Posted on 12/21/2004 7:59:02 PM PST by postitnews.com
But not as well as creationism.
As all observed facts can always match with a vague supernatural explanation such as ID that is undoubtedly true, and gets no-one anywhere. However many specific forms of creationism fail to match the observed facts at all, eg Young Earth Creationism.
In fact, evolution has to deny some of the observed facts such as unbroken "overthrusts" larger than 2 square miles are physically impossible, rock layers that took supposedly millions of years fail to show erosion which most certainly would have taken place.
None of those things have anything whatsoever to do with evolution. But you also seem to be denying geology where it doesn't match with your religious pre-determinations. Perhaps you should get a job with an oil company or a mineral company as your understanding is so much better than that of mainstream geologists. Presumably you are one of the wacky group that also denies mainstream astronomy, cosmology, and physics as well as biology and geology (amongst other ologies)? The world is extremely ancient, and if your religion has problems with that then your religion is plain wrong.
lack of transitional forms (no half-legs, half-wings, 3.5-chambered hearts), and on and on.Therefore evolutionism, like creationism is an interpretation of the evidence.
The supposed lack of transitional forms is a common creationist lie. There are numerous both in the fossil record and "half-wings", "half-legs", "half-eyes" alive right now in modern forms. No interpretation of the evidence could ever falsify creationism in general because the supernatural makes no predictions and cannot be falsified (though specific creationist nonsenses like Young Earth Creationism can and have been falsified, unless you propose that God fiddles with the evidence to make a young universe seem ancient)
(b) it makes numerous successful predictions
And what would just one of those successful predictions be? Abrupt appearances fully formed? Millions of years of man but no written language before the last 6k years?
No, neither of those things. I'll give you one successful prediction from the great many possible: No modern fossil forms found in ancient strata. Why don't you do some of your own research to find some more, but I suggest you avoid creationist websites because they just lie (like saying there are no transitional forms)
(c) numerous possible falsifications exist but none has been demonstrated
So far, every contradiction for evolution, every disproof, every falsification has been greeted by "It ain't over until we say it's over." Scientists who become creationists are declared non-scientists by fiat. Evolution is a closed community that attempts to silence critics through the courts with the help of the ACLU.
Yes I can just see how the ACLU is silencing creationists all over the world. Scientists who become creationists are in a very tiny minority and (almost?) all seem to have pre-existing religious conviction. Almost no creationist work is ever submitted to peer-reviewed journals. "Creation science" almost entirely (with a tiny number of honourable exceptions) takes place on christian websites and in pop-science publications aimed at believers. I suggest that you post an example of a falsification of evolution submitted to a peer-reviewed journal that the scientific community has foolishly ignored and we can judge how valid it seems.
(d) no simpler natural theory has been that satisfies (a) and (b) and (c) has been proposed
I see that you are after a natural theory rather than the truth. As long as you are making restrictions, why not make it an American natural theory? Then you don't have to worry about competition from Europeans. You are begging the question which is a classic fallacy.
Science only deals with the natural, because the supernatural cannot make predictions, and cannot be falsified. Science is the study of the natural. It crosses national and religious boundaries freely, as long as countries and religions allow it to.
Funny that, when I've posted that article I've also had people come back after a few minutes rejecting it in its entirety. They must be real Speeeddyyyy Reaaaddderrrss. Yeah Right.
I love the creato-nut idea that people think that biologists and geologists are colluding to keep the truth from people. A century-long conspiracy spanning the globe with hundreds of thousands of conspirators any of whom would guarantee worldwide fame and fortune and a Nobel Prize to boot if they broke ranks...
Excellent references.
Of course that won't stop creationists from popping up next week saying, "and even the great Kelvin knew that evolution was wrong!".
I like your "Agreement of the willing". I am not sure if I can live up to it, but I am going to try.
The good guys don't really have a problem with it. The anti-science, anti-reason Luddites were strongly opposed, because the objectionable practices the Agreement attempts to abolish comprise their entire intellectual inventory.
RussP wrote:
I didn't follow the link, but I will stipulate for the sake of argument that your link does indeed document such mutations.
VadeRetro replied:
It has been wryly suggested to me that I'm not giving the opposition adequate time to absorb the materials presented as evidence against its position. I have to wonder if the humor was intentional.
RussP replies:
Point 1: I'm honest about it.
Point 2: Consider the logic of your reply: "Because you did not read my link, you are ignorant." Well, I want to know if you read Spetner's book -- and Behe's too, by the way. Honestly, now.
Point 3: You focused on a minor point of my reply, and you ignored the main point. What is the ratio (even approximately) of beneficial to harmful mutations? And why do evolutionists never seem to discuss that? Is that unimportant in their little world?
"Of course that won't stop creationists from popping up next week saying, "and even the great Kelvin knew that evolution was wrong!".
You evolutionists are incorrigible with your distortions. I brought up Kelvin in a list of great scientists who staunchly disputed Darwin's theory of evolution (Maxwell, Faraday, Henry, Pasteur, etc.). I did *not* suggest for a second that "and even the great Kelvin knew that evolution was wrong!". I was replying to an apparently ignorant evolutionist (is there any other kind?) who asserted that "science" had accepted evolution way back in the 19th century.
"Of course that won't stop evolutionists from popping up next week saying, `all good scientists know that evolution is true'."
"Evolution does not cover the beginning of life. Strike II."
Oh, it doesn't? So are you admitting that the beginning of life cannot be explained in purely naturalistic terms without resort to intelligent design? If so, what makes you evolutionists so cocksure that life *after* the first living cell can be so explained?
So how come we measure temperature in Kelvins instead of Thompsons? Where did the name "Kelvin" come from?
