At Evolution News: There Is No Settled “Theory of Evolution”

Bornagain77 @104, The challenge is knowing just how far we can take logic and where we admit to faith. No, I don't think faith is a giant leap (Kierkegaard), nor do I believe that leaps of logic (Spinoza) are sufficient apart of experiment, experience, or revelation. FWIW, I prefer the word, TRUST, over the word, FAITH. To me, "faith" evokes my imaginations of monks in processions, chants echoing off stone walls, candles in the darkness, incense, and beautiful glowing stained-glass windows. To me, "trust" is simply when I come to the end of my own resources, and fully rely on the kind purposes, and assurances of my loving creator, YHVH God, and His plan through His son, Yeshua (Jesus), with the encouragement and comforting of the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit). What else do I have when my resources, body, and mind inevitably begin to fail? -Q Querius

In post 83, PMI does a lot of hand-waving, furiously trying to protect his worldview of Atheistic Naturalism from any criticism. Specifically, in post 81, I showed that since both Feynman and Einstein held falsification to be a foundational 'key to science', and since PMI, in his attempt to distance Darwinian evolution from the criteria of empirical falsification, was championing Lakatos and other philosophers of science who shunned Popper's criteria of falsification, , in post 81 I asked PMI,,,,

So tell me PMI, who should I listen to when it comes to the successful practice of modern science? Einstein and Feynman who have actually brought forth two of our most precisely tested theories ever in the history of science?, Or to some ‘armchair academic philosophers’ who are only theorizing about what it might take to make a good scientific theory?

To which PMI responded,

Being good at doing something is different from being good at understanding what it is that you are doing. A point that was first made, I believe, by Plato. Feynman is famous for having quipped, “philosophy of science is about as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds”. This overlooks the possibility that ornithology could indeed be quite useful to birds, if they could understand it.

Leaving aside the little fact that talking about doing something, and actually doing something are not even in the same ballpark as far as reality itself is concerned, what is interesting in all this is that Lakatos himself based much of his 'philosophy' for shunning the importance of empirical falsification on the Copernican revolution. In fact, Lakatos specifically stated that, "I thought that the Copernican revolution might in particular serve as an important test case between some contemporary philosophies of science."

Why did Copernicus’s research programme supersede Ptolemy’s? By Elie Zahar and Imre Lakatos – Excerpt of Introduction: I first should like to offer an apology for imposing a philosophical talk upon you on the occasion of the quincentenary of Copernicus’s birth. My excuse is that a few years ago I suggested a specific method for using history of science as an arbiter of some authority when it comes to debates in philosophy of science and I thought that the Copernican revolution might in particular serve as an important test case between some contemporary philosophies of science. https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/the-methodology-of-scientific-research-programmes/why-did-copernicuss-research-programme-supersede-ptolemys/CBBBCA4E3CD03277CB460AE91C3D3320

Lakatos was not alone in using the Copernican revolution as a model for developing a philosophy of science above and beyond Popper's falsification criteria. Thomas Kuhn, of 'paradigm shift' fame, was also heavily influenced by the Copernican revolution,,,

The Copernican Revolution: Planetary Astronomy in the Development of Western Thought – Thomas S. Kuhn – Excerpt of description: Mr. Kuhn displays the full scope of the Copernican Revolution as simultaneously an episode in the internal development of astronomy, a critical turning point in the evolution of scientific thought, and a crisis in Western man’s concept of his relation to the universe and to God. https://www.amazon.com/Copernican-Revolution-Planetary-Astronomy-Development/dp/0674171039

In short, the Copernican revolution removed the earth from the center of the solar system, (and supposedly from the center of the universe), and replaced it with the sun being at the center of the solar system. This removal of earth from centrality in the universe, as the Kuhn reference made clear, had dramatic negative consequences for "Western man’s concept of his relation to the universe and to God." Yet, (surprisingly), advances in science have now empirically falsified the Copernican revolution and have restored man, the earth, and the solar system itself, to centrality in the universe. Thus Lakatos's, (and Kuhn's) critique of Popper's falsification criteria collapses in on itself since empirical falsification itself undermined the Copernican revolution model that they had based their scientific philosophies on to try to supersede Popper.

And of final note to Lakatos and Kuhn’s apparently heavy reliance on the ‘Copernican revolution’, (in order for them to develop their philosophical critiques of Popper’s ‘naive’ falsification model), since the Copernican principle is now, itself, shown to be empirically false, then, obviously, in so far as Lakatos and Kuhn have both relied on the Copernican revolution in order for them to develop their specific (philosophical) arguments against Popper’s falsification criteria, their arguments collapse in on themselves. (Which is not to say that their philosophical standards for science don’t have some merit, but it is just to say that their specific arguments against Popper's falsification criteria in particular collapse in on themselves in so far as they relied on the Copernican model to do critique Popper's falsification criteria) https://uncommondescent.com/darwinism/richard-lewontin-1929-2021/#comment-733949

In post 81 I further noted that "all of science is dependent on essential Theistic, even Judeo-Christian, presuppositions, not on ‘naturalistic’ presuppositions." To which PMI responds,

As a matter of historical fact, sure, the scientific revolution in the West was shaped by Christianized Greco-Roman metaphysics. (Amos Funkenstein’s Theology and the Scientific Imagination is very insightful text about this process.) But does it follow that therefore science could not have developed independent of those background assumptions? It seems plausible that something like modern science would have developed in China, even if it never had contact with Western scholars.

That is a standard reply from atheists. And yet the fact remains that science never did developed in China, or in any other ancient cultures. It was only when Christianity gained prominence in Medieval Christian Europe that science finally found fertile ground to sprout, grow, and flourish.

