Epigenetics and GMO?

wd400: You guys crack me up. We're profession comedians. So thanks! Mung

VC: No one knows what pattern universal common descent would produce. Indeed. Mung

Zachriel:

The claim is that a nested hierarchy is a consequence of branching descent and stochastic variation.

And that claim has been refuted by the experts. Heck even YOU said that a family tree, which is an example of branching descent and stochastic variation, isn't a nested hierarchy. Now you are contradicting yourself. And you are too afraid to explain why you do such things. Virgil Cain

Zachriel:

What it means is that the nested hierarchy is evidence of common descent,

Only to people who don't know what a nested hierarchy is and who also don't understand evolution.

The evidence strongly supports branching descent from common ancestors for most taxa.

Too nebulous to be of any use. No one knows what pattern universal common descent would produce. What is a fact is it wouldn't produce a nested hierarchy, which is strictly a man-made classification scheme, ie purely artificial. Universal common descent cannot be modeled as we have no idea how to model it. We don't even know where to start. Virgil Cain

Silver Asiatic: Do you believe that everything that exists is reducible to stochastic events? The trajectory of the Earth around the Sun is not stochastic. Silver Asiatic: If not, where did the non-chance elements come from and what, precisely are they? None of that is necessary to support our claim, or to contradict your original statement that “One of the many reasons why the claim {of common descent} cannot be modeled or tested is that it relies on the assumption that sequence similarity indicates a genealogical relationship.” Silver Asiatic: There’s no way to distinguish that evidence from designed similarity through multiple lines of descent. The evidence strongly supports branching descent from common ancestors for most taxa. Zachriel

What it means is that the nested hierarchy is evidence of common descent, whether designed or not.

There's no way to distinguish that evidence from designed similarity through multiple lines of descent. Silver Asiatic

Zach Do you believe that everything that exists is reducible to stochastic events? If so, you'd need to model the creation of a sophisticated process of replication and inheritance from a purely stochastic state. If not, where did the non-chance elements come from and what, precisely are they? If you agree with me that they come from Intelligent Design, then you'd need to incorporate that somehow into your explanations for the origin and development of living organisms. If not, you'd need to show a purely stochastic process that can produce a nested hierarchy of self-replication and descent with modification. You can't merely start with the system. That's like ignoring the designed elements of the Roulette wheel. Silver Asiatic

Silver Asiatic: The claim is that a nested hierarchy is a consequence of a system designed to produce that. What it means is that the nested hierarchy is evidence of common descent, whether designed or not. And more specifically, that it is evidence of common descent, even if the variations are stochastic. Zachriel

Silver Asiatic: In this analogy, what are the designed aspects of evolution? It's not an analogy, but a counterexample to your statement that "you can’t present stochastic elements of a designed process and claim that as a stochastic process." Indeed, we presented stochastic elements of a designed process, Roulette, and correctly claimed Roulette as a stochastic process. You seem to be stumbling on the word "stochastic", which can mean purely random, but often means a system that includes a random element. Zachriel

Zach

The claim is that a nested hierarchy is a consequence of branching descent and stochastic variation.

I understand. The claim is that a nested hierarchy is a consequence of a system designed to produce that. You've done nothing to refute the counter claim. Silver Asiatic

A roulette wheel is designed, but the game is stochastic.

In this analogy, what are the designed aspects of evolution? Is there a roulette wheel that randomly produces self-replication, inheritance, adaptation and descent with modification? Silver Asiatic

Silver Asiatic: You’re starting with what you have to prove. Your statement was "One of the many reasons why the claim cannot be modeled or tested is that it relies on the assumption that sequence similarity indicates a genealogical relationship." The response is that a nested hierarchy (not mere similarity) is a consequence of branching descent and stochastic variation. Silver Asiatic: You did nothing to distinguish that from a designed system that shows the same results. The claim is that a nested hierarchy is a consequence of branching descent and stochastic variation. Zachriel

Zach

In any case, this returns us to your original statement that we can’t model common descent because it relies on a similarity.

You did nothing to distinguish that from a designed system that shows the same results. You have to demonstrate the origin of the system. Silver Asiatic

I think it’s a pretty safe assumption that organisms have “generations”, mutation rates and that mutations fix in populations (we even know the rate).

We don't know the rate as the equations have never been verified. Virgil Cain

Silver Asiatic: The process itself needs to be random – the way chemical molecules randomly align to form living cells. Zach: Where did you get that idea? Chemical molecules do not randomly align, though there is a stochastic element in their movements.

You're saying that the transition from non-living chemicals to chemical organisms is not random? Silver Asiatic

wd400

You guys crack me up. I think it’s a pretty safe assumption that organisms have “generations”, mutation rates and that mutations fix in populations (we even know the rate).

You're starting with what you have to prove. You start with a system of replication and inheritance and then say that the system produces replication and inheritance. I say that's a designed system, not stochastic. Now, to prove that wrong, you need to explain the origin of the system. Show me a stochastic chemical process that produces a pattern of hierarchical descent with modification. You want to exclude that problem by starting with "life" but as I said, that's an artificial distinction. Life is merely a chemical formulation. So, you need to show the stochastic process of chemicals that produces replication with inheritance. Silver Asiatic

You determined a “generation” and a mutation rate and mutation value and some reason why mutations are retained in future generations.

You guys crack me up. I think it's a pretty safe assumption that organisms have "generations", mutation rates and that mutations fix in populations (we even know the rate). wd400

Family trees are examples of branching descent and Zachriel has admitted tat family trees do not form a nested hierarchy. Zachriel also said that a patriLINEAGE forms a nested hierarchy but that was soundly refuted by an expert. But facts do not deter losers and so we have Zachriel continuing to spew its nonsense. Zachriel, a fine example of the deluded masses who accept evolutionism. Virgil Cain

Zachriel:

It turns out that living organisms replicate with variation. We showed that if the variation is stochastic, such a branching process will form a nested hierarchy.

You don't know what a nested hierarchy is. So please shut up.

It’s not mere similarity, but a nested hierarchy, the expected result of branching descent.

You are a deluded and pathological liar. Virgil Cain

Silver Asiatic: You determined a “generation” and a mutation rate and mutation value and some reason why mutations are retained in future generations. Yes. It turns out that living organisms replicate with variation. We showed that if the variation is stochastic, such a branching process will form a nested hierarchy. This contradicts your claim that stochastic processes can't form a nested hierarchy. Silver Asiatic: you can’t present stochastic elements of a designed process and claim that as a stochastic process. A roulette wheel is designed, but the game is stochastic. In any case, this returns us to your original statement that we can't model common descent because it relies on a similarity. It's not mere similarity, but a nested hierarchy, the expected result of branching descent. Silver Asiatic: The process itself needs to be random – the way chemical molecules randomly align to form living cells. Where did you get that idea? Chemical molecules do not randomly align, though there is a stochastic element in their movements. Zachriel

Zach That's a designed process. You determined a "generation" and a mutation rate and mutation value and some reason why mutations are retained in future generations. As I said, you can't present stochastic elements of a designed process and claim that as a stochastic process. The process itself needs to be random - the way chemical molecules randomly align to form living cells. That's where you have to start. There's no branching in that process - it's stochastic. Silver Asiatic

Zachriel proves that it doesn't understand the concept of nested hierarchies. Family trees are examples of branching descent and Zachriel has admitted tat family trees do not form a nested hierarchy. Zachriel also said that a patriLINEAGE forms a nested hierarchy but that was soundly refuted by an expert. But facts do not deter losers and so we have Zachriel continuing to spew its nonsense. Virgil Cain

StephenB - thank you. The classic formulation you gave is surprisingly useful -- and, you're right, very important. Silver Asiatic

Silver Asiatic: Stochastic processes do not form containment hierarchies which are sophisticated and complex patterns. Here's a simple example of a stochastic process, given branching descent.

Start with a null string ,,,,,,,,, In each generation, for each member of the population, create an offspring that has a random mutation with a random letter. This is a typical result.

Generation 0 ,,,,,,,, Generation 1 ,,,,,,,, ,T,,,,,, Generation 2 ,,,,,,,, ,,,,J,,, ,T,,,,,, ,TT,,,,, Generation 3 ,,,,,,,, ,,T,,,,, ,,,,J,,, ,,,NJ,,, ,T,,,,,, ,T,,,,J, ,TT,,,,, ,TS,,,,,

Notice how they form a nested hierarchy, and we can reconstruct the ancestry from the descendents. We can add other features, such as limiting population, but the results will be much the same. Zachriel

Zach

That is absolutely incorrect, as can be easily shown. It’s the branching process that creates the nested pattern.

This is why I referred to a stochastic process. We can't look at a subset of a designed process and declare that to be random since it's the result of design. If evolution is a stochastic process then it has to include the supposed random creation of self-replicating molecules. The distinction between living and non-living entities is artificial amd irrelevant. If the first living cells were designed by God, then replication is non-stochastic. We've seen no evidence that a stochastic process can produce self-replicating cells - which are a necessary requirement for any branching and descent tree structures. So again, stochastic processes do not form containment hierarchies and in the evolutionary context, it's impossible to model a purely stochastic process without introducing intelligently designed assumptions (modelling a process itself brings intelligently-designed decisions into the analysis). Silver Asiatic

Zachriel:

That is absolutely incorrect, as can be easily shown.

Show it. Your bluff is called.

It’s the branching process that creates the nested pattern.

Nonsense. Nested patterns can be replicated as a branching process but branching processes do not produce a nested pattern. You are either really ignorant or very dishonest. Virgil Cain

Silver Asiatic: Stochastic processes do not form containment hierarchies which are sophisticated and complex patterns. That is absolutely incorrect, as can be easily shown. It's the branching process that creates the nested pattern. Zachriel

Silver Asiatic

The power of the mechanism needs to be equivalent (or greater than) the effect it produces.

Beautifully expressed--and correct. It is a creative and informative way of expressing the one truth that makes all the difference: Every effect requires a proportional cause. StephenB

Stochastic processes do not form containment hierarchies which are sophisticated and complex patterns. There are many examples of hierarchies in the design context. The power of the mechanism needs to be equivalent (or greater than) the effect it produces. The proposed evolutionary mechanisms are primative and blind - relying on accidents and copy errors to produce function. As discussed on the epigenetics threads, evolution struggles to explain uni-dimensional, linear change, when living organisms show mulit-level relationships and increasing complexity. As we discover more complexity and sophistication in organisms, the evolutionary mechanisms have not changed to meet the greater challenges. It is difficult to support the claim that mutation and selection are adequate for one level of change. When the requirement for more complex change was discovered (epigenetics, molecular machines, human neurology) the same mechanisms are claimed to be able to achieve a much more complex and precise result. Genetic drift is not even a mechanism as such, and is certainly more primitive and less powerful than the Darwinian mechanism. If there was no branching hierarchical tree it would not be evidence against evolution since distinction between species could be blurred or lost. [edit - constrained hierarchies can be found in series of artifacts as a design feature]. Aside from all of that, common descent is built on the assumption that genomic similaries are evidence of descent, when it is known that the same or even identical DNA can generate different, inhereted functions depending on environmental conditions. Evolutionary theory absent a theory on the origin of the first self-replicating molecules is incomplete since the power and capability of replication can only be known from its origin. In the case of abiogenesis, the properties of living organisms need to be traced back to non-living chemical substances. Silver Asiatic

the evidence equally supports common design.

Artifacts generally do *not* form containment hierarchies, but can be arranged in many equally logical ways.

COMMON DESIGN- learn how to read and try to respond to what was actually posted. Evolution is too complex to produce a containment hierarchy. Even Darwin knew that. Virgil Cain

Zachriel:

Not a mere similarity, but a strong signal of a containment hierarchy, a predicted consequence of branching descent.

Yet branching descent does not predict a containment hierarchy. You are confused or dishonest. Virgil Cain

Silver Asiatic: the evidence equally supports common design. Artifacts generally do *not* form containment hierarchies, but can be arranged in many equally logical ways. Zachriel

Z

Not a mere similarity, but a strong signal of a containment hierarchy, a predicted consequence of branching descent.

Yes, but the evidence equally supports common design. Silver Asiatic

Silver Asiatic: One of the many reasons why the claim cannot be modeled or tested is that it relies on the assumption that sequence similarity indicates a genealogical relationship. Not a mere similarity, but a strong signal of a containment hierarchy, a predicted consequence of branching descent. Zachriel

SleBrun

A clear misinterpretation of what I said.

Of course, it was a misrepresentation. It was a joke calculated to highlight a salient point: You trust the Darwinists more than they trust themselves: [a] We know that they cannot support their claims. [b] They know that they cannot support their claims. [c] You didn't know that they cannot support their claims. However, let me take a moment to express a measure of empathy and understanding. It is very difficult for one to pass through the government indoctrination center, that is, the public educational system, without losing the capacity to reason properly. It was, after all, designed for that purpose. The elitists don't want thinkers; they want dutiful worker bees. The good news is that you can restore those powers by acquiring a new mental habit: ask the right questions in the right order and listen carefully to the answers. Education is a series of questions, the answers to which cause confusion and frustration, leading to better questions on a higher an more important level. StephenB

One of the many reasons why the claim cannot be modeled or tested is that it relies on the assumption that sequence similarity indicates a genealogical relationship. But that's the claim that evidence for common descent is supposed to prove. Silver Asiatic

SLe:

For now all the available evidence consistently points to universal common descent ...

We debated this elsewhere on UD and even some hard-core evolutionists denied that the evidence supports universal common descent versus multiple-sncestry. Silver Asiatic

SLe:

For now all the available evidence consistently points to universal common descent with modification via natural selection and other unguided processes.

Only to the extremely gullible. Unfortunately such a claim doesn't produce any predictions, it cannot be modeled and it cannot be tested. That means it isn't a scientific claim. Nice job, ace. Virgil Cain

SL: How do you respond to this, from Crick in his The Astonishing Hypothesis:

. . . that "You", your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules. As Lewis Carroll's Alice might have phrased: "You're nothing but a pack of neurons." This hypothesis is so alien to the ideas of most people today that it can truly be called astonishing.

KF kairosfocus

SLeBrun: I’m not an illusion (...)

Given materialism, "you" are not an illusion because ...?

SLeBrun: (...) neither are my values.

Given materialism, "your" "values" are not illusions, but grounded by ...?

Dawkins: In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.”

SLeBrun: There is NOT only one way to truth and beauty. My way is just as valid as yours.

