OU is marking Darwin’s 200th birthday and the 150th anniversary of his magnum opus, “On the Origin of Species,” with an extensive series of lectures and events to encourage debate of Darwinian evolution.
The celebrations are focusing on Darwin’s work and its impact on science and society, but the focus on one man’s contribution is leading to concerns the events will be one-sided, said Jonathan Bartlett, a contributor to the intelligent design Web site uncommondescent.com.
“Evolutionary biology is a diverse field, and I do not think that it does justice to Darwin or evolution to present to the public such a one-sided picture of science and present it as a fact,” Bartlett said in a letter to OU President David Boren.
According to Bartlett, Nick Matzke and Richard Dawkins, who are scheduled to speak at OU this year, present a biased view of evolutionary theory that is weighted too heavily toward Darwinism.
“OU is a public university, so this series of lectures is oriented to the public,” Bartlett said. “I don’t begrudge people speaking their viewpoints, but there is a responsibility to genuinely look at other sides.”
Bartlett is a member of the intelligent design community, which believes certain biological features are best explained by an intelligent force, not an undirected process, and that design is scientifically detectable.
History of science professor Piers Hale said in an e-mail that intelligent design is an argument based on religious faith, not science.
“People who have strong religious objections to the idea that humans have evolved from other life forms find evolution problematic,” Hale said. “This would explain why any state in the Bible Belt would have more vocal opposition to the established science of evolutionary biology.”
Hale said while some of the lecture events throughout the year may be controversial, little controversy surrounds the “The Darwinian Revolution,” a special class which he teaches, because it aims not only to explore Darwin’s ideas of science, but also to look at the cultural response.
“The aim is to give students an understanding of the science as well as why some continue to find it controversial,” Hale said. “Providing students with the information from which to make an informed opinion on an issue that remains of current relevance is exactly what a university course should do.”
Jeff Harwell, chemical engineering professor and intelligent design proponent, said in an e-mail he thinks it is important for students to consider all scientific theories before drawing conclusions.
“I want students to know that every intelligent person in the university is not an atheist, that Darwinism has not disproven the existence of God, and that they are competent as logical thinkers to examine and understand the controversy without having to accept the extreme statements of those on either side of the issue,” Harwell said.
Bartlett said he agrees people should learn about other creation theories because most will disregard evidence that contradicts their core beliefs.
“As a culture, we tend to rely on what sciences say unequivocally,” Bartlett said. “Whether it’s good or bad, it happens.”
Harwell said he is disappointed by the controversy and emotion surrounding the theory of evolution.
“I wish the issue could be examined and debated in a rational manner,” Harwell said. “I also realize there is probably no hope of that ever happening.”
He said people invest so much into the controversy for complex reasons.
“Some feel they are protecting the Bible from a loss of influence and respect,” Harwell said. “Others feel they are protecting science and education from an intrusion of metaphysics and religion. Both are causes that stir the emotions.”
Dawkins will speak March 6 at 7 p.m in McCasland Fieldhouse.
What is Intelligent Design?
“Intelligent design is the study of patterns in nature that are best explained as the result of intelligence.”
— William A. Dembski, leading intelligent design theorist
In 1802, philosopher William Paley published “Natural Theology,” which argued that life must have been created from an intelligent designer.
Jonathan Bartlett, a contributor to the intelligent design Web site uncommondescent.com, said there is a sense in which evolution and intelligent design don’t necessarily have to be in conflict with one another.
Although some people claim intelligent design is a religious theory, researchers who study the theory argue it is scientific, intelligent design proponent Jeff Harwell said.
Bartlett said intelligent design seeks to detect intelligent causes to some features of biology.
“There are parts to human creativity that are based on physics and parts that are based on more of a spiritual nature,” Bartlett said. “Intelligent design is the science that looks into those types of causes. It describes certain aspects, but it is not a complete explanation.”
Sources: ideacenter.org, uncommondescent.com, arn.org
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Wordsmith 3 years, 3 months ago
"Intelligent Design" is the obvious first alternative when attempting to explain patterns that cannot be physically duplicated or mathematically explained by undirected natural forces alone."
To ignore or arbitrarily reject this alternative on a philosophical basis is anti-science bordering on religion.
NeilBJ 3 years, 3 months ago
skeptico wants a mathematical definition of complexity. I agree. As a layman, I cannot supply that answer. I will make two points however.
I just got through looking at a web site that shows how science has copied designs from nature (http://brainz.org/15-coolest-cases-biomimicry). I have always enjoyed the irony: science copies designs from nature yet, it is asserted, nature is not the result of design.
skeptico 3 years, 3 months ago
Briareus: where can we find these valid scientific criticisms? What scientific journals do they appear in?
You ask, Why can't we just say that we don't know what the mechanism is?
Because that would be a lie. We know what the mechanisms of evolution are: mutation, recombination, natural selection, and genetic drift, to name just four. If you consult any textbook on evolutionary biology you will learn about these and others.
NeilBJ 3 years, 3 months ago
naturalist said:
"That is why mainstream science must remain neutral to such religious arguments and deal with the material universe as it is."
I agree. We must deal with things the way that they relly are. The problem is how do we discover how things really are?
Do we approach all problems of our existence with an open mind, or do we rule out a priori certain possibilities?
If we rule out a priori certain possibilities, how do we then know that we are describing things as they really are?
scordova 3 years, 3 months ago
Hale wrote:"the established science of evolutionary biology."
Say what? With the exception of disciplines like the science of population genetics, evolutionary biology is a farce.
Consider the words of one of their very own, Jerry Coyne, "In science's pecking order, evolutionary biology lurks somewhere near the bottom, far closer to phrenology than to physics."
Darwinism doesn't deserve to be called science. It has abandoned empiricism in favor of story telling. Ernst Mayr said it in so many words: "Evolutionary biology, in contrast with physics and chemistry...attempts to explain events and processes that have already taken place. Laws and experiments are inappropriate techniques for the explication of such events and processes.
Physics and Chemistry: real science, laws and experiments
Evolutionary Biology (with the exception of the discipline of population biology): story telling and speculation
"I am quite conscious that my speculations run quite beyond the bounds of true science." -- Charles Darwin
The fact OU is celebrating Darwin as some sort of science hero is a disgrace to science. There are far better scientists like Maxwell, Faraday, and Newton and many others who are deserving of such recognition. They were real scientists, Darwin was a mere pretender.
Darwin's major claims are unproven if not already discredited. It's a sad day for science when a story teller like Darwin gets a seat beside truly great scientists like Maxwell and Faraday.
skeptico 3 years, 3 months ago
NeilBJ:
Intelligent design is indeed based on religion: all of the major proponents are Christians, and Dembski has been quoted as saying that the reason he got interested in the issue because "God's glory is being robbed". To deny this is to deny the facts that are easily available.
As for the mathematical definition of complexity - according to the definition most frequently used (the number of bits needed to give an exact description of a system), it is easy to generate complexity: any random process will do.
scordova 3 years, 3 months ago
"Any elementary textbook on evolutionary biology will explain the mechanisms of evolution"
I happen to have several graduate textbooks on evolution. :-) Including Kimura's work.
"when I specifically mentioned genetic drift as a mechanism for speciation."
What, there is another mechanism for the origin of species other than Darwin's. :-)
Actually, genetic drift is a suspect mechanism for speciation. This is as bad as saying "a population of brown and black cows have genetically drifted to the black variety over time, therefore we have a new species of cow."