The Christian Origins of Science - Jack Kerwick - Apr 15, 2017 Excerpt: Though it will doubtless come as an enormous shock to such Christophobic atheists as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and their ilk, it is nonetheless true that one especially significant contribution that Christianity made to the world is that of science.,,, Stark is blunt: “Real science arose only once: in Europe”—in Christian Europe. “China, Islam, India, and ancient Greece and Rome each had a highly developed alchemy. But only in Europe did alchemy develop into chemistry. By the same token, many societies developed elaborate systems of astrology, but only in Europe did astrology develop into astronomy.”,,, In summation, Stark writes: “The rise of science was not an extension of classical learning. It was the natural outgrowth of Christian doctrine: nature exists because it was created by God. In order to love and honor God, it is necessary to fully appreciate the wonders of his handiwork. Because God is perfect, his handiwork functions in accord with immutable principles. By the full use of our God-given powers of reason and observation, it ought to be possible to discover these principles.” He concludes: “These were the crucial ideas that explain why science arose in Christian Europe and nowhere else.” https://townhall.com/columnists/jackkerwick/2017/04/15/the-christian-origins-of-science-n2313593

In post 81 I further noted that,

assuming ‘methodological naturalism’ to be true as the supposed ‘ground rule’ for doing science, as atheists insist we do, (R. Lewontin, etc..), instead of providing a fruitful heuristic for doing science, actually drives science itself into catastrophic epistemological failure

To which PMI responds,

This appears to rely on the assumption that a naturalistic philosophy of science is impossible. In fact, a naturalistic philosophy of science was worked out in great detail almost a hundred years ago, by a philosopher named John Dewey.

Naturalism is simply a non-starter as to providing the necessary presuppositions for doing science. As Paul Davies noted, "even the most atheistic scientist accepts as an act of faith that the universe is not absurd, that there is a rational basis to physical existence manifested as law-like order in nature that is at least partly comprehensible to us. So science can proceed only if the scientist adopts an essentially theological worldview.”

Physics and the Mind of God: The Templeton Prize Address – by Paul Davies – August 1995 Excerpt: “People take it for granted that the physical world is both ordered and intelligible. The underlying order in nature-the laws of physics-are simply accepted as given, as brute facts. Nobody asks where they came from; at least they do not do so in polite company. However, even the most atheistic scientist accepts as an act of faith that the universe is not absurd, that there is a rational basis to physical existence manifested as law-like order in nature that is at least partly comprehensible to us. So science can proceed only if the scientist adopts an essentially theological worldview.” https://www.firstthings.com/article/1995/08/003-physics-and-the-mind-of-god-the-templeton-prize-address-24

To further undermine PMI's claim that naturalism and science are amendable, I simply note that there is a stunning lack of atheists behind the founding of any major branch of modern science

Founders of Modern Science Who Believe in GOD - Tihomir Dimitrov - (pg. 235) Scientific Disciplines – Bible-believing Scientists 1. Analytical Geometry – Rene Descartes – (1596-1650) 2. Anesthesiology – James Simpson – (1811-1870) 3. Antiseptic Surgery – Joseph Lister – (1827-1912) 4. Astronautics – Hermann Oberth – (1894-1989) – Wernher Von Braun – (1912-1977) 5. Atomic Physics – Joseph J. Thomson – (1856-1940) 6. Bacteriology – Louis Pasteur – (1822-1895) 7. Biology – John Ray – (1627-1705) 8. Calculus – Isaac Newton – (1642-1727) – Gottfried Leibniz – (1646-1716) 9. Cardiology – William Harvey – (1578-1657) 10. Celestial Mechanics – Johannes Kepler – (1571-1630) 11. Chemistry – Robert Boyle – (1627-1691) 12. Comparative Anatomy – Georges Cuvier – (1769-1832) 13. Computer Science – Charles Babbage – (1791-1871) 14. Cryology – Lord Kelvin – (1824-1907) 15. Differential Geometry – Carl Friedrich Gauss – (1777-1855) 16. Dimensional Analysis – Lord Rayleigh – (1842-1919) 17. Dynamics – Isaac Newton – (1642-1727) 18. Electrodynamics – James Clerk Maxwell – (1831-1879) Andre-marie Ampere – (1775-1836) 19. Electro-magnetics – Michael Faraday – (1791-1867) 20. Electronics – John Ambrose Fleming – (1849-1945) Michael Faraday – (1791-1867) 21. Electrophysiology – John Eccles – (1903-1997) 22. Embriology – William Harvey – (1578-1657) 23. Energetics – Lord Kelvin – (1824-1907) 24. Entomology Of Living Insects – Henri Fabre – (1823-1915) 25. Experimental Physics – Galileo Galilei – (1564-1642) 26. Field Theory – Michael Faraday – (1791-1867) 27. Fluid Mechanics – George Stokes – (1819-1903) 28. Galactic Astronomy – William Herschel – (1738-1822) 29. Gas Dynamics – Robert Boyle – (1627-1691) 30. Genetics – Gregor Mendel – (1822-1884) 31. Geology – Nicolaus Steno – (1638-1686) 32. Glacial Geology – Louis Agassiz – (1807-1873) 33. Gynecology – James Simpson – (1811-1870) 34. Heliocentric Cosmology – Nicolaus Copernicus – (1473-1543) 35. Hydraulics – Leonardo Da Vinci – (1452-1519) 36. Hydrodynamics – Blaise Pascal – (1623-1662) 37. Hydrography – Matthew Maury – (1806-1873) 38. Hydrostatics – Blaise Pascal – (1623-1662) 39. Ichthyology – Louis Agassiz -(1807-1873) 40. Immunology – Louis Pasteur – (1822-1895) 41. Isotopic Chemistry – William Ramsay – (1852-1916) 42. Laser Science – Charles Townes – (1915-2015) – Arthur Schawlow – (1921-1999) 43. Mathematical Analysis – Leonhard Euler – (1707-1783) 44. Microbiology – Louis Pasteur – (1822-1895) 45. Mineralogy – Georgius Agricola – (1494-1555) 46. Model Analysis – Lord Rayleigh – (1842-1919) 47. Modern Medicine – William Harvey – (1578-1657) 48. Nanotechnology – Richard Smalley – (1943-2005) 49. Natural History – John Ray – (1627-1705) 50. Non-euclidean Geometry – Bernhard Riemann – (1826-1866) 51. Number Theory – Carl Friedrich Gauss – (1777-1855) 52. Oceanography – Matthew Maury – (1806-1873) 53. Optical Mineralogy – David Brewster – (1781-1868) 54. Optics – Johannes Kepler – (1571-1630) 55. Paleontology – John Woodward – (1665-1728) – Georges Cuvier – (1769-1832) 56. Pathology – Rudolph Virchow – (1821-1902) 57. Physical Astronomy – Johannes Kepler – (1571-1630) 58. Physical Chemistry – Mikhail Lomonosov – (1711-1765) 59. Physiology – William Harvey – (1578-1657) 60. Quantum Mechanics – Max Planck – (1858-1947) – Werner Heisenberg – (1901-1976) 61. Reversible Thermodynamics – James Joule – (1818-1889) 62. Statistical Thermodynamics – James Clerk Maxwell – (1831-1879) 63. Stratigraphy – Nicolaus Steno – (1638-1686) 64. Systematic Biology – Carolus Linnaeus – (1707-1778) 65. Taxonomy – John Ray – (1627-1705) 66. Thermodynamics – Lord Kelvin – (1824-1907) 67. Thermokinetics – Humphry Davy – (1778-1829) 68. Transplantology – Alexis Carrel – (1873-1944) – Joseph E. Murray – (1919-2012) 69. Vertebrate Paleontology – Georges Cuvier – (1769-1832) 70. Wave Mechanics – Erwin Schroedinger – (1887-1961) https://www.academia.edu/2739607/Scientific_GOD_Journal

