tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post7265527874806791467..comments2024-01-23T02:32:28.567-08:00Comments on Darwin's God: NAS Authority Speaks: That Would Be Blasphemous! Religion Provides the “Acid Test” As Evolution Goes ViralUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger29125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-54576882335696360112012-06-14T11:25:28.759-07:002012-06-14T11:25:28.759-07:00Unknown said
"The burden would be on you to p...Unknown said<br />"The burden would be on you to prove that there is an objective standard for landscape beauty. I have known people who have grown up with cattle and find the smell of their manure not unpleasant."<br /><br />All the people I know that that grown up with cattle and go to live in the city when return to his originary place fins it unpleasant because of the smell.Garbage looks normal only if you do not know anything else.Blashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13205610477389739651noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-78774422644873247522012-06-14T07:15:12.299-07:002012-06-14T07:15:12.299-07:00Thus neither of Avise's alleged "blunders...Thus neither of Avise's alleged "blunders" are in fact "blunders" - what has happened is that Cornelius has, not for the first time, blundered by failing to understand the basics of evolutionary theory (or even, oddly given his background, of biology).Elizabeth Liddlehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02465414316063910821noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-59399357860485144972012-06-14T07:13:29.833-07:002012-06-14T07:13:29.833-07:00Avise’s second argument is that chance is also rem...<i>Avise’s second argument is that chance is also removed from the process because it is on-going, producing new species which become the basis for further evolution. This argument is equally fallacious.<br /><br />A chance process that continues for awhile is still a chance process.<br /><br />The evolutionary process is still by chance. If a frog evolved from an earlier amphibian—such that the evolution of frogs was limited in its possibilities—that doesn’t change the fact that the process was, from the beginning, by chance.<br /><br />Every biological variation that occurs is random. Yes natural selection kills off the bad designs. And yes the process proceeds down certain pathways, producing certain species. But every species is produced by a series of random biological variations.<br /><br />The origin of species by chance is unlikely. It would require a long, long series of random mutations that just happens to construct an incredible biological design. And this would have to occur repeatedly, for all of biology’s amazing designs. And in each of these long series of random mutations, there would need to be a great many—mostly undiscovered and unknown—intermediate designs. And these intermediate designs would have to be helpful to the organism.</i><br /><br />Again, this is Cornelius's blunder, not Avises. In fact, Cornelius concedes that "the process proceeds down certain pathways, producing certain species." But he then asserts: "It would require a long, long series of random mutations that just happens to construct an incredible biological design", which suggests that he has not even understood the fundamentals evolutionary theory. <br /><br />First of all, variants are only "random" in the sense of being generated independently of their potential usefulness. They are not "random" in the sense of being drawn from a flat (equiprobable) distribution. An offspring's genome is far far more likely to be very like the parental genome(s) than very different. And, moreoever, similar genomes produce similar phenotypes, so viable parents (and parents are, by definition, viable) will tend, with a high degree of confidence to produce viable offspring. So "random" means: drawn from a distribution in which the most probable draws are similar in viability to the parent genome".<br /><br />Secondly, the <i>series</i> is not random (in the lay sense), partly because of the above (descendents tend to resemble their ancestors), and partly <i>because of natural selection</i>. Not only will offspring tend to resemble their parents, but the offspring with the most of their own offspring will tend to be as viable, or more viable, than their parent, again, by definition. This is not "chance". And so we do not have to posit a "long long series of random mutations that just happens to construct an incredible biological design". All we have to posit is what we actually do posit, that each new generation represents a biased sampling of the genome of the parental generation in favour of what works best in that environment. And if you repeat a biased sampling over and over again, where the bias is in favour of what works, then you are highly likely to "construct an incredible biological design". We know this is true because when we simulate the process in GAs we find exactly that - that the process continually surprises us with its apparent ingenuity in finding ways of thriving within the GA environment. And in any case, the theory can make very precise predictions which are confirmed by data, for example in Lenski's E coli studies (although be careful, which Cornelius isn't, about extrapolating from bacterial experiments, because bacteria do not speciate as they reproduce by cloning, and so genetic sequences are inherited wholesale).Elizabeth Liddlehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02465414316063910821noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-82601813977208561792012-06-14T06:50:02.020-07:002012-06-14T06:50:02.020-07:00OK, here is blunder 1, according to CH:
Avise’s m...OK, here is blunder 1, <a href="http://darwins-god.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/member-of-national-academy-of-sciences.html" rel="nofollow">according to CH</a>:<br /><br /><i>Avise’s mental gymnastics are painful to watch. This blunder is consistent amongst evolutionists, but no less astonishing. First let’s consider the claim that natural selection means the origin of species wasn’t by chance. Imagine a friend wins a one-in-a-million jackpot at roulette, but he claims it wasn’t by chance because he also had some losing bets. On his losing bets he collected nothing, but on his winning bets collected his winnings. Isn’t that the very antithesis of chance?<br /><br />Of course not. This is a monumental blunder in thinking. Yes he doesn’t collect on his losing bets, and he does collect on his winning bets. But that does not change the fact that roulette is a game of chance. And it doesn’t change the fact that his beating the casino was unlikely.<br /><br />According to evolution biological variation is random with respect to need or purpose. Natural selection doesn’t change this. It kills off the bad designs, but winning designs are nonetheless constructed by random variation—they are by chance. Every mutation and recombination event leading to whales, cherry trees and humans was, according to evolution, random. Likewise every losing design is also by chance.<br /><br />In other words, some designs win and some designs lose. The process continues and the species evolve. But it is entirely by chance. The fact that some win and some lose doesn’t change this.</i><br /><br />Yes, it hugely "change[s] this". Take another example - radioactive decay. Whether or not an atom will decay or not is a paradigm example of "chance". It is simply not possible to predict when a specific atom will decay. And even if we use a Geiger counter to detect every decay event, given one event, we have no way of predicting when the next will occur. There could be a small temporal gap - or there could be a very large one. However, what we can do is compute a probability distribution, so that we can predict, with a high degree or confidence, how many decay events will occur over the next, say 24 hours, and then, over the next. Indeed we can compute the "half life" of the material to many decimal places. In other words, we can describe it as a "necessity" process in bulk, even though it is a pure "chance" process at the level of the individual atoms.<br /><br />To relate that back to biology, novel variants occur by "chance" processes, that might even involve quantum-level true "chance" events, but which also include the kind of unpredictable factors that we refer to as "chance" simply because they are too complex to map (as in "tossing a coin" - in fact, given enough data about the precise forces involved, we could predict a given coin toss very well - at the Newtonian level, a coin toss is not a "chance" process).<br /><br />However, given a bulk supply of "chance" variation, we can predict, with a high degree of confidence (although not as much as for radioactive half-life) that adaptation will occur given certain environmental constraints. This is why we are able to breed miniature poodles, for instance, or high-yield wheat.<br /><br />And why we can predict changes in, say, mean finch-beak sizes given a distribution of seed sizes.<br /><br />So, while "chance" is a somewhat loose word (and it is important not to equivocate with it, as I submit Cornelius is doing), it is perfectly reasonable to describe variance-generation as a "chance" process (unpredictable) and natural selection as a non-chance process (predictable).<br /><br />Although of course, there is a continuum, and, in addition, chance processes are rarely associated with flat probability distributions, and novel genetic variants are certainly not drawn from a flat probability distribution, something that most IDists totally fail to understand.<br /><br />More below.Elizabeth Liddlehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02465414316063910821noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-12418195870691196132012-06-14T00:56:00.483-07:002012-06-14T00:56:00.483-07:00Well, that seems a pretty pompous response, Louis....Well, that seems a pretty pompous response, Louis.<br /><br />We both need to support our assertions.<br /><br />I'll try to do so later.Elizabeth Liddlehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02465414316063910821noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-68170706286705123742012-06-13T23:27:24.683-07:002012-06-13T23:27:24.683-07:00Thornton
Like your "intelligent" designe...<b><i>Thornton</i></b><br /><i>Like your "intelligent" designer reused the same design for the wings of insects, birds, and bats</i><br /><br />If all the intelligent scientists alive now were able to get together with all the intelligent scientists who have ever lived, they still would not be able to create, from scratch, the wing of even the tiniest most insignificant little bug, let alone a bird or bat wing.<br /><br />Nevertheless you believe that an <b><i>unintelligent</i></b> blind process was able to effect the <b>whole</b> of life on the planet!nafeesahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17792723550189342811noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-37379348664017491582012-06-13T18:00:36.647-07:002012-06-13T18:00:36.647-07:00'All science so far!'