Do you hold that there are multiple truths? Or do you hold that we all arrive at the same truth? Box

further to: "Given your premises, I am a victim of my genes, a deterministic robot, and am not really accountable for any of my actions since there is really no ‘me’ that is in control of my actions whether they be selfish or otherwise!" John Cleese - The Scientists - humor https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-M-vnmejwXo bornagain77

Is it just me or is SLeBrun starting to sound a lot like Liddle? bornagain77

SLeBrun, you state:

I’m not an illusion. Neither are my values. Despite what you want to be true. There is NOT only one way to truth and beauty. My way is just as valid as yours.

I did not say that you, nor your values, were an illusion. In fact, I'm the one holding that they are real. i.e. In my Theistic premises, I hold that the fact that you are conscious and that you know that you are really real and that you are not a robot, i.e. that you really exist as a real person, is the MOST real thing you can know about reality. Atheistic/materialism, i.e. your professed worldview, denies this primary datum and insists that you are merely a deterministic robot. It is not me disagreeing with your claim that you really exist as a real person, it is your own atheistic worldview itself that disagrees with you, not me.

"I have argued patiently against the prevailing form of naturalism, a reductive materialism that purports to capture life and mind through its neo-Darwinian extension." "..., I find this view antecedently unbelievable---a heroic triumph of ideological theory over common sense". Thomas Nagel - "Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False" - pg.128 "The failure of evolutionary naturalism to provide a form of transcendent self-understanding that does not undermine our confidence in our natural faculties should not lead us to abandon the search for transcendent self-understanding. There is no reason to allow our confidence in the objective truth of our moral beliefs, or for that matter our confidence in the objective truth of our mathematical or scientific reasoning, to depend on whether this is consistent with the assumption that those capacities are the product of natural selection. Given how speculative evolutionary explanations of human mental faculties are, they seem too weak a ground for putting into question the most basic forms of thought. Our confidence in the truth of propositions that seem evident on reflection should not be shaken so easily (and, I would add, cannot be shaken on these sorts of grounds without a kind of false consciousness)." ~ Thomas Nagel, Mind and Cosmos (2012) Oxford University Press "Descartes remarks that he can continue to doubt whether he has a body; after all, he only believes he has a body as a result of his perceptual experiences, and so the demon could be deceiving him about this. But he cannot doubt that he has a mind, i.e. that he thinks. So he knows he exists even though he doesn’t know whether or not he has a body." http://cw.routledge.com/textbooks/philosophy/downloads/a2/unit4/descartes/DescartesDualism.pdf David Chalmers on (the hard problem of) Consciousness - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NK1Yo6VbRoo

You also stated

Your approach is discriminatory and intolerant. As is any system which claims to be ‘the truth’.

So is that why atheistic materialists are so discriminatory and intolerant of anyone who does not hold their worldview?

Kirsten Powers: The Rise of the Intolerant Left http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2015/may-web-only/kirsten-powers-rise-of-intolerant-left.html

Moreover, how do you, an atheistic materialist, derive the objective moral value that humans ought not be discriminatory and intolerant from your Darwinian belief system which holds 'survival of the fittest' as the reason for why all the diversity of life exists on earth? i.e. Exactly how is altruism, which you apparently value highly, to be accommodated within the whole 'selfish gene' scenario that you apparently hold to be true? If my genes are selfish, who am I to tell them otherwise? Given your premises, I am a victim of my genes, a deterministic robot, and am not really accountable for any of my actions since there is really no 'me' that is in control of my actions whether they be selfish or otherwise!

The Moral Argument - Dr Craig video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxiAikEk2vU

bornagain77

I certainly takes you a long time to confess that you or no one else can provide even a shred of evidence to support the dubious claims of Neo-Darwinian evolution. You could have said that in one sentence.

A clear misinterpretation of what I said.

It is the fact that any values that you may think you harbor for this life, given materialistic premises, must be illusory. There is simply no other way that it can be in materialism. And I certainly don’t deny that ‘you’, whoever ‘you’ are in materialism, think that what ‘you’ are doing in this life has meaning and purpose. As I said earlier, and as leading atheists admit, it simply is impossible to live as if your life has no meaning, value and purpose. That meaning, values, and purpose, for this life are, given materialistic premises, illusory, shouldn’t really cause you to ‘vehemently’ disagree with me since even you yourself, given your materialistic premises, are an illusion.

I'm not an illusion. Neither are my values. Despite what you want to be true. There is NOT only one way to truth and beauty. My way is just as valid as yours. Your approach is discriminatory and intolerant. As is any system which claims to be 'the truth'. I'm glad your faith sustains and inspires you. But I'm sad that it closes your mind to others' ways of living.

From another thread: All they have to do is take two biological systems ‘A’ and ‘B’ that aren’t of the same kind but seem somehow related, describe their detailed developmental mechanisms and then show how they could change the developmental mechanisms (GRN, signaling pathways, epigenetic factors, organogenesis, cell fate specification, determination, cell migration, morphogenesis, asymmetric cell division, and the whole nine yards) in one system (‘A’) in order to get the developmental mechanisms in the other system (‘B’), indicating all the events that caused (triggered) those precise spatiotemporal changes. That’s all. Why is it taking them so long to present such a simple example?

Stayed tuned, all the bits you request are being worked on. For now all the available evidence consistently points to universal common descent with modification via natural selection and other unguided processes. When you come up with a specific, detailed alternative publish it and let people examine it. SLeBrun

StephenB @50 Your interlocutor wrote: "A vast majority of working biologist are unaware that this site even exists." Of course, they have difficult problems to resolve, hence don't have time to squander on senseless arguments in any site. But we can read/comment their papers (when not paywalled). That's what some of us do here. Still, I don't understand what was the point of such obvious observation. Dionisio

SLeBrun @49

What research have you done? What publications have you written? What books have you published?

I have done ZERO research. I have written ZERO publications. I have published ZERO books. Where ZERO means NOTHING, NADA, NULL. My IQ score is about the same as my age, but changing in the opposite direction. My communication skills are almost nonexistent. My reading comprehension is very poor. My mind works slower than most people out there -when I hear a joke said on the weekend, usually I get it by Tuesday, after my wife explains it to me. Is that clear to you now? Alright, all that said, let me tell YOU something very important, that I want you to remember next time you address me here or anywhere else: I challenge anyone here or out there, with as many PhD degrees they may have, to show me a single case that meets the requirements described in post 37. Again, I dare anyone and their cousins to produce that information. I'll be more than glad to review it an comment on it. But I won't hold my breath while waiting for that document to be produced, because I believe it does not exist, at least not yet. Actually, I believe it won't be produced. Did you get it now? Dionisio

SLe:

Like I said, I’ll stick with over 150 years of peer-reviewed research and publications as aptly summarised in many accessible popular books (that you can probably check out of your local public library).

That research doesn't support unguided evolution producing the diversity of life. That research can't explain the existence of any flagella. That research hasn't provided any details into the evolution of any multi-protein machinery. That research hasn't even provided a scientific theory.

I base my opinion on those of eminently qualified people in the field.

The people who can't answer any questions? The people that can't muster testable hypotheses? Why would you base your opinion on them? Virgil Cain

SLeBrun you go on to 'the argument from evil' and, although Axel pointed out that atheism far exceeds Christianity in terms of comparative evil, you have a far worse problem than that in that in order for you to make to argument from evil in the first place, you must presuppose the existence of some objective standard of good. i.e. You must presuppose the existence of God!

If Good and Evil Exist, God Exists: Prager University - Peter Kreeft - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNtz5wgnopQ Albert Einstein and his answer to his Professor! – video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLOZDpE1rkA

Verse:

Psalm 2:1-4 Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us. He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision.

bornagain77

Moreover, this psychopathic characteristic inherent to the atheistic philosophy is born out empirically, in that people who do not believe in a soul tend to be more psychopathic than the majority of normal people in America who do believe in a soul. You can pick that psychopathic study of atheists around the 14:30 minute mark of this following video:

Anthony Jack, Why Don’t Psychopaths Believe in Dualism? – video - 14:30 minute mark http://www.youtube.com/watch?list=UUmmObUi8Fq9g1Zcuzqbt0_g&feature=player_detailpage&v=XRGWe-61zOk#t=862s A scientific case for conceptual dualism: The problem of consciousness and the opposing domains hypothesis. - Anthony I. Jack - 2013 Excerpt page 18: we predicted that psychopaths would not be able to perceive the problem of consciousness.,, In a series of five experiments (Jack, in preparation), we found a highly replicable and robust negative correlation (r~-0.34) between belief in dualism and the primary psychopathic trait of callous affect7. Page 24: Clearly these findings fit well with the hypothesis (Robbins and Jack, 2006) that psychopaths can’t see the problem of consciousness8. Taking these finding together with other work on dehumanization and the anti-social effects of denying the soul and free will, they present a powerful picture. When we see persons, that is, when we see others as fellow humans, then our percept is of something essentially non-physical nature. This feature of our psychology appears to be relevant to a number of other philosophical issues, including the tension between utilitarian principles and deontological concerns about harming persons (Jack et al., accepted), the question of whether God exists (Jack et al., under review-b), and the problem of free will9. http://tonyjack.org/files/2013%20Jack%20A%20scientific%20case%20for%20conceptual%20dualism%20%281%29.pdf

Here is a dramatic personal testimony of that psychopathic characteristic inherent to atheism and of the relief that Christianity provided for the person's psychopathic condition:

Why I Am a Christian (David Wood, Former Atheist) – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DakEcY7Z5GU

A few more notes as to the amorality inherent to materialistic atheism:

(Materialistic) Scientists say free will probably doesn’t exist, but urge: “Don’t stop believing!” -2010 Excerpt: Studies found people who were told there is no such thing as free will were more likely to cheat under experimental conditions. "One of the most striking findings to emerge recently in the science of free will is that when people believe—or are led to believe—that free will is just an illusion, they tend to become more antisocial." For example, in an experiment involving money, some participants were randomly assigned to what was called a determinism condition: They were asked to read statements such as, “A belief in free will contradicts the known fact that the universe is governed by lawful principles of science.” Those participants stole more money than those who had been randomly assigned to read statements from what was called a free-will condition--who had read statements such as, “Avoiding temptation requires that I exert my free will." http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/bering-in-mind/2010/04/06/scientists-say-free-will-probably-doesnt-exist-but-urge-dont-stop-believing/ The (moral) value of believing in free will (several studies): https://uncommondescent.com/darwinism/does-new-atheism-has-a-real-problem-with-morality/#comment-565274 The Inner State of the Non Local Mind - Johanan Raatz - video (Why Atheistic materialism necessarily leads to increased immorality) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtsNVds4XWI

SLeBrun you also state:

"More and more the people who vote, who work for charities, who work for social reform, who are doctors and nurses, who spend time trying to help out their fellow human beings are admitting that they have no faith in a deity."

Contrary to what you believe, the fact is that atheism, and atheists, when looked at holistically instead of piecemeal, are dying out:

The Facts: Atheism is Dying Out - April 8, 2015 http://www.patheos.com/blogs/standingonmyhead/2015/04/the-facts-atheism-is-dying-out.html Why do atheists have such a low retention rate? - July 2012 Excerpt: Only about 30 percent of those who grow up in an atheist household remain atheists as adults. This “retention rate” was the lowest among the 20 separate categories in the study. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/why-do-atheists-have-such-a-low-retention-rate/ Atheism and health A meta-analysis of all studies, both published and unpublished, relating to religious involvement and longevity was carried out in 2000. Forty-two studies were included, involving some 126,000 subjects. Active religious involvement increased the chance of living longer by some 29%, and participation in public religious practices, such as church attendance, increased the chance of living longer by 43%.[4][5] http://www.conservapedia.com/Atheism_and_health

bornagain77

SLeBrun in 43 states:

I operate in this world from my heart and from careful consideration of what I can do to help support my fellow humans beings. I like helping people which is why I was an excellent teacher. Just because you think my (assumed) world view is bleak and meaningless doesn’t mean it is for me. Don’t impose your values on people you disagree with. me: ..."There is simply no way to derive any true meaning, purpose, and/or value for life without God.".. I disagree. Vehemently. But you have consistently, over the years, refused to accept that people who don’t believe in God(s) can be anything other than nihilists.,,,

It is certainly not me 'imposing' my values on you. It is the fact that any values that you may think you harbor for this life, given materialistic premises, must be illusory. There is simply no other way that it can be in materialism. And I certainly don't deny that 'you', whoever 'you' are in materialism, think that what 'you' are doing in this life has meaning and purpose. As I said earlier, and as leading atheists admit, it simply is impossible to live as if your life has no meaning, value and purpose. That meaning, values, and purpose, for this life are, given materialistic premises, illusory, shouldn't really cause you to 'vehemently' disagree with me since even you yourself, given your materialistic premises, are an illusion. i.e. "You", given your materialistic premises, really don't exist. The amazing thing about Dawkins, and other militant atheists, in their claim that God does not really exist, is that, in their denial of the reality of God, also end up denying that they really exist as real 'persons'. In other words, given atheistic/materialistic premises, there really is no such person named Dawkins, (or Coyne or etc..), there is only a neuronal illusion of a brain who thinks, (if illusions could think), that it is a person named Dawkins

