Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Scientific American: The Banality of Evil (ution)

Katherine Pollard's Scientific American article from last year, about what makes humans different from chimpanzees, is an unfortunate example of the banality of evolution. Charles Darwin's theory, updated to account for a variety of surprise evidences, is taken as fact and this leads to a remarkable level of credulity. Whatever we find in biology, it must be the product of evolution. This leads evolutionists away from a whole range of possible investigations and interesting questions. Instead, they drone on with the same, tired, evolutionary explanations that are so predictable. Here are a few passages of note from Pollard's article:

Six years ago I jumped at an opportunity to join the international team that was identifying the sequence of DNA bases, or “letters,” in the genome of the common chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes). As a biostatistician with a long-standing interest in human origins, I was eager to line up the human DNA sequence next to that of our closest living relative and take stock. A humbling truth emerged: our DNA blueprints are nearly 99 percent identical to theirs. That is, of the three billion letters that make up the human genome, only 15 million of them—less than 1 percent—have changed in the six million years or so since the human and chimp lineages diverged.

Humbling? Why is Pollard humbled? Did the brain evolve the feeling of humility to be activated upon learning of similarities with other species? If you think this is sarcasm check out what evolutionists have had to do to explain human behavior. It isn't your Daddy's evolution anymore. It seemed that evolution was as silly as could be. It was story telling on steroids. But then came the updated version of the theory, and evolutionists became their own best parody.

Evolutionary theory holds that the vast majority of these changes had little or no effect on our biology. But somewhere among those roughly 15 million bases lay the differences that made us human. I was determined to find them. Since then, I and others have made tantalizing progress in identifying a number of DNA sequences that set us apart from chimps.

Tantalizing progress? You've got to be kidding me. This "progress" is based on yet another evolutionary fumble; namely, an extreme over emphasis on DNA. In evolution-dom, DNA is king. Long ago evolutionists latched onto DNA as a Hail Mary explanation of how the information for macro evolution could be stored and passed on. Ever since then DNA has been viewed as the blueprint for biological design. Like a computer program, DNA was forced into the role of the biological "program" that determines the nature of an organism. The other parts of the organism, as with the computer, are viewed as merely mechanically performing tasks and following instructions.

Evolutionists need DNA to fulfill this role because they need unguided change to be heritable. Such change was viewed as created by DNA mutations, which could then be passed on to offspring. Scientific problems with this dogma are mounting, but evolutionists will be slow to adjust and reconcile such a fundamental failure.

Until recently the DNA dogma was even more narrow, as evolutionists viewed only the genes within the DNA as important. The remainder of the DNA (the vast majority) was often thought of as useless junk. Now that science, no thanks to evolution, is discovering that "junk" DNA can actually be important, evolutionists changed their view to include more of the DNA.

Now science is taking the next step, again no thanks to evolution, in finding that the nature of an organism may be influenced by players outside the exalted DNA. One obvious suggestion for this comes from precisely the data Pollard analyzes: the human and chimp DNA which are so similar. But Pollard's story is firmly rooted in the DNA dogma. Evolutionists make the absurd claim that a handful of genes, which stand out in humans, are the source of so much of the human-chimp difference.

Because most random genetic mutations neither benefit nor harm an organism, they accumulate at a steady rate that reflects the amount of time that has passed since two living species had a common forebear (this rate of change is often
spoken of as the “ticking of the molecular clock”).

Except that the "molecular clock" doesn't actually work. It is yet another false prediction that goes unmentioned.

Acceleration in that rate of change in some part of the genome, in contrast, is a hallmark of positive selection, in which mutations that help an organism survive and reproduce are more likely to be passed on to future generations. In other words, those parts of the code that have undergone the most modification since the chimp-human split are the sequences that most likely shaped humankind.

Do we really need evolution to tell us that the DNA segments with the most differences between the human and chimp are more important in understanding the sources of the human-chimp difference? Here we see the banality of evolution.

The fact that HAR1 was essentially frozen in time through hundreds of millions of years indicates that it does something very important; that it then underwent abrupt revision in humans suggests that this function was significantly modified in our lineage.

More banality. The gene is significantly different in humans as compared to a wide range of other species. So yes, this suggests its function is significantly different in humans. This conclusion is obvious and we don't need evolution to figure it out. The evolutionary wrapping is superfluous. The talk of how the gene is "frozen in time" and that it "underwent abrupt revision in humans" is gratuitous story telling. Science gives the important findings and evolution gives the meaningless extras.

In fact, what evolutionists do not mention is that HAR1 is yet another example of genome differences between species that are larger than evolution predicted. The human-chimp differences are more than an order of magnitude greater than what evolution predicts. Fortunately, this freak barrage of typos just happened to hit the mark, providing quantum leaps in design improvement leading to the human brain.

Furthermore, these typos simultaneously must have altered two other genes which overlap with HAR1. That's right, HAR1 lies in a region of overlapping genes. Imagine typing a paragraph which contains one message when read normally and a different message when read backward. Not only must evolution have created all of biology's genetic information, but it composed the information in overlapping prose. Someday evolutionists will figure out how.

It might seem surprising that no one paid attention to these amazing 118 bases of the human genome earlier. But in the absence of technology for readily comparing whole genomes, researchers had no way of knowing that HAR1 was more than just another piece of junk DNA.

It was technology, not evolution, that was needed.

The way to evolve a human from a chimp-human ancestor is not to speed the ticking of the molecular clock as a whole. Rather the secret is to have rapid change occur in sites where those changes make an important difference in an organism’s functioning. HAR1 is certainly such a place. So, too, is the FOXP2 gene, which contains another of the fast-changing sequences I identified and is known to be involved in speech.

I wish Charles Darwin could see the new levels of banality he has given us. The "fact" of his theory now underwrites the ascribing anything and everything to evolution, no matter how ludicrous. Evolution has become a tautology. Whatever we find in biology is simply chalked up to evolution's amazing powers. A core tenet of evolution is that the biological variation, upon which natural selection operates, is independent of need. This view has been falsified so many times that evolutionists such as Pollard no longer skip a beat when reporting on evolution's "secret" miracles. In this case, evolution's secret is to focus the multiple mutations where they are needed to construct jaw-dropping designs.

