Religion vs. Thought

Hi everyone, it's my first post here. I lurked around for a bit, so I want to say some things that I think need saying in response to some of the posts. I don't know if anyone will find my ideas original or interesting, but this is a forum, right?

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First off, I'll come clean right away: I'm an atheist. This is not to say that I have proof that all religions are false or something like that. Rather, I couldn't care less about anything any religion had to say concerning things ethereal. Maybe I'll explain why in a moment.

I want to start with outlining some of my thoughts on the science vs. religion and reason vs. religion topics.

1) the science vs. religion conflict

Some people claim that science is fundamentally incompatible with religion in general. But I won't agree to such a sweeping statement. Rather, I'd say that science is by and large incompatible with the modern set of known religions. That is because through science we have learned things about the world that falsify many of the "truths" present in modern religions (and falsifying one claim of a religion puts all the other claims on dubious ground since they are all just about equally grounded.) For example, science has shown that life evolved, that Earth is billions of years old, that humans are not special or somehow ultimate against the backdrop of the universe at large or its pending future, that Earth is not privileged in terms of its relation to the rest of the universe, that there are countless other worlds out there in space with likely other life on them, that souls do not exist, that the universe is orderly and mechanistic (causal), that the universe is of finite age and yet it has many billions of years more to exist, that natural phenomena like weather, volcanism, celestial arrangements, etc. are not controlled by mystical forces, that the earth is round and orbits around a very ordinary sun among countless trillions of visible others, that disease is not caused by evil spirits or wayward demons, that the inner workings of the human body can be unravelled and exposed for what they are -- the workings of a biochemical machine, that the mind and the self are holistic perceptions of the instantaneous state of the brain, that all matter is made of elements which are atoms made up of various combinations of subatomic particles and so on and ultimately is equivalent to energy, that no new energy/matter can be created or destroyed by phenomena internal to our universe, etc.

The very fact that many of these discoveries arouse such fervent denial from religious sectors is testimony to the inherent tension between what are essentially fairy tales (religions) and reproducible, quantifiable, logically interlocked results of a systematic study of the universe. I find it especially amusing that any particular religion would vehemently attack one branch of science or even one scientific theory, all the while tacitly acquiescing to the validity of the rest (and therefore of the very methods and thought processes which produced the problematic results as well!) But even more central to the issue is the cause of such strident opposition: an inherent bias. Clearly, an unbiased observer wouldn't so reliably select to dispute, say, the theory of evolution as opposed to the theories of quantum mechanics, chemistry, orbital dynamics, or geology. Yet, the former actually flows out of the set of the latter (and then some) coupled to empirical data. What makes, for example, some U.S. Christians attack evolution is the conflict of this discovery with their preconceptions derived from their religion. In other words, these people are monumentally biased -- and that is their true problem. Whether early or late in life, they chose to adopt an inflexible doctrine, of which they refuse to let go despite all the reasonable indications toward its inconsistency with reality. These are people who have made a pact with themselves to cease and desist from independent thought on all those issues that concern the edicts of their religion; they are voluntarily crippled as intellectuals. And, that they should fail to acknowledge this obvious impairment in objective debate would be a very poignant indication of just how crippled they are.

An ideal scientist (and granted, with humans that's hardly 100% attainable in practice) is completely non-biased in regard to his or her field of study. However, as religion represents a massive and expansive bias, prima facie no religious person can approach such an ideal. Therefore, a religious person either has to suspend their religion while doing the job of a scientist, or face the risk of having a rather fruitless "scientific" career spent pitting the brick wall of their bias against the brick wall of reality. I hardly doubt it true that many scientists throughout history had trouble separating their religion from their scientific pursuits, resulting in a regrettable tradition of incorporating religion into their view of the universe or alternatively merging their view with their religion to such a degree that their view became itself an unquestionable dogma. That is the ultimate scientific failure and the dark imprint of religion on (especially early) science, and it has been the cause of many significant slowdowns and dead-ends in the history of discovery. To wrap up this lengthy discussion then, science and religion are incompatible as long as religion makes any claims whatsoever about the nature or function of the universe -- because making such claims is precisely the job of science, and science as a general enterprise ultimately does not honor preconceptions.

2) religion vs. reason

The waters separating these two are muddy indeed, not in the least owing to the ever-persistent efforts of the various religious scholars to legitimize their field as one deserving the designation of science. It spans the gamut, starting from blatant propaganda ("Creation Science", "Christian Science Monitor", etc.) designed to expose the public to a mixture of incompatible terms used together enough that the public begins to think that they must be compatible. It goes on to the fuzzy boundaries between religious scholastics examining the sociological and anthropological aspects of religion, versus those attempting to mine a religion for its "divine" message or those attempting to reconcile a religion with the discoveries of science. And this muddiness indeed pervades pretty much any religious debate, especially one pitting zealots against infidels. The haze is at its densest when reasoned arguments are attempted in favor of religion.

Since Christians are such a dominant (and better known to yours truly) presence, I'll pick on them here as opposed to some other religious group. Take, for example, any debate where the Christian is attempting to build their position on top of the Bible or better yet, support this position with Bible quotes. It is no secret that the Bible is not a precise legal document. As a matter of fact, even with precise legal documents experts can disagree on the actual meaning or intent. With the Bible, such disagreements are so inevitable and so wide-ranging that it is probably almost true that there are as many interpretations of it as there are people who have read it.

Yet the various Bible demagogues invariably insist that <u>their</u> interpretation is the correct and perfect one. They often even go so far as to claim that all those who disagree are <i>wrong</i>, <i>misguided</i>, and ultimately <i>doomed</i> for their heresy. This, of course, involves a tacit assumption that the demagogue him/herself has perfect and infallible judgement on the matter. Which, of course, makes the demagogue a perfect and infallible being not unlike the very idea of the god he/she claims to serve. One could call it arrogance, or perhaps a superiority complex, or maybe a mere symptom of impulsive and poorly structured thinking that never got a chance to be honed before it got twisted into its present state. Or perhaps the demagogue truly convinced him/herself that the impulse to scream their interpretation at others is imparted by their god, and that at the same time all the others who are screaming back competing interpretations are not similarly inspired.

Another common sentiment when arguing against an atheist is this: "If I'm wrong, then I don't lose anything. If you're wrong, then you lose everything." Or something to that extent. Of course, an objective take of this retort would show quite a different picture.

From an atheist's point of view, if an individual's life is to have any purpose or meaning whatsoever, then this purpose or meaning must be manifested in the life itself. Thus, an atheist would reply that by insisting on spending time and energy on religious proselitizing, the religious proponent is indeed losing any meaning their life might have otherwise had; in other words, the atheist would say that the religious person is leading an empty and futile struggle if not altogether an empty and futile life -- and worse, pushing this emptiness and futility on others. So I would say in regard to the first part of the retort: "If you're wrong, then you lose meaning."

Now, of course this still doesn't in itself seem like an adequate response to the second part of the retort. However, this time an atheist can justifiably claim that no arbitrary "lose/win" scenario can be accepted on no further ground than merely the wager that one might win. Since for every arbitrary game with win/loose condition, a mirror game can be constructed where the win/loose conditions are reversed. Which is to say, a "religion" complementary to Christianity can be proposed in which the religious are actually the ones who are doomed, while the infidels are rewarded. Giving two such competing belief systems, which one should a person choose? In actuality, there are no objective grounds for a choice here -- and there cannot be as a matter of fact, because a truly endless variety of various possible religious alternatives can be proposed. So, does a Christian really save themselves by plunging into their religion, or do they actively doom themselves by following what in actuality is the wrong path? Some followers of Islam, for example, would claim the latter, and so would some Jews. (In this case, it is particularly amusing to see these three generations of the same religion presenting such complete and excrutiatingly ironic mirror images of each other's response to the other two. And I'm not even mentioning Satanism yet...) Thus, faced with a "fateful" choice of one arbitrary dogma out of an infinity of possibilities, an atheist would simply say they have more important things to bother with than getting lost in a boundless sea of endless what-ifs. The very fact that the proselytizer is not aware of these infinities even while having championed one variant from their number, once again, demonstrates the woeful bias if not altogether hopeless mental impairment.

Some religionists appeal to the sheer numbers of believers, hoping to somehow demonstrate the verasity of their religion in such a bizzarre manner. Of course, when N umptillion people claim themselves to be Blobsians, one can be fairly certain of the accuracy of their claim -- after all, one thinks, they ought to be capable enough of somewhat accurately reporting their own beliefs. At the same time, such a popular vote does not carry any implication for the universe at large (especially the universe aside from the mental representations of those N umptillion individuals.) After all, even if 99.99% of the Earth's population decided to fervently believe that the surface of the Earth is flat, then the fact that the surface is in actuality spherical would still hold true. It really does not matter what any person or group of people believe about the universe -- at least when it comes to an objective investigation of the said universe. In an objective investigation, prior beliefs in the final analysis carry no weight since they are not prima facie objective. Only dispassionate measurement and modelling can enter an objective discussion, and in the course of such measurement and modelling the true properties of the universe eventually emerge regardless of any prior beliefs or desires of the observer. Any pre-existing beliefs can only be justified in the course of an objective investigation if, by sheer luck, they just happened to correspond to the correct models of the universe. Obviously, with religious beliefs being quite complex yet derived from myth and superstition of the stone age, one can hardly expect many of them to hold up against reality with the passage of time -- and, of course, they are crumbling all over the place even as we discuss it. But yes indeed, these are two very different things to believe an individual's honest description of their internal state vs. believing an individual's all-encompassing and absolute claims about the universe at large including the audience that are based on nothing else other than that individual's internal state. To an audience familiar with reason, one just does not follow from the other.

