Darwin's Influence

[Mordecai]

littlechild:

Yours are simply variations of the watch builder canard.

There was never a watch builder canard. It was the "watch-maker" argument, which made a lot of sense. So much so that it was accepted by pretty much all the world's greatest minds. But you're mindlessly dismissing it as if it was baseless? (Also, look up the word canard. You've used it incorrectly here).

Granted, it seemed to lose its strength with Darwin's ideas. However, since Darwinian processes create order out of chaos through natural selection, so all structures produced by Darwinism must be produced through incremental steps, each of which must be beneficial, a very complex structure, like a flagellum, doesn't appear to be produced by Darwinian processes. In fact, no one predicted that Darwinian processes could produce something remotely that complex, much less did it predict that DNA would exist nor that it would be a code representing functional information. Since it is very unlikely that Darwinian processes could produce those types of machines nor informational molecules, the watch maker argument again gains persuasive power. It is strengthened by information theory and statistics as well. ID is not a variation so much as an improvement on the watch-maker argument, as it is more scientific and more clearly defined. Since the watch-maker argument was convincing to the most brilliant people in the past, there is no reason to not bring it back and improve on it, when Darwinian processes seem to be a very poor explanation.

[Thorkyll]

According to this article, that belief has a high correlation to whether you are an American Darwinist.

http://www.evolution...n_the.html#more

"Across the board, most respondents from the ten countries polled thought that

[ERayR]

What rock did they have to lift to find these people to respond to the poll? Ridiculous.

Evolution is a fact, it isn't a theory. I am against teaching alternative theories to a fact in schools.

I see you have some difficulty distinguishing between fact and theory. Facts Support theories but theories are not fact. Evolution is a theory.

[Mordecai]

What rock did they have to lift to find these people to respond to the poll? Ridiculous.

Evolution is a fact, it isn't a theory. I am against teaching alternative theories to a fact in schools.

This has been repeated many times. It is an example of equivocation as a means of fooling the public. Evolution, as in common descent and gradual change, is pretty well established as factual. However, how those changes occurred is the issue. Sometimes, evolution includes Darwinism. Sometimes it doesn't. People repeat the idea that evolution is a fact to trick you, really. Was it primarily Darwinian, as in random changes were preserved and proliferated via natural selection? If so, there is very poor evidence for that. Current scientific knowledge tells us Darwinian processes were not the source of the changes in body plans nor increases in complexity in genomes.

[Thorkyll]

I see you have some difficulty distinguishing between fact and theory. Facts Support theories but theories are not fact. Evolution is a theory.

It is a fact that we are primates descended from lower life-forms. Natural selection is a fact and not a theory. The only question -- where theories arise -- is how does natural selection operate. "God did it" is not a legitimate theory, no matter how you dress it up.

[thesometimesaint]

Mordecai:

As most scientists are theists yours is an ad hominem attack.

Mutation and natural selection are the agents of evolution.

[Rob Osborn]

It is a fact that we are primates descended from lower life-forms. Natural selection is a fact and not a theory. The only question -- where theories arise -- is how does natural selection operate. "God did it" is not a legitimate theory, no matter how you dress it up.

Not a fact, sorry. Artists conceptions just do not cut it in my book.

[littlechild]

It is a fact that we are primates descended from lower life-forms. Natural selection is a fact and not a theory. The only question -- where theories arise -- is how does natural selection operate. "God did it" is not a legitimate theory, no matter how you dress it up.

It is also a fact, that neither you, nor anyone else, can describe the developmental pathway by which this took place. You, and others like you, simply assert that it did indeed take place entirely without an intelligent overseer. As I have detailed, this is not remotely likely, nor has this process or any process similar to it ever been observed. A complex living being requires complex developmental pathways and complex developmental pathways require an understanding of those pathways, a goal, or an intention of utilizing those pathways, and a means to accomplish the creation of a complex entity by utilization of those pathways.

The fact is, no one, has remotely demonstrated how this could have occurred, nor how it will yet occur, entirely unaided by an intelligent overseer.

[Mordecai]

Mordecai:

As most scientists are theists yours is an ad hominem attack.

Mutation and natural selection are the agents of evolution.

Most biologists and paleontologists are not theists. Also, it wasn't an ad hominem attack. It was a claim of fact: explaining the diversity of species via processes is poorly supported, due to the fact that random mutations apparently can't produce the right kind of mutations to explain macroevolution. My alleged ad hominem attack was merely a claim that many Darwinists are being somewhat deceptive to the general public, when they say evolution is a fact.