Faith and Science – Dr. Raymond Bohlin – video – (2015) (48:46 minute mark) https://youtu.be/vTIp1kgSqzU?t=2552 Who wrote Richard Dawkins’s new book? – October 28, 2006 Excerpt: Dawkins: What I do know is that what it feels like to me, and I think to all of us, we don't feel determined. We feel like blaming people for what they do or giving people the credit for what they do. We feel like admiring people for what they do.,,, Manzari: But do you personally see that as an inconsistency in your views? Dawkins: I sort of do. Yes. But it is an inconsistency that we sort of have to live with otherwise life would be intolerable. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2006/10/who_wrote_richard_dawkinss_new002783.html "that “You”, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules. As Lewis Carroll’s Alice might have phrased: “You’re nothing but a pack of neurons.” This hypothesis is so alien to the ideas of most people today that it can truly be called astonishing.” Francis Crick - "The Astonishing Hypothesis" 1994 The Confidence of Jerry Coyne - Ross Douthat - January 6, 2014 Excerpt: then halfway through this peroration, we have as an aside the confession that yes, okay, it’s quite possible given materialist premises that “our sense of self is a neuronal illusion.” At which point the entire edifice suddenly looks terribly wobbly — because who, exactly, is doing all of this forging and shaping and purpose-creating if Jerry Coyne, as I understand him (and I assume he understands himself) quite possibly does not actually exist at all? The theme of his argument is the crucial importance of human agency under eliminative materialism, but if under materialist premises the actual agent is quite possibly a fiction, then who exactly is this I who “reads” and “learns” and “teaches,” and why in the universe’s name should my illusory self believe Coyne’s bold proclamation that his illusory self’s purposes are somehow “real” and worthy of devotion and pursuit? (Let alone that they’re morally significant:,,) Read more here: http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/06/the-confidence-of-jerry-coyne/?_r=0 "What you’re doing is simply instantiating a self: the program run by your neurons which you feel is “you.”" Jerry Coyne https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2015/04/04/eagleton-on-baggini-on-free-will/ "The neural circuits in our brain manage the beautifully coordinated and smoothly appropriate behavior of our body. They also produce the entrancing introspective illusion that thoughts really are about stuff in the world. This powerful illusion has been with humanity since language kicked in, as we’ll see. It is the source of at least two other profound myths: that we have purposes that give our actions and lives meaning and that there is a person “in there” steering the body, so to speak." [A.Rosenberg, The Atheist's Guide To Reality, Ch.9] Do You Like SETI? Fine, Then Let's Dump Methodological Naturalism - Paul Nelson - September 24, 2014 Excerpt: "Epistemology -- how we know -- and ontology -- what exists -- are both affected by methodological naturalism (MN). If we say, "We cannot know that a mind caused x," laying down an epistemological boundary defined by MN, then our ontology comprising real causes for x won't include minds. MN entails an ontology in which minds are the consequence of physics, and thus, can only be placeholders for a more detailed causal account in which physics is the only (ultimate) actor. You didn't write your email to me. Physics did, and informed you of that event after the fact. "That's crazy," you reply, "I certainly did write my email." Okay, then -- to what does the pronoun "I" in that sentence refer? Your personal agency; your mind. Are you supernatural?,,, You are certainly an intelligent cause, however, and your intelligence does not collapse into physics. (If it does collapse -- i.e., can be reduced without explanatory loss -- we haven't the faintest idea how, which amounts to the same thing.) To explain the effects you bring about in the world -- such as your email, a real pattern -- we must refer to you as a unique agent.,,, some feature of "intelligence" must be irreducible to physics, because otherwise we're back to physics versus physics, and there's nothing for SETI to look for.",,, http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/09/do_you_like_set090071.html

And although Dr. Nelson alluded to writing an e-mail, (i.e. creating information), to tie his ‘personal agent’ argument into intelligent design, Dr. Nelson’s ‘personal agent’ argument can easily be amended to any action that ‘you’, as a personal agent, choose to take:

“You didn’t write your email to me. Physics did, and informed the illusion of you of that event after the fact.” “You didn’t open the door. Physics did, and informed the illusion of you of that event after the fact.” “You didn’t raise your hand. Physics did, and informed the illusion you of that event after the fact.” “You didn’t etc.. etc.. etc… Physics did, and informed the illusion of you of that event after the fact.”

Dr. Craig Hazen, in the following video at the 12:26 minute mark, relates how he performed, for an audience full of academics at a college, a ‘miracle’ simply by raising his arm,,

The Intersection of Science and Religion – Craig Hazen, PhD – video http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=xVByFjV0qlE#t=746s

What should be needless to say, if raising your arm is enough to refute your supposedly ‘scientific’ worldview of atheistic materialism, then perhaps it is time for you to seriously consider getting a new scientific worldview? Of note to the atheist’s inability to ground ‘personhood’. Both the Jews in Nazi Germany, and the humans in their mother’s womb in present day America, are denied the legal status of ‘personhood’

The introduction of the Nuremberg Race Laws in 1935 saw Jews declared non-persons, stripped of their rights, robbed of their property and isolated. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1399798/Hitlers-murderous-obsession-to-annihilate-the-Jews.html in no case in its history has the Court declared that a fetus—a developing infant in the womb—is a person. Therefore, the fetus cannot be said to have any legal “right to life.” http://www.phschool.com/curriculum_support/interactive_constitution/scc/scc35.htm

As stated previously, anybody who lived consistently within atheistic materialism would be considered a psychopath:

The Heretic - Who is Thomas Nagel and why are so many of his fellow academics condemning him? - March 25, 2013 Excerpt:,,,Fortunately, materialism is never translated into life as it’s lived. As colleagues and friends, husbands and mothers, wives and fathers, sons and daughters, materialists never put their money where their mouth is. Nobody thinks his daughter is just molecules in motion and nothing but; nobody thinks the Holocaust was evil, but only in a relative, provisional sense. A materialist who lived his life according to his professed convictions—understanding himself to have no moral agency at all, seeing his friends and enemies and family as genetically determined robots—wouldn’t just be a materialist: He’d be a psychopath. http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/heretic_707692.html?page=3

bornagain77

I disagree about it being a ‘smattering’ of evidence. I think, my opinion, that just shows how unfamiliar you are with the data and the research. I think that means that you are being too selective in what you consider. I think that means that you are not considering all the data. I also think that the typical trope: show us then is a disingenuous feint to deflect the issue. People whose livelihood depend on keeping up spend time every day making sure they are abreast of the most recent research. Their attitude is NOT, if you don’t bring it to me then I don’t have to address it. Whereas many of the contributors to this blog seem to take on the attitude that if it’s not laid out, here, in a way they can understand, then it’s not been established.

I certainly takes you a long time to confess that you or no one else can provide even a shred of evidence to support the dubious claims of Neo-Darwinian evolution. You could have said that in one sentence.

hahahahahahahahah A vast majority of working biologist are unaware that this site even exists. Honestly. You guys are so caught up in your own mindset that you think your stance is central to the state of the knowledge. But it isn’t. And the reason it isn’t is because you guys are NOT producing viable research that is getting published after being scrutinised by people working in the field who know what is going on.

So you want to move the target and change the subject to our "mindset" and our "lack of research." That is a rookie mistake. People try that one on a regular basis. It's similar to the "ha-ha-ha-ha-ha" gambit. StephenB

How many people can look carefully at all the research and publications? Who has time for that? How many molecular biology papers have you looked at recently?

Are you bitching about the cut-throat system now? Are you acknowledging the fact that it IS hard to keep up with current research? Are you admitting that you might not be up to date? I know I"m not. That's why I defer to specialists in the field. Especially after several of them have agreed. That's a sensible way of dealing with new material I should think.

Can you point (provide link) to just one that meets the requirements stated @37 above? The ones I’ve looked at seem to fail like the one @19 above.

Here we go again and again and again. Look, if you choose to be ignorant of current research that's your call. But don't expect someone to follow you around and hand everything to you on a plate. If you want to compete you have to keep up. Or you can lag behind. It's up to you. The work and research will go on even if you keep standing alongside the road saying you don't get it. What research have you done? What publications have you written? What books have you published? Have you even got past the point of posting anonymous comments on this blog? SLeBrun

Shooting mass murderers. The fact that it’s legal is neither here nor there. Also, Hitler favoured euthanising handicapped people and did so on a grand scale. So the murderous record of atheists far exceeds that of Christendom throughout it history.

It DOES matter if it's been determined to be legal based on the system of laws in the country. If we hope to live in a country with true tolerance and acceptance then we have to agree on a base of legal assumptions. The US constitution and amendments is a good basis I think.

And if you say all Christians are hypocrites, I would advise you, should you ever come across a church where there are no hypocrites, not to join it on any account. Because you will surely spoil it.

I didn't say that. I merely pointed out that religious beliefs have and are being used as a justification to do hideous things to other human beings.

That, SLB, is because you are INconsistent. Many of us, myself included, are inconsistent in our love for animals, eating them happily, while supporting or at least favouring the RSPCA or PDSA. It happens, but there is no point in denying the intellectual reality of the inconsistency; still less, in an intellectual controversy.

How do you KNOW that I've been inconsistent? Are you just making stuff up? You know almost nothing about me. So why assume? You could ask you know. But you don't. You prefer to assume.

Your comments lead me to believe that this is your first time through such a dialogue in the company of those who have had many such encounters. We know that you are bluffing because many of us have examined the so-called relevant literature and know how to read a scientific report.

It doesn't mean you got it right though. Or that your assumptions about me are correct.

What you don’t understand is that neoDarwinists and advocates for neutral evolution provide a smattering of evidence for common descent and then try to pass it off as an argument for unguided evolution. Each time we call them on it, they head for the tall grass. The context of the debate eludes you. If you don’t know the difference between guided evolution and unguided evolution, you can’t even get in the game.

I disagree about it being a 'smattering' of evidence. I think, my opinion, that just shows how unfamiliar you are with the data and the research. I think that means that you are being too selective in what you consider. I think that means that you are not considering all the data. I also think that the typical trope: show us then is a disingenuous feint to deflect the issue. People whose livelihood depend on keeping up spend time every day making sure they are abreast of the most recent research. Their attitude is NOT, if you don't bring it to me then I don't have to address it. Whereas many of the contributors to this blog seem to take on the attitude that if it's not laid out, here, in a way they can understand, then it's not been established. This is not the way scientific development works now. To contribute you have to keep up. You DO NOT just demand that things are brought to your attention.

Let me help you out here. There is no evidence that naturalistic mechanisms, such as random variation, natural selection, or genetic drift, contain sufficient causal power to drive the macro-evolutionary process from start to finish. The Darwinists know this as well as we do. That is why they shut down all such discussions in the university classrooms and avoid this site like the plague.

hahahahahahahahah A vast majority of working biologist are unaware that this site even exists. Honestly. You guys are so caught up in your own mindset that you think your stance is central to the state of the knowledge. But it isn't. And the reason it isn't is because you guys are NOT producing viable research that is getting published after being scrutinised by people working in the field who know what is going on. Also, as is typical of people who are NOT actually in an academic, scientific environment, you people assume that scientists are intimidated into toeing the party line. Every single scientist I've known would LOVE to find fault with the consensus. It would make them superstars and mean they would be on television and make a lot more money. You guys continue to parade this strawman which is not true. It's something you made up and you buy into it because it supports your persecution complex. Lynn Margolis fought the consensus and won. She knew what needed to be done and she doggedly got the data, addressed her critics and eventually gained their respect. ID proponents are continually criticised and told how they can prove their point. And they keep falling short. And so they keep being left behind. SLeBrun

SLeBrun @43

I’m sure it does look that way when you don’t look at all the research and publications.

How many people can look carefully at all the research and publications? Who has time for that? How many molecular biology papers have you looked at recently?

We’re talking of hundreds every year that support and extend modern evolutionary theory.

Can you point (provide link) to just one that meets the requirements stated @37 above? The ones I've looked at seem to fail like the one @19 above. BTW, in case you missed reading them: Within this current thread, see @19 https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/epigenetics-and-gmo/#comment-573015 and @37 https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/epigenetics-and-gmo/#comment-573125 They both point to posts in another thread. Feel free to comment on them if you want to. Thanks. Dionisio

SLeBrun states:

I’m sure it does look that way when you don’t look at all the research and publications. We’re talking of hundreds every year that support and extend modern evolutionary theory.

"Modern evolutionary theory" is useless as a heuristic in science, and although the findings of molecular biology consistently contradict what is predicted from Darwinism,,,,

Darwin's (failed) Predictions - Cornelius G. Hunter - 2015 This paper evaluates 23 fundamental (false) predictions of evolutionary theory from a wide range of different categories. The paper begins with a brief introduction to the nature of scientific predictions, and typical concerns evolutionists raise against investigating predictions of evolution. The paper next presents the individual predictions in seven categories: early evolution, evolutionary causes, molecular evolution, common descent, evolutionary phylogenies, evolutionary pathways, and behavior. Finally the conclusion summarizes these various predictions, their implications for evolution’s capacity to explain phenomena, and how they bear on evolutionist’s claims about their theory. *Introduction Why investigate evolution’s false predictions? Responses to common objections *Early evolution predictions The DNA code is not unique The cell’s fundamental molecules are universal *Evolutionary causes predictions Mutations are not adaptive Embryology and common descent Competition is greatest between neighbors *Molecular evolution predictions Protein evolution Histone proteins cannot tolerate much change The molecular clock keeps evolutionary time *Common descent predictions The pentadactyl pattern and common descent Serological tests reveal evolutionary relationships Biology is not lineage specific Similar species share similar genes MicroRNA *Evolutionary phylogenies predictions Genomic features are not sporadically distributed Gene and host phylogenies are congruent Gene phylogenies are congruent The species should form an evolutionary tree *Evolutionary pathways predictions Complex structures evolved from simpler structures Structures do not evolve before there is a need for them Functionally unconstrained DNA is not conserved Nature does not make leaps *Behavior Altruism Cell death *Conclusions What false predictions tell us about evolution https://sites.google.com/site/darwinspredictions/home Why investigate evolution’s false predictions? Excerpt: The predictions examined in this paper were selected according to several criteria. They cover a wide spectrum of evolutionary theory and are fundamental to the theory, reflecting major tenets of evolutionary thought. They were widely held by the consensus rather than reflecting one viewpoint of several competing viewpoints. Each prediction was a natural and fundamental expectation of the theory of evolution, and constituted mainstream evolutionary science. Furthermore, the selected predictions are not vague but rather are specific and can be objectively evaluated. They have been tested and evaluated and the outcome is not controversial or in question. And finally the predictions have implications for evolution’s (in)capacity to explain phenomena, as discussed in the conclusions. https://sites.google.com/site/darwinspredictions/why-investigate-evolution-s-false-predictions

,,, and although the findings of molecular biology consistently contradict what is predicted from Darwinism, Darwinism is, many times, layered on as a 'narrative gloss' in mainstream publications. In other words, in many mainstream publications, the core of Darwinian theory is never questioned, and, despite consistently contradictory findings, Darwinism is given credit anyway:

"Certainly, my own research with antibiotics during World War II received no guidance from insights provided by Darwinian evolution. Nor did Alexander Fleming's discovery of bacterial inhibition by penicillin. I recently asked more than 70 eminent researchers if they would have done their work differently if they had thought Darwin's theory was wrong. The responses were all the same: No.,,, In the peer-reviewed literature, the word "evolution" often occurs as a sort of coda to academic papers in experimental biology. Is the term integral or superfluous to the substance of these papers? To find out, I substituted for "evolution" some other word – "Buddhism," "Aztec cosmology," or even "creationism." I found that the substitution never touched the paper's core. This did not surprise me. From my conversations with leading researchers it had became clear that modern experimental biology gains its strength from the availability of new instruments and methodologies, not from an immersion in historical biology." Philip S. Skell - (the late) Emeritus Evan Pugh Professor at Pennsylvania State University, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. http://www.discovery.org/a/2816