Any way, let's go back to the simple question I posed earlier: how many new species emerged in the last 150 years (since Darwin's book)? How many of those are the result of Natural Selection?
No need to refer me to books since the readers of this thread may not have access to them. So how about providing some numbers for our readers?
If you can't give a number, how about a guess with supporting evidences? Specify the proportion created mostly via natural selection and the proportion via genetic drift or other mechanisms.
I'm sure the readers are eager for scientific empirical results. Now, if you argue 98% of the speciations occurred through genetic drift, isolation, etc. , then that would argue Darwinian mechanisms account for only 2% of the speciations, and that would be generous given I don't see numbers on how many new species have been emerging every year.
Let me point you to some numbers that have been bumped around for the number of species extinctions. From Evolution Library:
"estimates based on the rate at which the area of tropical forests is being reduced, and their large numbers of specialized species, are that we may now be losing 27,000 species per year to extinction from those habitats alone. "
From an empirical standpoint, it seems nature is under no obligation to create and sustain new species via natural selection. Nature is under no obligation to prevent gamma ray bursts, floods, meteorites, climate disasters or men from creating mass extinctions and preventing Darwinian selection from happening.
So we estimate 27,000 species are going extinct every year. How many are being generated via Darwinian mechanisms to replace them? 5,6,7...?
Surely we have overwhelming evidence of "origin of species via means of natural selection" in the current day.
So how about the numbers. Tell us how many new species we should expect to emerge via Natural Selection in 2009. An educated guess with supporting data would be a starting point.
Rhology 3 years, 3 months ago
JoshuaZ,
I'm not aware of anyone who argues that flies can't gradually become flies thru natural processes. Bye, #1.
You compare the life of stars to the life of stars, eh? Next you'll be telling me that life was able to piggyback on the backs of crystals in order to engage in spontaneous generation. Let's stick with biology. Bye, #2.
3 - you said:
-You want no human intervention but you want repetition.
Yea, that's gonna be hard. I don't see a way around it, but you're the side with all the research $ and all the smart people, and we're the idiots with animatronic dinosaur museums, thumping our Bibles. Get on it. Why is it unreasonable to demand that you show me examples of UNguided mechanisms working on RANDOM mutations, since that's your position? How will showing GUIDED mechanisms working on NON-random mutations make anyone's case but mine?
Fine, have a control group. Controls are manipulated intelligently, aren't they?
Let's say you really can achieve a control group that is totally free of any intelligent manipulation whatsoever, and it's out there in the wild. What good is it to the Darwinian position to compare an example of intelligently-manipulated stuff in the lab with the control in the wild? It is simply special pleading, begging the question, to say that it is evidence in favor of Darwinian processes. It could just as easily be evidence in favor of intelligently-manipulated processes! I'd suggest a little deeper thought on this, my friend.
skeptico 3 years, 3 months ago
The reporting is lousy: you present the two "sides" as if they are equal. But they're not: on one side is a bunch of religious crackpots who present no data, perform no experiments, and publish essentially no papers; on the other side is the weight of a hundred years of science and thousands of scientists. To equate these "sides" is utter foolishness.
briareus 3 years, 3 months ago
There are not just two sides to the question of origins. The Darwinists would like to portray everyone who disagrees with them as ignorant, superstitious, religious fundamentalists. But there are valid scientific criticisms of Darwinism. Does natural selection really have the necessary creative power to account for the dramatic changes we see in the fossil record? Why can't we just say that we don't know what the mechanism is?
JoeG 3 years, 3 months ago
If Intelligent Design is a religion then bald is a hair color.
Intelligent design is not anti-evolution.
Rather the debate is about the mechanisms- blind, undirected processes vs. directed processes.
Directed in this sense is similar to the way computer programs direct.
ID is open to experimentation and refutation. Both complex speciefied information and irreducible complexity can be tested in any lab.
Then to refute the design inference all one has to do is to demonstrate that blind, undirected processes can account for it.
rbroughton 3 years, 3 months ago
When these so-called "researchers" actually perform an experiment, provide some empirical evidence for ID, or even explain how it could be scientifically tested, they'd have a lot more credibility.
Until then their best authority is some blogger?
thurgood 3 years, 3 months ago
NeilBJ,
I wish you wouldn't repeat discredited talking points.
[Broadly construed intelligent design is science. Intelligent design is used in forensics, archaeology, and SETI.] Forensic investigators the CSI types search for perps along the lines motive, method, and if possible, opportunity. Archeologists try to uncover the past, and are primarily interested in how people like us lived. SETI also makes the assumption that PLUS on other planets are likely to transmit signals like we do. But than IDists aren't doing any of these, and extrapolate forensics beyond all reason to claim not just an object here or htere is designed (because it is designed, because it is designed, wink, nudge) but everything we see! And then there is that old saw from Paley. Ever wonder why Paley thinks the watch is designed but not the grass or the stone?
DaveR 3 years, 3 months ago
"I don’t begrudge people speaking their viewpoints, but there is a responsibility to genuinely look at other sides."
Two problems with that viewpoint.
Science is not a democracy. Evidence counts; you don't just get to vote on whether or not phlogiston is a better theory than oxidation/reduction.
The creationist viewpoint has been looked at, and, based again on the evidence, it has been discarded. If you have new evidence, let's hear it. If you don't, then you can't expect serious people to re-consider a proposition that was tested and discarded over a century ago.
LaGrange 3 years, 3 months ago
It is the 150th anniversary of the Darwinian Disclaimer found in the introduction to the Origin of Species:
"I am well aware that scarcely a single point is discussed in this volume on which facts cannot be adduced, often apparently leading to conclusions directly opposite to those at which I have arrived. A fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question, and this cannot possibly be done here."
Is Darwin's opposite conclusion Intelligent Design? No. The opposite conclusion is that natural selection actually eliminates useless transitional stages which prevents major evolutionary change from occurring on a gradual step-by-step basis and thus accounts for the primary feature of the fossil record: stasis.
Unlike intelligent design, stasis is natural and is subject to scientific test and verification. In fact, a Theory of Conservation could be developed around the natural phenomenon of stasis. Whether or not evolution is natural or whether it represents an example of the fine-tuning found in the origin and initial conditions of the universe is another matter.
For details see www.charlesdarwin.org
It is always important to keep evolution in context and remember that the creation of everything (space-time, matter and energy) preceded the evolution of anything.
skeptico 3 years, 3 months ago
Scordova:
Any elementary textbook on evolutionary biology will explain the mechanisms of evolution, and they are what I said. Any textbook will also give the evidence for these mechanisms. If you are ignorant of the evidence, all you need do is educate yourself. But then, I imagine "a student of math and physics" doesn't attend too many courses on evolutionary biology.
For speciation, you should try reading Speciation by Coyne and Orr.
I love it that you demand numbers, but refuse to provide them for my challenge about complexity.
I also love it that you think you have to instruct me about Kimura's work, when I specifically mentioned genetic drift as a mechanism for speciation. Poseur!
NeilBJ 3 years, 3 months ago
"History of science professor Piers Hale said ... that intelligent design is an argument based on religious faith, not science."
Actually, intelligent design is based on making observations in nature, and inferring design from what is observed. The reasonable inference from what we know nature can actually do is that the complexity that is observed in nature is the result of design.