In post 81 I further noted to PMI,,,

atheistic materialist (who believes Darwinian evolution to be true) is forced to claim that he is merely a ‘neuronal illusion’ (Coyne, Dennett, etc..), who has the illusion of free will (Harris, Coyne), who has unreliable, (i.e. illusory), beliefs about reality (Plantinga), who has illusory perceptions of reality (Hoffman), who, since he has no real time empirical evidence substantiating his grandiose claims, must make up illusory “just so stories” with the illusory, and impotent, ‘designer substitute’ of natural selection (Behe, Gould, Sternberg), so as to ‘explain away’ the appearance (i.e. the illusion) of design (Crick, Dawkins), and who also must make up illusory meanings and purposes for his life since the hopelessness of the nihilism inherent in his atheistic worldview is simply too much for him to bear (Weikart), and who must also hold morality to be subjective and illusory since he has rejected God (Craig, Kreeft). Who, since beauty cannot be grounded within his materialistic worldview, must also hold beauty itself to be illusory (Darwin). Bottom line, nothing is truly real in the atheist’s worldview, least of all, beauty, morality, meaning and purposes for life.,,,

To which PMI furiously waves his hands and responds thusly,

All of those criticisms are spurious. They rely on outrageously bad misreadings of what the philosophers and scientists are saying. Sorry, but you’ve been duped. I’d explain how and why each of these claims is false, but since you’d dismiss anything else I say as “incoherent nonsense,” I’d rather not waste my energy.

I guess it takes a lot of energy to wave your hands trying to defend such incoherent nonsense, but anyways, here is a defense of each claim that I made,

April 18, 2021 – Naturalism undermines reality itself, - Defense of each claim https://uncommondescent.com/philosophy/philosopher-mary-midgeley-1919-2018-on-scientism/#comment-728595

Verse:

2 Corinthians 10:5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;

bornagain77

Thank you, Bornagain77, Silver Asiatic, and Kairosfocus for your great observations! Asauber @93

My 2 Cents: I think Truth is the thing that’s fundamental and any description of it is just the attempted description of it.

I agree and let me add that ALL knowledge consists of abstractions. This is not trivial. It also explains why engineers, physicists, and other experts in a conversation will often engage in something like this: A: (Makes a truth statement about some aspect of their domain of expertise.) B: Replies with "Well, actually the way it works is . . . " (makes a truth statement that drills down one level of detail). C: Replies to B with, "Yes, that's true to a point, but you also need to consider . . . (makes a truth statement that drills down yet another level of detail). What fun! -Q Querius

PyrrhoManiac1 @84, Are you familiar at all with the “grue” paradox in logic? https://www3.nd.edu/~jspeaks/courses/2007-8/20229/_HANDOUTS/grue.pdf What if the claim is that the sky is not blue, but actually grue? Out of curiosity, were you able to visualize the solution to the question of whether a unique sphere is determined by all sets of non-coplanar points without resorting to language? A truth can consist of dynamic relationships as well as static ones. Are there truths beyond the reach of a logical system (Gödel) or even language (as in sentences)? Let me remind you that a fundamental assumption in science is that people can even understand all scientific truths. It's not a given. -Q Querius

SA stated

The conversation began in response to the idea that truth has its origin in an immaterial mind (it is not a particular thing originating with various material entities) In that context, to say that truth is a property of sentences is to say that truth is a property of descriptions, narratives, arguments, dictionaries, crossword puzzles, lie-detectors, game shows. court cases … the list goes on, and that misses the point that was proposed about the origin or source of truth.

Bingo!, In post 75 PMI directly denied that truth is a property of the immaterial mind and claimed that "Truth is a property of sentences".,,,

BA77: Darwinists hold that Darwin’s theory is true. Yet ‘Truth’ itself is an abstract property of an immaterial mind that is irreducible to the reductive materialistic explanations of Darwinian evolution. i.e. Assuming reductive materialism and/or Naturalism as the starting philosophical position of science actually precludes ‘the truth’ from ever being reached by science! PMI: Nonsense. Truth is a property of sentences: a sentence is true if it corresponds to reality. Sentence are concrete particulars that get their sense from their inferential relationships with each other. Hence truth-as-correspondence is a relation between two systems of concrete particulars: the inferential network of sentences on the one hand, and the causal network of events and processes in the world.

PMI, in his claim that 'truth is a property of sentences', is claiming that truth does not find its primary basis in an immaterial mind but that truth finds its primary basis in sentences.

noun: property 1. a thing or things belonging to someone; possessions collectively. 2. an attribute, quality, or characteristic of something.

To repeat, PMI's claim that 'truth is a property of sentences' is absurd. For instance, as Asauber observed, sentences can be either true or false.

Asauber: "On the other hand, can we say that a lie is the property of sentences? If so, that makes PM1’s claim not only wrong, but maybe malicious."

Thus, since sentences can either be true or false, then truth can't possibly find its ultimate basis in sentences, and/or be a basic 'property' of sentences. As I pointed out at post 77 to PMI

BA77: it is ALWAYS an immaterial mind that judges whether a ‘abstract’ sentence written on a piece of paper may correspond to reality or not, i.e. whether it is true or not.

