Psience Quest

I've been thinking a little more about this and I wondered whether what I said about them being atheists first and Darwinists second couldn't equally be applied - except from our perspective - to myself and others here. My initial thought is, well, no. Firstly, as I - and Michael, David B, nbtruthman and others - have repeatedly pointed out, we are not religious yet this has been ignored and we are nevertheless accused of pandering to religious bias. 

So, is it a little more subtle? Do we, for example, ignore the fact that the Discovery Institute is maintained through funding from religious organisations because we just replace the biblical God with some other supernatural agency? That's more difficult to answer but I can only address this by adding a few more qualifiers. For example, I came to the worldview I now hold via a journey through Christianity as a child and atheism as a teen/young man. David B and Michael have, as far as I'm aware, a science background and have also arrived at their present worldview after being sympathetic to atheism and materialism. None of us, as far as I'm aware, take our worldview and evangelise it on either religious or secular/humanist/atheist forums. 

When I read something by Stephen Meyer, I look up what the Darwinist response might be and I have to say that, all too often, the response is similar to that presented here by Sparky, etc., in that Meyer is constantly attacked for his religious affiliations and his argument is ignored. Then I ask myself why it is that it seems to be fair game to attack Meyer for his personal beliefs but it is fine for Dawkins, Krauss, Carroll, PZ Myers and all the other angry atheists to belong to organisations which promote atheism as an ideology?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_se...anizations

http://www.seculardirectory.org/international/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sk...anizations

https://www.skeptic.com/get_involved/rel...nizations/

So should we ignore Dawkins because he is so prominent in organised atheism? Because he is so clearly ideologically motivated?

(2017-11-02, 09:51 PM)Kamarling Wrote: [ -> ]...So, is it a little more subtle? Do we, for example, ignore the fact that the Discovery Institute is maintained through funding from religious organisations because we just replace the biblical God with some other supernatural agency? That's more difficult to answer but I can only address this by adding a few more qualifiers. For example, I came to the worldview I now hold via a journey through Christianity as a child and atheism as a teen/young man. David B and Michael have, as far as I'm aware, a science background and have also arrived at their present worldview after being sympathetic to atheism and materialism. None of us, as far as I'm aware, take our worldview and evangelise it on either religious or secular/humanist/atheist forums...

So should we ignore Dawkins because he is so prominent in organised atheism? Because he is so clearly ideologically motivated?

As regards funding, I assume the DI is funded by those who sympathise with its aims: this will probably include some with a religious faith (but a number of those will probably be funding theistic evolution organisations, with which Darwinists don't have much of a problem, since the idea is that God kicked everything off, but after that, naturalistic Darwinism took over).

I suppose Darwinist organisations are funded by those who sympathise with their aims. Seems a symmetrical enough situation to me, although, of course, the Darwinians enjoy widespread support in government, education, science and media circles, and are probably much better funded.

As I've mentioned elsewhere, I have a Bsc in zoology. I also did postgrad work as a research assistant in parasitology for three years, but due to circumstances I needn't elaborate, wasn't able to present my PhD thesis. So I'm not an expert in evolution, but I do have a certain amount of knowledge in the field of biology.

Now 67, I'm retired. I started off a Roman Catholic, went through the usual period of atheism as a late teen and young adult, followed by agnosticism, which strictly speaking is still my current position: I don't know anything for sure, but I do lean strongly towards the existence of some kind of overarching consciousness -- call it Mind-At-Large or Source. Have to wait and see whether my leanings are vindicated when I pop my clogs.

As you indicated, I don't bother going to Darwinist internet venues to argue the toss with them -- what would be the point? But if they come to me, at Skeptiko or here, I sometimes take them on not so much because I imagine for a moment I'll persuade them, but because my comments might help inform others with more open minds.

I don't think Dawkins is worth ignoring because he is a prominent Darwinist per se, but because he's so insufferably certain about stuff he knows rock all about. Honest philosophers opine he's a lousy philosopher, and theologians that he has hopelessly naive ideas about religion and God. I see him as a cocksure peddler of certain ideas, with an agenda based on a commitment to materialism.

This prompts him and others to not just ignore, but actively oppose, any evidence against Darwinism. He's transparently a materialist (read: religious) bigot: not just a materialist because human senses convey a sense of concreteness about the world -- which is true for all of us -- but because of his fanatical opposition to all things he thinks of as "supernatural". I think of them as natural, but inexplicable under the tenets of materialism.

