Friday, May 30, 2014

The Recurrent Laryngeal Nerve is Actually Really Complex

A Ham-Handed Creator?

In Charles Darwin’s one long argument against final causes, teleology, separate creation, independent creation or as he sometimes simply put it, the “ordinary view,” he complained, among other things, that notions of independent creation were tantamount to rejecting “a real for an unreal, or at least for an unknown, cause.” Furthermore, separate and innumerable acts of creation amounted to a tautology, “only re-stating the fact in dignified language.” And echoing Descartes’ criticism of Aristotelianism (the qualities themselves are in need of explanation), Darwin complained that viewing nature as revealing the plan of the Creator is vacuous and “nothing is thus added to our knowledge.” In summary, Darwin argued that independent creation was a vacuous tautology that appeals to unknown or unreal causes. The problem, as usual, is that the evolutionist’s criticism of other points of view is, in fact, a perfect description of evolution itself.

Consider, for example, one of Jerry Coyne’s favorite “proofs” of evolution, the recurrent laryngeal nerve. Coyne informs his readers that “It’s a prime example of ‘bad design,’ that is, of the ham-handedness of any creator that was responsible for designing organisms” because “It’s much longer than it need be, taking a tortuous route several feet longer than the direct path from brain to neck.”

But, according to Coyne, with evolution it all makes perfect sense. You see in the fish, the nerve lined up with a blood vessel, with both the nerve and blood vessel servicing the gills. But when the population of fish turned into a population of humans, and the blood vessel migrated rearwards, the nerve had no choice but to go along for the ride for it was looped around the vessel. The result is a nerve that winds its way along a circuitous route from the brain, down into our chest, and then back up to larynx.

Of course the nerve interacts with tissue along the way, but so what? It’s obviously a bad design. And what’s even more obvious is that there must be an untold number of such geometric constraints and puzzles as evolution shuffled the insides of the species it created. It can’t even reroute a little nerve cell and so as evolution began creating species the set of future species it could possibly create must have rapidly narrowed. It’s truly amazing that evolution could do much at all given all these constraints.

And yet there it is. Evolution created millions of species, each with their own design treasures. A biological universe filled with mechanical, electrical and chemical wonders. Somehow evolution did it all, even though it is so limited.

In fact one of those wonders is the recurrent laryngeal nerve itself. You see nerve cells are not little wires or hollow tubes carrying little electrical charges. They are incredibly fine-tuned, ingenious biological signal carriers that operate by a chemical choreography sending charged ions back and forth across its membrane to produce an action potential that progresses along the nerve.

And as nerves get longer, they get even more complex. That is the case with the recurrent laryngeal nerve. In the giraffe it is about 15 feet long. And in whales and dinosaurs they are much longer still. This creates significant design problems, such as how the nerve would transport necessary molecules, both large and small, from one end of the nerve to the other. It would take too long so evolution must have come up with some creative solutions. Pretty amazing stuff for the blind watchmaker that couldn’t reroute the nerve.

So what exactly is evolution telling us here? The history of evolutionary thought is full of failed claims of bad design. Over and over evolutionists have been convinced that nature’s designs were meaningless claptraps, only later to be shown up by scientific discoveries revealing clever function. But all the while evolutionists remained unfazed. At first, the meaningless claptrap reveals there was no designer. And later, the discovered function reveals an adaptation. One way or another, evolution did it.

Furthermore, evolutionists remain unfazed when amazing new mechanisms and structures are found. Whether the nerves are restructured, or the body plan is redesigned, evolutionists are sure that evolution created it. After all, it was selected for.

The recurrent laryngeal nerve is just another one of these stories. Evolutionists have no idea how it could have evolved. They have no idea how any nerve cell could have evolved for that matter. But they are sure it must have. Nor do they have any idea what are all the functions of the nerve.

Their certainty has little to do with evolutionary mechanisms and pathways, which are usually quite speculative. Rather, their certainty has to do with the quality and aesthetics of the design. It doesn’t work, or if it does work it doesn’t look right. They are making non scientific, metaphysical judgments about the biological world. And their theory consists of so many just-so stories, immune to empirical data and removed from the realities of science. We might say it is a vacuous tautology that appeals to unknown or unreal causes. But that would be quote mining.

Religion drives science, and it matters.

73 comments:

  1. We can explain this in that Biological Darwinism creates non-explanatory knowledge.

    Nothing in a giraffe knows how longer necks improve their ability to increase their food supply from an explanatory perspective. It's longer neck merely represents a useful rule of thumb, which has limited reach (pun not intended).

    Note that I'm not suggesting that useful rules of thumb are not, well, useful. I'm suggesting that they have significantly less reach than explanatory knowledge. It cannot simply re-route just one nerve based on an explanation it does not possess.

    Are you suggesting there is no such thing as a useful rule of thumb? Or perhaps you are denying a distinction can be made between explanatory and non-explanaory knowledge?

    Or is this one of those compelling arguments that isn't "scientific"?

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    2. Scott said
      "Nothing in a giraffe knows..."
      How do you know what a giraffe knows, Scott?
      Please be specific.
      This sounds similar to "one of those compelling arguments that isn't "scientific"" you were talking about.

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    3. Scott: Nothing in a giraffe knows how longer necks improve their ability to increase their food supply from an explanatory perspective. It's longer neck merely represents a useful rule of thumb, which has limited reach (pun not intended).

      Glenn: How do you know what a giraffe knows, Scott? Please be specific.

      Cornelius implied that Evolutionary theory is a "meaningless claptrap" because we lack an explanation for how evolution could design adaptations, such as the laryngeal nerve, yet not reroute them. However, I just provided such an explanation.

      Unsurprisingly, Cornelius doesn't seem to have any specific criticism of this explanation. So, apparently, he objects to it without explicitly indicating why.

      As to your question of how I know what a giraffe knows, you're asking for an explanation for how knowledge grows. And our current, best explanation for the universal growth of knowable is Karl Popper's conjecture and criticism.

      What's your explanation for the growth of knowledge? in the previous post you wrote....

      Glenn: In my experience, design always implies a designer. That actually is not metaphysical. It is common observation.

      But, as I pointed out, this doesn't withstand criticism. For example we could rephrase this as...

      In my experience, designers always implies a complex material brain. That actually is not metaphysical. It is common observation.

      Yet, I'm guessing you have yet to conclude that all designers have complex material brains, because everyone designer you've experienced had one, right? So, apparently, you're confused about how you know what it is that you know.

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    4. Scott: Or is this one of those compelling arguments that isn't "scientific"?

      J: It isn't an argument at all, Scott, until you define what you mean by "knowledge" in this context and then show how the knowledge (by your definition of it) that existed at some time when there were only short-necked giraffes IMPLIED there would be longer-necked giraffes at some later time.

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    5. Jeff: It isn't an argument at all, Scott, until you define what you mean by "knowledge" in this context...

      Except, I have explained what I mean by knowledge in the context the problem, Jeff. Apparently, you haven't been paying attention. Or perhaps you're not actually trying to solve a problem, but merely playing word games?

      Knowledge is useful information that causes itself to remain when instantiated in a storage medium, such as brains, books or even genomes. Knowledge is knowledge because plays a casual role in it's own preservation.

      Jeff: ... and then show how the knowledge (by your definition of it) that existed at some time when there were only short-necked giraffes IMPLIED there would be longer-necked giraffes at some later time.

      Your question suggests we're not even talking about the same problem. So, I'll back track a bit, to clarify. Then I'l ask questions designed to indicate where and how we diverge.

      The problem...

      Any theory about improvement raises the following question: how was the knowledge of how to make that improvement was created? If it was already present at the outset, that theory is a form creationism. If it 'just happened', that theory is spontaneous generation.

      Distinct from either of these, biological Darwinism is the theory that the knowledge of how to make improvements in biological adaptations, as found in nature, was genuinely created over time through a process of variation that is random *to any specific problem to solve* and criticism in the form of natural selection.

      IOW, it genuinely did not exist before then. This is the explanation for why there was a time when the common ancestor of the giraffe didn't have a longer neck. Nature could not make those improvements until the knowledge of how to build them was created.