To which PMI doubled down on his claim that truth does not find its ultimate basis in an immaterial mind, and stated,

PMI: Immaterial minds have nothing to do with it. I mean, you can insist on it all you want, but insisting on it doesn’t make it true.

So to further illustrate that truth cannot possibly find its ultimate basis in sentences, and/or be a 'property' of sentences, but must ALWAYS find its ultimate basis in an immaterial mind, I will now reference Gödel's incompleteness theorem.

“Gödel’s incompleteness theorem (1931), proves that there are limits to what can be ascertained by mathematics. Kurt Gödel halted the achievement of a unifying all-encompassing theory of everything in his theorem that: “Anything you can draw a circle around cannot explain itself without referring to something outside the circle—something you have to assume but cannot prove”. – Stephen Hawking & Leonard Miodinow, The Grand Design (2010)

Godel proved that mathematical statements, i.e. 'mathematical sentences', are 'incomplete'. Which is to say that the 'whole truth' of any mathematical statement, any 'mathematical sentence', is not contained within the mathematical statement/sentence itself. As the following article states, "(Godel's incompleteness) showed that no matter how we formulate the axiomatic-deductive machinery, there will always exist true statements about numbers which this machinery cannot prove. This means that the ‘whole’ truth about numbers will forever remain outside the grasp of logical reasoning",,,

Godel’s theorems & the limits of reason Dr Asad Zaman - April 12, 2015 Excerpt: German logician Kurt Godel finally achieved spectacular and entirely unexpected results in this area. His first result was the Incompleteness Theorem. This showed that no matter how we formulate the axiomatic-deductive machinery, there will always exist true statements about numbers which this machinery cannot prove. This means that the ‘whole’ truth about numbers will forever remain outside the grasp of logical reasoning. The second was the Undecidability Theorem, which proves that logic cannot be used to decide the truth or falsity of certain statements. One famous example is Euclid’s Parallel Postulate. Whether it is true or false is a matter of choice, not logic. If we choose to deny this postulate, we create a non-Euclidean geometry which has its own valid and useful insights, quite different from the Euclidean world we studied in school. The Enlightenment hopes that man could reach truth purely by observations and logic, cannot be fulfilled even in the limited domain of mathematics. Godel proved what poets have always known, that transcendental truths are beyond the reach of reason: https://tribune.com.pk/story/868779/godels-theorems-the-limits-of-reason/

And since a sentence can be either true or false, (and since that, in and of itself, refutes PMI's claim), it is also very interesting to note exactly how Godel achieved his incompleteness proof that "the ‘whole’ truth about numbers will forever remain outside the grasp of logical reasoning". Godel derived his incompleteness proof via a variation of the liar paradox, (which is a sentence that, if true, is false, and that if false, is true.)

Liar paradox Excerpt: In philosophy and logic, the classical liar paradox or liar's paradox or antinomy of the liar is the statement of a liar that they are lying: for instance, declaring that "I am lying". If the liar is indeed lying, then the liar is telling the truth, which means the liar just lied. In "this sentence is a lie" the paradox is strengthened in order to make it amenable to more rigorous logical analysis.,,, If "this sentence is false" is true, then it is false, but the sentence states that it is false, and if it is false, then it must be true, and so on. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liar_paradox Roughly speaking, in proving the first incompleteness theorem, Gödel used a modified version of the liar paradox, replacing "this sentence is false" with "this sentence is not provable", called the "Gödel sentence G". His proof showed that for any sufficiently powerful theory T, G is true, but not provable in T. The analysis of the truth and provability of G is a formalized version of the analysis of the truth of the liar sentence.[19] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liar_paradox#Gödel's_first_incompleteness_theorem

Thus Godel derived his proof for mathematical incompleteness precisely from a (logical) sentence that inherently lacked the ability to have the 'truth' based within itself. All of which , obviously, completely destroys PMI's claim that 'truth is a property of sentences', and not a property of immaterial minds. Of supplemental and related note: the Christian founders of modern science held that any 'mathematical statements' that might describe this universe were "God's thoughts".

KEEP IT SIMPLE by Edward Feser – April 2020 Excerpt: Mathematics appears to describe a realm of entities with quasi-­divine attributes. The series of natural numbers is infinite. That one and one equal two and two and two equal four could not have been otherwise. Such mathematical truths never begin being true or cease being true; they hold eternally and immutably. The lines, planes, and figures studied by the geometer have a kind of perfection that the objects of our ­experience lack. Mathematical objects seem immaterial and known by pure reason rather than through the senses. Given the centrality of mathematics to scientific explanation, it seems in some way to be a cause of the natural world and its order. How can the mathematical realm be so apparently godlike? The traditional answer, originating in Neoplatonic philosophy and Augustinian theology, is that our knowledge of the mathematical realm is precisely knowledge, albeit inchoate, of the divine mind. Mathematical truths exhibit infinity, necessity, eternity, immutability, perfection, and immateriality because they are God’s thoughts, and they have such explanatory power in scientific theorizing because they are part of the blueprint implemented by God in creating the world. For some thinkers in this tradition, mathematics thus provides the starting point for an argument for the existence of God qua supreme intellect. https://www.firstthings.com/article/2020/04/keep-it-simple

And although modern day theoretical physicists are seemingly loathe to ever allow a ‘Divine foot in the door’, it is interesting to note that the belief that any mathematical truths that might describe this universe are “God’s thoughts” has not yet completely died out for modern theoretical physicists. In fact, Eugene Wigner, (who’s insights into quantum mechanics continue to drive breakthroughs in quantum mechanics; per A. Zeilinger), and Albert Einstein, who needs no introduction, are both on record as to regarding it as a miracle that math should even be applicable to the universe. Moreover, Wigner questioned Darwinism in the process of calling it a miracle, and Einstein even went so far as to chastise ‘professional atheists’ in his process of calling it a miracle.

