Posted on 06/22/2006 1:28:41 PM PDT by Tim Long
600 dissenters sign on challenging claims about support for theory
More than 600 scientists holding doctoral degrees have gone on the record expressing skepticism about Darwin's theory of evolution and calling for critical examination of the evidence cited in its support.
All are signatories to the Scientific Dissent From Darwinism statement, which reads: "We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged."
The statement, which includes endorsement by members of the prestigious U.S. National Academy of Sciences and Russian Academy of Sciences, was first published by the Seattle-based Discovery Institute in 2001 to challenge statements about Darwinian evolution made in promoting PBS's "Evolution" series.
The PBS promotion claimed "virtually every scientist in the world believes the theory to be true."
The list of 610 signatories includes scientists from National Academies of Science in Russia, Czech Republic, Hungary, India (Hindustan), Nigeria, Poland, Russia and the United States. Many of the signers are professors or researchers at major universities and international research institutions such as Cambridge University, British Museum of Natural History, Moscow State University, Masaryk University in Czech Republic, Hong Kong University, University of Turku in Finland, Autonomous University of Guadalajara in Mexico, University of Stellenbosch in South Africa, Institut de Paleontologie Humaine in France, Chitose Institute of Science & Technology in Japan, Ben-Gurion University in Israel, MIT, The Smithsonian and Princeton.
"Dissent from Darwinism has gone global," said Discovery Institute President Bruce Chapman. "Darwinists used to claim that virtually every scientist in the world held that Darwinian evolution was true, but we quickly started finding U.S. scientists that disproved that statement. Now we're finding that there are hundreds, and probably thousands, of scientists all over the world that don't subscribe to Darwin's theory."
The Discovery Institute is the leading promoter of the theory of Intelligent Design, which has been at the center of challenges in federal court over the teaching of evolution in public school classes. Advocates say it draws on recent discoveries in physics, biochemistry and related disciplines that indicate some features of the natural world are best explained as the product of an intelligent cause rather than an undirected process such as natural selection.
"I signed the Scientific Dissent From Darwinism statement because I am absolutely convinced of the lack of true scientific evidence in favor of Darwinian dogma," said Raul Leguizamon, M.D., pathologist and professor of medicine at the Autonomous University of Guadalajara, Mexico.
"Nobody in the biological sciences, medicine included, needs Darwinism at all," he added. "Darwinism is certainly needed, however, in order to pose as a philosopher, since it is primarily a worldview. And an awful one, as Bernard Shaw used to say."
I'm a bit lost trying to figure out which branches of science deal with physical issues and which deal with metaphysical.
Here's the only real meaning for genetic similarities. If the genes are very similar or the same, the biological process associated with this gene is very similar or the same.
If the genes are not the same, the biological processes are not the same.
No evolutionary descent 'relationship' is indicated. It is *imposed* by the initial assumption (i.e., that common descent is 'true').
Whether or not it is designed is not the question.
You can (and evos do) assume RM+NS *designed* these features, do you not?
I merely point out that, either RM+NS has 'designed' features that intentionally slow the very evolution that created them in favor of conserving existing information and resist decline (a rather remarkable and fortunate change of direction for a 'directionless' process) *or* life was intelligently-designed to conserve existing information and resist decline.
Either way, that life was *designed* to conserve existing information and resist decline is not in question.
Same issue.
Where biological process are different, the regions within genes are different. Where they are the same, they are consistent.
No need to impose a 'common-descent' structure on the information except to support an 'a priori' commitment to naturalism.
Any branch of science which proposes to explain the unobserved past is metaphysical.
Actually evolution makes MORE demands on the evidence, and therefore is MORE prone to possible falsification. If a gene (or a region of a gene) is relatively more highly conserved, then there should be some functional explanation for that. As you note the purely functional differences could be explicable without evolution. But common descent requires that genealogical pattern ALSO exist, AT THE SAME TIME.
