Look at what you wrote!
You began by saying: "The default answer for most defenders of Darwinian evolution is..."
But just three sentences later, "default answer" has magically transubstantiated into "your reply is just a reiteration of Darwinian dogma".
My dear colleague, a default answer IS a piece of dogma. Darwin asserted the basics of evolution -- adaption to a changing environment through incremental mutations, with 'survival of the fittest' being the result. This has become dogma for most biologists, even when there is overall evidence that all of Nature and each creature within it is far too complex to be the result of meadnering molecules (if you will excuse the phrase). Saying that all living things are as they are because of natural selection without reference to a guiding intelligence is just as dogmatic as saying life is as it is because 'God created it, just like the Bible states in Genesis'. What makes it dogma is nothing inherent in the theory, but rather in the way it is used over and over to reject any alternate hypothesis. IOW, it's only dogma when it cannot be questioned without suffering unending derision by other scientists, which is the case right now in the field of evolution. Granted there are some theories that are risible, but merely to attempt to weave God, or any higher intelligence into the process meets with categorical, and erroneous, name-calling, ie. 'fundamentalist', 'religionist', 'ID believer'. Boy, if your concept of ID is what you said --
But "Intelligent Design" is something entirely different.
ID suggests -- or hints, or allows people to believe -- without in any way demonstrating, that some being is out there (where?) routinely manipulating DNA to produce new kinds of creatures.
-- then I suggest you are the one who needs to pay more careful attention to the arguments of his opponents. God manipulating DNA from somewhere 'out there'? That's what IDers are supposed to believe? I carefully checked all my posts on this thread and nowhere did I use the phrase "Intelligent Design" to describe my beliefs. But ain't it a convenient panegyric to put a dunce cap on your 'opponent'?
What I actually believe, to make it clear to you, is more in line with what you define as Theistic Evolutionism, "which simply means that God designed, created and manages the Evolution process in order to produce what we see today, especially mankind. And that is in no way a challenge to the theory of Evolution...
Yet I am unfamiliar with the term Theistic Evolutionism. I am an independent thinker. Since you say you do believe TE, it seems we both believe much the same thing about how God and evolution may be integrated.
To be fair, you did not specifically say I believed in Intelligent Design. But you distinctly stated "I'm telling you, your problem here is a religion-based hang-up over the definition of the word "species".
Now how can we have an intelligent conversation sprinkled with clever telepathic psychoanalysis like that? I wish I were so talented myself. Actually, if you re-read my posts, you may find that we are not so far apart. For example, when I asked about why my cat has no feathers, I was not asking "why did not cats imitate birds and substitute feathers for their hair?" Rather, I was asking why, if feathers make good insulation and fur makes good insulation, how do we know why evolution took the course it did (furry mammals instead of featherd mammals)? It's a good question, since it's conceivable that feathers could work on a mammal. Or maybe not. We probably don't know at this point.
But MY point was that whatever state of nature biologists find animals in, no matter how complex or unexpected, they always assert that that creature is how it is because of the mechanistic forces of (oh, that Sacred Word!) Natural Selection. Just saying the magic words 'natural selection' shuts down all errant, heretical thinking, such as perhaps believing that God wanted it that way for purposes we are far too dim to comprehend.
And btw, although I am not precisely an IDer, do I really need anybody's permission to believe that God actually does manipulate DNA to His purposes? It's something I have thought about, but since I can't conceive how this is done, I hold it as a mere possibility. In order for any theory to be accurately labeled 'non-scientific', it must fly in the face of known facts. I am not aware of holding any beliefs that must shun observed data in order to be credible.
FYI, I have seen similar charts like the one you provide in the Time-Life series in which in immersed myself as a child, and in many Biology textbooks and Scientific American articles. What do the lines on these 'trees of life' prove? What does similarity of DNA prove? It proves similarity, lol.
I'd like to consider BrandtMichaels' assertion that "Considering the complexity of DNA proves clearly beyond a shadow of a doubt that one kind does not re-program itself into yet another kind." I actually am open to the idea that DNA is so intelligent that it could receive stimulus from the environment, analyze it, and make appropriate adaptations to itself. That would be a form of intelligent design (without CAPS). What I strongly doubt is that the changes leading to divergent evolution were caused by random mutations resulting from solar radiation or chemical reactions within cells. We know that usually leads to cancer and death, and not spectacularly adapted new species! There is also the fact of punctuated evolution, which is counter-intuitive to gradual random mutations. Intelligence must play a role, and since I believe in God as the Supreme Intelligence, I naturally look to Him/Her (I am Christian/Hindu) as the guiding force behind all life. I believe God has created the Universe, but in such a manner as to leave no fingerprints behind. I believe Life is a mystery that must be solved, and that science and spiritual thought (don't care much for conventional 'religion') must find common ground someday.
