can't you decide what side you want to take here?
Wouldn't that completely falsify the theories of DI members like Dembski and Behe on what evolution is capable of?
Yes, b/c they hold to an Old Earth, which I don't. Look at my blog archives - I've never hitched my wagon to ID or the DI. I just cite them to shoot holes in Darwinism, for which I find them quite useful.
EAAN has absolutely no effect on theistic evolutionists, nor does it simply make the evidence for evolution dissolve.
Not on theistic evolutionists, b/c they presuppose theism.
But you're totally whiffing on the meaning and implications of EAAN, like PZ Myers did in his laughable "reply" to it. On naturalistic evolution, the argument goes, there's every reason to doubt the reliability of one's cognitive faculties to produce true beliefs. Nothing in there about being limited to naturalism, but as naturalism is a production of one's cognitive faculties, it's one casualty of the doubt. But so is every other thought. You probably need to read it/listen to it again.
Peace,
Rhology
Argument from authority.
Not at all -
1. the ID ideas such as the fact the blood clotting cascade exists, what it is composed of and what specific functions its parts have are all derived from scientific experiment.
2. The idea that those parts do things other than clot blood or that other organisms have complexes that perform a similar function without the exact same parts are also all derived via the same manner as those in 1.
Surely you must therefore have a reason why the former studies are all true, but the latter (every single one of them) are all false? I fail to see you've provided this
I think the absolute best you could hope to show here is that you'd have no way of knowing if any of the above was true, since both the former and latter discoveries will use a large number of shared techniques, so if one lot is wrong because the technique is faulty, so must the others be. Do you actually have any familiarity with any of the papers in either set or with how the techniques in the studies are used and what problems their might be with them (if any)?
Sorry, I'm not sure how this is relevant.
Besides, haven't you noticed by now I have a little bit of a anti-authority attitude and prefer ARGUMENTS rather than the surrounding noise?
See above - please tell us what this argument actually is then, because as far as I can see it's nowhere to be found in what you wrote.
Good design and bad design are still design, remember?
yes - but the point is even if accept this for argument, it still isn't telling us how you differentiate good design from bad design and why your claims are sound but jft's are not.
And if everything is designed, how can there be tell-tale signs of design if there is nothing undesigned to compare it to?
The ad hoc "the structure was built from pre-existing structures that were adapted to use, later" is a weak argument, but I know it's the best you've got.
This is really irrelevant to whether IC is true or not. Either the parts can do other things or they can't regardless of how they got there.
One reason it's weak is that you can't demonstrate that new info comes into existence thru your mechanism.
But this is meaningless given you just demonstrated when you use the word information, given that you stated random noise didn't have information when it has more than a patterned sequence.
Saying that new information can not arise is about the equivalent of the age old faulty argument that '2nd law of thermodynamics means evolution can't happen'
Third, you can't actually demonstrate how God engineers new information - you say 'supernaturally' but this is just the 'this pill kills pain by its analgesic powers' scenario, it explains nothing.
But since it's a TANK, which doesn't appear in nature, I'd say there's a decent argument to be made even on the ID basis.
Dear Lord, surely someone cannot miss the point this often and this spectacularly - you'd have Jesus himself swearing in exasperation! the tank is totally irrelevant - let's say a puddle of sludge, no tank. Does a cowpat have the tell-tale marks of design just like a human does? Surely it must if everything is designed.
You haven't observed anythg close to what ToE claims, so you appeal to what happenED (you assume) in history.
But then the exact same criticism could be made of Christianity given that it's at least partly reliant on the historical truth of Jesus' existence/resurrection/miracles, reliable translation of ancient languages that are no longer spoken/written which have to be learned by analysis of historical documents, comparison to modern day variants of those languages, making inferences to the most likely explanation etc etc
In fact just a few weeks back a bible scholar stated that she had determined new evidence that modern translations of certain aspects of Genesis might be wrong
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/6274502/God-is-not-the-Creator-claims-academic.html
debates over translations, or uncertainty over exact meanings of the text aren't uncommon either (eg Hector Avalos discusses quite a few in his book The End of Biblical Studies)
You can't legitimately use this objection without cutting yourself off at the knees.
