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 ...
At this point I cannot help but bring hosepipe's point to bear.
(Paraphrased) those like Dawkins - a notorious atheist - who believe that faith in God is the result of evolution are only proving that they are themselves under-evolved.
There must be that which doesn't change and that which does change. God is the absolute. He does not change.
I'm tempted, but I'll go no further because my dearest sister in Christ, betty boop, has an entire cosmology built on that universal truth. And we would all benefit from her outlining it to us.
It's wrong to go beyond those details, but it's equally wrong to ignore them.
As for me, when the age of the universe comes up, I usually just try to finish the sentences.
The universe is 7 days old from the inception space/time coordinates at which point (in the beginning) God was the only observer.
Interestingly, Einstein was a Jew. So also is Gerald Schroeder, the Physicist who applies relativity and inflationary theory to Genesis 1.
I perceive that God the Father has revealed Himself to us in four ways: (1) through the Person of His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, (2) through the Person of the indwelling Holy Spirit, (3) through the Scriptures, and (4) through the Creation, both spiritual and physical - heaven and earth.
And I have perceived no inconsistencies perhaps because (1) His Name I AM is my guide, (2) man is not the measure of God, and (3) a thing is true because God says it.
To God be the glory!
Perfectly stated!
Without God, we all become the arbiters of our own morality and as inherently selfish and self-centered humans, that morality will ALWAYS be immoral. It is because of this that we see people totally disregard the rights and even lives of others just to satisfy their own desires.
Detection of “purpose” is beyond the scope of science.... If I lose at cards then I see it as God's will.... An atheist may well see it as just random bad luck.... There is no scientific way to differentiate or discern between these two views.
I'm having a little difficulty reconciling these two passages. It's clear that the world-class British polymath Francis Bacon banished final causes from science in the late 16th–early 17th centuries — which is where the scientific doctrine of methodological naturalism came from in the first place. Clearly your second statement reflects this understanding.
What's not clear is why you use the card game analogy as an illustration of purpose. A purpose, or end or goal or, as Aristotle called it, peras ("limit") is precisely what philosophers mean by a final cause. We enter the domain of teleology here.
In Metaphysics, Aristotle defined the final cause as "an end which is not for the sake of anything else, but for the sake of which everything [else] is." He adds, "So if there is to be a last term of this kind, the process will not be infinite; and if there is no such term there will be no final cause. Those who maintain an infinite series do not realize that they are destroying the very nature of the Good, although no one would try to do anything if he were not likely to reach some limit (peras); nor would there be reason (nous) in the world, for the reasonable man always acts for the sake of an end [purpose or goal] — which is a limit."
Aristotle thought that a limit is the necessary condition of rationality in action, that it is something inherent in reason. And as Eric Voegelin points out, for Aristotle, reason is embedded in the order of being, and it is the property of reason to have a limit. Now logically, there can be no “end” of anything that did not “begin.” That is, the limit cannot be the production of an infinitely regressive causal series: There must be a First Cause. — J. Drew and S. Venable, Don't Let Science Get You Down, Timothy, Lulu Press, 2007, p. 42.So you see, by banishing final causes, you also render questions of origin (first cause) irrelevant, as beyond the scope of the scientific method in principle. But I digress.
To get back to your point about "purpose" in a card game; i.e., you say the "purpose" is to win. And the distribution of the cards is random. By which you show by analogy that "purposeness and randomness are not opposites."
Opposites? Good grief, I wouldn't say that! More like dynamic complementarities by means of which all of Nature is constituted! That is, by means of the dynamical relation between that which does not change, and that which is capable of changing. (E.g., by way of analogy, the relation between the first and second laws of thermodynamics).
It seems to me that randomness by itself accomplishes nothing in an unguided system. And of course, the "guides" would have to come from the causes that science has expunged from its method. With first (formal) and final causes gone, all we have left are material and efficient causes. If science chooses to restrict its method to these, fine. But then please, do not blow up this restricted method into a full-blown cosmology of the universe.
Let's say we're participating in a poker game, allmendream. Your purpose in being there is "to win." My purpose in being there is to have an enjoyable evening with good friends engaged in a sociable game of chance. Which of our purposes is more rational?
When we think of purposeful activity, we normally think of intelligence working toward the achievement of novel goals. In poker games, there really are few ways that human beings can inject intelligence in such a way as to affect the outcome of the game. Usually there will be an opportunity for discarding and drawing new cards. Which each and every time simply amounts to hitting the "reset button" on the random distribution of the cards. Short of bluffing (or cheating, heaven forfend), there's little a human being can do to change the outcome of a game that is constituted by the way the next card just happens to fall.
I'm pretty sure Nature does not do business in this way. And if it did, there'd be no room for you or me in it. Free will would be a joke. We'd have nothing to do....
Just some thoughts FWIW. Thanks for writing, allmendream!
