A new Guardian article on near-death experiences

Whereafter you link to a video emphasizing the issues with the 'file drawer' effect, I think you are showing double standards. What about GLP-1 agonists—are they good or bad? That’s where the serious money is in the pharmaceutical industry these days, not in cheap generic statins produced in India.

I am not quite sure how far to go with this conversation because I think it is shifting off the main topic of this website. However, the fact that science is so malleable in the face out outside forces, is very relevant. My main point is that I think a lot of people now realise that fact, and that may be driving us towards a change in society's approach to science.

However, yes, you are right statins are now dirt cheap, but the problem for Big Pharma is that you can't be too critical of wonder drug 5 just because you have come out with wonder drug 6!

I don't quite follow your point about the file drawer effect and my supposed double standards!

David

I am less pessimistic than you because I really see science being questioned more and more in the mainstream press and on YouTube.

One of the things I liked about Skeptiko (I can't remember now if you used that site) was that it did explore topics that showed the shortcomings of science on a broader front.

This matters because people are more likely to accept parapsychology if they realise just how dodgy 'real' science is regarding things that obviously matter to them - like health.

To avoid going into dangerous topics except to put up a video from YouTube that anyone can listen to:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FT18fL9OopQ

Closer to home, I can see conventional biology hitting a crunch point at some point. Clearly enough scientists are so sick of Darwin's theory that they set up "The Third Way". The scientists in that group seem happy to come up with obscure explanations in terms of informational flows etc. (see @stephenw for details) so that they can get grants to explore just how wrong Darwin's theory really is!

Maybe soon they will come out and say it - "All life shows strong signs that it was designed!"

David

In his book The Descent of Man, Darwin emphasized a substantial degree of mental development (including the incipient use of language) in the early, monogenetic phase of human evolution. This development, he argued, necessarily came before primeval man's numerical increase, geographic dispersion, and racial diversification, because only thus could one explain how that group was able to spread at the expense of rival ape-like populations. This scenario stood opposed to a new evolutionary polygenism formulated in the wake of Darwin's Origin of Species by his ostensible supporters Alfred Russel Wallace and Ernst Haeckel. Darwin judged this outlook inadequate to the task of explaining humanity's emergence. -S. Alter

Darwin believed in mental evolution and hence, in the independence of mind from the body.  This fact is wrongly ignored in his materialistic followers - in in his own day.   The fact is much of what is claimed as Darwinian -- must have him roiling in his grave.

Darwin believed in mental evolution and hence, in the independence of mind from the body.  This fact is wrongly ignored in his materialistic followers - in in his own day.   The fact is much of what is claimed as Darwinian -- must have him roiling in his grave.

So according to this, how do minds evolve?

David

Darwin believed in mental evolution and hence, in the independence of mind from the body.  This fact is wrongly ignored in his materialistic followers - in in his own day.   The fact is much of what is claimed as Darwinian -- must have him roiling in his grave.

I find that hard to believe, given Darwin's great efforts to find an unintelligent mechanism to explain evolution that did not involve a God or other spiritual source, and that by implication excluded from possibility any form of soul or afterlife (which latter would be implied by independence of mind and body). Do you have any actual quotes?

So according to this, how do minds evolve?

David

Mind is an abstraction.  Scientifically, mental phenomena are studied as information processes.  Information processing evolves as increased capability to know and understand an organism's own environments.  Darwin studied instinct and Freud based many of his ideas about the unconscious on his work.

  Freud's theories were influenced by Darwinism, particularly the idea of inherited characteristics. He applied evolutionary causes to mental disorders and believed in inherited unconscious memories

Darwin's closest associate at the end of his career - G. Romanes - wrote the title "Mental Evolution in Animals" - Darwin wrote the forward to the book.  Romanes went on to write "Mental Evolution in Man".

In modern times, the theory of Integrated Information Theory is a working model of just such evolutionary processes.

I find that hard to believe, given Darwin's great efforts to find an unintelligent mechanism to explain evolution that did not involve a God or other spiritual source, and that by implication excluded from possibility any form of soul or afterlife (which latter would be implied by independence of mind and body). Do you have any actual quotes?

I have already supplied a quote stating that Darwin OPPOSED unintelligent mechanisms.  Did you not read it?  I have spend some time with Darwin's Descent of Man.  Please if you have found Darwin promoting philosophy and metaphysics - respond with a quote where he does.

The Third Way website is full of modern intellectual giants (at least compared to me) who support scientific theories that refute Materialism.  I find it so ironic that those who think they fight science with tired doctrine - are the first to cite the materialistic claims when their rote ideas are challenged.

I have never said a word about religion in my years here.  I am a Church member and live in a religious community.  I have only ever revealed this to Sci, before.

I find that hard to believe, given Darwin's great efforts to find an unintelligent mechanism to explain evolution that did not involve a God or other spiritual source, and that by implication excluded from possibility any form of soul or afterlife (which latter would be implied by independence of mind and body). Do you have any actual quotes?