48 comments:

  1. This leads evolutionists away from a whole range of possible investigations and interesting questions. Instead, they drone on with the same, tired, evolutionary explanations that are so predictable.

    And what excuse do creationists have for not pursuing scientific research?

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  2. Shubee,

    Who said creationists were not doing scientific research?

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  3. Darren -

    Where are the articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals which corroborate Creationism? This is a reasonable measure of the the output of scientists. You perform experiments and your write them up in scientific articles for your peers to pull apart to make sure you did everything right, etc. That's basically what scientists do.

    Yet scientific articles supporting Creationism are practically non-existant.

    Could this because Creationism is totally untestable - and therefore cannot possibly be the subject of scientific research? Could it be anything to do with the fact that once you've declared 'God did it', then you have simply declared a mystery to be a miracle? Ta-dah. Mystery explained. Problem solved, and we can all pack up and go home without actually having to bother trying to UNDERSTAND the mystery at all...

    But that's just me speculating. The point is that if you're doing scientific research, you write it up in articles for scientific journals.

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  4. Here's one for ya'll ta 'discuss'

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8593748.stm

    Regards

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  5. Congratulations Cornelius,
    your anti-logic reaches new heights here. You highlight exciting work done by evolutionary biologists, motivated by evolutionary questions and done using evolutionary (and non-evolutionary, of course) techniques and then use it to argue that evolutionary biology hinders science. all the while you argue that evolutionary thinking prevents scientists from testing more interesting ideas, of which you provide exactly zero examples. bravissima!

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  6. Ritchie:
    "scientific articles supporting Creationism are practically non-existant."

    This is yet another of the incredibly hypocritical accusations of inane Darwinians against both ID and creationism.

    So once again, for the benefit of trying to get your mind off hold, here's how it works.

    1) You are very wrong in the first place as any research into peer-reviewed literature reveals

    2) Where there really is a lack of ID-based or creationism-based peer reviewed material is precisely where fanatical Darwinists, run the peer reviewed journals.

    3) This means that anything written by an ID supporting scientist (there are many thousands) and even more for any creationist scientist cannot get an article through by default!

    4) This of course means that the Darwinian dupes that run the journals are cowards, hypocrites and anti-science.

    Take a look in the mirror you Darwinian dupes and hypocrites.
    You are the real anti-science bozos of the world.

    Oh the irony.

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  7. Ritchie,

    Once you've wiped the spittle off your monitor from you last vacuous screed, please provide some examples of the high quality papers supporting Intelligent Design Creationism that have been unfairly rejected by the peer reviewed journals. Surely with "thousands" of IDC "scientists" doing this research it should be a simple matter for you to document your claims.

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  8. My apologies, that last message should have been directed at Hitch who was quoting Ritchie.

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  9. While I'm here, I'd be interested in seeing Cornelius' response to nanobot74.

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  10. nano:
    Its always a revelation when any Darwinian dupe starts talking about logic.

    They really mean pseudo-logic because Darweens ubiquitously demonstrate their own mental incapacity to do logic all while trying to expose what they erroneously think is fallacy, by using fallacious reasoning.

    Again, Oh the irony!

    "You highlight exciting work done by evolutionary biologists"
    A biostatistician is not an evolutionary biologist.

    "motivated by evolutionary questions"
    evolution has nothing to do with the questions

    "and done using evolutionary (and non-evolutionary, of course) techniques"
    Evolution has nothing to do with technique.

    "and then use it to argue that evolutionary biology hinders science."

    Not even what he is saying.

    "all the while you argue that evolutionary thinking prevents scientists from testing more interesting ideas"

    Absolutely true.

    "of which you provide exactly zero examples."

    You're very dim in the gray cells if you fail to see the that this very post is an example as well as most of this blog!

    Why am I not surprised by this revelation of this backwards comprehension? Its everywhere in the Darwino literature.

    "Because the old believers said that God came out of the sky, thereby connecting the Earth with events outside it, the new believers were obliged to say the opposite and to do so, as always, with intense conviction. Although the new believers had not a particle of evidence to support their statements on the matter, they asserted that the rabbit producing sludge (called soup to make it sound more palatable) was terrestrially located and that all chemical and biochemical transmogrifications of the sludge were terrestrially inspired. Because there was not a particle of evidence to support this view, new believers had to swallow it as an article of faith, otherwise they could not pass their examinations or secure a job or avoid the ridicule of their colleagues. So it came about from 1860 onward that new believers became in a sense mentally ill, or, more precisely, either you became mentally ill or you quitted the subject of biology, as I had done in my early teens. The trouble for young biologists was that, with everyone around them ill, it became impossible for them to think they were well unless they were ill, which again is a situation you can read all about in the columns of Nature [magazine]." -Hoyle, F., Mathematics of Evolution

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  11. Poor Patrick,

    Your own "vacuous screed" and spittle is laughable denial of reality.

    Your demands for examples of rejected material etc. are ludicrous and highly revealing of your own ignorance and foolish imaginations.

    Ask Behe, ask Meyer, or Richard Sternberg, or ... ask all the other ID supporters whose articles have been rejected before even being read -by Darwinos like yourself.

    By implication all your spittle reveals is your own glaring denial of reality and unscientific prejudice.

    Darwinians live in an imaginary world wherein they resemble black holes - no light ever escapes and even worse, none ever enters.

    That is because your minds are on hold as Hoyle implied.

    Hint: Hoyle was a lot smarter than you, not to mention far more honest.

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  12. Hitch,
    "A biostatistician is not an evolutionary biologist."

    see her website: http://docpollard.com/

    here's a spoiler: the main words on the front page are "Evolutionary Genomics"

    "evolution has nothing to do with the questions"

    so I guess her interest in "human origins" was based on something other than evolution?