Well, this has been long and tedious. If you've read this far, please feel free to comment. I'll check back a few times, but I may not have much time to engage in prolonged discussions...

Cheers!

 

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Atheism vs. Sanity

*Originally posted by Bambi
science has shown that life evolved, that Earth is billions of years old, that humans are not special or somehow ultimate against the backdrop of the universe at large or its pending future, that Earth is not privileged in terms of its relation to the rest of the universe, that there are countless other worlds out there in space with likely other life on them, that souls do not exist, that the universe is orderly and mechanistic (causal), that the universe is of finite age and yet it has many billions of years more to exist, that natural phenomena like weather, volcanism, celestial arrangements, etc. are not controlled by mystical forces, that the earth is round and orbits around a very ordinary sun among countless trillions of visible others, that disease is not caused by evil spirits or wayward demons, that the inner workings of the human body can be unravelled and exposed for what they are -- the workings of a biochemical machine, that the mind and the self are holistic perceptions of the instantaneous state of the brain, that all matter is made of elements which are atoms made up of various combinations of subatomic particles and so on and ultimately is equivalent to energy, that no new energy/matter can be created or destroyed by phenomena internal to our universe, etc.*

But Science hasn't shown as any of those things.
What science does is collect data.
Unfortunately, data collectors sometimes think that they can derive conclusions contrary to the data they collect.
The ultimate "science vs. reason" scenario where both come out losers.

*The very fact that many of these discoveries arouse such fervent denial from religious sectors is testimony to the inherent tension between what are essentially fairy tales (religions) and reproducible, quantifiable, logically interlocked results of a systematic study of the universe.*

The very fact that Christianity in particular arouses such fervent denial from scientific sectors is testimony to the inherent tension between what are essentially fairy tales (scientific conclusions) and the truth of a systematic study of the universe.

* I find it especially amusing that any particular religion would vehemently attack one branch of science or even one scientific theory, all the while tacitly acquiescing to the validity of the rest (and therefore of the very methods and thought processes which produced the problematic results as well!)*

What I find amusing is that an attack on ridiculous "scientific" conclusions is considered an attack on methods of data collection and the efforts of those who collect the data.
It would ordinarily seem obvious that data is neutral, but ridiculous conclusions are, well, ridiculous.

*But even more central to the issue is the cause of such strident opposition: an inherent bias. Clearly, an unbiased observer wouldn't so reliably select to dispute, say, the theory of evolution as opposed to the theories of quantum mechanics, chemistry, orbital dynamics, or geology.*

A truly unbiased observer would select to dispute ridiculous theories, but not dispute data collection in the fields of quantum mechanics, chemistry, orbital dynamics, or geology.

*Yet, the former actually flows out of the set of the latter (and then some) coupled to empirical data.*

Theories don't "flow" out of data; they are concocted.

*What makes, for example, some U.S. Christians attack evolution is the conflict of this discovery with their preconceptions derived from their religion.*

Such an assumption would flow out of a total lack of understanding of what evolution would have to be if it were true.
It would also flow out of a simple lack of understanding of arithmetic.

*And, that they should fail to acknowledge this obvious impairment in objective debate would be a very poignant indication of just how crippled they are.*

I note your own lack of acknowledgment of your impairments, most obviously the complete brainwashing you received in school via a carefully-manipulated curriculum.
"Carefully-manipulated" being defined in terms of adults vs, eight-year-olds.
"Kudos" to all the professional "educators" who can pull the wool over the eyes of little children.
You must be very proud.

*However, as religion represents a massive and expansive bias, prima facie no religious person can approach such an ideal. Therefore, a religious person either has to suspend their religion while doing the job of a scientist, or face the risk of having a rather fruitless "scientific" career spent pitting the brick wall of their bias against the brick wall of reality.*

Excellent point!!!!
That would explain how the scientists who believe in the religion of evolution have a tough time sounding literate or even conscious.
Some have given up and become "evolutionary psychologists," the ultimate fantasy career, studying the impact of fantasy upon fantasy.
Who could argue with conclusions drawn by such geniuses?

*I hardly doubt it true that many scientists throughout history had trouble separating their religion from their scientific pursuits, resulting in a regrettable tradition of incorporating religion into their view of the universe or alternatively merging their view with their religion to such a degree that their view became itself an unquestionable dogma.*

Another strikingly brilliant point!!!
You are on a roll, Bambi!!!
What more unquestionable (or should I say "questionable?") dogma is there than the theory of evolution?

*To wrap up this lengthy discussion then, science and religion are incompatible as long as religion makes any claims whatsoever about the nature or function of the universe -- because making such claims is precisely the job of science, and science as a general enterprise ultimately does not honor preconceptions.*

You were doing so well there for a minute.
The job of science is to collect data.
It cannot make any claims whatsoever, other than, "I have collected data."

*The waters separating these two are muddy indeed, not in the least owing to the ever-persistent efforts of the various religious scholars to legitimize their field as one deserving the designation of science.*

Unfortunately true.
Why Christians would stoop to wanting their efforts to be labelled "science" is beyond me.
Truth is more than mere data.

*It goes on to the fuzzy boundaries between religious scholastics examining the sociological and anthropological aspects of religion, versus those attempting to mine a religion for its "divine" message or those attempting to reconcile a religion with the discoveries of science.*

That is a problem.
It is difficult to imagine how some could confuse truth with a list of numbers, which is a very typical result of scientific discovery.
Even worse, all of those evolutionists are attempting to mine their data for the "divine" message, "There is no God."
In fact, they are attempting prove a religious concept using scientific discoveries deceptively to do so.

*And this muddiness indeed pervades pretty much any religious debate, especially one pitting zealots against infidels. The haze is at its densest when reasoned arguments are attempted in favor of religion.*

And the densest haze in the midst of that dense haze is apparent when zealots that favor evolution are propounding their gospel, or should I say their "baspel," against all truth, reason, logic, arithmetic or the basic requirements of sanity.

*It is no secret that the Bible is not a precise legal document.*

It is even less of a secret that papers propounding evolution are not legal documents, either.
In fact, they would more accurately be termed a great waste of paper.

*With the Bible, such disagreements are so inevitable and so wide-ranging that it is probably almost true that there are as many interpretations of it as there are people who have read it.*

A more accurate statement would be that there are as many interpretations of the Bible as people who have NOT read it.

*One could call it arrogance, or perhaps a superiority complex, or maybe a mere symptom of impulsive and poorly structured thinking that never got a chance to be honed before it got twisted into its present state.*

This is a perfect description of many evolutionists.
I congratulate you on your amazing perceptions of the psychology of the religion of evolution.

*Another common sentiment...

From an atheist's point of view, ...
"If you're wrong, then you lose meaning."*

Of course, even if the atheist is right, he/she still has nothing.

*Which is to say, a "religion" complementary to Christianity can be proposed in which the religious are actually the ones who are doomed, while the infidels are rewarded. Giving two such competing belief systems, which one should a person choose?*

Interesting choice.
Thus, those who end up being rewarded are those who don't believe they will be.
Those who end up being doomed are those who believe they won't be.
In fact, all results in such a world would be the opposite of what they are believed to be.
I believe Jerry Siegel (correction?) thought up such a world; he called it "Bizarro World."

Can you see why Christians might consider atheistic "thinking" somewhat bizarre?

*Thus, faced with a "fateful" choice of one arbitrary dogma out of an infinity of possibilities, an atheist would simply say they have more important things to bother with than getting lost in a boundless sea of endless what-ifs.*

The more important thing that most atheists find themselves bothering with is how to feed themselves.
Christians need not bother with that worry since they end up with plenty, even to feed atheists.

*The very fact that the proselytizer is not aware of these infinities even while having championed one variant from their number, once again, demonstrates the woeful bias if not altogether hopeless mental impairment.*

I admit it is mental impairment to feed atheists who are so stupid they starve.
On the other hand, I'll take that mental impairment over the one that causes atheists to starve in the first place.

*Some religionists appeal to the sheer numbers of believers, hoping to somehow demonstrate the verasity of their religion in such a bizzarre manner.*

Yes, indeed.
Note the evolutionists who appeal to great numbers, contrary to reality, to bolster their point.

* At the same time, such a popular vote does not carry any implication for the universe at large (especially the universe aside from the mental representations of those N umptillion individuals.)*

Agreed. Evolution isn't true, no matter how many evolutionists agree that it is.
As for your point on the mental condition of such people?
Point well taken, I say.

*After all, even if 99.99% of the Earth's population decided to fervently believe that the surface of the Earth is flat, then the fact that the surface is in actuality spherical would still hold true.*

Even if 99.99% of the Earth's population decided to fervently believe that evolution is true, then the fact that it is in actuality ridiculous would still hold true

*It really does not matter what any person or group of people believe about the universe -- at least when it comes to an objective investigation of the said universe.*

Unfortunately, finding objective analysis of the universe among evolutionists is a distant dream.

*Any pre-existing beliefs can only be justified in the course of an objective investigation if, by sheer luck, they just happened to correspond to the correct models of the universe. *

Evolutionists dispense with such niceties.
They rely on assertion.

