"Reason, if there is such a thing, can serve as a court of appeal not only against the received opinions and habits of our community but also against the peculiarities of our personal perspective. It is something each individual can find within himself, but at the same time it has universal authority. Reason provides, mysteriously, a way of distancing oneself from common opinion and received practices that is not a mere elevation of individuality--not a determination to express one's idiosyncratic self rather than go along with everyone else. Whoever appeals to reason purports to discover a source of authority within himself that is not merely personal, or societal, but universal--and that should also persuade others who are willing to listen to it.
If this description sounds Cartesian or even Platonic, that is no accident: The topic may be ancient and well-worn, but it is fully alive today, partly because of the prevalence of various forms of what I (but not, usually, its proponents) would call skepticism about reason, either in general or in some of its instances. A vulgar version of this skepticism is epidemic in the weaker regions of our culture, but it receives some serious philosophical support as well. I am prompted to this inquiry partly by the ambient climate of irrationalism but also by not really knowing what more to say after irrationalism has been rejected as incoherent--for there is a real problem about how such a thing as reason is possible.
How is it possible that creatures like ourselves, supplied with the contingent capacities of a biological species whose very existence appears to be radically accidental, should have access to universally valid methods of objective thought?"
-Nagel, The Last Word
(2020-08-21, 04:44 AM)Sciborg_S_Patel. Wrote: [ -> ]...................................
How is it possible that creatures like ourselves, supplied with the contingent capacities of a biological species whose very existence appears to be radically accidental, should have access to universally valid methods of objective thought?"
-Nagel, The Last Word
This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the accumulating overwhelming scientific and philosophical and societal case against Darwinism.
The implications of Darwinism, and the scientistic thoroughly materialist worldview that naturally results, rob people of any true meaning, value, and purpose for their lives and thus rob them of any real hope that they may have for their futures. Of course, a belief system with such a universal all encompassing scope naturally has resulted in a sort of secular religion, with its own clergy, organization, and means of persecuting heresy.
An eloquent statement of the inevitable implications of Darwinism is furnished by this quote by one well-known spokesman for Darwinism and scientism, evolutionary biologist and philosopher William Provine:
Quote:"Let me summarize my views on what modern evolutionary biology tells us loud and clear — and these are basically Darwin’s views. There are no gods, no purposes, and no goal-directed forces of any kind. There is no life after death. When I die, I am absolutely certain that I am going to be dead. That’s the end of me. There is no ultimate foundation for ethics, no ultimate meaning in life, and no free will for humans, either.”
As an example of the toxic societal consequences of Darwinism,
there was a Finnish high school tragedy in which 8 kids were shot and killed. This may not be typical (I don't know of any studies on this), but it is still an example.
Of course, this sort of negative societal outworking of the belief system doesn't logically invalidate Darwinism, but it still adds fuel to the very large body of evidence against Darwinism.
Quote:"Overwhelmingly, the shooter Auvinen’s statements in his YouTube contribution (and other blogs on the internet) reveal his belief (system)...
‘I am a cynical existentialist, antihuman humanist, antisocial social darwinist, realistic idealist and godlike atheist.’‘Life is just a coincidence … result of long process of evolution and many several factors, causes and effects.’‘There are no other universal laws than the laws of nature and the laws of physics.’‘Evolution is both a theory and a fact, creationism is neither one.’‘Religious people, your gods are nothing and exists only in your heads. Your slave morals means nothing to me. I’m the god & devil of my own life.’‘What is the best thing in life? It ends."
I don't think belief systems are the cause of such destructive traits. Darwinism is no different to religions of all sorts (even my own has a dreadful history) It's corrupted human nature that causes the horrors that people inflict on each other.
Some of the accumulating overwhelming reasons Darwinism is false:
For something to be science it must be falsifiable - there must be observations and/or experiments that could in principle disprove the theory. But Darwinist evolutionary biologists routinely refuse to accept any offered falsifications - they just offer more and more unverifiable "just so" stories. In effect they have defined their theory to be in practice unfalsifiable.
Here are a few of many falsifications of Darwinian evolution that Darwinists simply refuse to ever accept (from Uncommon Descent):
Darwin’s theory holds that Natural Selection is the ‘designer substitute’ that produces the ‘appearance’ and/or illusion of design. But Natural Selection, especially for multicellular organisms, is found to grossly inadequate as the ‘designer substitute.
Darwin’s theory holds that mutations to DNA will eventually change the basic biological form of any given species into a new form of a brand new species. Yet, biological form is found to be irreducible to mutations to DNA, nor is biological form reducible to any other material particulars in biology one may wish to invoke.
Darwin’s theory holds there to be an extremely beneficial and flexible mutation rate for DNA which was ultimately responsible for all the diversity and complexity of life we see on earth. But the mutation rate to DNA is overwhelmingly detrimental. Detrimental to such a point that it is seriously questioned whether there are any truly beneficial, information building, mutations whatsoever. In fact, the overwhelming majority of mutations are so thoroughly detrimental that all known and cited observations of apparent Darwinistic evolution turn out to be actually "devolution" genetically - accomplished by breaking up complex functional genetic sequences, achieving short term gain at the cost of reducing genetic information.
