hysterical Darwinites panic

crosswalk ^ | 2004 | creationist

[metacognative]

Panicked Evolutionists: The Stephen Meyer Controversy

The theory of evolution is a tottering house of ideological cards that is more about cherished mythology than honest intellectual endeavor. Evolutionists treat their cherished theory like a fragile object of veneration and worship--and so it is. Panic is a sure sign of intellectual insecurity, and evolutionists have every reason to be insecure, for their theory is falling apart.

The latest evidence of this panic comes in a controversy that followed a highly specialized article published in an even more specialized scientific journal. Stephen C. Meyer, Director of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture, wrote an article accepted for publication in Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington. The article, entitled "The Origin of Biological Information and the Higher Taxonomic Categories," was published after three independent judges deemed it worthy and ready for publication. The use of such judges is standard operating procedure among "peer-reviewed" academic journals, and is considered the gold standard for academic publication.

The readership for such a journal is incredibly small, and the Biological Society of Washington does not commonly come to the attention of the nation's journalists and the general public. Nevertheless, soon after Dr. Meyer's article appeared, the self-appointed protectors of Darwinism went into full apoplexy. Internet websites and scientific newsletters came alive with outrage and embarrassment, for Dr. Meyer's article suggested that evolution just might not be the best explanation for the development of life forms. The ensuing controversy was greater than might be expected if Dr. Meyer had argued that the world is flat or that hot is cold.

Eugenie C. Scott, Executive Director of the National Center for Science Education, told The Scientist that Dr. Meyer's article came to her attention when members of the Biological Society of Washington contacted her office. "Many members of the society were stunned about the article," she told The Scientist, and she described the article as "recycled material quite common in the intelligent design community." Dr. Scott, a well known and ardent defender of evolutionary theory, called Dr. Meyer's article "substandard science" and argued that the article should never have been published in any scientific journal.

Within days, the Biological Society of Washington, intimidated by the response of the evolutionary defenders, released a statement apologizing for the publication of the article. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, the society's governing council claimed that the article "was published without the prior knowledge of the council." The statement went on to declare: "We have met and determined that all of us would have deemed this paper inappropriate for the pages of the Proceedings." The society's president, Roy W. McDiarmid, a scientist at the U.S. Geological Survey, blamed the article's publication on the journal's previous editor, Richard Sternberg, who now serves as a fellow at the National Center for Biotechnology Information at the National Institute of Health. "My conclusion on this," McDiarmid said, "was that it was a really bad judgment call on the editor's part."

What is it about Dr. Stephen Meyer's paper that has caused such an uproar? Meyer, who holds a Ph.D. from Cambridge University, argued in his paper that the contemporary form of evolutionary theory now dominant in the academy, known as "Neo-Darwinism," fails to account for the development of higher life forms and the complexity of living organisms. Pointing to what evolutionists identify as the "Cambrian explosion," Meyer argued that "the geologically sudden appearance of many new animal body plans" cannot be accounted for by Darwinian theory, "neo" or otherwise.

Accepting the scientific claim that the Cambrian explosion took place "about 530 million years ago," Meyer went on to explain that the "remarkable jump in the specified complexity or 'complex specified information' [CSI] of the biological world" cannot be explained by evolutionary theory.

The heart of Dr. Meyer's argument is found in this scientifically-loaded passage: "Neo-Darwinism seeks to explain the origin of new information, form, and structure as a result of selection acting on randomly arising variation at a very low level within the biological hierarchy, mainly, within the genetic text. Yet the major morphological innovations depend on a specificity of arrangement at a much higher level of the organizational hierarchy, a level that DNA alone does not determine. Yet if DNA is not wholly responsible for body plan morphogenesis, then DNA sequences can mutate indefinitely, without regard to realistic probabilistic limits, and still not produce a new body plan. Thus, the mechanism of natural selection acting on random mutations in DNA cannot in principle generate novel body plans, including those that first arose in the Cambrian explosion."

In simpler terms, the mechanism of natural selection, central to evolutionary theory, cannot possibly account for the development of so many varied and complex life forms simply by mutations in DNA. Rather, some conscious design--thus requiring a Designer--is necessary to explain the emergence of these life forms.