He and his followers constantly and designedly (pardon the pun) contrast Darwinism with biblical creationism as if there's no other position. Many people buy into this meme, which is one that would disappear almost immediately if they ever bothered to investigate the evidence. Just a few hours spent reading Evolution New and Views would show them that ID people aren't biblical creationists. Many of them accept evolution in the sense of change over time -- some even accept common descent. Quite a lot of them think that the "intelligence" involved in evolution is the Abrahamic God, with which I don't agree, but I opine that even that's a better hypothesis than Darwinism.

Their dissection of Darwinist papers is often withering, and highly knowledgeable, because many of their contributors are working biologists and geneticists. They understand Darwinism in greater detail than I do, and don't merely dismiss it, but rigorously point out the flaws. Now and then some contributors seem to use the terms "Darwinism" and "Evolution" synonymously, which would indicate they aren't evolutionists, whereas I am; nonetheless, most comments are usually cogent and valid whether or not one believes in an interventive Abrahamic God.

I get the impression that many of them are dualists, thinking of God as distinct from His creation, which they see as physical. For them, I suspect living beings are apprehended as collections of particles animated by God. In the case of man, his animation comes from possessing an immortal soul -- they sometimes promote human exceptionalism on this account. If anything, I'm an Idealist, so I disagree with dualism and suspect the "physical" is just an appearance to perception, albeit one that is very useful most of the time.

Obviously, I have a number of differences with the expressed views of the DI, but I don't let that get in the way of being able to appreciate the validity of much they say. Any attempt to broad-brush people like me in the same camp as biblical creationists is plainly just a ploy. The anti-Darwinist camp is actually filled with nuanced opinion. It suits the Darwinist agenda to colour them all the same because then they don't have to fight on multiple fronts: biblical creationism is in my opinion plainly wrong, but that is different from the blanket term "creationism" used mainly as a means of dismissing any who dissent from Darwinism. As for the term "intelligent design", adherents may or may not be creationists in sensu stricto. Some sympathisers may be agnostics (like me) or even atheists.

It's very sad that our resident Darwinists lack perceptive thinking: can't see all the nuance, and aren't willing or even able to engage with it in a constructive manner. Instead they prefer to utilise straw man arguments to characterise the debate in an us-vs-them fashion. It's a way for them to put their hands over their ears and mutter "la-la-la" so they can pretend the opposition comprises an undifferentiated mass of nutcases. Even the "intellects" among them, such as Dawkins, genuinely buy into such pap.

(2017-11-03, 02:18 PM)Michael Larkin Wrote: [ -> ]This prompts him and others to not just ignore, but actively oppose, any evidence against Darwinism. He's transparently a materialist (read: religious) bigot: not just a materialist because human senses convey a sense of concreteness about the world -- which is true for all of us -- but because of his fanatical opposition to all things he thinks of as "supernatural". I think of them as natural, but inexplicable under the tenets of materialism.

Michael, interesting post overall.  The above caught my attention.

An additional byproduct to my eye is this growing distrust of science.  Sort of the opposite side to the coin you laid out above.

I believe that certain members of the scientific community are doing a great disservice to science itself namely through the pushing of a materialist (and correspondingly atheistic) agenda.  Especially those who do it in such a belittling and demeaning manner.

It is dishonest and, to my eye again, unkind.  Science simply can not presently speak to topics such as meaning, ethics, consciousness, "God".  It certainly can speak to things that have often been attributable to those things such as superstition, etc.  Yet, so many scientists seems hell bent on extending science's authority to places it simply can't go.

I think it was/is an error.  Science IS working at moving people out of superstitions and has been for centuries.  I believe this has moved the needle for many people when it comes to how they compartmentalize their religious traditions.  I mean can you imagine the Catholic Church priest scandals coming to light a few centuries ago?  I would posit that science played a big role in that it has reduced religion's role in explaining the world around us.  Appropriately so.

Scientists should have stayed that course.

By now going beyond what they truly have authority to opine, some distrust by rational, thinking people is being sewn.

Religion is not neither universally good nor universally bad.  More broadly neither is faith.  Deriding either as unintelligent, naïve, or stupid does nothing but create walls.

(2017-11-02, 12:09 PM)Sparky Wrote: [ -> ]No, Nb, you are trying to flip the burden of proof.

Modern evolutionary theory is enough to explain the diversity of species, enough is known about the mechanisms, principles behind it, etc... More than enough is known to make this a mature theory that is not easily overturned.

