Happy Birthday, Mr. Darwin: Growing Majority of Americans Support Teaching Both Sides of Evolution Debate

[PEPCIS]

Darwin’s prediction that the earliest humans would be found in Africa, for example, was not post hoc, after the fact.

Biological arguments for racism may have been common before 1859, but they increased by orders of magnitude following the acceptance of evolutionary theory.

—Stephen Jay Gould, Ontogeny and Phylogeny, 1977

Darwin’s prediction came from his philosophical tome, The Descent of Man. In this ranting, Darwin outlined his beliefs that Aborigine’s and Blacks were below the White Man on the evolutionary scale.

On the last page of his book, The Descent of Man, Charles Darwin expressed the opinion that he would rather be descended from a monkey than from a “Savage.”

Nor was Huxley’s prediction that there would be transitionals between dinosaurs and birds. Both were discovered long after these predictions. “Ad hoc” means something else.

“Darwin’s Bulldog, Thomas Huxley stated, soon after the 13th Amendment freed the slaves, that “No rational man, cognizant of the facts, believes that the average negro is the equal … of the white man. And if this be true, it is simply incredible that, when all his disabilities are removed … he will be able to compete successfully with his bigger-brained and smaller-jawed rival, in a contest which is to be carried out by thoughts and not by bites.”

 

[The_Barbarian]

Darwin’s prediction that the earliest humans would be found in Africa, for example, was not post hoc, after the fact.

No, that’s false. Human ancestors were found long after Darwin predicted they would be there, and his prediction flew in the face of the commonly-held belief that it happened in Asia.

Darwin’s prediction came from his philosophical tome, The Descent of Man. In this ranting, Darwin outlined his beliefs that Aborigine’s and Blacks were below the White Man on the evolutionary scale.

Almost all people of European descent thought that other races were inferior. Darwin differed from the average creationist on the issue by opposing slavery and insisting that all men deserved dignity and freedom.

On the last page of his book, The Descent of Man, Charles Darwin expressed the opinion that he would rather be descended from a monkey than from a “Savage.”

Let’s take a look…

For my own part I would as soon be descended from that heroic
little monkey, who braved his dreaded enemy in order to save the
life of his keeper, or from that old baboon, who descending from the
mountains, carried away in triumph his young comrade from a crowd of
astonished dogs- as from a savage who delights to torture his enemies,
offers up bloody sacrifices, practices infanticide without remorse,
treats his wives like slaves, knows no decency, and is haunted by
the grossest superstitions.

He’s talking not about races, but about any humans who behave like that. He acknowledged that his own countrymen had at times become savage.

Barbarian observes:
Nor was Huxley’s prediction that there would be transitionals between dinosaurs and birds. Both were discovered long after these predictions.

“Darwin’s Bulldog, Thomas Huxley stated, soon after the 13th Amendment freed the slaves, that "No rational man, cognizant of the facts, believes that the average negro is the equal … of the white man.

That’s what Abraham Lincoln said about blacks. He and Huxley differed from creationists, mostly in opposing slavery and allowing that human dignity did not depend on ability.

That has nothing to do with the fact that Darwin and Huxley made predictions based on evolutionary theory that were later confirmed. Would you like to learn about some more of them?

 

[PEPCIS]

I can’t see what all this talk about information has anything to do with anything.

I’d be careful in exposing your ignorance. Rossum and the others may try to eat you for lunch.

Leela:

If you want to prove that Darwinism is false, all you need to do is find a prediction based on evolutionary theory and evidence that this prediction is demonstarted to be false.

There’s no need. There is no way to falsify the theory. Even if any one person were successful in falsifying it, evolutionists would simply shout it down and ignore it, Preistly style.

Leela:

Otherwise, scientists will continue to view the theory like every other verified theory, as useful until a better theory comes along.

That’s a lot of BS that you’re holding there, Leela. There is nothing useful in evolution theory.

Leela:

It’s really not important that evolutionary theory doesn’t make sense to you.

Actually, it makes perfect sense. I reject it because the “perfection” of atheism just doesn’t appeal to me.

Leela:

If you want to attack evolutionary theory, you will need to show that it is NOT useful for certain purposes.