Prove any of the fossils you've seen were well adapted to their environment.
Prove any of them had children.
Why would he need to do that? If I died tomorrow (given that I have no children, and that I have features that are not well adapted (eg I have bad eyesight)) would this then disprove that I had any ancestors, that I was not related via ancestry to all other humans or that I was more similar to other humans than I was to birds or dogs?
I think my senses are reliable b/c I hold to Christian presupps.
So if this is the case, why do you avoid answering the points about the devil etc every time I bring them up if you're so confident Christianity has no problems in this regard?
Tree rings are hardly analogous to objective text, as we have in the Bible.
You're right - tree rings just grow whether humans are interested in them or not. They don't 'care' if the world is 10 years old or 10 million. So, it's pretty reasonable to consider them objective sources of information since they aren't influenced by human imagination.
On the other hand, anyone writing a book has nothing stopping them
making stuff up that never happened
pretending they were contacted by some supernatural source
using their imagination whether what they say is physically impossible or not
confirmation bias on the part of the writers
altering the text after the fact
making honest mistakes
repeating unreliable 2nd/3rd hand info
Think of The Jungle Book or a Wile E Coyote cartoon - same/similar media to the bible. Now is there anything about these media that requires the characters face the limitations that exist for people/animals in the real world? If Chuck Jones wanted Wile E. to fall 1000 feet, get squashed by a 10 tonne anvil then get blown up by dynamite all without dying, is there anything stopping this being feasible in the cartoon world? If Rudyard Kipling wants a bear or a tiger to be able to talk English, is there anything stopping this being feasible in the world described in his book? if the answer is 'no' ask yourself, how about the gospels - is there anything stopping Matthew or Luke claiming Jesus walked on water or was born of a virgin in Bible World whether this is feasible or not?
Your examples of harmonisations that you have to rely on aren't 'objective text' either, since they rely on your own subjective readings into the text that you can't prove to be true, so again you don't have anything to go on here.
On the relevant thread on my blog (http://mycaseagainstgod.blogspot.com/2009/10/what-if-entire-scientific-community-is.html), I have responded to Rhology's rejoinder to my original response.
Hi Dr F,
Do you actually have any familiarity with any of the papers in either set or with how the techniques in the studies are used and what problems their might be with them (if any)?
No, I don't. I'm more familiar with the standard responses to the IC of the flagellum, in particular Miller's weak "reducible mousetrap" example. I'll probably have to concede this question to more qualified ppl.
it still isn't telling us how you differentiate good design from bad design and why your claims are sound but jft's are not.
For one thing, the very fact that you say "design" when you say "bad design" says something already.
Look, it all comes down to presuppositions. You start with materialism and go from there, thus you have a limited scope of things to which you'll attribute design - that which is created by human agents. I don't start with materialism b/c I'm convinced that materialism is irrational; instead, I start with Christian theism, and on that everything is designed. I see things organised in a complex and functional way and say "Cool, design". You see SOME things organised in a complex and specifically functional way, and say "That table is designed, but that brain is not." Not only is it viciously circular (all the while crowing about how MY view is circular, which it is, just not viciously so), but it's ad hoc and inconsistent.
The IDists sort of try to split the diff; honestly, I'm not sure how useful that is, but they apparently think it is, so more power to 'em.
(This answer applies to the sludge and cowpat example you mentioned too.)
how can there be tell-tale signs of design if there is nothing undesigned to compare it to?
I'm in the middle of Meyer's Signature in the Cell; as far as I can see, his answer is twofold:
1) specified complexity, wherein the designed thing in question is not only complex, but also (and ISTM Darwinists often miss the 2nd part) specifically functional.
2) information exists. Remove the question at hand - whether biological structures are designed - and the ONLY source we've ever observed for originating specifically functional information is a mind. Scientists are supposed to be big on observation, yet they just dismiss this fact and also this. It amazes me.
But this is meaningless given you just demonstrated when you use the word information, given that you stated random noise didn't have information when it has more than a patterned sequence.
This is an example of what I just said above in point #1. Point out complexity, ignore the specified functionality part.
Saying that new information can not arise is about the equivalent of the age old faulty argument
Sure it can arise. From minds.