At the 7:00 minute mark of this following video, Dr. Behe gives an example of how positive evidence is falsely attributed to evolution by using the word 'evolution' as a narrative gloss in peer-reviewed literature:

Michael Behe - Life Reeks Of Design – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hdh-YcNYThY Darwinian 'science' in a nutshell: Jonathan Wells on pop science boilerplate - April 20, 2015 Excerpt: Based on my reading of thousands of Peer-Reviewed Articles in the professional literature, I’ve distilled (the) template for writing scientific articles that deal with evolution: 1. (Presuppose that) Darwinian evolution is a fact. 2. We used [technique(s)] to study [feature(s)] in [name of species], and we unexpectedly found [results inconsistent with Darwinian evolution]. 3. We propose [clever speculations], which might explain why the results appear to conflict with evolutionary theory. 4. We conclude that Darwinian evolution is a fact. https://uncommondescent.com/darwinism/jon-wells-on-pop-science-boilerplate/ Rewriting Biology Without Spin By Ann Gauger - Jan. 12, 2014 Excerpt: It’s a funny thing—scientific papers often have evolutionary language layered on top of the data like icing on a cake. In most papers, the icing (evolutionary language) sits atop and separate from the cake (the actual experimental data). Even in papers where the evolutionary language is mixed in with the data like chocolate and vanilla in a marble cake, I can still tell one from the other. I have noticed that this dichotomy creates a kind of double vision. I know what the data underlying evolutionary arguments are. By setting aside the premise that evolution is true, I can read what’s on the page and at the same time see how that paper would read if neutral, fact-based language were substituted for evolutionary language. Let me give you an example.,,, http://www.biologicinstitute.org/post/107965814309/rewriting-biology-without-spin

bornagain77

SLeBrun, Your comments lead me to believe that this is your first time through such a dialogue in the company of those who have had many such encounters. We know that you are bluffing because many of us have examined the so-called relevant literature and know how to read a scientific report. What you don't understand is that neoDarwinists and advocates for neutral evolution provide a smattering of evidence for common descent and then try to pass it off as an argument for unguided evolution. Each time we call them on it, they head for the tall grass. The context of the debate eludes you. If you don't know the difference between guided evolution and unguided evolution, you can't even get in the game. Let me help you out here. There is no evidence that naturalistic mechanisms, such as random variation, natural selection, or genetic drift, contain sufficient causal power to drive the macro-evolutionary process from start to finish. The Darwinists know this as well as we do. That is why they shut down all such discussions in the university classrooms and avoid this site like the plague. StephenB

SLeBrun This is not a stellar apologia, SLB. 'It’s not atheists who even now still promulgate violence in Northern Ireland.' This happens to be untrue. Don't laugh, but they have Catholic atheists and Protestant atheists there. It's about a historic tribal quarrel over a piece of land. Just as Hitler's and Stalin's were on a massive scale - only both were died-in-the-wool atheists... '... It’s not atheists who shoot and kill doctors performing legal abortions. Shooting mass murderers. The fact that it's legal is neither here nor there. Also, Hitler favoured euthanising handicapped people and did so on a grand scale. So the murderous record of atheists far exceeds that of Christendom throughout it history. It’s not atheists who picket and protest when fellow citizens are allowed to exercise the same privilege to get married because their sexual orientation is condemned by an ancient collection of writings.' Dismissing a moral code so palpably civilizing despite all our failures, that it is unmatched by any other, and indeed many atheists are offended if told that they behaviour isn't Christian. And if you say all Christians are hypocrites, I would advise you, should you ever come across a church where there are no hypocrites, not to join it on any account. Because you will surely spoil it. We are all damaged goods; only Christ was the full personification of truth in his own right. We can aspire to grow in it, as grace builds on our nature, 'as is';, i.e. our fallen nature. 'I disagree. Vehemently. But you have consistently, over the years, refused to accept that people who don’t believe in God(s) can be anything other than nihilists.' That, SLB, is because you are INconsistent. Many of us, myself included, are inconsistent in our love for animals, eating them happily, while supporting or at least favouring the RSPCA or PDSA. It happens, but there is no point in denying the intellectual reality of the inconsistency; still less, in an intellectual controversy. Axel

Well, certainly Bornagain77 does an excellent job posting lots of references to very interesting information, but it’s kind of unfair, because the current situation in science research tends to favor his worldview position and it’s going to get better for him, as more discoveries are made in biology in the days ahead, shedding more light on the elaborate molecular and cellular choreographies within the biological systems.

I'm sure it does look that way when you don't look at all the research and publications. We're talking of hundreds every year that support and extend modern evolutionary theory.

Now SLeBrun, I realize that you believe that any action I may take is trivial, but just how do you, an atheist, deduce whether something is truly worth doing in this world or not? Exactly how is there any purpose for life to be derived from your worldview since your atheistic worldview denies the existence of purpose in the first place?

I operate in this world from my heart and from careful consideration of what I can do to help support my fellow humans beings. I like helping people which is why I was an excellent teacher. Just because you think my (assumed) world view is bleak and meaningless doesn't mean it is for me. Don't impose your values on people you disagree with.

i.e. In atheism, everything you do, whether you write on a blog, are a good husband and father, or even whether you build a civilization, is doomed to utter meaninglessness in the grand scheme of things. There is simply no way to derive any true meaning, purpose, and/or value for life without God.

I disagree. Vehemently. But you have consistently, over the years, refused to accept that people who don't believe in God(s) can be anything other than nihilists. I accept that your theology is what gives your life meaning, purpose and focus. I would never, ever want to take that away from you. And yet you look at my (assumed) world view and say it's stupid and bleak. I'm not the one who's got blinders on, you do. More and more the people who vote, who work for charities, who work for social reform, who are doctors and nurses, who spend time trying to help out their fellow human beings are admitting that they have no faith in a deity. And, guess what . . . society is NOT collapsing, violent crime rates are dropping, there are lots and lots of social programs which didn't exist 100 years ago, women and blacks can now vote. It wasn't atheists who marched off to the Middle East 1000 years ago and made the streets of Jerusalem, the Holy City, run with blood. It wasn't atheists who persecuted and murdered Jews across Europe for centuries. And it was certainly NOT atheists who participated in the Waldensian and Abigensian crusades which saw the Pope's followers persecute and kill other Christians with whom they disagreed over some points of theology. It's not atheists who even now still promulgate violence in Northern Ireland. It's not atheists who shoot and kill doctors performing legal abortions. It's not atheists who picket and protest when fellow citizens are allowed to exercise the same privilege to get married because their sexual orientation is condemned by an ancient collection of writings. I have some very, very good friends who are Christians and not one of them thinks I'm a nihilist. But you just blanket condemn all who don't believe in God. And you accuse me of being narrow minded. SLeBrun

Of related note: Just how does one derive value for a 'person', (as if there were even such a thing as 'person' in the materialistic worldview), from the materialistic philosophy that maintains all transcendent values are illusory?:

How much is my body worth? Excerpt: The U.S. Bureau of Chemistry and Soils invested many a hard-earned tax dollar in calculating the chemical and mineral composition of the human body,,,,Together, all of the above (chemicals and minerals) amounts to less than one dollar! http://www.coolquiz.com/trivia/explain/docs/worth.asp

I would like to think, despite the atrocities of Nazism and Communism of last century, and of abortion today, that most people intuitively know that they are of far worth than a dollar?!? Materialism/Atheism simply can provide no basis for value. Of course, in the marketplace some arrangements of matter carry much more intrinsic value than other arrangements of matter. But this is because of the craftsmanship inherent within how the matter is arranged. i.e. The 'value' is imparted to the material by the Craftsman. But materialists, besides denying humans are made in the image of God, deny that there is truly any craftsmanship within humans. We merely have the 'appearance of design' according to Dawkins. i.e. We are merely the happenstance product of a lucky series of accidents. Lucky us! Whereas atheism can provide no basis for human value, meaning, or purpose, (or even a basis for 'person-hood'), Theism, particularly in Christianity, there is no trouble whatsoever figuring out how much humans are really worth, since infinite Almighty God has shown us how much we mean to him, since he was willing to pay the ultimate sacrifice so as to redeem us from death and to give us eternal life: Verses and Music

1 Corinthians 6:20 For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s. Matthew 16:26 And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? Is anything worth more than your soul? MercyMe – Beautiful - music http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vh7-RSPuAA

bornagain77

Thanks for the encouragement guys, but as SLeBrun stated at 21, nothing I do really matters.

If you’re going to stay anonymous and only ‘publish’ lengthly posts with lots of non-academic references on a widely derided ID-apologist blog then who is ever going to take you seriously? Your opinion just isn’t going to count. At all.

Sigh! Vanity of vanities!

Ecclesiastes 1:2 "Meaningless! Meaningless!" says the Teacher. "Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless."

Now SLeBrun, I realize that you believe that any action I may take is trivial, but just how do you, an atheist, deduce whether something is truly worth doing in this world or not? Exactly how is there any purpose for life to be derived from your worldview since your atheistic worldview denies the existence of purpose in the first place? Have you ever honestly thought thru the nihilistic implications inherent within your atheistic worldview? It is said that Friedrich Nietzsche did so with brutal honesty:

Parable of the Madman - Friedrich Nietzsche https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TO5MytakLy8

i.e. In atheism, everything you do, whether you write on a blog, are a good husband and father, or even whether you build a civilization, is doomed to utter meaninglessness in the grand scheme of things. There is simply no way to derive any true meaning, purpose, and/or value for life without God. Dr. Craig makes that point clear in the following video:

The absurdity of life without God (1 of 3) by William Lane Craig – video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJqkpI1W75c

As Dr. Craig Pointed out, in the materialistic worldview, everything in the universe is ultimately doomed to entropic heat death:

The Future of the Universe Excerpt: After all the black holes have evaporated, (and after all the ordinary matter made of protons has disintegrated, if protons are unstable), the universe will be nearly empty. Photons, neutrinos, electrons and positrons will fly from place to place, hardly ever encountering each other. It will be cold, and dark, and there is no known process which will ever change things. --- Not a happy ending. http://spiff.rit.edu/classes/phys240/lectures/future/future.html Big Rip Excerpt: The Big Rip is a cosmological hypothesis first published in 2003, about the ultimate fate of the universe, in which the matter of universe, from stars and galaxies to atoms and subatomic particles, are progressively torn apart by the expansion of the universe at a certain time in the future. Theoretically, the scale factor of the universe becomes infinite at a finite time in the future. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Rip "We have the sober scientific certainty that the heavens and earth shall ‘wax old as doth a garment’.... Dark indeed would be the prospects of the human race if unilluminated by that light which reveals ‘new heavens and a new earth.’" Lord Kelvin - discovered entropy - the second law of thermodynamics

As the Kansas's song goes, if atheism is true, then everything is just 'dust in the wind'

Kansas - Dust in the Wind (Official Video) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tH2w6Oxx0kQ

SLeBrun, I simply don't see how atheists such as yourself can live as if your worldview were actually true.

The Heretic – Who is Thomas Nagel and why are so many of his fellow academics condemning him? – March 25, 2013 Excerpt: Nobody thinks his daughter is just molecules in motion and nothing but; nobody thinks the Holocaust was evil, but only in a relative, provisional sense. A materialist who lived his life according to his professed convictions—understanding himself to have no moral agency at all, seeing his friends and enemies and family as genetically determined robots—wouldn’t just be a materialist: He’d be a psychopath. http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/heretic_707692.html?page=3

In fact SLeBrun, many leading atheists themselves admit that it is impossible for them to live consistently as if atheism were true:

Darwin's Robots: When Evolutionary Materialists Admit that Their Own Worldview Fails - Nancy Pearcey - April 23, 2015 Excerpt: One section in his book is even titled "We Are Robots Designed Not to Believe That We Are Robots.",,, When I teach these concepts in the classroom, an example my students find especially poignant is Flesh and Machines by Rodney Brooks, professor emeritus at MIT. Brooks writes that a human being is nothing but a machine -- a "big bag of skin full of biomolecules" interacting by the laws of physics and chemistry. In ordinary life, of course, it is difficult to actually see people that way. But, he says, "When I look at my children, I can, when I force myself, ... see that they are machines." Is that how he treats them, though? Of course not: "That is not how I treat them.... I interact with them on an entirely different level. They have my unconditional love, the furthest one might be able to get from rational analysis." Certainly if what counts as "rational" is a materialist worldview in which humans are machines, then loving your children is irrational. It has no basis within Brooks's worldview. It sticks out of his box. How does he reconcile such a heart-wrenching cognitive dissonance? He doesn't. Brooks ends by saying, "I maintain two sets of inconsistent beliefs." He has given up on any attempt to reconcile his theory with his experience. He has abandoned all hope for a unified, logically consistent worldview. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/04/when_evolutiona095451.html [Nancy Pearcey] When Reality Clashes with Your Atheistic Worldview - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0Kpn3HBMiQ

What should be needless to say, if it is impossible to consistently live your life as if your worldview is true, then that is VERY powerful evidence against your worldview actually being true!

Existential Argument against Atheism - November 1, 2013 by Jason Petersen 1. If a worldview is true then you should be able to live consistently with that worldview. 2. Atheists are unable to live consistently with their worldview. 3. If you can’t live consistently with an atheist worldview then the worldview does not reflect reality. 4. If a worldview does not reflect reality then that worldview is a delusion. 5. If atheism is a delusion then atheism cannot be true. Conclusion: Atheism is false. http://answersforhope.com/existential-argument-atheism/

bornagain77

Box: I happen to have an explanation for that: Bornagain77 makes all his opponents look like silly childish trolls

Well, certainly Bornagain77 does an excellent job posting lots of references to very interesting information, but it's kind of unfair, because the current situation in science research tends to favor his worldview position and it's going to get better for him, as more discoveries are made in biology in the days ahead, shedding more light on the elaborate molecular and cellular choreographies within the biological systems. As more information comes out of the labs, outstanding questions get answered but new questions are raised, the complexity of the big picture gets more complex. That's making it harder for the 2nd and 3rd way folks to resolve the OOL conundrum. That's why @19 & @37 tried to help ba77's opponents in order to level the field so that the debate gets a little more balanced. :) Definitely these are fascinating times to watch what's going on in biology research. Praise the Creator and thank Him for revealing some of His creation mysteries to His beloved creatures. Sing hallelujah and rejoice! Dionisio

logically_speaking: Bornagain77, why is it silly childish trolls like SLeBrun try to target you?

