Darwinian Dissonance?

Internet Infidels ^ | Timeless | Paul A. Dernavich

[balrog666]

Fundamental laws of cause and effect. Shall I explain them or do I trust that you will accept it as a homework assignment?

Sorry, no credit if you don't show your work.

[balrog666]

All we agree on is that intelligent life exists. Your timeline explains complexity, but it cannot show where human consciousness arrived, never mind Glenn Miller.

Are you asserting here that human consciousness is somehow different in kind from that of any other animal?

[VadeRetro]

I think we have to agree that we don't really know what was in the "void" or how it got there, because the sudden appearance of anything - electrically charged particles or God - must be taken on faith.

Wrong on a very elementary point of science. We know what was in the CMB universe the same way we know what is in the sun. The light given off by elements heated to incandescence contains absorption and emission lines which tag them uniquely. It works on Earth, in the sun, and everywhere else we look. These things are not matters of faith in the same sense as the transubstantiation of wine to blood.

The cosmic radiation does not show up in any family genealogy that I have seen.

You're not looking back far enough, although the images are all over. It's isotropic radiation, after all.

But there is no Problem Two.

Wrong.

When did anyone show that a "certifiably mindless" group of matter CAN produce intelligence under natural selection?

Nice try, but I've given a summary already of what is quite a large body of evidence and reasoning. There are no serious alternate scenarios around. You're very much begging the question by simply announcing that all the evidence and reasoning is somehow misleading. But how? Citing your very unwillingness to accept the conclusion as its disproof is just circular. You beg the question.

Never mind the science - it defies the most fundamental laws of cause and effect.

This is a rather bizarre description of science, although Einstein's complaints against Quantum Mechanics had a similar ring to them. Science is nothing but the rules for cause and effect writ large and general even in the case of QM. Alas, your issues are not particularly with quantum indeterminacy. You just don't like the answers. Your statements above amount to little more than shouting with fingers in ears.

All we agree on is that intelligent life exists.

We certainly do not seem to agree on how knowledge is gathered, or of what it consists. Something like that. Mere shouting is not argument.

Your timeline explains complexity ...

Not really. It's just a timeline. I posted it to show that our so-far ephemeral existence probably was not the justification for the universe, given the amount of time and space in which we have have not existed and do not exist now. Very few of the total volume-years have been devoted to our caging and feeding.

... but it cannot show where human consciousness arrived, never mind Glenn Miller.

It doesn't make much of a German grammar, either. It does what I posted it to do.

[PDerna]

"Are you asserting here that human consciousness is somehow different in kind from that of any other animal?"

I am asserting it, but I assume that most here hold it as a given. If you want to assert that human consciousness does not differ substantially from deer tick consciousness, that is your right. It is certainly consistent with naturalism. It might also explain your previous posts (you gotta give me layups like that).

[balrog666]

I am asserting it, but I assume that most here hold it as a given.

Buzz, wrong.

If you want to assert that human consciousness does not differ substantially from deer tick consciousness, that is your right.

Consider it done.

It is certainly consistent with naturalism.

And everything else that matters.

It might also explain your previous posts (you gotta give me layups like that).

Another non-sequitur. No points.

Allow me to point out that you have yet to support your initial assertions. And while I get tired of repeating myself, please "try again".

[Heartlander]

Welcome to FreeRepublic! Thank you for the great article.

It appears you are dealing with the ‘usual suspects’.

They will take
(I took nothing)

what you say
(Yeah. So you say but…)

line by line
(Prove this while I rifle through your wallet)

and refute it in context ; )
(Obviously you see that you are wrong and you should admit it to all or be discredited throughout history – Oh yeah, and you are a stupid creationist regardless)

Anyway, I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and Happy New year! (My wife kept me away from computers for almost two months – and it was fantastic!)

So now that the niceties are out of the way…
Darwin purposed that RM&NS is all that is required for the diversity of life we now see and logically comprehend which is now extrapolated into the modern neo-darwinism.

But what about the predictions of Darwin that neo-darwinism is based upon? We know that science is self-correcting but what if the current course as a whole was incorrect? Is forward actually progress?:

FIG O: Origin of the Phyla: Darwinian predictions

FIG Q: The origin of the phyla: the fossil evidence

The sudden appearance of between 50 and 100 disparate body plans with extremely low species diversity supports the conclusion that neither gradual Darwinian evolution nor lower taxon-level punctuations can account for the origin of the higher taxa and the major body plans.

FIG P: Origin of the Phyla: Darwinian predictions

FIG R: The origin of the phyla: the fossil evidence

The sudden appearance of between 50 and 100 disparate body plans with extremely low species diversity supports the conclusion that neither gradual Darwinian evolution nor lower taxon-level punctuations can account for the origin of the higher taxa and the major body plans.

Anyway, evolution has no target and your article points out the implications.

[PDerna]

You told me earlier that "nobody gives a d@mn what the average Joe thinks", and now you tell me that you consider yourself no more sophisticated than a deer tick. Forgive me for not feeling the burning need to reply.

[PDerna]

"Your statements above amount to little more than shouting with fingers in ears."

Can anyone blame me?

With all due respect... you have given me lots of information, but I don't see any reasoning. Maybe it is I who don't know what you are trying to show. There is nothing in anything you have said that can tell me how life came from non-life, intelligence from non-intelligence, or consciousness from non-consciousness. What you perceive as repetitive shouting is my attempt to get back on point, because there is no use noodling around in the grimy details if one of us completely misses the broader supporting idea.