The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences – Eugene Wigner – 1960 Excerpt: ,,certainly it is hard to believe that our reasoning power was brought, by Darwin’s process of natural selection, to the perfection which it seems to possess.,,, It is difficult to avoid the impression that a miracle confronts us here, quite comparable in its striking nature to the miracle that the human mind can string a thousand arguments together without getting itself into contradictions, or to the two miracles of the existence of laws of nature and of the human mind’s capacity to divine them.,,, The miracle of the appropriateness of the language of mathematics for the formulation of the laws of physics is a wonderful gift which we neither understand nor deserve. We should be grateful for it and hope that it will remain valid in future research and that it will extend, for better or for worse, to our pleasure, even though perhaps also to our bafflement, to wide branches of learning. https://www.maths.ed.ac.uk/~v1ranick/papers/wigner.pdf On the Rational Order of the World: a Letter to Maurice Solovine – Albert Einstein – March 30, 1952 Excerpt: “You find it strange that I consider the comprehensibility of the world (to the extent that we are authorized to speak of such a comprehensibility) as a miracle or as an eternal mystery. Well, a priori, one should expect a chaotic world, which cannot be grasped by the mind in any way .. the kind of order created by Newton’s theory of gravitation, for example, is wholly different. Even if a man proposes the axioms of the theory, the success of such a project presupposes a high degree of ordering of the objective world, and this could not be expected a priori. That is the ‘miracle’ which is constantly reinforced as our knowledge expands. There lies the weakness of positivists and professional atheists who are elated because they feel that they have not only successfully rid the world of gods but “bared the miracles.” -Albert Einstein http://inters.org/Einstein-Letter-Solovine

Moreover, when we rightly allow the Agent Causality of God ‘back’ into physics, as the Christian founders of modern science originally envisioned, and when we rightly allow the Agent Causality of God back into physics as quantum mechanics itself now empirically demands with the closing of the free will loophole by Anton Zeilinger and company,

Cosmic Bell Test Using Random Measurement Settings from High-Redshift Quasars – Anton Zeilinger – 14 June 2018 Excerpt: This experiment pushes back to at least 7.8 Gyr ago the most recent time by which any local-realist influences could have exploited the “freedom-of-choice” loophole to engineer the observed Bell violation, excluding any such mechanism from 96% of the space-time volume of the past light cone of our experiment, extending from the big bang to today. – per journals

,,, then that very reasonable concession on our part to rightly allow the Agent causality of God 'back' into physics provides us with a very plausible resolution for the much sought after ‘theory of everything’ in that Christ’s resurrection from the dead provides an empirically backed reconciliation, via the Shroud of Turin, between quantum mechanics and general relativity into the much sought after ‘Theory of Everything”. https://uncommondescent.com/philosophy/is-there-a-hole-at-the-bottom-of-math/#comment-731652 Verses:

Matthew 24:35 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away. John 14:6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. Colossians 1:15-20 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

bornagain77

AS

On the other hand, can we say that a lie is the property of sentences?

Yes so sentences would be both true and false. So that is irrational nonsense. A lie is not always evil. But it's always less perfect than the truth. But a lie can be more beneficial than the truth because some people's minds would not be able to understand the truth (like little children) and a lie can be best for them at a certain time. But that's because their mind is undeveloped or troubled by something - so a lie can be better in that case. But the truth is always more perfect in itself for what it is, and a lie is a defect and doesn't have permanent value. Silver Asiatic

On the other hand, can we say that a lie is the property of sentences? If so, that makes PM1's claim not only wrong, but maybe malicious. Me and my circle were watching a podcast discussion the other day concerning the question is lying always evil, but that's a digression. Andrew asauber

Andrew Yes, I took a break. I had to work on in-person relationships and get off-line for a while. I'm very glad you're still here! Silver Asiatic

Seversky

The first refers to what we assume to be an objective reality that exists beyond our subjective awareness and is not dependent on our perception of it for its continued existence. The nature of that reality is what we call truth.

Yes

Truth here refers to the extent to which those claims are observed to correspond to what they purport to describe and/or explain. In this context truth can clearly be a property of sentences.

The conversation began in response to the idea that truth has its origin in an immaterial mind (it is not a particular thing originating with various material entities) In that context, to say that truth is a property of sentences is to say that truth is a property of descriptions, narratives, arguments, dictionaries, crossword puzzles, lie-detectors, game shows. court cases ... the list goes on, and that misses the point that was proposed about the origin or source of truth. Silver Asiatic

SA, Welcome back from what I had perceived as you taking a break. Andrew asauber

Andrew - that's the way I see it also. You can't start with the description. You have to start with the recognition of the reality and that is what we call the truth. There are four things on the table. Not five, not zero. We know that truth before the sentences. Those things could be apples or coffee cups or something else, but the description doesn't change the reality. Silver Asiatic

KF

SA, it is reality that is antecedent to truth, which describes or indicates it accurately. KF

Yes, reality is antecedent and truth is an affirmation of reality, or what exists. That's the foundation. Sentences or descriptors come afterwards. Truth cannot be a property of sentences. Truth = Reality = Being = The Good (what is false is a defect, what is true tends towards perfection and goodness) This is inbuilt in human nature and in the universe. It can't be a product of material entities. It's the necessary starting point for all human reason. It's not created by human minds, but human minds depend upon it. So, there is something more than materialism at work, and truth is evidence of design. Silver Asiatic

My 2 Cents: I think Truth is the thing that's fundamental and any description of it is just the attempted description of it. Andrew asauber

Sev, reality is antecedent to our contingent existence and is not an assumption. As propositions are eternal [when duly fleshed out] true propositions are also antecedent to our existence. Truth is not an assumption. KF PS, on objective truth in general, for convenient reference and record, I call attention to:

The truth claim, “there are no [generally knowable] objective truths regarding any matter (so, on any particular matter),” roughly equivalent to, “knowledge is inescapably only subjective or relative,” is an error. Which, happily, can be recognised and corrected. Often, such error is presented and made to seem plausible through the diversity of opinions assertion, with implication that none have or are in a position to have a generally warranted, objective conclusion. This, in extreme form, is a key thesis of the nihilism that haunts our civilisation, which we must detect, expose to the light of day, correct and dispel, in defence of civilisation and human dignity. (NB: Sometimes the blind men and the elephant fable is used to make it seem plausible, overlooking the narrator's implicit claim to objectivity. Oops!) Now, to set things aright, let’s symbolise: ~[O*G] with * as AND. This claims, it is false that there is an objective knowable truth, on the set of general definable topics, G. Ironically, it intends to describe not mere opinion but warranted, credible truth about knowledge in general. So, ~[O*G] is self referential as it is clearly about subject matter G, and is intended to be a well warranted objectively true claim. But it is itself therefore a truth claim about knowledge in general intended to be taken as objectively true, which is what it tries to deny as a possibility. So, it is self contradictory and necessarily false. In steps:

PHASE I: Let a proposition be represented by x G = x is a proposition asserting that some state of affairs regarding some identifiable matter in general including e.g. history, science, the secrets of our hearts, morality etc, is the case O = x is objective and knowable, being adequately warranted as credibly true} PHASE II: It is claimed, S= ~[O*G] = 1, 1 meaning true However, the subject of S is G, it therefore claims to be objectively true, O and is about G where it forbids O-status to any claim of type G so, ~[O*G] cannot be true per self referential incoherence ============= PHASE III: The Algebra, translating from S: ~[O*G] = 0 [as self referential and incoherent cf above] ~[~[O*G]] = 1 [the negation is therefore true] __________ O*G = 1 [condensing not of not] where, G [general truth claim including moral ones of course] So too, O [if an AND is true, each sub proposition is separately true] ================ CONCLUSION: That is, there are objective general, particular and -- as a key case -- moral truths; and a first, self evident one is that ~[O*G] is false, ~[O*G] = 0. Therefore, the set of knowable objective truths in general -- and embracing those that happen to be about states of affairs in regard to right conduct etc -- is non empty, it is not vacuous and we cannot play empty set square of opposition games with it.

That’s important. Also, there are many particular objective general and moral truths that are adequately warranted to be regarded as reliable. Try, Napoleon was once a European monarch and would be conqueror. Try, Jesus of Nazareth is a figure of history. Try, it is wrong to torture babies for fun, and more. Ours is a needlessly confused age, heading for trouble.

kairosfocus

SA, it is reality that is antecedent to truth, which describes or indicates it accurately. KF kairosfocus

PM1:

Truth is a property of sentences: a sentence is true if it corresponds to reality. Sentence are concrete particulars that get their sense from their inferential relationships with each other. Hence truth-as-correspondence is a relation between two systems of concrete particulars: the inferential network of sentences on the one hand, and the causal network of events and processes in the world.

1: I would refer to propositions that may be expressed in sentences or other similar representations, ponder say a hurricane warning flag. 2: I suggest, that we can have accurate perceptions and non verbal thoughts or even feelings and dispositions but such can be generally reduced to description languages at least in key part . . . say someone encounters God and experiences his glorious holiness, purity, redemptive love and radiant power. 3: So, bearing that in mind [BA77 et al, kindly note],discussion on propositions is, though not all of what truth is, WLOG. 4: I would simply state, per Ari Metaphysics 1011b, truth expressed in propositions says of what is that it is, and of what is not that it is not. A proposition, strictly being what is asserted to exist or be the case or be a relevant state of affairs. 5: Embracing possible worlds as substantially sufficiently complete descriptions of how this world or another is or may be or might have been etc, truth would be accurate description of such states as would obtain were the circumstances actualised. 6: Our world is full of cause effect bonds but causality relates to the contingent, necessary beings are the case but as framework to any world being possible are acausal, eternal, etc. KF kairosfocus

It seems to be that there is confusion here between two different usages of "truth". The first refers to what we assume to be an objective reality that exists beyond our subjective awareness and is not dependent on our perception of it for its continued existence. The nature of that reality is what we call truth. The second usage refers to the verbal theories, hypotheses, accounts, narratives, etc, we construct to describe and explain what we perceive of that reality. Truth here refers to the extent to which those claims are observed to correspond to what they purport to describe and/or explain. In this context truth can clearly be a property of sentences. Seversky

"truth is a property of sentences" No truth for young kids? PM1, I submit you aren't as smart as you think you are. Andrew asauber

BA77 and Querius explained it well.

And I would add that subjective conscious experience of a ‘truth’ ALWAYS precedes articulation in words, and/or the writing of sentences, of that truth.

Yes - the truth exists first. It cannot be the property of sentences. The truth is one of the "universals" - an immaterial concept. Material things are always specified and individualized. They are particular things. This coffee cup. This electron. This dolphin. This solar system. But universals are not limited to particular things. Like "a triangle". It's any three sided geometric shape.

Clearly, there is something about the color blue, i.e. the ‘truth of blue’, the ‘qualia’ of blue, that simply refuses to ever be reduced to mere words, no matter how many words we may use to describe the color blue to someone else.

We can see it with great works of art. The painting shows the love between mother and child. We know it is "true to life" but we cannot explain it by words.

“Truth” can be represented, and/or spoken, in sentences, but “Truth” can never be completely reduced to sentences. There is something about our ability to perceive, and appreciate, the ‘truth’ of something that forever escapes being completely articulated in words.

That's where we get our spiritual intuition also. Silver Asiatic

PM1

I guess I’m just baffled by the sheer dismissal at the idea that truth is a property of sentences.

I didn't give just a dismissal of that idea, but rather I explained very briefly that truth is at the foundation of reality. Truth is an indicator of "what is". Truth indicates what is real. So, truth is aligned with being. To say that truth is a property of sentences is to say that truth follows after the existence of sentences. A sentence exists, like "we're out of milk" and a component (property) of that sentence would be (in that view) that it is true or false. In this view, somehow, truth as a concept would exist only if we have sentences. But we have to take our understanding to a higher level. A sentence cannot exist without the concept of truth. One does not need language to recognize that something exists. We make many immediate choices all day long without using any language. The light is green, we can go. We just see the truth of that while driving. Is that a pothole or just a patch of black on the road? - we see (not speak or verbally think) the truth and move accordingly. Children who cannot form sentences recognize the truth of things against what is false. So, the reason it is absurd to think that truth follows upon the existence of sentences is that we need the concept of truth in order to even know what a sentence is. Truth is the concept by which we distinguish sentences from non-sentences - it cannot be a property of that which it defines. The truth must exist before any sentences exist. The first truth is that something exists. Then we are aware of truth by the statement "error exists". These are transcendent values. They are not products of material entities. Truth is the foundation of reason - it's at the basis of our rational mind. It starts with the Law of Identity. "Something exists. That is real." From that first statement we know (without the use of any sentences) "all else is not that thing". "We are out of milk". We know that because the refrigerator is empty. In one glance, we can see there is no milk there. We can see other things "we have eggs, we have salad dressing ..." We need not create sentences to understand the truth of what we see in the fridge. We see and understand.