Evolutionists look at the same evidence and infer that non-intelligent processes are responsible, but all they can point to are the very minor changes that have been observed.
A leap of faith occurs when it is concluded that these small changes can be extrapolated to account for the large changes in complexity that are observed.
The ID folks can point to many things that possess complexity akin to what is observed in nature. Those things are the result of design.
Can the evolutionists point to any thing that has the same complexity as is observed in nature that is the result of unintellgent processes?
I submit that evidence in nature is the basis for either argument. Religion has nothing to do with it at this level.
But I am suspicious that underneath these arguments is a strong motivation to defend one's world view. Do we live in world that is the result of the blind interactions of matter and enegy, or do we live in world that is the result of some kind of intelligent guidance (or both)?
The answer should come from a dispassionate look at the evidence, apart from one's world view. So what does the evidence really tell us?
NeilBJ 3 years, 3 months ago
skeptico:
I won’t deny the facts offered in support of an irrelevant argument. So what if all the major proponents of ID are Christians? (There also Jews, Muslims, and agnostics counted among ID proponents.) Most of the proponents of the theory of evolution are atheists. By your reasoning the theory of evolution is based on atheism. Should the theory be dismissed on that basis?
Dembski, wearing his theological hat, writes books on the interface between theology and science. Dawkins, wearing his atheist hat, writes a book arguing that God doesn’t exist.
I grant that they both are entitled to do so.
I agree. It is easy to generate complexity. Mix a deck of cards and deal out all 52 cards and you end up with a complex pattern. Now how many times must you deal a deck of cards before you deal a perfect bridge hand? Now the complexity is specified (a qualifier I should have added in my previous post) and it’s just a tiny bit more difficult to come by.
Barklikeadog 3 years, 3 months ago
For those of you who know already SCordova needs no replies. For those that don't he is an ID Troll and needs to not be fed.
Rhology 3 years, 3 months ago
Barklikeadog said: "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. He's really nothing, no one. No, really! REALLY!!! BELIEVE ME, I'M A REALLY REAL SCIENCE-IST TYPE!!!! AAAHHHH!!!!"
Rhology 3 years, 3 months ago
Ironically, most all experiments that are supposed to serve as evidence for Darwinian evolution are actually evidence of intelligent design. I think that's funny.
Given the great care that the Darwinian camp has taken to differentiate itself from the Intelligent Design stuff, one would think that certainly said camp would be highly, strongly interested in providing evidence for its position, absent ANY INTELLIGENCE involved whatsoever. Given that, I'd like evidence that evolution from one type of organism to another is occurring TODAY with the following qualifications: 1) A laboratory injects intelligence into the equation. No lab. 2) Experiments observed on a REPEATED basis, as good science should be. 3) No intelligent (ie, human) manipulation of the events. 4) With ALL normal environmental factors present. No control group, no outside interference from intelligent agents (ie, humans). 5) With ALL normal other factors present, such as predators, weather, fluctuations in prey, water, and other nourishment. 6) And a good way of judging when the line of organism has become a different type (just for utility's sake, but I'd call this slightly less interesting or necessary than the other 5).
In other words, is it unreasonable to think that, if you're presenting what you allege is evidence for a currently-acting process of unguided natural selection acting on random mutations, you could show some evidence of it that is not guided artificial selection acting on partially-random mutations? Is that too much to ask? If so, why?
If your response lies along the lines of: "That's too strict - you've defined most of the parameters for normal experimentation out of the question", does that not mean that you concede that you lack any good evidence for your position over and against the ID position? That your side has spoken far too quickly, with far too much certainty and fervency, with respect to how clear it is that Darwinian evolution is correct and ID is wrong? If not, why not?
rbroughton 3 years, 3 months ago
scordova: This is the kind of discussion that the Darwin events should promote and I am happy to have a reasonable discussion with anyone.
It is not clear whether you are critical of Darwin or all of evolution. There are certainly topics that Darwin did not know about or simply got wrong. I wish people would specify whether they are criticizing Darwin or modern evolutionary biology. Most seem to think that showing that Darwin was wrong about anything (e.g., the mechanism of heredity) falsifies everything he said. They then go from there to conclude that evolution is false. Newton, Einstein, Kelvin, all were wrong about plenty of things too. But science as a process helps us understand where they were wrong and where they were right. Evolution is science, therefore we can investigate such things.
In most cases, speciation takes thousands of years so we do not expect to see lots of species popping up before our eyes or in the last 150 years, although there are a few examples. And coming up with the numbers you request could in theory be done, but I don't know that this would have much value one way or another.
The important point is that these things can be done. Evolutionary theory makes specific predictions that can be and have been investigated. It is clear that both selection and mutation/drift are important and their relative importance is being actively investigated. But they ARE being investigated.
ID doesn't make any such predictions. "Nature was designed". What are we left with? No predictions, no mechanism, no way to falsify it, nothing to investigate. Even Behe famously admitted that in order for ID to be considered science, the definition of science would have to be so modified that astrology (and other unfalsifiable crackpot schemes) would have to be accepted as scientific as well. No one has ever made an honest and rational case for the claim that ID is a valid scientific alternative to evolution or anything.
Kimura's ideas were based on evidence and were soon accepted despite being initially perceived as un-Darwinian. ID'ers should take note.
skeptico 3 years, 3 months ago
NeilBJ asks, "Can the evolutionists point to any thing that has the same complexity as is observed in nature that is the result of unintellgent processes?"
What is your definition of "complexity"? How do you measure it, precisely? What units is it measured in? What, precisely is the complexity of a mountain? A galaxy? An amoeba?
Until you can answer these questions mathematically, all you have are vague assertions.
scordova 3 years, 3 months ago
"We know what the mechanisms of evolution are: mutation, recombination, natural selection, and genetic drift, to name just four."
No we don't know what the mechanisms are. More story telling without any empirical basis.
How many new complex proteins and protein-protein binding sites are being created through these mechanisms today?
Can a count be provided through empiricism? Not exact numbers, but how about a ball-park figure?
Surely if one can claim one knows that these mechanisms worked in past with such confidence, one can answer this simple question (how many new protein-protein binding sites emerge in the present through these mechanisms).
Give the precentage of new protein binding sites created through:
Then elaborate how many protein binding sites are being eliminated through random exintiction.
How about some numbers for a student of math and physics like myself.
If Darwin and Darwinism have answers to these question, then it might be believable, but right now it sounds like story telling.
Intelligent Design is a different topic, but let's focus on Darwin and his theory and the supposed "proof" and evidence.
How about a more simple question.
Darwin claimed "the origin of species by means of natural selection." How many species have emerged in the last 150 years via means of natural selection in the wild? Compare that number to how many went extinct by various events. Some numbers, please? We are celebrating Darwin's great discovery aren't we. Surely his promoters have answers to these questions. How many species emerged in the last 150 years via Darwinian selection compared to those going extinct. We actually have good estimates of extinctions in the last 150 years, but not really good numbers on the emergence of new species in the same time frame. :-)
PS: most of molecular evolution is not through Darwinian mechanisms. See the work of renowned geneticist Motoo Kimura.
JoshuaZ 3 years, 3 months ago
There are multiple different mathematical definitions of complexity. The two most common notions that measure complexity are Shannon information theory and Kolmogorov complexity. When one tries to measure information rigorously one can get surprising results. For example, in Shannon's information theory random sequences have higher information density than English sentences. Any attempts to use complexity arguments for ID must use rigorous mathematics. There have been a handful of such attempts (most notably by Dembski) all of which the mathematical community has found to be utterly insufficient.