In the remainder of his paper, Meyer attacks the intellectual inadequacies of evolutionary theory and argues for what is now known as the "design Hypothesis." As he argued, "Conscious and rational agents have, as a part of their powers of purposive intelligence, the capacity to design information-rich parts and to organize those parts into functional information-rich systems and hierarchies." As he went on to assert, "We know of no other causal entity or process that has this capacity." In other words, the development of the multitude of higher life forms found on the planet can be explained only by the guidance of a rational agent--a Designer--whose plan is evident in the design.

Meyer's article was enough to cause hysteria in the evolutionists' camp. Knowing that their theory lacks intellectual credibility, the evolutionists respond by raising the volume, offering the equivalent of scientific shrieks and screams whenever their cherished theory is criticized--much less in one of their own cherished journals. As Dr. John West, Associate Director of the Discovery Institute explained, "Instead of addressing the paper's argument or inviting counterarguments or rebuttal, the society has resorted to affirming what amounts to a doctrinal statement in an effort to stifle scientific debate. They're trying to stop scientific discussion before it even starts."

When the Biological Society of Washington issued its embarrassing apology for publishing the paper, the organization pledged that arguments for Intelligent Design "will not be addressed in future issues of the Proceedings," regardless of whether the paper passes peer review.

From the perspective of panicked evolutionists, the Intelligent Design movement represents a formidable adversary and a constant irritant. The defenders of Intelligent Design are undermining evolutionary theory at multiple levels, and they refuse to go away. The panicked evolutionists respond with name-calling, labeling Intelligent Design proponents as "creationists," thereby hoping to prevent any scientific debate before it starts.

Intelligent Design is not tantamount to the biblical doctrine of creation. Theologically, Intelligent Design falls far short of requiring any affirmation of the doctrine of creation as revealed in the Bible. Nevertheless, it is a useful and important intellectual tool, and a scientific movement with great promise. The real significance of Intelligent Design theory and its related movement is the success with which it undermines the materialistic and naturalistic worldview central to the theory of evolution.

For the Christian believer, the Bible presents the compelling and authoritative case for God's creation of the cosmos. Specifically, the Bible provides us with the ultimate truth concerning human origins and the special creation of human beings as the creatures made in God's own image. Thus, though we believe in more than Intelligent Design, we certainly do not believe in less. We should celebrate the confusion and consternation now so evident among the evolutionists. Dr. Stephen Meyer's article--and the controversy it has spawned--has caught evolutionary scientists with their intellectual pants down.

_______________________________________

R. Albert Mohler, Jr

[bondserv]

Here is a deceptively simple mathematical science: population growth. Let g = annual average population growth rate of mankind (e.g. .005 for half-a-percent). Let n = age of mankind on earth, in years. Select g and n. WLOG let initial population be 2. Compute present population = 2(1+g)n. Providing 243 scientific explanations of this phenomenon should be simple.

I like that! They are forced to ignore so many things.

[js1138]

you really don't need 243 explanations. Try your formula where n=6000.

[js1138]

19,833,553,623,040

[Ichneumon]

[. . . it turns off large numbers of potential Republican voters . . .]

It is not the part of a free people to discard matters of reason or faith for the sake of political expedience, or out of a concern for what other people think.

Nor did I suggest anyone do that. You might want to reread my post for actual content this time, before you go galloping off on that high horse.

Instead, I suggest that some folks drop their more *irrational* public outbursts.

If this is the motivation behind those who promote the philosophy of evolution as a necessity in the basic science classroom, then they may kindly take their position next to that of the Taliban.

Yawn. Nice speech, and I like how you got all self-righteous at the end -- nice touch -- but since that's neither what I'm saying nor what my "motivation" is, feel free to take a chill pill. I know it's all so trendy to feel "persecuted" by us "evilutionists" (see for example the paranoid creationist lie laid bare in post #669), but sheesh, man, relax.

Meanwhile there is no such thing as a "theory of evolution."

Just how impervious to reality *ARE* you?

There are not enough scientific facts to back it up.

