Posted on 06/27/2014 8:33:15 AM PDT by Tax-chick
What are you reading? There used to be a quarterly "What are you reading?" thread, but I haven't seen it for a long time. I got a lot of good book suggestions that way, and I miss it.
So here's a thread! If you're reading something interesting you think others would like, or something boring you'd recommend we all avoid, jump in! If you have a ping list of FReepers who might be interested, ping them!
I would also add that the video game industry uses a lot of references to classic science fiction. I had to laugh when my son would play those A-HEM $60 games and tell me about the plot line, character names, etc. I knew the references and told him that the creators of those games know a lot of science fiction, LOL.
Now, my son is studying computer science with an emphasis on cutting -edge programming needed for video games. He and I have been reviewing classic SciFi so he can keep up.
That’s a strong recommendation!
I don't plan on fomenting an argument, but citing observations drawn from the Cambrian Explosion as evidence of Intelligent Design is like using a time machine to fetch dinner. Having supposedly done that myself, I understand the principle behind accepting and endorsing the improbable and the impossible, sometimes several times before breakfast, as a healthy attribute of an imaginative mind.
However, if one is willing to push Intelligent Design, and its operative theater, back to the Cambrian, what's the essential difference between that and the panspermia theory?
Danged if I know, Bob. I’ll read the book, if I can get through it before it’s due back at the library (or renew it, if I’m enjoying it), and I’ll probably learn something new.
Facts, of course, don’t do a whole lot for us without interpretation. I was just reading an article about Inca string-things. The article said they were used to keep accounts in a society without writing ... but then, said that’s one possibility that’s been proposed.
Reality can be so fluid. Have a drink!
I’m using the Inca string-thing as background for a story I’m writing. It starts out thirty thousand years ago.
I need to get it all written down before my memories from back then fade.
*snicker*
Just ask Darksheare.
Actually, we do consult with each other.
I can't claim that I made him the man he is; I only helped repair the fax maxhine.
“I don’t plan on fomenting an argument, but citing observations drawn from the Cambrian Explosion as evidence of Intelligent Design is like using a time machine to fetch dinner.”
Given that statement, Bob, I would venture to guess you haven’t read either book.
The thing that I liked a lot about Meyer is his thoroughness, intellectual honesty and brutal use of logic and attention to details and the fact that he keeps all of his arguments scientifically based. He never mentions the bible, Christianity or any other religion. His arguments are based on accepted evidence and logic.
What I found compelling wasn’t so much his hypothesis for intelligent design, but his dismantling of Darwinian theory as an explanation for the origin of life (Signature in the Cell) and for life’s subsequent progress (Darwin’s Doubt).
He doesn’t totally dismiss Darwin. He accepts that evolution does play some role in “micro” changes, but not in large systemic or morphological changes, and absolutely not in the origin of life.
For me the most convincing part of the book is his strong critique of Darwinism. I went from being sort of a passive believer in evolution (with some nagging doubts), to absolutely not believing that it explains the origin or the big changes of life.
And by the way, most conventional biologists have the same doubts. Even big names like Stephen Gould saw the problems that Darwin had with the Cambrian Explosion (Darwin himself had doubts!), and he came up with a modified theory called “Punctuated Equilibrium”, but it too was found wanting. So many biologists accept that random changes and natural selection are not sufficient to explain life and how it changes.
So criticizing evolution is not what sets Meyer apart, though he does the most devastating job of any that I’ve seen. What sets him apart and what engenders a lot of criticism from the “conventional” biologists is that he dares to present an alternative that seemingly falls outside the material world - i.e. an intelligent entity.
This is extremely threatening to the conventional scientist, who has been trained and indoctrinated into believing that only material things exist and therefore only material explanations have any place in science. They see the idea of an “intelligent entity” that might have created and/or directed life or the universe, or whatever as taking them right back to the dark ages, to the age of superstition and miracles, where everything can be explained as “God’s will”. And I can sympathize with that. After all material science and it’s methodology has been extremely successful over the past several hundred years, why reintroduce the supernatural?
Well, Meyer is not suggesting that we do away with material science. He’s all in favor of science and it’s methods. What he criticizes is the current assumption in science that excludes the possibility of a mind, of something that is more than simple material. He wants to include what we know exists in everyone of us (our minds) which has not been able to be explained as simple molecular interactions. So if we accepts the mind-body duality in us as individuals, why couldn’t there be a bigger mind-body entity in the universe. And all he asks is that this be included as a possible explanation and that it be investigated by science as any other theory would be.
He himself presents a pretty good case for it, but it’s mostly logic based. He doesn’t present any hard evidence, and that’s where scientific research is needed, as well as searching for other explanations.
So in summary...
1. Darwin’s theory doesn’t explain the origin of life nor the big changes in life. Meyer makes an outstanding case for this. Many “conventional” biologists also believe that Darwinism is lacking.
2. No other material theory exists that explains that
3. Logic and some analogical evidence suggests that a causal “mind” explains both the origin of life and it’s changes
4. Science should include this possibility in it’s investigations, as well as continue to search for other possibilities as evidence dictates.