    "Evolution has nothing to do with technique"

    Examining genomes for signs of positive selection (as was done here) is an explicitly evolutionary technique.

    "Not even what he is saying"

    I guess I must have misinterpreted "This leads evolutionists away from a whole range of possible investigations and interesting questions."

    "You're very dim in the gray cells if you fail to see the that this very post is an example as well as most of this blog"

    so could you enlighten my dim brain cells with a one or two sentence summary of one of these interesting, testable ideas?

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  13. Ritchie:
    Could this [be] because Creationism is totally untestable - and therefore cannot possibly be the subject of scientific research? Could it be anything to do with the fact that once you've declared 'God did it', then you have simply declared a mystery to be a miracle? Ta-dah. Mystery explained. Problem solved, and we can all pack up and go home without actually having to bother trying to UNDERSTAND the mystery at all...

    In a previous post on this blog, I "confessed" to a predilection to paraphrasing agruments from evolutionists and using the paraphrase to rebut their argument:

    Could this be because evolutionism is totally untestable - and therefore cannot possibly be the subject of scientific research? Could it be anything to do with the fact that once you've declared evolution did it, then you have simply declared a mystery to be a fact? Ta-dah. Mystery explained. Problem solved, and we can all pack up and go home without actually having to bother trying to UNDERSTAND the mystery at all...

    I had to change only three words to make the counter argument. Some further explanation of "my" rebuttal is required.

    Evolution is not totally untestable. So-called micro-evolution can be tested in the lab and in the field.

    In the literature I have read, it seems that the definition of "testable" implies performing lab experiments. Apparently that is your definition as well: You perform experiments and you write them up in scientific articles...

    Eugenie Scott criticizes ID as not being testable, because you "can't put God in a test tube." The analagous criticism is valid for evolution: Evolution is not testable because you can't put 100 thousand years of evolution in a test tube.

    The greatest mysteries of evolution lie in the deep, deep past. The mysteries of evolution can only be solved by the methods of historical science, and, even then, we cannot have the same level of confidence in a historical explanation as we do in an explanation derived from a direct experiment.

    [W]e can all pack up and go home without actually having to bother trying to UNDERSTAND the mystery at all...

    I have made this point before as well. Does science really understand the mystery of how evoluton actually takes place? If not, then how can science have any confidence that their theory is true? That confidence must arise from somewhere else.

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  14. A humbling truth emerged: our DNA blueprints are nearly 99 percent identical to theirs.

    The guiding philosophy behind statements like this have clearly distorted science. It's a philosophy that arose almost wholly out of the rejection of another. Indeed, that seems to be it's only defining characteristic. It leads to claims which are the material of satire in light of facts, logic and evidence.

    E.g.
    …to say that humans are over one-third daffodil [based on their DNA] is more ludicrous than profound. There are hardly any comparisons you can make to a daffodil in which humans are 33% similar. DNA comparisons thus overestimate similarity at the low end of the scale (because 25% is actually the zero-mark of a DNA comparison) and underestimate comparisons at the high end.
    ....
    The problem is that in being told about these data without a context in which to interpret them, we are left to our own cultural devices. Here, we are generally expected to infer that genetic comparisons reflect deep biological structure, and that 98% is an overwhelming amount of similarity. Thus “the DNA of a human is 98% identical to the DNA of a chimpanzee” becomes casually interpreted as “deep down inside, humans are overwhelmingly chimpanzee. Like 98% chimpanzee.” ….
    …whatever the number is, it shouldn’t be any more impressive than the anatomical similarity; all we need to do is to put that old-fashioned comparison into a zoological context.
    (What It Means to be 98% Chimpanzee by Johnathan Marks :28-31)

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  15. Another commenter quotes Hoyle saying:
    Because the old believers said that God came out of the sky, thereby connecting the Earth with events outside it, the new believers were obliged to say the opposite...

    Note how a philosophy that seems to be defined only as the methodical rejection of God happens to fit the psychological dynamics typical to those who want to do away with the Father in order to crawl back into the womb of their Mother Nature anyway. The irony being that they actually hate Nature and so consider it humbling to be linked to it. Many Christians agree that God should not get his hands dirty or tinker and so on.

    Ken Miller writes: The big emotional issue among creationists is human evolution. It might be safe to say that all their previous arguments exist only to support the notion that humans are in no way linked to the other animals. The whole Christian ethos is centered around a carnal incarnation and the Lamb of God, yet supposedly God cannot "tinker" and we cannot get dirty?

    Dawkins on the same topic:
    The rise of Darwinism in the nineteenth century polarised attitudes towards the apes. Opponents who might have stomached evolution itself balked with visceral horror at cousinship with what they perceived as low and revolting brutes, and desperately tried to inflate our differences from them. This was nowhere more true than with gorillas. Apes were ‘animals’; we were set apart. (The Ancestor’s Tale by Richard Dawkins :108)

    In another section he argues rather ignorantly:
    Many of our legal and ethical principles depend on the separation between Homo Sapiens and all other species. Of the people who regard abortion as a sin, including the minority who go to the lengths of assassinating doctors and blowing up abortion clinics, many are unthinking meat-eaters, and have no worries about chimpanzees being imprisoned in zoos and sacrificed in laboratories. Would they think again, if we could lay out a living continuum of intermediates between ourselves and chimpanzees, linked in an unbroken chain of interbreeders like the California salamanders? Surely they would. Yet it is the merest accident that the intermediates all happen to be dead. It is only because of this accident that we can comfortably and easily imagine a huge gulf between our two species-or between any two species, for that matter.
    (Ib. :303)


    Note the way that the Darwinian mind constantly works towards citing imaginary evidence, so by the end of his paragraph he’s treating his imaginary ancestors and imaginary events in the past as if they are a reality which must be “imagined” away by others. And note his ignorance, he should know that if even if his imaginary ancestors were real wouldn’t make a huge difference. Does genocide happen among humans? Of course. Did it happen among people like the Nazis who virtually all believed in evolutionary creation myths? Of course. Do people who know that they have the same ancestors still kill each other? Of course. Is common ancestry among humans or chimps any safeguard if the Darwinian creation myth is true? Of course not, Jews were experimented on by Nazis who firmly believed in Darwinism and the Nazis advanced "animal rights" and anti-vivisection laws and then went on to experiment on Jews. (I.e. perhaps the best people to understand the nature of animal sacrifice.) There is no reason to become a vegetarian or to stop experiments on animals if the Darwinian creation myth is true. Dawkins seems to be playing pretend again and merely imagining that doing away with monotheism and the Jewish tradition will lead to heaven on earth. It's already been tried and it didn't. If he wasn't an ignorant buffoon when it comes to history and philosophy he would know that.