-- ARFAR
Well said ARFAR. I too never mentioned species nor intelligent design iirc. Plus BJK doesn’t seem to realize his precious viewpoint is more of a matter of which one.
Most all the evolution beliefs like to gloss over the Cambrian explosion of many life forms all at once. None of the parts and pieces of evolution all meld into one super theory rather many things juxtaposed against one another - showing clearly several hypothesis still in need of a unified theory. Calling it fact is a blatant lie [like global warming] where they are trying to erroneously end all debate. That is not how science works!
I too find your words insulting to my intelligence and person, but, hey, I've never let that stop me before, so why start now? ;-)
ARFAR: "My dear colleague, a default answer IS a piece of dogma."
You are (no doubt deliberately) ignoring my point: whether "default" or "dogma" the words you next claimed were mine were not.
So, in assigning those particular words to me you told, let's not just beat around the bush, you told a lie.
And, my point is: if that's what they taught you to do in your philosophy classes, then you need to demand a refund, for mis-education, FRiend.
ARFAR: "Darwin asserted the basics of evolution -- adaption to a changing environment through incremental mutations, with 'survival of the fittest' being the result. This has become dogma for most biologists..."
That's not "dogma", it's a confirmed theory, confirmed in many ways, including fossil records and DNA analyses.
Somewhere, you should have learned the difference between religious "dogma" (=doctrine) and a scientific hypothesis-cum-theory.
They are in no way related.
ARFAR: "...there is overall evidence that all of Nature and each creature within it is far too complex to be the result of meadnering molecules (if you will excuse the phrase).
Saying that all living things are as they are because of natural selection without reference to a guiding intelligence is just as dogmatic as saying life is as it is because 'God created it, just like the Bible states in Genesis'. "
Now you've said a real mouthful, and I'm not certain where to begin unpacking it all...
The facts (=confirmed observations) show modifications in every generation.
The facts also show that nature only selects non-harmful modifications for survival.
Evolution theory says that helpful modifications can be naturally selected and accumulate over time until one sub-species population can no longer interbreed with another.
At some point in the process (i.e., zebras, donkeys & horses), scientists will stop calling them "sub-species" and begin calling them separate "species."
Projected backwards over millions and billions of years, this process can be shown through DNA to account for virtually all life on earth.
As for God's undoubted role in evolution, this has nothing to do with science, and cannot even be addressed by science as such.
That's because, by definition the word "science" deals only with natural causes of natural phenomena.
So, what you and I might see as the obvious "hand of God" at work, science as such can only describe as "random mutations."
Of course, you should have learned all this in class -- it goes by the name of "theistic evolutionism."
It's what most Christian denominations teach, and also what I believe.
"Theistic evolutionism" in no way challenges the science of evolution, it merely says that God obviously designed, created and manages the process from the beginning, for the purpose of producing just what we see today, especially mankind.
ARFAR: "What makes it dogma is nothing inherent in the theory, but rather in the way it is used over and over to reject any alternate hypothesis.
IOW, it's only dogma when it cannot be questioned without suffering unending derision by other scientists, which is the case right now in the field of evolution. "
In science, anyone can question anything.
But if you question, for example, whether two plus two must equal four, then no one will take you very seriously.
Of course, if you were some kind of Einstein Jr., and could demonstrate through Relativity, Uncertainty and Chaos Theory that two plus two might equal something else, then serious scientists might pay you some heed.
But you would certainly have to be as good as Einstein was to make such a proposal.
And, my point is: in the case of evolution theory, nothing remotely resembling Einstein's relativity has been proposed to contradict the old "Newtonian" / Darwinian explanations.
ARFAR: "Granted there are some theories that are risible, but merely to attempt to weave God, or any higher intelligence into the process meets with categorical, and erroneous, name-calling, ie. 'fundamentalist', 'religionist', 'ID believer'."
You were supposed to learn in science class the definition of the word "science."
Science is "methodological naturalism", meaning it consists only of natural explanations for natural phenomena.
The moment you introduce some super-natural concept like "God", then it is no longer "science", and science can't deal with it.
And why would you want to?
Let science be science.
Most Christians and other believers simply understand that what science calls "random" was in fact the Hand of God at work in the World.
It's no more complicated than that.
So why beat yourself up over it?
ARFAR: "What I actually believe, to make it clear to you, is more in line with what you define as Theistic Evolutionism..."
"Yet I am unfamiliar with the term Theistic Evolutionism. "
It's a good term, nothing wrong with it, and you should have learned it in school. ;-)