Posted on 02/22/2009 10:58:04 PM PST by GodGunsGuts
Opinion
Monday, Feb. 23, 2009
Evolution debate persists because it's not science
By Raymond H. Kocot
...
But did you ever wonder why Darwinism's general theory of evolution, sometimes called macroevolution, has been debated for over 150 years without resolution? The surprising answer is Darwin's macroevolution theory is not a legitimate science. The National Academy of Sciences clearly defined science in its 1998 guidebook for science teachers. The definition begins with [stating that] science is a particular way of knowing about the world, and ends with, "Anything that can be observed or measured is amenable to scientific investigation. Explanations that cannot be based on empirical evidence are not part of science." In other words, a legitimate scientific theory (a hypothesis or idea) must be observable in real time and must be testable, yielding reproducible results. That is the core of the scientific method that has brought man out of the Dark Ages.
Because confirmable observations and generating experimental data are impossible for unique events like life's origin and macroevolution theory, world-famous evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr prompts evolutionists to construct historical narratives to try to explain evolutionary events or processes. In other words, stories are all evolutionists can muster to support macroevolution theory. If macroevolution theory, which must rest on faith in a story and is considered to be scientific, why not the creation story. With that in mind, it is no wonder the molecules-to-man debate has persisted for 150 years...
(Excerpt) Read more at myrtlebeachonline.com ...
Congrats!
An intermediate form is obviously not useless, making the idea that the transition from a full leg to a full flipper would involve a useless intermediate absolute hogwash.
No, not useless. Just not adequate to do the perform the necessary functions as needed to insure the best chances for survival in either environment.
So a seal’s front legs are not functioning as needed to insure the best chances for survival in both environments?
Maybe you think you know better than the seals, but they seem to be surviving just fine with an “inadequate” front limb.
Thank you for sharing your testimony, dear brother in Christ!
As you aver, allmendream! Again. And again.
My claim, however (FWIW) is that even unicellular organisms possess a form of basic awareness, a sort of "proto-intelligence."
BTW, you didn't say anything about Hontela's pet amoeba.... But then, you really haven't responded to any of the points I've raised recently. Sigh.
Anyhoot, I thought this was interesting:
...[T]he interactions between the molecules of any organism generally do not create the functions of the organism, but it is the other way around: The functions of the organism initiate and control the interactions between its molecules. The necessity for such control is obvious. Using the example of contractile proteins, the molecules can only polymerize, depolymerize or slide along each other, but they would not know when and with what force and when to stop. A signal-integrating mechanism is required.Again, if you have the time allmendream, do check out the link. I think you'll find it very interesting.Why should the situation be different for single cells? After all protozoa are in effect small, but quite universal organism and the above conclusion should apply to them as much as to a fly, a frog or the author of this website. Yet, the vast majority of today's biologists devote their efforts to prove the opposite, namely that specific molecular interactions create the cellular functions such as cell division, directed locomotion, differentiation, design of the extracellular matrix, adhesion to materials and other cells and so forth.
My research for the past 30 years or so was devoted to examine whether cells have such signal integration and control center(s). The results suggest that mammalian cells, indeed, posess intelligence. The experimental basis for this conclusion is presented in the following web pages.
The most significant experimental results are:
1. The motile machinery of cells contains subdomains ('microplasts') that can be isolated from the cell and then are capable of autonomous movements. Yet, inside the cell they do not exercise their ability....2. The cell as a whole is capable of immensely complex migration patterns for which their genome cannot contain a detailed program as they are responses to unforseeable encounters. (Cell movement is not random.)
3. Cells can 'see', i.e. they can map the directions of near-infrared light sources in their environment and direct their movements toward them. No such 'vision' is possible without a very sophisticated signal processing system ('cell brain') that is linked to the movement control of the cell. (The larger their light scattering, the larger the distance from which aggregating cells came together. )
In addition there is the supporting theoretical consideration that the hiterto completely unexplained complex structure of centrioles is predicted in every detail if one asks what structure a cellular 'eye' should have....
An operational definition of the intelligent cell.
First a disclaimer. My work did not intend to join the ongoing efforts of philosophers, logicians and computer scientists to find a universal definition of intelligence. On the contrary, it did not question the common assumption that everybody can tell a mindless, mechanical gadget from an intelligent machine, and proceeded to ask which of the two categories apply to a living cell. Clearly, there are many different levels of intelligence, but I believe that most people consider a machine mechanical and mindless if its actions either do not seem to respond to signals or else always show an immutable set of reactions. On the other hand, we expect an intelligent machine to respond to signals in a large variety of ways, especially if the signals are unforeseeable, and if its responses offer solutions to problems, which were transmitted by the signals. Usually, this means that the intelligent machine contains at least 2 different machines, one which is mindless and carries out some mechanical labor while the other collects and processes signals and controls the action of the first. Therefore, we may use the following operational definition of an intelligent cell. An intelligent cell contains a compartment, which is capable of collecting and integrating a variety of physically different and unforeseeable signals as the basis of problem-solving decisions.Are there reasons to think that cells are intelligent?