When someone asserts “we’re out of milk” and in fact we’re not out of milk, haven’t they said something false? Isn’t it the sentence “we’re out of milk” that’s false, if in fact we’re not out of milk?

Yes, that's right. But the sentence follows after the reality that we observed. We saw the truth and then put it into a sentence. The truth is not a property of the sentence. We knew the truth before we had any sentence at all. From that, we already knew that the idea (even without stating it by a sentence) that we could drink some milk would be false.

It seems odd to me how someone would say that it is “absurd and irrational” to say that the sentence “we’re out of milk” is false, if it’s the case that we’re not out of milk, and that if we were indeed out of milk, then the sentence “we’re out of milk” would be true. This just seems like mere common sense to me, a far cry from “absurd and irrational”.

First of all, the use of common sense in this case is a good example of the rational intuition we have built into us (thus we are evidence of Design) - so yes, you're right. What you said is clear. We observe the reality. There's no milk. That's the truth. Then, anything that would deny that reality would be false. But putting these concepts into sentences would be a secondary condition. We already knew the truth before we needed the sentence. Silver Asiatic

Among many other false claims, PMI made this false claim, “Truth is a property of sentences”. Querius replied, "What we typically consider “truth” is by nature a multidimensional abstraction dependent on definition and context." And I would add that subjective conscious experience of a 'truth' ALWAYS precedes articulation in words, and/or the writing of sentences, of that truth. Querius used the example of the color blue to illustrate the fact that the 'truth of blue' cannot be reduced to mere words, and/or sentences, that describe blue.,, Specifically Querius asked, "Can you imagine blue without thinking of the word, “blue”. That question leads directly into 'hard problem of consciousness'. (i.e. qualia) Specifically, as Frank Jackson made clear in his philosophical argument ‘Mary’s Room’, no amount of scientific and physical examination on Mary’s part, (i.e. no amount of articulation of words on Mary's part), will ever reveal to Mary exactly what the inner subjective conscious experience, i.e. qualia, of the color blue actually is until Mary actually experiences what the color blue is for herself. (i.e. Mary will never know the 'truth of blue' from words alone, but only from experiencing the color blue first hand.)

11.2.1 Qualia - Perception (“The Hard Problem” ) Philosopher of the mind Frank Jackson imagined a thought experiment —Mary’s Room— to explain qualia and why it is such an intractable problem for science. The problem identified is referred to as the knowledge argument. Here is the description of the thought experiment: “Mary is a brilliant scientist who is, for whatever reason, forced to investigate the world from a black and white room via a black and white television monitor. She specializes in the neurophysiology of vision and acquires, let us suppose, all the physical information there is to obtain about what goes on when we see ripe tomatoes, or the sky, and use terms like 'red', 'blue', and so on. She discovers, for example, just which wavelength combinations from the sky stimulate the retina, and exactly how this produces via the central nervous system the contraction of the vocal cords and expulsion of air from the lungs that results in the uttering of the sentence 'The sky is blue'. (...) What will happen when Mary is released from her black and white room or is given a color television monitor? Will she learn anything or not?" Jackson believed that Mary did learn something new: she learned what it was like to experience color. "It seems just obvious that she will learn something about the world and our visual experience of it. But then is it inescapable that her previous knowledge was incomplete. But she had all the physical information. Ergo there is more to have than that, and Physicalism [materialism] is false.” https://www.urantia.org/study/seminar-presentations/is-there-design-in-nature#Emergence

Clearly, there is something about the color blue, i.e. the 'truth of blue', the 'qualia' of blue, that simply refuses to ever be reduced to mere words, no matter how many words we may use to describe the color blue to someone else. In short, the 'truth of blue' must be based, first and foremost, in consciousness, in 'qualia', and therefore PMI's claim that “Truth is a property of sentences" is a false claim. "Truth" must be, first and foremost, a property of an immaterial mind, i.e. of 'qualia'.

The Mind and Materialist Superstition – Michael Egnor – 2008 Six “conditions of mind” that are irreconcilable with materialism: – Excerpt: Intentionality,,, Qualia,,, Persistence of Self-Identity,,, Restricted Access,,, Incorrigibility,,, Free Will,,, http://www.evolutionnews.org/2008/11/the_mind_and_materialist_super013961.html Qualia Excerpt: Examples of qualia include the perceived sensation of pain of a headache, the taste of wine, as well as the redness of an evening sky. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia

Although Darwinian materialists will often claim that consciousness is merely a 'neuronal illusion' (Coyne, Harris, Pinker, Dennett, etc.. etc..), Immaterial mind and/or consciousness, must be primary in any definition of reality we put forth. i.e. In any 'truth' that we may wish to articulate in words about reality. As Eugene Wigner explained, "The principal argument (against materialism) is that thought processes and consciousness are the primary concepts, that our knowledge of the external world is the content of our consciousness and that the consciousness, therefore, cannot be denied."

“The principal argument against materialism is not that illustrated in the last two sections: that it is incompatible with quantum theory. The principal argument is that thought processes and consciousness are the primary concepts, that our knowledge of the external world is the content of our consciousness and that the consciousness, therefore, cannot be denied. On the contrary, logically, the external world could be denied—though it is not very practical to do so. In the words of Niels Bohr, “The word consciousness, applied to ourselves as well as to others, is indispensable when dealing with the human situation.” In view of all this, one may well wonder how materialism, the doctrine that “life could be explained by sophisticated combinations of physical and chemical laws,” could so long be accepted by the majority of scientists." – Eugene Wigner, Remarks on the Mind-Body Question, pp 167-177

And as J.P. Moreland explained, “It is because we, (as souls), have a faculty of (immaterial) mind that we are capable of having concepts, thoughts, beliefs,,, things like that.”,,,

“It is because we, (as souls), have a faculty of (immaterial) mind that we are capable of having concepts, thoughts, beliefs,,, things like that.”,,, – J.P. Moreland – Is the Soul Immortal? https://youtu.be/QzbdT0GxAdk?t=209

So thus again, 'truth' must be, first and foremost, a property of consciousness, i.e. of the immaterial mind, and cannot be a primary 'property of sentences' as PMI tried to claim. "Truth" can be represented, and/or spoken, in sentences, but "Truth" can never be completely reduced to sentences. There is something about our ability to perceive, and appreciate, the 'truth' of something that forever escapes being completely articulated in words.