I happen to have an explanation for that: Bornagain77 makes all his opponents look like silly childish trolls. Box

Bornagain77, Why is it silly childish trolls like SLeBrun try to target you? It always gives me a chuckle when they try to debate you. Keep calm and carry on my friend. logically_speaking

BA77 Here's a hint for your interlocutors to come up with a game changer that could shutdown this UD site: https://uncommondescent.com/evolution/a-third-way-of-evolution/#comment-573124 :) Dionisio

Here's a recent paper on epigenetic control: https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/mystery-at-the-heart-of-life/#comment-573118 Dionisio

Now that just can’t be right. We should really start to be seeing some neo-Darwinian fireworks by 50,000 generations! Hey I know what we can do. How about we see what happened when the ‘top five’ 'beneficial mutations from Lenski’s experiment were combined? Surely now the Darwinian magic will start flowing?

Mutations : when benefits level off – June 2011 – (Lenski’s e-coli after 50,000 generations) Excerpt: After having identified the first five beneficial mutations combined successively and spontaneously in the bacterial population, the scientists generated, from the ancestral bacterial strain, 32 mutant strains exhibiting all of the possible combinations of each of these five mutations. They then noted that the benefit linked to the simultaneous presence of five mutations was less than the sum of the individual benefits conferred by each mutation individually. http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/1867.htm?theme1=7

Now something is going terribly wrong here. Isn't neo-Darwinian evolution an established fact on par with gravity? Tell you what, let’s just forget trying to observe evolution in the lab. I mean it really is kind of cramped in the lab, and let’s REALLY open the floodgates and let’s see what neo-Darwinian evolution can do with the ENTIRE WORLD at its disposal. Surely now neo-Darwinian evolution will flex its awesomely powerful muscles for all to see and forever make those IDiots, who believe in Intelligent Design, cower in terror!

A review of The Edge of Evolution: The Search for the Limits of Darwinism The numbers of Plasmodium and HIV in the last 50 years greatly exceeds the total number of mammals since their supposed evolutionary origin (several hundred million years ago), yet little has been achieved by evolution. This suggests that mammals could have “invented” little in their time frame. Behe: ‘Our experience with HIV gives good reason to think that Darwinism doesn’t do much—even with billions of years and all the cells in that world at its disposal’ (p. 155). http://creation.com/review-michael-behe-edge-of-evolution “Indeed, the work on malaria and AIDS demonstrates that after all possible unintelligent processes in the cell–both ones we’ve discovered so far and ones we haven’t–at best extremely limited benefit, since no such process was able to do much of anything. It’s critical to notice that no artificial limitations were placed on the kinds of mutations or processes the microorganisms could undergo in nature. Nothing–neither point mutation, deletion, insertion, gene duplication, transposition, genome duplication, self-organization nor any other process yet undiscovered–was of much use.” Michael Behe, The Edge of Evolution, pg. 162 "The immediate, most important implication is that complexes with more than two different binding sites-ones that require three or more proteins-are beyond the edge of evolution, past what is biologically reasonable to expect Darwinian evolution to have accomplished in all of life in all of the billion-year history of the world. The reasoning is straightforward. The odds of getting two independent things right are the multiple of the odds of getting each right by itself. So, other things being equal, the likelihood of developing two binding sites in a protein complex would be the square of the probability for getting one: a double CCC, 10^20 times 10^20, which is 10^40. There have likely been fewer than 10^40 cells in the world in the last 4 billion years, so the odds are against a single event of this variety in the history of life. It is biologically unreasonable." - Michael Behe - The Edge of Evolution - page 146 Diverse mutational pathways converge on saturable chloroquine transport via the malaria parasite’s chloroquine resistance transporter - Robert L. Summers - March 17, 2014 Abstract: Mutations in the chloroquine resistance transporter (PfCRT) are the primary determinant of chloroquine (CQ) resistance in the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum. A number of distinct PfCRT haplotypes, containing between 4 and 10 mutations, have given rise to CQ resistance in different parts of the world. Here we present a detailed molecular analysis of the number of mutations (and the order of addition) required to confer CQ transport activity upon the PfCRT as well as a kinetic characterization of diverse forms of PfCRT. We measured the ability of more than 100 variants of PfCRT to transport CQ when expressed at the surface of Xenopus laevis oocytes. Multiple mutational pathways led to saturable CQ transport via PfCRT, but these could be separated into two main lineages. Moreover, the attainment of full activity followed a rigid process in which mutations had to be added in a specific order to avoid reductions in CQ transport activity. A minimum of two mutations sufficed for (low) CQ transport activity, and as few as four conferred full activity. The finding that diverse PfCRT variants are all limited in their capacity to transport CQ suggests that resistance could be overcome by reoptimizing the CQ dosage. http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/04/10/1322965111 podcast - Michael Behe: Vindication for 'The Edge of Evolution,' - 2014 - Pt. 2 http://intelligentdesign.podomatic.com/entry/2014-08-06T15_26_19-07_00 "The Edge of Evolution" Strikes Again 8-2-2014 by Paul Giem - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnO-xa3nBE4

Now, there is something terribly wrong here! After looking high and low and everywhere in between, we can’t seem to find any substantiating evidence for neo-Darwinism anywhere! It is as if the whole neo-Darwinian theory, relentlessly sold to the general public as it was the gospel truth, is nothing but a big fat lie! Verse and Music:

2 Peter 1:16 For we did not follow cleverly devised tales when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty. Evanescence-Lies- Origin http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ml7JSG2KC44

supplemental notes:

Multiple Overlapping Genetic Codes Profoundly Reduce the Probability of Beneficial Mutation George Montañez 1, Robert J. Marks II 2, Jorge Fernandez 3 and John C. Sanford 4 - May 2013 Excerpt: It is almost universally acknowledged that beneficial mutations are rare compared to deleterious mutations [1–10].,, It appears that beneficial mutations may be too rare to actually allow the accurate measurement of how rare they are [11]. 1. Kibota T, Lynch M (1996) Estimate of the genomic mutation rate deleterious to overall fitness in E. coli . Nature 381:694–696. 2. Charlesworth B, Charlesworth D (1998) Some evolutionary consequences of deleterious mutations. Genetica 103: 3–19. 3. Elena S, et al (1998) Distribution of fitness effects caused by random insertion mutations in Escherichia coli. Genetica 102/103: 349–358. 4. Gerrish P, Lenski R N (1998) The fate of competing beneficial mutations in an asexual population. Genetica 102/103:127–144. 5. Crow J (2000) The origins, patterns, and implications of human spontaneous mutation. Nature Reviews 1:40–47. 6. Bataillon T (2000) Estimation of spontaneous genome-wide mutation rate parameters: whither beneficial mutations? Heredity 84:497–501. 7. Imhof M, Schlotterer C (2001) Fitness effects of advantageous mutations in evolving Escherichia coli populations. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 98:1113–1117. 8. Orr H (2003) The distribution of fitness effects among beneficial mutations. Genetics 163: 1519–1526. 9. Keightley P, Lynch M (2003) Toward a realistic model of mutations affecting fitness. Evolution 57:683–685. 10. Barrett R, et al (2006) The distribution of beneficial mutation effects under strong selection. Genetics 174:2071–2079. 11. Bataillon T (2000) Estimation of spontaneous genome-wide mutation rate parameters: whither beneficial mutations? Heredity 84:497–501. http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/pdf/10.1142/9789814508728_0006 Biological Information - Overlapping Codes 10-25-2014 by Paul Giem - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OytcYD5791k&index=4&list=PLHDSWJBW3DNUUhiC9VwPnhl-ymuObyTWJ

bornagain77

SLeBrun, you keep alluding to this mythical '150 years of published research' that overwhelmingly confirms neo-Darwinism, but never cite any actual substantiating evidence to support your atheistic position that unguided material processes can produce the unfathomed complexity we see in life. That is NOT a minor omission on your part. Perhaps I can give you a little clue as to what I'm looking for:

Where's the substantiating evidence for neo-Darwinism?

The last four decades worth of lab work are surveyed here, and no evidence for neo-Darwinian evolution surfaces:

“The First Rule of Adaptive Evolution”: Break or blunt any functional coded element whose loss would yield a net fitness gain – Michael Behe – December 2010 Excerpt: In its most recent issue The Quarterly Review of Biology has published a review by myself of laboratory evolution experiments of microbes going back four decades.,,, The gist of the paper is that so far the overwhelming number of adaptive (that is, helpful) mutations seen in laboratory evolution experiments are either loss or modification of function. Of course we had already known that the great majority of mutations that have a visible effect on an organism are deleterious. Now, surprisingly, it seems that even the great majority of helpful mutations degrade the genome to a greater or lesser extent.,,, I dub it “The First Rule of Adaptive Evolution”: Break or blunt any functional coded element whose loss would yield a net fitness gain. http://behe.uncommondescent.com/2010/12/the-first-rule-of-adaptive-evolution/

How about the oft cited example for neo-Darwinism of antibiotic resistance?

List Of Degraded Molecular Abilities Of Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria: Excerpt: Resistance to antibiotics and other antimicrobials is often claimed to be a clear demonstration of “evolution in a Petri dish.” ,,, all known examples of antibiotic resistance via mutation are inconsistent with the genetic requirements of evolution. These mutations result in the loss of pre-existing cellular systems/activities, such as porins and other transport systems, regulatory systems, enzyme activity, and protein binding. http://www.trueorigin.org/bacteria01.asp

That doesn't seem to be helping. How about we look really, really, close at very sensitive growth rates and see if we can find any evidence for neo-Darwinian evolution?

Unexpectedly small effects of mutations in bacteria bring new perspectives – November 2010 Excerpt: Most mutations in the genes of the Salmonella bacterium have a surprisingly small negative impact on bacterial fitness. And this is the case regardless whether they lead to changes in the bacterial proteins or not.,,, using extremely sensitive growth measurements, doctoral candidate Peter Lind showed that most mutations reduced the rate of growth of bacteria by only 0.500 percent. No mutations completely disabled the function of the proteins, and very few had no impact at all. Even more surprising was the fact that mutations that do not change the protein sequence had negative effects similar to those of mutations that led to substitution of amino acids. A possible explanation is that most mutations may have their negative effect by altering mRNA structure, not proteins, as is commonly assumed. http://www.physorg.com/news/2010-11-unexpectedly-small-effects-mutations-bacteria.html

Well, that doesn’t seem to be helping either. How about if we just try to fix an unconditionally ‘beneficial’ mutation by sustained selection?

Experimental Evolution in Fruit Flies (35 years of trying to force fruit flies to evolve in the laboratory fails, spectacularly) – October 2010 Excerpt: “Despite decades of sustained selection in relatively small, sexually reproducing laboratory populations, selection did not lead to the fixation of newly arising unconditionally advantageous alleles.,,, “This research really upends the dominant paradigm about how species evolve,” said ecology and evolutionary biology professor Anthony Long, the primary investigator. http://www.arn.org/blogs/index.php/literature/2010/10/07/experimental_evolution_in_fruit_flies

Well that's certainly disappointing. How about if try to help neo-Darwinian evolution out a little and just saturate genomes with mutations until we can actually see some ‘evolution’ in action?

Response to John Wise – October 2010 Excerpt: A technique called “saturation mutagenesis”1,2 has been used to produce every possible developmental mutation in fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster),3,4,5 roundworms (Caenorhabditis elegans),6,7 and zebrafish (Danio rerio),8,9,10 and the same technique is now being applied to mice (Mus musculus).11,12 None of the evidence from these and numerous other studies of developmental mutations supports the neo-Darwinian dogma that DNA mutations can lead to new organs or body plans–because none of the observed developmental mutations benefit the organism. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2010/10/response_to_john_wise038811.html Epigenetics, New Insights into the Genetic System and Evolution – video "One century of studies on mutations has not provided a single verified example of a gene mutation that led to adaptive morphological change in metazoans. (Cabej 2012. pxxxi). 31 minute mark https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJUJFYb1iFk

Now this is starting to get a little frustrating. Perhaps we just have to give neo-Darwinian evolution a little ‘room to breathe’? How about we ‘open the floodgates’ and look at Lenski’s Long Term Evolution Experiment and see what we can find after 50,000 generations, which is equivalent to somewhere around 1,000,000 years of human evolution?

Richard Lenski’s Long-Term Evolution Experiments with E. coli and the Origin of New Biological Information – September 2011 Excerpt: The results of future work aside, so far, during the course of the longest, most open-ended, and most extensive laboratory investigation of bacterial evolution, a number of adaptive mutations have been identified that endow the bacterial strain with greater fitness compared to that of the ancestral strain in the particular growth medium. The goal of Lenski’s research was not to analyze adaptive mutations in terms of gain or loss of function, as is the focus here, but rather to address other longstanding evolutionary questions. Nonetheless, all of the mutations identified to date can readily be classified as either modification-of-function or loss-of-FCT. (Michael J. Behe, “Experimental Evolution, Loss-of-Function Mutations and ‘The First Rule of Adaptive Evolution’,” Quarterly Review of Biology, Vol. 85(4) (December, 2010).) http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/09/richard_lenskis_long_term_evol051051.html Lenski's Long-Term Evolution Experiment: 25 Years and Counting - Michael Behe - November 21, 2013 Excerpt: Twenty-five years later the culture -- a cumulative total of trillions of cells -- has been going for an astounding 58,000 generations and counting. As the article points out, that's equivalent to a million years in the lineage of a large animal such as humans. Combined with an ability to track down the exact identities of bacterial mutations at the DNA level, that makes Lenski's project the best, most detailed source of information on evolutionary processes available anywhere,,, ,,,for proponents of intelligent design the bottom line is that the great majority of even beneficial mutations have turned out to be due to the breaking, degrading, or minor tweaking of pre-existing genes or regulatory regions (Behe 2010). There have been no mutations or series of mutations identified that appear to be on their way to constructing elegant new molecular machinery of the kind that fills every cell. For example, the genes making the bacterial flagellum are consistently turned off by a beneficial mutation (apparently it saves cells energy used in constructing flagella). The suite of genes used to make the sugar ribose is the uniform target of a destructive mutation, which somehow helps the bacterium grow more quickly in the laboratory. Degrading a host of other genes leads to beneficial effects, too.,,, - http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/11/richard_lenskis079401.html

bornagain77

SLeBrun:

Well perhaps you’d like to show us all what you have come up with as an alternative. What articles you have published, what books you have written, what research you have done. Yes? Or are you just bitching and moaning? Where is your alternative? Where is your work? Where is your research?