The prevailing wisdom of modern biology has it that cells are immensely complex, but rigidly operating chemical machines that derive their operating instructions internally from their genes and externally from chemicals and electrical signals emitted rigidly by other cells. Unable to believe that any machine can be designed that contains an instruction library which anticipates all the mishaps and glitches of a billion years of evolution without crashing over and over again, I began almost three decades ago to search for signs that the cell was actually a 'smart' machine. In other words, I looked for experimental evidence that cells contained a signal integration system that allowed them to sense, weigh and process huge numbers of signals from outside and inside their bodies and to make decisions on their own.Under what circumstances would a cell reveal that it is 'intelligent'?
I thought that the best place to start searching was the field of cell movement. A moving cell has to operate its own body in sophisticated ways and, in addition, may have to navigate in space and time while dealing with numerous unforeseeable events, such as encounters with other cells and other objects that its genome could not possibly have anticipated. I think that cell motility, indeed, revealed cell intelligence. — Guenter Albrecht-Buehler, Cell Intelligence
Thank you so much for writing!
...and this born-again physical chemist is one of them....
And bb makes three!
And as my numerous examples aver, actions take place without cognition that serve a purpose. Purpose and cognition are not linked.
The sub-text in my view is autonomy and semiosis, the unicellular organism is acting as a whole, communicating [Shannon] with its environment and internally, e.g. to decide and to move.
Thank you so very much for sharing your insights, dearest sister in Christ!
Which isn't at all what we were discussing. And again not walking "just fine" if they're walking along and suddenly find themselves on the menu of a hungry polar bear out on the open ice.
We were discussing transitional forms.
An intermediate form is obviously not useless, making the idea that the transition from a full leg to a full flipper would involve a useless intermediate absolute hogwash.
Yet another strawman because this too was never implied, the entire point remains, and you're still flailing about like a seal out of water trying to get away from a polar bear, trying to convince us walking on flippers is somehow proof of evolution.
There’s a big difference between having a well established population where food is plentiful and predators are (relatively) scarce.
A transitional form which may be the first of it’s kind or one of only a few, doesn’t have the luxury of being able to get by like seals do.
It seems to me likewise; an organism is alive as long as it's communicating. When it is no longer doing that, then it's dead. Pretty stupid simple, I'd say. But nonetheless true.
Thank you so very much for writing, dearest sister in Christ!
None of which detracts from the point that this intermediate limb of a seal is both a functional leg and a flipper and a seal survives just fine without it being fully a leg or fully a flipper.
A “transitional form” may be a species that numbers in the thousands and exists for hundreds of thousands of years. For example the Australopithocine existed for millions of years over a wide range, yet people point to it as a “transitional” form between knuckle walking apes and bipedal humans.
None of which detracts from the point that this intermediate limb of a seal is both a functional leg and a flipper and a seal survives just fine without it being fully a leg or fully a flipper.
“Functional leg” as long as you’re satisfied with that definition of functionality insofar as it hobbles around on the ice and that’s about it. It can’t outrun polar bears, can’t do much of anything but hobble.
But no matter there’s simply nothing whatsover in this world to say it’s “intermediate” other than sheer conjecture.
No telling how many ga-jillions of years we’ll have to wait and see if the seal makes it’s mind up and goes the flipper route or the leg route or just hires out otters to do the hunting for them and stays exactly as it is (as God created them in the first place).
And that made perfect sense to raving loons everywhere I suppose.
A seal doesn’t need to outrun a polar bear. Obviously seal survival hasn’t been dependent upon them outrunning polar bears. Obviously a seal is smarter than you about how to avoid a polar bear.
Of course a seal is smart enough to get away from polar bears, otherwise they’d not be around.
The point though, as it’s been staring you right in the face from the outset, is that their limbs aren’t “functional” beyond hobbling around on land. They’re not in some point along a ga-jillions year timeline in becoming flippers from legs or legs from flippers.
God made them the way they are. Period.
The point is that seals intermediate limb is not a fully terrestrial or fully aquatic limb, and yet they are perfectly adapted to their lifestyle as not fully terrestrial or fully aquatic.
So the argument that a multi purpose limb would be useless for either is bunk, as thousands of seals can tell you.
Can you evos do nothing more than create strawmnen to knock down to try to make yourselves look good or educated or whatever, to others?
Sheesh.
Nobody was talking about a *multi-purpose* limb. We were discussing transitional limbs which is not necessarily the same thing. Man's limbs are multi-purpose. Most creatures have limbs that are multi-purpose. Big deal. Multi-purpose does not mean transitional by default.
Nobody said anything about transitional limbs being useless either and yet you keep harping on that as if someone stated it. No one brought it up but you.
I said that a transitional limb does not function as well as a fully formed one for the purposes it's used for. A transitional flipper/limb isn't as useful for walking and running as a fully formed leg nor would it be as useful for swimming as a fully formed flipper. Watching seals lurch along on the ice demonstrates that.
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