That would require measuring time in geological eras.
"It has been wryly suggested to me that I'm not giving the opposition adequate time to absorb the materials presented as evidence against its position."
"That would require measuring time in geological eras."
I am still waiting for an evolutionist to tell me what he or she thinks is the approximate ratio of harmful to beneficial mutations (overall or for any species), and where in the "popular" literature this is discussed. I wonder if I will be waiting for eons.
You are asking the wrong question.
The effect of a mutation is harmful, neutral or beneficial depending on the environment in which it occurs. Mutations that harm some individuals may benefit the population as a whole, as with sickle-cell trait.
In large populations, there can be tens of thousands of variants of a single gene co-existing.
All praise the Lord Kelvin!
OK, so he was given the title, Baron Kelvin of Largs, but where the heck did the name Kelvin come from?
"For his work on the transatlantic cable Thomson was created Baron Kelvin of Largs in 1866. The Kelvin is the river which runs through the grounds of Glasgow University and Largs is the town on the Scottish coast where Thomson built his house."
And now back to our topic, via google:
http://www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/users/adrianth/
What did I say a few days ago? I *knew* someone would cite genetic algorithms as evidence for naturalistic evolution. (I assume that your posting of a link to a site on GAs is intended to coroborate the NDT, otherwise it would be off-topic here.)
Let me reiterate the difference between GAs and the NDT. GAs are programmed by an ostensibly intelligent human for the purpose of optimizing a high-dimensional nonlinear function. They are not intended to simulate the NDT in any realistic way. The NDT, of course, involves no intelligent guidance and no ultimate goal.
GAs work by injecting randomness into the search, thereby preventing the algorithm from getting stuck in a local minima as a non-random algorithm might do, such as gradient descent or Newton-Raphson. They do not simulate the NDT in any realistic way. Anyone who thinks that their effectiveness constitutes evidence in favor of the theory of evolution is profoundly confused. But we know about that already, don't we.
I will also add that I have seen GAs used where more "conventional" methods would have sufficed nicely. They were apparently intended as a substitute for good engineering by engineers who don't like to do engineering.
RussP wrote:
I am still waiting for an evolutionist to tell me what he or she thinks is the approximate ratio of harmful to beneficial mutations
js1138 replied:
You are asking the wrong question.
The effect of a mutation is harmful, neutral or beneficial depending on the environment in which it occurs. Mutations that harm some individuals may benefit the population as a whole, as with sickle-cell trait.
RussP replies:
OK, then what percentage of mutations are harmful, neutral, or beneficial in the environment in which they occur? Sorry, but you haven't dodged the basic question.
By the way, many if not most mutations are harmful or beneficial independently of the environment. If a mutation stops the circulatory system from working properly, for example, it could kill the organism regardless of the environment.
If you read Behe's description of the amazingly complex process of blood clotting, involving 12 separate steps which must all function correctly, you will begin to understand how detrimental a small mutation can be.
Oh, another question. Where in the evolutionist literature is the effect of the good/bad mutation ratio discussed? And where in the literature do evolutionists discuss the threshold at which the NDT would fail to work? Would the NDT still work if the ratio were 1,000,000 to 1? 100,000 to 1? 1,000 to 1? Or didn't anyone think to ask this question?
By the way, here's a fun question for you. Suppose I flip a randomly selected bit in the Linux kernel executable. What do you think odds are that it will help the functioning of the OS (as perceived by the user)? And what do you think the odds would be that it would harm the functioning?
Bill Thompson, Sir William Thompson, and Lord Kelvin all three thank you for this information.
That is unusual. You're not doing creation science right. You'll have to learn to deny what you're doing and what you're not doing no matter how obvious it is. Only then will you be a true Holy Warrior.
You have to remember you're allowed to do all that because you're fighting for a better world over the opposition of a worldwide conspiracy of Evil Dumb people.
Point 2: Consider the logic of your reply: "Because you did not read my link, you are ignorant." Well, I want to know if you read Spetner's book -- and Behe's too, by the way. Honestly, now.
The difference is I actually linked a sizeable body of direct evidence for what I was saying. Spetner you have incorporated only by reference and Behe not at all.
However, to answer anyway, I have no recollection of reading Spetner except for the email debate discussed on this thread. He doesn't come up a lot in these debates.
I have read several web articles by Behe including what amounts to a preview synopsis of Darwin's Black Box (but not the book itself), not to mention several volleys in a running duel with one of his earliest critics, H. Allen Orr. More importantly, I am familiar with his main thesis and can recapitulate it accurately. Now, as far as what I find convincing, I agree with Orr's criticisms of same far more than with anything Behe has thus far said.
Let's not forget Kenneth Miller's deconstruction of the whole flagellum thing.
But, one might ask, what do YOU know about Behe? Did you know he believes in common descent? (Admittedly, he has a rather funny version of how all that has worked, but he does believe in the common descent of all life on Earth, including that creationist bugbear, humans from apes.)
Point 3: You focused on a minor point of my reply, and you ignored the main point. What is the ratio (even approximately) of beneficial to harmful mutations? And why do evolutionists never seem to discuss that? Is that unimportant in their little world?
No one knows a fixed ratio between harmful, beneficial, and neutral. I personally suspect there's no one breakdown for all species and all time.
It will no doubt surprise you but no, it's not important to the idea that, whatever the source of variation is, the origin of species lies in the joint action of variation plus natural selection. The variation may be everywhere observed and is basically a given, a starting point for the theory. Agonizing over how one can have variation without extinction is an interesting not-quite side issue, if a rather contrived one. At any rate, it has no bearing on the status of the theory and its many successful predictions as a legitimate advance of our knowledge.
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