Perhaps you would c...'All science so far!'<br /><br />Perhaps you would care to elaborate how atheism can ground science?<br /><br />The Great Debate: Does God Exist? - Justin Holcomb - audio of the 1985 debate available on the site<br />Excerpt: The transcendental proof for God’s existence is that without Him it is impossible to prove anything. The atheist worldview is irrational and cannot consistently provide the preconditions of intelligible experience, science, logic, or morality. The atheist worldview cannot allow for laws of logic, the uniformity of nature, the ability for the mind to understand the world, and moral absolutes. In that sense the atheist worldview cannot account for our debate tonight.,,,<br />http://theresurgence.com/2012/01/17/the-great-debate-does-god-existbornagain77https://www.blogger.com/profile/16666666037080692370noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-39104719947218227532012-06-13T16:57:02.712-07:002012-06-13T16:57:02.712-07:00Peter Wadeck
God described His creation thusly:
...<i>Peter Wadeck<br /><br />God described His creation thusly:</i><br /><br /><b><i>All science so far!</i></b>Ghostriderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04686873801972423841noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-81365141345947905302012-06-13T16:55:02.583-07:002012-06-13T16:55:02.583-07:00Louis Savain
The only requirement of ID theory is...<i>Louis Savain<br /><br />The only requirement of ID theory is that the designers must be intelligent. There is no requirement that they must be all-knowing, all-good and all-powerful. That's a lame strawman, one which shows that most evolutionists have a bone to pick with fundamentalist Christianity.</i><br /><br />Er Louis, it's the Fundy Christian Creationists who keep claiming that their all-knowing, all-good and all-powerful GOD created everything. Not science. If you have a bone to pick, pick it with them.<br /><br /><i>Intelligent design necessarily leads to a tree of life, not the nested TOL of evolutionists but a non-nested tree. Why? Because intelligent designers reuse previously tried and tested designs (that's what makes them intelligent) to come up with new ones. Reuse automatically leads to a design hierarchy.</i><br /><br />Like your "intelligent" designer reused the same design for the wings of insects, birds, and bats. Oh wait...<br /><br />Like your "intelligent" designer reused the same design for the eyes of vertebrates and cephalopods. Oh wait...<br /><br />Like your "intelligent" designer reused the same oxygen intake system for water dwellers like fish and cetaceans. Oh wait...<br /><br />Looks like those Elohim weren't very intelligent after all, eh?Ghostriderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04686873801972423841noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-53187350954019897092012-06-13T16:34:36.158-07:002012-06-13T16:34:36.158-07:00The only requirement of ID theory is that the desi...The only requirement of ID theory is that the designers must be intelligent. There is no requirement that they must be all-knowing, all-good and all-powerful. That's a lame strawman, one which shows that most evolutionists have a bone to pick with fundamentalist Christianity.<br /><br />Intelligent design necessarily leads to a tree of life, not the nested TOL of evolutionists but a non-nested tree. Why? Because intelligent designers reuse previously tried and tested designs (that's what makes them intelligent) to come up with new ones. Reuse automatically leads to a design hierarchy.Rebel Sciencehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11762287159937757216noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-13488734315050911922012-06-13T16:24:43.859-07:002012-06-13T16:24:43.859-07:00Pomposity raises its ugly head again. There is not...Pomposity raises its ugly head again. There is nothing profound about evolutionary theory. It's a shallow, simplistic theory that tries to fit the data into preconceived ideas and flawed assumptions based on erroneous theology. The blunders and deceptions are many and are ingrained.Rebel Sciencehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11762287159937757216noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-62476412901684447752012-06-13T16:07:38.902-07:002012-06-13T16:07:38.902-07:00God described His creation thusly:
Then God said,...God described His creation thusly:<br /><br />Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds. ” And it was so. 12 The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening, and there was morning —the third day. Gen 1:11-13.<br /><br />Obviously, if plants were created with their seeds in it then there must have been created at the beginning the cycle of life and death. So Avise should learn some real theology before he starts trying to understand how the creator creates. His ignorance of theology leads to an ignorance of science, the study of God's creation.Peter Wadeckhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00396555091658593382noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-49690737410847989002012-06-13T16:03:57.061-07:002012-06-13T16:03:57.061-07:00"and find the smell of their manure not unple..."and find the smell of their manure <b>not unpleasant.</b>"<br /><br />Does "not unpleasant" equal beautiful in your worldview?<br /><br />Actually I think it is very, very, clear that the materialistic philosophy has a extremely difficult time assigning any proper value and/or beauty to humans, or anything else, in the first place, i.e. Just how do you derive value and/or beauty for a person, or anything else from a philosophy that maintains transcendent values are merely illusory?:<br /><br /> How much is my body worth?<br /> Excerpt: The U.S. Bureau of Chemistry and Soils invested many a hard-earned tax dollar in calculating the chemical and mineral composition of the human body,,,,Together, all of the above (chemicals and minerals) amounts to less than one dollar!<br /> http://www.coolquiz.com/trivia/explain/docs/worth.asp<br /><br />Whereas Theism, particularly Christianity, has no trouble whatsoever figuring out how much humans are worth, since infinite Almighty God has shown us how much we mean to him and how much He loves us:<br /><br /> John 3:16<br /> “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.<br /><br />MercyMe - Beautiful<br />http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vh7-RSPuAAbornagain77https://www.blogger.com/profile/16666666037080692370noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-57009079049019873322012-06-13T15:49:59.743-07:002012-06-13T15:49:59.743-07:00The burden would be on you to prove that there is ...The burden would be on you to prove that there is an objective standard for landscape beauty. I have known people who have grown up with cattle and find the smell of their manure not unpleasant.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08653724994545850549noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-84897395005548220462012-06-13T15:46:38.985-07:002012-06-13T15:46:38.985-07:00Which part of anthropomorphic did you not understa...Which part of anthropomorphic did you not understand? A completely unknown or carefree designer could produce anything, leading to no prediction whatsoever.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-16666245560448287732012-06-13T08:13:31.011-07:002012-06-13T08:13:31.011-07:00CH,
I would just like to let you know that you ha...CH,<br /><br />I would just like to let you know that you have a new fan of your blog. Keep up the work.vb209https://www.blogger.com/profile/13179898943477703594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-24137233495968876442012-06-13T08:05:58.275-07:002012-06-13T08:05:58.275-07:00CH: We have seen that an evolution professor and m...CH: <i>We have seen that an evolution professor and member of the National Academy of Sciences, John Avise, argued that the evolution of the species is not by chance and that the evolution of complexity is not a problem because high fitness, point mutations are fixed in populations of bacteria in a test tube. You might think that such erroneous claims must be one-time blunders—mistakes that would be quickly retracted when pointed out. </i><br /><br />The simple answer, Cornelius, is that they are not blunders at all.<br /><br />The "blunders" are entirely of your imagining, and arise, it seems, from your profound misunderstanding of evolutionary theory.Elizabeth Liddlehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02465414316063910821noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-23152743615223368722012-06-13T07:51:17.844-07:002012-06-13T07:51:17.844-07:00This comment has been removed by the author.velikovskyshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10957523527184649923noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-27546264957858918292012-06-13T06:56:49.304-07:002012-06-13T06:56:49.304-07:00If the Bible said that God was bad, then all this ...If the Bible said that God was bad, then all this wouldn't be a problem. Dysteleology isn't a contradiction to God's existence, It is only a problem for conventional theology.natschusterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13127240463824366637noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-16141233397011705322012-06-13T05:24:38.800-07:002012-06-13T05:24:38.800-07:00anaxyrus
If they mention that what we see in natur...<b><i>anaxyrus</i></b><br /><i>If they mention that what we see in nature is outside of the bounds of what a sane, benevolent, competent, anthropomorphic creator would construct....</i><br /><br />Where do you get your knowledge of creators from that you 'know' what they are /are not likely to constrruct?nafeesahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17792723550189342811noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-959919346988480552012-06-13T04:25:12.779-07:002012-06-13T04:25:12.779-07:00anaxyrus said