Yeah, I got your research hanging, Mr. Dirt Worshipper. Nobody needs to impress the likes of you. You're inconsequential. I'll show you my research as soon as you show me yours. We're still waiting for the research that shows that inert dirt turned into living organisms and single cell organisms turned into whales and donkeys. We've been waiting for centuries for that groundbreaking research. Mapou

SLeBrun, you have provided no examples for me to accept or not accept. Yet you claim I rejected them.

I guess that means you chose to be ignorant of 150 years of published research and works for the general public. That's your call.

i.e. you refer to fictitious evidence that you think must exist.

No I refer to published analysis in 150 years of journals and books, etc. You being ignorant of all that does not prove your point. If you chose not to keep up, that's your loss.

I think there is a word for that,, it is called being gullible!

If you're happy living in the 19th century that's fine by me. AND, since you have no academic support for your views, since you don't do any research of your own, since you don't have any publications, since you probably don't teach biology in any form .. . I don't think it really matters what you think. You're not changing anyone's view or affecting the progress of scientific investigation. You're just a bit of an intellectual curiosity. Maybe even a joke. I hope you're okay with that. If you want to change that then you'd best find some real data, come up with a real theory and test your ideas in the scientific forum. UD is NOT that forum. SLeBrun

here is the reference cited in Luskin’s article:

How does that reference uphold Luskin's point? Casey reproduces a diagram from the cited paper. But what in the paper upholds his view> Did you read the referenced paper? Do you understand the reference? SLeBrun

SLeBrun, you have provided no examples for me to accept or not accept. Yet you claim I rejected them. Are you daft? i.e. you refer to fictitious evidence that you think must exist as if it counts. Go ahead cite a real world example of a molecular machine being created by unguided material processes. You will be looking for an example for a REALLY long time! FYI, Machines do not put themselves together. They are created by intelligence there is a word for believing that machines can be put together unguided material processes,, it is called being gullible! bornagain77

SLeBrun, contrary to what you fervently believe as an materialistic atheist, there are ZERO examples of unguided material processes generating ANY non-trivial functional information and/or complexity in real time above that which is already found in life.

None that you accept you mean. And, guess what . . you can't provide a viable alternative explanation to that which evolutionary science has provided. You can't say when design was implemented. You can't say how design was implemented. You can't say why design was implemented. You can't point to any evidence of workshops, labs, production lines, waste, etc . . . any of the kind of detritus we find when we observe a design environment. BUT you keep saying: we only observe design when there is intelligence. But you don't look for all the other signs that should be there IF there is a designer present. And you wonder why you're not taken seriously? You refuse to even explore the ramifications of your own hypothesis!! IF there was a designer then where is the evidence of 'his' presence and work? And if you think that's not necessary then you are making some very strong assumptions about the nature of the designer. Aren't you?

In other words, there are ZERO examples of macro-evolution as opposed to minor variations within kind.

hahahahahahahahahahahahahah You didn't see it so it didn't happen. Right. How do you know your great-great-great-great-great grandfather wasn't a rapist? You weren't there so how do you know?

Since you have made it abundantly clear that you could care less about my unqualified opinion in these matters, perhaps you will respect Alan H. Linton’s opinion. He is emeritus professor of bacteriology at University of Bristol

are you acknowledging that your opinion is 'unqualified'? I'm just checking. I admit my opinion is unqualified. I'm not a biological researcher. I base my opinion on those of eminently qualified people in the field. I fully admit that. I do read what they write and read critics of their views. And I do listen to the ID: The Future podcast. And I do follow this blog. I want to make sure I account for valid criticism. but, in the end, I'm not doing the research, publishing the papers, addressing the critics, doing the work. I tend to trust those who are, knowing what the academic environment is like, but I always have some skepticism. SLeBrun

"Again, NOT an academic reference." HUH, did you even read the article before you spewed your atheistic nonsense? here is the reference cited in Luskin's article: Trends in Microbiology, Vol 17, LAS Snyder, NJ Loman, K. Fuetterer, and MJ Pallen, "Bacterial flagellar diversity and evolution: seek simplicity and distrust it?," pp. 1-5, Copyright 2009, with permission from Elsevier. bornagain77

SLeBrun, contrary to what you fervently believe as an materialistic atheist, there are ZERO examples of unguided material processes generating ANY non-trivial functional information and/or complexity in real time above that which is already found in life. Better, more qualified, people than I have been looking for a long time. In other words, there are ZERO examples of macro-evolution as opposed to minor variations within kind. Since you have made it abundantly clear that you could care less about my unqualified opinion in these matters (I never claimed to be a PhD by the way), perhaps you will respect Alan H. Linton's opinion. He is emeritus professor of bacteriology at University of Bristol

Scant search for the Maker Excerpt: But where is the experimental evidence? None exists in the literature claiming that one species has been shown to evolve into another. Bacteria, the simplest form of independent life, are ideal for this kind of study, with generation times of 20 to 30 minutes, and populations achieved after 18 hours. But throughout 150 years of the science of bacteriology, there is no evidence that one species of bacteria has changed into another, in spite of the fact that populations have been exposed to potent chemical and physical mutagens and that, uniquely, bacteria possess extrachromosomal, transmissible plasmids. Since there is no evidence for species changes between the simplest forms of unicellular life, it is not surprising that there is no evidence for evolution from prokaryotic to eukaryotic cells, let alone throughout the whole array of higher multicellular organisms. - Alan H. Linton - emeritus professor of bacteriology, University of Bristol. http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=159282

bornagain77

So no references are presented, only a ‘you know where to find them’ and derogatory comments,,, Sad! Contrary to the high esteem you hold for yourself and your non-existent references, I think you are delusional for thinking such unfathomed complexity can be had by unguided material processes!

Since you have discarded already all of the excellent arguments made by many, many people much smarter than myself I think I'll just assume you're not playing fair. And, you know what? Since all you've got to show is a lot of long, cut and paste posts on this blog it's pretty clear that no one is ever going to really care what you have to say. I'm sorry to be blunt but seriously, you're just a tempest in a very small teapot. Posting all your links and references, almost completely for non-academic material, and never, ever dong any research or work about something new. AND you CANNOT address some simple, straight-forward questions about you own academic background and history. Why is that then?

Jerry Coyne’s Faith Versus Fact is listed in Religion. So, he’s a believer? It’s also listed in Science. So maybe arguments about God are a part of science.

I'm not sure what your point is. Except to bitch.

We’ve heard that one before. Darwinists are the smartest people in the universe. If you don’t worship dirt as they do, it’s because your feeble minds cannot comprehend their advanced intellectual ruminations. Yeah, right. You are all a bunch of morons with room temperature IQ. LOL.

Well perhaps you'd like to show us all what you have come up with as an alternative. What articles you have published, what books you have written, what research you have done. Yes? Or are you just bitching and moaning? Where is your alternative? Where is your work? Where is your research?

Flagellar Diversity Challenges Darwinian Evolution, Not Intelligent Design – Casey Luskin – July 22, 2015 Excerpt: flagella are distributed in a polyphyletic manner that doesn’t fit what we’d expect from common ancestry,,,

Again, NOT an academic reference. Do you actually have any academic qualifications? Yes or no? You don't seem to understand the academic environment at all. SLeBrun

Flagellar Diversity Challenges Darwinian Evolution, Not Intelligent Design - Casey Luskin - July 22, 2015 Excerpt: flagella are distributed in a polyphyletic manner that doesn't fit what we'd expect from common ancestry,,, http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/07/flagellar_diver097831.html bornagain77

SLeBrun:

Perhaps you don't understand

We've heard that one before. Darwinists are the smartest people in the universe. If you don't worship dirt as they do, it's because your feeble minds cannot comprehend their advanced intellectual ruminations. Yeah, right. You are all a bunch of morons with room temperature IQ. LOL. Mapou

Jerry Coyne's Faith Versus Fact is listed in Religion. So, he's a believer? It's also listed in Science. So maybe arguments about God are a part of science. Silver Asiatic

So no references are presented, only a 'you know where to find them' and derogatory comments,,, Sad! Contrary to the high esteem you hold for yourself and your non-existent references, I think you are delusional for thinking such unfathomed complexity can be had by unguided material processes!

“We have always underestimated cells. Undoubtedly we still do today. But at least we are no longer as naive as we were when I was a graduate student in the 1960s. Then, most of us viewed cells as containing a giant set of second-order reactions: molecules A and B were thought to diffuse freely, randomly colliding with each other to produce molecule AB—and likewise for the many other molecules that interact with each other inside a cell. This seemed reasonable because, as we had learned from studying physical chemistry, motions at the scale of molecules are incredibly rapid. … But, as it turns out, we can walk and we can talk because the chemistry that makes life possible is much more elaborate and sophisticated than anything we students had ever considered. Proteins make up most of the dry mass of a cell. But instead of a cell dominated by randomly colliding individual protein molecules, we now know that nearly every major process in a cell is carried out by assemblies of 10 or more protein molecules. And, as it carries out its biological functions, each of these protein assemblies interacts with several other large complexes of proteins. Indeed, the entire cell can be viewed as a factory that contains an elaborate network of interlocking assembly lines, each of which is composed of a set of large protein machines,,, Bruce Alberts - Editor-in-Chief of Science - was the president of the National Academy of Sciences from 1993 to 2005 “The Cell as a Collection of Protein Machines: Preparing the Next Generation of Molecular Biologists,” Cell 92 (1998): 291-294.

bornagain77

Yes, yes, we know the bacterial flagellum is amazing. That doesn't mean some unknown, undefined and undetected designer designed it. Without evidence of a lab or materials or equipment . . . .

and your peer-reviewed references are where? Or do you think I’m unqualified to actually see the peer-reviewed evidence that you claim actually exists?

A very disingenuous query. You've been told over and over, you know where to find them. You're just a denialist.

Surely you have several dozen references ready at the fingertips to prove your point? Considering how you've denied everything that has ever been presented to you . . . why should I bother? You've already decided so there's not much point in me trying again is there? Can we start with your peer-reviewed references for the flagellum being generated in real time by unguided material processes since it is the UD macot?

You could go look yourself, if you were really interested.

Between you, me, and the fence post, Methinks you have sorely overstated your case for unguided material processes vs. Intelligent Design

You're entitled to your opinion even if you haven't got any publications or research or academic background to prove you're more than a 'true believer'. Like I said, I'll stick with over 150 years of peer-reviewed research and publications as aptly summarised in many accessible popular books (that you can probably check out of your local public library). I'm not going to play your citation game because you'll just deny anything I bring to the table. I've seen that happen many, many times in the past. It has never moved the conversation forward a single step. AND you steadfastly refuse to even address the fact that you continue to dodge questions about your own academic and research background. If you're going to stay anonymous and only 'publish' lengthly posts with lots of non-academic references on a widely derided ID-apologist blog then who is ever going to take you seriously? Your opinion just isn't going to count. At all. SLeBrun

Dionisio, the slogans 'where's the beef?' and 'show me the money' should be posted below the flagellum header on UD! :) bornagain77

BA77 Perhaps your interlocutors are correct. Maybe you have not understood the available literature? Here's one of many papers proving that the evo-devo folks have figured out "Como le entra el agua al coco", regardless of what naysayers like you may argue: See @922 in this thread: https://uncommondescent.com/evolution/a-third-way-of-evolution/#comment-572262 :) Dionisio

SLeBrun "I think that’s been done quite nicely already in many publications and such." and your peer-reviewed references are where? Or do you think I'm unqualified to actually see the peer-reviewed evidence that you claim actually exists? Surely you have several dozen references ready at the fingertips to prove your point? Can we start with your peer-reviewed references for the flagellum being generated in real time by unguided material processes since it is the UD mascot? And is the threshold that Dr. Behe holds up for falsification? Between you, me, and the fence post, Methinks you have sorely overstated your case for unguided material processes vs. Intelligent Design:

Two Flagella Are Better than One - September 3, 2014 Excerpt: The assembly instructions,, are even more irreducibly complex than the motor itself. Parts are arriving on time and moving into place in a programmed sequence, with feedback to the nucleus affecting how many parts are to be manufactured. Dr. Jonathan Wells added, "What we see is irreducible complexity all the way down." Twelve years of closer looks at these astonishing machines have only amplified those conclusions. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/09/two_flagella_ar089611.html Souped-Up Hyper-Drive Flagellum Discovered - December 3, 2012 Excerpt: Get a load of this -- a bacterium that packs a gear-driven, seven-engine, magnetic-guided flagellar bundle that gets 0 to 300 micrometers in one second, ten times faster than E. coli. If you thought the standard bacterial flagellum made the case for intelligent design, wait till you hear the specs on MO-1,,, Harvard's mastermind of flagellum reverse engineering, this paper describes the Ferrari of flagella. "Instead of being a simple helically wound propeller driven by a rotary motor, it is a complex organelle consisting of 7 flagella and 24 fibrils that form a tight bundle enveloped by a glycoprotein sheath.... the flagella of MO-1 must rotate individually, and yet the entire bundle functions as a unit to comprise a motility organelle." To feel the Wow! factor, jump ahead to Figure 6 in the paper. It shows seven engines in one, arranged in a hexagonal array, stylized by the authors in a cross-sectional model that shows them all as gears interacting with 24 smaller gears between them. The flagella rotate one way, and the smaller gears rotate the opposite way to maximize torque while minimizing friction. Download the movie from the Supplemental Information page to see the gears in action. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/12/souped-up_flage066921.html Bacterial Flagellum: Visualizing the Complete Machine In Situ Excerpt: Electron tomography of frozen-hydrated bacteria, combined with single particle averaging, has produced stunning images of the intact bacterial flagellum, revealing features of the rotor, stator and export apparatus. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096098220602286X Structural diversity of bacterial flagellar motors - 2011 Excerpt: Figure 3 - Manual segmentation of conserved (solid colours) and unconserved (dotted lines) motor components based on visual inspection. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3160247/figure/f3/ Flagellum - drawing & major parts list https://dennisdjones.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/flagellum.jpg "One fact in favour of the flagellum-first view is that bacteria would have needed propulsion before they needed T3SSs, which are used to attack cells that evolved later than bacteria. Also, flagella are found in a more diverse range of bacterial species than T3SSs. ‘The most parsimonious explanation is that the T3SS arose later," Howard Ochman - Biochemist - New Scientist (Feb 16, 2008) Why the Type III Secretory System Can't Be a Precursor to the Bacteria Flagellum - Casey Luskin July 20, 2015 http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/07/why_the_type_ii097821.html

bornagain77

BA77 @10

"...computer programmers produce similar control systems all the time."