And the broad idea, by the way, is that by definition, a naturalistic approach to studying the universe can give you information about the 'what' and the 'how' of the way things are, but never the 'why,' and never the 'ought.' Of course, you are free to try and ascertain the 'why,'but if you do, you will always be stepping outside naturalism into a subjective discipline - religion, philosophy, fantasy, post-grunge indie rock, etc. If you can't agree on this fundamental distinction, then we probably don't have anything to talk about.

[PDerna]

Thanks for the welcome, thanks for the slides, and thanks for the beatific vision of two computerless months....

[balrog666]

You told me earlier that "nobody gives a d@mn what the average Joe thinks", and now you tell me that you consider yourself no more sophisticated than a deer tick.

Actually, that was a reference to you. Next time I'll dumb it down for you.

Forgive me for not feeling the burning need to reply.

Then why did you?

[VadeRetro]

With all due respect... you have given me lots of information, but I don't see any reasoning.

First, let's focus in on the origin of human consciousness. I'll give a high-level summary of some of the evidence.

I. A Graduated Hierarchy of Intelligence in Modern Lifeforms

• algae (some species move toward light)
• jellyfish (neural net, a few reflexes)
• lancelet (chordate organization)
• shark (vertebrate organization with brain)
• iguana
• opossum
• border collie
• chimpanzee
• Hillary Clinton
• Winston Churchill

Now, the typical creationist trick is to say there are only two kinds of consciousness, the kind that can write Dante's Divine Comedy and everything else. Your dog may have soulful eyes and try all kinds of tricks to communicate, but it can't talk. Cheap trick. The graduated hierarchy of intelligence is out there and it points to a prosaic origin of our mental processes. Which brings up part II.

II. A Gradual, Evolutionary Appearance of Features Associated with Humanity

a. Structure

From here.

b. Function

• First stone tools, then copper, then bronze, then iron, etc.
• First existing caves, then wood shelters, then stone buildings, etc.
• First drawings, then pictographs, then identifiable script, etc.
• ...

That is as high-level a dash as I can imagine. The topic is just too big to do justice to here. Against the accumulated weight of the last two centuries of science, you have only your unwillingness to see.

[VadeRetro]

Since gore got banned, you're now the poster boy for back-again-dumb-as-a-stump tricks. Your parallel-line charts have been refuted before, by me and by others. This, IOW, is not rational argument. This is a militant con man trolling for suckers.

[PatrickHenry]

My only criticism of your excellent post is your placement of Hillary above the 'possum. I would rank them about the same. Otherwise, a good job!

[VadeRetro]

I knew that criticism was coming as soon as I posted, but I expected the 'possums to protest the loudest. So far, I'm getting some cold-blooded emails from the iguanas.

[VadeRetro]

And the broad idea, by the way, is that by definition, a naturalistic approach to studying the universe can give you information about the 'what' and the 'how' of the way things are, but never the 'why,' and never the 'ought.'

Not really a criticism of science, but your article tries to make it one. Science is supposed to be about the "what" and "how." If all you want to talk about is "why" and "ought," you should be writing about ethics, or public policy, or whatever. If scientists sometimes lapse into the language of anthropomorphism, animism, intent, "ought," and other imprecisions, it's because most people don't understand partial differential equations in complex tensor variables.

Of course, you are free to try and ascertain the 'why,'but if you do, you will always be stepping outside naturalism into a subjective discipline - religion, philosophy, fantasy, post-grunge indie rock, etc.

You wrote the article, and you wrote it about science. I just responded, initially in post 11. I notice my initial reaction still stands, as far as I'm concerned.

If you can't agree on this fundamental distinction, then we probably don't have anything to talk about.

The one thing I notice is that you relentlessly employ fallacy, your favorite being the argument from semantics, no matter how often it is pointed out to you. It's obvious, brazen, a Johnny-One-Note performance. There's probably little more to say.

[PDerna]

You are playing into my hands. Like I said, your hierarchy is information, but it is not an argument. It tells me the 'what,' but not the 'how' or the 'why.' Because the 'how' of how these organisms were formed was never observed, you are making a presumption, based on your prior philosophic opinion that there is no Creator, that all life arrived and developed Darwin style, mutation by mutation. The evidence does not do this; only your opinions do. Your observations are science. Your conclusions are philosophy.

[VadeRetro]

I'm making a very simple induction that lawful processes observed in case after case after case are also working in obviously similar cases. It's the same thing as deciding that if spectrography works on the Earth and in the sun, it works in farther parts of the universe. Anywhere at all where we see the spectral signature of hydrogen, we are indeed detecting hydrogen, even if we can't wander out to collect a sample to check our assumption.

All inductive logic is "flawed" in not being rock-solid geometrically deductive. All of science has this flaw. Nevertheless, science is what we know about how the world works. If you don't like the answers it's too bad.

[VadeRetro]

You are playing into my hands.

I should also mention that your hands remain empty. All the evidence still points to a gradual evolution of human consciousness. Where is the evidence for any other version of events?

[js1138]

Placemarker

[redhead]

"Since men cannot be lepidoptera
We must make do with helicoptera
And lacking lovely, powdered wings
We do the job with metal things"

Bravo! Great job!!