Oh. So what's wrong with all the facts in post #158, for example? What, exactly, is wrong with all the DNA studies which produce clear evidence of common descent, and which make no sense whatsoever by any hypothesis which does *not* include common descent? For example, surely you can elucidate for us why the patterns of shared endogenous retroviruses (not to mention LINEs, SINEs, ALUs, etc.) found in DNA do *not* clearly indicate common descent? I mean, unless you're a COMPLETE IDIOT, you wouldn't make a claim like "There are not enough scientific facts to back [evolution] up" unless you were actually FAMILIAR with the amount and nature of the scientific facts which have been accumulated in support of evolutionary theory, RIGHT? So please tell us what's wrong with the DNA data I mention, SPECIFICALLY.

What you have is a philosophy couched in scientific terms, for it is nothing more than a hopeful recapitulation of history that is not, and cannot be, the object of empirical science.

Oh. Then what are the DNA studies, for example, if not "empirical science"? (Make sure you actually know what "empirical science" *is* before you attempt to respond. I've had my fill of stupid posts today.)

Even a little child knows that just because two things look the same they do not necessarily have a common source.

Well sure, which is why evolutionary biologists don't resolve issues like that, UNLIKE the cartoon-version of it the creationist sources like to paint. Are you sure you've ever taken a look at how *real* science is done, instead of the creationist straw-man?

Admit it, son, you don't have a *clue* how evolutionary biology is actually accomplished. If you did, you wouldn't make such goofy claims about it.

Evolution, insofar as it attempts to tell history beyond what has been recorded by man, does not deserve to have the word "theory" associated with it.

Why, because you stamp your feet and say so, while threatening to hold your breath until you turn blue?

Educated fools are nothing new.

As all too many anti-evolutionists are making clear on a regular basis.

Let them keep their philosphies in a classroom of their own so the curious can partake as they wish, but please do not consider the rest of the world stupid for rejecting the charade.

I don't. I do, however, consider some specific people stupid for saying stupid things (like stupidly dismissing an entire field of established science as a "charade"), and for persisting in saying them after the gaping flaws in their stupid proclamations have been pointed out to them. See for example post #158. It's got your name all over it.

Are you *trying* to make Christians and conservatives look like foolish luddites?

[Ichneumon]

May I use this if I ever publish a book. With reference to the Great Chugabrew of course. So few words so well said!

Even though it contains several transparent falsehoods? Fascinating.

Are you folks in some sort of club where you go around mutually propping up each other's fantasies or something?

[mississippi red-neck]

I have no great impulse to prove the Bible wrong. But I don't think all of it is literal history, any more than the parables are literal history.

Never said that all of it was literal history just that some of it's content had been proved true. A good deal of it is yet future.

How much of Darwin's theory has been proved true?

As for you proving it wrong, it would I fear take a lot more than impulse.

That's what most critics have been using the last few thousand years.

[js1138]

How much of Darwin's theory has been proved true?

That's not the kind of question science asks, but if yo ask how much has been confirmed by 200 years of evidence, the answer would be all the essentials. If you asked how much of Darwin's original speculation has been demonstrated false, the answer would be, not much.

Perhaps you'd care to take a major section, a complete argument, from Origin of Species and show how it is false.

Perhaps you'd care to show us where DNA evidence is incompatible with common descent.

Give us your best shot.

[js1138]

Did I do the math wrong? It wouldn't surprise me. It's been decades since I've been in school.

I'm waiting for a response.

[bondserv]

Even though it contains several transparent falsehoods? Fascinating.

Are you folks in some sort of club where you go around mutually propping up each other's fantasies or something?

Just edifying the brethren (although I still have to call Fester to account on his last name, lest he risk excommunication). :-)

[js1138]

You seem to be enamored of goodseed's formula. Is there something wrong with my math?

[bondserv]

Did I do the math wrong? It wouldn't surprise me. It's been decades since I've been in school.

Link

[js1138]

What's your point? Are there 19 trillion people alive today since Adam and Eve, or is there a false assumption in the post?

And does evolution occur, or is the variation in the human genome the result of mating with space aliens? Assuming the human population was bottlenecked to one family at the time of Noah.