Then bearing your own principle in mind, explain how God came about.  I believe in God too but your argument simply doesn't work.  If there has to be a god to have created us, then there has to be a greater god to have created God.

Then bearing your own principle in mind, explain how God came about.  I believe in God too but your argument simply doesn't work.  If there has to be a god to have created us, then there has to be a greater god to have created God.

This little debate isn't about philosophical questions about the nature of God and how such a Creator could not in turn also necessitate having a Creator. This little debate is about the nature of Darwin's beliefs and whether they included a belief in a basic separation between man's soul and evolved body, there being a spiritual or immaterial component to Man's nature which would have implied a belief in a Creator being of some sort. Darwin' works emphatically deny that conjecture. 

Darwin's theory of evolution, called Darwinism, can be divided into 5 parts: "evolution as such", common descent, gradual changes based on natural variations, population speciation, and natural selection. Notice that this basically mechanical process carefully and atheistically excludes even the mention of any kind of intelligent teleological designing force(s), much less God.

Darwin did write of cognitive evolution of man, most notably in The Descent of Man, but he suggested that like any other trait, human “mental faculties” are the outcome of evolution by a mechanical and stochastical natural plus sexual selection process and insisted that they should be understood in light of what he called “common descent”.

Darwin fully understood, and at times agonized over, the threat that his work might pose to traditional religious belief, explaining in an 1860 letter to American botanist Asa Gray that he “had no intention to write atheistically.” But he did. He said “I cannot see as plainly as others do … evidence of design and beneficence on all sides of us. There seems to be too much misery in the world.” A basically theological argument against God. Darwin's notion was that that existing species, including man, had developed over time due to constant and random change, and seemed to be in clear opposition to the idea that all creatures had been created “according to their kind” by God, as described in the first chapter of the biblical book of Genesis.

I have already supplied a quote stating that Darwin OPPOSED unintelligent mechanisms.  Did you not read it?  I have spend some time with Darwin's Descent of Man.  Please if you have found Darwin promoting philosophy and metaphysics - respond with a quote where he does.

The Third Way website is full of modern intellectual giants (at least compared to me) who support scientific theories that refute Materialism.  I find it so ironic that those who think they fight science with tired doctrine - are the first to cite the materialistic claims when their rote ideas are challenged.

I have never said a word about religion in my years here.  I am a Church member and live in a religious community.  I have only ever revealed this to Sci, before.

I believe this misinterprets Darwin's views. See my previous response to Brian. Darwin believed that natural variation plus natural and/or sexual selection was the driving force of evolution. That's not spouting philosophy and metaphysics - it's making various theological arguments that "God wouldn't have done it this way", and so on. These are specifically unintelligent mechanisms. What I asked for was a quote from one of Darwin's own works supporting the notion of a separation between man's mind/personality and the body. I think this basically spiritual notion was foreign to his thinking, which was attempting to exclude any outside teleology or Godly creative forces in evolution, totally opposing Christianity.

I believe this misinterprets Darwin's views. See my previous response to Brian. Darwin believed that natural variation plus natural and/or sexual selection was the driving force of evolution. That's not spouting philosophy and metaphysics - it's making various theological arguments that "God wouldn't have done it this way", and so on.

There are no Theological arguments in Descent of Man, except if someone is looking for a metaphysical fight.  I like the old quote, "if a pickpocket met a Master, he would only see his pockets."

Back to science.   https://scitechdaily.com/beyond-biology-...evolution/

  The authors’ “Law of Increasing Functional Information” states that the system will evolve “if many different configurations of the system undergo selection for one or more functions.”

“An important component of this proposed natural law is the idea of ‘selection for function,’” says Carnegie astrobiologist Dr. Michael L. Wong, first author of the study.

In the case of biology, Darwin equated function primarily with survival—the ability to live long enough to produce fertile offspring.

The new study expands that perspective, noting that at least three kinds of function occur in nature.

The most basic function is stability – stable arrangements of atoms or molecules are selected to continue. Also chosen to persist are dynamic systems with ongoing supplies of energy.

The third and most interesting function is “novelty”—the tendency of evolving systems to explore new configurations that sometimes lead to startling new behaviors or characteristics.

Quoted in the article are several famous thinkers of our time.

 “The paper “On the roles of function and selection in evolving systems” provides an innovative, compelling, and sound theoretical framework for the evolution of complex systems, encompassing both living and non-living systems. Pivotal in this new law is functional information, which quantitatively captures the possibilities a system has to perform a function. As some functions are indeed crucial for the survival of a living organism, this theory addresses the core of evolution and is open to quantitative assessment. I believe this contribution has also the merit of speaking to different scientific communities that might find a common ground for open and fruitful discussions on complexity and evolution.”

— Andrea Roli, Assistant Professor, Università di Bologna.

  bolding mine