Cautionary tale for Darwin Day: Darwin and the bounds of true science

_{Denyse O'Leary

February 11, 2014

Culture, Darwinism, News}

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Tomorrow, and the liturgical colour this year seems to be red.

But now back to 1857:

My dear Dr Gray

I must thank you for your two very valuable letters. It is extremely kind of you to say that my letters have not bored you very much, & it is almost incredible to me, for I am quite conscious that my speculations run quite beyond the bounds of true science.

Which would have been fine. If we don’t speculate, we don’t have any ideas to sort through.

But, a century and a half later, a mass following develops for whom “Although atheism might have been logically tenable before Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.” (Dawkins 1986) Many of them go into evolutionary biology.

Now Darwinism is consensus science in biology. Speculation is limited to jamming nature into his ideas, whether or not she fits. And his followers, given their emotional commitments, are just the people to do it.

So Michael Crichton’s (1942–2008 ) observations about consensus science come into play:

Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had…

Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough. Nobody says the consensus of scientists agrees that E=mc2. Nobody says the consensus is that the sun is 93 million miles away. It would never occur to anyone to speak that way.

No?

Get a load of this:

ASA executive director Randy Isaac explicitly encourages Christians to accept “consensus science,” and to trust specially informed experts. In an editorial in the American Scientific Affiliation Newsletter, he wrote,

One of the most important aspects of scientific methodology involves that of scientific consensus. Recognizing that every one of us as a scientist has subjective biases or incomplete knowledge that might influence our scientific understanding, the scientific community has developed a focus on consensus. When diverse scientists with expertise in a given topic, working from many different perspectives, independently obtain data and analyses that confirm a particular theory, and they come to substantial agreement among themselves, there is consensus.

Integrity in the science classroom means accurately reflecting the state of consensus at any given time.

The ASA respectfully listens and fosters discussions of such ideas, but in the end, the standards of consensus science and the basic creeds remain the appropriate criteria for assessing our progress. In all things, we seek a better understanding of what God has revealed to us through his Word and his creation.

A creed for people who never had an idea worth defending in their lives.

By contrast, the editors of the Cambridge journal Philosophy, published by the Royal Institute of Philosophy (2010), remind us that “scientific consensus is sleep inducing, intellectually speaking.”

Oh wait, that isn’t a contrast. These philosophers are just people who don’t want to go to sleep. Not like the others.