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  16. @Ritchie,
    Where are the articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals which corroborate Creationism? This is a reasonable measure of the the output of scientists. You perform experiments and your write them up in scientific articles for your peers to pull apart to make sure you did everything right, etc. That's basically what scientists do.

    Here is an example of quality, reproducible, primary research aimed at testing the claims of evolution and design in a specific case:

    http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v17/i1/beetle.asp

    Preliminary observations of the pygidial gland of the Bombardier Beetle, Brachinus sp.

    The paper appears in the peer-reviewed Journal of Creation, which closed-minded evolution proponents will likely disqualify on ideological grounds; but upon reading the paper itself, the quality of the research is evident. Armitage and Mullisen have given a careful review of the existing literature on the subject, then have expanded the area of what is known by publishing new SEM/TEM micrographs and photographs. They conclude that irreducible complexity has yet to be experimentally established for the "artillery" of the bombardier beetle, and describe the criteria by which it could be established or disproven.

    Is this an article which "corroborates Creationism"? It doesn't reach that far with its conclusions, leaving them "beyond the scope of this study." Instead it lays solid morphological groundwork where it was lacking, so that future arguments regarding the bombardier beetle can be better grounded on the facts.

    This paper is a good example of how Creationist scientists "perform experiments and you write them up in scientific articles for your peers to pull apart to make sure you did everything right, etc. That's basically what scientists do."

    Not leaping to conclusions beyond the reach of the data is an example that evolutionists should follow... particularly those who claim evolution is "as much a fact as gravity."

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  17. Once you've wiped the spittle off your monitor from you last vacuous screed, please provide some examples of the high quality papers supporting Intelligent Design Creationism that have been unfairly rejected by the peer reviewed journals.

    Don't you agree that ID should be censored from peer reviewed journals because it is not science?

    With respect to the consensus that those who can't think for themselves tend to latch on to like their last and dying friend, if Darwinian mythologies of progress are granted then evolution will do away with the current consensus, naturally enough. So why cling to it and cite it as the be all end all? It may be as meaningless as the consensus of established science about eugenics a short time ago. If a group of imbeciles agrees among themselves that they are not imbeciles the fact remains that they are imbeciles. Even if all biologists agree that imaginary evidence can be treated as the equivalent of empirical evidence it's still imaginary.

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  18. Could it be anything to do with the fact that once you've declared 'God did it', then you have simply declared a mystery to be a miracle?

    This is false. As Doublee has pointed out the same exact criticisms could be advanced against unfalsifiable notions of "Evolution did it." which are quite common. The truth is that both can be advanced in an unfalsifiable way or specified further, even to the point of being a more rigorous science. I would not say that a miracle or any singularity is open to science but even miracles ("Let this be a sign to you.") are not the equivalent of mere power or magic and science may isolate or lead to a knowledge of singularities, naturally.

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  19. Cornelius: "This leads evolutionists away from a whole range of possible investigations and interesting questions. Instead, they drone on with the same, tired, evolutionary explanations that are so predictable."

    I agree with others here that it is unfortunate that Cornelius does not seem to think that he should be one of the people asking these "interesting questions" or what "possible investigations" could be carried out. He is repeatedly asked this time and time again, and prefers not to answer, under the guise that he is somehow "neutral".

    Although criticizing evolution may have some value, and it can be thought-provoking, ultimately unless alternative hypotheses are proposed, it simply leaves everybody at an impasse.

    I've been reading this blog for a while now. It's illuminating in the fact that it shows how much more is to be known. But has it really shaken my acceptance of evolution? No, not really - or at least I have yet to see any solid evidence that evolutionary processes are anything but natural. It's possible scientists may be wrong on some matters, but it still looks very much like a natural process. Of course Hunter is never quite straightforward enough to admit that he thinks there is some "supernatural" element at work, but of course we all realize that's where he's coming from (and frankly all of the stuff he espouses about being metaphysically neutral is really just plain old BS).

    I doubt if my views change until somebody (and it obviously won't be Hunter) offers a different/better explanatory framework than evolution currently offers. This is how science progresses - one paradigm replaces another - and it's a fundamental concept that Hunter completely fails to understand.

    I guess his legacy will be "The man who hated evolution" and unfortunately little more.

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  20. Well Tim,

    If you could just provide positive evidence for your position perhaps Dr Hunter wouldn't "hate" it.

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  21. Joe G: "If you could just provide positive evidence for your position perhaps Dr Hunter wouldn't "hate" it."

    I'm not the one suggesting that evolution is completely wrong. I think overall it is a sound framework. Dr. Hunter is the one who has issues with it, but seemingly is unable to suggest any viable alternative (one assumes "ID" in some form of other, but even here he seems reluctant to promote it - even though he is a fellow of the DI!)

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  22. Timcol:

    ====
    Of course Hunter is never quite straightforward enough to admit that he thinks there is some "supernatural" element at work, but of course we all realize that's where he's coming from (and frankly all of the stuff he espouses about being metaphysically neutral is really just plain old BS).
    ====

    Some people say "we all know what those evolutionists really think -- they're atheists," but that is problematic, for several reasons. For instance, some are atheists *because* they believe evolution is true. And in any case, their arguments are not from atheism. They don't argue that god doesn't exist, and so evolution must be true. I suspect the majority are atheists because they've bought the religious arguments for naturalism--at least the vocal ones are clear about that.