      However, ID's designer has is abstract and has no limitations, such as what it knew, how it obtained that knowledge, when it knew it, etc. As such, ID's "theory" for this improvement can be nothing more than "that's just what some designer must have wanted". It's a bad explanation for reasons I've outlined elsewhere. For example, to explain improvements because they were useful for giraffes fails to take into account the overwhelming number of useful biological adaptations that also would have been useful for other organisms, but didn't occur, despite the lack of limitations of the designer to make them. Again, we're still left with improvements occurred in some cases, but not others, because "that's just what some designer must have wanted".

      Now, if you'd like to start putting limitations on ID's designer which are actually relevant to the problem at hand, be my guest. However, this seems unlikely to occur for reasons that are obvious.

      And there's the question of why a designer who supposedly knew which genes, which would result in just the right proteins, which would result in just the right features, wouldn't have realized creating organisms in the precise order it did would result in some of the organisms it designed developing a supposedly "false" theory, despite that order being utterly unnecessary. At best, your left with "the designer must have had some good reason we cannot understand" But this is a general purpose means of denying absolutely anything. It's bad philosophy.

      It's like a designer who supposedly knew how to create the world we observe, creating it 30 minutes ago, with the appearance of age, false memories, etc., wouldn't have realized we would develop a supposedly "false" theory that the earth was billions of years old.

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    6. Now on to the questions....

      Q: Do longer necks on giraffes genuinely represent a improvement?

      Q: Do biological features of organisms, such as necks of a giraffe, represent adaptations of matter, such as air, water, etc.? (Giraffes start out as a fertilized egg and "build themselves" by adapting local resources)

      Q: Do these adaptations represent transformations that occur when the requisite knowledge of how to perform them are present?

      Q: Does this knowledge take the form of a set of instructions the cell should perform, which will result in an imperfect copy of that organism? This is opposed to some other set of transformations, which would results in some other organism or no organism at all?

      Q: Does this knowledge exist internal to the cell? This is in contrast to external knowledge from some other source. (An exception to this would be cell to cell signaling in multicellular organisms, but this too is based on internal knowledge in each cell.) To use an analogy, cells do not contact a biological equivalent of an external Microsoft Update server to obtain the knowledge of which instructions will result in the right adaptations.

      I could continue, but I suspect we'll diverge significantly somewhere above, despite the fact these are considered uncontroversial aspects of biology.

      You wrote: Jeff: ... and then show how the knowledge (by your definition of it) that existed at some time when there were only short-necked giraffes IMPLIED there would be longer-necked giraffes at some later time.

      Having necks at all represents a useful rule of thumb. That is, the knowledge of how to build necks, as an adaptation of matter, is non-explanatory. That's because evolutionary process are not people. They cannot create explanatory theories about how the world works, in reality. So that knowledge has limited reach. It cannot be used in an explanatory way, to reroute just that nerve, because that would require an explanation that simply isn't there. ID's designer has no limitation.

      By nature of not being guaranteed to solve any problem, genetic variations that are random to any specific problem to solve are conjectures - just as explanatory theories created by people are not guaranteed to solve any problem, either. In both cases, we cannot predict what effect the growth of knowledge will have in the future. This includes implying that there will be longer necked giraffes at some later time. But this is even more the case in the process of biological evolution because the variation was made in a way that was random to any problem to solve, such as improving it's ability to increase it's food supply.

      So, the growth of knowledge isn't something we can predict, while at the same time not necessary being immune to the laws of physics, and therefore purely deterministic.

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    7. Scott, I've been away from home several days and don't have time to respond to you yet. I'll get back to you as I can. There are lots of things to clarify, there.

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    8. Scott: Knowledge is useful information

      J: Useful to what? Can something be useful to a non-sentient being as you're defining "useful?" If not, please define "useful."

      Scott: ... that causes itself to remain when instantiated in a storage medium, such as brains, books or even genomes.

      J: So is knowledge a species of configuration?

      Scott: Knowledge is knowledge because plays a casual role in it's own preservation.

      J: So knowledge is a class of configurations that play a causal role in their own preservation? Would that mean that "knowing" is the resistance by the entities so configured to change of that configuration?

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  2. The giraffe was not created by God. In fact its just a tall okapi and even that is not likely what was on the ark.
    By the way many creatures had long necks. Some camels, now extinct, in N america had very long necks and possibly the same problems.
    The giraffe shows instead a existing creature whose body adapted to its long neck. it was from innate mechanisms suddenly.
    so it probably was not perfect.
    Remember that even with people we are copies of apes.
    We were not given our own body and so with standing upright there would be some issues.

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  3. The history of evolutionary thought is full of failed claims of bad design. Over and over evolutionists have been convinced that nature’s designs were meaningless claptraps, only later to be shown up by scientific discoveries revealing clever function.

    Yes, that is claptrap. The history of neo-Paleyist thought is littered with failed claims of perfect or wondrous design that, on closer examination by science, have turned out to be nothing of the sort. The human eye is a wonderful organ but no human designer of a digital camera, our nearest artificial equivalent, would dream of carrying wires across the face of of the CCD or CMOS image sensor in the way that tissue is laid over the retina.

    Like it or not, the recurrent laryngeal nerve is a problem for design theorists because there is no obvious reason, from a human design perspective, for why the nerve should follow that path. A longer nerve is more vulnerable to damage. Nerve signals travel very slowly compared to electrical signals along a wire. The longer the nerve, the greater the delay between transmission and reception of a signal.

    From a design perspective, it's hard to see any good reason why that arrangement should have been adopted. In fact, the best neo-Paleyists are able offer are vague appeals to the inscrutability of the putative designer's purpose. Whether it's right or wrong, the evolutionary explanation at least makes more sense.

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    1. I: From a design perspective, it's hard to see any good reason why that arrangement should have been adopted.

      J: And it's yet impossible to see why a UCA would have evolved into the Cambrian fauna, never mind a giraffe, eventually. When neither side has explanations of biological histories with that level of detail, the only relevant issue left is academic freedom. And that's what the debate is about. It's that SINCE we don't have explanations, there is no "best" explanation, and therefore there's no inductive science to any of it yet. Therefore, why the animus and hostility in the war against dissenting opinion? Of course, if you don't believe in free-will, as is the case for most of the more hostile haters of dissenting opinion, all belief is the equivalent of intuition in the first place. In that case, seemingly discursive reasoning (or even homicide, for that matter, assuming either has ever occurred, which of course is a possibility of all belief is mere intuitive belief) is not a free, responsible mode of action that has any discernible normative criteria applicable to it.

      It's normativity and warranted belief PER SE that the Designer explains. Specific biological design inferences are just instances of a species of analogical inference. As such, they can't be disproven yet, and they don't predict anything about the future that an anti-ID'ist couldn't.

      Both sides agree to what is well-tested genetic theory. Therefore, they will tend to agree on the predictions therefrom, however irrelevant they are to the debate over SA vs. UCA.

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    2. Jeff:

      Another relevant issue is the fact that evolutionists, inspite of the uncertainty that you point out, claim their theory is a fact.

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    3. Ian:

      for why the nerve should follow that path. A longer nerve is more vulnerable to damage. Nerve signals travel very slowly compared to electrical signals along a wire. The longer the nerve, the greater the delay between transmission and reception of a sign

      Which is why it would not have evolved. Your explanation that evolution was constrained and had no choice (a) does not solve the problem of how evolution solved all the problems, and (b) acknowledges that evolution is limited. Certain structures simply cannot evolve, according to your logic. You have just, inadvertently, recognized a scientific problem with evolution. It could not have created the biological world.

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    4. Ian: for why the nerve should follow that path. A longer nerve is more vulnerable to damage. Nerve signals travel very slowly compared to electrical signals along a wire. The longer the nerve, the greater the delay between transmission and reception of a sign.

      CH: Which is why it would not have evolved. Your explanation that evolution was constrained and had no choice (a) does not solve the problem of how evolution solved all the problems, and (b) acknowledges that evolution is limited. Certain structures simply cannot evolve, according to your logic. You have just, inadvertently, recognized a scientific problem with evolution. It could not have created the biological world.