Indeed. And yet — correlation does not prove causation. If we see patterns in nature, chances are they are not developments from "the random" — especially if such patterns are observable "across domains." If we see they are ubiquitous, we need to ask why.
But will "science" let us ask that question???
Truly, science should not speak to either first cause or final cause since both are off the table of scientific inquiry in the first place.
I'm pretty sure Nature does not do business in this way. And if it did, there'd be no room for you or me in it. Free will would be a joke. We'd have nothing to do....
We can't expect science to answer the question because first and final causes are off the table.
But we can always ask the theologians, philosophers and mathematicians (incl. information theorists.)
So true.. so many concepts so little time..
Who is the most correct or partially correct?..
All of us I would say..
The message of John ch 10 about the sheep pens is pregnant..
There seems to be qualia of mental figments of thought..
Groups of thought that forms groups of people..
Whats "silly" to some is deep thought to others..
And whats deep to some is silly to others..
ANd with degrees of dfference in between..
How brilliant of Jesus to NOT forbid sheep pens..
He didnt even use the word or concept of heretic..
Without the Holy Spirit we all are mentally wandering around like a blind smart aleck thats pretty deaf too.. It is so easy to discredit others.. Jesus said you MUST be born again NOT become smarter than other religious people.. You know the smart ones with all their spiritual eggs dyed and decorated..
After all the original error was eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of GOOD AND EVIL.. and probably metaphorically climbing around in it and throwing the fruit.. Yes..... like an APE.
What I mean with the card game analogy is that the distribution of the cards is random, but that doesn’t mean that there is no purpose among the contestants of the game.
My purpose is to win.
In evolution the purpose is to pass on genes to subsequent generations.
Just because mutation is random doesn’t mean that there is no purpose behind mutation. For example, a bacteria under stress will deliberately increase its own mutation rate.
Also, just because mutation is random doesn’t mean that the fossils we find are just as likely to be wildly mutated as consistent with its cohorts. That is like insisting that in a poker contest between a world class gambler and me, each of us should be equally likely to win, because the card distribution is random.
Yet there seems to me to be a critical, irreconcilable difference between the bacterium's ability to "deliberately" increase its own mutation rate and the prediction of random purposelesseness in nature — which leaves all questions of "deliberation" out of consideration altogether at all times, regardless of the question.
Let me put this question to you plainly, allmendream: In a deterministic world, where does "deliberation" fit in?
Meanwhile, I continue to worry about your invocation of purpose in nature. Dontcha know, such a view is poison to the advancement of a career in science nowadays?
Thank you so much for sharing your insights, dearest sister in Christ!
Intelligence and education is not the end all and be all of human existance. Notice how when the evos want to insult someone, the first thing they attack is their intelligence and education? Invectives like *cretard*, IDiot, ignorant, stupid, etc.
I never heard in a eulogy about how smart someone was, or how much more educated he was than the rest of us peons. Eulogies are always about morals and social relationships, the things that science can't touch.
Those who've made the greatest impact on humanity are those who displayed the most compassion, not those who were the *smartest*.
It isn't intelligence that sets man apart from animals. One can be a genius and be morally bankrupt, as is evidenced by so many dictators and tyrants throughout history.
I've always wondered who people would rather have as a neighbor if the economy ever bottomed out, or some natural disaster hit, or some terrorist attack.... The Amish who believe in creation and have little use for technology, or the likes of Dawkins?
For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.
And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling.
And my speech and my preaching [was] not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. - I Cor 2:1-5
But it is capable of enacting a proven program of adaptability to circumstances. One of those adaptations is a purposeful increase in the mutation rate by expression of error prone DNA polymerase. The mere existence of error prone DNA polymerase in addition to high fidelity DNA polymerase show that “random” has a purpose written into the bacterial genome.
And the purpose is continued survival of the species due to the strength of random variation to come up with novel adaptations that will be subject to selection.
Indeed..
Are we really sure about this? And by the way, what do you mean by cognition?
You will not attribute any purpose in or to Nature; and yet cannot seem to avoid attributing "purpose" to the bacterium and/or its genome:
"But it is capable of enacting [implying freedom to choose an act?] a proven program [implying memory?] of adaptability to circumstances [non-local signals?]. One of those adaptations is a purposeful increase in the mutation rate by expression of error prone DNA polymerase. The mere existence of error prone DNA polymerase in addition to high fidelity DNA polymerase show that “random” has a purpose written into the bacterial genome."
In short, if I understand you correctly, the bacterium "chooses" to bump its mutation rate by increasing error-prone DNA polymerase in response to signals emanating from the external environment.... It seems to me local causation as governed by the physico-chemical laws would be insufficient to fully account for this behavior.
