2013

It is sufficient that NS does not act too strongly against, not that it must act for, a particular change. Allan Miller Comment on crossposted thread, Blindwatchbreaker Allan is wrong in using the word “sufficient”. The correct statement “It is necessary but not sufficient for NS not to act too strongly” Notwithstanding Allan Miller’s wrong choice of words, he rightly echoes the words of three scientists I’ve quoted before. For evolution of complexity to happen, Natural Selection must often be inhibited, Natural Selection is not the mechanism of innovation it is the INHIBITOR. many genomic features could not have emerged without a near-complete disengagement of the power of natural selection Michael Lynch opening, The Origins of Genome Architecture and a Read More ›

Yeah, only in Dawkins’ dreams. Look at the right atrium in these four creatures from Encyclopedia Britannica: How did that right atrium evolve from one side to the other along with changes in its connection to the pulmonary artery? In the crocodile and snake the right atrium is on the right ventricle but in the lizard and turtle they are on the left ventricle. Look at the aortas. In the lizard they are all on left ventricle, in the snake on the right ventricle, and then split for the turtles and crocodiles. How did those aortas migrate from on ventricle to the other without the transitionals being lethal? Study the picture more and you’ll see, the Intelligent Designer seems almost Read More ›

A battle royal over split-brain patients has been raging on a post at Uncommon Descent for the past four weeks. I was unaware of this vigorous debate until a couple of days ago, as I’ve been working on several posts of my own, which will (hopefully) be up soon. However, after having viewed the comments on the split brain thread, I’ve decided to make my own contribution to the debate, as someone who has a long-standing interest in the mind-body problem. How it all started Over at The Skeptical Zone, KeithS threw down the gauntlet in a post titled, Split-brain patients and the dire implications for the soul (June 22, 2013). I’ll quote a brief excerpt here: There is a Read More ›

Some things you can’t make up in a novel, they would be too implausible to be salable. But reality itself has no such constraints. As onlookers know, over the past several days — cf. here and here, we have been back to the issue of KeithS and his fellow evolutionary materialists (and their fellow travellers and enablers) and their struggles with first principles of right reason, starting with say seeing a bright red ball on a table and noticing the obvious about such a situation: StephenB has been making a basic argument to KS that it is worth highlighting again (NB: KS is busily pretending that this does not exist and/or has no cogency): SB, 491 in the Meanningless world Read More ›