Hat tip: Daniel Quinones

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Comments

Simply put this discussion as a whole is a real waste of time as a whole. Between Darwinism as a religion, or intelligent design the fact that underlines all of this is that evolution actually happens. You don't need to look any farther than antibiotic resistance. Antibiotic resistance is when an organism who's natural physiology can destroy degrade or prevent a specific important part of a specific organism or all organisms life span. Antibiotic resistance can be shown to prove evolution due to the fact that microbes grow and die at a logarithmic rate and the few that survive will multiply and repopulate the environment. Its why when you are prescribed medication from a doctor you are told to finish it regardless upon how you feel. This is important because you could develop a form of the pathogen that is resistant to your cure that with a little recombination in your body could also not have protection in your body. This could result in a deadly form of the pathogen. This is the basis for evolution. Think generationally if it was to develop like this we as humans would start to die and eventually kill the population except the humans who naturally have antibodies that have a high affinity for this specific pathogen. Woh, that is all evolution. So to conclude who cares the religious perspective if you do not believe in evolution you have no ground to stand on. Darwinism is just a fanatical form of science, but to use it as a reason to not believe in fact is just a misunderstanding of fact. Thank youjacky92_{February 12, 2014
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Imagine an individual who decides to interview people who believe in evolution. Let's call him Bob. Following are his observations, along with actual conversations he had in a survey conducted with evolution believers. “I believe evolution,” a distinguished gentleman told him, “because science has thoroughly investigated the subject and is unanimous in its acceptance of it as fact.” “You place great trust in scientists,” Bob replied. “Their record testifies to their reliability, don’t you think?” he replied. His reason for believing evolution was echoed many times during my survey. Bob discovered that most believers of evolution are believers because they have been told that all intelligent people are believers. An obviously well-educated woman in her forties challenged Bob with this question: “What are your qualifications to dispute the findings of professional scientists?” “First,” Bob answered, “let me say that they dispute among themselves. They argue over when it happened, why it happened, how it happened, how fast it happened, and even if it happened at all!” “Now,” Bob continued, “to answer your question about my qualifications. What are the qualifications of a judge who sits on a case involving medical issues in which he is untrained? If he is intelligent and objective, he listens to the arguments of experts pro and con, and then decides on the basis of their testimony. How else can a person make a decision on various fields of knowledge in this age of specialization?” “But the subject of evolution is so technical,” she protested. Bob astutely answered: “Theodosius Dobzhansky [an evolutionary scientist] says that much of the work of scientists is beyond the comprehension of average laymen, but that evolution is not. He says it’s a matter of elementary biology. And George Gaylord Simpson [another prominent evolutionist] contents that it’s immoral to have blind faith, whether in a religious doctrine or in a scientific theory. He also says that it’s man’s responsibility to test the findings of specialists and then decide, and that a person doesn’t have to be a research biologist to evaluate the evidence on evolution.” “Too many people,” he concluded, “merely accept the opinions of others and repeat their ideas like parrots rather than taking time to examine the facts.” When she did not comment, he added: “You’d be amazed at how many people who believe evolution know practically nothing about it.” One cannot also fail to notice the type of “browbeating” or “brainwashing” they used. This is typified by the following brief summary from twelve books by eleven different evolutionists: ‘Evolution is universally accepted by scientists competent to judge. It is recognized by all responsible scientists. All reputable biologists agree that it is an established fact. No informed mind today denies that man descended from the fish. It is no longer a matter of doubt.’ ‘The evidence is overwhelming. No further proof is required by anyone who is free from old illusions and prejudices.’ That is the consensus of all these evolutionary writers. But when claims are so sweeping, so dogmatic, they become suspect. It seemed to me that evolutionists are trying to scare off opposition and inquiry by using a barrage of intimidating rhetoric. But why should someone who questions a theory be labeled incompetent, uninformed, a ‘prisoner of old illusions and prejudices’? Would scientists who really have the facts stoop to such unscientific, unreasonable tactics? True, this “psychological warfare,” this “brainwashing,” does make converts to the evolution belief. But nearly all those converts are usually defenseless when confronted by those who resist the arm twisting and ask for proof. One might respond “They only simplify it to avoid confusion." However, to avoid confusion they conceal the evidence, and in simplifying they oversimplify to the point of falsification. Indeed, that is just what Simpson says, that ‘the oversimplification of the horse fossil record amounts to falsification.’ And naturalist I. Sanderson writes: “This pleasantly neat evolutionary picture of orderly progression in tooth structures, loss of toes, increase in size, and wrist and ankle elongation has now unfortunately come under grave suspicion. “So many side-branches have been brought to light, so many intermediary forms are completely lacking that we can now only say that the classic description is no more than a guide to the probable steps by which the modern horse evolved.”Barb_{February 12, 2014
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After I learned that, I finally learned that Darwinism does not even have a mathematical basis in the first place:
“nobody to date has yet found a demarcation criterion according to which Darwin can be described as scientific” – Imre Lakatos (November 9, 1922 – February 2, 1974) a philosopher of mathematics and science, quote as stated in 1973 LSE Scientific Method Lecture Oxford University Seeks Mathemagician — May 5th, 2011 by Douglas Axe Excerpt: Grand theories in physics are usually expressed in mathematics. Newton’s mechanics and Einstein’s theory of special relativity are essentially equations. Words are needed only to interpret the terms. Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection has obstinately remained in words since 1859. … http://biologicinstitute.org/2011/05/05/oxford-university-seeks-mathemagician/ “However, mathematical population geneticists mainly deny that natural selection leads to optimization of any useful kind. This fifty-year old schism is intellectually damaging in itself, and has prevented improvements in our concept of what fitness is.” – On a 2011 Job Description for a Mathematician, at Oxford, to ‘fix’ the persistent mathematical problems with neo-Darwinism within two years. “On the other hand, I disagree that Darwin’s theory is as `solid as any explanation in science.; Disagree? I regard the claim as preposterous. Quantum electrodynamics is accurate to thirteen or so decimal places; so, too, general relativity. A leaf trembling in the wrong way would suffice to shatter either theory. What can Darwinian theory offer in comparison?” (Berlinski, D., “A Scientific Scandal?: David Berlinski & Critics,” Commentary, July 8, 2003) Active Information in Metabiology – Winston Ewert, William A. Dembski, Robert J. Marks II – 2013 Except page 9: (Gregory) Chaitin states [3], “For many years I have thought that it is a mathematical scandal that we do not have proof that Darwinian evolution works.” In fact, mathematics has consistently demonstrated that undirected Darwinian evolution does not work. http://bio-complexity.org/ojs/index.php/main/article/view/BIO-C.2013.4/BIO-C.2013.4 “It is our contention that if ‘random’ is given a serious and crucial interpretation from a probabilistic point of view, the randomness postulate is highly implausible and that an adequate scientific theory of evolution must await the discovery and elucidation of new natural laws—physical, physico-chemical, and biological.” Murray Eden, “Inadequacies of Neo-Darwinian Evolution as a Scientific Theory,” Mathematical Challenges to the Neo-Darwinian Interpretation of Evolution, editors Paul S. Moorhead and Martin M. Kaplan, June 1967, p. 109. Macroevolution, microevolution and chemistry: the devil is in the details – Dr. V. J. Torley – February 27, 2013 Excerpt: After all, mathematics, scientific laws and observed processes are supposed to form the basis of all scientific explanation. If none of these provides support for Darwinian macroevolution, then why on earth should we accept it? Indeed, why does macroevolution belong in the province of science at all, if its scientific basis cannot be demonstrated? https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/macroevolution-microevolution-and-chemistry-the-devil-is-in-the-details/
Nor do Darwinist have any evidence that mutations are truly random:
What Scientific Idea Is Ready To Be Retired? Fully Random Mutations – Kevin Kelly – Jan. 2014 Excerpt: What is commonly called “random mutation” does not in fact occur in a mathematically random pattern. The process of genetic mutation is extremely complex, with multiple pathways, involving more than one system. Current research suggests most spontaneous mutations occur as errors in the repair process for damaged DNA. Neither the damage nor the errors in repair have been shown to be random in where they occur, how they occur, or when they occur. Rather, the idea that mutations are random is simply a widely held assumption by non-specialists and even many teachers of biology. There is no direct evidence for it.,,, Mutations have also been shown to have a higher chance of occurring near a place in DNA where mutations have already occurred, creating mutation hotspot clusters—a non-random pattern.,,, ,,,the lack of direct evidence for actual random mutations has now reached a stage where the idea needs to be retired. There are several related reasons why this unsubstantiated idea continues to be repeated without evidence. The first is fear that non-random mutations would be misunderstood and twisted by creationists,,, Per 'The Edge' Revisiting the Central Dogma in the 21st Century – James A. Shapiro – 2009 Excerpt (Page 12): Underlying the central dogma and conventional views of genome evolution was the idea that the genome is a stable structure that changes rarely and accidentally by chemical fluctuations (106) or replication errors. This view has had to change with the realization that maintenance of genome stability is an active cellular function and the discovery of numerous dedicated biochemical systems for restructuring DNA molecules.