You don’t have to show something that doesn’t exist, Leela.

Leela:

And if you would like to replace it with some other theory, you will need to show that your theory IS useful for those purposes.

I’m sure that you hadn’t noticed that evolutionism is already replaced with ID.

 

[PEPCIS]

"PEPCIS:

This brings me back to my original point: Information cannot arise by naturalistic means.

rossum:

Shannon information, Kolmogorov information and Fisher information can all arise from evolutionary processes.

PEPCIS:

There is no such thing as “Shannon information” nor is there any such thing as “Kolmogorov information”, nor “Fisher” nor “Schnieder”, etc, etc, et al.

Then how come it is defined and used in a lot of different fields.

It is NOT DEFINED. It is MEASURED. M E A S U R E D

Read my lips: M E A S U R E D

rossum:

Reality does not have to conform to your preconceptions of what it should be.

If you were talking reality, then we might actually be talking SCIENCE. But since you keep on denying reality, you can’t blame me for your own misgivings.

WHAT IS INFORMATION???

WHAT IS INFORMATION???

WHAT IS INFORMATION???

WHAT IS INFORMATION???

rossum:

Shannon information is measurable and it works in many fields.

I don’t care. I already know that it is measurable. WHAT IS IT?

WHAT IS INFORMATION???

WHAT IS INFORMATION???

WHAT IS INFORMATION???

WHAT IS INFORMATION???

 

[PEPCIS]

"PEPCIS:

Another fine example of how Scientists exhibit a clear distinction from evolutionary bias against real science is seen in Armand Mattelart’s book, The Information Society

. In his book, he cites Claude Shannon’s seminal work, and states that Shannon’s definition for information

[SIGN]“was strictly statistical, quantitative and physical. It referred primarily to ‘quantities of information’, disregarding the etymological root of the word ‘information’, which denotes the process whereby knowledge is given form by the structuring of fragments of knowledge…The construction of meaning had no place in Shannon’s research programme.”[/SIGN]​

Rossum, your disagreement with much of science is evident in more than just your refusal to accept the SCIENTIFIC definitions of information.

Do you read your own quote?

Did you read it? LOL

rossum:

It says “The construction of meaning had no place in Shannon’s research programme”, which is exactly what I have been saying - that Shannon infomration is separate from any meaning what may or may not be present in a message.

That’s just plain ol’ dishonest. I’ve been saying that all along, and you have refused to ackowledge that, and you have refused to define information.

WHAT IS INFORMATION???

WHAT IS INFORMATION???

rossum:

I agree fully with your quote - which also goes to confirm what I said above, that Shannon infomration does exist and to deny your assertion above that Shannon information does not exist. If ‘There is no such thing as “Shannon information”’ as you said, then why are you able to find a quote about it?

Reality must be slipping from your mind. You cannot seem to handle the nuances of meaning that are being bandied about. To state that there is no such thing as "Shannon information, is for me to deny that the definition that you use (the context that you use it in) is not conforming to reality. As such, there is no such thing as Shannon information.

Does Shannon’s theory measure something that is connected to information? Most certainly. But just as Justice Blackmun refused to entertain the question of “When does life begin”, so too did Shannon refuse to entertain the question: “What is information?”

 

[sumusresnovarum]

I must interject as devil’s advocate, but I do believe this… What do we as Catholics gain by ignoring the validity of evolution? Theres never been a reason in todays society that prevents God from creating a thing that would later evolve into a human being. If you teach kids both sides correctly, it is obvious that the two sides are not mutually exclusive. Science does not explain why it merely explains how. And theology is the inverse. It would be the same as saying a pencil drops to the ground because of gravity. Thats the how. But why does it fall? Because God wills it. Both premises are true but neither excludes the other. So to bring up points such as that gravity should be taught alongside another theory is ludacris. as long as science only explains how, there is no argument that should go against teaching evolution.

 

[The_Barbarian]

WHAT IS INFORMATION???

It’s a measure of uncertainty in a signal. Information theory explains how it works. The fundamental theorm of information theory is this:

“It is possible to transmit information through a noisy channel at any rate less than channel capacity with an arbitrarily small probability of error.”