In many cases we (engineering design software* developers) wish to produce similar control systems and sometimes it is just daydreaming. :) (*) engineering design software development is much closer to the elaborate information processing choreographies seen within biological systems than business software development. Two different animals. Dionisio

SLeBrun, perhaps you would like to be the first person in the history of UD to ‘prove us wrong’, i.e. to empirically falsify Intelligent Design, and produce real time empirical evidence of a single molecular machine being originated by unguided material processes?

I think that's been done quite nicely already in many publications and such. Perhaps you didn't understand the research? You didn't say what your academic background is or whether you work in the field. I'm thinking you don't have a pertinent academic qualification or any research experience since you tend to quote non-academic sources which don't really carry any weight. Anyone can offer up an opinion and publish it but if it hasn't been reviewed by people working in the field then . . . it doesn't really matter.

As I said before, all I’ve seen from Darwinists, in backing up their grand claims that functional information/complexity can easily be generated by unguided material processes, is dishonest literature bluffing:

Well, like I said, perhaps you didn't understand the research. Why won't you say what your academic background is? Are you ashamed of it or afraid someone will disregard your opinion if they think you don't really know? I've never seen 'bornagain77' on any published research paper or article. Or is it that you are afraid your colleagues will make fun of you and chastise you so you prefer to stay anonymous? If you want to win people over then find some real peer-reviewed research work to back up your ideas instead of linking to youtube videos and blogs from The Discovery Institute. Just my opinion, maybe you don't care if people you aren't already ID supporters take you seriously. And if you're so convinced you are correct then why be anonymous? Are you worried about a few nasty emails? SLeBrun

SLeBrun, perhaps you would like to be the first person in the history of UD to 'prove us wrong', i.e. to empirically falsify Intelligent Design, and produce real time empirical evidence of a single molecular machine being originated by unguided material processes?

"In so far as a scientific statement speaks about reality, it must be falsifiable; and in so far as it is not falsifiable, it does not speak about reality." Karl Popper - The Two Fundamental Problems of the Theory of Knowledge (2014 edition), Routledge It’s (Much) Easier to Falsify Intelligent Design than Darwinian Evolution – Michael Behe, PhD https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_T1v_VLueGk The National Academy of Sciences has objected that intelligent design is not falsifiable, and I think that’s just the opposite of the truth. Intelligent design is very open to falsification. I claim, for example, that the bacterial flagellum could not be produced by natural selection; it needed to be deliberately intelligently designed. Well, all a scientist has to do to prove me wrong is to take a bacterium without a flagellum, or knock out the genes for the flagellum in a bacterium, go into his lab and grow that bug for a long time and see if it produces anything resembling a flagellum. If that happened, intelligent design, as I understand it, would be knocked out of the water. I certainly don’t expect it to happen, but it’s easily falsified by a series of such experiments. Now let’s turn that around and ask, How do we falsify the contention that natural selection produced the bacterial flagellum? If that same scientist went into the lab and knocked out the bacterial flagellum genes, grew the bacterium for a long time, and nothing much happened, well, he’d say maybe we didn’t start with the right bacterium, maybe we didn’t wait long enough, maybe we need a bigger population, and it would be very much more difficult to falsify the Darwinian hypothesis. I think the very opposite is true. I think intelligent design is easily testable, easily falsifiable, although it has not been falsified, and Darwinism is very resistant to being falsified. They can always claim something was not right. - Dr Michael Behe

As I said before, all I've seen from Darwinists, in backing up their grand claims that functional information/complexity can easily be generated by unguided material processes, is dishonest literature bluffing:

“The response I have received from repeating Behe's claim about the evolutionary literature, which simply brings out the point being made implicitly by many others, such as Chris Dutton and so on, is that I obviously have not read the right books. There are, I am sure, evolutionists who have described how the transitions in question could have occurred.” And he continues, “When I ask in which books I can find these discussions, however, I either get no answer or else some titles that, upon examination, do not, in fact, contain the promised accounts. That such accounts exist seems to be something that is widely known, but I have yet to encounter anyone who knows where they exist.” David Ray Griffin - retired professor of philosophy of religion and theology Calling Nick Matzke's literature bluff on molecular machines - DonaldM UD blogger - April 2013 Excerpt: So now, 10 years later in 2006 Matzke and Pallen come along with this review article. The interesting thing about this article is that, despite all the hand waving claims about all these dozens if not hundreds of peer reviewed research studies showing how evolution built a flagellum, Matzke and Pallen didn’t have a single such reference in their bibliography. Nor did they reference any such study in the article. Rather, the article went into great lengths to explain how a researcher might go about conducting a study to show how evolution could have produced the system. Well, if all those articles and studies were already there, why not just point them all out? In shorty, the entire article was a tacit admission that Behe had been right all along. Fast forward to now and Andre’s question directed to Matzke. We’re now some 17 years after Behe’s book came out where he made that famous claim. And, no surprise, there still is not a single peer reviewed research study that provides the Darwinian explanation for a bacterial flagellum (or any of the other irreducibly complex biological systems Behe mentioned in the book). We’re almost 7 years after the Matzke & Pallen article. So where are all these research studies? There’s been ample time for someone to do something in this regard. Matzke will not answer the question because there is no answer he can give…no peer reviewed research study he can reference, other than the usual literature bluffing he’s done in the past. https://uncommondescent.com/irreducible-complexity/andre-asks-an-excellent-question-regarding-dna-as-a-part-of-an-in-cell-irreducibly-complex-communication-system/#comment-453291 Finally, a Detailed, Stepwise Proposal for a Major Evolutionary Change? - Michael Behe - March 10, 2015 Excerpt: I would say its (Nick Matzke's 2004 proposal for the evolution of the flagellum) chief problem is that it's terminally fuzzy, bases most of its speculation on sequence comparisons, and glides over difficulties that would have to be dealt with in nature.,,, That's one reason I wrote The Edge of Evolution -- to say that we no longer have to rely on our imaginations, that we have good evidence to show what Darwinian processes are capable of doing. When we look to see what they do when we are watching, we never see the sorts of progressive building of coherent systems that Darwinists imagine. Rather, we see tinkering around the edges with preexisting systems or degradation of complex systems to gain short-term advantage. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/03/finally_a_detai094271.html More Irreducible Complexity Is Found in Flagellar Assembly - September 24, 2013 Concluding Statement: Eleven years is a lot of time to refute the claims about flagellar assembly made in Unlocking the Mystery of Life, if they were vulnerable to falsification. Instead, higher resolution studies confirm them. Not only that, research into the precision assembly of flagella is provoking more investigation of the assembly of other molecular machines. It's a measure of the robustness of a scientific theory when increasing data strengthen its tenets over time and motivate further research. Irreducible complexity lives! - http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/09/more_irreducibl077051.html

Seeing as how molecular machines, particularly the flagellum, greatly outclass man-made machines in terms of engineering parameters,,,

Bacterial Flagellum - A Sheer Wonder Of Intelligent Design – video http://tl.cross.tv/61771

,,, I certainly would like to physically see how unguided material processes can out-engineer even our best molecular engineers: Dr. James Tour, who, in my honest opinion, currently builds the most sophisticated man-made molecular machines in the world, will buy lunch for anyone who can explain to him exactly how Darwinian evolution works:

Top Ten Most Cited Chemist in the World Knows Darwinian Evolution Does Not Work - James Tour, Phd. - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Y5-VNg-S0s A world-famous chemist tells the truth: there’s no scientist alive today who understands macroevolution - March 6, 2014 https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/a-world-famous-chemist-tells-the-truth-theres-no-scientist-alive-today-who-understands-macroevolution/ “I build molecules for a living, I can’t begin to tell you how difficult that job is. I stand in awe of God because of what he has done through his creation. Only a rookie who knows nothing about science would say science takes away from faith. If you really study science, it will bring you closer to God." James Tour – one of the leading nano-tech engineers in the world - Strobel, Lee (2000), The Case For Faith, p. 111 Science & Faith — Dr. James Tour – video (At the two minute mark of the following video, you can see a nano-car that was built by Dr. James Tour’s team) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pR4QhNFTtyw

bornagain77

SLeBrun, for several years now I have been asking for ANY real time empirical evidence for the grand claim of Darwinian evolution that unguided material processes can create functional information and/or complexity over and above what is already present in life. Such as a novel protein fold (Axe; Gauger) or a molecular machine (Behe). The request goes unmet! What I have found is a lot of dishonest literature bluffing from atheistic neo-Darwinists with never an honest admission as to this stunning lack of empirical confirmation for their preferred theory.

Perhaps you don't understand the literature . . . what's your academic background?

Thus, seeing as how Darwinian evolution is accepted uncritically by a large segment of the population, the unsubstantiated, i.e. ‘mythical’, status of neo-Darwinism in society greatly exceeds that of Bigfoot or UFOs:

I don't think that's true at all. Clearly you've never been to a conference where evolutionary theory is discussed. All scientists that I know would LOVE to prove someone else wrong. They know if they could prove a fault in modern evolutionary theory they would become famous beyond their wildest dreams. So I don't buy it that evolutionary theory is just accepted blindly. I have never, ever seen blind acceptance on the part of any person I've ever known who works in any science or was well educated in a science. I think you're constructing a strawman which doesn't exist. Perhaps I'm wrong, perhaps you work in the field and have lots of academic publications and years of research to draw upon. If so I'd be glad to have a look at your work. SLeBrun

SLeBrun, for several years now I have been asking for ANY real time empirical evidence for the grand claim of Darwinian evolution that unguided material processes can create functional information and/or complexity over and above what is already present in life. Such as a novel protein fold (Axe; Gauger) or a molecular machine (Behe). The request goes unmet! What I have found is a lot of dishonest literature bluffing from atheistic neo-Darwinists with never an honest admission as to this stunning lack of empirical confirmation for their preferred theory. Thus, seeing as how Darwinian evolution is accepted uncritically by a large segment of the population, the unsubstantiated, i.e. 'mythical', status of neo-Darwinism in society greatly exceeds that of Bigfoot or UFOs:

“The First Rule of Adaptive Evolution”: Break or blunt any functional coded element whose loss would yield a net fitness gain - Michael Behe - December 2010 Excerpt: In its most recent issue The Quarterly Review of Biology has published a review by myself of laboratory evolution experiments of microbes going back four decades.,,, The gist of the paper is that so far the overwhelming number of adaptive (that is, helpful) mutations seen in laboratory evolution experiments are either loss or modification of function. Of course we had already known that the great majority of mutations that have a visible effect on an organism are deleterious. Now, surprisingly, it seems that even the great majority of helpful mutations degrade the genome to a greater or lesser extent.,,, I dub it “The First Rule of Adaptive Evolution”: Break or blunt any functional coded element whose loss would yield a net fitness gain. http://behe.uncommondescent.com/2010/12/the-first-rule-of-adaptive-evolution/ Getting There First: An Evolutionary Rate Advantage for Adaptive Loss-of-Function Mutations Michael J. Behe - 2013 http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/pdf/10.1142/9789814508728_0020 Biological Information - Loss-of-Function Mutations (Michael Behe) by Paul Giem 2015 - video (Behe - Loss of function mutations are far more likely to fix in a population than gain of function mutations) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzD3hhvepK8&index=20&list=PLHDSWJBW3DNUUhiC9VwPnhl-ymuObyTWJ Michael Behe talks about the preceding paper on this podcast: Michael Behe: Challenging Darwin, One Peer-Reviewed Paper at a Time - December 2010 http://intelligentdesign.podomatic.com/player/web/2010-12-23T11_53_46-08_00 Michael Behe: Intelligent Design – interview on the radio program ‘The Mind Renewed’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9SmPNQrQHE "The immediate, most important implication is that complexes with more than two different binding sites-ones that require three or more proteins-are beyond the edge of evolution, past what is biologically reasonable to expect Darwinian evolution to have accomplished in all of life in all of the billion-year history of the world. The reasoning is straightforward. The odds of getting two independent things right are the multiple of the odds of getting each right by itself. So, other things being equal, the likelihood of developing two binding sites in a protein complex would be the square of the probability for getting one: a double CCC, 10^20 times 10^20, which is 10^40. There have likely been fewer than 10^40 cells in the world in the last 4 billion years, so the odds are against a single event of this variety in the history of life. It is biologically unreasonable." - Michael Behe - The Edge of Evolution - page 146 podcast - Michael Behe: Vindication for 'The Edge of Evolution,' Pt. 2 http://intelligentdesign.podomatic.com/entry/2014-08-06T15_26_19-07_00 "The Edge of Evolution" Strikes Again 8-2-2014 by Paul Giem - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnO-xa3nBE4

bornagain77

There is more evidence for bigfoot and UFOs than there is for evolutionism.

