Book: The Hoax Called Evolution

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liquidpele said:
It’s not machinery, it’s chemistry. There are not little gears and wires. It’s all chemical reactions. Ever seen a soap bubble? Surely something so thin must be designed.

Am I missing something there? What’s your point?
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I suggest you go online and get a diagram of the cell’s internal machinery. Learn about protein folding. Learn about cell membranes. SETI is designed to detect nonhuman intelligence.

I suspect you are smart enough to know all this but want to play at obfuscation.

Peace,
Ed
 
liquidpele said:
It’s not machinery, it’s chemistry. There are not little gears and wires. It’s all chemical reactions. Ever seen a soap bubble? Surely something so thin must be designed.

Am I missing something there? What’s your point?
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You might want to look again. The flagellum has a rotor, stator, bushings, spins at 100,000RPM. (something we still cannot achieve) This is a nanomachine. It functions just like a man made motor would.

Is you claim machinery has to be mechanical only?
 
Charles_Darwin said:
Well if he/she wants it to look like there is no god then how can he/she take issue with someone when they withhold belief.
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I don’t imagine She / He does so take issue. A God of infinite patience and mercy would recognize that creatures are fallible, tentative, probing, hopeful, doubtful, etc.
 
edwest2 said:
Pope John Paul II said “more than a hypothesis.” In that same address, he also referred to theories of evolution, not just one. Peace,Ed
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Can you show us where he referred to “theories” in the plural?
 
buffalo said:
You might want to look again. The flagellum has a rotor, stator, bushings, spins at 100,000RPM. (something we still cannot achieve) This is a nanomachine. It functions just like a man made motor would.

Is you claim machinery has to be mechanical only?
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The context here is that someone wrote to Dembski about a line in Collin’s book The Language of God by Francis Collins. Collins referred to the substantial evidence that the bacterial flagellum, so beloved by ID folks, is the product of Darwinian evolution. Dembski’s correspondent wrote to Collins asking for a citation, and Collins came back with the well-known article by Matzke and Pallen surveying the evidence for flagellum evolution.
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It is actually a big concession for Dembski to admit that the proteins comprising the flagellum show extensive homology with proteins serving other functions, and that natural selection could have coopted parts from other systems. You see, his previous contribution on this subject was an idiotic, back of the envelope probability calculation presented in Chapter Ten of his book No Free Lunch. His calculation was based explicitly on the idea that since the flagellum was irreducibly complex, it could not have evolved gradually by natural selection. That he is now admitting natural selection as a possibility should be taken as a repudiation of his previous work.
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And it has been answered many, many, other times, as has the blood clotting mechanism - another one of their favourites.
 