(107–110) Genetic change is almost always the result of cellular action on the genome. These natural processes are analogous to human genetic engineering,,, (Page 14) Genome change arises as a consequence of natural genetic engineering, not from accidents. Replication errors and DNA damage are subject to cell surveillance and correction. When DNA damage correction does produce novel genetic structures, natural genetic engineering functions, such as mutator polymerases and nonhomologous end-joining complexes, are involved. Realizing that DNA change is a biochemical process means that it is subject to regulation like other cellular activities. Thus, we expect to see genome change occurring in response to different stimuli (Table 1) and operating nonrandomly throughout the genome, guided by various types of intermolecular contacts (Table 1 of Ref. 112). http://shapiro.bsd.uchicago.edu/Shapiro2009.AnnNYAcadSciMS.RevisitingCentral%20Dogma.pdf
Nor do Darwinists have any evidence that Natural Selection can 'see' at the molecular level:
The GS Principle (The Genetic Selection Principle) – Abel – 2009 Excerpt: The GS Principle, sometimes called “The 2nd Law of Biology,” states that selection must occur at the molecular/genetic level, not just at the fittest phenotypic/organismic level, to produce and explain life.,,, Natural selection cannot operate at the genetic level. http://www.bioscience.org/2009/v14/af/3426/fulltext.htm
This devastating ‘princess and the pea’ problem for natural selection is pointed out by Dr. John Sanford at the 8:14 minute mark of this following video,,,
Genetic Entropy – Dr. John Sanford – Evolution vs. Reality – video http://vimeo.com/35088933
Moreover, as if all that were not bad enough for Darwinists, dimensionally speaking, mutations are completely invisible to Natural Selection!
“Although living things occupy a three-dimensional space, their internal physiology and anatomy operate as if they were four-dimensional. Quarter-power scaling laws are perhaps as universal and as uniquely biological as the biochemical pathways of metabolism, the structure and function of the genetic code and the process of natural selection.,,, The conclusion here is inescapable, that the driving force for these invariant scaling laws cannot have been natural selection.” Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piatelli-Palmarini, What Darwin Got Wrong (London: Profile Books, 2010), p. 78-79
The reason why ’4-Dimensional’ metabolic pathways are impossible for Darwinism to explain is that Natural Selection operates on the 3-Dimensional phenotypes. ’4-Dimensional’ metabolic pathways are simply ‘invisible’ to natural selection. The reason why 4-Dimensional things are completely invisible to 3-Dimensional things is best illustrated by ‘flatland’:
Flatland – 3D to 4D shift – Carl Sagan – video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnURElCzGc0
Thus, as far as I can tell, Darwinists have no empirical evidence, mathematical basis, nor do they even have a coherent mechanism to appeal to. Thus, for whatever severely misguided reason in their rebellion from God, they have preferred irrationality and sheer imagination over any inference to God whatsoever (no matter how powerful the inference may be),
ExPASy - Biochemical Pathways - interactive schematic http://web.expasy.org/cgi-bin/pathways/show_thumbnails.pl
and Darwinists have thus lost any claim as to being truly 'scientific' in their investigations. Why they rebel so strongly against any inference to God is a complete mystery to me. This is especially so since, in my study of Judeo-Christian Near Death Experiences, I find much evidence that should give any reasonable person enough motivation to at least hope, however tender, that 'The Greatest Story Ever Told' might pan out to be true:
"The only human emotion I could feel was pure, unrelenting, unconditional love. Take the unconditional love a mother has for a child and amplify it a thousand fold, then multiply exponentially. The result of your equation would be as a grain of sand is to all the beaches in the world. So, too, is the comparison between the love we experience on earth to what I felt during my experience. This love is so strong, that words like "love" make the description seem obscene. It was the most powerful and compelling feeling. But, it was so much more. I felt the presence of angels. I felt the presence of joyous souls, and they described to me a hundred lifetimes worth of knowledge about our divinity. Simultaneous to the deliverance of this knowledge, I knew I was in the presence of God. I never wanted to leave, never." Judeo-Christian Near Death Experience Testimony The Easter Question - Eben Alexander, M.D. - March 2013 Excerpt: More than ever since my near death experience, I consider myself a Christian -,,, Now, I can tell you that if someone had asked me, in the days before my NDE, what I thought of this (Easter) story, I would have said that it was lovely. But it remained just that -- a story. To say that the physical body of a man who had been brutally tortured and killed could simply get up and return to the world a few days later is to contradict every fact we know about the universe. It wasn't simply an unscientific idea. It was a downright anti-scientific one. But it is an idea that I now believe. Not in a lip-service way. Not in a dress-up-it's-Easter kind of way. I believe it with all my heart, and all my soul.,, We are, really and truly, made in God's image. But most of the time we are sadly unaware of this fact. We are unconscious both of our intimate kinship with God, and of His constant presence with us. On the level of our everyday consciousness, this is a world of separation -- one where people and objects move about, occasionally interacting with each other, but where essentially we are always alone. But this cold dead world of separate objects is an illusion. It's not the world we actually live in.,,, ,,He (God) is right here with each of us right now, seeing what we see, suffering what we suffer... and hoping desperately that we will keep our hope and faith in Him. Because that hope and faith will be triumphant. per Huffington Post
Verse and Music:
John 14:1-3 "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. Nickelback - If Today Was Your Last Day [OFFICIAL VIDEO] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrXIQQ8PeRs
bornagain77_{February 11, 2014
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And apparently it did not even matter to Darwinists that the proposed route to the Flagellum through exaptation of the Type III Secretory System, that they themselves had postulated, was subsequently falsified. In fact the route that they had proposed was shown to be, most likely, completely backwards to what actually happened:
Genetic Entropy Refutation of Nick Matzke's TTSS (type III secretion system) to Flagellum Evolutionary Narrative: Excerpt: Comparative genomic analysis show that flagellar genes have been differentially lost in endosymbiotic bacteria of insects. Only proteins involved in protein export within the flagella assembly pathway (type III secretion system and the basal-body) have been kept... http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/msn153v1 Phylogenetic Analyses of the Constituents of Type III Protein Secretion Systems Excerpt: We suggest that the flagellar apparatus was the evolutionary precursor of Type III protein secretion systems. http://www.horizonpress.com/jmmb/v2/v2n2/02.pdf "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)
The next thing that I had hoped would falsify Darwinian claims, (and perhaps win a few atheists over), was Genetic Entropy:
Dr. John Sanford Genetic Entropy and the Mystery of the Genome 1/2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJ-4umGkgos 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 “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/ 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
Darwinists simply have realistic no answer for such an overwhelming detrimental mutation rate. In fact, such an overwhelming detrimental mutation rate leaves Darwinism 'effectively falsified':
Using Numerical Simulation to Test the Validity of Neo-Darwinian Theory - 2008 Abstract: Evolutionary genetic theory has a series of apparent “fatal flaws” which are well known to population geneticists, but which have not been effectively communicated to other scientists or the public. These fatal flaws have been recognized by leaders in the field for many decades—based upon logic and mathematical formulations. However population geneticists have generally been very reluctant to openly acknowledge these theoretical problems, and a cloud of confusion has come to surround each issue. Numerical simulation provides a definitive tool for empirically testing the reality of these fatal flaws and can resolve the confusion. The program Mendel’s Accountant (Mendel) was developed for this purpose, and it is the first biologically-realistic forward-time population genetics numerical simulation program. This new program is a powerful research and teaching tool. When any reasonable set of biological parameters are used, Mendel provides overwhelming empirical evidence that all of the “fatal flaws” inherent in evolutionary genetic theory are real. This leaves evolutionary genetic theory effectively falsified—with a degree of certainty which should satisfy any reasonable and open-minded person. http://www.icr.org/i/pdf/technical/Using-Numerical-Simulation-to-Test-the-Validity-of-Neo-Darwinian-Theory.pdf
But again, even being 'effectively falsified does not matter to Darwinists, (at least the ones I've talked to), and they simply, once again, imagine that beneficial mutations will magically appear through a contrived thing called 'neutral evolution':