      Again, it's not that useful rules of thumb are not, well, useful. It's that they have limited reach. That's why it would initially evolve, yet not be re-routed. Nothing in the giraffe knows about signal propagation now. Nor did anything in the giraffe's common ancestor, beforehand. Biological Darwinism creates non-explanatory knowledge. Variations are not merely random, but random to any specific problem to solve.

      From a previous comment...

      While people can create both explanatory and non-explanatory knowledge, only people can create explanatory theories.

      To elaborate, imagine I’ve been shipwrecked on a deserted island and I have partial amnesia due to the wreck. I remember that coconuts are edible so climb a tree to pick them. While attempting to pick a coconut, one falls, lands of a rock and splits open. Note that I did not intend for the coconut to fall, let alone plan for it to fall because I guessed coconuts that fall on rocks might crack open. The coconut falling was random *in respect to a problem I hadn’t yet even tried to solve*. Yet it ended solving a problem regardless. Furthermore, due to my amnesia, I’ve hypothetically forgotten what I know about physics, including mass, inertia, etc. Specifically, I lack an explanation as to why the coconut landing on the rock causes it to open. As such, my knowledge of how to open coconuts is merely a useful rule of thumb, which is limited in reach. For example, in the absence of an explanation, I might collect coconuts picked from other trees, carry them to this same tree, climb it, then drop them on the same rocks to open them.


      Here's an example of non-explanatory knowledge being created.

      Carry coconuts to the same tree and drop them in the exact same way because I lack an explanation of how the problem is actual solved, is analogous to simply making the nerve longer. Nor can I always perfectly replicate the exact height or distance from the rock. As such, sometimes the coconuts might fall farther that the original drop. This could hypothetically open tougher coconuts. Again, due to my hypothetical amnesia don't know how this works, in reality, so it's merely a variation on previous non-explanatory knowledge. Yet, progress was made.

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    5. Continued from the same comment....

      However, explanatory knowledge has significant reach. Specifically, if my explanatory knowledge of physics, including inertia, mass, etc. returned, I could use that explanation to strike coconut with any similar sized rock, rather than vice versa. Furthermore, I could exchange the rock with another object with significant mass, such as an anchor and open objects other than coconuts, such as shells, use this knowledge to protect myself from attacking wildlife, etc.

      Designers, in the sense you're using them, are people. Human beings are people. We are unique in that they are universal explainers.

      If the designer of the giraffe possessed or created the necessary explanatory knowledge of how nerves and longer necks solve the problems of increasing food supplies and signal propagation, re-routing the nerve would have been trivial. This also would have been the case if something in the giraffe contained the same explanatory knowledge. But no re-routing occurred.

      While people can also create non-explanatory knowledge, it seems unlikely that ID proponents will limit their designer to employing merely useful rules of thumb, for reasons that are obvious. But, by all means, don't let me stop you. Otherwise, you're merely left with "that's just what some designer must have wanted" which is a bad explanation for reasons I've outlined elsewhere.

      So, explanatory knowledge only comes from intentional conjectures made by people and has significant reach. Non-explanatory knowledge (created by variation that is random to specific problems to solve, and selection) represent unintentional conjectures, which have limited reach.

      The funny thing is, I've already presented this explanation, which supposedly doesn't exist, several times. As such, it would seem the claim that we lack an explanation is false. So, what gives?

      Is there something about the above that you do not understand? If so, ask for clarification. And if not, then where is your criticism? Or, perhaps you hold the philosophical positions that unless we have an exhaustive explanation we know completely nothing? But, again, that's bad philosophy.

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    6. Jeff J: And it's yet impossible to see why a UCA would have evolved into the Cambrian fauna, never mind a giraffe, eventually.

      It's more accurate to say we don't know how the Cambrian fauna evolved from the UCA in the sense that we are not able yet to reconsruct the exact genetic pathways leading from the UCA to all the various Cambrian fauna. Whether that will always be the case we have no way of knowing.

      What we do have is good and more recent evidence for natural processes like random mutation and natural selection that must exist for evolution to happen at all. We have no reason for thinking that those processes did not operate in the Cambrian and pre-Cambrian. Evolution can at least provide a broad account of what might have happened even if it cannot fill in the "pathetic level of detail" neo-Paleyists demand bu cannot themselves provie either.

      Jeff When neither side has explanations of biological histories with that level of detail, the only relevant issue left is academic freedom. And that's what the debate is about. It's that SINCE we don't have explanations, there is no "best" explanation, and therefore there's no inductive science to any of it yet.

      No, your side might be trying to pick a fight about academic freedom but that is only to distract attention from the weakness of your case. The fact that neither side can provide explanations in the fine detail we would all like doesn't mean that there are no explanations at all. Science has grown by working with less than ideal evidence and explanations in almost all cases. It weighs the arguments and evidence, as they exist, for the contending hypotheses and decides which has the better of it at that time. That's all it can do. On that basis, evolution, whatevr its shortcomings, at present wins hands down.

      Jeff Therefore, why the animus and hostility in the war against dissenting opinion? Of course, if you don't believe in free-will, as is the case for most of the more hostile haters of dissenting opinion, all belief is the equivalent of intuition in the first place.

      The hostility isn't towards dissenting opinion, there's plenty of that within evolutionary biology, it's towards an overweening sense of entitlement and self-righteousness on the part of the religious critics of evolution. Just because the theory contradicts, or is thought to contradict, certain religious doctrines or beliefs then almost any means may be used to, in Jonathan Wells' word, "destroy" it. You really think scientists are going to take kindly to attempts to destroy their lifes work by Moonies or Baptists or whatever just because they feel threatened by it?

      Jeff It's normativity and warranted belief PER SE that the Designer explains. Specific biological design inferences are just instances of a species of analogical inference. As such, they can't be disproven yet, and they don't predict anything about the future that an anti-ID'ist couldn't.

      An unspecified Designer doesn't explain anything at all. It's nothing more than a label or placeholder for an explanation you hope will be forthcoming at some point in the future. It gives you no explanatory purchase, it tells you nothing about why or how. What you can rule out are designers that don't fit the bill: the Stone Age designer of flint arrowheads was probably not up to it, neither is the present-day Silicon Valley designer of microprocessors. As for some more advanced intelligence, your guess is as good as mine but, for the present, guesses is all you have.

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    7. Cornelius Hunter .... Your explanation that evolution was constrained and had no choice (a) does not solve the problem of how evolution solved all the problems, and (b) acknowledges that evolution is limited. Certain structures simply cannot evolve, according to your logic. You have just, inadvertently, recognized a scientific problem with evolution. It could not have created the biological world.

      Once again, evolution has never, at any time, been a theory of origins or creation, not Darwin's original version nor more recent iterations. It is no valid criticism to fault a theory for not doing something it was never intended to do in the first place.

      As for evolution being constrained, well, yes, that's what "natural selection" implies: whatever biological resources thst happen to be available at any time being filtered by whatever environmental pressures that happen to come to bear at time. Evolution can only work with what is available, which is only a tiny subset of everything that could be so yes, there's a lot of possible things that are never going to evolve at any given time. Of course, at other times - and we have uncounted billions of years to play with - and at other places - maybe one of the many other Earth-like planets that it's looking increasingly likely may be out there - who knows?

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    8. Ian: It's more accurate to say we don't know how the Cambrian fauna evolved from the UCA in the sense that we are not able yet to reconsruct the exact genetic pathways leading from the UCA to all the various Cambrian fauna.

      J: No. The accurate thing to say is that there is no inductive evidence for UCA since there is no known explanation for such a history. And therefore the only thing UCA'ists mean by "overwhelming evidence" is an overwhelming sense of personal credulity.

      Ian: The hostility isn't towards dissenting opinion, there's plenty of that within evolutionary biology, it's towards an overweening sense of entitlement and self-righteousness on the part of the religious critics of evolution.