It is ID that needs to show research that goes against TOE, please provide credible, peer reviewed, research that goes against the basic tenets of modern biology.  


Again, this is not about a religious bias of some individuals, i have seen religious scientists work around that perfectly.
This is about the founding principles of an organization, founding principles that simply leave no room to follow the science if it goes against their central dogma.
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Quote:No, Nb, you are trying to flip the burden of proof.

You're the one who is trying to turn the argument. You started by claiming that there is a lot of research that goes against ID. I challenged you on that to give some details. You came up empty.

Quote:Modern evolutionary theory is enough to explain the diversity of species, enough is known about the mechanisms, principles behind it, etc... More than enough is known to make this a mature theory that is not easily overturned.

Really. The claim is that there are no legitimate scientific problems with neo-Darwinian evolution theory. Supporters of Darwin’s theory often seek to portray those who doubt neo-Darwinism as being motivated by strictly religious or political factors. However, many objections to Darwinian evolution are scientifically based. Of course, pro-Darwin activists can't admit this.

Here's just the tip of the iceberg (see https://evolutionnews.org/2013/07/the_quiet_passi/ and https://evolutionnews.org/2014/01/millers_biology/):

A number of evolutionary biologists and paleontologists have recognized that the continued lack of many transitional fossils represents a serious, major problem for Darwinism. Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge recognized this. Eldredge wrote: "No wonder paleontologists shied away from evolution for so long. It never seemed to happen. Assiduous collecting up cliff faces yields … a rate too slow to account for all the prodigious change that has occurred in evolutionary history. When we do see the introduction of evolutionary novelty, it usually shows up with a bang, and often with no firm evidence that the fossils did not evolve elsewhere!"

Evolutionary biologist Jeffrey Schwartz wrote in 1999 that "We are still in the dark about the origin of most major groups of organisms. They appear in the fossil record as Athena did from the head of Zeus — full-blown and raring to go, in contradiction to Darwin’s depiction of evolution as resulting from the gradual accumulation of countless infinitesimally minute variations." Another expert opinion, in a textbook by C.P. Hickman, L.S. Roberts, and F.M. Hickman: "Many species remain virtually unchanged for millions of years, then suddenly disappear to be replaced by a quite different, but related, form. Moreover, most major groups of animals appear abruptly in the fossil record, fully formed, and with no fossils yet discovered that form a transition from their parent group."

On the Cambrian explosion, evolutionary biologists admit that they can't explain the rapid appearance of diverse animal body plans by classical Darwinian processes, or other known material mechanisms. Paleontologist Robert Carroll states that “The extreme speed of anatomical change and adaptive radiation during this brief time period requires explanations that go beyond those proposed for the evolution of species within the modern biota.”  Another paper: “microevolution does not provide a satisfactory explanation for the extraordinary burst of novelty during the Cambrian Explosion” and concludes “the major evolutionary transitions in animal evolution still remain to be causally explained.” (https://evolutionnews.org/2015/01/problem_5_abrup/)

A new book was published in 2013 by two of the leading mainstream paleontological authorities on the Cambrian explosion, Douglas Erwin and James Valentine. The book is a review of the current state of the art in the study of this phenomenon: The Cambrian Explosion: The Construction of Animal Biodiversity (Roberts and Company, 2013). The book acknowledges that the Cambrian enigma is unresolved. The book admits that the Cambrian explosion was a real event, and is not merely an artifact of an imperfect fossil record. The book correctly observes that explaining the Cambrian explosion requires explaining the origin of many diverse types of animal forms and body plans, and Erwin and Valentine observe that standard neo-Darwinian mechanisms of repeated rounds of microevolution are not sufficient to explain the explosion of life in the Cambrian. Of course being good Darwinians they still believe that animal body plans somehow arose via unguided evolutionary processes. 

They say at the end of the book: "The nature of appropriate explanations is particularly evident in the final theme of the book: the implications that the Cambrian explosion has for understanding evolution and, in particular, for the dichotomy between microevolution and macroevolution. If our theoretical notions do not explain the fossil patterns or are contradicted by them, the theory is either incorrect or is applicable only to special cases."  (https://evolutionnews.org/2013/06/erwin_...explosion/)

To attempt to deal with the overall problem, Gould and Eldredge popularized the term "punctuated equilibrium", as basically an unbiased description of the actual pattern that has been observed in the fossil record over evolutionary time. To offer a complete theory they combined this with a suggested mechanism attempting to explain it. 