I’ve located a non-mathematical, non-technical description for PEPCIS:
**In information theory, entropy is a measure of the uncertainty associated with a random variable. The term by itself in this context usually refers to the Shannon entropy, which quantifies, in the sense of an expected value, the information contained in a message, usually in units such as bits. Equivalently, the Shannon entropy is a measure of the average information content one is missing when one does not know the value of the random variable. The concept was introduced by Claude E. Shannon in his 1948 paper “A Mathematical Theory of Communication”.

Shannon’s entropy represents an absolute limit on the best possible lossless compression of any communication: treating messages to be encoded as a sequence of independent and identically-distributed random variables, Shannon’s source coding theorem shows that, in the limit, the average length of the shortest possible representation to encode the messages in a given alphabet is their entropy divided by the logarithm of the number of symbols in the target alphabet.

A fair coin has an entropy of one bit. However, if the coin is not fair, then the uncertainty is lower (if asked to bet on the next outcome, we would bet preferentially on the most frequent result), and thus the Shannon entropy is lower. Mathematically, a coin flip is an example of a Bernoulli trial, and its entropy is given by the binary entropy function. A long string of repeating characters has an entropy rate of 0, since every character is predictable. The entropy rate of English text is between 1.0 and 1.5 bits per letter, or as low as 0.6 to 1.3 bits per letter, according to estimates by Shannon based on human experiments.**
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_entropy

 

[hecd2]

I found it here: What Evolution Is. “Naturalists have long been faced by a puzzling conflict. On one hand, there is a pervasive continuityu in the gradual change of the populations of a species through time and space and, on the other hand, there are gaps between all species and all higher taxa. Nothing has more impressed the paleontologists than the discontinuous nature of the fossil record.”

Thank you. As I thought, the quote is not about discontinuities in the fossil record (not withstanding the peripheral reference to the fossil record, bolded above - I have already shown that Mayr was fully aware of detailed transitional sequences in the record), but about apparent discontinuities between extant species and higher taxa. That is clear from the context and the section in which the quote is found. Mayr goes on to discuss this issue over several pages, pointing out that the misconception arose primarily from the typological species concept and that the biological species concept, which depends on the properties of populations resolves the problem. For example, he points out that we now recognise sibling or cryptic species which are indistinguishable by their phenotype; and that phenotypically disparate individuals within a population are known to breed successfully. He also discusses in some detail, the observation of hybridisation zones between geographically separate species . All of this shows that the phrase “there are gaps between all species and all higher taxa” is not so much a claim or comment that he endorses, but an illustration of the erroneous understanding of scientists about taxonomic separation in order ro set up his discussion of the controversy surrounding species concepts.

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[hecd2]

D
WHAT IS INFORMATION???

WHAT IS INFORMATION???

It seems to me that if one is discussing the claim that an argument against evolution is the putative impossibility of the increase of information in the genome then the burden of definition and proof falls on those making the claim to:

1. Define information
2. Show how it can be measured
3. Show that the evolutionary process necessarily requires increases in information according to whatever definition and measure one has chosen
4. Show, that according to that definition and measure, an increase in information is not possible by the evolutionary process.

So far, to the best of my knowledge, no-one who has attempted to use this argument against evolution has ever succeeded in negotiating these four steps. Have you?

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[redneck22]

It seems to me that if one is discussing the claim that an argument against evolution is the putative impossibility of the increase of information in the genome then the burden of definition and proof falls on those making the claim to:

1. Define information
2. Show how it can be measured
3. Show that the evolutionary process necessarily requires increases in information according to whatever definition and measure one has chosen
4. Show, that according to that definition and measure, an increase in information is not possible by the evolutionary process.

So far, to the best of my knowledge, no-one who has attempted to use this argument against evolution has ever succeeded in negotiating these four steps. Have you?

Alec
evolutionpages.com

The converse of the above proposition is very articulately expounded here

 

[The_Barbarian]

A YouTube video? Why don’t you give us your best shot at answering Alec’s questions. If you can’t explain what information is, or how to measure it, or even give us some process required for evolution that information prevents from happening, why should we believe you’re right?

