Darwinism

In this Denyse O’Leary UD thread I included a quote from David Berlinski’s infamous The Incorrigible Dr. Berlinski video interview.

I thought UD readers might enjoy some of his other comments on various science and Dawinism topics.

On science as a self-critical enterprise:

The idea that science is a uniquely self-critical institution is of course preposterous. Scientists are no more self-critical than anyone else. They hate to be criticized… Look, these people are only human, they hate criticism — me too. The idea that scientists are absolutely eager to be beaten up is one of the myths put out by scientists, and it works splendidly so they can avoid criticism.

We’re asking for standards of behavior that would be wonderful to expect but that no serious man does expect. A hundred years of fraudulent drawings suggesting embryological affinities that don’t exist — that’s just what I would expect if biologists were struggling to maintain a position of power in a secular democratic society. Let’s be reasonable… the popular myth of science as a uniquely self-critical institution, and scientists as men who would rather be consumed at the stake rather than fudge their data, is okay for a PBS special, but that’s not the real world; that’s not what’s taking place…

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This sort of behavior from Dawkins cannot withstand the light of day. “Sheldrake Exposes Dawkins as Fundamentalist Pseudoskeptic” In a commentary on his website, biologist Rupert Sheldrake recounts his experience in — almost — appearing in The Enemies of Reason, a British documentary written by well-known biologist and public advocate for atheism Richard Dawkins. He describes how he was recruited to appear in the documentary with promises that there would be an opportunity for scientific discussion. But when he tried to engage in such a discussion, both Dawkins and they director made it clear that they were not interested in discussing evidence. The TV programme was intended to debunk, not give a fair view of the scientific evidence: “Richard seemed Read More ›

Because of a prediction, a very strong prediction, I made on another thread, I’ve had reason to look into just what has been happening to Darwin’s finches way off on the Galapagos Islands.

Here is a paper published last year in Science Magazine by the Grants, experts in Darwin’s finches. I looked at their paper, looked at their data, and have come to the conclusion that what I predicted as the ultimate explanation to changed beak sizes is the more reasonable interpretation of the data they present.

But before we even get to the data, here’s a remark from a National Geographic website review of the article that supports my basic position:

“ Researchers from New Jersey’s Princeton University have observed a species of finch in Ecuador’s Galápagos Islands that evolved to have a smaller beak within a mere two decades.
Surprisingly, most of the shift happened within just one generation, the scientists say.”

The shift happened in ONE year? What kind of population genetics are at play here?

Well, to the data:
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On  July 7, 2005 Cardinal Christoph Schönborn wrote an article Finding Design in Nature  that seemed to level serious criticism at Darwinism and neo-Darwinism.   “Now at the beginning of the 21st century, faced with scientific claims like neo-Darwinism and the multiverse hypothesis in cosmology invented to avoid the overwhelming evidence for purpose and design found in modern science,” wrote Schönborn, “the Catholic Church will again defend human reason by proclaiming that the immanent design evident in nature is real.”  More recently the Cardinal has elaborated upon his position in his latest book Chance or Purpose: Creation, Evolution, and a Rational Faith (Ignatius Press, 2007).  The work itself emanating as it does from such a well-positioned Catholic leader, one intimate with the Pope, is worthy of some extended comment.

 Schönborn’s book is in some senses confusing.  On the one hand the Viennese Cardinal has some harsh criticism for Darwinian evolution as a metaphysical worldview.  On the other hand Schönborn takes the reader on a much murkier journey in which he appears to defend Darwin’s Origin as a “stroke of genius.”  Freeing himself from the dogma of independent creations, Darwin developed a theory of natural selection and common descent that was, according to  Schönborn, a product of “honest and intense intellectual struggle” (p. 53).  The Cardinal essentially supports Darwin’s biological mechanisms as secondary causes, which “can thus perfectly well be reconciled with belief in creation.  The natural causes,” he writes, “are an expression of the activity of creation”  that occurs throughout all aspects of creation.   Schönborn has a purpose in mind here, namely, to make a distinction between the so-called science of Darwin and the metaphysics of Darwinism in an effort to make Darwin’s biological theory implicitly compatible with theism.  Here begins the Cardinal’s troubles. Read More ›

