A Question for Evolutionists

February 3rd, 2002 | Sabertooth

[Sabertooth]

A Question for Evolutionists

Here's where I see the crux of the Creation vs. Evolution debate, and most appear to miss it:

Forget possible transitional forms, stratigraphy, and radiological clocks... at some level, both Creationists and Evolutionists wander back to singularities and have to cope with the issue of spontaneous cause.

Creationists say "God."

• Since God has chosen not to be heavy-handed, allowing us free will,
  this is neither scientifically provable nor disprovable.
• This is more a commentary on the material limitations of science than it is about the limitations of God.
  Both Creationists and Evolutionists need to come to grips with that.

Evolutionists say "random spontaneous mutagenic speciation."

• Where has that been observed or demonstrated?

[f.Christian]

then it can't be against him, it must be his will.

not false science---rebellion--war...good/Truth vs. evil(evolution-lies-theft-murder)!

[donh]

Here's a not overly un-representative sampling from this tome:

Two main such constraints have historically been used to keep design outside the natural sciences: methodological naturalism and dysteleology. According to methodological naturalism, in explaining any natural phenomenon the natural sciences are properly permitted to invoke only natural causes to the exclusion of intelligent causes.

I am sorry, I really tried, but this stuff is just too etherial for me. What I was really looking for was something like "kilroy was here" scribbled out on some junk DNA. What you might, in less high-falutin' circles, call "evidence".

Dembski & Behe & such folk have a basic point which could be correct--probably is correct about a couple of things. However, that butters way fewer parsnips than one might have hoped. It is without question the case that we are quite puzzled by many of the steps in the putative story of Life. it is without question that outside interference is a perfectly possible explanation. However, I am still left wondering how the interferee evolved, and I appear to have only put off my questions to a higher arena: the universe as a stage for life, rather than the earth as a stage for life. How does this help scratch my curiosity bump?

Secondly, to give up on natural explanations, I need some indication that the alternative I'm being offered is somehow a more insightful, or more useful explanation of things. That is why, for example, we gave up on Ptolomaic astronomy in favor of copernican astronomy, even though both are clearly "right". And I have looked in vain for the utility of non-natural explanations. In other words--fat lot of good it does me to know beings from a superior culture or superior plane of existence shaped the past. I can find oil by tracing the history of Permian beaches through their fossil strata. I can't find oil by assuming God whupped it all up from scratch, so shut up and stop digging up fossils and putting them in order--dern kids!

The assumptions we make right now have value in our current paradigm, so we are going to go on using them. When Behe and/or Dembski provides us with an explanatory framework we can do something with that seems equally valuable, we'll consider making a change. Truth, with a capital T, is not the business of science. Coming up with a good story that has utility and predictive power right now, but will with virtual certainty be replaced by a better story in the future is the business of science. Behe and Dembski get their traction from this very fallible and tentative nature of all sciences, not just evolutionary theory.

Irreducible complexity means exactly what I originally suggested: that because you can't think of a natural explanation for flagella, for example, therefore the best science is to assume that it doesn't have natural causes. This is just wrong, no matter how many fancy words you wrap it in. Natural explanations have turned out to be the hands-down best bet so far, and we need a smoking gun, like the pythagorean theorem etched in the flagella's RNA, to suggest it is worthwhile to abandon the search for natural explanations.

[Quila]

A fundamental category of taxonomic classification, ranking below a genus or subgenus and consisting of related organisms capable of interbreeding.

"A fundamental category of taxonomic classification, ranking below a genus or subgenus and consisting of related organisms capable of interbreeding. "

Evolution is not about species anyways. It is about new added characteristics to a species's genome.

... which result in another species.

[Quila]

People are still breaking out that old thermodynamics argument? People, please learn to quit with the tired, failed arguments. sabretooth at least started this thread in a somewhat interesting argument.

[panaxanax]

I am not a scientist, but i do know there are no more sabertooth tigers. What happened to them?

[Quila]

not false science

How did I know you'd say that? Reminds me too much of "Hitler was a Christian" -- "No, he wasn't a true Christian." Just redefine it as you go.

[Sabertooth]

If God made and owns science, then what's your problem with science?

For one thing, all those damned scientists...

[Sabertooth]

sabretooth at least started this thread in a somewhat interesting argument.

Actually, it was a question.

What the hell, I haven't reminded anyone in about 80 posts!

[garbanzo]

I think that it is a pedagogical device to explain a type of mutagenesis which appears to be without exogenous causation.

But I really don't see what it gets us - if something "looks" random and "acts" randomly - it's just as useful and more parsimonious to say that it is "random" even if it's not possible (as it is in most cases) to prove that it's random.

[Demidog]

You don't have to be an athiest to believe that God created the world via evolution.

[Sabertooth]

You don't have to be an athiest to believe that God created the world via evolution.

Wouldn't it be rather difficult for an atheist to believe that God did anything?

Anyway, if you take a look at my posts on this thread, you'll see that I don't have much problem with Evolution, it's some of the hasty assumptions of Evolutionists.

[Demidog]

Yes the response was hastily fashioned. I think you got it though. Nobody has ever observed evolution. Nobody has ever seen gravity or rights either.

[Sabertooth]

I'm not sure this answers your question partly because I'm not sure what point you're attempting to make with line of questioning.

I'm posting the question again, just to get it onto this page.