Mutations we see on which nat sel acts is LOSS/SHUFFLING of info.
you can't actually demonstrate how God engineers new information - you say 'supernaturally' but this is just the 'this pill kills pain by its analgesic powers' scenario, it explains nothing.
Um, it explains the origin of the info. That's plenty, but not to those whose minds are closed, who SAY they want to know "Why" but aren't satisfied when they get the answer. It's like the child asking "Why?" as many times as it takes to annoy the parent to blind rage.
But then the exact same criticism could be made of Christianity given that it's at least partly reliant on the historical truth of Jesus' existence/resurrection/miracles
External critique. I don't grant that "observation" is the only or nearly the only way to discover truth.
reliable translation of ancient languages that are no longer spoken/written which have to be learned by analysis of historical documents
Which accuracy of understanding virtually no one in the field questions.
In fact just a few weeks back a bible scholar stated that she had determined new evidence that modern translations of certain aspects of Genesis might be wrong
Yes, and that was a complete joke.
You might be interested in White's debates with Crossan and Ehrman.
Why would he need to do that (prove the fossils were well-adapted and had children)?
Hmm, I don't know. Maybe b/c you're supposed to be PROVING your case? Overwhelming evidence, remember?
If I died tomorrow, would this then disprove that I had any ancestors, that I was not related via ancestry to all other humans or that I was more similar to other humans than I was to birds or dogs?
Not that you didn't have ancestors, but we'd have no way to know if you had CHILDREN.
And your bones look similar but not exactly like other humans. Who knows, maybe if you're 6'6", 100 kg and your skeleton is found, and then compared to another skeleton from your year, 5'0" 55 kg, the two of you would be marked down as separate species or sthg. There's just not enough left.
Further, no one is questioning your similarity of skeletal structure to other organisms. But that's not what the fossil record is appealed to to substantiate.
why do you avoid answering the points about the devil etc every time I bring them up if you're so confident Christianity has no problems in this regard?
B/c biblically the devil doesn't have that power. My fundamental presupp is the God of the Bible, and so I'm justified in rejecting a self-refuting idea like that.
You however appeal for your knowledge of truth to evidence and empirical observation, and there's no way to disprove the evil demon/solipsistic hypothesis given that kind of standard for discovering truth. It sticks YOU, not me.
tree rings just grow whether humans are interested in them or not.
Now prove they HAVE ALWAYS grown at the same rate.
Or just keep laying assumption upon assumption like you always do.
Jungle Book
You don't grasp the seriousness of your worldview quandary; this is little diff from the FSM.
Where do these books present themselves as the basis for all epistemology and metaphysical foundation?
Your examples of harmonisations that you have to rely on aren't 'objective text' either, since they rely on your own subjective readings into the text that you can't prove to be true,
I guess the reader will just have to judge who's right on that one, and whether it is right to interp this comment from you as a challenge to the utility of the Bible or as an invitation to drink corn chips on the moon next time the eclipse rains 15.
Rhology,
As I was reading up on Darwinian evolution and its discontents, I came upon a discovery that, quite honestly, surprised me completely. Well-known Christian apologist William Lane Craig is not an avowed creationist, as I had assumed him to be.
His position, indeed, is nuanced.
On his website, he writes, “As I explained in my exposition of the Doctrine of Creation, when it comes to questions of the origin of life and biological complexity, biblical Christians enjoy the advantage over the naturalist of being truly open to follow the evidence where it leads. Since I think, for the reasons explained in the podcast, that an evolutionary theory is compatible with the biblical account in Genesis 1, the question of biological origins is for me a straightforward scientific question….”
Craig remarked, with respect to the Thesis of Common Descent, one should be cautious about accepting it, although biomolecular evidence is in its favor. The second principal point of Darwinian theory—the Thesis of Random Mutation and Natural Selection as evolution’s engine—is more doubtful to him. Nevertheless, Craig seems quite divided in his views, saying he has been left with “a probing agnosticism about the theory.” He seems inclined toward a notion of progressive creationism, which, of course, is dramatically different from Young Earthism’s six-day concept.
I know you respect Craig, and I suspect you have some admiration for his biblical scholarship.