    Also, the atheism charge can be an argument of convenience, allowing one to avoid the strong metaphysical arguments for evolution. So just imputing the motive of atheism can be problematic.

    The bottom line is that arguments based on imputed motives are typically weak, usually wrong, and probably say more about the person making the argument. It is always safer simply to address the claims that actually are made rather than attempt to divine ulterior motives. In fact, if you listen and engage you find most people are quite up front and honest about their arguments. Evolutionists, for instance, are right up front with their religious beliefs. (not so when you place their arguments under scrutiny--they then go into denial).

    Now your argument here is similar. Your statement is off base on several counts. In fact I do discuss what I believe, and why I believe it. Of course I think supernatural causation played a role, because of the science. Evolutionists, OTH, bring in their metaphysics on the front end, where religious arguments are used to mandate that evolution is a fact. But they then deny it when confronted.

    I suggest if you are on the lookout for cases of denial, you look closer to home.

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  23. Cornelius: "Of course I think supernatural causation played a role, because of the science. "

    OK then. What kind of role did this supernatural role play and why is it suggested by the science? I think it's also clear you think that this supernatural entity is the Christian God (otherwise one would assume it would be at odds with your personal faith). But why? Why the Christian God? And why does ID not jive with the origins accounts in the Bible which explicitly points to a spontaneous creation event?

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  24. Timcol:

    ====
    OK then. What kind of role did this supernatural role play
    ====

    I don't know.


    ====
    and why is it suggested by the science?
    ====

    Because the world does not appear to be a result of the natural laws and processes we deduce from observing nature.



    ====
    I think it's also clear you think that this supernatural entity is the Christian God
    ====

    Of course.


    ====
    But why? Why the Christian God?
    ====

    Well there are several reasons. So we have the massive failure of evolution which raises the question of how we got here. Then there is evil which is difficult to account for without the Christian God. Then there is my own personal sin, and my own situation, which the Bible describes so well. And then there is the man Jesus of Nazareth, and the evidence of his life, work, and atonement.



    ====
    And why does ID not jive with the origins accounts in the Bible which explicitly points to a spontaneous creation event?
    ====

    Well I'm not sure about ID, but as for the Bible, it is more underdetermined than you think. Christians hold a spectrum of views and interpretations, of which the spontaneous creation event is merely one.

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  25. nanobot74 said...

    "see her website: http://docpollard.com/

    here's a spoiler: the main words on the front page are "Evolutionary Genomics""

    And here's the foiler - that you did not read:
    http://docpollard.com/katie.html

    BIOSTATISTICS - is not evolutionary biology
    sorry

    "so I guess her interest in "human origins" was based on something other than evolution?"

    Her interest and motives are not even the subject at hand. You're debating a strawman.

    "Examining genomes for signs of positive selection (as was done here) is an explicitly evolutionary technique."

    Wrong, the technique is "technology" and math - the goal is "for signs of".
    Evolution is not a technique.

    " I guess I must have misinterpreted"
    Yes. You misinterpret a lot and change the subject a lot. Is this to avoid real debate? Apparently.

    "your anti-logic reaches new heights here. You highlight exciting work done by evolutionary biologists, motivated by evolutionary questions and done using evolutionary (and non-evolutionary, of course) techniques and then use it to argue that evolutionary biology hinders science. all the while you argue that evolutionary thinking prevents scientists from testing more interesting ideas, of which you provide exactly zero examples. bravissima!"

    Your first paragraph is full of errors that I pointed out.

    Your request for examples of interesting questions is irrelevant to the post as this blog and dozens like it point out such questions all the time.

    Ask R. Sternberg what he is currently researching. Or D. Axe, or Wells or Behe or ...

    This entry is geared at revealing why and how evolutionary pseudo-logic, being based on the assumption of evolution (Darwinism) as FACT, hinders scientists from looking into other things.

    One such thing evolutionary researchers avoided for years is the mis-named "junk DNA" - abundance of examples of lost research exist in that area alone. As we are now seeing more and more as Darwinists finally are just beginning to wake up to the fact that there is no junk DNA worth speaking of - as ID predicts (another failed prediction of Darwinism).

    I think you already know that.

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  26. "In evolution-dom, DNA is king. Long ago evolutionists latched onto DNA as a Hail Mary explanation of how the information for macro evolution could be stored and passed on. Ever since then DNA has been viewed as the blueprint for biological design."

    Just to clarify, do you NOT believe DNA carries inheritable genetic information?

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  27. Timcol: "OK then. What kind of role did this supernatural role play"

    Cornelius: I don't know.

    How could we know? And why does this supernatural entity not want to reveal its methods? Given that you think this supernatural entity is the Christian God, it seems then that this God would prefer we remain in the dark about it, right?

    Cornelius: Because the world does not appear to be a result of the natural laws and processes we deduce from observing nature.

    That is an inference of your choosing. Others draw a different inference that the world is entirely the result of natural processes only. Without the benefit of positive evidence of a supernatural entity, my money is on the natural processes too. Apparently this supernatural entity, despite being super-intelligent has chosen not to reveal its methods (and in fact has obfuscated matters by providing an entirely contradictory account in the Bible).

    Cornelius: Well there are several reasons. So we have the massive failure of evolution which raises the question of how we got here. Then there is evil which is difficult to account for without the Christian God. Then there is my own personal sin, and my own situation, which the Bible describes so well. And then there is the man Jesus of Nazareth, and the evidence of his life, work, and atonement.

    This sounds suspiciously like metaphysical arguments to me, particularly when you start introducing concepts and suppositions such as sin and atonement. And of course the historical evidence for the life of Jesus is by no means settled or resolved (e.g., no accounts were written down for at least 25-30 years). If Cornelius took the same rigorous and skeptical approach that he does to evolution to the historicity of Jesus, it could be a very interesting result. And of course had Cornelius been born in Saudi Arabia I suspect he would have a very different viewpoint.

