Is Darwin's Theory of Evolution True? Part 4.1

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edwest211 said:
Most of the greater scientists have decided to look at it like Dawkins has.
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Yes, well, a lot of non-scientists have decided they are too comfortable and well-in-charge of their lives to need God, too, because, hey, we have psychiatry and a whole aisle of self-help books at the book store, but that doesn’t mean a lot.

The Vatican employs scientists. They are not atheists and they are not trying to shoe-horn their data into what they mistakenly believe is a “literal” reading of Genesis, either.

The problem with Intelligent Design as it now stands is that it is a version of “a miracle occurs.” It isn’t a specific proposal of exactly how known physical laws lead to some particular result instead of some other result or how predictable result implies that some not-previously-described physical law must exist. That doesn’t mean there is no intelligent designer in evolution. It means we cannot describe a mechanism by which the design works. Is it possible that it is beyond our capacity to ever describe it, that it is in fact a miracle? Sure, but science is not in the business of predicting miracles. The work of science is explore how the natural world is predictable and intelligible to the human mind. It is the work of human dominion. Miracles are outside that occupation, not because they do not happen but because humans cannot put God to the test! What people like Dawkins forget is that human beings are never going to be God. People who are religious get in the way of his desire that we humans regard ourselves as our only resource in the universe and “brilliant” people like Dawkins as our undisputed leaders.
 
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Aloysium said:
This obviously happens, but is universally a destructive process. If we consider the genome as a set of instructions whereby a life form incorporates elements in its environment into the making of itself, it is difficult to imagine how new functional code could be added without some external influence to existing processes.
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This idea, that genetic mutation is always destructive, is common among creationists, but as wrong now as it ever was. The idea may have been based on a false analogy between DNA and a written sentence, as you make above. The fact that the DNA alphabet has only four letters, rather than our twenty-six, means that it is much easier to make a meaningful word by random action in DNA than in English. Another possibility is that any alteration of anything can be referred to as ‘damage’, in the sense of creating something different from the original, but sometimes this ‘damage’ can benefit the organism within which it happens.
 
Although my opinions about the existence of God are similar to Dawkins’ I don’t much admire the tone with which he argues his case. Nonetheless I think your last sentence is unfair if it is intended to suggest that his opinions, and his public enunciation of them, arise from self-regard.

I think what has motivated him has been the experience of seeing science, and particularly his field of evolutionary biology, under sustained attack (in education systems especially) by some Christian (and as it happens also some Muslim) groups. He sees this, I think, as an attack on truth and civilisation, and responds accordingly.

I think he should tread more carefully, but that’s me all over.
 
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Aloysium said:
The point I was trying to make was that ignoring these, among other factors, is an act of willful ignorance, which is necessary to maintain the standard theory of evolution.
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No. I couldn’t disagree more. I wholeheartedly embrace the theory of evolution in all its practical, empirical and historical terms, but also understand the metaphysical and philosophical implications that you, and sometimes Richca, explore. It is not necessary to ignore them to maintain the standard theory of evolution. Equally, however, it is possible to explore the details of evolution without reference to them at all. In such cases, we cannot say that a scientist has wilfully ignore them, just that he has not found them necessary for the particular discoveries he is working on.
 
PickyPicky said:
Although my opinions about the existence of God are similar to Dawkins’ I don’t much admire the tone with which he argues his case. Nonetheless I think your last sentence is unfair if it is intended to suggest that his opinions, and his public enunciation of them, arise from self-regard.

I think what has motivated him has been the experience of seeing science, and particularly his field of evolutionary biology, under sustained attack (in education systems especially) by some Christian (and as it happens also some Muslim) groups. He sees this, I think, as an attack on truth and civilisation, and responds accordingly.

I think he should tread more carefully, but that’s me all over.
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Sorry, but telling me that raising my children Catholic is child abuse AND that failing to teach them his theories would also be a failure a parent, I think he’s pretty full of himself. Yes, he has said that it is abusive to raise your children to be religious. You can look it up. He wants to abolish religion altogether and sees this as doing civilization a service. I would say that is beyond an extreme reaction to having his science attacked, not a proportionate reaction at all. His assignment of human misdeeds to religion rather than human nature is not the sentiment of a dispassionate observer who has really looked at the evidence of how humans act when religion is abolished and the innate human morality that is leftover holds sway. The facts do not support his case, and that is why one can say he has ceased to think like a scientist when it comes to his views about religion.
 
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Hugh_Farey said:
In such cases, we cannot say that a scientist has wilfully ignore them, just that he has not found them necessary for the particular discoveries he is working on.
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Provided the scientist does not turn from his science and pretend he can ignore the rest of human intellectual endeavor when making his political and social pronouncements because those other endeavors aren’t required to do science, I agree.
 