[Ichneumon]

My problem starts when some one who is supposed to be a scientist someone who is supposed to seek the truth starts to promote theory as absolute truth or disagrees with the beliefs of another simply because it doesn't agree with his personal bias's.

I'll agree with you 100% there. But since I don't know any scientists who actually do that, I don't see how that's relevant here. And yes, I've seen the anti-evolutionist mantra that this is somehow common among scientists or ubuitous among evolutionists or whatever -- it's horse manure.

On the other hand, do *not* expect me or anyone else with a working brain to sit idly by and let some arrogant empty-headed ass prattle on saying things that are COMPLETE FALSEHOODS in his smug attempt to prop up his own beliefs by telling childish untruths about someone *else's* position which he finds somehow threatening to his own.

I'm not naive enough to believe that I have "absolute truth", but I sure as hell know how to recognize absolute horsecrap when it's being flung in my face, or when someone's making false accusations that even his OWN SOURCE MATERIAL doesn't support, or making claims in DIRECT CONTRADICTION TO REALITY, and so on.

Quite frankly, the only folks I see claiming to have "absolute truth" while outrageously lying in order to attack people "because they don't agree with his personal biases" are the anti-evolutionists. (Well, okay, and liberals.) And you don't have to go farther than this *one* thread for multiple examples.

I don't fault anyone for holding different positions than I do. But I'm not about to let anyone smear horsecrap in my face and tell me they're gracing me with rose petals, and that *I'm* the one hauling around bags of manure and stinking up the room.

The anti-evolutionists have built a whole edifice upon attacking all of evolutionary biology as "lies, all lies", and its adherents and practitioners as "liars, all liars" -- while the anti-evolutionists themselves tell one outrageous whopper after another due to their nearly complete ignorance of the *actual* field they're attacking (not their cartoon caricature of it), and their amazing lack of concern for standards of truth or evidence (again, just look over this thread for examples at hand).

I've frankly had quite enough of it.

A large amount of the content of the Bible has been proved true by archaeologist in the last couple hundred years . [megasnip] Even if you choose not to believe that there is a God it is a fascinating study of history and a people's struggle and accurate predictions that will astound.

I appreciate your beliefs, and have no desire to debate them if you find them of value.

But nothing you've said changes the points I've made on this thread regarding the robust state of evolutionary biology, and the shockingly unethical behavior of those who make a habit of attacking it without knowing nearly as much as they think they do in their arrogance -- and much of what they do "know" is flat wrong.

[mississippi red-neck]

I 'm probably not qualified to take your challenge.

Perhaps you would care to educate by showing me actual pictures of a microbe coming out of a puddle and the stages it went through to become a man on it's own. After all I'm giving you the puddle.

Or perhaps you care to take a couple chapters of the bible and prove to me where they are false.

If you care to list all those essentials from Darwin's theory with the visible scientific prove to back them up I will be happy consider them.

Maybe you can show me where DNA is incompatible with Intelligent Design. I'm waiting.

[k2blader]

Folks who leave God out of it often have minds so open their brains have fallen out.

[mississippi red-neck]

On the other hand, do *not* expect me or anyone else with a working brain to sit idly by and let some arrogant empty-headed ass prattle on saying things that are COMPLETE FALSEHOODS in his smug attempt to prop up his own beliefs by telling childish untruths about someone *else's* position which he finds somehow threatening to his own.

I guess our discussion is over. I in no way feel my positon threathened. Perhaps you do. I'm sorry if I upset you.

[Ichneumon]

The three most active evos have advanced much science.

Thank you, we do our best.

Here is a deceptively simple mathematical science: population growth.

It's only "deceptively simple" when creationists deceitfully oversimplify it, as you do here:

Let g = annual average population growth rate of mankind (e.g. .005 for half-a-percent). Let n = age of mankind on earth, in years. Select g and n. WLOG let initial population be 2. Compute present population = 2(1+g)n. Providing 243 scientific explanations of this phenomenon should be simple.

