Anti-evolution, pro science conservatives

WorldNetDaily ^ | 3/29/2008 | Gary Bauer and Daniel Allott

[wastedpotential]

Of all the factors that led to Mike Huckabee's demise in the 2008 presidential sweepstakes (insufficient funds, lack of foreign policy experience), there's one that has been largely overlooked: Huckabee's disbelief in the theory of evolution as it is generally understood – without the involvement of the Creator.

Perhaps you're thinking: What's evolution got to do with being president? Very little, as Huckabee was quick to remind reporters on the campaign trail. But from the moment the former Baptist minister revealed his beliefs on evolutionary biology, political commentators and scientists lambasted him. Some even suggested those beliefs should disqualify him from high office.

We believe most Americans

[CottShop]

lol- don’t liek the coutner evidences eh? That’s ok- don’t defend the indefensible bootstrap- I understand

[AndrewC]

These phenomena show us that cells are capable of altering their genomes in non-random but not rigidly specified or pre-determined ways.

Exactly. And those not rigidlly specified ways involve calculations.

can be targeted to specific locations by the presence of particular signals in the DNA or by activation of transcription.

[js1138]

If you are attacking Shapiro, you will have to address your questions to AndrewC. He is the Shapario man.

[Fichori]

"I have posted to others previously that I will not participate in obfuscatory arguments.

I will, when I feel like it, post references to information. What you do with it is not my problem."

Either swim, or stay out of the pool.

Otherwise, you have no right to complain when someone calls you on your duck-n-run technique or flames your monologue.

[js1138]

Let’s cut to the chase. There are lots of unanswered questions in biology. If you are a follower of Shapiro, more power to you.

But you never seem to bring to the surface the fact that Shapiro is a mainstream biologist who has nothing in common with Young Earth Creationism, with Dembski’s Front Loading, or with any interpretation of biological evidence that requires supernatural intervention. There has been in psychology, for over 50 years, an interpretation of “intelligence” that considers it commensurate with biological evolution.

Shapiro gave Behe’s Black Box a devastating review, and the review is widely quoted on creationist websites as being critical of evolution. But they don’t quote the opening or closing comments in the review:

“Into this recurring intellectual revolution arrives Professor Michael J. Behe with the claim that random genetic change, natural selection, and gradual evolution must move aside in favor of intelligent design as an explanatory paradigm for biological adaptations. Is this book a serious critique of orthodox evolutionary theory? Or is it a misguided attempt to bring religion back into biology? Unfortunately, the answer to both questions is yes.”

...

“We need only think of the many applications of hybrid concepts like neural networks and genetic algorithms to realize the enormous potential of the interface between information science and biology. Exploring this interface, science is about to enter a period as exciting and transforming as the physics of the early twentieth century. Sadly, despite its valuable critique of an all-too-often unchallenged orthodoxy, Darwin’s Black Box fails to capture the true excitement of contemporary biology because it is fighting the battles of the past rather than seeing the vision of the future.”

[CottShop]

Yup- he can post obfuscatory based assumptions- try to present them as indisputable facts, then tucks tail and runs when it’s pointed out that the links and subjects he posts are nothign but assumption driven guesses abotu past events and current ‘measurements’. Algorithms have serious flaws, and MUST rely on assumptions and filler arguments to support them- filler arguments that lack any scientific evidences to support I might add- so they’re even weaker arguemtns based on yet more assumptions and imaginary scenarios than they first appear. But yet we’re the ones being ‘obfuscatory’ lol

[AndrewC]

But you never seem to bring to the surface the fact that Shapiro is a mainstream biologist who has nothing in common with Young Earth Creationism, with Dembski’s Front Loading, or with any interpretation of biological evidence that requires supernatural intervention.

Why should I state what one can discover by reading what I link. So he didn't like Behe's book in 1996. Well, this is what he had to say about Darwinists in 1997. A Third Way

Although such purists as Dennett and Dawkins repeatedly assert that the scientific issues surrounding evolution are basically solved by conventional neo-Darwinism, the ongoing public fascination reveals a deeper wisdom. There are far more unresolved questions than answers about evolutionary processes, and contemporary science continues to provide us with new conceptual possibilities.

Unfortunately, readers of Boston Review may remain unaware of this intellectual ferment because the debate about evolution continues to assume the quality of an abstract and philosophical "dialogue of the deaf" between Creationists and Darwinists. Although our knowledge of the molecular details of biological organization is undergoing a revolutionary expansion, open-minded discussions of the impact of these discoveries are all too rare. The possibility of a non-Darwinian, scientific theory of evolution is virtually never considered. In my comments, then, I propose to sketch some developments in contemporary life science that suggest shortcomings in orthodox evolutionary theory and open the door to very different ways of formulating questions about the evolutionary process. After a discussion of technical advances in our views about genome organization and the mechanisms of genetic change, I will focus on a growing convergence between biology and information science which offers the potential for scientific investigation of possible intelligent cellular action in evolution.