*Obviously, with religious beliefs being quite complex yet derived from myth and superstition of the stone age, one can hardly expect many of them to hold up against reality with the passage of time -- and, of course, they are crumbling all over the place even as we discuss it.*

Agreed.
More and more scientists are willing to come out and publicly state that evolution is not consistent with reality.

*To an audience familiar with reason, one just does not follow from the other.*

We are working on it.
Sooner or later, some atheists and evolutionists come to their senses.

Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
(Isaiah 1:18, KJV).

 

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Tony1,

I think I detect a pattern emerging in your manner of discussion. You simply start by calling your opposition stupid, inane, incompetent and altogether mentally ill. Once such pronunciations are made, you are not obligated to pay attention to the actual arguments. I hate to get so personal, but your methods are pathetic and disgusting.

I know that I may have sounded like that a few times, too. But at least I bother to justify my epithets.

A few key points:

A very curious definition of the "job of science". However, what you are implying here is that it is impossible to draw valid conclusions from sufficient observation. Such absolute proclamations are easy to refute by describing counterexamples. Thus:

All matterial objects are composed of atoms. Yet this conclusion is not reached from direct observation (here, direct observation is not even possible) -- but rather based on sufficient indirect evidence. So: can science make the claim as to the atomic nature of matter, or can't it?

Another example: The surface of the Earth is spherical. Yet unless you're an astronaut, you have not directly observed it to be so; the conclusion that it is spherical can only be derived from sufficient indirect evidence (and was indeed achieved way before the space age.) So: do you believe the surface of the Earth is spherical? If so, why/why not?

Gee, thanks for the compliment. Though I think I do earn my bread as a software engineer just as well as any religious guy. So how about you? Does manna rain on your doorstep, or do you actually have to earn your living? (and if the latter, then what in blazes do you propose makes Christians and atheists so different when it comes to feeding themselves?)

That's news to me. Being that I'm fairly up on science, I should like to know the source of your statistics.

Nice rhetoric. Now, can you elaborate on what you're actually talking about? Or would you rather care to stick to name-calling?

 

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There's a whole organization out there. Here's a snippet from "Answers In Genesis" on the PBS special "Evolution"

"To avoid the impression that this was one-sided propaganda, they claim that the Discovery Institute, part of the Intelligent Design Movement, was invited for ‘balance’. But the Discovery Institute pointed out that they declined because they would have been slotted in to the ‘religious’ objections sections whereas their objections to evolution are purely scientific."

Tony's style is nothing unusual. There's nothing wrong with ribbing the opponent and using humour to throw them off guard. This is writting. I think you can sort out the point from his style. Just ignore it.

Oh and here's a quote for you:

"It is absolutely safe to say that, if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I'd rather not consider that)." ­ Leading Darwinist Richard Dawkins

Ben

 

Ben,

If this forum was all about verbal fencing, then I would leave and never return. I'm simply not interested in that. On the other hand, one's style is not altogether disassociated from one's argument. The two tend to form a sort of feedback -- so that if the style is junk, the argument also tends to be junk (the thoughtful responses get filtered out as stylistically inappropriate.) But thanks for the shoulder of support, even if you didn't really mean it.

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I cannot claim that I have read through all Creationist arguments, but I have seen a couple dozen. None of them impressed me, as all of them have been soundly refuted. The talkorigins website is a prime example. Of course, the proponents of these arguments often do not back off and do not acknowledge defeat (why should they? they are being paid as long as they "fight".) Generally, though, the longer they keep extending their hypotheses to cover flaws, the phonier they get. At least that has been my impression.

Didn't get the chance to see the PBS series, but then again I probably already know much of the subject matter (I may be wrong in this case, but such programs tend to cater to the lowest common denominator.)

As for the Dawkins quote, I would mostly agree. I would put more emphasis on ignorance than on anything else, since the theory of evolution is criticised or rejected primarily by people who do not actually understand what they are criticising. Once, I've attended a lecture by a big-name creationist from Berkeley (can't remember his name, Wilson, Watson?) arguing for Intelligent Design. I couldn't believe the basic ineptitude of this alleged Ph.D. He was neglecting or getting simple facts wrong, and misusing terminology right and left. At the end, during the Q&A session, he was basically dodging questions pointing out blatant inconsistencies and fallasies of his presentation, with his main retort being something along the lines of "can't we all just get along?" I left with a very bad taste in my mouth. This guy was pretending to be a professional, speaking to a university audience in what was hyped up as a major event! What was he thinking, that his ignorance would somehow go unnoticed? Maybe he wasn't expecting the sponsoring campus Christian organizations to have assembled such a well-educated audience (they did their job promoting the event too well!); maybe he expected to preach to the choir and got a nasty surprise.

As for the opposition to evolution, it has been fiercely present since the theory's first publication (for quite understandable and timeless religious reasons.) However, this opposition has steadily gone down with time, as the theory passed test after test, accumulated ever more supporting data, and as the objections were shown to be spurious or contradictory to observed facts. Which is why Tony's claim that the <u>scientific</u> opposition to evolution is growing does not sound true to me. Within scientific circles, the theory of evolution is now just as well-accepted as the periodic table of elements. The only thing that changed in the recent years is the new stink that has been kicked up by the Bible belt, as they feel their support base and regional hegemony giving in to the pressures of modernization.

But what I'm really interested in, is the arguments that <u>you</u> guys can offer. You claim that evolution is BS based on some sort of reasoning, right? You aren't just taking your religious representatives' word for it, right? So come on, step up to the plate and learn something. (I hope you don't drown me in technicalia gleaned without any understanding from the online theses of calculus-wielding, quantum-physics citing creationist "scientists". I may not even understand what they talk about due to sheer jargon, and neither would you, of course (leave the experts to the experts.) I'm hoping for the arguments that you actually understand yourself (and which I feel I should be able to address.)

 

*Originally posted by Bambi
I think I detect a pattern emerging in your manner of discussion. You simply start by calling your opposition stupid, inane, incompetent and altogether mentally ill.*

This is different from your approach, how?
Your first three words were "Religion vs. Thought."

*I hate to get so personal, but your methods are pathetic and disgusting.*

I feel your pain.

*I know that I may have sounded like that a few times, too. But at least I bother to justify my epithets.*

Rationalization doesn't change anything.

*A very curious definition of the "job of science". However, what you are implying here is that it is impossible to draw valid conclusions from sufficient observation.*

It is possible to draw valid conclusions from data.
It is just that evolutionists rarely do so.

*All matterial objects are composed of atoms. Yet this conclusion is not reached from direct observation (here, direct observation is not even possible) -- but rather based on sufficient indirect evidence. So: can science make the claim as to the atomic nature of matter, or can't it?*

Greek philosophers made the same claim thousands of years ago.
So, scientists can copy what the Greeks did, if they wish.

*Another example: The surface of the Earth is spherical. Yet unless you're an astronaut, you have not directly observed it to be so; the conclusion that it is spherical can only be derived from sufficient indirect evidence (and was indeed achieved way before the space age.) So: do you believe the surface of the Earth is spherical? If so, why/why not?*

Actually, the shape of the the earth is an oblate spheroid.

*Gee, thanks for the compliment. Though I think I do earn my bread as a software engineer just as well as any religious guy. So how about you? Does manna rain on your doorstep, or do you actually have to earn your living? (and if the latter, then what in blazes do you propose makes Christians and atheists so different when it comes to feeding themselves?)*

Most Christians I know have enough to feed others as well.
My concern with "earning" a living is that I know my own is guaranteed, but I wish to make sure others eat, too.

*That's news to me. Being that I'm fairly up on science, I should like to know the source of your statistics.*

Here is one interesting quote...

"The hold of the evolutionary paradigm [theoretical system] is so powerful that an idea which is more like a principle of medieval astrology than a serious twentieth century scientific theory has become a reality for evolutionary biologists."—*Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis (1985), p. 306 [Australian molecular biologist].

Here is another...

Secular researcher Richard Milton summarized the current world situation: "Darwinism has never had much appeal for science outside of the English-speaking world, and has never appealed much to the American public (although popular with the U.S. scientific establishment in the past). However, its ascendancy in science, in both Britain and America, has been waning for several decades as its grip has weakened in successive areas: geology; paleontology; embryology; comparative anatomy. Now even geneticists are beginning to have doubts. It is only in mainstream molecular biology and zoology that Darwinism retains serious enthusiastic supporters.
As growing numbers of scientists begin to drift away from neo-Darwinist ideas, the revision of Darwinism at the public level is long overdue, and is a process that I believe has already started."

Richard Milton, Shattering the Myths of Darwinism
(Rochester, Vermont: Park Street Press, 1992, 1997), p. 277.

However, the source of the statistics varies from the New York Times to various scientific journals.

*Nice rhetoric.*

It isn't rhetoric, unless you are willing to define your own piece as rhetoric.
Evolution is a schoolbook idea; it has nothing to do with real science.

*On the other hand, one's style is not altogether disassociated from one's argument.*

True.
I dismiss evolution, so I write about it dismissively.

*Creationist arguments... have been soundly refuted.*

Evolutionist arguments certainly aren't what "refutes" creationist arguments, if that is what you are getting at.
Evolutionist arguments are self-contradictory prima facie.
For example even the title of "The Origin of Species" is self-contradictory.
If evolution were true, then there would only be one species which takes on different forms at dofferent times and in different places.