Where is the observation or evidence of random spontaneous mutagenic speciation?

In a way, you addressed it here:

"...observing speciation over human time frames is difficult simply because as best as can be determined from the fossil record the process is much longer than a single human lifetime and is in fact much longer than hundreds of human lifetimes."

Seems you're saying that it hasn't been observed. Which I agree with.

The point I've been trying to make is that the assumption that random processes are sufficient for evolution is just that: an assumption.

That's all.

[Bonaparte]

Let me start by clearing up the term "dysteleology," since you've placed it in bold. It simply points to the belief that God couldn't have done it, because by somebody's standards, it's "imperfect" (and God would only create after first consulting our standards of "perfection", right?) This sort of objection to ID is still sometimes raised by some of its critics, and it is naive in its supposition that we are competent judges not only of such a designer's intentions, but of how that designer would or should make those intentions manifest. The arrogance of this view is too obvious to dwell on.

Secondly, I want to congratulate you on your scientific open-mindedness. I rarely see that around here. You at least allow that a supranatural intelligent designer is in the realm of scientific possibility.

Concerning your evident belief that ID requires us to deny practical scientific information, nothing in ID suggests this. As I've stated before, much of what has come to light through the efforts of evolutionists is of great value. Dembski freely acknowledges this and is thankful for it. But when evolutionists, for instance, propose Darwinian algorithms to explain things like natural selection, and then sulk because those algorithms are shown mathematically to lack anthing near the informational, and therefore explanatory power, that's been claimed for them, I have to wonder what they're defending -- because it's certainly not science. Dembski has no problem at all accepting that the Earth is almost certainly 4-5 billion years old and that the physical universe is equally likely to be on the order of 14-16 billion years old. The evidence is just too compelling to take issue with this. Likewise, he would not dispute for one moment, the efficacy of the geologic techniques of oil exploration (supra) and their underlying scientific rationale. ID does not seek to limit the explanatory power of science. On the contrary, it seeks to expand that power by freeing it from an unnecessarily limiting paradigm, one that excludes the stronger theory in favor of the weaker, simply to perpetuate itself.

[Sabertooth]

If you want to propose an "ultimate cause outside of our experience," you should have some reason for making such a proposal, other than "Hey, why not?".

Funny, all I've done was question random processes as the ultimate cause of our existence.

And I haven't seen a much better defense of them than "Hey, why not?"

[Sabertooth]

Let me start by clearing up the term "dysteleology," since you've placed it in bold. It simply points to the belief that God couldn't have done it, because by somebody's standards, it's "imperfect" (and God would only create after first consulting our standards of "perfection", right?) This sort of objection to ID is still sometimes raised by some of its critics, and it is naive in its supposition that we are competent judges not only of such a designer's intentions, but of how that designer would or should make those intentions manifest. The arrogance of this view is too obvious to dwell on.

Oh, please, can't we dwell a little bit?

Because we've seen several such ID objections on this thread alone, and they are as idle and shopworn as the big "C" Creationists perpetual misunderstandings of entropy in open systems.

[Sabertooth]

The concept of randomness as introduced here by Sabertooth is not germaine nor is the absence of randomness destructive to his position. I think that it is a pedagogical device to explain a type of mutagenesis which appears to be without exogenous causation.

Not sure I followed this.

Seems to me that the concept of randomness, in regard to speciation, is germaine here, as long as folks are lining up to defend it, despite having no observation of it.

[garbanzo]

You're placing too much emphasis on direct observation. I didn't watch Thomas Jefferson write the Declaration of Independence but I have no doubt that the event happened. The evidence of speciation is inferred from the fossil record even though no single human can watch it happen in real-time. And the fossil record doesn't show any evidence of some sort of directed process if that's what you're getting at.

Assumptions are at the heart of all sciences - it's whether or not the assumption is valid (and to what degree) in reality that counts.

[Sabertooth]

The evidence of speciation is inferred from the fossil record even though no single human can watch it happen in real-time.

I've stipulated this repeatedly.

And the fossil record doesn't show any evidence of some sort of directed process if that's what you're getting at.

Agreed, but that's not what I'm getting at. My point was that random spontaneous mutagenic speciation hasn't been observed.

But since you bring up the fossil record again, isn't it also true that it shows no evidence of random processes?

[Sabertooth]

I find only variations of the same refrain. Which, to my untutored eye, is just a painfully reiterated implicit suggestion that mutation is, in some manner, directed, since we cannot prove it is "random" (whatever one may take the word to mean), although you are apparenly too shy to say so directly--as you seem to be at pains not to want to quite own this contention.

Well, I'm not often accused of being shy. For the most part I've avoided putting forth my own propositions in an attempt at a Socratic approach to the subject , however ham-handed. I've tried to keep coming back to the question because of the way these threads often degenerate. So far, I'm pretty happy with the way this one has gone, how about you?

The question of "random" came to my mind because of what seemed to me an unwarranted fealty to it as an explanation. Maybe it's correct, but we're far from knowing that now. Seems to me a contentious enough subject, what would a little intellectual honesty hurt?

As for my own thoughts, I posted some of them at #185.

I'll be honest, I just have a hunch that we know as much about biology today as physicists and cosmologists thought they knew about their fields in 1900.

Why allow the unwarranted assumpition that all of Evolution's loose ends are tied up?