      J: The overweening works both ways. UCA'ists think there is warrant in assuming UCA occurred even though there is no inductive evidence for it. That's why the real issue gets down to the fact that the only way to account for the distinguishability of any class of warranted belief that humans qua humans seem to call "evidential" is a teleological account. Given that, UCA has no prima facie plausibility at all. Thus, ID explanations simply ARE on the epistemological table in the sense that occasionalism is always a doable last resort that works AS an explanation of material behavior til a natural accounting is found that works per an enumerable number of hypothetico-deductive axioms.

      Ian: An unspecified Designer doesn't explain anything at all.

      J: Indeed. But how many theists explain in terms of a deity without positing ANY divine attributes? I know of none.

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    9. CH: Another relevant issue is the fact that evolutionists, inspite of the uncertainty that you point out, claim their theory is a fact.

      J: That's why it helps to point out that there is no INDUCTIVE evidence for the UCA hypothesis. Because the only two senses that most people typically mean by evidence are the inductively- evincing and self-evincing. No one here has yet even defined what else "evidence" refers to other than personal credulity. And if personal credulity establishes a belief as a fact, then facts contradict one another.

      And that's just another way of saying reason has no role in determining what is factual. What true-believer UCA'ists do is exactly what they criticize in religious folk. The hypocrisy is astonishing for its brazenness.

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    10. Great points as usual Jeff. The mythologies never end.

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    11. Jeff: No one here has yet even defined what else "evidence" refers to other than personal credulity.

      Except, as I've pointed out before, empiricism got it backwards. Theories are tested by observations, not derived from them. This does not equate to "personal credulity". Nor am I merely pulling this out of my *ss. For example, see this blog post. Here's an excerpt...

      Traditionally, attempts to solve this problem involve proposing another type of logic, induction–a mode of inference that projects from particular sensory experiences to general expectations or hypotheses, replete with predictions about the future. Sensory experience, then, remains the arbiter of synthetic knowledge, but now, augmented with induction, its reach can be extended to justify expectations and predictions about the future, especially scientific hypotheses.

      But what justifies this use of induction? Attempts were made to establish a ‘principle of induction’ (e.g. the future resembles the past), by entirely analytic means, but they proved unsuccessful. The only means of justifying the use of induction seemed to be an appeal to sensory experience itself: if the future has always resembled the past before, then surely it’s reasonable to expect the future to continue resembling the past. However, such arguments must appeal to induction to establish their conclusion and in doing so merely begged the question at hand.


      If we try to take empiricism seriously, it doesn't withstand rational criticism. This is a known epistemological problem. And your only response is to present a false dilemma between empiricism and personal credulity. Empiricism must be true, otherwise we cannot know anything.

      IOW, by explicitly denying that we can and have make progress, you're implicitly denying the field of epistemology actually exists.

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    12. Jeff: But how many theists explain in terms of a deity without positing ANY divine attributes? I know of none.

      Yet, it would seem those divine attributes are exempt from criticism, because any reference to them can only represent religious *beliefs*, not necessary explanatory models based on attributes that can be criticized. IOW, if those attributes are immune from criticism because they are not or cannot be explanatory models with necessary implications, it's unclear how they can, well, imply anything from an explanatory perspective.

      Sure, we cannot rule out the mere claim that "God wanted things to turn out that way", but is that really what you consider that a good explanation?

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    13. Scott: Yet, it would seem those divine attributes are exempt from criticism, because any reference to them can only represent religious *beliefs*, not necessary explanatory models based on attributes that can be criticized.

      J: The divine attributes have to be posited in a way such that they satisfy the inductive criteria -- i.e., criteria for explanations, such as:

      1) If one's explanation is the only conceivable one, it's the best explanation so far, by definition

      2) If one's explanation satisfies parsimony and/or explanatory breadth clearly better than all thus-far conceived explanations, then it's the best explanation so far.

      But you deny foundationalism and thus require an infinite regress of critical criteria, since you insist that ALL criteria are themselves subject to criticism by OTHER criteria. That's not possible, Scott. And most people aren't confused about that.

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  4. "only later to be shown up by scientific discoveries revealing clever function".

    I think you are trying to say that evolutionary biology is flawed because it proceeds from one claim to another. This is somewhat inaccurate, but I'll stick with it for now. But this is exactly what science is (the refining or rejection of hypothesis after study and discovery).

    So what exactly is what your point in this piece - evolutionary biology (a science) maintains a scientific perspective and framework. Why would evolutionary biologists stop doing that just because they find something new and interesting? They will work new findings into the theory. Individual, challenging problems are a reason to do science, not throw your hands up and say that science shouldn't be used at all.

    Perhaps Cornelius is not a scientist at all. I actually don't know, I just stumbled on this blog while searching for something else...;)

    -stuart

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    1. Stuart:

      Thank you for stumbling in. There are many reasons why evolution is flawed. Essentially all of its major predictions turned out false. Biological traits do not fall into the expected common descent pattern. Evolution does not have a cause to explain how it could have happened. And it is religious. Other than that it’s perfect.

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    2. Stuart,

      "evolutionary biology (a science) maintains a scientific perspective and framework."

      Biology is a science, evolutionary biology is not. Evolution is simply a framework through which some attempt to interpret the science of biology. A framework which has proven woefully unable to do so.

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    3. hmm, maybe I should stumbled out:

      Cornelius,
      Until you can disprove every known case of homology among traits, you have no grounds for this statement. Until you specify what you mean by "evolution", you cannot make the sweeping claim that there have been no causes proposed (and confirmed - e.g., speciation by divergent natural selection).

      And I don't know what on earth you mean by "religious". Perhaps you're being inflammatory.

      Nic: As a sub-discipline within biology, I assure you - evolutionary biology is a science. It does not "interpret" science (that's probably sociology of science). Cell biology is also a science - not a framework for understanding all biology using cells. Internal medicine is still medicine - not a framework for understanding all of "medicine".

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    4. Stuart:

      Until you can disprove every known case of homology among traits, you have no grounds for this statement.

      Imagine a flat Earther responding to problems with his theory by saying, "unless you can disprove every flat field, then you have no grounds." In science, theories are not protected with their successes even though they have significant problems. Rather, they must be vulnerable to the empirical evidence. But evolution, ultimately, is not about science.

      Until you specify what you mean by "evolution" ...

      The origin of species. And no, "speciation by divergent natural selection" does not explain it. Even evolutionists admit they do not have a cause, beyond vague speculation.

      And I don't know what on earth you mean by "religious".

      Non scientific, metaphysical, beliefs about creators, gods, etc. You can see an example in the OP.

      Delete
    5. Quite a bit wrong going on here:

      First, if theories are supported by evidence, and a large body of evidence, then this does influence their success. Counter examples, or exceptions, or problems may modify the theory, and evolutionary biology has repatedly been so modified over the last 150 years. Perhaps the most notable example is the incorporation of neutral theory.

      "Speciation by natural selection" would seem to explain the origin of (at least some) species. Perhaps that is why you are falling back on the rhetorical fallacy of claiming that "even the scientists don't know!".

      re: Religious - I see absolutely no evidence or justification in OP that evolutionary biology is driven by aesthetics as you put it. All you did was claim that based on your observation that our understanding has changed. As I said, this is the way science works...to observe a change in our understanding and automatically attribute that to metaphysical motivation is silly.

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    6. Stuart:

      Quite a bit wrong going on here: First, if theories are supported by evidence, and a large body of evidence, then this does influence their success. Counter examples, or exceptions, or problems may modify the theory, and evolutionary biology has repatedly been so modified over the last 150 years. Perhaps the most notable example is the incorporation of neutral theory.

      Counter examples? This is theory protectionism. You are arguing for a theory that is consistently wrong and lacks a cause. Are you a geocentrist? It is supported by a lot of evidence you know.


      "Speciation by natural selection" would seem to explain the origin of (at least some) species. Perhaps that is why you are falling back on the rhetorical fallacy of claiming that "even the scientists don't know!".