Well, it's easy to see why Virgil 'Joe' Cain hasn't got any academic publications. SLeBrun

The Confidence of Jerry Coyne - January 6, 2014 Excerpt: But then halfway through this peroration, we have as an aside the confession that yes, okay, it’s quite possible given materialist premises that “our sense of self is a neuronal illusion.” At which point the entire edifice suddenly looks terribly wobbly — because who, exactly, is doing all of this forging and shaping and purpose-creating if Jerry Coyne, as I understand him (and I assume he understands himself) quite possibly does not actually exist at all? The theme of his argument is the crucial importance of human agency under eliminative materialism, but if under materialist premises the actual agent is quite possibly a fiction, then who exactly is this I who “reads” and “learns” and “teaches,” and why in the universe’s name should my illusory self believe Coyne’s bold proclamation that his illusory self’s purposes are somehow “real” and worthy of devotion and pursuit? (Let alone that they’re morally significant: But more on that below.) Prometheus cannot be at once unbound and unreal; the human will cannot be simultaneously triumphant and imaginary. http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/06/the-confidence-of-jerry-coyne/?_r=0 The Heretic - Who is Thomas Nagel and why are so many of his fellow academics condemning him? - March 25, 2013 Excerpt:,,,Fortunately, materialism is never translated into life as it’s lived. As colleagues and friends, husbands and mothers, wives and fathers, sons and daughters, materialists never put their money where their mouth is. Nobody thinks his daughter is just molecules in motion and nothing but; nobody thinks the Holocaust was evil, but only in a relative, provisional sense. A materialist who lived his life according to his professed convictions—understanding himself to have no moral agency at all, seeing his friends and enemies and family as genetically determined robots—wouldn’t just be a materialist: He’d be a psychopath. http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/heretic_707692.html?page=3 Darwin's Robots: When Evolutionary Materialists Admit that Their Own Worldview Fails - Nancy Pearcey - April 23, 2015 Excerpt: When I teach these concepts in the classroom, an example my students find especially poignant is Flesh and Machines by Rodney Brooks, professor emeritus at MIT. Brooks writes that a human being is nothing but a machine -- a "big bag of skin full of biomolecules" interacting by the laws of physics and chemistry. In ordinary life, of course, it is difficult to actually see people that way. But, he says, "When I look at my children, I can, when I force myself, ... see that they are machines." Is that how he treats them, though? Of course not: "That is not how I treat them.... I interact with them on an entirely different level. They have my unconditional love, the furthest one might be able to get from rational analysis." Certainly if what counts as "rational" is a materialist worldview in which humans are machines, then loving your children is irrational. It has no basis within Brooks's worldview. It sticks out of his box. How does he reconcile such a heart-wrenching cognitive dissonance? He doesn't. Brooks ends by saying, "I maintain two sets of inconsistent beliefs." He has given up on any attempt to reconcile his theory with his experience. He has abandoned all hope for a unified, logically consistent worldview. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/04/when_evolutiona095451.html [Nancy Pearcey] When Reality Clashes with Your Atheistic Worldview - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0Kpn3HBMiQ Existential Argument against Atheism - November 1, 2013 by Jason Petersen 1. If a worldview is true then you should be able to live consistently with that worldview. 2. Atheists are unable to live consistently with their worldview. 3. If you can’t live consistently with an atheist worldview then the worldview does not reflect reality. 4. If a worldview does not reflect reality then that worldview is a delusion. 5. If atheism is a delusion then atheism cannot be true. Conclusion: Atheism is false. http://answersforhope.com/existential-argument-atheism/ Sam Harris's Free Will: The Medial Pre-Frontal Cortex Did It - Martin Cothran - November 9, 2012 Excerpt: There is something ironic about the position of thinkers like Harris on issues like this: they claim that their position is the result of the irresistible necessity of logic (in fact, they pride themselves on their logic). Their belief is the consequent, in a ground/consequent relation between their evidence and their conclusion. But their very stated position is that any mental state -- including their position on this issue -- is the effect of a physical, not logical cause. By their own logic, it isn't logic that demands their assent to the claim that free will is an illusion, but the prior chemical state of their brains. The only condition under which we could possibly find their argument convincing is if they are not true. The claim that free will is an illusion requires the possibility that minds have the freedom to assent to a logical argument, a freedom denied by the claim itself. It is an assent that must, in order to remain logical and not physiological, presume a perspective outside the physical order. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/11/sam_harriss_fre066221.html (1) rationality implies a thinker in control of thoughts. (2) under materialism a thinker is an effect caused by processes in the brain. (3) in order for materialism to ground rationality a thinker (an effect) must control processes in the brain (a cause). (1)&(2) (4) no effect can control its cause. Therefore materialism cannot ground rationality. per Box UD

Also see: Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism bornagain77

MMMM seversky, magic would be invoking unguided material processes as the explanation as to how that specific epigenetic metabolic control network came about since no one has ever seen unguided material processes produce control networks (nor proteins for that matter). Yet, computer programmers produce similar control systems all the time. Thus, we know for a fact that intelligence can produce integrated complexity whereas it truly would be invoking 'magic' to believe unguided material processes wrote the next version of Windows. repost from another thread:

Chuan He: Evolution Created Epigenetics – Cornelius Hunter – PhD in Biophysics – May 3, 2015 Excerpt: They never predicted it, then they denied it could be heritable, and then they denied it could cause lasting change. “It” in this case is epigenetics and in spite of being wrong, wrong and wrong again, and in spite of the fact that there is no scientific explanation for how epigenetics could have evolved, evolutionists nonetheless insist that it, in fact, must have evolved. Evolution loses every battle but claims to win the war. http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2015/05/chuan-he-evolution-created-epigenetics.html Tonight’s Feature Presentation: Epigenetics, The Next Evolutionary Cliff – video Excerpt: Just keep this one thing in mind as you watch. For everything you see in this animation, evolutionists have no scientific explanation how it evolved. http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2013/02/tonights-feature-presentation.html Epigenetics and the “Piano” Metaphor – January 2012 Excerpt: And this is only the construction of proteins we’re talking about. It leaves out of the picture entirely the higher-level components — tissues, organs, the whole body plan that draws all the lower-level stuff together into a coherent, functioning form. What we should really be talking about is not a lone piano but a vast orchestra under the directing guidance of an unknown conductor fulfilling an artistic vision, organizing and transcending the music of the assembly of individual players. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/01/epigenetics_and054731.html

Moreover, 'materialistic science' is an oxymoron, since number one, the science of quantum mechanics has falsified materialism as to being true. And number two, science winds up in epistemological failure by forcing materialistic answers for the origin of the universe and also in epistemological failure for forcing materialistic answers for the origin of our conscious minds.

"[while a number of philosophical ideas] may be logically consistent with present quantum mechanics, ...materialism is not." Eugene Wigner Quantum Physics Debunks Materialism - video playlist https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL1mr9ZTZb3TViAqtowpvZy5PZpn-MoSK_&v=4C5pq7W5yRM Why Quantum Theory Does Not Support Materialism - By Bruce L Gordon: Excerpt: Because quantum theory is thought to provide the bedrock for our scientific understanding of physical reality, it is to this theory that the materialist inevitably appeals in support of his worldview. But having fled to science in search of a safe haven for his doctrines, the materialist instead finds that quantum theory in fact dissolves and defeats his materialist understanding of the world.,, The underlying problem is this: there are correlations in nature that require a causal explanation but for which no physical explanation is in principle possible. Furthermore, the nonlocalizability of field quanta entails that these entities, whatever they are, fail the criterion of material individuality. So, paradoxically and ironically, the most fundamental constituents and relations of the material world cannot, in principle, be understood in terms of material substances. Since there must be some explanation for these things, the correct explanation will have to be one which is non-physical - and this is plainly incompatible with any and all varieties of materialism. http://www.4truth.net/fourtruthpbscience.aspx?pageid=8589952939 BRUCE GORDON: Hawking's irrational arguments - October 2010 Excerpt: What is worse, multiplying without limit the opportunities for any event to happen in the context of a multiverse - where it is alleged that anything can spontaneously jump into existence without cause - produces a situation in which no absurdity is beyond the pale. For instance, we find multiverse cosmologists debating the "Boltzmann Brain" problem: In the most "reasonable" models for a multiverse, it is immeasurably more likely that our consciousness is associated with a brain that has spontaneously fluctuated into existence in the quantum vacuum than it is that we have parents and exist in an orderly universe with a 13.7 billion-year history. This is absurd. The multiverse hypothesis is therefore falsified because it renders false what we know to be true about ourselves. Clearly, embracing the multiverse idea entails a nihilistic irrationality that destroys the very possibility of science. Universes do not “spontaneously create” on the basis of abstract mathematical descriptions, nor does the fantasy of a limitless multiverse trump the explanatory power of transcendent intelligent design. What Mr. Hawking’s contrary assertions show is that mathematical savants can sometimes be metaphysical simpletons. Caveat emptor. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/oct/1/hawking-irrational-arguments/ The Absurdity of Inflation, String Theory and The Multiverse - Dr. Bruce Gordon - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ff_sNyGNSko Here is the last power-point slide of the preceding video: The End Of Materialism? * In the multiverse, anything can happen for no reason at all. * In other words, the materialist is forced to believe in random miracles as a explanatory principle. * In a Theistic universe, nothing happens without a reason. Miracles are therefore intelligently directed deviations from divinely maintained regularities, and are thus expressions of rational purpose. * Scientific materialism is (therefore) epistemically self defeating: it makes scientific rationality impossible. "Hawking’s entire argument is built upon theism. He is, as Cornelius Van Til put it, like the child who must climb up onto his father’s lap into order to slap his face. Take that part about the “human mind” for example. Under atheism there is no such thing as a mind. There is no such thing as understanding and no such thing as truth. All Hawking is left with is a box, called a skull, which contains a bunch of molecules. Hawking needs God In order to deny Him." - Cornelius Hunter Photo – an atheist contemplating his mind http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-H-kjiGN_9Fw/URkPboX5l2I/AAAAAAAAATw/yN18NZgMJ-4/s1600/rob4.jpg

bornagain77

Peter Saunders: But it isn’t magic at all, the reason is the action of the “gene” was to block the metabolism at some point and at this point formaldehyde was thought to be created and then it was going to be destroyed. But the formaldehyde wasn’t destroyed because the “gene” was blocked. Mice don’t like formaldehyde.

Sounds like good old materialistic science coming up with a good old materialistic explanation. So how come it isn't being slammed as another just-so story from an elitist, tax-funded prof? The question is rhetorical, of course. I have a pretty good idea what the answer is. Seversky

There is more evidence for bigfoot and UFOs than there is for evolutionism. Just sayin'... Virgil Cain

Relevant to epigenetics: Yeast cells optimize their genomes in response to the environment. Who needs RM + NS if you can modify your own genome to adapt? Mapou

REC:

BA77-Thanks, I got a good laugh out of that: Tuesday, July 21, 2015 Hour 1: Intelligent design advocate, author and scientist Stephen Meyer joins the show. Hour 2: Bigfoot expert Christopher Noël continues our first Bigfoot Week and is joined by fellow Sasquatch enthusiast Michael Medved.

Hour 3: Atheist/Darwinist Stephen Hawking and Russian billionaire Yuri Millner discuss their hunt for little green men. Hawking will also present his theory that aliens cannot normally be seen because they are time travellers from the future. The aliens must not be trusted, he says, because they are after our resources and our AI technology which, by the way, is more dangerous than nuclear weapons because they can rebel against humanity and wipe us all out. Our best bet, he insists, is to upload our brains to the cloud, murder our old worthless carbon units and live forever in eternal geekdom. Mapou

Well REC, nobody can produce a Bigfoot, or a UFO, to dispel all the naysayers of Bigfoot and UFOs (of which I am one) but I can easily produce many examples of intelligent design for which neo-Darwinists have no answers as to how it came about except to deny, against all common sense, that it was designed. For instance, here is, according to a atheistic Darwinist, a ‘horrendously complex’ metabolic pathway chart:

ExPASy - Biochemical Pathways - interactive schematic http://biochemical-pathways.com/#/map/1 Map Of Major Metabolic Pathways In A Cell – Picture http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-AKkRRa65sIo/TlltZupczfI/AAAAAAAAE1s/nVSv_5HRpZg/s1600/pathway-1b.png

And here is an example of the 'Intelligent Design' of the 'simplest' cell on earth:

To Model the Simplest Microbe in the World, You Need 128 Computers - July 2012 Excerpt: Mycoplasma genitalium has one of the smallest genomes of any free-living organism in the world, clocking in at a mere 525 genes. That's a fraction of the size of even another bacterium like E. coli, which has 4,288 genes.,,, The bioengineers, led by Stanford's Markus Covert, succeeded in modeling the bacterium, and published their work last week in the journal Cell. What's fascinating is how much horsepower they needed to partially simulate this simple organism. It took a cluster of 128 computers running for 9 to 10 hours to actually generate the data on the 25 categories of molecules that are involved in the cell's lifecycle processes.,,, ,,the depth and breadth of cellular complexity has turned out to be nearly unbelievable, and difficult to manage, even given Moore's Law. The M. genitalium model required 28 subsystems to be individually modeled and integrated, and many critics of the work have been complaining on Twitter that's only a fraction of what will eventually be required to consider the simulation realistic.,,, http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/07/to-model-the-simplest-microbe-in-the-world-you-need-128-computers/260198/

And here is the intelligent design of the 'call graph' of a e-coli

Comparing genomes to computer operating systems - Van - May 2010 Excerpt: we present a comparison between the transcriptional regulatory network of a well-studied bacterium (Escherichia coli) and the call graph of a canonical OS (Linux) in terms of topology,,, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20439753 (Comparing Computer Operating Systems to Regulatory Networks in E-Coli) What Is The Genome? It's Not Junk! - Dr. Robert Carter - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/8905583/

Thus REC, it is not a matter of you rationally denying that for which you have seen no convincing evidence, i.e. Bigfoot and UFOs, it is a matter of you insanely denying that which is plainly evident before your very own eyes! I think Harry did an excellent job of elucidating the insanity of your atheistic position REC:

"The very notion that nanotechnology, the functional complexity of which is beyond the ability of modern science to create intentionally, came about mindlessly and accidentally is what is as unbelievably stupid as it is false. If atheistic science knew even one way to build technology from scratch that could also manufacture more instances of itself from available raw materials, then it might be able to begin explaining how such a technological feat could have occurred mindlessly and accidentally, because it would then at least have some idea of what would be required for something like that to take place. As it is, atheistic science insists that that which it has no idea how to make happen on purpose happened accidentally. The stupidity of that is something like jungle savages insisting, even though they didn’t have any idea how to manufacture one, that the laptop PC they found came about accidentally. The functional complexity of life’s nanotechnology is light years beyond our own.,," Harry UD Blogger https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/berlinskis-question-remains-unanswered/#comment-563446

bornagain77

Art and science combine to reveal the inner workings of our DNA - July 21, 2015 Excerpt: How can cells that contain the same DNA end up so different from each other? That is not only a difficult question for science to answer, but also a challenging one to represent visually. It is also the question I posed at the start of my latest biomedical animation, called Tagging DNA, which visualises the molecular mechanisms behind epigenetics. It specifically looks at a process called methylation, where methyl groups are added to DNA, thus changing which genes are switched on and which are switched off. This is one of the processes that enables the same static DNA to produce different types of cells throughout our bodies. The animation also seeks to engage the viewer on a visual and emotional level, yet also balance what we know based on the latest science. You can view the animation below: http://medicalxpress.com/news/2015-07-art-science-combine-reveal-dna.html bornagain77

BA77-Thanks, I got a good laugh out of that: Tuesday, July 21, 2015 Hour 1: Intelligent design advocate, author and scientist Stephen Meyer joins the show. Hour 2: Bigfoot expert Christopher Noël continues our first Bigfoot Week and is joined by fellow Sasquatch enthusiast Michael Medved. REC

OT: If you missed Stephen Meyer on Eric Metaxas's show today, here is the podcast of the show http://www.metaxastalk.com/podcast/tuesday-july-21-2015/ bornagain77

What does this have to do with epigenetics? Bob O'H