This is, in a nutshell, completely idiotic. Your equation is the speed at which a population *can* grow in the absence of limiting factors (or across *short* periods if the limiting factors remain pretty constant *relative* to the growing population size), but it is *NOT* an accurate model of what happens in the REAL WORLD, since in the real world there *are* limiting factors, and they *do* change relative to the population in question (even if they remain constant in absolute terms, the growing population changes the relative limits, like the way a constant-sized food supply will change from "enough food" to "not enough food" as the population outgrows it).

So in short, your attempted "analysis" across centuries of human history is ludicrously simplistic since it assumes a *constant* growth factor over all those countless generations, in exactly the same way as the following two attempts to calculate the motion of a car by presuming a *constant* acceleration of the car:

1. If my car can go from 0 to 60mph in five seconds, then I can get up to 3000mph in 250 seconds...

2. If it takes me two hours to drive 100 miles, then my acceleration on the trip must have been 50m/h^2, meaning that after the first six minutes of driving I was crawling at 5mph and had covered only 1320 feet -- but by the end of the trip I was flying along at 200mph...

Clearly, "deceptively simple" is just a little *too* simple...

Here's what you're overlooking -- and this was taken from a school website designed for GRADES 3-6:

Limiting Factors
In the natural world, limiting factors like the availability of food, water, shelter,  and space can change animal and plant populations. Other limiting factors like competition for resources, predation, and disease can also impact populations.  If any of the limiting factors change, animal and plant populations change, too. Some changes may cause a population to increase.  If there are more plants than usual in an area, populations of animals that eat that plant may increase.  If one animal's population increases, the population of animals that eats that animal might also increase. Increases in population aren't always good.  Sometimes a population will grow too large for the environment to support.  Other changes in limiting factors will cause a population to decrease.  If a population becomes diseased, the population may decrease and the population of animals that eat the diseased animals will also decrease.  In nature, populations usually balance themselves. Sometimes when man impacts populations, they can't always reestablish a natural balance.
 

 

(Can someone tell me why anti-evolutionist "analysis" is usually done on a grade-school level -- or as in this case, in a way that *overlooks* gradeschool-level standards of knowledge?)

Nice try, but...

Using your same "analysis", you can "prove" that we should be up to our armpits in fruit flies every three days, or that the Earth should be buried miles thick in bacteria by now... But then, you can only "prove" that if you ignore the realities of real-world limits which cause fluctuations in population growth (and often population *loss* which your "model" does not allow for).

See also:

Creationist claim CB620: Population Growth

Anti-creationism FAQ: Exponential population growth

How Good Are These Young-Earth Arguments: Hovind's #25

Population Size and Time of Creation or Flood

Second, have you considered the implications of evolution on two great conservative causes, racial equality and the pro-life position?

There are no such "implications". Evolution describes what happens when natural effects are left to act without planned intervention. There is absolutely no evolutionary "requirement" that we, as human beings, base our actions or ethics upon "natural selection", just as we are not "required" to let the natural laws of electromagnetism to land lightning bolts wherever they would go if we did not build shelters and lightning rods to protect ourselves from them.

Evolution is what nature does. Man is hardly constrained to let "nature take its course" in the way of evolution, or in the way of any other natural occurrence (e.g. disease, floods, famine, etc.)

have you considered how much evolution undermines your conservatism?

It doesn't undermine it at all.

[Ichneumon]

I like that! They are forced to ignore so many things.

Ooookay -- feel free to explain, in your own words, what you fantasize we're "ignoring" in 2AtHomeMom's goofy exponential "model".

[Ichneumon]

[On the other hand, do *not* expect me or anyone else with a working brain to sit idly by and let some arrogant empty-headed ass prattle on saying things that are COMPLETE FALSEHOODS in his smug attempt to prop up his own beliefs by telling childish untruths about someone *else's* position which he finds somehow threatening to his own.]

I guess our discussion is over. I in no way feel my positon threathened. Perhaps you do. I'm sorry if I upset you.

You didn't -- sorry if I gave the wrong impression, I wasn't talking about you, you just got here. Skim the whole thread, and I think you'll see the sort of folks I *am* talking about. Or start at my post#158 to hit the ground running.