A more sophisticated (i.e., complex) crittur is the amoeba. The Czech physician Slavoj Hontela conducted an interesting experiment regarding amoeba behavior back in 2002. His paper was published at the Karl Jaspers Forum under the title: Is There an Essential Difference between the Human and Animal States of Consciousness? An excerpt:
It is obvious that each living organism standing at any step of the evolutionary ladder would respond to a sufficiently intensive stimulus, if it would be perceivable by the sensorial system of that organism and of course if the organism would be conscious, it means in the state of consciousness. The opposite state to the consciousness is unconsciousness. The stimuli might be produced in different ways : the change in the subject's circumstances is the most common....Just to note: Thinking is purposive activity. It does not seem to require full self-consciousness; but an organism capable of sensation, awareness where memory is in some fashion present. If living organisms are information-processors (as increasingly it is thought), then we need to understand that "information" is the very opposite of a random distribution. And it did not itself arise from a "random process."The latter could be of mechanical or physical character (change in the light, sound, temperature, smell, vibration etc), chemical (change in the pH, effect of toxic chemicals, damaging radiation etc). In this conception a living Protozoic Amoeba fulfills all conditions to be conscious, to be in a state of consciousness....
How far this consciousness might be or should be considered as a "mental state" or a simple nerve-reflex structure is not easy to decide. Is it only the reaction to pleasant or unpleasant, useful or un-useful reaction ? Even in an Amoeba there are definitely signs of a memory presence. In regard that the memory is shown at the DNA molecule, in the process of "repairing" it might be presumed the memory proceeds the state of consciousness....
Let us to observe the behavior of an Amoeba in the microscope’s visual field. We can see there an Amoeba, of Proteus species, slowly moving by stretching out its pseudopodia, looking probably for food. We place now with a glass pipette close to her few powdered pigments of a dried Chinese Ink. The amoeba stretches one of her pseudopodia to a pigment grain closest to her (evidence of a chemotaxic reaction or ability !) and involves the grain into her pushing it down to the nucleus where the digestive vacuoles are present. It is certainly interesting that the pigment transported through the pseudopodia towards the nucleus, doesn't yet touch the nucleus capsule when obviously the Amoeba recognized the undigestibility of the Chinese Ink pigment, the further transportation in the direction to the nucleus stops and the foreign body is quickly pushed back and finally eliminated from the Ameoba's body....
From this observation it is possible to make already several conclusions:
1) The amoeba was able to recognize and approach the foreign body which might be its potential food,We have to presume there were neuro-biological elements equivalent to those of more developed organisms and obviously there were present a appropriate number of genes.... In regard to the fact the elimination process of the pigment start[ed] already before the nucleus was involved, seems to support the hypothesis of involvement of the microtubules in the plasma....
2) A. was able to mobilize her pseudopodia giving them the appropriate message to approach this pigment and engulf it.
3) With a certain delay which was obviously necessary to process the information related to the characteristic of the foreign body and the realization that it is indigestible follows another set of messages and the pigment was eliminated....
The second phase of the observation experiment was even more interesting because it brought to the evidence the proof of the presence of memory. We have removed the pigment from the underlying microscopic glass dip, we put there a new drop of clear water and again placed there another pigment grain of Chinese Ink. The Amoeba stretched the pseudopodium to the closest pigment but did not touch it and, in contrary pulled back from the pigment grain. Obviously it preserved the memory for the identification of the indigestible pigment !
It would be an exaggeration to speak about the mind or thinking but the period of might be 30 seconds which were passed by between the pigment taking and eliminating it; evokes the impression that the Amoeba needed a certain time to process the obtained information, i.e., it was "thinking."...
SUMMARY: We have to presume that any living structure or system {organism} receives a set of genes and maybe of memes from its father and mother at the moment of birth. The ALLELE possesses even at this primary start of life the memory, which enables it to response to any changes occurring in its internal and external environment. With help of sensorial reception which could be at any molecular, neuro-molecular or sensorial organ level, the allele is bombarded by information which is deposited into its memory.... The latter are organized into different systems, used for further formation of reactions. It means the system is THINKING. This activity may be occurring in the brain, or in neuro-ganglia as it's in an insect....
Through all of this, please recall that questions of purpose in nature entail questions of goals, ends — FINAL CAUSES. But science has dumped all final causes. So what are we talking about here?
I'll just leave it there for now, allmendream. Thank you so much for writing!
Woo Wee thats gotta hurt..-—>(allmendream)
A bacteria may have “memory” and still not have cognition. In this case “memory” would be a molecular state that predisposed the cell to a particular action.
The “purpose” behind the bacteria increasing its mutation rate by expression of a different type of DNA polymerase that is error prone is increased survival of progeny. Those bacterial populations with this ability survived so much better than their cohorts without it, that this is a common ability among bacteria.
Thus my point is reinforced about “purpose” and “randomness”. There is a purpose to the actions of the bacteria, even without cognition, and its purpose is to increase the random changes within its genome to generate an answer to the stress by utilization of natural selection of randomly generated genetic variation.
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