And while we are on the subject of Dembski, it is interesting that the writer quotes Dembski for a definition of ID since Dembski is also the person who said "Intelligent design is just the Logos theology of John's Gospel restated in the idiom of information theory." Aside from the borderline incoherence of this statement (the context of the quote, an article by Dembski in Touchstone Magazine, doesn't make it much more coherent) this gives a lie to any claims that intelligent design is not about religion. And many of the major proponents of ID have made similar statements.
The term intelligent design first came into common use post the US Supreme Court decision Edwards v. Aguillard in 1987 that teaching so called "creation science" was really just thinly disguised creationism and thus could not be taught in public schools. Intelligent design is an attempt to find yet another way of disguising creationism. That's why ID already has highschool text books devoted to it. One of which "Of Pandas and People" started as a creationist textbook and then had the words "creationism" and "creation science" replaced with "intelligent design."
Intelligent design is not science. It is an attempt to violate the First Amendment of the United States but playing word games. If anyone wants to show otherwise they need to do real science and do research instead of repeatedly writing op-eds.
bobxxxx 3 years, 3 months ago
"Intelligent design" are code words that Christian Tards use when they're talking about supernatural magic.
<p>uncommondescent.com = Uncommon Stupidity.JoshuaZ 3 years, 3 months ago
Rhology, there are multiple problems with your post. I will address the three largest.
First, we do have observed speciation events in the wild without human intervention. (I presume for now that "species" is close enough to your term "type") Skeptico mentioned above Coyne's excellent book which has many examples. Speciation of Oenothera gigas from O. lamarckiana was observed around 1900. There are many other examples. Another example is is Culex pipiens, a form of fly, which has undergone speciation when a separate population spent time living in the London underground with minimal exposure to its surface cousins. We also have occasions where speciation has occurred due to hexaploidy or a similar chromosomal change and where the speciation even has then been duplicated in labs by appropriate crossbreeding.
Second, even if we did not have such observations that wouldn't be a serious problem for evolution. In many areas of science we can get great evidence for a hypothesis without witnessing directly every step in the process. The most obvious example is the life of stars; we see stars in many different phases of their life. Humans have not been observing stars in enough detail for long enough to witness much in the way of change of stars. Nevertheless, from our stellar observations and modeling we have pretty good ideas about how starts are born, grow and die. No rational individual would claim that we need to question this since we haven't seen all the stages together from start to finish. Evolution would easily stand on the multitudes of evidence for it even if we were forbidden from bringing in speciation events in as evidence.
Third, your requirements as stated seem to be somewhat contradictory. You want no human intervention but you want repetition. This should for obvious reasons be pretty difficult. We can (and as mentioned above have) duplicate certain speciation events after they have occurred. But this requires setting up conditions identical to or near to the conditions which resulted in the speciation. Similarly, I'm a bit puzzled by your demand number 3 by not wanting a control group. Obviously, speciation events which have been observed to occur in the wild don't have controls. But why you would not want a control is beyond me.
NickMatzke 3 years, 3 months ago
Hi -- I'm the Nick Matzke mentioned in the same sentence as Richard Dawkins as one of the big bad mean evolutionists coming to Oklahoma to speak. Quite an ego boost for a mere grad student in evolutionary biology, let me tell you!
Anyway, for those who don't know, Salvador Cordova, who is trumpeting himself as a rigorous thinker who values scientific evidence and mathematical accuracy, is actually a Biblical fundamentalist and young-earth creationist. Not only does he deny evolution, he denies geology, chemistry, astronomy, physics, and pretty much everything else in science which contradicts his particular literal interpretation of Genesis.
So basically he's a hypocrite who has taken his scientific duty to adhere to data and logic, and strangled it to death with his theology.
Even better, Sal knows that his credibility is shot if people realize how crazy his actual views are, so in forums like this he doesn't mention his young-earth creationist views. Cowardly and/or devious, I'd say...
NeilBJ 3 years, 3 months ago
JoshuaZ:
You say intelligent design is not science. Broadly construed intelligent design is science. Intelligent design is used in forensics, archaeology, and SETI. Furthermore, intelligent design has been around for some 2000 years. The ancient philosophers contemplated the source of our existence just as we do today. Some posited that source as being intelligent. You just don’t like the idea of intelligent design being applied to biology.
This leads to a dilemma. If intelligent design is science and the principles upon which it is based are sound, then the only reason to exclude intelligent design from biology is philosophical prejudice.
My definition of science is this: science is the enterprise that seeks to discover truth statements about nature. Of course, science can be defined in any manner whatsoever. But does the current definition blind scientists from seeking true explanations? It is as if truth can be defined, rather than be discovered.
If a possible answer to a question is ruled out of bounds, how can you then claim that what you assert as true really is true? I doubt that you would sit quietly by if the judge at your murder trial threw out any evidence that would show that you were innocent.
NeilBJ 3 years, 3 months ago
thurgood said:
"A bridge hand or even the "Hathaway Man" hand is no different from any other."
I'm afrad I miss your point.
A perfect bridge hand entails a result that no other bridge hand entails.
Are you trying to tell me that a specific DNA sequence that results in a protein is no different from a DNA sequence that does not?
NeilBJ 3 years, 3 months ago
thurgood says:
"That's why [we] do science and not spiritual invocation."
What science have you done that shows unequivocally that the mechanisms of evolution can account for the major transitions observed in the fossil record?
"Firstly the term undirected process, doesn't mean anything. The physical laws that prevail on one side of your skin are the same as those on the other."
I use the term undirected process as a catch-all term to reflect the fact that the mechanisms of evolution don't involve intelligent agency.
I don't view evolution as a law-like process. A law defines a fixed relationship, e.g, gravitational attraction, magentic attraction, etc. To be sure, all biological systems operate according to the laws of nature, but the laws of nature can't directly account for evolution.
"Secondly why does one have to think that physical transitions took place in the past only? They are happening all the time."
Because how the major physical transtions that took place in the distant past is what is controversial. Obviously, what we can observe and verify in the present is not so controversial.
Regarding the additional molecules that were found by reanalyzing the original Miller-Urey experiment:
This is interesting, but unimpressive. The Miller-Urey experiment did not rely on the atmospheric conditions that were present during the time life was supposed to have developed (at least that is the latest information that I have). Coming up with the building blocks for life is only a tiny, tiny part of solving the origin of life problem. That is akin to coming up with a few more building materials needed to build the house. The real problem is how do you build the house once you have all the building materials present. (And what if a strong wind comes along and blows some of the building materials away?)
I will agree: common sense can lead you astray sometimes. But using common sense is usually a good place to start, with the proviso that it will be abandoned if the evidence so indicates. I will even say that at times common sense can be counterproductive to achieving true inovation. It is the person who challenges the status quo, and thinks outside the box who is frequently rewarded with the exciting new discovery.
naturalist 3 years, 3 months ago
"Intelligent Design" is not science as it is normally practiced because science requires empirical data and the ability to have experiments repeated and confirmed by others. Science deals with the physical universe because science(as yet)has no way to verify anything that is part of a metaphysical realm or philosophy.