If you understand that the random mutation part of Darwinism isn't necessarily included in an explanation for the origin of species, then you are educated enough to understand what "evolution is a fact," means.

Mutations? Sure. But random mutations as a primary explanation for the origin of species? Evidence says no.

[littlechild]

It is a fact that we are primates descended from lower life-forms. Natural selection is a fact and not a theory. The only question -- where theories arise -- is how does natural selection operate. "God did it" is not a legitimate theory, no matter how you dress it up.

You are using the term natural selection as though it has creative power. This is not the case. Natural selection is the process of capitalizing upon traits which have already been created, it has nothing to do with the development of those traits.

[littlechild]

He could have fallen from a helicopter, plane, or low earth orbit.

True, but as those are means and methods which are the result of intelligent sources, it serves to underscore my point rather than detract from it.

[ERayR]

Natural selection is a fact and not a theory.

/quote]

I don't disagree at all. Natural selection works very well as long as you remain within a species. Where it falls down is between species i.e. higher life forms developing from the lower life forms. Show me where it happend or is happening. With selective breeding different kinds of horses can and are developed but I dont't see a new species being formed, they are all horses.

[littlechild]

Natural selection is a fact and not a theory.

/quote]

I don't disagree at all. Natural selection works very well as long as you remain within a species. Where it falls down is between species i.e. higher life forms developing from the lower life forms. Show me where it happend or is happening. With selective breeding different kinds of horses can and are developed but I dont't see a new species being formed, they are all horses.

There WAS selection that much is certain. And I am equally certain that the selection was intelligent in nature. Otherwise, every outcome is just as likely as every other outcome, and we know that complex specific information is a requirement in the development of life. And the fact that it was complex and specific contradicts the 'fact' that it was 'natural' or unguided.

This is elementary.

[thesometimesaint]

littlechild:

ID is nothing more than religion gussied up with sciency sounding terms.

Here is what real scientists say about it.

http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=6024#toc

That is not true.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vss1VKN2rf8&feature=channel_page

[littlechild]

littlechild:

ID is nothing more than religion gussied up with sciency sounding terms.

Here is what real scientists say about it.

http://www.nap.edu/c...ord_id=6024#toc

That is not true.

http://www.youtube.c...re=channel_page

Attacking ID doesn't strengthen your hand. I have shown you already the fallacy of expecting career Darwinists to speak out against the hand that feeds them. Medieval Alchemists can have a consensus that lead can be turned into gold, but unless you can demonstrate a developmental pathway from ape to man that makes biological sense, your belief in Darwinism is based on pure fantasy.

[thesometimesaint]

littlechild:

I don't know how many different ways to put it. ID is NOT science. To try to put it as science is specious, fallacious, and sophomoric.

I have no idea as to what a "Darwinist" is. Except that you are trying to use it as some type of pejorative. I accept Evolution. I am a scientist.

Alchemy is to Chemistry as Astrology is to Astronomy.

That is a straw man argument. For the last time Evolution does not posit that man evolved from apes. We have a common ancestor. Our common ancestor probably diverged some 6 million years ago, +/- a few 100,000 years.

[Rob Osborn]

littlechild:

I don't know how many different ways to put it. ID is NOT science. To try to put it as science is specious, fallacious, and sophomoric.

I have no idea as to what a "Darwinist" is. Except that you are trying to use it as some type of pejorative. I accept Evolution. I am a scientist.

Alchemy is to Chemistry as Astrology is to Astronomy.

That is a straw man argument. For the last time Evolution does not posit that man evolved from apes. We have a common ancestor. Our common ancestor probably diverged some 6 million years ago, +/- a few 100,000 years.

Ok, then show how "unless you can demonstrate a developmental pathway from ape-like ancestor to man that makes biological sense, your belief in Darwinism is based on pure fantasy".

It seems evolutionists keep sidestepping this question because they really don't have any evidence! You see, it's kind of hard to have evidence for it when you can't even find the correct ancestor and be sure!

Evolution of man from "ape" as Darwinists expect is done so completely outside of evidence and models of bilologic pathways.

[thesometimesaint]

Rob:

I have no desire to give you a anthropology class. Let alone a biology class. Do your own homework.

[Rob Osborn]

Rob:

I have no desire to give you a anthropology class. Let alone a biology class. Do your own homework.

