Darwin Unhinged: The Bugs in Evolution

I now see there was a discussion of the same question on Skeptiko only a few months ago, with links to quite a lot of literature on both sides of the argument, starting here:
http://www.skeptiko-forum.com/threads/is...ost-113548

Having had a little look, I think I'll beat a hasty retreat back to the realms of psi ...

Well assuming your look was positive, do try to remember what this means for psi:

1)          Science in many areas is driven by agenda, and the agenda behind the promotion of Darwinism seems to have been the intense desire to remove the supernatural from biology.

2)         Look around you - at the people and animals and plants - science honestly doesn't have an explanation for how these got here!

3)        Most of psi/religious ideas are based on the idea that we are more than just a rather unusual configuration of physical matter. If we could be fully explained by physical science that would suggest the opposite. Now there are at least two gaping holes in the scientific narrative - evolution and the explanation of consciousness (something that Skeptiko has also explored in depth).

I started out as materialist as you get. I did a PhD in chemistry and accepted all the scientific myths - such as evolution by natural selection, and consciousness as a computation - as given. I even became interested in psi while still believing in Darwinian evolution, but the contrast between the arguments between conventional science and the ID crowd - seen here head to head - can be pretty incredible:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-KPfFPIaVU

I'm not a Christian, so I don't imagine Yaweh as a super biochemical nerd, but if intelligence is needed to create and develop life, that must be telling us something super important.

David

2)         Look around you - at the people and animals and plants - science honestly doesn't have an explanation for how these got here!

My look was sufficient to convince me that complicated technical considerations are involved in judging whether that kind of statement is true (in the sense that natural selection can't in principle explain things).

My look was sufficient to convince me that complicated technical considerations are involved in judging whether that kind of statement is true (in the sense that natural selection can't in principle explain things).

My comment was really meant to apply if and when you came to the conclusion that life does not exist as a result of natural selection - obviously you have to wade through some technical arguments if you want to get to that point yourself.

David

My comment was really meant to apply if and when you came to the conclusion that life does not exist as a result of natural selection - obviously you have to wade through some technical arguments if you want to get to that point yourself.

When I said I'd had a little look and was beating a hasty retreat to psi, I meant I was going to do that rather than trying to wade through the literature. Without doing that, as arguments were being advanced by both sides, obviously it's not clear what conclusion, if any, it would have led to.

When I said I'd had a little look and was beating a hasty retreat to psi, I meant I was going to do that rather than trying to wade through the literature. Without doing that, as arguments were being advanced by both sides, obviously it's not clear what conclusion, if any, it would have led to.

You seem to be on the fence when it comes to Darwinism. I don't know what your position is re. psi and the afterlife, but I assume that you are aware that if you tend toward the proponent side of the psi/afterlife question and also Darwinism you also entertain a possible massive cognitive dissonance. This may also be the case for the converse. This is because the two are directly contradictory. Darwinism is the essence of reductionist materialism and very clearly says that the human being is nothing more than an intelligent animal, and consciousness is purely the result of massive data processing by billions of neurons. Clear implications of Darwinism are that psi and an afterlife are impossible and superstitious fantasies. Either Darwinism or psi/afterlife are the truth, but not both.

You seem to be on the fence when it comes to Darwinism. I don't know what your position is re. psi and the afterlife, but I assume that you are aware that if you tend toward the proponent side of the psi/afterlife question you also entertain a possible massive cognitive dissonance. This is because the two are directly contradictory. Darwinism is the essence of reductionist materialism and very clearly says that the human being is nothing more than an intelligent animal, and consciousness is purely the result of massive data processing by billions of neurons. Clear implications of Darwinism are that psi and an afterlife are impossible and superstitious fantasies. Either Darwinism or psi/afterlife are the truth, but not both.

It's fair to say I tend to the proponent side for psi, on the basis of the evidence, but not for the afterlife, because I think the evidence for that is more problematic.

But I also tend to look directly at the evidence rather than thinking about the metaphysical implications and drawing conclusions from that. So as I can't (or won't) look at the evidence about Darwinism, I'm not going to draw a conclusion there. But in any case, I'm not convinced that psi couldn't be consistent with Darwinism, or with the view that consciousness is purely a result of physical processes in the brain. If psi exists, we know so very little about how it works.

You seem to be on the fence when it comes to Darwinism. I don't know what your position is re. psi and the afterlife, but I assume that you are aware that if you tend toward the proponent side of the psi/afterlife question and also Darwinism you also entertain a possible massive cognitive dissonance. This may also be the case for the converse. This is because the two are directly contradictory. Darwinism is the essence of reductionist materialism and very clearly says that the human being is nothing more than an intelligent animal, and consciousness is purely the result of massive data processing by billions of neurons. Clear implications of Darwinism are that psi and an afterlife are impossible and superstitious fantasies. Either Darwinism or psi/afterlife are the truth, but not both.

Explain in detail how the former makes the latter impossible. Do you realize your rational if applied to QM and Classical physics would be a binary choice. We know that's not true.

When I said I'd had a little look and was beating a hasty retreat to psi, I meant I was going to do that rather than trying to wade through the literature. Without doing that, as arguments were being advanced by both sides, obviously it's not clear what conclusion, if any, it would have led to.

The problem is that I think science has become very rigid on certain subjects, and will put up endless essentially spurious arguments rather than shift ground. This 'policy' is becoming rather thin, but it can still give the superficial impression that there is a conventional scientific debate in progress.

In a way, I think you either have to approach psi with a total disregard of science, or you have to wade into some of these debates - as a number of people here have tried to do. Many of the Skeptiko podcasts also picked away at the various questions:

1)           Does science have an understanding of what consciousness is?

2)           Does science treat the evidence for psi fairly?

3)           Does science treat the various death-related phenomena (NDE's, deathbed visions, mediumship) in a fair minded way?

The problem isn't that no scientists rethink their positions, btu that the system then brands them - in effect - as heretics, and ignores them!

David

It's fair to say I tend to the proponent side for psi, on the basis of the evidence, but not for the afterlife, because I think the evidence for that is more problematic.

But I also tend to look directly at the evidence rather than thinking about the metaphysical implications and drawing conclusions from that. So as I can't (or won't) look at the evidence about Darwinism, I'm not going to draw a conclusion there. But in any case, I'm not convinced that psi couldn't be consistent with Darwinism, or with the view that consciousness is purely a result of physical processes in the brain. If psi exists, we know so very little about how it works.

It seems most here and at skeptiko have an either or outlook. I see no thoughts except yours that the two could present two real aspects of reality.

The problem is that I think science has become very rigid on certain subjects, and will put up endless essentially spurious arguments rather than shift ground. This 'policy' is becoming rather thin, but it can still give the superficial impression that there is a conventional scientific debate in progress.

In a way, I think you either have to approach psi with a total disregard of science, or you have to wade into some of these debates - as a number of people here have tried to do. Many of the Skeptiko podcasts also picked away at the various questions:

1)           Does science have an understanding of what consciousness is?

2)           Does science treat the evidence for psi fairly?

3)           Does science treat the various death-related phenomena (NDE's, deathbed visions, mediumship) in a fair minded way?

The problem isn't that no scientists rethink their positions, btu that the system then brands them - in effect - as heretics, and ignores them!

David

None of which really has anything to do with my not having the background knowledge or the time to read a lot of technical arguments about Darwinism.