How would a scientist experiment,confirm and provide for peer review, a so-called "manufacturers label" to verify that something with supernatural intelligence purposely designed matter to be a certain way? How do you set up such an experiment?
Definitely not through inferences that just because we don't fully understand the fullness of all organisms yet then a supernatural designer must be the only alternative.
Just because our subjective minds perceive something looks designed because we are used to designing and fabricating things does not automatically mean that we or other forms of matter in this universe are designed by some unseen power.
Many of the arguments for ID are wishful thinking, circular reasoning and logical fallacies and from some disingenuous attempts to bring religious belief into public school curriculums.
These arguments, just like in the nonsense of creationism, border on delusion,naive hubris and anthropocentric narcissism. We live in a vast universe that is almost incomprehensble in size and time and we only have a very limited personal experience with a infinitesimal part of it. To believe that any of us on this tiny planet have "the absolute truth" in our possession is incredibly arrogant,naive and ludicrous.
The beauty of science, when it is practiced with integrity, is that it is open to revision and new discovery when new information comes forth. It has a stipulation though...that it must be reasonable,objective physical data that comes from nature and mathematics and not from the largely subjective realm of personal religious belief,aka the metaphysical,which is so varied and locked in the minds of the individual and cannot be reproduced for all to see in a universally common manner.
Science must deal with what it can reasonably examine and test. For now,there is no practical way for us to absolutely verify that a supernatural intelligence or "God of the gaps", beyond our senses designed the universe we see and experience.
naturalist 3 years, 3 months ago
Imagine the inevitable chaos, if scientists of different cultures and religious beliefs tried to interject their own particular view of a deity into biological and other arguments of scientific research. Whose god would be the official designer?
That is why mainstream science must remain neutral to such religious arguments and deal with the material universe as it is. The various forms of matter are things that are common to all of us
Religion is a heterogenuous mixture of often irreconciable, insular views, that only complicate efforts in establishing needed commonality and consensus.
naturalist 3 years, 3 months ago
NeilBJ said:
"...how do we discover how things really are?"
We are free to probe existence and the universe with our philosophies and the tools we have created. I agree that we definitely need open minds to begin our respective searches, but science as it has been successfully practiced works with the physical universe to make hypothesis,theory and laws.
It's openess is in allowing alternative ideas that can be tested and duplicated by others. That is what gives science it's legitimacy and strength. Science sees knowledge as approximate and revisable not as absolutes that cannot be challeged. The science of evolutionary biology is not absolute or perfect and is open to change when that change is presented in testable,logical methods.
As I said before there is no practical way as yet to physically compare and test the myriad subjective ideas that religion and some philosophies have about the origins of the universe. We don't have to rule out a priori possibilities, but how do can test for them?
Science has worked for us because it has stuck to things that can be examined and tested in material universe. Quantifying and qualifying spirtural matters and personal beliefs are beyond it's present ablities.
JoshuaZ 3 years, 3 months ago
Rhology, your reply to point 1 is simple goal post moving. Make up your mind what level of evolution you want observed and then maybe you will have something useful to say.
Regarding point 2, you completely missed the point about stars. The point was how observation and science work. It doesn't matter that it isn't an example from biology.
You seem to have further problems understanding how evolution works. Scientists all the time use mechanisms to set up circumstances like those in real life. Setting up a strong selective pressure that then results in speciation isn't evidence that such pressures only occur if there is intelligent intervention. It is evidence that strong selective pressures can result in speciation. See the difference?
The bottom line is that you are insisting on level of evidence that you would never require for anything else in life.
thurgood 3 years, 3 months ago
To the rube who said this, [[I agree. It is easy to generate complexity. Mix a deck of cards and deal out all 52 cards and you end up with a complex pattern. Now how many times must you deal a deck of cards before you deal a perfect bridge hand? Now the complexity is specified (a qualifier I should have added in my previous post) and it’s just a tiny bit more difficult to come by.]]
There is complexity, that's it. The specified tag is bunkum and bogus. A bridge hand or even the "Hathaway Man" hand is no different from any other. It's easier for the typical human being to make sense of a bridge hand, than any other "random" hand. We can make sense if we want to of any hand, given the time.
Try something else!
NickMatzke 3 years, 3 months ago
Sal, are you seriously arguing that evolution is false because more species have gone extinct than originated in the last 150 years??? This sillyness, by itself, proves that you have no idea at all what you are talking about.
Anyone who thinks about it for half a second will realize that (a) evolution says speciation is a relatively slow process on average, as individuals live and die, and variations gradually spread through the population and accumulate, but (b) extinction can happen quite rapidly if some catastrophe strikes and kills all the members of the population in a short period of time. Asteroids and, say, humans cutting down the rainforest or shooting all the passenger pigeons can do the latter.
Furthermore -- even you ridiculous young-earth creationists accept speciation! In fact, you think evolution works much faster than we do, since you think that a few hundred "kinds" of land vertebrates on Noah's Ark rapidly diversified into the tens of thousands of land vertebrate species we have today. Young-earth creationists typically put the Genesis "kinds" at the level of a taxonomic family, which means they think evolution is perfectly able to produce new subfamilies, genera, and (obviously) species.
Read your own friggin' literature, Sal!
I predict that not even the other creationists on this board will defend your silly arguments. Any creationists want to defend Sal, or do we all agree his arguments are silly?
scordova 3 years, 3 months ago
Skeptico writes: "Any elementary textbook on evolutionary biology will explain the mechanisms of evolution....Poseur!"
I happen to have several graduate textbooks on evolution including Kimura's. :-)
How many species have emerged via natural selection in the last 150 years? Also, for the reader's benefit, give an estimate of the percentage breakdown:
Kind of hard to believe these are the mechanisms, if you can't even put forward some simple numbers in the current day. :-)
"I specifically mentioned genetic drift as a mechanism for speciation."
Really, so if a population of black cows and brown cows drifts toward all black cows, do we have a new species. :-)
So how many speciations have occured through genetic drift and subsequent change in gene frequencies in the last 150 years?
Several thousand species have been estimated to be going extinct every year. Apparently nature is under no obligation to allow natural selection to actually work. It is under no obligation to prevent natural man, floods, meteor impacts, gamma ray bursts, climate disasters from wiping out species. Kind of hard for "suvival of the fittest" to work, when there aren't any survivors. So it seems we can count how many go extinct. Why is there a problem counting their emergence????
So, Skeptico, how many species in the last 150 years have emerged via natural selection again? For some reason I didn't see a simple number or even defensible guess being offered.
How about you Nick Matzke?
NeilBJ 3 years, 3 months ago
naturalist asks:
"We don't have to rule out a priori possibilities, but how [can we] test for them?"
I am trying to understand what you mean when you ask how we can test for something. You said that "science...requires empirical data and the ability to have experiments repeated and confirmed by others."
An experiment that can be repeated and confirmed by others can be conducted only in the context of operational science.
Do you mean to rule out historical science as science since there are no experiments that can be conducted and repeated to test for singular events that occurred in the past?
I somehow don't think that this is what you mean. If historical science is not science then the most controversial part of evolutionary theory (i.e., macroevolution) is not science.
Historical scientific hypotheses can be evaluated (I will not use the word tested) by comparing at least two alternative explanations, and determine which one has the greater explanatory power. Obviously, knowledge gained from the historical sciences cannot be as certain as knowledge gained from the operational sciences.
naturalist 3 years, 3 months ago
NeilBJ
When I ask how can we physically test for these alternative ideas of a priori origins and the speculation of design, I am asking how do you test for things that have supernatural explanations? How do you show tangible evidence? How can we in material universe set up an experiment to test for something that is not material?