    Cornelius: Well I'm not sure about ID, but as for the Bible, it is more underdetermined than you think. Christians hold a spectrum of views and interpretations, of which the spontaneous creation event is merely one.


    I wasn't thinking so much of the views of Christians, but the very explicit account in Genesis 1-2. Unless this is interpreted solely as a mythical/allergorical account, it does not appear to jive with scientific accounts. The problem is the text does not give us any real indication on how to interpret it (and at what point in Genesis does it switch from mythology-making to historical accounts?).

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  28. nanobot74:

    =============
    Congratulations Cornelius,
    your anti-logic reaches new heights here. You highlight exciting work done by evolutionary biologists, motivated by evolutionary questions and done using evolutionary (and non-evolutionary, of course) techniques and then use it to argue that evolutionary biology hinders science. all the while you argue that evolutionary thinking prevents scientists from testing more interesting ideas, of which you provide exactly zero examples. bravissima!
    =============


    Patrick:

    =============
    While I'm here, I'd be interested in seeing Cornelius' response to nanobot74.
    =============

    Evolutionists use religious arguments to prove their theory which otherwise makes little sense a plethora of false predictions. When you point it out, evolutionists retort with a variety of canards, such as this one. Evolutionists will use practically any argument to justify their position.

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  29. How could we know? And why does this supernatural entity not want to reveal its methods?

    Perhaps because if men had a better knowledge of biology they would kill whole groups of people. This is what history indicates among those arrogant and stupid enough to believe that they had knowledge of Darwin's "tree of life."

    This is merely a reasonable suggestion based on the evidence. The truth is, I do not know.

    Given that you think this supernatural entity is the Christian God, it seems then that this God would prefer we remain in the dark about it, right?

    It would seem so. You know that power is linked to knowledge and the more power we have the more capacity we have to destroy ourselves, correct? Even given our relatively limited knowledge of physics we are already at risk of destroying life as we know it. Perhaps instead of focusing on moral teachings and being so cryptic about things the Jewish God should have rigorously specified the nature of nature and biology in the Bible. We probably wouldn't be here to study or know of anything given man's propensity to destroy but at least someone would have had their lust for knowledge satiated, huh?

    It seems to me that it's more important to desire to know that you do not know given that a lust for knowledge seems to lead toward vast ignorance.

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  30. Timcol62:

    ======================
    And why does this supernatural entity not want to reveal its methods?
    ======================

    The more relevant question is: Why do evolutionists make religious claims that drive their science?



    =====================
    Cornelius: Because the world does not appear to be a result of the natural laws and processes we deduce from observing nature.

    That is an inference of your choosing. Others draw a different inference that the world is entirely the result of natural processes only.
    =====================

    But those inferences are not scientific. Remember, unlike you I'm coming at this from an empiricist angle.





    ====================
    Apparently this supernatural entity, despite being super-intelligent has chosen not to reveal its methods
    ====================

    Again, religious claims carry little weight from an empirical perspective. Of course evolutionists have strong religious beliefs about what god should and should not do, and this world does not meet with their expectations so they need their evolution to be true, no matter how silly it is.



    ====================
    Cornelius: Well there are several reasons. So we have the massive failure of evolution which raises the question of how we got here. Then there is evil which is difficult to account for without the Christian God. Then there is my own personal sin, and my own situation, which the Bible describes so well. And then there is the man Jesus of Nazareth, and the evidence of his life, work, and atonement.

    This sounds suspiciously like metaphysical arguments to me, particularly when you start introducing concepts and suppositions such as sin and atonement.
    ====================

    But this is entirely different from evoltuion's metaphysics. I'm not using silly metaphysical claims; I'm not using metaphysics to drive my science; I'm not using metaphysics to make scientific truth claims; I'm not ruining the careers of people who disagree with my metaphysics, and I'm not lying about my metaphysics.

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  31. Cornelius: "Again, religious claims carry little weight from an empirical perspective. Of course evolutionists have strong religious beliefs about what god should and should not do, and this world does not meet with their expectations so they need their evolution to be true, no matter how silly it is."

    It is not about having a need for evolution to be true. It is about evaluating evidence and making a judgment on which hypothesis/theory is the best explanation for that evidence.

    Given that you believe that the designer is the Christian God, it is not unreasonable to ask whether what we see in nature concurs with the character of said God. After all we supposedly have information about this God from the Bible. We know quite a lot about this entity in fact. That is not making a religious claim but merely responding to the religious ideas proposed by IDers and creationists.

    This has been explained to you thousands of times but you refuse to hear or understand it. I think your preoccupation with this idea is bordering on an obsession, particularly that even within your own circle you seem quite alone in promoting this "religion drives science" idea. It would be one thing if it even made the slightest bit of sense - but it honestly doesn't. It's truly the definition of a crackpot theory.

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  32. Cornelius: "I'm not using metaphysics to drive my science"

    So you would have us believe that your religious views have in no way whatsoever influenced your science (even though you admit that "supernatural causation" has played a role and that the designer is the Christian God - would you still have that view had you not first been a Christian?).

    In the same way that you are incredulous about evolution, I am utterly incredulous that your own personal religious views have not influenced your scientific stance.

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  33. Timcol62:

    "So you would have us believe that your religious views have in no way whatsoever influenced your science"

    My religious views do influence my science, as I have explained here:

    http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2010/03/religion-behind-skepticism-of-evolution.html

    My religious belief that is relevant here is that we ought not to lie or otherwise misrepresent science.

    Otherwise, I fall in line behind a long history of Christian thinkers (including Darwin), going back thousands of years, who favor naturalistic explanations. But I don't place that preference over honesty.

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  34. Cornelius: "My religious views do influence my science, as I have explained here:"

    Sure, you can assert this. Do I believe it? Not for a minute. As a former evangelical Christian I know only too well how religious beliefs pervades one's entire worldview. Perhaps you think you are an exception (after all you are world's Only True Scientist)...but I simply don't buy your story. After all - isn't it true that some 95% or more (I'm estimating) of ID proponents are Christians? That isn't a coincidence...