I’d be interested in either of your take on these books once you read them. (Warning - they’re not easy reads - it helps if you have a biology and logic background)
As expected, you appear to be conflating the origin of life with the origin of species. You, and Meyer, thus destroy a strawman of someone else’s creation.
Darwin’s theory is that gradual changes accumulate, until they have reached a point that the original material is quite obviously distinguishable from its umpteenth-generation offspring. Scientists of all stripes accept this without argument, and must logically do so, because it is by definition necessary; two related species, if not the same, must have accumulated changes that then distinguish them from each other.
But it is always easier to refute or disparage a contention that Darwin never made; that life assembled itself here. I know someone who promulgates that contention, but it wasn’t Darwin.
Quipus?
Life and Death in Shanghi by Nein Cheng. About a woman who suffers through the Chinese Cultural Revolution and remained unbowed. Courage.
His book on the drug life is good too: Romancing the Opiates.
“As expected, you appear to be conflating the origin of life with the origin of species.”
Actually I’m not. There are two things that biologists have no explanations for. The origin of life and big changes (morphological, systemic) in life.
Darwin himself had no explanation for the origin of life and thus he did not claim that his evolution theory explained how life began. I and Meyer understand that. Darwin ASSUMED the existence of life but claimed that his theory explained subsequent changes and developments.
But Darwin himself had some doubts about his theory because of the Cambrian Explosion and the lack of any previous fossil records that would have led to it. He thought that in due time new fossil discoveries would prove him right. Well as of today such has not been the case. And as I mentioned in my post, Meyer is not the only one who has serious doubts. Many other biologists have come out with various modification to the theory (including Gould, and others), all have proven inadequate.
I understand that the origin of life problem is not related to Darwinian evolution. A different type of evolution for the origin of life is suggested by materialists - one that relies on serendipity (the primordial soup with all the appropriate elements, energy, and chemical forces), and subsequently a Darwinian type of evolution of “survival of the fittest” resulting products of this soup. This was Alexander Oparin’s theory. (See Ch 2 of “Signature in the Cell”). Meyer blows out of the water both Darwin and Oparin.
Have you read Meyer’s books?
Just finished Inferno by Dan Brown. Looking for a good WW 1 book. Any ideas?
The Cambrian “Explosion”
“The new fossils appear in an interval of 20 million years or less. On evolutionary time scales, 20 million years is a rapid burst that appears to be inconsistent with the gradual pace of evolutionary change.”
The Cambrian Explosion sounds quite dramatic and exciting, doesn’t it? If it had been called the Cambrian Migration, I don’t think it would have resounded so interestingly.
But let us consider; it is commonly accepted that the Chicxulub meteor impact doomed the age of the dinosaurs, and that all mammals and birds with which we are familiar date from that beginning. That was sixty-five million years ago, so our “explosion” of cats and rats and elephants has occurred at a relatively slow speed compared to the race of Cambrian animals that preceded all of us.
I find that there are two phenomena which cause tremendous confusion in discussions of the fossil record. One is coincidence, which seems to garner a rolling of the eyes when it is invoked. Coincidence controls when fossils may be created. Coincidentally, it is a fickle master.
The other is the sheer scope and breadth of time that is involved. We speak of twenty million years as if it were something that might go by in the blink of an eye. Well, not our eyes. Perhaps God’s eyes, but not ours. Twenty million seconds takes almost a month, and twenty million minutes is a great deal more than “a coon’s age”.
Twenty million days ... oh, my! I only want a million days.
And so on, through weeks, months, and finally years. The tortoises of Galapagos could have walked around the Earth dozens of times to get to their destination, and to escape that “explosion”.
The Cambrian separated relatively simple animals from a wide panoply of crawling, hopping, slithering and bumbling critters who managed to find not only interesting ways to get about, but also multifarious ways to die in interesting and memorable circumstances. If you want to be a fossil, it helps to have bones.
Have I read Meyer’s books? No. But I dare say, he hasn’t read mine, either. Would you have read his books if he had suggested that Darwin was correct about evolution, and that neither of them had any idea about how this all got started?
Has anyone read Craig Johnson’s Longmire books?
“I find that there are two phenomena which cause tremendous confusion in discussions of the fossil record. One is coincidence, which seems to garner a rolling of the eyes when it is invoked. Coincidence controls when fossils may be created. Coincidentally, it is a fickle master.
The other is the sheer scope and breadth of time that is involved. We speak of twenty million years as if it were something that might go by in the blink of an eye. Well, not our eyes. Perhaps God’s eyes, but not ours. Twenty million seconds takes almost a month, and twenty million minutes is a great deal more than “a coon’s age”.”
Meyer addresses all of that and much more in a very detailed, meticulous, methodical and intellectually honest way.
Check it out, you may be pleasantly surprised.
“Have I read Meyer’s books? No. But I dare say, he hasn’t read mine, either. Would you have read his books if he had suggested that Darwin was correct about evolution, and that neither of them had any idea about how this all got started?”
Of course I’ve read books on evolution (which did you write?) - as I said in my earlier post I was a “believer”, but after reading Meyer’s book, I’m a strong skeptic.
Right, those things.
I’ve read that. It was outstanding.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.