A couple of months ago, you told me that, in your view, common descent is not compatible with any consistent biblical hermeneutic. You cited not merely Genesis, but also Jesus and Paul. Does this mean, in your view, Craig’s biblical hermeneutic is flawed?
How, specifically, is Craig going wrong in allowing the possibility of Darwinian evolution? Why, specifically, does a consistent biblical interpretation preclude acceptance of Darwinian theory?
JN,
I posted my disagreement with a prominent professional apologist here. ;-)
Part 1
I'm more familiar with the standard responses to the IC of the flagellum, in particular Miller's weak "reducible mousetrap" example.
Even if we ignored Miller's mousetrap example, the Mullerian two step example is a logical refutation of the claim that IC structures can't arise indirectly. It doesn't have to follow that therefore it actually happens anywhere in reality, but since Behe stated that even in prinicple it could not be done any logically sound, stepwise, indirect pathway to IC refutes that.
As for evidential cases of why IC is false, the literature has plenty of them - if you go on to pubmed.com, choose the name any of the factors that form the 'IC core' of the blood clotting cascade and search for functions that they have not related to blood clotting you'll find plenty of them (eg I think some of them are involved in things like embryo implantation and angiogenesis, for example). For the flagellum Matzke and Pallen did a review (2006 in Nature I think) pointing out homologues of flagellar proteins in other systems and other functions flagellar proteins perform)
For one thing, the very fact that you say "design" when you say "bad design" says something already.
All I'm doing is splitting this into 2 points that you need to explain - in the 1st i'm asking you if things have tell-tale signs of design, yet everything is designed, what is the point of comparison you are using for these tell tale signs if no undesigned thing exists?
On the 2nd I'm saying that even if we accept everything is designed, how are we deciding what constitutes good and bad design? If there's no metric for it, perhaps everything could be shoddily designed and we just don't realise it.
If our point of comparison for design is human designed things (and from the words of the ID crowd it often is - eg Watches, Mt Rushmore etc), then we can quite easily point out things that a human designer would avoid were they designing an organism.
I don't start with materialism b/c I'm convinced that materialism is irrational
Apparently very few philosophers are out and out materialists, and plenty of them are also atheists/non-theists. There's no requirement that a person be a materialist if they are an atheist, and there's no need that atheism be a starting assumption as opposed to a conclusion reached on the basis of other starting principles/axioms.
specified complexity
Which Dembski has no consistent description or metric for.
complex, but also (and ISTM Darwinists often miss the 2nd part) specifically functional.
But IC and CSI are two linked concepts. Indeed, Dembski describes IC as a special case of CSI
http://www.designinference.com/documents/02.02.POISK_article.htm
and I've explained that Behe's examples of IC can be shown to be false quite easily.
ONLY source we've ever observed for originating specifically functional information is a mind.
Only if you ignore hundreds of examples from the real world, and as the ID crowd are fond of doing completely making a mess of their information theory claims.
Part II
yet they just dismiss this fact and also this[link].
First they don't 'just dismiss it' - Jeffrey Shallit, Mark Chu-Carroll, Wes Elsberry, Thomas D Schneider and many others have all critiqued Dembski's claims. Your claim here is blatantly false, since in a matter of seconds on Google you can find critiques of Dembski on numerous sites. Simply by looking up 'specified complexity' on Wikipedia refutes this.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specified_complexity#Criticisms.
Shallitt's blog is called 'Recursivity', Elsberry's is 'The Austringer' and Chu-Carroll's is 'Good Math, Bad Math' for further reading
As for your link, we've been over the content of that multiple times - it seems rather bizarre, since as Paul C pointed out your criteria are self-refuting to start with (eg asking for experimental evidence with the proviso that no experimenter can be involved in the study), very few if any of your terms are precisely defined (eg what do you mean when you say information and what would constitute an increase? What constitutes intelligence and how does it exert an effect on one set of experiments but not control experiments?), the fact that letting an experiment free run to a conclusion that occurs independent of the experimenter's wishes/preferences is about as opposite from ID as you can get, as is the fact that we know everything about the who/what/where/when/why of the design process (yet the conclusion is not that humans are the designer of ID), and it ignores that the experiments model the real world using inputs taken from nature rather than vice versa.