The overall observational description is of a consistent pattern in the fossil record which is contrary to the major prediction of neo-Darwinism. Species are generally stable, changing little for millions of years, with this fairly static situation occasionally "punctuated" by a rapid burst of change that results in a new species and that leaves few fossils behind. Gould and Eldredge obviously didn't consider the excuse that the fossil record is patchy to be a sufficient explanation - it is not just an artifact of an imperfect fossil record. A century and a half of searching in the rocks by paleontologists still hasn't found anything to resolve the Cambrian Explosion problem, for instance. 
 
Eldredge and Gould speculated that the speciation event itself was involved in bringing about abrupt morphological change, in small populations at the edge of the main range having a more rapid evolution rate. This was supposedly able to explain not just microevolutionary changes, but also major macroevolutionary changes. 

But as Meyer has made clear, there was little biology behind the claims of mechanism; this work was mostly just an unbiased observation of the actual fossil record. 

Anyway, their suggested mechanism for punctuated equilibrium just didn't work out. Meyer quotes Gould from 2002, “I recognize that we know no mechanisms for the origin of such organismal features (as seen in punctuated equilibrium) other than conventional natural selection at the organismic level” They never found a workable theory to explain the phenomenon, especially of animal groups, with the Cambrian Explosion being the best example, but being a good Darwinist Eldredge still claimed at the end that it was all within Darwinism - after all, it had to be. 

To date neo-Darwinism still hasn't resolved the problem with anything but a pile of promissory notes. There doesn't even seem to be any sign of a valid solution on the horizon. This could most likely be because a solution would require violating the rigid neo-Darwinian dogma. Or maybe you could specify how evolutionary biologists have actually explained the dearth of intermediates and how they have explained the Cambrian explosion of the extremely rapid appearance of almost all the animal body plans. Rather than showing gradual Darwinian evolution, the history of life shows a pattern of explosions where new fossil forms come into existence often without clear evolutionary precursors. Sure, there are a handful of cases where transitional fossils have been found, but the predominant pattern is the punctuated equilibrium and sudden appearance pattern recognized by Gould and Eldredge.

Of course the lack of most predicted intermediates is just one of many problems with the theory. It is not just DI scientists and scholars that have noted these problems. Members of non-theistic scientific groups like The Third Way of Evolution and independent scientists like J. Scott Turner have admitted the fundamental failure of neo-Darwinism, and propose various hypotheses involving adding some form of teleology in evolution, some form of intelligence. Usually this is speculated to be some form of distributed intelligence inherent in living organisms, where organisms essentially design themselves to new levels of innovation. James Shapiro apparently tries to patch up the existing theory with new added mechanisms of variation including epigenetics. 

About peer reviewed research that goes against the neo-Darwinian TOE, maybe you could ask Eldredge about some of his own work (unfortunately Gould has passed away). Concerning peer reviewed papers and articles, I assume you mean in mainstream journals like Nature and Science. I have already pointed out how most journals automatically reject any articles and papers on ID, on ideological grounds.

Quote:Again, this is not about a religious bias of some individuals, i have seen religious scientists work around that perfectly.
This is about the founding principles of an organization, founding principles that simply leave no room to follow the science if it goes against their central dogma.

Much of this and other diatribes is just more elaboration of the same genetic logical fallacy I pointed out. You attack the DI and Meyer and the other DI scholars producing scientific work because they are mostly Christians with a Christian spiritual belief system and not materialists,  without actually refuting their research and arguments. Please specify exactly how they refuse to follow the science.

It's amusing. Neo-Darwinists have a long history of going through amazing contortions to either rationalize or dismiss contrary evidence that continues to come up that is very hard or impossible for neo-Darwinism to explain. Their rigid adherence to the dogmatic theory they adhere to like a religion with Darwin their god compels them to do this, and to pillory any scientists who commit heresy by daring to question their idol. 

Inquiry and study into these areas of evolution theory by DI scientists and scholars and many non-DI scientists and scholars (as with The Third Way) is a search for the truth of the matter unfettered by prior allegiance to metaphysical or methodological materialism. It is just following the evidence wherever it leads. But in the religious belief system of scientism, finding signs of teleological causes in nature is heresy. That's why this is a clash of paradigms and engenders such rage on the part of Darwinists.

However, actually, ID doesn't violate either metaphysical or methodological naturalistic science. ID doesn't actually appeal to the supernatural, and thus doesn't require non-natural causes. ID just notes that the only actually observed source of complex specified information is intelligent agents. When ID finds high levels of complex specified information in nature, the most it can infer is that some sort of intelligence was at work. ID does not make claims beyond the data by trying to identify the designer.