      So evolution had to be “modified” by dropping selection in favor of neutral drift (“the bald eagle just happened to arise from a bunch of neutral mutations that later turned out to work together and be just right for the new environment”), but speciation by natural selection still sounds better when challenged to provide an actual cause for the spontaneous origin of the most complex designs in the known universe.

      I’m sorry but selection doesn’t create anything. It kills off bad designs. Furthermore adaptations that we are able to observe occur rapidly and via complex organism responses to the environment, selection is irrelevant. And even if it could explain “the origin of (at least some) species” that wouldn’t answer the question. We’re not talking about changes in allele frequencies, we’re talking about new designs and traits. You know, like the kind we observe even in otherwise similar species, which evolution can’t explain.


      re: Religious - I see absolutely no evidence or justification in OP that evolutionary biology is driven by aesthetics as you put it.

      So tell us which scientific experiment or evidence it is that informs evolutionists that a creator would not have created the laryngeal nerve?

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    7. C:

      You have not given examples of how it has been wrong. And as I have repeatedly been saying, a theory of this scope is not overturned in this way. To use your (now useful) analogy - one does not reject the notion that the earth is round because one sees a small flat field. (Esp when one can go on the ocean, and...)

      I think I see the (a) problem - evolution doesn't need a cause or an endpoint. Why should it have a cause?

      TO address an increasing number of errors that you are liberally sprinking in: Natural selection has not been dropped in favour of drift - I didn't say that. But I see you have acknowledged that evolutionary biology includes more theory than natural selection now, and so I guess some progress has been made.
      Nor are the origins of new traits and species "spontaneous"....nor are organismal responses to the environment "evolution" (except in some rare cases, which we are still learning about). Finally, selection can lead to the evolution of "good" traits.

      re: Religion - this is not what you were talking about - it's complete non-sequitur. Moreover, it's NOT the job of scientists to disprove the supernatural when there are no legitimate, rational reasons for positing a supernatural explanation in the first place.

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    8. CH: Furthermore adaptations that we are able to observe occur rapidly and via complex organism responses to the environment, selection is irrelevant.

      Ok, then why aren't there giraffe-like creatures in North America?

      We have trees and equine-like species here. If giraffes have longer necks because something in them knows about how longer necks improves food supply, from an explanatory perspective, then why doesn't this same knowledge result in giraffe-like variations here as well? The same can be asked about a designer that would supposedly possess the same explanatory knowledge.

      Is it merely because some designer wanted giraffes in Africa, but not in North America? Is that really what you're suggesting? Because that's what it boils down to.

      Furthermore, if there was some kind of pre-programmed logic that checks an animals location before employing that knowledge when appropriate, then we should be able to locate them. Where are those branching instructions located in the ancestor of the giraffe or its UCA?

      We can also ask the same about our inability to synthesize vitamin-c. If you found yourself in an environment that was starved for vitamin C, your defective vitamin-C-synthesis gene would not therefore be caused to improve - that is, unless you happen to be a genetic engineer whom's brain contains the explanatory knowledge of what specific genes are for, including synthesizing vitamin C.

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    9. Stuart:

      You have not given examples of how it has been wrong.

      Would they make a difference to you?


      And as I have repeatedly been saying, a theory of this scope is not overturned in this way.

      And there is the answer: No, they would not make a difference. Evolution is protected from failure. It is too big to fail.


      I think I see the (a) problem - evolution doesn't need a cause or an endpoint. Why should it have a cause?

      Because you were claiming it is a scientific theory. In science we identify causes for the effects.


      Nor are the origins of new traits and species "spontaneous"

      Yes they are. Evolution rules out teleology, final causes, design, etc. According to evolution, the biological world arose via some (unknown) causes that did not have it in mind, such as random mutations. If you think that new traits and species did not arise spontaneously, then what external guiding forces or inputs are you thinking of, that steered or controlled evolution?


      re: Religion - this is not what you were talking about - it's complete non-sequitur.

      Complete non-sequitur? So it’s OK for evolutionists to make religious claims, but not OK for creationists to do so? This reminds me of the “I can talk about my family, but you can’t.”


      Moreover, it's NOT the job of scientists to disprove the supernatural when …

      Actually it's NOT the job of scientists to disprove the supernatural, period. But then again, evolution isn’t about the science.

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    10. Examples would help, yes - at least then I would know what exactly you're talking about. These examples would tell me just how small a field you're standing in, for example, when you're telling me the whole world is flat.

      Well, you're equivocating between teleological and mechanistic causes, so you'll have to forgive my confusion - on the mechanistic side, (the science side), then yes, we seek causes (explanations for how evolution occurs). We do NOT seek proof for these mechanisms having been guided, or designed or controlled, because doing so would not be science (as I said, and as a scientist, you would have to agree). That's one reason why ID is not science, and why what you're saying falls squarely into the non-scientific realm at the moment. Which is fine, but you're wrong to think that evolutionary biology is undermined by these sorts of metaphysical concerns.

      You're wandering even further from the OP now - I have no idea where you're going with this: I wanted some concrete justification of evolutionary biology having been guided by aesthetics etc It clearly "matters" to you, so it seems like you ought to be able to say something on this point without getting so far off track.

      "Actually it's NOT the job of scientists to disprove the supernatural, period."

      Why did you ask me to then?

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    11. Stuart:

      Why did you ask me to then?

      Because you said that attributing evolutionary theorizing to metaphysical motivation is silly. If Coyne's claims about what a creator would and would not do are not metaphysical, then how does he arrive at them?

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    12. It is silly. Very silly. Or at least useless. And you still haven't backed up the claim.

      I won't speak for Jerry Coyne, except to surmise the following - he *probably* wasn't making a metaphysical or religious point, and was probably highlighting the improbability of a creator given the data. He wasn't making a point about evolution, but about intelligent design. My guess is that, like me, he sees the likelihood of a creator (and therefore ID) as zero. But I would also guess that he isn't doing any experiments on the topic, either.

      -s

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    13. Also, good of you not to dispute the errors I pointed out. Some examples, particularly on the whole "Evolutionary biology is driven by religion", would still help...

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    14. Stuart:

      he *probably* wasn't making a metaphysical or religious point, and was probably highlighting the improbability of a creator given the data.

      You just contradicted yourself. For "highlighting the improbability of a creator given the data" (actually highlighting the improbability of a creator *intending the structure*, given the data) *is* a metaphysical point.

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    15. Stuart:

      Examples would help, yes

      OK, I could make a long list, but let me start with two:

      1. Striking similarities in otherwise distant species (such as identical, functionally unconstrained, DNA).
      2. Striking differences in otherwise similar species (such as novel genes).

      What do you think about these two examples?

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    16. My apologies, posting in haste - as should be clear in the next sentence of my reply, I meant it was likely not a point about the metaphysicality/religiosity of evolution. So yes, a metaphysical point - just not an example of how aesthetics etc have driven evolutionary biology (what you were talking about).
      Have you examples of what you mean by that? Why has it taken so long for you to articulate what is ostensibly one of your main points/catchphrases?

      Re: examples - can you specify what you think these examples mean to you? I'm not going to articulate what your position is on these two statements for you. Certainly, similarities and differences do exist among species!

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    17. Stuart:

      Have you examples of what you mean by that?

      Hmm, I'm unclear why Coyne's example doesn't qualify. OK, how about this one from Richard Dawkins:

      http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2014/05/evolution-professor-same-infection-in.html

      It is a bit more than halfway down in the post. You can search on "Dawkins" or on "tidy".


      can you specify what you think these examples mean to you

      Sure. Evolution says DNA sequences should not be conserved over long time periods and across many different species, unless there is a reproduction-related reason. If not, then said DNA is functionally unconstrained, and it should diverge over time. This expectation was contradicted when identical DNA sequences were found in distant species and lab tests found no obvious function for the DNA. In fact you could delete it and it made no difference. So it is a prediction of evolution that was falsified.

      And again, species in the same genus, or even variants of the same species, have been found where sizable fractions of their genome and genes, like ~20-30%, are different. That is way too much genetic change according to evolution. So again, a falsified prediction.

      In both cases evolutionists were surprised and expected followup tests to change the story, which didn't happen.