Majestic Ascent: Berlinski on Darwin on Trial - David Berlinski - November 2011 Excerpt: The publication in 1983 of Motoo Kimura's The Neutral Theory of Molecular Evolution consolidated ideas that Kimura had introduced in the late 1960s. On the molecular level, evolution is entirely stochastic, and if it proceeds at all, it proceeds by drift along a leaves-and-current model. Kimura's theories left the emergence of complex biological structures an enigma, but they played an important role in the local economy of belief. They allowed biologists to affirm that they welcomed responsible criticism. "A critique of neo-Darwinism," the Dutch biologist Gert Korthof boasted, "can be incorporated into neo-Darwinism if there is evidence and a good theory, which contributes to the progress of science." By this standard, if the Archangel Gabriel were to accept personal responsibility for the Cambrian explosion, his views would be widely described as neo-Darwinian. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/11/berlinski_on_darwin_on_trial053171.html Here is a Completely Different Way of Doing Science - Cornelius Hunter PhD. - April 2012 Excerpt: But how then could evolution proceed if mutations were just neutral? The idea was that neutral mutations would accrue until finally an earthquake, comet, volcano or some such would cause a major environmental shift which suddenly could make use of all those neutral mutations. Suddenly, those old mutations went from goat-to-hero, providing just the designs that were needed to cope with the new environmental challenge. It was another example of the incredible serendipity that evolutionists call upon. Too good to be true? Not for evolutionists. The neutral theory became quite popular in the literature. The idea that mutations were not brimming with cool innovations but were mostly bad or at best neutral, for some, went from an anathema to orthodoxy. And the idea that those neutral mutations would later magically provide the needed innovations became another evolutionary just-so story, told with conviction as though it was a scientific finding. Another problem with the theory of neutral molecular evolution is that it made even more obvious the awkward question of where these genes came from in the first place. http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2012/04/here-is-completely-different-way-of.html
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After being in this debate for a few years, I've finally found out that Darwinism is not now, nor has ever been, a science. It is, sans Dr. Cornelius Hunter, a religion in every sense of the word. Being extremely hard headed at times this lesson was hard for me to grasp. For years I thought that if only I could show atheists that their theory is/was false that then they would come around to their senses, and perhaps, might even seek a personal relationship, and eternal security for their soul, with God through Christ.
THE GREATEST GIFT – Yancy - music video http://www.worshiphousemedia.com/worship-tracks/22345/The-Greatest-Gift
But alas, such lofty hopes of mine, that 'new' atheists would be somewhat reasonable to the evidence, were severely misplaced as far as I can tell. Personally, I never gave evolution much thought until about twenty years ago when, after I had already been saved by the grace that is Christ (after a very low point in my life) for several years, I had read Evolution: A Theory In Crisis by Michael J. Denton, Darwin On Trial by Phillip Johnson, and Darwin's Black Box by Michael Behe. It was then that I first learned that Darwinism had some very severe problems with it. I was first immediately impressed, by Johnson's book, with the fact that the fossil record looks nothing like Darwinists maintain (especially with the Cambrian explosion and punctuated equilibrium). For me, naively, that was 'proof enough' to falsify Darwinism. But alas for a committed Darwinist, who wants nothing to do with God, the abruptness and overall stasis exhibited in fossil record is but mere child's play to avoid the Theistic implications of:
Seeing Ghosts in the Bushes (Part 2): How Is Common Descent Tested? – Paul Nelson – Feb. 2010 Excerpt: Fig. 6. Multiple possible ad hoc or auxiliary hypotheses are available to explain lack of congruence between the fossil record and cladistic predictions. These may be employed singly or in combination. Common descent (CD) is thus protected from observational challenge. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2010/02/seeing_ghosts_in_the_bushes_pa031061.html "What Would Disprove Evolution?" - July 10, 2012 Excerpt: Fossils are found in the "wrong place" all the time (either too early, or too late). Paleontological theory, however, allows for such devices as "ghost lineages" to repair the damage; see ENV's coverage here and here. (links on the site) Again, discordance between molecular and anatomical phylogenies is commonplace in systematics; see here.(link on the site) But we expect Coyne is able to handle these anomalies via his shock-absorbing adjective "complete," which allows an indefinitely large range of possibilities, short of "complete" discordance (whatever that means). http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/07/what_would_disp061891.html