On falsifiability:

It turns out that Darwinism is the theory that is not falsifiable, not ID. No matter what the problem, clever Darwinists can come up with a just-so story to explain the biological structure. It's just a matter of being ingenious enough. Darwinism is quite impervious to falsification. The claim of Darwinism is that “Some unintelligent process (involving natural selection and random mutation) could produce this system.” To falsify this claim, one would have to show the system could not have been formed by any of a potentially infinite number of possible unintelligent processes, which is effectively impossible to do. So Darwinism is immune from evidence and must simply be accepted on faith.

Darwinists claim that ID isn’t falsifiable, but their own theory is the falsification of ID. All that is needed to falsify ID is to show in detail preferably by experiment and/or observation that some unintelligent process could indeed produce the system.

ID is testable.

The following is edited and paraphrased from https://evolutionnews.org/2011/03/a_clos...scientist/. References have been left out for brevity, but can be furnished.

The theory of intelligent design begins with observations of how intelligent agents act when designing things. By observing human intelligent agents, there is actually quite a bit we can learn know and understand about the actions of intelligent designers. Note that this makes no assumptions about designers, just that these characteristics and qualities inherently must logically, explicitly or implicitly, be part of the operation of such designers regardless of their nature, how they originated or when they operated.  

Michael Behe: "Design is evident in the designed system itself, rather than in pre-knowledge of who the designer is. Even if the designer is an entity quite unlike ourselves, we can still reach a conclusion of design if the designed system has distinguishing traits (such as irreducible complexity) that we know require intelligent arrangement." 

Ways designers act when designing (Observations):

(1) Intelligent agents think with an “end goal” in mind, allowing them to solve complex problems by taking many parts and arranging them in intricate patterns that perform a specific function (e.g. complex and specified information):
“Agents can arrange matter with distant goals in mind. In their use of language, they routinely ‘find’ highly isolated and improbable functional sequences amid vast spaces of combinatorial possibilities.” 

“We have repeated experience of rational and conscious agents-in particular ourselves-generating or causing increases in complex specified information, both in the form of sequence-specific lines of code and in the form of hierarchically arranged systems of parts. … Our experience-based knowledge of information-flow confirms that systems with large amounts of specified complexity (especially codes and languages) invariably originate from an intelligent source from a mind or personal agent.” 

“We know from experience that intelligent agents often conceive of plans prior to the material instantiation of the systems that conform to the plans–that is, the intelligent design of a blueprint often precedes the assembly of parts in accord with a blueprint or preconceived design plan.” 

(2) Intelligent agents can rapidly infuse large amounts of information into systems:

“Intelligent design provides a sufficient causal explanation for the origin of large amounts of information, since we have considerable experience of intelligent agents generating informational configurations of matter.” 

(3) Intelligent agents re-use functional components that work over and over in different systems (e.g., wheels for cars and airplanes):

“An intelligent cause may reuse or redeploy the same module in different systems, without there necessarily being any material or physical connection between those systems. Even more simply, intelligent causes can generate identical patterns independently.” 

(4) Intelligent agents typically create functional things rather than nonfunctional things (although we may sometimes think something is functionless, not realizing its true function):

“Since non-coding regions do not produce proteins, Darwinian biologists have been dismissing them for decades as random evolutionary noise or ‘junk DNA.’ From an ID perspective, however, it is extremely unlikely that an organism would expend its resources on preserving and transmitting so much ‘junk.'” 


So by observing human intelligent agents, there is a lot we can know and understand about intelligent designers regardless of their nature or origin or time period of operation. These observations can then be converted into hypotheses and predictions about what we should find if an object was designed. 

Some testable predictions of design (Hypothesis): 

(1) Natural structures will be found that contain many parts arranged in intricate patterns that perform a specific function (e.g. complex and specified information, especially irreducibly complex structures).
(2) Forms containing large amounts of novel information will appear in the fossil record suddenly and without similar precursors.
(3) Convergence will occur routinely. That is, genes and other functional parts will be apparently re-used in different and unrelated organisms. 
(4) Much so-called “junk DNA” will turn out to perform valuable functions.