Those questions are always the scam-killer when creationists bring up “information.” Without any substantiation, you might as well insist that “Abracadabra” shows evolution is impossible.

 

[PEPCIS]

"Ender:

Paleontologists themselves are rather impressed with its discontinuous nature. There are gaps between all species and all higher taxa … not exactly what Darwin predicted.

Darwin wrote at length about the incompleteness of the fossil record and why we don’t have every fossil that ever existed.

Yep, he sure did. He could never explain the scarcity of the record, and no one else has been able to since him.

What’s amazing is that there have been minds that are so much smarter than you who have tread this landscape of the fossils discontinuous nature, and they had to invent “Hopeful Monster” theories, and Saltational theories, to support the “stasis” in the fossil record. Others who are more dishonest simply assert “just-so” stories in their lame attempts to bolster evolution in other people’s minds. It only works on those who have true evolutionary faith.

 

[Leela]

I’d be careful in exposing your ignorance. Rossum and the others may try to eat you for lunch.

There’s no need. There is no way to falsify the theory. Even if any one person were successful in falsifying it, evolutionists would simply shout it down and ignore it, Preistly style.

That’s a lot of BS that you’re holding there, Leela. There is nothing useful in evolution theory.

Actually, it makes perfect sense. I reject it because the “perfection” of atheism just doesn’t appeal to me.

You don’t have to show something that doesn’t exist, Leela.

I’m sure that you hadn’t noticed that evolutionism is already replaced with ID.

Congratlations on being the 2nd person to make my “ignore list.” Please return the favor and add me to yours.

 

[aslan963]

How many of you wonder what the agenda of those are who post things such as this? The conversation has been sometimes fascinating even though it went way ‘off the reservation’ several times. The statement for the tread, like so many others, tries to convey the idea that there are two sides. As if saying it makes it so. I am continually disappointed when I see how successful ‘the wedge’ has been been at attacking science and trying to replace it with religious belief in our children’s classrooms. I know most of you are probably far more familiar with en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitzmiller_v._Dover_Area_School_District than I am but I think it is worth pointing to here.

I would also like to remind the folks here that may share my views on this topic that the ‘fundies’ have moved on and are just trying to ‘teach critical reasoning’ now.

 

[PEPCIS]

…the issue has been raised about the completeness of the fossil record, a challenge that isn’t invalid simply because creationists make it. Paleontologists themselves are rather impressed with its discontinuous nature. There are gaps between all species and all higher taxa … not exactly what Darwin predicted.

…Ender’s claim…Is completely false…

But just in proportion as this process of extermination has acted on an enormous scale, so must the number of intermediate varieties, which have formerly existed on the earth, be truly enormous. Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and gravest objection which can be urged against my theory.

The explanation lies, as I believe, in the extreme imperfection of the geological record.
Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species

The truth is that Darwin’s theory REQUIRES a few things to work. Two of those things are obsessively long periods of time, coupled with random mutations. This means that the bservations that one makes must conform to such a theory. One of the observations that Darwin stated that DID NOT CONFORM TO HIS THEORY is the stasis that was observed in the fossil record.

Little has changed since Darwin’s day. So little has changed that one can find quotations from mulitple sources of evolutionary scientists who claim that stasis is the NORM.

 

[PEPCIS]

Congratlations on being the 2nd person to make my “ignore list.” Please return the favor and add me to yours.

Thanks for the privilege. I’m honored.

You had your own agenda anyways, and it sure wasn’t keeping in topic with the thread.

 

[aslan963]

Threads like this one confirm this: scientificblogging.com/news_releases/science_literacy_american_adults_flunk_basic_science_says_survey

 

[PEPCIS]

"Barbarian:

Darwin’s prediction that the earliest humans would be found in Africa, for example, was not post hoc, after the fact.

No, that’s false. Human ancestors were found long after Darwin predicted they would be there, and his prediction flew in the face of the commonly-held belief that it happened in Asia.

LOL That’s a riot! You’ve taken to arguing with yourself. Apparently I was right - you aren’t here for honest debate. You’re just looking for a fight. You’re looking so hard, that you can’t keep track of who said what.