In fact, Matzke, in pure Darwinian tradition, soon after Darwin's Doubt by Stephen Meyer was published last summer, rushed to publish a highly misleading cladistic system of classification on the Cambrian Explosion:
A One-Man Clade – David Berlinski – July 18, 2013 Excerpt: Matzke acknowledges the point without grasping its meaning. "... [P]hylogenetic methods as they exist now," he writes, "can only rigorously detect sister-group relationships, not direct ancestry, and, crucially, ... this is neither a significant flaw, nor any sort of challenge to common ancestry, nor any sort of evidence against evolution." But there can be no sisters without parents, and if cladistic analysis cannot detect their now mythical ancestors, it is hard to see what is obtained by calling them sisters. No challenge to common ancestry? Fine. But no support for common ancestry either. Questions of ancestry go beyond every cladistic system of classification, no matter the character states. It follows that questions with respect to the ancestry of various Cambrian phyla cannot be resolved by any cladistic system of classification, however its characters are defined. We are now traveling in all the old familiar circles. The claim made by Darwin's Doubt is that with respect to the ancestors of those Cambrian phyla, there is nothing there. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/07/a_one_man_clade074601.html
And this pattern of imagining non-existent ancestor relationships with cladograms is even more rampant once we get past the Cambrian Explosion:
Cladogram of common ancestors http://www.ib.bioninja.com.au/_Media/phylogeny_tree_med.jpeg
Such unsupported story telling in the fossil record led the editor of Nature, Henry Gee, to scoff,,
“No fossil is buried with its birth certificate. That, and the scarcity of fossils, means that it is effectively impossible to link fossils into chains of cause and effect in any valid way... To take a line of fossils and claim that they represent a lineage is not a scientific hypothesis that can be tested, but an assertion that carries the same validity as a bedtime story—amusing, perhaps even instructive, but not scientific.” - Henry Gee, editor of Nature, In Search of Deep Time: Beyond the Fossil Record to a New History of Life
Thus, for the determined Darwinist, the abruptness and overall stasis of the fossil record presents no problem at all, for he can merely imagine that the some supposed ancestor(s) existed and draw lines between existing fossils to this imagined ancestor(s) (at least that is how Matzke's cladistic argument appears to me after Berlinski explained what he was doing). The same sort of thing happened with Dr. Behe's irreducible complexity (IC) argument for the Flagellum:
Bacterial Flagellum - A Sheer Wonder Of Intelligent Design - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/3994630 Ken Miller's Inaccurate and Biased Evolution Curriculum - Casey Luskin - 2011 Excerpt: One mutation, one part knock out, it can't swim. Put that single gene back in we restore motility. ... knock out one part, put a good copy of the gene back in, and they can swim. By definition the system is irreducibly complex. We've done that with all 35 components of the flagellum, and we get the same effect. - Scott Minnich http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/07/ken_millers_inaccurate_and_bia048321.html
But instead of Darwinists ever falsifying Behe's irreducible complexity (IC) claim (and falsifying Intelligent Design in general in the process) by actually producing a flagellum by Darwinian processes,,,
Orr maintains that the theory of intelligent design is not falsifiable. He’s wrong. To falsify design theory a scientist need only experimentally demonstrate that a bacterial flagellum, or any other comparably complex system, could arise by natural selection. If that happened I would conclude that neither flagella nor any system of similar or lesser complexity had to have been designed. In short, biochemical design would be neatly disproved. - Dr Behe in 1997 Michael Behe on Falsifying Intelligent Design - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8jXXJN4o_A "There are no detailed Darwinian accounts for the evolution of any fundamental biochemical or cellular system only a variety of wishful speculations. It is remarkable that Darwinism is accepted as a satisfactory explanation of such a vast subject." James Shapiro - Molecular Biologist
instead of an actual falsification to Behe's IC claim for the flagellum by Darwinists, we are/were instead treated to the Darwinists 'imagining' that a flagellum (or any other IC molecular machine) can be had by what they termed 'exaptation':
Exaptation Did Michael Behe State Exaptation has been "Shown" to Produce Irreducible Complexity? Casey Luskin - August 2012 Excerpt: The "known evolutionary mechanisms" which have supposedly been "shown" to explain irreducible complexity pertain to exaptation (also called "co-option")--an idea which Behe mentioned and critiqued in Darwin's Black Box (see pp. 40, 66-67). In this process, parts are said to be borrowed (or "exapted" or "co-opted") from elsewhere in an organism and retooled to perform some new function http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/08/did_michael_beh063271.html
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