StAnastasia said:
Can you show us where he referred to “theories” in the plural?
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MESSAGE TO THE PONTIFICAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES:
ON EVOLUTION****Pope John Paul II
  1. Before offering a few more specific reflections on the theme of the origin of life and evolution, I would remind you that the magisterium of the Church has already made some pronouncements on these matters, within her own proper sphere of competence. I will cite two such interventions here.
    In his encyclical Humani Generis (1950), my predecessor Pius XII has already affirmed that there is no conflict between evolution and the doctrine of the faith regarding man and his vocation, provided that we do not lose sight of certain fixed points.
    For my part, when I received the participants in the plenary assembly of your Academy on October 31, 1992, I used the occasion—and the example of Gallileo—to draw attention to the necessity of using a rigorous hermeneutical approach in seeking a concrete interpretation of the inspired texts. It is important to set proper limits to the understanding of Scripture, excluding any unseasonable interpretations which would make it mean something which it is not intended to mean. In order to mark out the limits of their own proper fields, theologians and those working on the exegesis of the Scripture need to be well informed regarding the results of the latest scientific research.
    4. Taking into account the scientific research of the era, and also the proper requirements of theology, the encyclical Humani Generis treated the doctrine of “evolutionism” as a serious hypothesis, worthy of investigation and serious study, alongside the opposite hypothesis. Pius XII added two methodological conditions for this study: one could not adopt this opinion as if it were a certain and demonstrable doctrine, and one could not totally set aside the teaching Revelation on the relevant questions. He also set out the conditions on which this opinion would be compatible with the Christian faith—a point to which I shall return.
    Today, more than a half-century after the appearance of that encyclical, some new findings lead us toward the recognition of evolution as more than an hypothesis.* In fact it is remarkable that this theory has had progressively greater influence on the spirit of researchers, following a series of discoveries in different scholarly disciplines. The convergence in the results of these independent studies—which was neither planned nor sought—constitutes in itself a significant argument in favor of the theory.
    What is the significance of a theory such as this one? To open this question is to enter into the field of epistemology. A theory is a meta-scientific elaboration, which is distinct from, but in harmony with, the results of observation. With the help of such a theory a group of data and independent facts can be related to one another and interpreted in one comprehensive explanation. The theory proves its validity by the measure to which it can be verified. It is constantly being tested against the facts; when it can no longer explain these facts, it shows its limits and its lack of usefulness, and it must be revised.
    Moreover, the elaboration of a theory such as that of evolution, while obedient to the need for consistency with the observed data, must also involve importing some ideas from the philosophy of nature.
    And to tell the truth, rather than speaking about the theory of evolution, it is more accurate to speak of the theories of evolution. The use of the plural is required here—in part because of the diversity of explanations regarding the mechanism of evolution, and in part because of the diversity of philosophies involved. There are materialist and reductionist theories, as well as spiritualist theories. Here the final judgment is within the competence of philosophy and, beyond that, of theology.
*EWTN Note on translation:
The English edition at first translated the French original as: “Today, more than a half-century after the appearance of that encyclical, some new findings lead us toward the recognition of more than one hypothesis within the theory of evolution.” The L’Osservatore Romano English Edition subsequently amended the text to that given in the body of the message above, citing the translation of the other language editions as its reason. It should be noted that an hypothesis is the preliminary stage of the scientific method and the Pope’s statement suggests nothing more than that science has progressed beyond that stage. This is certainly true with respect to cosmological evolution (the physical universe), whose science both Pius XII and John Paul II have praised, but not true in biology, about which the popes have generally issued cautions (as above and Humani Generis)
 
StAnastasia said:
I don’t doubt that he understands deep truths. But purveying falsehoods seems an odd method for pursuing truth.
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StA ,thank you for this, finally. The darwinian dogmatists have to exclude a priori supernatural truths and cannot enter them into their conclusions. They then purvey a falsehood limited by their own worldview. Indeed it is odd and is a philosophy.
 
mathematician said:
And it has been answered many, many, other times, as has the blood clotting mechanism - another one of their favourites.
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I was answering your claim that it is not machinery.

However, everything that exists is dependent on existing matter somewhere somehow.

Dembski is arguing that if you take foundational elements and put them together to perform a specific function (purpose) it is design. The greater the amount of components the greater the odds of design and the odds of random assembly are much less.

This is pretty elementary and common sense stuff really. The only one who can create out of nothing is God. His signature is in the language of DNA, the super language that sets forth these immense capabililities.

Unguided random mutations do not have any purpose.
 
buffalo said:
StA ,thank you for this, finally. The darwinian dogmatists have to exclude a priori supernatural truths and cannot enter them into their conclusions. They then purvey a falsehood limited by their own worldview. Indeed it is odd and is a philosophy.
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Yes, there is materialistic philosophy. But remember, there is a difference between metaphysical and methodological naturalism. The Catholic priest biologists with whom I work assume methodological naturalism – they look for natural causes, rather than throwing up their hands and saying “God did it – end of story.” But it goes without saying that they reject metaphysical naturalism.

StAnastasia
 
buffalo said:
You might want to look again. The flagellum has a rotor, stator, bushings, spins at 100,000RPM. (something we still cannot achieve) This is a nanomachine. It functions just like a man made motor would.

Is you claim machinery has to be mechanical only?
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The Flagellum is still just Chemistry. You think it’s amazing we haven’t reach that speed… but you have no idea how fast chemical reactions go apparently. DNA copying itself happens in about 2 seconds… that’s copying billions of base pairs.