This year should be an exciting one for ID. It sounds like Expelled, The Movie will have very wide distribution in major theaters all across the nation in April. One sad aspect of the Darwinian propaganda machine is that, once it is exposed to the general public for what it is (materialistic philosophy pretending to be science, and even in opposition to the evidence of modern scientific discoveries about the severe limits of the Darwinian mechanism that is presumed to explain everything in biology), the public may lose trust in legitimate science. This state of affairs is extraordinarily ironic. The claim is that denial of Darwinian orthodoxy will destroy science, but perhaps attempts to defend the indefensible claims of Darwinists Read More ›

Another Darwin Biography

Ecclesiastes tells us, “Of making books there is no end,” and nowhere is that a greater truism than in the ever growing corpus of Darwiniana.  At present writing OCLC (Online Computer Library Center), the world’s largest bibliographic database, lists 14,129 books and articles with occurrences of Darwin, Darwinism, or Darwinian in the title.  That’s enough to confirm the second half of that verse, namely, that “much study is wearisome to the flesh.”  Fortunately, there are at present only two outstanding biographies of the man many consider the most influential scientist of all time.  The first is Adrian Desmond and James Moore’s Darwin: The Life of a Tormented Evolutionist (1991).  Still frequently cited in the literature, Desmond and Moore’s 800-page biography has been overshadowed more recently by the completion of Janet Browne’s even more corpulent 2 volume prize-winning biography Charles Darwin: Voyaging (1995) and Charles Darwin: The Power of Place (2003).  But the sheer massiveness of both endeavors (Browne’s effort totals nearly 1,200 pages in all) means that few but the most obsessive investigators will venture to traverse that terra incognita.  A book of more modest and accessible proportions seemed overdue.  Then I saw it – a   comparatively slim biography resting humbly on the shelves of Barnes & Nobles’ science section (it really belonged in the philosophy section but we’re coming to that).  It was David Quammen’s The Reluctant Mr. Darwin recently published in 2006.  Excluding the notes, bibliography, and index the total narrative comes to a mere 253 pages, and at $14.95 its price was destined to welcome rather than frighten readers away.  I said to myself: “Here is a book people are likely to actually read!”  I bought it and read it in a weekend. I’m glad I did, but not for reasons one might expect.
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Last week, The Design of Life: Discovering Signs of Intelligence In Biological Systems was in the 17,000-20,000 range at Amazon.com. Since the Darwinist-sponsored negative-review spam campaign (with “reviews” written mostly by people who obviously had not read the book), and as of this writing, the book is sitting at about 3,000, and is: #1 in Books > Professional & Technical > Professional Science > Biological Sciences > Biology > Developmental Biology #1 in Books > Science > Biological Sciences > Biology > Developmental Biology

A thoughtful article by a perceptive engineer. A good example of priming the Origins Debate pump. —————————— Let’s open minds, textbooks to intelligent design theories Intricacies of Earth life-forms, microscopes challenge evolution ideas Gordon Rose, Letter, Indianapolis Star Dec. 15, 2007 “In our school systems today, science, with its dramatic and continual advancement in knowledge, has to be one of the most interesting as well as important subjects being taught. Strangely enough, it is here that we are teaching unchallenged, the biggest lie in education — the theory of evolution. Not that the theory shouldn’t be taught — it should, simply because it is believed to be true by so many scientists. But the latest research with modern tools such Read More ›

This is a recurring challenge that most recently reared its head in a comment concerning my essay, Why Mathematicians, Computer Scientists, and Engineers Tend to be More Skeptical of Darwinian Claims.

The argument goes like this (as presented by the commenter in the link provided above):

The majority of degreed computer scientists, engineers, and mathematicians have completed no college course work in the life sciences. Virtually all have college physics under their belts. Some studied chemistry in college. Relatively few enrolled in college courses in biology.

Among “expert” critics of scholarly fields not their own, at most one in a thousand makes a substantive contribution. If UD should happen to be chock-full of engineers, computer scientists, and mathematicians who have all caught life scientists in fundamental error, then it would constitute a singular event in the history of science.

If UD readers promise not to tell anyone, I’ll disclose a secret about my college academic training.