In my opinion, if we were to verify that life is designed we would unequivocally have to locate something in life or matter that would represent the mark of a creator just as an artisan might sign or label their work. What that mark would look like I have no idea.
NeilBJ 3 years, 3 months ago
thurgood said:
"Historical science is a creationist pseudoscientific term. Explanations aren't just that to be left hanging in the air. They too must be demonstrated within the bounds of the phenomenon."
I don't care if you consider historical science a creationist pseudoscientific term. How you classify the term does not make the question I am asking go away.
I will ask it again.
How do you test for, or to use naturalist's phrase, how do you show tangible evidence for singular events that occurred thousands or millions of years ago?
naturalist is asking how you show tangible evidence for things that have supernatural explanations.
I am asking how you show tangible evidence for a mechanism that acted thousand and millions of years ago.
An explanation for how evolutionary mechanisms can account for the major transistions observed in the fossil record has been left hanging.
Bradford 3 years, 3 months ago
Nick Matzke: "Cowardly and/or devious, I'd say..."
Brave words coming from one whose views are sure to attract the applause of most of those drawn to this issue. Take a stand on something that entails abuse before you dispense moral judgements.
scordova 3 years, 3 months ago
"So basically he's a hypocrite who has taken his scientific duty to adhere to data and logic, and strangled it to death with his theology.
Even better, Sal knows that his credibility is shot if people realize how crazy his actual views are, so in forums like this he doesn't mention his young-earth creationist views. Cowardly and/or devious, "
Hiya Nick! So pleasant to see you as always.
But even if I'm a vile devious creationist scoundrel, isn't that beside the point? The point is whether Darwin was right to claim "the origin of species via means of natural selection".
Natural selection is a mechanism of change, but so are mutation and damage mechanisms of change. A car can be damaged by a rock. The fact that a car can be changed by a rock hardly justifies assuming cars can be created by a process of throwing rocks. But this same kind of faulty logic is applied by Darwinists today.
To see a few paltry examples of selection, a change of gene frequencies, to see lots of unhealthy mutations, is hardly grounds to claim natural selection is the primary mechanism which created the diversity and complexity of life! In fact it is a contradiction of concepts to argue on the one hand that selection reduces diversity (as demonstrated by Fishers Fundamental Theorem of Natural Selection) and at the same time selection creates diversity! The senselessness of Darwin's illogic ought to be obvious!!!
So how do you justify that selection was the primary mechanism of evolutionary change, and if it wasn’t, what percentage of species was created via natural selection in the past and in the present?
You can start by stating your estimate of the number of species that you expect to emerge in 2009 and what percentage you expect of those new species to be the primary result of natural selection. If you can’t answer it for 2009, how about 2007, or 2006, or 1859. If you can’t answer for any of those, explain why we should believe Darwinists claims for any other year?
thurgood 3 years, 3 months ago
Salzo is at it again. So you own several textbooks on evolutionary biology. How about reading one? Don't repeat comments that got you laughed out of pandasthumb.org!
NeilBJ there is science. Historical science is a creationist pseudoscientific term. Explanations aren't just that to be left hanging in the air. They too must be demonstrated within the bounds of the phenomenon. So the creationist saw of "it is designed because it looks designed because it points to design" is a bogus explanation. It cannot be demonstrated. All that you creationists have to do is to change all your passive voice statements into active voice. In other words put your money where your mouth is!
scordova 3 years, 3 months ago
Major elements of the theory of natural selection came from creationist Edward Blyth, not Charles Darwin. Darwin was a plagiarist. See “The Mysterious Mr. X” by University of Pennsylvania President Loren Eiseley. But that is somewhat a moot point since:
“most of evolution is due to genetic drift rather than natural selection, as Darwin claimed“ (p 19 Population Genetics by Gillespie)
and survival is of the luckiest not fittest:
“ the majority of mutations, including those having a slight advantage, are lost by chance is important in considering the problems of evolution by mutation, since the overwhelming majority of advantageous mutations are likely to have only a slightly advantageous effect....In our opinion, this fact has not fully been acknowledged in many discussion of evolution. It is often tacitly assumed that every advantageous mutation that appears in the population is inevitably incorporated.” (page 11 , Theoretical Aspects of Population Genetics by Motoo Kimura and Tomoko Ohta)
The much touted examples of pesticide and antibiotic resistance are the exception rather than the rule. But even these examples are bad news for natural selection. Why? The problem of interference selection.
A corollary to Fisher's Fundamental Theorem of Natural Selection results in natural selection reducing diversity. This implies that one favorable trait will eliminate another. For example, an individual who is fast may be more reproductively fit than someone who is intelligent, hence natural selection can wipe out the intelligent individual before his intelligence gets incorporated in the population! Darwin was wrong again!!!
There are numerous examples of interference selection and selection of sick individuals over healthy: blind cavefish, various examples of antibiotic resistance, various example of pesticide resistance, etc. So bad is this phenomenon, there is a new book out: Survival of the Sickest by Sharon Moalem!
The fact that selection can shape a few characteristics of an organism in no way implies that selection originated the majority of the organism's systems. Throwing rocks at a space shuttle can change the space shuttle, but the fact that throwing rocks can change a space shuttle does not imply throwing rocks was the mechanism which created the space shuttle. The same considerations ought to apply to extrapolating the mechanism of selection as the means of creating large scale integrated complexity.
Anyway, Nick hasn’t told us how many new species emerged via selection in 2009 or in the last 150 years via means of natural selection. If he can’t count how many species emerged by natural selection in the present, it seems problematic how he could count them for any other era except through a process of circular reasoning, which is scientifically illegitimate.
naturalist 3 years, 3 months ago
NeilBJ,
Below is a link about possible confirmations of evolutionary change in the remote past.
The mechanism for evolutionary change is active now and happens all the time with change in species that are living now. The part that is hardest for us as temporary beings to comprehend is how much extrodinary deep time has transpired in the universe which can account for how life has evolved. Changes in species eventually results in changes in genus as adaptation proceeds because of environmental change which forces species to either perish,adapt or improve sustainability.
Tangible evidence is the progression of the fossil record and the fact of biological and in many cases morphological commonlity of life from humans down to the "lowest" organism.
Even if we have to infer about the distant past in how physical transistions took place that is very different than trying to infer or verify the lineage of creation as a product of supernatural design.
The latter depends on a personal faith in documents written by men in relatively recent times about ideas and things which we have no tangible evidence other than historical locations and ancedotal testimonies. The former relies on the geological strata,fossil evidence and dating methods which involve tangible things. The former also relies on the fact that many scientists and others have confirmed or expanded on previous discoveries.
In my opinion if one denies evolution then you would might as well deny the foundational capabilities and discoveries of science that cover physics,chemistry, biology and geology.
On a philosophical but also pragmatic level, evolution just re-inforces how all of life it imtimately connected. Why that is so threatening or repugnant to so many seems very puzzling to me. I find this unbroken progression and profound connection to all of life provides a great sense of awe and wonder. To me,trying to understand the processes of evolution adds incredible richness, but also a sobering humility to the human experience.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section5.html#morphological_change
scordova 3 years, 3 months ago
Thurgood wrote: "Blyth was a creationist like you, and obviously Darwin like many other scientists of his time found that there was no evidence for Blyth's belief in what Blyth called 'natural selection' a "vital-force' driven process."