Also:

youtube.com/watch?v=SdwTwNPyR9w
talkdesign.org/faqs/flagellum.html

IF you want to see something even more amazing, look at how DNA copies itself in this video:

wimp.com/dnacopies/

It boggles the mind if you look at it as a whole, but that doesn’t mean it ceases to be chemical reactions or irreducible complexity. You might look at a car and say, oh, well it’s designed right! Not quite… cars were invented a century ago, and literally evolved according to what sold, what was required by regulation, and what could be built. The cars you see today are an evolution from the Model T. Point being, you can’t look at the end result and say “it’s complicated, must be designed” because you neglect the history behind the thing.
 
mathematician said:
Have you ever heard Francis Collins responding to a creationist when he gets told that evolution is “just a theory”? Still, being an eminent scientist, I suppose he can be more free with his language than somebody who wants to show how up he is on the philosophy of science.
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Yes, Francis is using language that could be philosophically more rigorous. I suspect he is driven to overstatement when conversing with a YEC.
 
liquidpele said:
The Flagellum is still just Chemistry. You think it’s amazing we haven’t reach that speed… but you have no idea how fast chemical reactions go apparently. DNA copying itself happens in about 2 seconds… that’s copying billions of base pairs.

Also:

youtube.com/watch?v=SdwTwNPyR9w
talkdesign.org/faqs/flagellum.html

IF you want to see something even more amazing, look at how DNA copies itself in this video:

wimp.com/dnacopies/

It boggles the mind, but that doesn’t mean it ceases to be chemical reactions.
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Simply amazing. A biologic computer will be just chemistry. It is still a machine. But I think I lost track of why we are arguing whether they are machines or not.
 
buffalo said:
Simply amazing. A biologic computer will be just chemistry. It is still a machine. But I think I lost track of why we are arguing whether they are machines or not.
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Haha, true true, I guess that is just semantics after all 😉
 
liquidpele said:
The Flagellum is still just Chemistry. You think it’s amazing we haven’t reach that speed… but you have no idea how fast chemical reactions go apparently. DNA copying itself happens in about 2 seconds… that’s copying billions of base pairs.
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Liquidpele, I suspect you don’t mean to imply this, but I would say “So what?” The fact that DNA copying and flagellum rotation are chemical reactions no more threatens my belief in God than does the purely mechanico-chemical action of our photocopy machine at work. When the technician comes in to repair the photocopier I don’t say to myself, “Oh no – it’s now explainable to me, so I’m going to convert to atheism.”

StAnastasia
 
StAnastasia said:
Yes, there is materialistic philosophy. But remember, there is a difference between metaphysical and methodological naturalism. The Catholic priest biologists with whom I work assume methodological naturalism – they look for natural causes, rather than throwing up their hands and saying “God did it – end of story.” But it goes without saying that they reject metaphysical naturalism.

StAnastasia
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I think it is safe to say both camps are interested in searching for natural causes. This keeps pseudoscience away and actually protects Catholics from it.

But when we speak of natural causes it does not mean God is absent. God is responsible for everything. How are we sure that what we think are natural causes are not always guided by Gods hand? We do not. So we make assumptions. That makes a division between natural and supernatural causes which may not be real. This is another way our ability to reason truth is contaminated.

All our interpretations of our observations and tests must be illuminated by God.
 
StAnastasia said:
Liquidpele, I suspect you don’t mean to imply this, but I would say “So what?” The fact that DNA copying and flagellum rotation are chemical reactions no more threatens my belief in God than does the purely mechanico-chemical action of our photocopy machine at work. When the technician comes in to repair the photocopier I don’t say to myself, “Oh no – it’s now explainable to me, so I’m going to convert to atheism.”

StAnastasia
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I was not attempting to convert you to atheism, I was simply stating that viewing it as a “machine” is an abstraction that a lot of people then take and run with to invalid assumptions. Why would you assume I was being hostile to religion there?
 
liquidpele said:
I was not attempting to convert you to atheism, I was simply stating that viewing it as a “machine” is an abstraction that a lot of people then take and run with to invalid assumptions. Why would you assume I was being hostile to religion there?
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Liquipele, if you re-read my first sentence carefully you’ll see that I was not assuming that at all. You will see that I agree with you: a mechanical process is metaphysically neutral.
 
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