Well, I was talking about his motivation. That his motivation has led him to say some silly things I don’t dispute.
 
PetraG said:
Provided the scientist does not turn from his science and pretend he can ignore the rest of human intellectual endeavor when making his political and social pronouncements because those other endeavors aren’t required to do science, I agree.
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Yes, fair enough. Scientists are people too, and however rigorous their scientific research, we should not assume that their views on politics or sport deserve the same respect on those grounds alone.
 
Wow this thread really gets people going.
What’s your guess as to how long this thread, including subsequent evolved editions, will last for?
  1. Forever?
  2. Until v5.2?
  3. Until v31.4?
And what will determine this?
  1. Failure of posters to mutate?
  2. Catastrophic selective pressure?
  3. Intelligent moderator bringing in the end of times?
 
Hugh_Farey said:
I wholeheartedly embrace the theory of evolution in all its practical, empirical and historical terms
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To advance your argument, it would be better to provide some explanation as to how random mutation on a molecular level works; or is that not what we are talking about.

Let me illustrate what I am getting at, using Sickle Cell anemia as an example. It’s actually a group of disorders that have to do with changes in the DNA that codes for hemoglobin. The abnormal genome results in the production of an atypical hemoglobin protein, which makes the cell fragile, less piable and prone to distortion (sickling) under conditions of low oxygen. There are numerous health problems that ensue. This illness would have presumably first presented itself with a random mutation of the DNA, which no longer contributed the information ncessary to produce normal hemoglobin. Given the higher moratality rate associated with the disorder, one would imagine that it should have gradually disappeared from the human genome, but it hasn’t because it confers some resistence to malaria for those individuals who are heterozygous. The question remains as to how the initial hemoglobin could have been formed from random events.

There are many different scenarios that lead to genetic changes. That a few may result in some natural advantage is probable. That random material change, operating solely on the interactions that define matter, can on their own, without a external ordering principle, produce the sophistication seen in the bodies of living things, is absurd except to believers.

Using a different example, without enzymes, life is not possible because they bring together molecules in the particular configurations necessary for the specific physiological process of life to occur. Those enzymes are coded for in the DNA and all has to come together as planned, because without that, nothing much of anything will happen.
 
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rossum said:
Not quite. Modern Coelacanths are very different from their fossil ancestors, they are much larger and live in much deeper water than their fossil ancestors.
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Yup, same fish adapted differently. Very different my …
 
buffalo said:
No. ID, the science searches for the signatures of an intelligent agency
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That’s what gets it labelled as pseudoscience - the search for what higher order, intelligent rather than blind, causes matter to behave as it does, beyond such intrinsic capacities as those summarized by the four basic interactions. People want to find the lost keys under the lampost where they can see, rather than in the darkness where they truly lie. Most evolutionary theories simply substitute randomness for the idea of a god. Things happen for which there is no explanation, and it must therefore be random.
 
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That’s right, which is why ‘reverse engineering’ is being done by scientists right now.
 
Aloysium said:
That’s what gets it labelled as pseudoscience - the search for what higher order, intelligent rather than blind, causes matter to behave as it does, beyond such intrinsic capacities as those summarized by the four basic interactions. People want to find the lost keys under the lampost where they can see, rather than in the darkness where they truly lie. Most evolutionary theories simply substitute randomness for the idea of a god. Things happen for which there is no explanation, and it must therefore be random.
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Methodological naturalism forbids this and why science has painted itself into a corner. It claims the highest seat on knowledge but cannot search beyond its own borders. It cannot find truth then. Everything is seen through this hazy and obscured lens.

Science itself allows the unobservable in many of its claims. For example, gravity cannot be directly observed, only its effects. Same with an intelligent agency. They are either both science or neither.

We cannot directly observe the mind, yet the study of it is considered scientific.
 
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Hugh_Farey said:
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Techno2000:
Wait a minute how did they die ?
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As any animal dies, predation, disease, accident, jus’ plain old age.
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But, previous creatures have tons of offspring out there that are just like they are.
 
ratio1 said:
Wow this thread really gets people going.
What’s your guess as to how long this thread, including subsequent evolved editions, will last for?
  1. Forever?
  2. Until v5.2?
  3. Until v31.4?
And what will determine this?
  1. Failure of posters to mutate?
  2. Catastrophic selective pressure?
  3. Intelligent moderator bringing in the end of times?
Click to expand...
DISCLAIMER: This thread is for entertainment purposes only.
 
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