Whatever. Scientists do not even know what ancestor it was. You know another part that I can't understand- Suppose we find some hominid looking skull, how can we be sure it had children? How can we be sure that its' children had children, etc, in order for the evolution to continue? I find it extremely laughable that they find some ancient hominid and state as matter of fact that it was our ancestor when they cannot prove it had children who lived. For all we know it died in a blast that killed it off- he/she being the last of its kind!

[Mordecai]

I don't know how many different ways to put it. ID is NOT science. To try to put it as science is specious, fallacious, and sophomoric.

According to the witness for the ACLU in the Dover trial, the reason it is supposedly not science is because the scientists who support it are religious and at least some of them happened to have stated that it is supportive of religion. If you think that's a good line of reasoning...

[littlechild]

littlechild:

I don't know how many different ways to put it. ID is NOT science. To try to put it as science is specious, fallacious, and sophomoric.

I have no idea as to what a "Darwinist" is. Except that you are trying to use it as some type of pejorative. I accept Evolution. I am a scientist.

Alchemy is to Chemistry as Astrology is to Astronomy.

That is a straw man argument. For the last time Evolution does not posit that man evolved from apes. We have a common ancestor. Our common ancestor probably diverged some 6 million years ago, +/- a few 100,000 years.

I don't think you're stupid. I think you know what I mean by Darwinist. And your 'science' has too many tentatives in it to be believable. "Could have", "probably", "possibly", "may have", and the like. If you want to go on crowing about how ID is NOT science, this is a free country, it doesn't bother me.But I would like to note that you still haven't defined science and unless you do you have no credibility with me. You claim to be a scientist, so WHAT IS SCIENCE?

[littlechild]

Rob:

I have no desire to give you a anthropology class. Let alone a biology class. Do your own homework.

People appeal to the authority of Darwin because they think he has understanding of the truth. The truth is that knowledge and understanding are essential to design and create a world, it doesn't just happen. Natural selection, (because of the selection part), must exhibit, or mimic, this knowledge and understanding, otherwise, all events are equally likely to occur. We know that we are here with a wide variety of essential characteristics, necessary to survive and thrive. Those characteristics were selected, some say by 'natural selection', I say, by intelligent selection. We didn't just happen to flare into existence. We did so because of the knowledge and understanding of an intelligent agent who had the goal and intention of putting life here. Where am I wrong?

[littlechild]

littlechild:

ID is nothing more than religion gussied up with sciency sounding terms.

Here is what real scientists say about it.

http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=6024#toc

That is not true.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vss1VKN2rf8&feature=channel_page

Your links are truly hilarious. You should read them. Here's a smidgen of what you will get:

For those who are studying the origin of life, the question is no longer whether life could have originated by chemical processes involving nonbiological components. The question instead has become which of many pathways might have been followed to produce the first cells.

Will we ever be able to identify the path of chemical evolution that succeeded in initiating life on Earth? Scientists are designing experiments and speculating about how early Earth could have provided a hospitable site for the segregation of.....

This proves my point. Your own rebuttals actual prove what I have told you. Amazing.

So we are back to my questions which remain unanswered by you. You're the one who said ID is not science. So define science. You're the one who claims that natural selection accounts for diversity of life on the planet. So explain the developmental pathway from our supposed ancestors to human beings.

You can't do it other than take it on faith that your vaunted scientific minds are more intelligent than we are. I don't have that faith because they can't read the evidence due to an unwilling to admit most of it for consideration. They are philosophical pygmies.

And mathematics proves them wrong. The quantity of complex, specific, information, (CSI) needed to account for the developmental pathways of the simplest living creatures exceeds the quantity of time available for that development. And only intelligent agents can produce CSI. Natural selection has absolutely zero ability to do that.

[Rob Osborn]

It never ceases to amaze me how "scientific" chemical evolution (abiogenesis) is and yet has no identifiable or testable proof, no evidence of it happening, no available inferrence, and no logical basis. All it is, is a fantasy of thought dreamed up by evolutionists to exclude God from the creation.

[thesometimesaint]

Rob:

One last time. Evolution doesn't concern itself with Abiogenesis. Evolution concerns itself with how life evolved once it was here.

As a personal matter it would not bother me in the slightest if God used Abiogenesis to get it all started.

Nonsense. God is where he always has been, controlling the universe. What I can not do as a scientist is put Him in my science.

Science is the explanation of natural events using natural causes. Anything that is unnatural or supernatural is not science by definition. That we do not have a completed natural explanation for a natural event right now, does not necessitate a supernatural one.