*Didn't get the chance to see the PBS series, but then again I probably already know much of the subject matter (I may be wrong in this case, but such programs tend to cater to the lowest common denominator.) *

I did. What a farce.
Before seeing that hours-long commercial for evolution, I tended to be more civil in discussing it.
Now, thanks to that commercial, I can see that evolution is pathetically ludicrous.

*the theory of evolution is criticised or rejected primarily by people who do not actually understand what they are criticising.*

Of course people who criticize evolution don't know what they are criticizing.
People who support evolution don't know what they are supporting.
No one does.
Evolution can't decide whether they are supporting microevolution, macroevolution, cosmic evolution, natural selection, adaptation.
Trying to argue against evolution is a lot like trying to nail Jello to a wall.
There is no real target, other than the naivete of believers in evolution.

*As for the opposition to evolution, it has been fiercely present since the theory's first publication (for quite understandable and timeless religious reasons.)*

Of course, there are the mathematical, statistical, geological, biological, zoological and logical reasons to consider, also.

*However, this opposition has steadily gone down with time, as the theory passed test after test, accumulated ever more supporting data, and as the objections were shown to be spurious or contradictory to observed facts.*

The theory of evolution hasn't passed any tests at all.
It also doesn't have any supporting data, except for wishful thinking.
And there aren't any observed facts supporting evolution.

One relatively important observation which would convince to change my mind back to supporting evolution is the observation of actual evolution.

If evolution were true, then evolution could easily be observed because it would have to take place rather rapidly.

If we have 100 billion neurons in our brains and the earth is 5 billion years old then an increase of 20 neurons per year (not generation) would be an easily observable event.
Of course, it would be tough to explain how the first single-celled creature could have a 20-neuron brain after a single year.
It is also tough to explain why every single-celled creature is not evolving at the rate of 20-neurons increase per year.

*You claim that evolution is BS based on some sort of reasoning, right?*

No, we are claiming that evolution is BS based on the absence of reasoning on the other side.

 

Tony,

First of all, I congratulate you on a breakthrough. You went from <i>"It cannot make any claims whatsoever, other than, "I have collected data"</i> to <i>It is possible to draw valid conclusions from data.</i> That's quite a leap. I suppose the counterexamples did their job, no matter how hard you tried to dodge them...

As for quotes, they hardly demonstrate anything other than the presense of opposition. I find "quote wars" pointless, since for every "pro" quote a "con" quote can be found. After you mentioned the New York Times and "various scientific journals", I assumed that with such sources there should be something available on the internet. However, I found nothing except creationist websites decrying evolution on philosophical grounds.

Now for the specific challenges you proffered. Frankly, I braced for a little more difficulty, but I suppose we have to start with something...

Such a conclusion does not follow at all. Evolution describes genetic differentiation driven by physical and/or interbreeding barriers. Under that paradigm, the many branchings of the "tree of life" are indeed very much expected as the outcome. The scenario you offer is indeed the least likely (and, of course, incorrect given the evidence.)

Perhaps if life was "intelligently designed", there would be one clear pattern or methodology easily apparent when one examines life's structure. However, evolution is messy because it is driven by many random inputs. As a result the very construction of living organisms is messy. Given how complex the systems are, how complex their lifecycles are, and the complexity of their interactions with the complex environment, many different routes of selective pressure and genetic variation can be hypothesized. Over time, some of these hypotheses had passed muster while others withered. It is important to realize that while evolution itself is a well-established fact, the mechanisms that drive it are still being debated. Which is normal for a topic dealing with such complexity.

Compare the debate on the mechanisms of evolution to the debate on the mechanisms that drive weather. Despite massive research to date, perfect weather prediction is still impossible even over relatively short term. This is due to the inherent complexity of the Earth's atmosphere and all the different ways it reacts to inputs from space, from the ground and even from within parts of itself. You may be familiar with the mathematical concept of chaos. Well, the atmosphere seems to be a chaotic system, which is why it is so hard (and maybe even impossible) to precisely quanify all of its behaviors using just a few elegant laws. There may be no other way to precisely determine the atmosphere's behavior than by brute-force computational simulation of it on very fine grids using complex rules per each grid location (and hence, the current ability to predict weather is directly related both to currently available computational power and the fidelity of the current set of rules that are to be applied to the grid -- as well, of course, as the accuracy of the input data for the initial conditions.)

But the complexity of the atmosphere and its interactions with the environment are laughable when compared to the complexity of life and its interactions. If the history of the atmosphere is chaotic, then the history of life is ultra-super-uber-chaotic. And so, it is no secret that science does not completely understand life's history and all the mechanisms that drove it. However, the same can be said of meteorology. Yet for some reason we don't see religionists attacking the science of weather on the same grounds that they attack the science of life. That is a manifestation of the massive bias I mentioned in the first post on this thread.

No, actulally. Even during still poorly-understood apparent "spurts" in the pace of evolution during certain periods, the actual pace of evolution was still too slow on human time scales to be observed. When scientists talk about "rapid" evolution during such periods, they compare rates on a geological, not human, time scale.

Sure, if you make the patently false assumption that the brain evolved by adding 20 neurons annually over 5 billion years. Of course, I have no idea why you would want to entertain such a humorous notion.

Why is that so tough to explain? The evolution of the brain is only possible in multi-celled organisms to begin with. And even then, such evolution must take a trajectory along a selective pressure gradient. If a multi-celled organism is more fit without a brain than with one, then it would be very unlikely to branch off into a species that does have a brain.

 

You need to brush up on your research skills.

www.discovery.org

That's the official "Discovery Institute" web site. It took me 5 minutes with nothing but the name of the organization to go by using Google to find their site.

What were you looking for?

Ben

 

Ben,

If I knew apriori of this institute, then I would've found it as easily as you did. But then again, that is not "research skills", it's lookup skills.

Incidentally, if you were following our discussion with Tony, I was looking for statistics proving that within scientific circles there has been more opposition to evolution recently than in the past. If you can help me in finding these statistics, I'll be thankful.

Cheers

 

"Intelligent Design" as an established scientific field has only recently been established. Discovery Institute was founded I believe in 1990.

It would therefore stand to reason that more scientists are openly opposing evolution than before.

Ben

 

Hmm? I don't think it follows at all. Think about it: when Darwin first published his thesis, practically the entire scientific establishment was against it. Yet the "intelligend design" movement did not formally exist then, at least according to you.

So what does it mean that, according to you, the "intelligend design" movement has been recently made official? All it means is that some of the old opposition got organized under a new banner.

 

Welcome Bambi!

I can see that you have only been her for two days and have already gotten genuinly pissed off at Tony.

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And I´m sorry to dissapoint you, but this forum is very much about verbal fencing, I have found out...

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But maybe you will stick around anyway, because verbal fencing has it´s qualities too.

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Genuinely pissed off??

Do I really sound "genuinely pissed off"? Wow.

Anyway, I <u>try</u> not to fence. I <u>try</u> to pick out useful argumentative nuggets. I may have slipped a couple of times, but, shoot, I try! And, I still believe Tony can do more than just fence, when he puts his mind to it.

Thanks for the welcome though, Beb. Maybe I'll stick around for a while; this forum is quite unlike some of the others I've seen (the others are so fast-paced that by the time you reply to an issue in a thread it has already been buried by 100 new threads and there are like 50 new posts between yours and the one you are replying to, within the same thread. Just makes you feel like you are screeming into a hurricane.)

 

*Originally posted by Bambi
First of all, I congratulate you on a breakthrough. You went from <i>"It cannot make any claims whatsoever, other than, "I have collected data"</i> to <i>It is possible to draw valid conclusions from data.</i> That's quite a leap.*

Don't exult just yet.
Science cannot make any claims.
Scientists can claim, "I have collected data."
I can draw valid conclusions from collected data.

*However, I found nothing except creationist websites decrying evolution on philosophical grounds.*

It took me seconds to find my quotes.
Besides, I'm not decrying evolution on philosophical grounds in general, I deny evolution on scientific grounds.

As for statistics, I wonder who would keep them when most statisticians favor the opposing view.

*Such a conclusion does not follow at all.*

Thank you for sharing that with me.
But it does follow.
For all species that share any genetic structure must be of the same species if evolution is true.
Species that evolve completely independently would have completely different structures that might not even be called genetic.

To claim that similar structures would evolve identically under different conditions due to some "inherent" characteristic in the chemicals forming them is tantamount to admitting to intelligent design by some other name.

*Evolution describes genetic differentiation driven by physical and/or interbreeding barriers.*

Yet this genetic differentiation is produced by identical genes.
That is a problem for evolution for reasons outlined above.

*Under that paradigm, the many branchings of the "tree of life" are indeed very much expected as the outcome. The scenario you offer is indeed the least likely (and, of course, incorrect given the evidence.)*

That paradigm is incorrect.
What would actually be expected is many different trees of life.
The scenario you offer bears no resemblance to scenarios suggested by the existing evidence.

*Perhaps if life was "intelligently designed", there would be one clear pattern or methodology easily apparent when one examines life's structure.*

Evolutionists keep referring to "genetic structure."
That is the one clear pattern or methodology which is easily apparent.
There is no particular reason for genes to be the method by which evolution proceeds, yet that is the one unifying factor in all species which points to intelligent design.

Other forms of evolution are not limited to genetic evolution, so why should life be?

*However, evolution is messy because it is driven by many random inputs.*

How true.
Much randomness is evident in the theory of evolution.
Speaking of which, what is the hypothesis in the grand experiment called life for which evolution is the conclusion?