Examining the evidence (Experiment and Conclusion):
 
(1) Language-based codes can be revealed by seeking to understand the workings of genetics and inheritance. High levels of specified complexity and irreducibly complexity are detected in biological systems through direct observation, theoretical analysis, computer simulations and calculations.
(2) The fossil record shows that species often appear abruptly without similar precursors. This pattern is even more pronounced when it comes to major groups of organisms.
(3) Similar parts are commonly found in widely different organisms. Many genes and functional parts are found not to be distributed in a manner predicted by ancestry, and are often found in clearly unrelated organisms. Such convergence reveals striking similarities across different branches of the evolutionary tree. This leaves evolutionists struggling to figure out how the proverbial lightning could strike twice. Note that this does not deny that there are many cases where common ancestry is still the best explanation.
(4) There have been numerous discoveries of functionality for “junk-DNA.” Examples include recently discovered surprising functionality in some pseudogenes, microRNAs, introns, LINE and ALU elements, and the list is growing. 


Looking at this unbiasedly, which hypothesis, some form of ID or other teleological causative theory, or neo-Darwinism, best accounts for this evidence (without a pile of promissory notes)? Of course, as mentioned, even to ask this question is an unpardonable heresy for the religion of scientistic neo-Darwinism.

(2017-11-04, 07:22 PM)nbtruthman Wrote: [ -> ]Looking at this unbiasedly, which hypothesis, some form of ID or other teleological causative theory, or neo-Darwinism, best accounts for this evidence (without a pile of promissory notes)? Of course, as mentioned, even to ask this question is an unpardonable heresy for the religion of scientistic neo-Darwinism.

This is the question I keep returning to in my own mind.

Imagine we lived in a world without organised religion and, therefore, without the backlash that began with the Enlightenment of the 17th century. Imagine that science was not hampered by an assumption of exclusively natural (material) causes. That is to say that the dogma of materialism has been adopted, not because science has shown that to be warranted but because of an a priori assumption as part of the rejection of religion and its supernatural trappings. In other words, out went the baby with the bathwater.

I cannot help but think that the most obviously parsimonious explanation is that life - from the DNA molecule to the human brain - is the result of intelligence in the system. That is not to say that Darwinian mechanisms have no part in the process of evolution (and, let us be clear that evolution is certainly at work) but that, overall, there does appear to be purpose: teleology. I think that we can argue about the nature and origin of such intelligence but the fact of it seems obvious.

This dogmatic materialism, to me, is clear in the language of Darwinists. Dawkins is fond of talking about the "appearance of design" to explain that is what Darwinists mean when they use the word design (which they often do). Again, wouldn't it be more parsimonious to agree that the appearance of design suggests design? Not for them because that would infer a designer which, in turn, would infer God. Again we have this binary stance: either Darwin or God (and by God they mean the Abrahmic god). In their terms it is either religion or science and that, in my book, is unfair to the lay public to deny us a real debate instead of an ideological squabble. As it happens, Dawkins himself has admitted that the appearance of design might actually mean design but, as I am suggesting, he draws the line when it comes to God.

I posted this in the thread on materialism but there is a part of this lecture very relevant to this discussion too. Koons starts by defining materialism and then proceeds to summarise the various challenges, one of which being the challenges faced by neo-darwinism.

(2017-11-05, 11:59 PM)Kamarling Wrote: [ -> ]I posted this in the thread on materialism but there is a part of this lecture very relevant to this discussion too. Koons starts by defining materialism and then proceeds to summarise the various challenges, one of which being the challenges faced by neo-darwinism.

I don’t think there is anything new here. We have a Christian philosopher cherry picking the evidence he likes and ignoring the weight of the contrary. His own spin is put on other ‘evidence’. He has a predictably narrow view of ‘the physical’.

(2017-10-25, 05:07 PM)nbtruthman Wrote: [ -> ]Neo-Darwinians claim to debunk the extreme unlikelihood of the gradualistic evolution of the irreducibly complex bacterial flagellum through Darwinian processes, through inventing a scenario in which the flagellum is imagined to have been derived from the T3SS system.

I said nothing about the flagellum evolving from the T3SS system. I was pointing out that the T3SS is an example of a reduced system having a useful function.

~~ Paul

(2017-11-06, 05:42 PM)malf Wrote: [ -> ]I don’t think there is anything new here. We have a Christian philosopher cherry picking the evidence he likes and ignoring the weight of the contrary. His own spin is put on other ‘evidence’. He has a predictably narrow view of ‘the physical’.

Did I hear him claim that fundamental particles have flavor and color? I guess physicists are a bit too whimsical.

Linda