"If our native natural landscap...anaxyrus said<br />"If our native natural landscapes looked like garbage dumps and smelled like hog houses, those are the sights and smells that would be beautiful to us."<br /><br />Sure? Can you prove that? May be men can find normal ugliness, but is easy for them to get used to beuty.Blashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13205610477389739651noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-64460319464686093372012-06-13T04:22:29.123-07:002012-06-13T04:22:29.123-07:00"If our native natural landscapes looked like..."If our native natural landscapes looked like garbage dumps and smelled like hog houses, those are the sights and smells that would be beautiful to us."<br /><br />Hmmm, something tells me you are missing the 'bigger picture':<br /><br />The Artists - The Artists is a short film about two rival painters who fail to see the bigger picture.<br />http://vimeo.com/33670490<br /><br />All Things Bright And Beautiful - Canon In D - Pachebel<br />http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4082996/bornagain77https://www.blogger.com/profile/16666666037080692370noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-41437276044385059902012-06-13T03:33:21.342-07:002012-06-13T03:33:21.342-07:00If our native natural landscapes looked like garba...If our native natural landscapes looked like garbage dumps and smelled like hog houses, those are the sights and smells that would be beautiful to us.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-2895277840151444392012-06-13T03:28:13.825-07:002012-06-13T03:28:13.825-07:00It should be pointed out (as it has been in commen...It should be pointed out (as it has been in comments on this blog <a href="http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2010/03/evolutionist-is-shocked-shocked-to-find.html?showComment=1268124486332#c1656412513979635807" rel="nofollow"> before </a> as today's post is another recycled classic; way to go green!) that scientists cannot win on this one. If they mention that what we see in nature is outside of the bounds of what a sane, benevolent, competent, anthropomorphic creator would construct, then it allows Cornelius Hunter to hit the "evolution is theodicy button." If they keep it scientific with no mention of gods, then Joe Reader asks: "Where is my God in this? This can't be right!" <br /><br />As the number of Americans who believe in gods is orders of magnitude greater than the number who have read books by the blog author, it's not surprising that some authors take this route.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-36954512659203200582012-06-13T03:11:05.442-07:002012-06-13T03:11:05.442-07:00a few more notes:
The high spontaneous mutation r...a few more notes:<br /><br />The high spontaneous mutation rate: Is it a health risk?* - James F. Crow - 1997<br /> http://www.pnas.org/content/94/16/8380.full<br /><br /> Contamination of the genome by very slightly deleterious mutations:<br /> why have we not died 100 times over? Kondrashov A.S.<br /> http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/ap/jt/1995/00000175/00000004/art00167<br /><br /> Why are we still alive? - LAURENCE LOEWE - Institute of Evolutionary Biology, School of Biological Sciences, University of Edinburgh, - 2006<br /> http://www.evolutionary-research.net/news/2008/04/01/why-are-we-still-alive<br /><br /> Rate, molecular spectrum, and consequences of human mutation - Michael Lynch - 2009<br /> http://www.pnas.org/content/107/3/961.full<br /><br />Sanford’s pro-ID thesis supported by PNAS paper, read it and weep, literally - September 2010<br />Excerpt: Unfortunately, it has become increasingly clear that most of the mutation load is associated with mutations with very small effects distributed at unpredictable locations over the entire genome, rendering the prospects for long-term management of the human gene pool by genetic counseling highly unlikely for all but perhaps a few hundred key loci underlying debilitating monogenic genetic disorders (such as those focused on in the present study).<br />http://www.uncommondescent.com/darwinism/sanfords-pro-id-thesis-supported-by-pnas-paper-read-it-and-weep-literally/<br /><br />High Frequency of Cryptic Deleterious Mutations in Caenorhabditis elegans ( Esther K. Davies, Andrew D. Peters, Peter D. Keightley)<br />"In fitness assays, only about 4 percent of the deleterious mutations fixed in each line were detectable. The remaining 96 percent, though cryptic, are significant for mutation load...the presence of a large class of mildly deleterious mutations can never be ruled out."<br />http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/285/5434/1748<br /><br />The Frailty of the Darwinian Hypothesis<br />"The net effect of genetic drift in such (vertebrate) populations is “to encourage the fixation of mildly deleterious mutations and discourage the promotion of beneficial mutations,”<br />http://www.evolutionnews.org/2009/07/the_frailty_of_the_darwinian_h.html#morebornagain77https://www.blogger.com/profile/16666666037080692370noreply@blogger.com