*As a result the very construction of living organisms is messy. Given how complex the systems are, how complex their lifecycles are, and the complexity of their interactions with the complex environment, many different routes of selective pressure and genetic variation can be hypothesized.*

Hypothesis is the keyword in the theory of evolution, of course.

*It is important to realize that while evolution itself is a well-established fact, the mechanisms that drive it are still being debated.*

It is even more important to realize that the theory of evolution is a very poorly formulated, hypothetical, completely unestablished fantasy barely worthy of the name "theory" or even "hypothesis."

The mechanisms which drive it should be understood to be psychological.
Evolution has never been observed, and no traces of evolution have ever existed or been found.

*Which is normal for a topic dealing with such complexity.*

The complexity arises from the many mental contortions which evolutionists face on a daily basis.

*Compare the debate on the mechanisms of evolution to the debate on the mechanisms that drive weather.*

There aren't any.
What you see in the field of meteorology is actual science being performed by actual scientists.

*the atmosphere seems to be a chaotic system*

Great.

*it is no secret that science does not completely understand life's history and all the mechanisms that drove it.*

It certainly isn't a secret that science has no clue.

*However, the same can be said of meteorology. Yet for some reason we don't see religionists attacking the science of weather on the same grounds that they attack the science of life. That is a manifestation of the massive bias I mentioned in the first post on this thread.*

Actually, it is a manifestation of reality.
We can see weather.
No one has ever seen evolution.

*Even during still poorly-understood apparent "spurts" in the pace of evolution during certain periods, the actual pace of evolution was still too slow on human time scales to be observed.*

Those "spurts" are poorly understood because they are a kludge, a poorly devised hack, to avoid the issue of the rapidity at which evolution would have to proceed.

Since we have 3 billion base pairs in our genetic structures, we would have to have average a new base pair every 18 months for 5 billion years.

We can't have offspring that fast, so "punctuated equilibrium" was invented.
For creatures that can have offspring that fast, no new base pairs have been added, so evolution pretty much collapses on that basis alone.
Of course, evolutionists sneer at issues that would give real scientists pause.

*When scientists talk about "rapid" evolution during such periods, they compare rates on a geological, not human, time scale.*

Well, they try to anyway.
Most people who can't divide 5 billion by 3 billion, because they are such large, "almost incomprehensible" numbers, are easily sucked in.
The rest of us merely divide two large numbers to get one unusually small one.

Surely you can realize that adding a new base pair every 100,000 years would only have given us 50,000 base pairs by now.
We would be like amoebae.

*Sure, if you make the patently false assumption that the brain evolved by adding 20 neurons annually over 5 billion years. Of course, I have no idea why you would want to entertain such a humorous notion.*

I'm glad you see that it is patently false, but that is what evolutionists are trying to get us to believe.
As for the humor involved, believe you me, I laugh plenty when evolutionists start talking, particularly when they are "evolutionary psychologists."
What a scam!!
I only wish I'd thought of it!
What a gravy train, theorizing about the impact of fantasy on fantasy and getting paid for it.
Too bad I didn't realize people were such suckers sooner.

*Why is that so tough to explain? The evolution of the brain is only possible in multi-celled organisms to begin with.*

Exactly.
The longer you put off developing a brain, the faster it has to develop to get to the current size, making the task of explaining it realistically even tougher.
Of course, evolutionists have dispensed with reality, so I await the "scientific" explanation with painkillers at the ready (so my sides won't hurt too much).

*Anyway, I try not to fence. I try to pick out useful argumentative nuggets. I may have slipped a couple of times, but, shoot, I try! And, I still believe Tony can do more than just fence, when he puts his mind to it. *

I haven't noticed you doing verbal fencing.
You seem to putting some effort into your posts, although from my perspective, it looks rather heavily biased against critical thought.
That isn't a personal thing; it's a school thing.
Some people take years to overcome their schooling.
Others never do.
Yet others were so bad in school, they never got distorted in the first place (that's why some are millionaires and billionaires now).
As for me being able to do more than fence, I only do more against serious opposition.

 

Hey Tony, buddy.

I just have to tell you: you are fantastically fascinating. Take this, for example:

History had seen Renaissance men, but it ain't seen nothing until you came along. You must be an expert in every single field of science known to man! Next time NASA needs an expert opinion on how to fix a space shuttle engine, they should look no further than the discerning judgement of Tony. I bow before your truly supernatural authority!

Tee hee. That was hilarious, thank you.

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Anyway, back to business...

Strange way to put it, but I think what you were trying to say is this: if any two species share genetic structure, then they probably had a common ancestor at some point in the past (it's unlikely they could have developed the same genetic structure independently.) This is one of the observations that implies evolution based on examination of modern life.

I don't know where you got this claim from, but you won't get it from me.

Sorry, but I do not understand what you are talking about. Let's consider a specific example, and see where your problem lies:

1) Organism A divides: organisms B and C are the result. A mutation occurred in a single gene during the duplication of the genome, so that while B has the old copy (exact same genome as A), C has a new copy (which is not the same as the one in A).

the mutation was benign, so C survives and reproduces.

2) B and C continue to divide without any mutations, soon resulting in two large populations that have identical genomes except for a single gene.

3) Now, take organism D from B's offspring, and organism E from C's offspring. When these two divide, a single-gene mutation occurs in a different gene in both cases. Assuming the two mutations were once again benigh, the two new variants proliferate.

Now we have 4 genetically separate populations:
Population 1 has exactly the same genome as A (same genome as B)
Population 2 has exactly the same genome as A, except for gene [x] (same genome as C).
Population 3 has exactly the same genome as A, except for gene [y] (same genome as D's mutant offspring)
Population 4 has exactly the same genome as A, except for genes [x] and [w] (same genome as E's mutant offspring)

etc. Benign mutations slowly accumulate over time. Some populations turn out to be less competitive and are squeezed out by more successful populations. Genomes of progeny continue to diverge from the original genome of A. Eventually, you end up with many different cell lines that branched off from a single ancestor (which may even be itself represented in the census -- or it may have been driven to extinction by more successful mutants.) They all share some common genetic structure (in fact, a great deal of it!) -- but they all have different genomes. Some of them may have accumulated enough mutations to make them somehow different (e.g. harder cell wall, or more voracious appetite, or more efficient waste disposal, etc.) not just in terms of their genotype, but even in terms of phenotype and how they affect their environment. At this point, you might justifiably call them a new species. But their existence doesn't mean that their "relatives" aren't still present, with potential to give rise to their own species.

Ok, your turn.

Good points, actually! (bravo)

Why should life be limited to RNA, DNA, etc? It probably isn't. That all known forms of life share the same biochemical foundation indicates not intelligent design, but common descent. One has to surmise that early in the history of life there might have been several competing architectures, and that what we see today turned out to be so much better that it drove the rest of its competitors to extinction. An alternative explanation used to be that formation of life may be very improbable (so you would actually be surprised to see it occur several times on the same planet) -- but the more recent discoveries show that life originated on Earth almost as soon as the conditions allowed it, implying that the formation of life may not be so improbable after all. One interesting thing would be to find extraterrestrial life (e.g. on Mars, Europa, or wherever) and compare its architecture with known terrestrial life. Most scientists expect the extraterrestrial life, if it is indeed present in our solar system, to be quite different from life on earth.

There also are some scientists on the fringe of biology, who claim to have discovered what are called "nanobacteria" -- allegedly living things so small that DNA wouldn't even fit into them. If these turn out to be for real, they may very well represent an alternative architecture of life on Earth. After all, one possible reason we only know DNA-based life today could be that it was the only type that could scale to ever-larger organisms.

I assume that by "hypothesis" you mean "question" (hypotheses don't have conclusions)?

Of course, the grand and ultimate question is "where did life come from". There are of course other, less grand question, for which evolution serves as the answer. For example:

Where did humans come from? Why does all known life, no matter how apparently diverse, share the same basic biochemical mechanisms? Why does so much of life share basically the same cellular organelles across drastically different species (e.g. mitochondria, ribosomes, Golgi apparatus, chloroplasts)? Why are there all these different species that have similar genomes? Why do all the species of life neatly arrange themselves into a hierarchy when you plot the more similar genomes closer together? How come the "simpler" forms of life that have smaller genomes always end up closer to the root of this hierarchy (with most of their genes shared by organisms with larger genomes)? How come this same hierarchy is also reflected in a layering of fossils and other geological traces of past life, in that the simpler forms are the ones that appear or leave their traces the earliest? How come we are so similar in genome to the great apes? Why do developing human fetuses look first like any other species' fetus, then like a fish (with functional gills(!) and a tail), then like an amphibian (with webbing between fingers and everything), then like any other mammal, then like an ape fetus, and only after that uniquely like a human -- once again, repeating part of that very same hierarchy step by step? Why do humans have what looks like a degenerated tail (totally useless, and actually site of serious injury when broken)? Why five fingers on each of our *feet* -- which are totally useless and excessively vulnerable -- but why do our feet still look so much like our hands in terms of all their bones (and so much like great ape feet)? Why do we have a grasping reflex (manifested in newborns, same as with hands: touch the foot in the middle, and it will attempt to "grasp" your finger) in our feet, which are actually incapable of grasping anything? Why does our blood chemistry almost precisely replicate the constitution of seawater, and why are we 70% water? Why is our body plan so similar to that of so many other vertebrates? Why are our brains so similar to so many other vertebrates, and why is there again that very same hierarchy when you examine the architecture of the brain in various species? Why do humans have useless body hair? Why are there different races of humans? Why is our circulatory system so similar to that of other mammals, and why is there that same hierarchy again when you examine circulatory systems of various vertebrates and invertebrates? Ditto for eyes. Ditto for nose. Ditto for hair, and nails, and feathers, and scales (these are all constructed using basically the same genes!), the digestive systems, the reproductive systems, everything around the mouth (lips, teeth, tongue, throat), etc.? How come we find among the fossils weird-looking lifeforms which don't exist anymore? What happened to them? And on, and on, and on...

