Posted on 08/25/2019 2:15:58 PM PDT by Roman_War_Criminal
Renowned Yale computer scientist David Gelernter claims that he is abandoning Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution.
Gelernter, who formerly served as a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, published a column earlier this year detailing his move away from evolutionary theory. The column, which was titled “Giving Up Darwin,” provides Gelernter’s arguments against Darwinism.
Darwin’s theory predicts that new life forms evolve gradually from old ones in a constantly branching, spreading tree of life. Those brave new Cambrian creatures must therefore have had Precambrian predecessors, similar but not quite as fancy and sophisticated. They could not have all blown out suddenly, like a bunch of geysers. Each must have had a closely related predecessor, which must have had its own predecessors: Darwinian evolution is gradual, step-by-step. All those predecessors must have come together, further back, into a series of branches leading down to the (long ago) trunk.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
In science it’s not enough to say “this theory is wrong”. You have to propose a more plausible theory. Did he?
Indeed, the group-think train station has an unwelcomed passenger....
Toss him off at the next dangerous curve!
Perhaps biology has been thwarted by the nexus of the absence of “what if...?” rather than the paradigm of “only thusly”.
Actually Darwin's explanation is random heritable variation and natural selection. He does not assume all life-forms descend from a common ancestor. We don't even know what that means. Given how early in the earth's geological record single cell life forms exist, it appears that life arose as soon as conditions on earth were not totally inhospitable to life (e.g. too hot to sustain the necessary chemical reactions inherent in carbon based life-forms). If life is so robust, then there is no need to assume a common ancestor. In fact, eukaryotic cells are evidently the combination of two different earlier life forms.
But this is typical. The first thing to do when denouncing a scientist is to slander him with words he never uttered.
Mathematical Challenges to Darwin's Theory of Evolution
Hoover Institution discussion with David Gerlertner, Stephen Meyer, and David Berlinski.
The math with respect to a random development of a usable protein as presented by Stephen Meyer pretty much demolish that theory.
But most notable was the trepidation of all parties in addressing the question of to whom or what are these units of information of value and to what purpose? We use 1 and zero to represent the binary numerical system...if I drop a box of pretzel sticks and a box of Cheerios on the floor, does that result in some usable computer coding? Of course not, one has to assembly those binary bits into a word, a unit with meaning....a starting point...."In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."
Have at it while I retire for the evening. ;>)
You can call it that, if you want. That is fine, but it’s considerably more limited in its application than many scientists are willing to accept. According them, all life was descended from a couple of amoebas, but the evidence shows that there is only so far a species can adapt and it won’t adapt beyond its species.
A canine stays a canine and does not eventually become a feline and vice versa.
Read it was only his hand.
You don't do your argument any favors when you make statements like that. I can't turn my cat into a lion in a week or a month or a year or a century. But you would start with your statement and assert that although that can happen in a week, nothing extraordinary can happen in a million years. At that point the burden of proof is on you to establish YOUR hypothesis.
I remember Kaczynski's Manifesto (or Mein Kampf or whatever he called it) which was in the NTY and WaPo some 25 years ago.
Kaczynski is still breathing air. I wonder if he's still writing? He's a genius-level math guy himself, but it seems some of his uniquely painful life experiences --- including being brutalized for 200 hours in a psychological experiment while at Harvard --- really messed with this mind.
My sentiment too. I’m no biologist but from things I’ve read over the years...you can see environments where micro-evolution happens, limbs get longer, eyes adjusting to a changing environment, etc...but they all still have the same number of chromosomes. For macro-evolution you need changes in chromosomes - which is where the rub applies, reproduction is typically a genetic “correcting” process. Even if a genetic mutation resulted in a new (positive impact) chromosome you would require both a male and female with the same mutation, mating together, for it to become an entirely new species. At least that is my understanding, which puts the statistical probabilities at odds with the diversity we have, even given hundreds of millions of years.
Indeed. In science you have to provide evidence that it is wrong. "All swans are white" is disproven by showing the existence of a swan that is black. Today we can take a black swan and a white swan and show that not only morphologically are they swans, but genetically they are virtually identical except for the genes that make one white and on black.
Counterexample, mating of male and female produces a male [one x chromosome and one Y chromosome] or a female [two x chromosomes]
If I can assert "nuclear submarines cannot be powered by burning bricks of peat", and prove it, that's enough to cripple the Peat Power theory.
I don't have to know anything about the actual fuels at all, if I can prove that the peat just won't work.
He did not have the correct alternate theory. He said that our sun was the center Universe of the (the Universe, mind you) --- and that all other celestial objects (including the moon and the stars) circled directly around our sun, and that tides were caused by the seawater sloshing around due to our planetary rotation (he didn't know about lunar gravitation) and a lot of other incorrect notions.
But he didn't have to prove his alternative (the Universe circles around our sun) to correctly infer that the geocentric system--- at that time, the scientific consensus! ---was incorrect.
There’s no such thing as Darwin. All I see is someone who looks like Santa’s POed cousin.
Copernicus beat him to it.
I remember a co worker once saying that about an Intel employee who showed up at an Intel poker party once...turns out he was the highest paid guy in the state..and actually the highest State executive for Intel...appearances are misleading.
Your own argument demonstrates that SAYING that a theory is wrong disproves it because you then offer to demonstrate that Peat cannot power a nuclear submarine.
There is, however, a deeper problem with your attempt at an illustration because your hypothesis is not an explanation for something that is observed. Instead your "hypothesis" is nothing more than an empty semantic tautology (of the form "not A implies not A"). A nuclear submarine is by definition powered by a nuclear reactor. A peat powered submarine is by definition not a nuclear submarine and so the hypothesis is by definition true.
On the other hand I could build a peat powered submarine just as well as a diesel powered submarine, though it would be awfully slow and inefficient. Which again demonstrates that your argument is semantic, resting on the definition of "nuclear submarine" not scientific.
Savannah cats are gaining in popularity in the US. They are taller than a typical house cat and look like small cheetahs (especially the first three generations known as F1, F2, and F3). They are a cross between a domestic cat and a serval, an African wildcat. Savannah cats are very tall for house cats (which can get them into trouble) and they also enjoy the water like Bengals do. They usually weigh around 20 pounds if they are not overweight.<<
thesprucepets.com/hybrid-cat-breeds-4176576
Evolution has ALWAYS had problems with science. Darwin’s finches did interbreed. But they did so in private, and the biologists were not as observant as they could be. Is evolution the observations, or the theory? It is more like Natural Selection is the theory, but how does that scale down to microbes? Is the sum total of micro evolution proof just three examples and does the above cat breeding show less real proof of micro evolution when it is really looked at? Is evolution a product of taxonomy or morphology, which gives less power to the evolutionary speculation.
I suspect if there was more economic interest in cat breeding, that produced bigger and more dangerous pets, we may be able to turn your house cat into a lion in 100 years, but I would keep it well fed before letting it play with the children.
DK
There is no way to know exactly what happened in the past. Any theory would need a contemporary observer. Cambrian problem is big...but harder is the non life to life jump.
Clearly there is evolution. But it isn’t random mutations über alles. Lamarck May have invented epigenetics with no way to prove it. But he had a point. Environment changed species. Now we can prove it.
Simplest epigenetics example is that if you place a pony embryo into a horse uterus, the foal becomes significantly larger than a pony when grown.
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