What significance does an emerging interface between biology and information science hold for thinking about evolution? It opens up the possibility of addressing scientifically rather than ideologically the central issue so hotly contested by fundamentalists on both sides of the Creationist-Darwinist debate: Is there any guiding intelligence at work in the origin of species displaying exquisite adaptations that range from lambda prophage repression and the Krebs cycle through the mitotic apparatus and the eye to the immune system, mimicry, and social organization? Borrowing concepts from information science, new schools of evolutionists can begin to rephrase virtually intractable global questions in terms amenable to computer modelling and experimentation. We can speculate what some of these more manageable questions might be: How can molecular control circuits be combined to direct the expression of novel traits? Do genomes display characteristic system architectures that allow us to predict phenotypic consequences when we rearrange DNA sequence components? Do signal transduction networks contribute functional information as they regulate the action of natural genetic engineering hardware?

Questions like those above will certainly prove to be naive because we are just on the threshold of a new way of thinking about living organisms and their variations. Nonetheless, these questions serve to illustrate the potential for addressing the deep issues of evolution from a radically different scientific perspective. Novel ways of looking at longstanding problems have historically been the chief motors of scientific progress. However, the potential for new science is hard to find in the Creationist-Darwinist debate. Both sides appear to have a common interest in presenting a static view of the scientific enterprise. This is to be expected from the Creationists, who naturally refuse to recognize science's remarkable record of making more and more seemingly miraculous aspects of our world comprehensible to our understanding and accessible to our technology. But the neo-Darwinian advocates claim to be scientists, and we can legitimately expect of them a more open spirit of inquiry. Instead, they assume a defensive posture of outraged orthodoxy and assert an unassailable claim to truth, which only serves to validate the Creationists' criticism that Darwinism has become more of a faith than a science.

You'll notice the criticism of Darwinists and the mention of addressing Intelligent Design scientifically.

P.S. Your citation in post 797 is from an Intelligent Design site.

[js1138]

I do know where my citations come from, and I do read them through to make sure I am not quote mining.

Again, I find that over the years you never criticise young earth creationism or any of the weird forms of ID.

So when you use the term nonrandom or guiding intelligence, some may mistake your reference as a reference to a supernatural designer, rather than an intelligence that is more like a computer algorithm, an analogy which Shapiro explicitly uses.

[AndrewC]

Again, I find that over the years you never criticise young earth creationism or any of the weird forms of ID.

I'm not Mormon, but I don't find it necessary to criticise Mormons.

So when you use the term nonrandom or guiding intelligence, some may mistake your reference as a reference to a supernatural designer,

That would probably be due to the fact that I am referencing a supernatural designer and so apparently is Shapiro.

It opens up the possibility of addressing scientifically rather than ideologically the central issue so hotly contested by fundamentalists on both sides of the Creationist-Darwinist debate:

That central argument from the "Creationists" certainly is not whether the cell thinks or wrote its own program. Plus computer algorithms don't pop out of thin air.

[js1138]

I'm not Mormon, but I don't find it necessary to criticise Mormons.

That's evasive and dishonest. If you were teaching Sunday School or participating in a church sponsored discussion of doctrine, you would criticise other church's doctrines.

These discussions always boil down to naturalism vs supernaturalism, natural history vs intervention.

Shapiro disavows the need for supernatural explanations.

[AndrewC]

That's evasive and dishonest.

No it is not. This is not a church sponsored discussion of doctrine and I am not teaching Sunday school. Shapiro does not disavow the need for supernatural explanations, he addresses what he addresses. I have supported the contention that DNA is like a computer program. You have not supported your viewpoint. Now you attempt red herring by having me attack someone or something outside of the scope of the point we have been discussing. I won't go for it. At this juncture it is apparent that the DNA molecule is code. That is a step in the direction of Intelligent design.

These discussions always boil down to naturalism vs supernaturalism, natural history vs intervention.

That is what Shapiro stated in "A Third Way",(because the debate about evolution continues to assume the quality of an abstract and philosophical "dialogue of the deaf" between Creationists and Darwinists.) and you are addressing it in exactly the way Shapiro stated you typically do.

Instead, they assume a defensive posture of outraged orthodoxy and assert an unassailable claim to truth, which only serves to validate the Creationists' criticism that Darwinism has become more of a faith than a science.

[Ha Ha Thats Very Logical]

Got some pretty serious gaps there Ha Ha.