    Your religion drives your science and it matters....

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  35. Timcol62:

    ============
    Sure, you can assert this. Do I believe it? Not for a minute.
    ============

    Yeah, just as some evangelicals can't believe that evolutionists are Christians. I suspect they want to avoid the hard metaphysical problems while you want to avoid the hard scientific problems. It's all so simple--just brand people as liars to satisfy your parochial view.



    ============
    As a former evangelical Christian I know only too well how religious beliefs pervades one's entire worldview. Perhaps you think you are an exception (after all you are world's Only True Scientist)...but I simply don't buy your story.
    ============

    That's quite a theory you have. So I'm a creationist even though I've never written or spoken anything about it. I've argued that creationism and evolutionism come from the same brand of rationalistic thought, but that was really just a ruse. And as a consequence I come up with all kinds of ridiculous arguments against evolution. Only one problem--those ridiculous arguments come from science. Hmmm


    ============
    After all - isn't it true that some 95% or more (I'm estimating) of ID proponents are Christians? That isn't a coincidence...
    ============

    That's right, is isn't a coincidence. Christians are all over the map on the origins question because their tradition and beliefs support a wide variety of perspectives. Others, and particularly materialists, have no such resource. They are evolutionists regardless of the evidence. No, it isn't a coincidence that there are no atheist IDers.

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  36. Timcol62:


    ==========
    It is not about having a need for evolution to be true. It is about evaluating evidence and making a judgment on which hypothesis/theory is the best explanation for that evidence.
    ==========

    Yes, I certainly agree that evolutionists are evaluating the evidence they find important and making a judgment. My point is not that their need for evolution comes out of nowhere. They definitely have their evidence and arguments. In fact, their arguments that evolution is a fact are perfectly valid! But their premises are metaphysical and that is where the heavy lifting takes place. If god would not create the mosquito, then yes, evolution is true. And given such premises, evolution *must* be true, no matter how much the science contradicts it.



    ==========
    Given that you believe that the designer is the Christian God, it is not unreasonable to ask whether what we see in nature concurs with the character of said God. After all we supposedly have information about this God from the Bible. We know quite a lot about this entity in fact. That is not making a religious claim but merely responding to the religious ideas proposed by IDers and creationists.
    ==========

    Yes, indeed. But that doesn't get us very far does it. When you're done demolishing the religious claims of IDers and creationists then all you can conclude is that religious claims of IDers and creationists are no good. You can't say evolution is a fact unless, that is, you are not merely responding to religious claims but you are buying those religious claims.



    ==========
    This has been explained to you thousands of times but you refuse to hear or understand it.
    ==========

    Actually it is the evolutionists who refuse to understand.



    ==========
    I think your preoccupation with this idea is bordering on an obsession,
    ==========

    Everytime I hear the word "evolution" it drives me deeper into my crazed state. I can't bear the thought of god using such cruel methods, and I must do whatever I can to fight such religious heresy.


    ==========
    particularly that even within your own circle you seem quite alone in promoting this "religion drives science" idea. It would be one thing if it even made the slightest bit of sense - but it honestly doesn't. It's truly the definition of a crackpot theory.
    ==========

    So you mean evolution really isn't religious after all? You mean Coyne, Miller, Mayr, Dawkins, ... all the way to Darwin and Wallace didn't really mean it? When Darwin said the species are inexplicable on divine creation he actually meant they are explicable? You mean there really isn't any metaphysics here? And do you mean there really is scientific evidence proving evolution to be a fact, which they just haven't told us about?

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  37. In the end it is very simple.

    Cornelius claims that there has been supernatural causation in the origin and/or development of species.

    He claims that science backs this up. Yet, when pushed, this science turns out to be little more than an inference based on an argument from incredulity.

    What is utterly lacking is any real *positive* evidence of this supernatural causation (and it's quite apparent that this supernatural agent has no intention of helping out here). Sure, there are mathematical musings on how evolution could not have evolved etc, but there is NO POSITIVE evidence.

    Provide this (and not just a negative argument) and then there may be something worthwhile talking about.

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  38. Timcol62:

    "Cornelius claims that there has been supernatural causation in the origin and/or development of species."

    No, you're projecting as evolutionists often do. The species may have arisen via natural law. Darwin may be correct. What I "claim" (and what is not even controversial), is that science does not indicate this, and that the claim that evolution is a fact or is compelling is not based merely on science, but is metaphysically laden, and that such claims go back centuries, long before Darwin.

    I make no claim as to the supernatural versus natural composition of causes involved the origins of species -- I wasn't there.

    Certainly, because I'm biased towards empiricism, I would hypothesize some degree of supernatural causation, but I make no claim of certainty. That's my opinion, based on empirical evidence, and open to revision. My opinion is not dogmatic and based on religion, as with you evolutionists. Again, that's not controversial.

    "turns out to be little more than an inference based on an argument from incredulity. ... What is utterly lacking is any real *positive* evidence of this supernatural causation."

    Right, this is the usual "have it both ways" argument evolutionists make. When it comes to evolution, the inferences and incredulity are everywhere. The empirical evidence is turned upside down or ignored altogether. And then the Big Bang (only the beginning of the universe out of nothing), cannot be used to infer supernatural causation, because that would be too much of an inference.

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  39. Cornelius said: "I make no claim as to the supernatural versus natural composition of causes involved the origins of species -- I wasn't there."

    Cornelius also said (in comments) on 3/30:

    "In fact I do discuss what I believe, and why I believe it. Of course I think supernatural causation played a role, because of the science. "

    So, what kind of role do was supernatural causation involved and why - or is this just a vague hunch that you have? And what exactly is the empirical (non-inference) evidence that supports it?

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  40. Timcol62:

    =====
    So, what kind of role do was supernatural causation involved and why - or is this just a vague hunch that you have? And what exactly is the empirical (non-inference) evidence that supports it?
    =====

    So evolution fails on empirical science over and over, and is motivated by metaphysical interpretations of the evidence, yet you can't imagine how one could think natural causes are insufficient? Fundamental predictions of evolution constantly turn out to be false, and yet we aren't allowed to conclude that naturalism has failed?