      There is a much longer list of similar problems. But what you hear in class and in the media is that evolution is a fact, and overwhelmingly proven out by the evidence. That simply isn't true, but people want it to be true.

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    18. C: Evolutionary biologists who are also ardent atheists or humanists can make statements about the absurdity of creationism. THis doesn't mean that their evolutionary science (or evolutionary science in general) is guided by religious (or anti-religious) or aesthetic/metaphysical (or antimetaphysical) motivation. These aren't examples of what you were originally talking about.

      Your example statements are weak because you've used the approach of "evolution predicts X and Y" while not defining the presumably narrow view of "evolution" you're operating under. You also appear to be unaware of research demonstrating selection on non-coding DNA, or work on how rapidly genomes diverge upon speciation...However, the main issue is how we account for variation in rates of divergence based on evolutionary (measurable) processes; we don't observe such variation and decide all such processes don't exist.

      I still want some examples of how evolutionary biology is secretly metaphysical - that's kind of a new claim, at least to me.

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    19. Stuart:

      Evolutionary biologists who are also ardent atheists or humanists can make statements about the absurdity of creationism.

      Think about it, how can an atheist, who is a materialist, make a religious claim about God?


      Your example statements are weak because you've used the approach of "evolution predicts X and Y" while not defining the presumably narrow view of "evolution" you're operating under.

      No, I’m operating under the standard view. These are problems for evolution.


      You also appear to be unaware of research demonstrating selection on non-coding DNA

      You might be referring to the ENCODE project which has demonstrated that a large fraction of the genome is transcribed, suggesting that it has some function although evolutionists argue it is just a case of an over-active RNA polymerase (copy machine). Indeed, Dan Graur has practically staked evolution’s truth status on this epicycle. So you can’t have it both ways. Either the majority of the genome is not under selection and evolution yet again survives in the shadows, or it is under selection and you’ve forfeited.

      But in any case, while there are many, and a growing number, of studies showing the so-called junk DNA indeed has function (maintaining a centuries-old tradition of evolutionists’ false claims of inutility), the identical DNA I’m referring to indeed has been thoroughly evaluated. How ironic, evolutionists deny function where the evidence suggests it exists, and insist on function where the evidence suggests it does not exist. Always on the wrong side of the facts.


      or work on how rapidly genomes diverge upon speciation

      Ah yes, rapid divergence. Proving yet again that evolutionists can explain anything. This is one big tautology.


      I still want some examples of how evolutionary biology is secretly metaphysical

      I’m afraid I don’t have any of those. Evolutionists are quiet outspoken about their metaphysics.

      Delete
    20. CH: Evolution says DNA sequences should not be conserved over long time periods and across many different species, unless there is a reproduction-related reason. If not, then said DNA is functionally unconstrained, and it should diverge over time. This expectation was contradicted when identical DNA sequences were found in distant species and lab tests found no obvious function for the DNA. In fact you could delete it and it made no difference. So it is a prediction of evolution that was falsified.

      You're working with an outdated theory of evolution.

      There is a book, you might have heard of, called The Selfish Gene. It elaborates on how, in biological Darwinism, individual genes are replicators. They play a causal role in being copied into the next generation. So, in some cases, as a result of being copied, genes result in the organism actually becoming less fit.

      For example, a mutation that would cause a bird on a small island to nest earlier in the season could result in it getting copied due obtaining the best geographical nesting locations while, at the same time, making the birds less fit to reproduce as a whole due to having their young in colder weather. Those genes would get copied, even though other birds without those mutations were more fit to reproduce. They just never get a chance due to limited real estate.

      Furthermore, see the OPERA experiment. This raises the question, why would those genes be conserved, but not others? Is our observations wrong or the theory itself? And if the theory, how does it impact the actual explanation underlying it? For example, we can conjecture non-ad hoc explanations to empirically test, such as, they are preserved as part of some sequence specific repair mechanism that is vastly more efficient and fixes those areas along with some other necessary sequence.

      IOW, you seem to be implying that the details of the specific discrepancy are important and there are no questions we can ask to make progress in light of them.

      CH: And again, species in the same genus, or even variants of the same species, have been found where sizable fractions of their genome and genes, like ~20-30%, are different. That is way too much genetic change according to evolution. So again, a falsified prediction.

      "This is way to much" is way to vague. References? An explanation behind why it's "too much"?

      IOW, it seems you think scientific theories must be exhaustively in scope and locked in when the theory is first developed, continually found completely true or false, and is never updated based on new knowledge. IOW, it sounds a lot like prophecy or instrumentalism.

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    21. Cornelius says:
      "Think about it, how can an atheist, who is a materialist, make a religious claim about God?"

      I didn't say that. I said that they were free to make statements about the absurdity of creationism. Come to think of it, anyone is free to make statements about gods and other mythological stuff too. But for the sake of decorum on your own blog, try not to misquote me.

      "Either the majority of the genome is not under selection and evolution yet again survives in the shadows, or it is under selection and you’ve forfeited."

      With respect to this comment, and the bulk of your reply here, I refer you to Scott's summary: You're working with an outdated theory of evolution. But I would go further: you seem to be working with a a very naive version of science in general. It strikes me you're using a schoolboy version of science where all theories and hypotheses are either true or false in their entirety.

      You do appear to have made numerous concessions to aspects of evolution having occurred. So to apply the same rules to you, I guess you'd conclude that this means creation as a model must be soundly rejected.

      To use your (now useful) catchphrase: you can't have it both ways.

      You've resorted to twisting my words and inane catch phrases, and since you're not willing to talk about anything substantive or new, I am going to sign off for now. Good luck!

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    22. Stuart,

      "It does not "interpret" science (that's probably sociology of science)."

      You read as well as most evolutionists, that is not well. Evolutionary thought applied to biology is an interpretation of biology, not science as a whole. However, evolutionary thought applied to any scientific field fares no better than it does with biology.

      "Cell biology is also a science - not a framework for understanding all biology using cells. Internal medicine is still medicine - not a framework for understanding all of "medicine"."

      Neither of which depend one iota on evolution.

      Delete
    23. Stuart:

      I didn't say that. I said that they were free to make statements about the absurdity of creationism. Come to think of it, anyone is free to make statements about gods and other mythological stuff too. But for the sake of decorum on your own blog, try not to misquote me.

      Thank you for upholding the decorum here. But actually, I didn’t misquote you. In fact, I didn’t even quote you. Now regarding your point, “anyone is free to make statements about gods.” Actually that is not true. If you say you are a materialist, then you would have no basis for statements about gods. How is Dawkins informed about what a creator would or would not do? He is has metaphysical beliefs which contradict his claim of being a materialist. A materialist would have no idea about such things. Perhaps he is not really a materialist?


      But I would go further: you seem to be working with a a very naive version of science in general. It strikes me you're using a schoolboy version of science where all theories and hypotheses are either true or false in their entirety.

      I see, so evolution can fail every prediction and have no cause, but still be true. So to summarize:

      Skeptic: Evolution is unlikely.
      Evolutionist: What are you talking about?
      Skeptic: Well it lacks a cause and fails its predictions.
      Evolutionist (with an incredulous look): Can you provide some examples of this remarkable failure?
      Skeptic: Sure, here’s A and B for starters.
      Evolutionist: Oh how naĂŻve. You have a naĂŻve understanding of evolution and science itself. I’m taking my marbles and going home because you’re so dumb.

      Delete
    24. CH: If you say you are a materialist, then you would have no basis for statements about gods.

      Are you suggesting that statements other people make about gods have no necessary consequences, in reality. Therefore I, as a non-theist, cannot use those statements as criticism?

      From my above comment...

      Yet, it would seem those divine attributes are exempt from criticism, because any reference to them can only represent religious *beliefs*, not necessary explanatory models based on attributes that can be criticized. IOW, if those attributes are immune from criticism because they are not, or cannot be explanatory models with necessary implications, it's unclear how they can, well, imply anything from an explanatory perspective, either.