Yes, there are gaps. I know you want fossil evidence for every stage of every change from the dinosaur arm to the bird's wing, in neat chronological progression, but I don't think you're ever going to get it. For one thing, scientists no longer look for a linear progression from dinosaurs to birds, and for another, fossils are rare, period. So maybe the animal that had the bird-like scapula 90 million years ago was not a direct ancestor of today's birds. But if none of the scapulae from 150 MYA look like birds, and then some from 90 MYA do, I think it's fair to call that an evolutionary step. Now, that particular animal's wrist might not look like today's birds, but another animal's wrist from 80 MYA does, while no animal from 150 MYA does. So now we've got two of the traits characterizing today's birds appearing in the fossil record sometime between 150 and 80 MYA. Neither one of them might have been the direct ancestor of today's birds, but there is a general progression in forelimb characteristics from dinosaur arm to bird wing. I know you don't even accept the dates, so I don't expect you to accept the progression. But I have no problem with dating methods, so I accept the evidence and the interpretation.

Also, note that the page I linked to is from "Dino-World," which specializes in poster-size summaries of evolutionary information. You can't expect a poster to present every piece of evidence available. The Wikipedia entry on Origin of Birds has references to a lot more sources, including evidence from a lot more biological systems than just the skeleton.

few Homological similarities can’t be used as an argument

Your links don't demonstrate that. What the Wells article does is to examine some of the possible explanations for homological similarities and show that so far, none of them by themselves has been proven sufficient to explain all the similarities. He hasn't eliminated the possibility that some might be explained one way and some another, or that the explanation might require more than one factor working together.

Wells's conclusion is merely that "Darwinian evolution cannot claim to have demonstrated scientifically that living things are undesigned." Most evolutionary scientists aren't trying to prove that--it's awful hard to prove a negative. If Wells thinks living things are designed, let him try to demonstrate that scientifically. He can start with the scapula--what did the designer do, and how, and when, to bring about the introduction of a birdlike scapula in animals that lived between 150 and 80 MYA? Or is that one of those questions that's not worth asking?

[Fichori]

"Yes, there are gaps. I know you want fossil evidence for every stage of every change from the dinosaur arm to the bird's wing, in neat chronological progression, but I don't think you're ever going to get it. For one thing, scientists no longer look for a linear progression from dinosaurs to birds, and for another, fossils are rare, period. So maybe the animal that had the bird-like scapula 90 million years ago was not a direct ancestor of today's birds. But if none of the scapulae from 150 MYA look like birds, and then some from 90 MYA do, I think it's fair to call that an evolutionary step. Now, that particular animal's wrist might not look like today's birds, but another animal's wrist from 80 MYA does, while no animal from 150 MYA does. So now we've got two of the traits characterizing today's birds appearing in the fossil record sometime between 150 and 80 MYA. Neither one of them might have been the direct ancestor of today's birds, but there is a general progression in forelimb characteristics from dinosaur arm to bird wing. I know you don't even accept the dates, so I don't expect you to accept the progression. But I have no problem with dating methods, so I accept the evidence and the interpretation."

So if the lack of transitory species is explained by the fact that the fossils found in the fossil record were laid down in a non-linear chronological progression, how then can the fossil record be used to produce a linear chronological progression of dates?

If the fossil record is non-linear, then it only tells us that those fossils were placed in the order found, not when they were placed.

(And knowing the age of a fossil bassed on what layer it was found in; and knowing the age of the layer by what fossils are found in it; Is pure circular reasoning.)

[Ha Ha Thats Very Logical]

if the lack of transitory species is explained by the fact that the fossils found in the fossil record were laid down in a non-linear chronological progression,

I'm not sure I understand the question. The fossils were deposited in chronological order, obviously. The "linear progression" I was referring to is the idea that dinosaur A evolved into dinosaur B evolved into birdlike dinosaur C evolved into dinosaurlike bird D evolved into a bird. It's not that straightforward--or, rather, there might have been such a lineage, but the chances of finding fossils of A, B, C, and D are slim. Maybe A was the common ancestor of A1, A2, and A3, and A3 was a common ancestor of birds but we only find fossils from A1. And maybe A1s survived past the time D showed up, so we actually have birdlike fossils that are older than the fossils we have of an earlier species. One longtime participant in these threads had a nice clade diagram that showed how this worked--maybe somebody knows where to find it. Whatever--the point is that asking to see every stage of scapular development from dinosaur to bird is probably asking for too much.

(And knowing the age of a fossil bassed on what layer it was found in; and knowing the age of the layer by what fossils are found in it; Is pure circular reasoning.)

Fortunately, there's a lot more to it than that. Courtesy of Coyoteman's home page, a little primer on dating:

Radiometric Dating: A Christian Perspective by Dr. Roger C. Wiens.

[Coyoteman]

Explaining radiometric dating to a few of the posters here is a waste of time. They are prevented by religious beliefs from accepting its applicability and accuracy, and no amount of fact or data will change that.