    This is a good example of how naturalism is unfalsifiable. According to the evolutionist's own critierion of testability, naturalism is unscientific. It has failed scientifically, and yet it must be true.

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  41. Cornelius: "So evolution fails on empirical science over and over, and is motivated by metaphysical interpretations of the evidence, yet you can't imagine how one could think natural causes are insufficient?"

    My imagination can run rife if necessary. The question though was what evidence do YOU think exists for supernatural causation.

    Cornelius: "This is a good example of how naturalism is unfalsifiable. According to the evolutionist's own critierion of testability, naturalism is unscientific. It has failed scientifically, and yet it must be true."

    Actually, all I did was ask a simple question about how/when/where you think supernatural causation played a role (which you have admitted to). I'll take your obfuscations as a refusal and/or inability to answer (as usual).

    To summarize

    1) Cornelius admitted (on 3/30) that supernatural causation plays a role
    2) I asked what the positive evidence for that causation is (rather than just inference)
    3) Cornelius responded with the usual metaphysical mumblings (which only make sense to him) and refused to answer the question (again),.

    I guess I have my answer. And in the meantime, despite flaws in evolutionary theory, I still maintain there is NO reason to think that there is a non-natural explanation. But Cornelius is welcome to offer that non-natural evidence anytime he wants...

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  42. To summarize

    1) Cornelius admitted (on 3/30) that supernatural causation plays a role
    2) I asked what the positive evidence for that causation is (rather than just inference)


    There can be no direct, positive or physical evidence for metaphysical realities and their impact on the physical world.


    3) Cornelius responded with the usual metaphysical mumblings...

    Not at all.

    I guess I have my answer.

    In your own mind you always did, thanks to your metaphysics.

    And in the meantime, despite flaws in evolutionary theory, I still maintain there is NO reason to think that there is a non-natural explanation.

    Yet I maintain that there is no reason to think that your brain event happened across an accurate understanding of anything, let alone metaphysics.

    But Cornelius is welcome to offer that non-natural evidence anytime he wants...

    But all that counts in the brain events of imbeciles is physical evidence in which there can never be evidence of the metaphysical. And even "counting" of that sort is just an illusion of blind processes and events which have no metaphysical metric or measure of themselves.

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  43. mynmm: "There can be no direct, positive or physical evidence for metaphysical realities and their impact on the physical world."

    Says who? Christians believe that Jesus was resurrected from the dead - isn't this an example of a metaphysical reality impinging on the physical world in a measurable way? In fact without the physical and historical evidence that this event occurred, then Christians would have a very shaky foundation to their faith (of course we can argue whether this event really happened, but that's for a different time...)

    If supernatural causation occurred in the origin/development of species, why on earth should it also not be postively observed and/or measured? (and not just inferred...)

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  44. Continued...imagine if the only evidence for the resurrection of Jesus was simply the fact that no body had been found. Instead of a resurrection story and apparent eye-witnesses, there was simply an account that Jesus had died, and that his body had never been found. Sure, people could "infer" that the lack of a body could mean he was resurrected. But honestly, it wouldn't be a very compelling story would it? It feels to me that ID and non-natural explanations for evolution are the same - all they have is a "missing body" (in this case issues with theory of evolution - which of course in turn could quite easily resovle themself). There is no positive story, no positive evidence of the ID "resurrection" event.

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  45. Says who?

    The same type of scientists from which you've derived your methodology of building a view that seems natural to you. This is the way you're "counting" what counts as evidence, naturally. It's actually quite subjective, what seems "natural" and so on. For example, it seems natural to me that your claims about non-natural evidence actually reduce to your brain events and the illusion of a mind of synaptic gaps that mainly has to do with natural selection operating on an ancient group of worm like creatures. Naturally I'd imagine that science is inevitably and methodically building such an explanation or one similar to it.

    Christians believe that Jesus was resurrected from the dead...

    Ironically the main reason that singularities and miracles have significance is a background of regularity. If people were known to rise from the dead every so often or went through a chain of events like a caterpillar morphing into a different kind of organism entirely then it would not be significant. "Let this be a sign to you."

    There is no positive story, no positive evidence of the ID "resurrection" event.

    Many are simply beginning at the beginning due to the unfathomable stupidity typical to Darwinists who would reduce their own idiotic brain events to blind processes. It's important to realize or have some knowledge that a body is in fact dead or alive before claiming that it came back to life. Take a process like natural selection which is based on the death of the unfit. It creates nothing and it is based on death, yet Darwinists often act as if it generally created life as we know it. Realizing that it is a blind process which can only destroy or preserve and that there is no sentient being "selecting," designing or creating anything is actually quite important.

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  46. Sorry mynym but I haven't the faintest clue as to what you are trying to say. My point was simple - where is the positive non-inference evidence for ID. You did a nice job of dancing all over the place, but completely failed to actually address any of my questions! "Beginning at the beginning"? WTF?

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  47. My point was simple - where is the positive non-inference evidence for ID.

    What in the world would that supposedly look like to you? What would you supposedly "count" as positive, non-inference evidence for design?

    You did a nice job of dancing all over the place, but completely failed to actually address any of my questions!

    Your questions seem questionable.

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  48. mynym: "What in the world would that supposedly look like to you? What would you supposedly "count" as positive, non-inference evidence for design?"

    The question was primarily directed at Cornelius - he was the one making a claim of "supernatural causation", not me. What do you think?

    I think the challenge here is that the "designer" isn't talking and hasn't been talking. It/he/she could have - it could have, for example, revealed the nature of DNA (maybe in a holy book perhaps) centuries prior to it being discovered. The lack of willingness to communicate on the designers part is to me rather telling (particularly if you believe, as Cornelius does, that it is the Christian God - it seems out of character doesn't it?)


    mynym: "Your questions seem questionable."

    Why is it questionable when somebody makes a claim to ask them to back it up?

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