?? Did I miss something, or are you under impression that weather just magically happens?

Yes, we would have to <u>average</u> that, or just about. Replace 5 billion years with 4, and foreshorten the period further to accomodate for pre-RNA life (in case it existed). Of course, the average death toll of X per year from massive volcano eruptions does not imply that every year X people die from a massive volcano eruption (which does not in turn imply that massive volcano eruptions never occur.) The augmentation of the genome is not, as a rule, a continuous process. Typically, genomes grow by an entire gene or entire chromosome at a time (as a result of duplication errors during division of the germ precursor, or during development of the genital area subsequent to conception.) Such monumental changes, of course, cannot be successful very often (producing viable offspring capable of reproduction) -- so don't expect to observe many such leaps over your infinitesimal lifetime.

You don't know what "punctuated equilibrium" stands for. It has no intention of explaining the rate of growth in genome sizes. It deals with the fossil record and the appearance in many species of long stretches of little to no change punctuated by brief bursts of accelerated change. Again, "accelerated" still means it takes many millennia (if not millions of years.)

One such "punctuation" is occuring right now: humanity is wreaking massive damage on the environment, resulting in lightning-quick, even instantaneous extinction of thousands of species, changing global climate and contents of the atmosphere and the oceans, reshaping the landscape, introducing new chemicals and structures -- in other words, destroying many niches and creating many new ones. Over time, life will respond by filling in the new niches with new species. Thus, the current mass extinction will eventually be followed by another "explosion" -- provided humanity ever stabilizes its effect on environment enough that the changes are sufficiently slow for evolution to be able to respond to them.

These creatures (I assume you're talking about single-cell organisms) are still evolving, and still adding and removing base pairs through mutation. However, after billions of years of evolution and no new, unoccupied niches available, they are just about perfect within their sphere of existence and don't change much over time (they mostly respond, as a population, to minor changes in their environment with minor changes in the genome -- e.g. antibiotic-resistant germs.) This is the sort of equilibrium that will demand a truly massive global disaster to be "punctuated" (then again, the disaster might have to be so 'disasterous' that life couldn't survive it at all.)

I don't know which "evolutionists" you are talking about -- those that actually don't know anything about evolution and just feel like trying to defend science? Well, I agree: they often do more harm than good, even if the intentions are honorable. I, for one, consider myself an evolutionist, and you won't be getting such nonsense from me (though, of course, I'm not a top-flying expert either.) I try to comment on things only when I know what I'm talking about (you might want to take a lesson from that.)

It's not as tough as you make it sound. The functional portion of the brain is largely composed of slight variations on the same cell: a neuron. Once you have developed neurons, you can proceed to mass-produce them just as bone marrow mass-produces blood cells. Much of the "effort" in obtaining a bigger brain for a fetus lies in allowing the stem cells there to divide a little longer before they start differentiating into neurons and supportive tissue. Of course, some of the remainder of the effort lies in putting the new brain tissue to good use. Which does involve forming some proper connections (which means either taking advantage of the already extant chemical gradients, or supplying some new ones but not necessarily right away within the same generation) -- but the fact still holds that structurally, huge areas of the human brain are basically the same template repeated over and over again. For example, the entire neocortex (the funky folded thing that takes up much of the volume in a human brain and gives it its distinctive appearance) is basically the same no matter where you look: the same 6 layers of the same types of neurons per layer, interconnected among themselves in basically the same way.

 

*Originally posted by Bambi
History had seen Renaissance men, but it ain't seen nothing until you came along. You must be an expert in every single field of science known to man! Next time NASA needs an expert opinion on how to fix a space shuttle engine, they should look no further than the discerning judgement of Tony. I bow before your truly supernatural authority!*

Well, sure, but don't you call yourself "I?"

*Strange way to put it, but I think what you were trying to say is this: if any two species share genetic structure, then they probably had a common ancestor at some point in the past (it's unlikely they could have developed the same genetic structure independently.)*

I wasn't trying to say that, mainly because I'm not an evolutionist.
What I was saying is that if you find two animals where one is supposedly evolved from the other, then they would be the same species.
Otherwise, you would be a different species from your grandmother.
Further, between any two such animals, the labelling of species would be completely arbitrary, limited only by the imagination of the taxonomist.

*I don't know where you got this claim from, but you won't get it from me.*

A step in the right direction.

*Sorry, but I do not understand what you are talking about.
...
1) Organism A divides: organisms B and C
... C survives and reproduces.

2) B and C ...

3) Now, take organism D ...the two new variants proliferate.

Now we have 4 genetically separate populations:
Population 1 has exactly the same genome as A (same genome as B)
Population 2 has exactly the same genome as A, except for gene [x] (same genome as C).
Population 3 has exactly the same genome as A, except for gene [y] (same genome as D's mutant offspring)
Population 4 has exactly the same genome as A, except for genes [x] and [w] (same genome as E's mutant offspring)*

If this is your idea of evolution, you are sadly mistaken.
The human race has a genetic past exactly as you describe, yet we are all one species, not several.
Furthermore, some of the genetic mutations in man are not benign, so I'll even grant you your assumptions of all mutations being benign.
If that were a description of evolution, then there would be a range of variations between individual members of the human race ranging from positively lemur-like to practically super-human.
And that is not considering the trail of "left-over" intermediate species who just didn't happen to undergo any of, or who underwent only a few of, the various benign mutations.

One of most striking arguments against evolution is the fact that within each species, there is an incredibly small amount of genetic variation between members.

*But their existence doesn't mean that their "relatives" aren't still present, with potential to give rise to their own species.*

My point.
So, where are these relatives?
I don't mean distant relatives, either, like man and chimpanzee.
I mean the 1% pre-hominid and 99% man relatives, the 2% pre-hominid and 98% man relatives, and so on.

*Why should life be limited to RNA, DNA, etc? It probably isn't. That all known forms of life share the same biochemical foundation indicates not intelligent design, but common descent.*

Given that we are discussing evolution, I'll accept that as one of your premises.

*One has to surmise that early in the history of life there might have been several competing architectures, and that what we see today turned out to be so much better that it drove the rest of its competitors to extinction.*

Interesting concept, but not valid.
If silicon-based life were to evolve contemporaneously with carbon-based life, there would not be compettition between them.
Neither could eat the other, and they wouldn't be competing for the same resources.

Or, are you trying to drive the species called "sand" into extinction?
No, you just walk on it.

*An alternative explanation used to be that formation of life may be very improbable (so you would actually be surprised to see it occur several times on the same planet) -- but the more recent discoveries show that life originated on Earth almost as soon as the conditions allowed it, implying that the formation of life may not be so improbable after all.*

There is a serious argument against such "discoveries."
You cannot "discover" things or "show" things in the distant past, particularly if they are dependent on some unobserved conditions.

The time machine has not been invented yet, so the only thing you can have is evidence of something.

In any case, what the hell.
Evolution is fiction, so we can allow fictional premises, too.

If life is not improbable after all, then there should be widely differing types of life, carbon-based, silicon-based, germanium-based, etc. or double-, triple-, quadruple-helix, ahelical DNA, etc., auto-, mono-, di-, tri-assembly based, and so on.
There isn't.

*One interesting thing would be to find extraterrestrial life (e.g. on Mars, Europa, or wherever) and compare its architecture with known terrestrial life. Most scientists expect the extraterrestrial life, if it is indeed present in our solar system, to be quite different from life on earth.*

I'd expect it to be quite different, too.
But so far, this is unrelated to evolution.

*... "nanobacteria" ...*

Interesting, but so far, unrelated.

*I assume that by "hypothesis" you mean "question" (hypotheses don't have conclusions)?*

Literally true, but "for" can mean "correlated with."
I repeat, what is the hypothesis that is correlated with evolution as the conclusion?

*Where? Why? Why? Why? Why? How come?*

I grok the concept of "question."
That is why I asked about the hypothesis.

But we can deal with the questions, too.
Intelligent design seems like such an obvious answer, but you reject it, not because of invalidity, but because you reject the concept of intelligent designer.
That doesn't sound like critical thinking.

If this entire discussion were about automobiles, you would have many of the same questions, mechanically oriented, of course.
Evolution would never cross your mind and as soon as you found out that there is intelligent design (more or less) involved in the existence of automobiles, 99% of your questions would be satisfactorily answered.
The other 1% of your questions concerning standard appearances, vestigial parts, etc. would be quickly answered by explaining the legal and historical contexts surrounding the automobile.

After all, you are the only person left who still believes that automobiles are intelligently designed and assembled.
Everyone else believes they evolved by themselves.

*Did I miss something, or are you under impression that weather just magically happens?*

I wasn't aware that the weather was dependent on debate.