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Larry Moran’s presentation in a comment in Granville Sewell’s UD post, I found not particularly persuasive, for the following reasons. I’m not interested in definitions of science; I’m interested in how stuff actually works. I’m perfectly amenable to being convinced that the complexity, information content, and machinery of living systems can be explained by stochastic processes filtered by natural selection, and I would not even demand hard evidence, just some rigorous argumentation based on the following:
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Pope Benedict XVI has formally challenged governments to address the moral issue of placing humanity above the environment. He calls for political decisions to be based on sound science, not political agendas. His challenge to sound science over ideological pressures parallels issues in the origins debate. Note particularly the parallels between differing presuppositions versus consequences of Darwinism, Intelligent Design, and Creationism. The Pope’s message highlights the importance of sound science in following the truth wherever the data leads, versus political environmental movements with explicit or implicit agendas diverging from or running contrary to the data. ———————– UPDATE: The Pope’s message advocates responsible stewardship based on prudent policies undistorted by ideological pressures. The post title was changed to reflect the Pope’s Read More ›

In a previous UD thread, a dude named Poachy (where do these guys get these screen names?), with much sarcasm about a comment I made, proposed: We need to start voting with our feet and eschew all but the medical advances that come from application of the ID paradigm. Here’s a prediction and a potential medical application from ID theory: Design a chemical or protein which would require a triple CCC to defeat its toxic effects on a bacterium, and it will exhaust the probabilistic resources of blind-watchmaker mechanisms to counteract the toxic effects. Such a success could and will only come from engineering and reverse-engineering efforts, not from Darwinian theory. In the meantime, medical doctors should prescribe multiple antibiotics Read More ›

* Can or should the State of Texas remain neutral on origin theories? * Can politicians enforce such a principle? * Would remaining neutral violate the First Amendment? Consider the following recent events that offer a remarkable contrast to the case of denying tenure to astronomer Gonzalez: ——————– State science curriculum director resigns Move comes months before comprehensive curriculum review.Click-2-Listen By Laura Heinauer AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF Thursday, November 29, 2007 “The state’s director of science curriculum has resigned after being accused of creating the appearance of bias against teaching intelligent design. Chris Comer, who has been the Texas Education Agency’s director of science curriculum for more than nine years, offered her resignation this month. Chris Comer is accused of misconduct, insubordination. Read More ›

My to-do list for some time has included addressing University of Oklahoma biochemist Phillip Klebba’s written response to my September 17, 2007 OU lecture at Meacham Auditorium. Klebba, during the Q&A, asserted that biologists know full well how the bacterial flagellum arose without the need for intelligent design. He then proceeded to describe a four-stage evolutionary process that went from a pilum to the type-three secretory system to an ATP-type motor to the full flagellum. I told him during the Q&A that he was bluffing and that his account of flagellar evolution did not provide the specificity needed to confirm its plausibility. He then lectured me on the fact that I’m not a biologist and thus was not in a position to make such a pronouncement. But the fact is that one does not have to be a biologist to assess Klebba’s claims. Rather, one needs some elementary facility with logic to see whether his claims stack up.

Fortunately, Klebba wrote up his proposal on flagellar evolution in an essay for the OU student newspaper (the essay appeared September 20, 2007 here). I urge UD readers to look at it carefully for it betrays the bankruptcy of evolutionary theorizing when it comes to explaining the emergence of molecular machines. Contrary to molecular and cell biologists such as James Shapiro and Franklin Harold, who regard current evolutionary explanations of molecular machines as spectacularly unsuccessful, Klebba proclaims that the problem is solved:

The evolutionary relationships that led to the bacterial flagellar motor — the poster of irreducible complexity for proponents of intelligent design — are now well-known among scientists studying the biochemistry of bacterial cell envelopes. In brief, the flagellar assembly, which propels bacteria through fluid environments, consists of a long, hollow polymeric filament, a basal body that holds the filament in the cell membrane system, and a molecular motor complex containing a stator and rotor that turn the filament around and around when it is energized.

I’m afraid that after all these years in the ID business, I’m still not entirely used to the brazenness of evolutionary theorists in proclaiming that its unsolved problems are solved. Klebba continues: Read More ›

In a previous UD thread Leo Stotch commented and inquired:

I see that you are now part of the Evolutionary Informatics Lab, Gil. That must be exciting, to now be part of the scientific work associated with ID. Any previews of coming features for us?

Exciting indeed. The only preview I can offer is that I plan to use my software engineering experience, expertise, and knowledge to shed light on proposed Darwinian evolutionary mechanisms and their potential efficacy in the real world.

Interestingly enough, my first inklings that the blind-watchmaker thesis was a con game began with my research into computational search algorithms and obstacles presented by combinatorial explosion. Further experience with real-world computer simulations (guidance, navigation and control software in aerospace R&D, and most recently with finite-element analysis programming) has convinced me that Darwinists are living in the dark ages, promoting a quaint 19th-century notion that has nothing ultimately meaningful to say about biological reality beyond finch-beak variation and bacterial antibiotic resistance.
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