Charles Darwin himself held that the gradual unfolding of life would (someday) be self-evident in the fossil record. Yet, from the Cambrian Explosion onward, the fossil record is consistently characterized by sudden appearance of a group/kind in the fossil record(disparity), then rapid diversity within that group/kind, and then long term stability and even deterioration of variety within the overall group/kind, and within the specific species of the kind, over long periods of time. Of the few dozen or so fossils claimed as transitional, not one is uncontested as a true example of transition between major animal forms out of millions of collected fossils. Moreover, Fossils are found in the “wrong place” all the time (either too early, or too late).
Darwin’s theory, due to the randomness postulate, holds that patterns will not repeat themselves in supposedly widely divergent species. Yet thousands of instances of what is ironically called ‘convergent evolution’, on both the morphological and genetic level, falsifies the Darwinian belief that patterns will not repeat themselves in widely divergent species.
Our conscious selves’ are certainly not explainable by ‘chance’ (nor is consciousness explainable by any possible reductive materialistic explanation in general), i.e. ‘the hard problem of consciousness’.
Besides the mathematics of probability consistently showing that Darwinian evolution is impossible, the mathematics of population genetics itself has now shown Darwinian evolution to be impossible. Moreover, ‘immaterial’ mathematics itself, which undergirds all of science, engineering and technology, is held by most mathematicians to exist in some timeless, unchanging, immaterial, Platonic realm. Yet, the reductive materialism that Darwinian theory is based upon denies the existence of the immaterial realm that mathematics exists in. i.e. Darwinian evolution actually denies the objective reality of the one thing, i.e. mathematics, that it most needs in order to be considered scientific in the first place!
And it goes on. And on.
(2020-08-25, 10:56 AM)nbtruthman Wrote: [ -> ]Darwin’s theory, due to the randomness postulate, holds that patterns will not repeat themselves in supposedly widely divergent species. Yet thousands of instances of what is ironically called ‘convergent evolution’, on both the morphological and genetic level, falsifies the Darwinian belief that patterns will not repeat themselves in widely divergent species.
Our conscious selves’ are certainly not explainable by ‘chance’ (nor is consciousness explainable by any possible reductive materialistic explanation in general), i.e. ‘the hard problem of consciousness’.
Is the convergence due to mutations running up against environmental niches? Perhaps there is some reason to doubt this explanation but it does work as a theory. I'd be curious to see the argument that says convergent evolution is impossible, as it is what I would expect when randomness* runs up against the limiting factor of the environment?
*I think all causation is mental anyway but I take random here to mean not under the influence of the organism or any being that could be seen as a designer.
(2020-08-25, 05:20 PM)Sciborg_S_Patel Wrote: [ -> ]Is the convergence due to mutations running up against environmental niches? Perhaps there is some reason to doubt this explanation but it does work as a theory. I'd be curious to see the argument that says convergent evolution is impossible, as it is what I would expect when randomness* runs up against the limiting factor of the environment?
*I think all causation is mental anyway but I take random here to mean not under the influence of the organism or any being that could be seen as a designer.
That would certainly be the stock answer from the Darwinist. The problem is the extreme unlikelihood of all over again getting exactly the right mutations in the required time. Even in the evolutionary biology community there are some who consider this is a mystery not explainable using theory. Simon Conway Morris is one of them.
Random means statistically random; therefore, certainly, random with respect to fitness. Presumably also not intelligently chosen or designed for any purpose by any being whatsoever. The randomness of the fall of dice or of the shuffled deck of cards.
(2020-08-25, 08:35 PM)nbtruthman Wrote: [ -> ]Simon Conway Morris is one of them.
By chance do you have a link - I thought Conway Morris was a defender of convergent evolution, not against it?
(Admittedly I have not read him in detail so maybe misunderstood his words.)
The strongest evidence for evolution is (arguably) DNA (Similar DNA sequences are the strongest evidence for evolution from a common ancestor).
That, along with, embriology, anatomy (morphology), and the fossil record have copper bottomed the theory.
If one were to falsify the theory, they would need to play on the same playing field, i.e. falsify those lines of evidence.
(2020-08-25, 11:27 PM)malf Wrote: [ -> ]The strongest evidence for evolution is (arguably) DNA (Similar DNA sequences are the strongest evidence for evolution from a common ancestor).
That, along with, embriology, anatomy (morphology), and the fossil record have copper bottomed the theory.
If one were to falsify the theory, they would need to play on the same playing field, i.e. falsify those lines of evidence.
I don't think anyone is saying evolution is false - the question is whether evolution as a mindless process assuming no intervention by any intelligent agencies can explain where we are today in the biological landscape.
Personally I don't think ID is a big deal, largely because I don't think it any way points to the Creator of the Universe. But then I don't mind the idea of sharing the world with whatever entities would be weighting the dice of evolution.
(2020-08-26, 09:06 PM)Sciborg_S_Patel Wrote: [ -> ]I don't think anyone is saying evolution is false - the question is whether evolution as a mindless process assuming no intervention by any intelligent agencies can explain where we are today in the biological landscape.
Personally I don't think ID is a big deal, largely because I don't think it any way points to the Creator of the Universe. But then I don't mind the idea of sharing the world with whatever entities would be weighting the dice of evolution.
Well, clearly we need to see a creator/designer model and see if it’s falsifiable then?