*Yes, we would have to <u>average</u> that, or just about. Replace 5 billion years with 4, and foreshorten the period further to accomodate for pre-RNA life (in case it existed).... so don't expect to observe many such leaps over your infinitesimal lifetime.*

This helps your point, how?

*You don't know what "punctuated equilibrium" stands for. It has no intention of explaining the rate of growth in genome sizes.*

Apparently, neither do you.

*One such "punctuation" is occuring right now: humanity is wreaking massive damage on the environment, resulting in lightning-quick, even instantaneous extinction of thousands of species, changing global climate and contents of the atmosphere and the oceans, reshaping the landscape, introducing new chemicals and structures -- in other words, destroying many niches and creating many new ones. Over time, life will respond by filling in the new niches with new species. Thus, the current mass extinction will eventually be followed by another "explosion" -- provided humanity ever stabilizes its effect on environment enough that the changes are sufficiently slow for evolution to be able to respond to them.*

IOW, the fossil record shows that species go extinct, but that is interpreted to mean the opposite.

Besides, rapid extinctions followed by extremely slow replacements are not the way to demonstrate that evolution works.
Rapid reductions of populations followed by extremely slow increases of populations is the best way possible to cause extinction of all populations, mathematically, statistically, biologically, etc.
Not the way to go, if you expect to have any credibility.

BTW, I am not assuming that "punctuated equilibrium" is to be measured by any particular time scale.
I'm leaving that for you to state, in the spirit of giving you enough rope, etc.

*These creatures (I assume you're talking about single-cell organisms) are still evolving,*

No need to assume anything.
If it helps your case to discuss multi-celled organisms then, by all means, do so.

*and still adding and removing base pairs through mutation. However, after billions of years of evolution and no new, unoccupied niches available, they are just about perfect within their sphere of existence and don't change much over time*

Am I correct in interpreting your statement to mean that a Petri dish is not a new, unoccupied niche?
You seem to be thinking that Petri dishes have existed for billions of years.

*I don't know which "evolutionists" you are talking about -- those that actually don't know anything about evolution and just feel like trying to defend science? Well, I agree: they often do more harm than good, even if the intentions are honorable. I, for one, consider myself an evolutionist, and you won't be getting such nonsense from me (though, of course, I'm not a top-flying expert either.) I try to comment on things only when I know what I'm talking about (you might want to take a lesson from that.)*

Sure.
I admit that I cannot tell the difference between an evolutionist that doesn't know anything about evolution and one that does.
From what I can tell, they are identical even to the point of being the same person.
Don't take that personally, you would be the exception.

*It's not as tough as you make it sound. The functional portion of the brain is largely composed of slight variations on the same cell: a neuron. Once you have developed neurons, you can proceed to mass-produce them just as bone marrow mass-produces blood cells.*

Mass-production, presumably, would be a key process in evolution.

*Much of the "effort" in obtaining a bigger brain for a fetus lies in allowing the stem cells there to divide a little longer before they start differentiating into neurons and supportive tissue.*

Naturally, that would only occur once per generation.
So far, it would need to occur more often than that.

Not only that, your argument is a posteriori when evolution, by definition, does not work that way.
Evolution, being unintelligent non-design, cannot foresee that stem cells should divide a little longer.

*Of course, some of the remainder of the effort lies in putting the new brain tissue to good use. Which does involve forming some proper connections (which means either taking advantage of the already extant chemical gradients, or supplying some new ones but not necessarily right away within the same generation) -- but the fact still holds that structurally, huge areas of the human brain are basically the same template repeated over and over again. For example, the entire neocortex (the funky folded thing that takes up much of the volume in a human brain and gives it its distinctive appearance) is basically the same no matter where you look: the same 6 layers of the same types of neurons per layer, interconnected among themselves in basically the same way. *

That is a great way to describe what the brain consists of, but I think we were trying to get to the root of how it got that way.

 

Tony,

What I call myself, or what you call yourself, is irrelevant. What is relevant, I used to imagine (until you came along), is the requisite background knowledge that is necessary in order to make the claim that the experts who endorse a scientific theory are a bunch of incompetent mental patients. There is a reason why people spend years getting their science degrees -- the reason being that they have to learn a great deal. You take it upon yourself to pass judgement while not even being close to knowledgeable in the field. To a very sadly disturbing degree, your comments harken back to the priestly dismissal of the rotating-earth theory (what fool would propose that the ground moves when it doesn't? We'd all fly right off into the sky, and all the waters would dribble right off if the earth is a rotating ball! It's the silliest idea in history; to believe such nonsense one truly has to be possessed.) Needless to say, that calls for a certain degree of sarcasm from your audience; I only meant to oblige.

On the other hand, I'd like to extend you my appreciation for graduating to a more intelligent set of questions concerning evolution and the history of life. (Now I'll have to write a lot more in order to answer them

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... j/k

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)

When it comes to unicellular organisms that reproduce by division, the definition of a species gets a little cloudy. However, for sexually-reproducing life the definition is very simple: two organisms do not belong to the same species if they cannot have offspring together in the wild under normal circumstances (and not just because they are of the same sex, not of reproductive age, or directly related to each other -- like you and your mother, for example.) A reproductive barrier between species is really a barrier between genomes: if the species do not interbreed, then the genomes are free to keep independently accumulating mutations to an eventual point that the segregated lineages are no longer able to have mutual offspring even under unnatural circumstances.

For example, lions and tigers form different species, since they do not interbreed in the wild. They are still able to interbreed with human assistance -- but with the passage of geological time they only become less and less compatible. Domestic cats are obviously related to lions and tigers -- but no longer capable of interbreeding with them; they are now permanently locked into the base of their own branch of the evolutionary tree.

Our species is very young -- a mere 100,000 years old, or thereabout. In that amount of time (assuming 20-year intergenerational lifespan) humans have only had some 5,000 generations. Bacteria can have this many generations in under a year.

Nevertheless, even these 5,000 generations were enough to produce the various races that we observe today. While the races can still interbreed, they were on their way to forming their own species descendent from Homo Sapiens. If the various human races remained in their sedentary, localized state for a few more hundred thousdand years while also keeping their overall numbers low, they might have formed separate species through genetic drift alone. Of course, human mobility and superb mastery of the environment conquered this natural sequence of genetic differentiation, and now the genetic diversity is being blended back into a single "version" through interracial unions, all the while new non-harmful mutations get quickly diluted out of existence against the plentiful background population. Some argue that the human species is quickly reaching an equilibrium that would herald the virtual suspension (if not altogether the end) of natural human evolution. I tend to side with the opposition, stating that new selective pressures arise out of the new environment that we are creating for ourselves -- so that human evolution is not coming to a standstill, but is about to take a new direction (perhaps even, for the first time on Earth, that of deliberate self-design.)

I never stated that all mutations are benign. For the sake of simplicity and brevity, I left harmful mutations out of the example. On the other hand, a great many mutations indeed <i>are</i> benign and go completely unnoticed. For example, the single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) accumulate steadily over time in any two distinct populations; they have even been used as a complement for fossil-based paleontology to biologically date various species and determine the point in the past when they last shared their genomes.

As for humans, the simple bacterial example does not entirely suffice (and I hope you realise that). If you want to critique that example, then please stick to the domain for which it was intended. With respect to humans, I already pointed out both the youth of our species and our exceptionally long reproductive cycles. It is also a fact that since the time that our species fanned out across the planet and took over the available niches, it has been flourishing. What little genetic drift took place during this brief period due to the small size of the isolated populations, has been driven to a virtual standstill by the fast growth of these populations and lack of definitive selective pressures that human ingenuity could not overcome without relying on phenotypic advantage.

Perhaps the most striking trait that did manage to nevertheless differentiate across the globe, is skin color. This is understandable due to the pressure imposed by the sun, which over time selected for individuals with dark skin -- the more so at lower latitudes. Another example of a feature that clearly evolved through selective pressure as opposed to genetic drift, is the recessive sickle cell trait -- which can lead to sickle cell anemia in a person both of whose parents possess it, but which at the same time protects against the deadly malaria parasite.

As for "intermediate" species, once again reality is a little more complex than the simple example (which, by the way, was never intended to answer questions such as this.) Ultimately, all species compete for basically the same limited resources: territory, food, water. Especially with closely-related species that cannot, for example, co-exist by keeping to distinct canopies of a forest or using different sources of food, such competition often results in the extinction of the less capable species. It is very likely that the modern humans simply pushed the other close genetic relatives out of amenable territories at such a breakneck pace that these relatives had no time to adapt to their ever-less-hospitable environment and soon died out. Another unfortunate possibility with humans, is that they literally hunted their competitors to death (same thing as is happening, for example, to modern great apes as they are being poached for food -- disgustingly close as that comes to cannibalism. Chimps, our closest genetic relatives, routinely hunt monkeys in the wild.) At any rate, in the light of the current human-caused mass-extinction on Earth, it is hardly a radical hypothesis that this trend was prototyped much earlier upon the various hominid species that were perceived as direct competitors by the early humans. A final (though quite more controversial than the other two) possibility could be that the much more successful and plentiful modern humans interbred with their cousin species and eventually absorbed their genetic diversity into the heritage of Homo Sapiens, ultimately leaving little if any trace of their former existence through repeated dilution (of course, such an assumption violates the very definition of "species" and is therefore suspect even on that account alone.)