In other words, even if a gene is relatively more highly conserved (as compared to other genes) across, say, humans, birds and fish, it STILL must be more similar (or at the very least, not less similar) in humans and birds versus either as compared to fish.
Then there are even MORE patterns that must SIMULTANEOUSLY apply in the same gene sequences if evolution is true. For instance many genes can clearly be grouped into families. It is now uncontroversial that this pattern often results from gene duplication events. An extra copy of a gene appears in the genome, and can then "evolve" into a new gene with a different (if typically similar) function than the "parent" gene.
Now it's required that the sequence data correspond BOTH, and SIMULTANEOUSLY, to the genealogical relationships when the same gene is compared across variously related species, AND when different genes in the same gene "family" are compared within any one species. And MORE THAN THAT, the various genes in a given gene family must (absent some functional difference) show the same degrees of relationship one to another when compared in ANY and EVERY species that contain them all.
The is NO nonevolutionary reason that all of these different patterns be encoded into sequence data. ONLY common descent explains ALL the data.
Well, that would have to include criminal forensics. So I suppose any murder case without a witness should now be decided by theologians, philosophers, psychics and/or witchdoctors, rather than on the basis of evidence gathered and interpreted by forensic scientists?
Any branch of science which proposes to explain the unobserved past is metaphysical.
So do you think OJ should have been found 'not guilty' because it was metaphysical question?
A puzzle for you:
If this is true and similar sequences are indicative of similar functions and not relatedness, why is it that a deficit of a protein in one organism can be corrected by the introduction of that protein from a different species (and thus having a different sequence)? You are assuming that differences in sequence are due to slight differences in function, while most of the time these differences make no difference at all--some of them don't even change the protein amino acid sequence. Why would an intelligent designer make a bunch of proteins with slightly different coding sequences, yet with the same properties? And why would he make it so that organisms that seem to be closely related (lions and house cats) have fewer of these functionally insignificant differences, while those that are distantly related (lions and opossums) have many more? To me it looks like either these differences are another piece of evidence indicating common ancestry and evolutionary relationships or else the intelligent designer is purposefully trying to trick us.
"Any branch of science which proposes to explain the unobserved past is metaphysical."
Not if the past left physical evidence of what happened.
What about medicine?...someone has seizures, or someone goes into a coma...no one observes it when it happens, there is nothing in the persons medical history to suggest why this happened...
Would you suggest that a priest, or a philospher make the determination as to why this has happened?...or is this better left to the doctors, to run their medical, scientific tests, find out what happened, and propose a medical course of action?
I think your statement that "Any branch of science which proposes to explain the unobserved past is metaphysical" is quite incorrect...
And how does a Creationist, thinking the way Danny Boy does, explain why:
1. some fungi, especially yeasts have a completely different pathway for the biosynthesis of lysine than that found in all other organisms.
2. they still retain some of the "regular" lysine gene sequences, that are apparently both degenerate and inactive.
Surely they would have the same pathway since the function (biosynthesis of lysine) should dictate the activity of the proteins. And they should have no vestiges of any of the "regular genes", since that would dictate gene products that apparently don't exist or are inactive. Maybe the designer realized he made a mistake and attempted to cover it up? And did a bad job while he was at it.
So criminals, by and large, are convicted on metaphysical evidence?
And Newton's astronomomy, which is routinely used to determine the positions of the planets in the past, is metaphysical?
I take it you've lost a paternity suit recently.
bump
Whether a gene is 'highly conserved' or not is an artifact of the initial assumption, that of naturalism and therefore common descent.
That there are functional reasons for similarities is trivially obvious, without an appeal to 'conservation'.
*Any* genealogical 'pattern' is acceptable, hence 'birds and crocodiles' or 'humans, chickens and puffer fish' is perfectly fine, though patently absurd.
A common designer explains the data much better, without appeal to absurd statements like 'birds and crocodiles share a common ancestor'. Evolution fails based on the extreme credulity necessary to accept the conclusions that are the result of the primary premise (that of naturalism).
800
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.