      To echo your catch phrase, you want to have it both ways. Statements about gods supposedly explain phenomena, yet have no necessary consequences, in reality, that can be used as criticism.

      This is a prime example of why "the gods did it" is a bad explanation. It's bad philosophy.

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    25. Scott:

      Are you suggesting that statements other people make about gods have no necessary consequences, in reality. Therefore I, as a non-theist, cannot use those statements as criticism?

      I'm saying that a materialist would have no basis for holding to beliefs about God. Materialists say they believe there is nothing beyond matter and energy. But then they add, "but if there was a God, He would do x, y and z." How do they know that? They are expressing, holding, and promoting religious beliefs.

      What this demonstrates is that they are not actually materialists. In fact they hold strong metaphysical beliefs. So strong they will go against the obvious empirical evidence.

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    26. Scott: To echo your catch phrase, you want to have it both ways. Statements about gods supposedly explain phenomena, yet have no necessary consequences, in reality, that can be used as criticism.

      CH: Materialists say they believe there is nothing beyond matter and energy. But then they add, "but if there was a God, He would do x, y and z." How do they know that?

      Deduction. Statements about God and his properties do not exist in a vacuum. As such, they would have necessary consequences that can be used as criticism. Otherwise, they are merely statements of faith, which represent inconsequential theories. Nothing can be deduced from them beyond their initial claim and no other claim can conflict with them.

      CH: What this demonstrates is that they are not actually materialists.

      No, it demonstrates you think it's impossible to take those claims seriously by assuming they are true, in reality, and that all observations should conform to them. As such, those claims are explanation-less theories that don't actually explain anything. While we cannot positively rule out logical possibilities, we discard an infinite number of them every day in every field of science.

      For example, if the term "sensible" when applied to God has no necessary consequences for what God would or would not do, then it's merely a statement of faith. Furthermore, it opens the door to a God that created the world to appear as if it had evolved for some reason we cannot explain.

      "God did it" is an explanation-less theory because it doesn't explain how God knew which genes would result in just the right proteins that would result in just the right features, etc. Nor does it explain why God created organisms in the order of least complex to most complex.

      "That's just what God must have wanted" is a statement of faith, not an explanation.

      So, again, I'm suggesting that you want to have it both ways: statements about gods supposedly explain phenomena, yet have no necessary consequences, in reality, that can be used as criticism.

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    27. Scott:

      CH: Materialists say they believe there is nothing beyond matter and energy. But then they add, "but if there was a God, He would do x, y and z." How do they know that?

      Scott: Deduction.

      A religious belief is no less a religious belief merely because a deduction has been made, based on it.

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    28. CH: Materialists say they believe there is nothing beyond matter and energy. But then they add, "but if there was a God, He would do x, y and z." How do they know that?

      Scott: Deduction.

      CH: A religious belief is no less a religious belief merely because a deduction has been made, based on it.

      Should it even be at all possible to base a deduction on a religious belief, that religious belief wouldn't stop being religious, by definition. That's a tautology.

      However, I'm talking about a deduction made *from* the religious beliefs of *others*, which we have yet to establish is even possible in the case of God.

      IOW, your argument that any conclusion a materialist (whatever that means) reached about God *from* a religious belief must also *necessarily* be religious belief as well, has implications about God. It would have to rule out the possibility of making deductions from the religious claims of others.

      Is that really what you're suggesting?

      Again, you seem to want to have it both ways. Statements about gods supposedly explain phenomena, yet have no necessary consequences, in reality, that can be used as criticism.

      Delete
    29. And what exactly is a "Materialist", anyway? And what's with the capital M?

      For example, ideas transcend any particular physical arrangements of matter. If I speak the text of this comment, it gets converted into sound waves, which gets converted into electrical impulses by the workings of your ear, which take yet another form in the brain. One can say that ideas transcend material arrangements.

      But that doesn't mean that I think God exists, human beings inherited the mortal mistakes of Adam or that Jesus rose from the dead and died for my sins.

      Doesn't that seem, well, a bit outdated?

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    30. Scott:

      Is that really what you're suggesting?

      No, I'm referring to evolutionists, not "others." They are expressing their religious beliefs.

      And what's with the capital M?

      Not sure what you are referring to.

      But that doesn't mean that I think God exists

      But beliefs about God are religious, no matter whom they come from.

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    31. Scott: IOW, your argument that any conclusion a materialist (whatever that means) reached about God *from* a religious belief must also *necessarily* be religious belief as well, has implications about God. It would have to rule out the possibility of making deductions from the religious claims of others.

      Scott: Is that really what you're suggesting?

      CH: No, I'm referring to evolutionists, not "others." They are expressing their religious beliefs.

      They are? If so, what *necessarily* prevents evolutionists from deducting conclusions from the religious beliefs of theists? Why must they be their religious beliefs, rather than deductions?

      While I cannot rule out the existence of God, I do not take into account the religious beliefs of other theists when making decisions. This is because I think God is a bad explanation from a philosophical perspective. However, this in no way would prevent me from pointing out what would be an inconstancy in religious beliefs of theists or that their claims appear to be explanation-less theories.

      For example, God supposedly needs nothing and is supposedly completely self-sufficient. At which point, I would point out we lack a good explanation as to why God would create anything or anyone else, let alone the specific biosphere we observe. So, I've pointed out "God did it" is a bad explanation, despite not actually believing it personally.

      However, a common response I hear from others is that God is our heavenly father. And creating things is a natural thing for fathers do. I personally do not believe this. However, this doesn't prevent me from taking this claim seriously by assuming it's true, in reality, and that all observations and other religious claims should conform to it, for the purpose of criticism.

      For example, human fathers are not supposedly omnipotent and omniscient. Nor are the supposedly infinite and have unlimited resources. However, God supposedly is and does, which I do not personally believe either. My lack of belief doesn't prevent me from taking those claims seriously to deduce that God could have one "child" or infinite number of "children" without reducing his ability to have a meaningful relationship with all of them and have time left over to do anything else logically possible (such as pull on every object in the universe according to their mass, with the exception of the very small scale, in which he chooses to do something else, etc.) As such, there would be no necessary reason to limit the number of children he could have.

      However, this wouldn't unique to God. Any being that is supposedly both infinite and a father would have no limitation either. It's a deduction.

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    32. Therefore, theists would lack a good explanation as to why God would want one child or an infinite number. It's just arbitrary. The phrase, "God wouldn't do that" can reflect the lack of a good explanation for why God he would do that. Any modus ponens argument can be transformed into modus tollens.

      As would other religious claims that imply no new people would be born based other claims that theists make (which I wouldn't believe either) For example, one apology for the suffering people experience is that birth, suffering, etc. is somehow necessary before we can go to heaven. This implies there must be something they gain by doing so. However, if we also take the claim serious that, when Jesus returns there is no more suffering, it would seem that people born after he returns would either be missing someone important, that we would have, or that no more children will be born. The former is internally inconsistent and the latter would be unnecessary, as indicated above. When taken serious, as a whole, those religious claims (which I do not personally believe in) appear ad-hoc and/or inconsistent. That's criticism, without actually believing any of those claims personally.

      But, you seem to imply that the above is impossible for some reason you have yet to disclose. Apparently, there is something unique about God that prevents it.

      CH: But beliefs about God are religious, no matter whom they come from.

      You'll have to unpack that, since it implies that all beliefs are the same and we cannot make any distinction between then. For example, have I not made a distinction above? If not, the what did I just do?

      IOW, either this is equivocation, or there can be no differentiation between criticizing the religious beliefs of others and personally holding those beliefs as a statement of faith. If the latter, they are inconsequential theories. Nothing can be deduced from them beyond their initial claim and no other claim can conflict with them.

      Again, Is that what you're suggesting? If not, then why can there be no distinction?

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    33. I'd again point out that any claim could conflict with a possible religious belief, because God could do anything logically possible.

      While I don't personal believe this, it doesn't prevent me from taking your criteria seriously, in that it's true in reality, and that all of your objections should conform to it.

      Specially, it would seem to suggest you would consider every claim, scientific or not, to be a religious belief because it would implicitly be a claim that God would or would not do X.