But I generally post data of that kind anyway, as other posters and perhaps many lurkers are still willing to learn.

Here is the full list of my radiocarbon links:

ReligiousTolerance.org Carbon-14 Dating (C-14): Beliefs of New-Earth Creationists

Radiometric Dating: A Christian Perspective by Dr. Roger C. Wiens.

This site, BiblicalChronologist.org has a series of good articles on radiocarbon dating.

Are tree-ring chronologies reliable? (The Biblical Chronologist, Vol. 5, No. 1)

How does the radiocarbon dating method work? (The Biblical Chronologist, Vol. 5, No. 1)

How precise is radiocarbon dating?

Is radiocarbon dating based on assumptions?

Has radiocarbon dating been invalidated by unreasonable results?

Tree Ring and C14 Dating

Radiocarbon WEB-info Radiocarbon Laboratory, University of Waikato, New Zealand.

Radiocarbon -- full text of issues, 1959-2003.

[Fichori]

What is the source for the dates listed in post 812?

From your reply, I would guess radiometric.

For those of us who don't know, would you care to elaborate on exactly how they calibrate beyond 1MYA?

[Fichori]

"Explaining radiometric dating to a few of the posters here is a waste of time. They are prevented by religious beliefs from accepting its applicability and accuracy, and no amount of fact or data will change that.

It is the Assumptions and Interpretations made by Evolutionists that Creationists have no faith in.

The technologies are in themselves, no issue.


If your right, why try to smear their character?

[CottShop]

[[If Wells thinks living things are designed, let him try to demonstrate that scientifically.]]

They are proving it with IC and hsowing that nature simply can’t overcome the biological impossibilities to produce stepwise IC

[[I know you want fossil evidence for every stage of every change from the dinosaur arm to the bird’s wing, in neat chronological progression, but I don’t think you’re ever going to get it.]]

That’s not what I want- I expect more than setting species that are biologically different next to each other and claiming that because they have common features that they must be related- looking at science this way is paramount to looking at a roundish rock, a tennis ball and orange and claimign htey are related- there’s a tremendous mount of differences between the two

[[what did the designer do, and how, and when, to bring about the introduction of a birdlike scapula in animals that lived between 150 and 80 MYA?]]

First of all you are ASSUMING they are that old- secondly, you are assuming the gap is that large between the two species and you have a priori ruled out a catastrophic event which burried rapidly because in your opinion it never happened and nature laid down layers in nice neat patterns- then, you evidently rule out that a Designer would create somewhat similar features in different species and don’t accept that a similar design can be used between the two- your argument comes after the fact and simply looks at a couple of homological similarities and completely rules out a desinger and is akin to a person stumbling across a toyota, V.W and a Rolls, after they were designed, there would be two camps- 1 claiming they all evolved and are related because ‘they share similar features’ and the other that says they are all uniquely designed and couldn’t have evolved naturally

[[ So now we’ve got two of the traits characterizing today’s birds appearing in the fossil record sometime between 150 and 80 MYA. Neither one of them might have been the direct ancestor of today’s birds, but there is a general progression in forelimb characteristics from dinosaur arm to bird wing.]]

No- what we have are fully formed species with each their own unique designs- To claim the features exampled ‘evovled’ is nothign but a guess/opinion because htere are no progressive fossils that show these features progressing- they just all of a sudden show up in the fossil records- complete and fully functioinal

[[He hasn’t eliminated the possibility that some might be explained one way and some another,]]

But yet ‘science’ books tell us they ARE related and show a progression and don’t cede that another explanation is possible- they just state it as fact.

[Coyoteman]

It is the Assumptions and Interpretations made by Evolutionists that Creationists have no faith in.

The folks who developed these forms of radiometric dating are nuclear physicists and nuclear chemists.

Are they all "evilutionists" too, and so automatically not to be trusted?

Or is it only those scientists who come up with facts and methods inconvenient to creationism that are selected as "evilutionists"?

[CottShop]

[[The fossils were deposited in chronological order, obviously.]]

You’re sure of htis how?

[[dinosaur A evolved into dinosaur B evolved into birdlike dinosaur C ]]

And you’re positive these weren’t all three uniquely created fully formed creatures of different KINDS hhow?

[[Whatever—the point is that asking to see every stage of scapular development from dinosaur to bird is probably asking for too much.]]

Perhaps- but showing a dino with a scapula and one without is expecting far too much in regards to believing the two are related, and that the one evolved into the other.

As for the radiometric dating- look into the problems with all the methods used, they are not insignificant- beyond approximately 7000- years, the systems used rely on pure speculation and are forced to either ignore or explain away with yet more assumptions all the dates that didn’t fit- not impressed with dating methods that rely on nothign but assumptions and which keep changing- many times by supposedly billions of years.