Say what? Here is Blyth in his own words, years before Darwin:
"The original form of a species is unquestionably better adapted to its natural habits than any modification of that form; and, as the sexual passions excite to rivalry and conflict, and the stronger must always prevail over the weaker, the latter, in a state of nature, is allowed but few opportunities of continuing its race. In a large herd of cattle, the strongest bull drives from him all the younger and weaker individuals of his own sex, and remains sole master of the herd; so that all the young which are produced must have had their origin from one which possessed the maximum of power and physical strength; and which, consequently, in the struggle for existence, was the best able to maintain his ground, and defend himself from every enemy."
Darwin's plagiarism of both natural and sexual selection is obvious.
NeilBJ 3 years, 3 months ago
naturalist asks:
"Even though you say that you are not threatened by evolution ask yourself why it is so important that evolution be directed by a supernatural force?"
It always comes back to the supernatural, doesn't it? Please forget whether or not the designer behind evolution might be supernatural.
It is not important to me that the designer might or might not be supernatural; we certainly can’t infer who the designer is from the evidence. What is important to me is that science provides me with truth statements about nature. (It is my tax dollars paying for the research.) And if scientists don't know how undirected processes can build complex things, then an acceptable truth statement is "We don't know".
Right or wrong, the inference to intelligent design is easy to follow:
Any time we find an object with property P, and we know the origin of that object, that object originated through intelligent agency.
We have found an object of unknown origin and determine it that it has property P.
Therefore, that object originated through intelligent agency.
The only basis I see for the inference from the evidence for evolution is that the design inference is not allowed, therefore the accumulation of the small changes we can observe is the only explanation that comes close to explaining the large changes observed in the fossil record.
The fact that you keep bringing the supernatural into the discussion leads me to no other conclusion. To rule out a possible answer to a scientific problem because you don’t like that answer in spite of what the evidence might suggest, is not rational.
wildlifer 3 years, 3 months ago
You guys shouldn't bother wasting time trying to educate Sal Cordova. After years of "debating" him on ARN I realized he is about as disingenuous as they come. He once debated a point for more than a week and when finally nailed with the facts, he declared he was just "joking".
thurgood 3 years, 3 months ago
NeilBJ first of all a deck of cards is not like a DNA sequence. So cut that out. A Hathaway Man hand or a perfect bridge hand have the same probability as any other hand. It is hte rule we make that makes a perfect bridge hand worth more than less than perfeect one. You change the rules and a bridge hand is worth less, much less. DNA sequences emerge as a result of many other processes some random, some predictable, and in many different combinations.
Sal,
Blyth was a creationist like you, and obviously Darwin like many other scientists of his time found that there was no evidence for Blyth's belief in what Blyth called "natural selection" a "vital-force" driven process. In case you didn't know natural selection isn't a process that happens inside an organism or in its environs. It does differ from genetic drift in that respect. You should read the book before you quote from it, because you see we too read books. And surely you can do better than quoting from a collection of essays (Eisley's) written over many years, over 30 years ago?
Now Sal you are going take your textbook and read out that magical sentence that tells us that evolution doesn't happen. We can wait. OK?
wildlifer 3 years, 3 months ago
Scientists discover 100s of new species every year. Did they speciate within the last 150 years? Who knows? Argument from ignorance.
NeilBJ 3 years, 3 months ago
naturalist:
There are 2 parts to my response.
Part 1
I appreciate your thoughtful answer. However, it is only a start toward solving the explanatory problem that I see.
The tangible evidence that you cite only confirms that there has been a change in the morphology of animals throughout history. That the fossil record documents these changes, there is no doubt.
What is in doubt is whether the unguided mechanisms of evolution are responsible for these changes, and whether the accumulation of the small changes we can observe can account for the transitions observed in the fossil record.
I do not deny evolution, as ambiguous as that term is. Evolution is not threatening or repugnant to me. (What is threatening or repugnant to me is the continuing assault on those scientists and educators who dare question evolution.) I do question the efficacy of the mechanisms claimed to be responsible for evolution.
I believe it is legitimate to question the ability of undirected processes to create complex things. I believe it is legitimate to question that the accumulation of small changes over time can account for the large changes observed in the fossil record. I believe there are two possible answers to each of these questions.
I believe that these questions have nothing to do with any religious text. They can be asked even if no religious texts exist. In other words, I believe these questions are scientific questions and are based on observations of the natural world. Inferences are made based on laboratory experiments, mathematics and logic. To repeat what I said before, this is the arena in which the debate should take place. Bringing in a discussion about religious texts will provide no answers to the questions that confront scientists.
NeilBJ 3 years, 3 months ago
naturalist:
Part 2
I find it interesting that you use the qualifier “if” when you talk about having to infer about how physical transitions took place in the distant past. Why the qualifier? How else do you come to conclusions about past events if not by inference from current scientific knowledge? Is it possible that, as Dembski says, there is no rational justification for concluding from what we know today that undirected processes can account for the physical transitions that took place in the distant past? I have yet to read an explanation for how scientists get from “here” to “there”. The only answers I have read have contained the same litany of evidence that you provided in your post.
I believe that those who accept the putative explanations for evolution are engaging in an act of faith. I believe that the anecdotal testimonies and historical locations recorded in the documents you refer to provide more evidence for the faith of those believers than the evidence provides for the evolutionists’ faith in the mechanisms of evolution. However weak you think that evidence might be, it is stronger than the evidence for the mechanisms of (macro) evolution.
Until there is some demonstration that undirected processes can build complex things, I will remain a skeptic of evolution.
naturalist 3 years, 3 months ago
NeilBJ,
Thanks for your thought provoking replies.
It is legitimate to challenge almost anything in this world of knowledge including evolution, but the challenges to evolution should be for scientific or honest reasons.
I think this link explains why people like Dembski have been rebutted so vociferously:
Wedge strategy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I could turn your last statement in part 2 around and say that until there is some demonstration of directed processes by a supernatural agent, I will remain skeptical of Intelligent Design.
That is the bottom line of it.
Intelligent Design advocates, to have legitimate challenges to the conventional ideas of evolution, must come up with tangible evidence, a "manufacturers label" as I like to call it, that shows clearly that a supernatural agent guided evolution or those possible other causes you mention.
Conventional biologists and scientists look to the only things they have to base theories and inferences on and that is what we see sense in the material world. They would be stepping out on a weak limb to interject supernatural ideas into the mix when they have no way to test for such things
The "faith" you mention in what scientists believe about evolutionary mechanisms is not the equivalent to the spiritual faith in supernatural forces that religious believers have.
The inference that scientists use to reconstruct the past are based on sound, tested principles and data accumulated through the knowledge of geology,genetics,biological processes and the species that exist now. These inferences are not based on a spiritual faith just because one important book says something is true,then it is true just because one believes it.
It is not spiritual faith that causes one to accept the ideas in mechanisms of macro-evolution but reliance on principles that we see in organisms now and realization of the incredibly vast,vast amounts of time changes are inevitable because the the enviroment has changed drastically over geological time.
Even though you say that you are not threatened by evolution ask yourself why it is so important that evolution be directed by a supernatural force? Does this make your life or any of life less worthy or "purposeful"?