      For example, did you right the comment I'm responding to? I'm asking because God could have chosen to create the world we observer 30 minutes ago, with the mere appearance of age, false memories, etc.

      So, I'll ask again, Is the claim that you wrote the comment I'm responding to religious? If not, why? What's the difference?

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    34. Scott: [Asking for what is at least the 5th time] So, I'll ask again, Is the claim that you wrote the comment I'm responding to religious? If not, why? What's the difference?

      CH: [Still no response]

      Apparently, there is no difference, which would make everything a religious belief using your "logic".

      At which point your objection that "X is religious" is a bad criticism because it would be applicable to everything. As such, it cannot even be used in a critical way.

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    35. You're lack of a response suggests you think it's impossible to make deductions from the religious beliefs of others without also being religious. Apparently, this is because conclusions that come from religious are equally statements of faith due to it being impossible to deduct conclusions from other religious beliefs.

      If this is the case, then religious beliefs are inconsequential theories based on nothing but statements of religious faith. Nothing can be deduced from them beyond their initial claim and no other claim can conflict with them.

      So, again, you seem to want to have it both ways.

      We should take those claims seriously, as an explanation for biological adaptations, while simultaneously claiming we cannot take them seriously for the purpose of criticism. it's internally inconsistent.

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  5. Scott says, "Scott: Nothing in a giraffe knows how longer necks improve their ability to increase their food supply from an explanatory perspective."
    I'm still asking for you to be specific about how you know this. You didn't answer the question. You flailed away about "explanatory perspective", "the growth of knowledge", etc.., but your explanatory perspective depends on your actually knowing what the giraffe or some part(s) of the giraffe knows--you rule out its knowing. And not just some extant giraffe, but all giraffes in the (imagined) long line of giraffes going back millions of years according to your theory.
    You don't even know the full function(s) of the giraffe's recurrent laryngeal nerve. Nobody does. Unless you know more than all living scientists, you don't even know all the functions of your own laryngeal nerve. How do you know it wasn't designed for a purpose that is beyond your ability to imagine?
    Evolutionists have historically had all kinds of things figured out (like "junk" DNA) that turned out to have more purpose than they short-sightedly imagined.
    So, again--please be specific--how do you know all these things about what the giraffe or some parts of it knew during its (supposedly long) theoretical evolution?
    Without the circular reasoning please... No fair assuming evolution to prove that the giraffe couldn't have known because it evolved...

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    1. Glenn, how we know things represents a theory of how knowledge grows.

      Your argument about designers implied the theory of induction, because it was based on repetition. But, as I pointed out, this doesn't actually appear to be the case in practice.

      Our current, best explanation for how we know things is conjecture and a tradition of criticism. We make educated guesses of how to solve problems, then try to poke holes in those theories by taking them seriously, as a explanatory theories about how the world works, in reality, and criticizing them. IOW, knowledge grows when we discard errors in our ideas.

      As for the specifics of the giraffe, see this comment for criticism of what the giraffe knew/contained, and scientific tests ID proponents could make.

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    2. So, you are saying you don't know and so your story is just speculation. Couldn't you just say that?

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    3. No, because it's not just speculation. What separates knowledge from speculation is exposing those ideas to criticism. In the case of science, criticism takes the form of empirical observations and tests.

      Empiricism was an improvement because it promoted the importance of empirical observations in science. However, it got the role it plays backwards.

      IOW, you have confused the claim that empiricists are mistaken about how knowledge grows, with the claim that knowledge doesn't grow.

      Theories are tested by observations, not derived from them. So, it would be "only speculation" if we accepted it uncritically and never criticized our theories.

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    4. What tests are you talking about the proves you know what (assumed) long line of giraffes didn't know? "Nothing in a giraffe knows how longer necks improve their ability to increase their food supply from an explanatory perspective."

      Aren't you really just out on a limb having claimed to know for a scientific certainty a completely unsupportable speculation about what giraffes (all giraffes) do not know? The fact is you do not know and cannot possibly know what giraffes know or do not know.

      But your theory requires that you make these sorts of completely ridiculous assertions and then fight to the death that they are "scientific".

      Why not just admit you don't know what you are talking about?

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    5. Scott: Empiricism was an improvement because it promoted the importance of empirical observations in science. However, it got the role it plays backwards.

      Scott: IOW, you have confused the claim that empiricists are mistaken about how knowledge grows, with the claim that knowledge doesn't grow.

      Glenn: Aren't you really just out on a limb having claimed to know for a scientific certainty a completely unsupportable speculation about what giraffes (all giraffes) do not know?

      It seems that you're not actually reading my comments.

      One doesn't need to be an empiricist to consider empirical observations an important aspect of science. That's where you're mistaken. IOW, empiricism isn't the only philosophy of science that takes into account empirical observations.

      Theories are tested by observations, not derived from them. This is because the contents of theories are not "out there" for us to observe with our senses.

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  6. I'm kind of intrigued by this exchanged, but I admit that I am rather uncertain whether it has anything at all to do with real biology.

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    1. Stuart, not sure if you're referring to my exchange with Glenn, but I can summarize it with the following...

      Evolutionary theory is an explanatory for the origin of biological adaptations we observe in the biosphere. Specifically, an explanation for improvements in those adaptations.

      Any theory about an improvement raises the following question: how was the knowledge of how to make that improvement created? If it was already present at the outset, that theory is a form creationism. If it 'just happened', that theory is spontaneous generation.

      Distinct from either of these, biological Darwinism is the theory that the knowledge of how to make improvements in biological adaptations, as found in nature, was genuinely created over time through a process of conjecture, in the form of genetic variation that is random *to any specific problem to solve*, and criticism, in the form of natural selection.

      IOW, it this knowledge genuinely did not exist before then. This is the explanation for why there was a time when the common ancestor of the giraffe didn't have a longer neck. Nature could not build those improvements until the knowledge of how to adapt them from raw materials was created. It also explains why not all equines gain longer necks even when it might be advantageous to them.

      On the other hand, ID simply suggests the specific improvements we observe, and the specific order we observe them, cannot be explained beyond merely being an arbitrary chose of an abstract designer with no defined limitations. "That's just what a designer must have wanted"

      An assumption behind the claim that that evolution is unlikely is the philosophical commitment that knowledge in specific spheres comes from authoritative sources - AKA a designer. Arguments to this effect abound here, such as God being the foundation of knowledge, or that all "designed" thing we've ever observed was created by a designer, etc.

      Cornelius keeps using the term "science" without explaining how science works, in practice (a specific philosophy of science) then proceeds to call evolution unscientific without explaining how evolutionary theory doesn't fit that philosophy of science.

      However, these are all arguments based on bad philosophy. In many cases, they represent general purpose strategies that can be used to deny anything, not just evolutionary theory.

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  7. Cornelius, your posts are so scathingly accurate that while reading them, all I feel is embarrassment for those entrenched in the religion of "culled genetic accidents did it"...

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    1. Of course, he hasn't said much that is factual of course, which certainly lessens the impact of his scathing accuracy!

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    2. Stuart, he is not countering any factual claims to begin with because evolutionists rarely have any to make. Cornelius is simply exposing the religious thinking of Evolution, and masterfully so.

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    3. Sorry, but a sweeping statement like that is unacceptable without some explanation. Evolution is a fact, and also entails some processes which one would call theory. Your statement as it stands is dead wrong. Perhaps you are basing it on some solid thinking, but it's not on display here.

      And in terms of "exposing the religious thinking of Evolution" - he had done absolutely nothing of the kind. I was interested in precisely this, and yet when I pressed for examples, he replied with: "I’m afraid I don’t have any of those".

      Masterful is the funniest possible word to describe this whole enterprise - if anything, I'd say naive. Not only does there seem to be a woeful grasp of evolutionary biology (one you seem to subscribe to), but C. also seems to be unable to articulate examples for his idea.

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    4. Stuart:

      and yet when I pressed for examples, he replied with: "I’m afraid I don’t have any of those".

      Hm, there you go again. Actually what you asked for were "secret" examples.

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