Hopefully I'll have time finish the other responses off later this week
This is an example of what I just said above in point #1. Point out complexity, ignore the specified functionality part.
Your claim is that increases in information content cannot occur during evolution. From what I've read, your definition is at odds with both Shannon Weaver theory and Kolmogorov-Chaitin-Solomonoff theories of information.
Therefore what you are saying is patently false (most likely because you've assumed something along the lines of "the more uniform and longer a sequence is, the more information it has", when apparently in info theory the complete opposite is true as the more random a sequence it is the more difficult it becomes to compress and a longer sequence can be less complex than a short one). As for functional specification, presumably this is where natural selection comes in by (on average) preferring those that are better suited to a given function within their environmental niche.
I'd suggest reading this
http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2006/06/an_introduction_to_information.php
To quote Jeffrey Shallit
http://recursed.blogspot.com/2006/03/nancy-pearcey-creationists-miss.html
"But since high information content can result from random events -- for example, mutation -- it is not surprising at all that DNA can be viewed as a string with high Kolmogorov information. In fact, as Greg Chaitin has observed, pretty much the only way to get large amounts of information in the mathematical sense is to either do a really long calculation, or to exploit a source of randomness. DNA's high information content is prima facie evidence it resulted, in part, from an essentially random process."
Mutations we see on which nat sel acts is LOSS/SHUFFLING of info.
I suggest reading this as well
http://recursed.blogspot.com/2009/01/test-your-knowledge-of-information.html
which states that under Kolmogorov information theory, both deletions and shuffling (or recombination if you prefer) can cause increases in information. Of course, Shallit's challenge is for you to
a. learn why this is the case under standard info theory
b. and then provide proofs that standard IT is wrong about this
Plus, although it's not especially important for me to point out as you already concede shuffling and deletion of bases occurs and therefore as per above info can increase:
1. there are mutations that insert bases as well as delete or swap them. this is 1st year level genetics/mol biol knowledge
2. duplication of genes/chromosomes (eg polyploidy) isn't unusual either (especially in organisms like plants), or the incorporation of the genomes of other organisms in some species
I don't grant that "observation" is the only or nearly the only way to discover truth.
Neither do I, so we're not in disagreement there
however, a substantial amount of our knowledge is acquired that way, including that of learning ancient/dead languages. Unless you have some other means in mind by which translators acquire knowledge of these languages?
Which accuracy of understanding virtually no one in the field questions.
Except on some points, they do. Avalos cites several specific examples and specific scholars on this front.
Yes, and that was a complete joke.[link]
That link seemed to primarily be an ad hominem rant against the perceived liberalism of 'the academy'. The only obvious attempt it made to address the scholar's points was in the criticism that
"This particular woman's theory (one which opts for ignoring the context of the Bible and instead importing the context of pagan religious documents of the time) is absurd on its face"
and even that was pretty vague as it makes no attempt to explain what specifically it is that she's done wrong. Even if she's wrong (and she might well be) that article doesn't give us anything more than the fact James White doesn't really like the views of liberals who don't tell him the conclusions he'd like to hear.
Dr Funk,
I plan to make another post out of most of this stuff soon, so stay tuned, and as always thanks for your patience. Got a lot going on.
This material would be off-topic on the new post, so I'll respond here:
Unless you have some other means in mind by which translators acquire knowledge of these languages?
I think we got off-track here and it's probably my fault.
You had compared observation of biological history with observation of Christianity's history, but the two are not comparable. Christianity's history is composed largely of written text, and written text communicates with much more specificity and objectivity than rocks, not least b/c texts are meant to communicate, whereas rocks aren't intended for much of anythg.
Avalos cites several specific examples and specific scholars on this front.
OK.
the perceived liberalism of 'the academy'.
Sometimes perception does actually match reality, you know.
White dismissed it b/c the woman is coming from, yet again, a set of materialistic presuppositions, and those have no place in research of any kind, especially not religious historical research. God couldn't have spoken; therefore we have to figure out what REALLY happened. White's burned thru so many of these pitiful libs in his time (catch his debates with Lynn, Spong, and Crossan) than I certainly can't fault him for giving a "yeah, whatever" anymore.
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