Also keep in mind that the transition from "proto-human" to completely modern human did not occur in a single step. There were quite a few intermediate steps, and for several of them (as is clear from fossil evidence) there were periods when distinct hominid species coexisted and competed. So the paragraph above can apply to any one of these many "steps" on the way to the modern Homo Sapiens.

This is actually false. Most species exhibit a lot of genetic diversity, which is the primary mechanism that allows populations to adapt to extremely quick changes in the environment (such as ones brought about by the modern civilization.) Modern humans (and any other new species) are an exception, however; it appears that at the outset our immediate ancestors started in a very small, highly-inbred group and might have come dangerously close to extinction a few times -- which helped accelerate the rate of genetic drift within this tiny population. Since then, not enough time has yet passed for humans to have accumulated as much genetic diversity from benign mutations as possessed by other, longer-lived species. But despite how little genetic diversity human populations possess, our phenotype still varies from giants to pigmies, from the obese to the anarexic, from the hairy to the hairless, from cold-loving to heat-loving, and so on. If it weren't for our intellect, we would as a species still be quite resilient against reasonable changes in environment.

On the other hand despite genetic diversity species should not, according to current understanding, evolve any further if their environment remains static and they have already achieved a high degree of efficiency within this environment (having, as a result, reached a kind of genetic local maximum in fitness.) Of course, few environments remain altogether static over geological time as ice ages come and go, large meteoroids and comets impact, old mountain ranges erode and new ones arise, rivers appear, disappear, and change course, marshes turn into hills and vice versa, continents turn into sea floor and sea floor turns into continental shelf, continents drift, Earth's axis of rotation precesses, etc... (and also remember that other members of the biota are part of the environment, so one species invading or evolving can touch off evolutionary response from other species. I already mentioned the topic of chaos in an earlier post...)

See above. Also, man and chimpanzee do not come into direct competition, as the chimps tend to reside and hunt in the forest canopy, while humans tend to live and hunt on the ground. This cannot be said about the closer human relatives. Of human-like apes, perhaps only the gorillas are a surviving representative (if one does not give credence to all the yeti reports.) However, they appear to have branched off quite before the chimps and humans had their last common ancestor. They probably survive only because they are extremely shy and as such must have effectively avoided crossing paths with the burgeoning Homo Sapiens (until now...) If the closer human relatives were anywhere near as aggressive as we are, I doubt they were able to keep in the shadows with the gorillas when modern humans began to take over the land. So you do not see them today, just like you don't see Mammoths or giant sloths. You don't see them not because they didn't exist, but because they haven't survived to the present day. Their fossils, however, have been found and continue to be found -- so we indeed know that they did exist.

There is little on our planet that can stand up to carbon-based organic life -- not even rock. As for competition, the name of the game is always energy. If your hypothetical silicon life were to compete with carbon-based life, it would probably be eaten for breakfast, literally.

Of course, many chemists argue that carbon is the only element that could give rise to life under terrestrial conditions due to the sheer variety and chemical versatility of compounds that it can form, as well as the favorable agreement in environmental conditions between Earth and the reactive ranges of such compounds. In our discussion, I had in mind alternative carbon-based architectures -- not ones based on elements other than carbon.

Dead wrong. When you see ancient cave paintings, you know that they were made by humans. Similarly, life leaves an unmistakable fingerprint on ancient geology. Here's a skinny: http://www.brookes.ac.uk/geology/rock.html
The actual Nature article (unreadable for a non-expert...): http://www.naturejpn.com/newnature/hottopics/lifeonearth-j.html

We'll see what doesn't sound like critical thinking shortly.

First, I don't know what kind of argument you would give for the putative "1%" of vestigial parts, but consider: you wouldn't expect a solar-electric car to have a vestigial exhaust pipe, would you? (unless it was "designed" by some sort of a Mad Hatter.) So what could possibly be the "intelligent" purpose for e.g., the grasping reflex in our feet? (or choose any one of those questions I listed)

Of course, under the assumption that life is created, it would be appropriate to question the <u>intelligence</u> of the "creator":
1) after <b>4 billion years</b> (40,000,000 human lifetimes!), what we observe is the best that it could manage? (!)
2) the "creator" is one patient dude -- or else he is very, very slow (and that's not to be taken in a good way)
3) at the same time, it sure can't get its priorities straight -- since pretty much all life starts out relatively simple and then gets increasingly complex, in parallel, with time
4) it doesn't know what it's doing: throughout the process entire sets of highly "designed" models get discarded, making no contribution whatsoever to the modern lineup -- tons of meaningless wasted "effort", any way you look at it

That and, of course, cars do not reproduce (big difference there). Interesting that you would argue intelligent design based on mechanics, but not based on method of assembly. After all, last time I checked cars didn't assemble themselves either -- yet life does. What are we to make of that little factoid?

For if life can self-assemble, then why can't the precursors to life self-assemble into the first "living" biochemical complex? The mechanics that drives life is not unique to life -- it is the mechanics of matter in general. Heck, just consider the infinite variety plus the beautiful symmetry of snowflakes -- and that's merely water chemistry, a far cry from the powers of carbon. Why don't I hear you proposing that each snowflake is a piece of limited edition art from an intelligent creator? Or is that because the mechanistic nature of snowflake formation is merely more apparent than the mechanistic nature of the genesis of life?

I can see how someone could argue for intelligent design a couple of centuries ago (though some of the same retorts as above would have applied.) However, now we know that life is alive not because of some vital essense, but because of biochemistry. We know how life encodes its information, and we know how it passes on traits to offspring. We know how this information gets corrupted in the process -- inevitably, mind you (there is no such thing as a perfect chemical reaction) -- and how mechanisms typically kick in to correct such transcription errors. We also know that these protective mechanisms are not perfect either, and thus life mutates. Life changes, it is not static, it is not a crystal. Life evolves, as is obvious to anyone with even a basic understanding of the underlying inheritance mechanisms -- obvious even before all of the genetic, fossil, and geological evidence is taken into account, and a dead certainty after.

But what was the primary reason for claiming intelligent design, again? Don't tell me it's scientific, because it isn't. And don't tell me it's rooted in critical thinking -- because critical thinking and religion are not synonymous, to put it mildly.

Pathetic. Here, brush up: http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/PUNCTUEQ.html

And what do you propose the fossil record should look like, if it were to show that new species emerge as well?

Non sequitur. Unless you plan to justify it.

But before you try, take note of a few things. First, the replacements are not "extremely slow". Nature abhors vacuum, and life abhors it even more. The species that do survive a mass extinction quickly (instantaneously, geologically speaking) expand their domains to fill in the newly-vacated space. And if these species managed to survive one mass extinction, then why shouldn't they (or their descendants) be far more likely to survive the next (especially since now they are more widely spread than ever before)? That, and of course elimination of some very strong competitors opens the way for much less-fit mutants to innovate (which is why mass extinctions are always followed by a subsequent explosion of new species.)

You are correct. Petri dishes attempt to present the ultimate friendly cultivation environment. Thus, while a Petri dish is new, unoccupied space it is not a new niche -- because by doing its best to cater to the present incarnation of the microorganism, it actually discourages the microorganism from evolving (the organism starts out at a peak of fitness within this "new" environment.)

Nor does it occur every generation. It may not even have a predisposition to occur (of course, whether there is a bias for it or not depends on a detailed understanding of both the genome and the proteome, which we currently do not have.) It would indeed be extremely surprising if such brain "growth" occurred by a fixed certain amount with each generation. The actual mechanisms of mutation and selection make for a rather discontinuous, stepwise process.

The large brain did not evolve overnight. The earliest ape-like human ancestors (or rather their known fossils) are dated to some 6 million years ago, with adult brain size perhaps 1/4 of the modern human's. Various ancient protohuman species have varying brain sizes, but on average the brain sizes increase leading up to the modern human. 2 million years ago, there were already protohumans with a brain half the modern size.

Contrary to popular belief, humans are not the intended goal of evolution. Evolution does not have goals. Evolution is merely the statement of a fact: that life is not static. As it happens, a larger brain enabled protohumans to make quantum leaps in adaptation and versatility. Which is why it was selected for, and why it survives to this day.

 

Darwin's Black Box

Has anyone read or even heard of this book written by Michael Behe, a secular scientist, who in studying the most recent biochemical research, has refuted the possibility of evolution as a mechanism for life?

He says that the cell, which looked in Darwin's day like a simple design, made up mostly of empty space. Until the electron miscroscope was invented, when the intricate design of the cell was observed.
Behe uses the analogy of a mousetrap. According to evolutionary belief, a mousetrap would develop through natural selection, with each component being added as positive mutations occur. But, this is not possible, because in order for the mousetrap to work at all, all components have to be in place at one time.

He concluded that many human body systems are similar to the mousetrap, including the human eye, and the blood clotting mechanism. If the blood clotting system had evolved, man would never have existed. The blood-clotting mechanism is so intricate that evolutionary progression could never happen. All components of the blood would have to be in place at once, or else natural selection would have destroyed it.

He goes on to refute the possibility of evolution as a viable theory to explain Mankind's existence.

If you are interested in the truth, read this book.

 

Books on "Intelligent Design" all cover this sort of thing. Showing -scientifically- the flaws in the evolutionary theory sans religion.

Ben

 

R. vs T.

Because the universe was created by the "Supreme Intelligent" GOD Almighty! And Man was in fact created in the image of GOD, and is not a "branch off" of an ape-like creature!

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GOD BLESS AMERICA!!

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