Darwin’s prediction came from his philosophical tome, The Descent of Man. In this ranting, Darwin outlined his beliefs that Aborigine’s and Blacks were below the White Man on the evolutionary scale.

Almost all people of European descent thought that other races were inferior.

That’s not the point. The point is that these sentiments were reciprocal with evolution theory, and always have been. There are many people today who continue to believe that morphology plays a significant understanding in evaluating evolutionary claims. Evolutionists continue to use morphology to class species.

Darwin differed from the average creationist on the issue by opposing slavery and insisting that all men deserved dignity and freedom.

Darwin was not “special” in his moral position. Most people did not own slaves, even in the South. It was not the average person who owned slaves, but the plantation owners and factory workers.

He’s not talking not about races, but about any humans who behave like that. He acknowledged that his own countrymen had at times become savage.

Actually, he’s talking straight from his own belief in evolution, claiming that humans are no better off, morally-speaking, than a monkey, and that even most monkeys display a better standard of morality than some men. That’s a natural extension of evolutionary thinking.

“Darwin’s Bulldog, Thomas Huxley stated, soon after the 13th Amendment freed the slaves, that "No rational man, cognizant of the facts, believes that the average negro is the equal … of the white man.

That’s what Abraham Lincoln said about blacks. He and Huxley differed from creationists, mostly in opposing slavery and allowing that human dignity did not depend on ability.

Yeah, most creationists were most Americans, so that statement is about as dumb as you’ve stated elsewhere.

 

[PEPCIS]

"PEPCIS:

WHAT IS INFORMATION???

It’s a measure of uncertainty in a signal.

Wrong. That’s the definition of the MEASUREMENT OF INFORMATION. Try again?

Information theory explains how it works.

I don’t care to know HOW it works. I already know all about that. I want to know WHAT IS INFORMATION??? Please define WHAT IT IS.

The fundamental theorm of information theory is…

That is HOW. I want to know WHAT.

I’ve located a non-mathematical, non-technical description for PEPCIS:
In information theory, entropy is a measure of the uncertainty associated with a random variable.

I already know what entropy is. I want to know what INFORMATION is.

You’re no better than rossum.

 

[PEPCIS]

"PEPCIS:

I found it here: What Evolution Is

. “Naturalists have long been faced by a puzzling conflict. On one hand, there is a pervasive continuityu in the gradual change of the populations of a species through time and space and, on the other hand, there are gaps between all species and all higher taxa. Nothing has more impressed the paleontologists than the discontinuous nature of the fossil record.”

Thank you. As I thought, the quote is not about discontinuities in the fossil record (not withstanding the peripheral reference to the fossil record, bolded above…

??? Let’s see. Mayr states: “Nothing has more impressed the paleontologists than the discontinuous nature of the fossil record.”

And then you claim: “the quote is not about discontinuities in the fossil record”???

What’s wrong with that picture?
hecd:

I have already shown that Mayr was fully aware of detailed transitional sequences in the record), but about apparent discontinuities between extant species and higher taxa.

See, this is strange. Why would Mayr denote serious deficiencies in the record, if he was already “fully aware of detailed transitional sequences in the record”? Don’t you think he was expressing similar concerns as that of Darwin?
hecd:

For example, he points out that we now recognise sibling or cryptic species which are indistinguishable by their phenotype; and that phenotypically disparate individuals within a population are known to breed successfully. He also discusses in some detail, the observation of hybridisation zones between geographically separate species.

Sounds like so much creationary-speak to me.
hecd:

All of this shows that the phrase “there are gaps between all species and all higher taxa” is not so much a claim or comment that he endorses, but an illustration of the erroneous understanding of scientists about taxonomic separation in order ro set up his discussion of the controversy surrounding species concepts.

The only thing that I see from the context, is that he notes that the stasis in the fossil record is an important feature that many paleontologists ignore when they are classifying new, or formerly established species to their class and orders. Some paleontologists are fighting over which species that the modern great white shark is descended from. I don’t think that you’re going to find a plausible means to test for BSC in order to classify them.