Everyone is free to have their personal beliefs even that life is designed but science has shown it works best when it does not try to incorporate the myriad subjective beliefs that scientists have into their work.
So show us then the "litany" of sound, duplicatable evidence that Intelliegent Design supporters have to unequivocally contradict what supporters of conventional evolution have.
thurgood 3 years, 3 months ago
NeilBJ says, [[Is it possible that, as Dembski says, there is no rational justification for concluding from what we know today that undirected processes can account for the physical transitions that took place in the distant past?]] No! That's why do science and not spiritual invocation. Firstly the term undirected process, doesn't mean anything. The physical laws that prevail on one side of your skin are the same as those on the other. Secondly why does one have to think that physical transitions took place in the past only? They are happening all the time. What we have seen in as little as 30 years, speciation of unicellular into multicellular organisms is enormous. In fact recently when they re-analyzed the original Miller-Urey sample (the output of just one of many early molecule experiments) with some cool equipment they have found an amazingly lot more molecules than there were originally reported by Miller-Urey! We won't of course hear a bleep from the creationists. Suggestion, it is hard to overcome commonsense. Suggestion, just get over it.
naturalist 3 years, 3 months ago
NeilBJ
While I agree that science has no way to conclusively(for now)test for macroevolution, mostly because such processes happen over vast amnounts of time, I would still maintain that conventional science has the most practical methods and tools to infer or hypothesis that macroevolution is the most probable outcome of long term microevolutionary steps.
The fossil record shows that families,genus and species have changed dramatcally over the countlss eons; why that it is so objectionable to so many that species can radically change morphologies is very puzzling and illogical in my opinion. One only has to look at the universe and see that change,all kinds,degrees and methods of change, is an inescapable fact in life as well as in inanimate matter .
I know this debate will not be settled here, but I will end my part of it by saying that conventional science as it is recognized by most scientists in all fields,is that objective science needs to stay in a objective "safe" or neutral zone with the data,speculations,theories it derives from examining the material universe.
When scientists or others try to bring such loaded political/religious words as "intelligent design" into the processes of empirical science then those processes become confused and and corrupted because there are so many ideas and icons around the concept of an intelligent designer. Just as political correctness has harmful extremes so does attempts at "religious correctness"
If some privately wish to pursue the ideas if intelligent design,that is fine, but it is not fair or productive to try and inject such ideas into the science curriculums of public schools and public universities because of the implied association these ideas have with personal religion,something which cannot be denied or covered up by euphemisms.
Intelligent design can be discussed in philosophy classes and such, but as long as ID is associated with one or more religious paradigms, it will not be recognized as a part of conventional science;and not rejected because of a naturalistic worldview or atheistic bias, but because injecting it into public science classrooms is not practical and would seriously disrupt the classroom settings and course study goals.
We all would have to agree first on what form or whose deity this intelligent designer would take. Since religions disagree already on whose god is the true god, then introducing such subjective and divisive ideas into what should be a discipline geared toward finding wide agreement and consensus,would inevitably result in very detrimental and unproductive outcomes for all participants, believers and non-believers.
naturalist 3 years, 3 months ago
NeilBJ,
Ok... if the agent for design is neither an unguided natural process or a guided supernatural process,then what is it?
I did not say that the possibility of design is absolutely ruled out. As I said in a previous post, none of us have the absolute truth and many scientists are more than willing to admit they "do not know" quite a number of things about the mysteries of life and the universe.
Science is open-ended and if a reasonable,testable alternative to conventional evolutionary knowledge was discovered many scientist would probably be ready to research and test it's merits.
I am just asking for how you or anyone can set up a test to prove design. What are two of those alternative possibilities concerning mechanisms you mentioned a few posts back?
NeilBJ 3 years, 3 months ago
naturalist asks:
"Ok... if the agent for design is neither an unguided natural process or a guided supernatural process,then what is it?"
I view that question as somewhat premature. First, we have to convince ourselves that design in nature is real. Nevertheless, a supernatural agent is the most likely designer. Dawkins, in the movie Expelled, allowed that the designer could be an evolved intelligence who started life on Earth. Some have talked about the intelligence being built into the structure of the universe. Other than these simplistic statements, I am not prepared to discuss who the designer might be; I will leave that to the philosophers.
"I am just asking for how you or anyone can set up a test to prove design."
I will repeat my answer from a previous post:
Historical scientific hypotheses can be evaluated (I will not use the word tested) by comparing at least two alternative explanations, and determine which one has the greater explanatory power. Obviously, knowledge gained from the historical sciences cannot be as certain as knowledge gained from the operational sciences.
"Science is open-ended and if a reasonable, testable alternative to conventional evolutionary knowledge was discovered many scientist would probably be ready to research and test it's merits."
You and I keep stumbling over the word "testable". There are no direct, tangible tests to confirm either the design hypothesis or macroevolution. Yet, you keep insisting on a "testable" hypothesis for design, and I keep insisting on a method for testing macroevolution to counter your insistence on a testable design hypothesis.
What I am aware of today are tangible tests, but they are indirect and not without criticism from opposite sides of the aisle. Again, we have to infer results from what we know and can learn today.
There are the lab tests where many generations of bacteria are bred such as those perfomed by Ralph Seelke who is asking the question, "What can evolution really do?"
There are the computer simulations attempting to mimic evolution.
What if Ralph Seelke's experiments were rigorously peer-reviewed and found to be valid, and what is concluded is that there really is a limit to what evolution can do?
What if a computer simulation that mimics evolution was rigorously peer-reviewed and found to be valid, and nothing approaching the complexity found in nature was generated?
"What are two of those alternative possibilities concerning mechanisms you mentioned a few posts back?"
The diversity and complexity of life is either the result of exclusively unintelligent processes (evolution) or intelligent processes combined with unintelligent processes. I will grant that not everything in biology is designed. I agree with Behe's thesis that evolution has boundary beyond which its explanatory power ceases. Where that boundary exists is yet to be discovered.
NeilBJ 3 years, 3 months ago
naturalist:
"I know this debate will not be settled here, but I will end my part of it by saying that conventional science as it is recognized by most scientists in all fields,is that objective science needs to stay in a objective "safe" or neutral zone with the data,speculations,theories it derives from examining the material universe."
And I will end my part with this observation. My debate with you is probably the sixth time that I have asked the question about the epsitomology of the mechanism of evolution.
How do scientists know that random, undirected processes of evolution can account for the major transitions observed in the fossil record?
I provided a simplistic outline of the intelligent design inference.
I was looking for a simplistic outline of the macroevolution inference (you even seemed reluctant to use the word inference), but you did not provide one.
This is now the sixth time I have not gotten an asnwer to my question.
I am left with the only answer I can come up with. I think Philip Johnson said something like this many years ago. The answer does not follow from the evidence; the answer follows as a conclusion from materialistic philosophy.
dbtngtms 3 years, 2 months ago
All concerned Let us assume for the (very brief) moment that there is proof that there IS a God and he created things pretty much the way ID'ers say they were made. (After all, there is no proof that there is NOT a God [=lack of proof is not proof of anything]). Could this particular fact be presented in a biology class? Or would it have to be barred from any scientific discussion?
But before we answer, let us also look at an idea that IS 100.00% fantasy and ask why it is taught in science class: Punctuated Equilibrium.
Seems like there is a double standard here.