Dec. 2021 – Twenty Arguments For The Existence Of God – Peter Kreeft 11. The Argument from Truth This argument is closely related to the argument from consciousness. It comes mainly from Augustine. 1. Our limited minds can discover eternal truths about being. 2. Truth properly resides in a mind. 3. But the human mind is not eternal. 4. Therefore there must exist an eternal mind in which these truths reside. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/maori-creationism-is-okay-in-new-zealand-schools-objectors-could-be-booted-from-nzs-royal-society/#comment-741814

Verse:

John 14:6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

bornagain77

@82 I can imagine the color blue without mentally adding the linguistic tag, "and that's blue" -- but would I see it as blue if I didn't also the concept of blue? And would I have the concept of blue if I didn't know how to use the word "blue" (in English), "blau" (in German), etc? If I were a native speaker of Russian and had learned two different words for blue, would that affect my mental imagery? I guess I'm just baffled by the sheer dismissal at the idea that truth is a property of sentences. When someone asserts "we're out of milk" and in fact we're not out of milk, haven't they said something false? Isn't it the sentence "we're out of milk" that's false, if in fact we're not out of milk? It seems odd to me how someone would say that it is "absurd and irrational" to say that the sentence "we're out of milk" is false, if it's the case that we're not out of milk, and that if we were indeed out of milk, then the sentence "we're out of milk" would be true. This just seems like mere common sense to me, a far cry from "absurd and irrational". PyrrhoManiac1

@81

So tell me PMI, who should I listen to when it comes to the successful practice of modern science? Einstein and Feynman who have actually brought forth two of our most precisely tested theories ever in the history of science?, Or to some ‘armchair academic philosophers’ who are only theorizing about what it might take to make a good scientific theory?

Being good at doing something is different from being good at understanding what it is that you are doing. A point that was first made, I believe, by Plato. Feynman is famous for having quipped, "philosophy of science is about as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds". This overlooks the possibility that ornithology could indeed be quite useful to birds, if they could understand it.

all of science is dependent on essential Theistic, even Judeo-Christian, presuppositions, not on ‘naturalistic’ presuppositions.

As a matter of historical fact, sure, the scientific revolution in the West was shaped by Christianized Greco-Roman metaphysics. (Amos Funkenstein's Theology and the Scientific Imagination is very insightful text about this process.) But does it follow that therefore science could not have developed independent of those background assumptions? It seems plausible that something like modern science would have developed in China, even if it never had contact with Western scholars. In any event, it doesn't seem at all plausible to me that the intelligibility of a social practice necessarily depends on the cultural background assumptions at the time that social practice was developed. That's like saying that since capitalism took shape in Protestant societies (as per Max Weber's thesis), that no Protestant society could ever adopt capitalism. Clearly that's daft.

assuming ‘methodological naturalism’ to be true as the supposed ‘ground rule’ for doing science, as atheists insist we do, (R. Lewontin, etc..), instead of providing a fruitful heuristic for doing science, actually drives science itself into catastrophic epistemological failure

This appears to rely on the assumption that a naturalistic philosophy of science is impossible. In fact, a naturalistic philosophy of science was worked out in great detail almost a hundred years ago, by a philosopher named John Dewey.

atheistic materialist (who believes Darwinian evolution to be true) is forced to claim that he is merely a ‘neuronal illusion’ (Coyne, Dennett, etc..), who has the illusion of free will (Harris, Coyne), who has unreliable, (i.e. illusory), beliefs about reality (Plantinga), who has illusory perceptions of reality (Hoffman), who, since he has no real time empirical evidence substantiating his grandiose claims, must make up illusory “just so stories” with the illusory, and impotent, ‘designer substitute’ of natural selection (Behe, Gould, Sternberg), so as to ‘explain away’ the appearance (i.e. the illusion) of design (Crick, Dawkins), and who also must make up illusory meanings and purposes for his life since the hopelessness of the nihilism inherent in his atheistic worldview is simply too much for him to bear (Weikart), and who must also hold morality to be subjective and illusory since he has rejected God (Craig, Kreeft). Who, since beauty cannot be grounded within his materialistic worldview, must also hold beauty itself to be illusory (Darwin). Bottom line, nothing is truly real in the atheist’s worldview, least of all, beauty, morality, meaning and purposes for life.,,,

All of those criticisms are spurious. They rely on outrageously bad misreadings of what the philosophers and scientists are saying. Sorry, but you've been duped. I'd explain how and why each of these claims is false, but since you'd dismiss anything else I say as "incoherent nonsense," I'd rather not waste my energy. PyrrhoManiac1

PyrrhoManiac1 @80,

So here’s the question — and it by no means a simple one! — do we think in language? Or do we think in some other medium which we then translate into language when we express our thoughts?

That’s easy. I generally think in concepts and images that I later have to articulate. Here’s a simple example from a conversation with a mathematician. “Do four non-colinear, non-coplanar points always define a unique sphere?” I quickly answered “yes,” based on my imagining three non-colinear points (defining a plane), and a single point off that plane. I imagined the three points forming a unique circle on which rested a soap bubble with a point located on the soap bubble. By moving the point in space, I “saw” the soap bubble changing size regardless of where the point went off the plane. I did this immediately and wordlessly. Can you do this, too? I believe that musicians, artists, athletes, and chess masters also practice their arts wordlessly. I agree with Silver Asiatic @78 when he states

The idea “Truth is a property of sentences” is absurd and irrational.

Philosophically, I’d quote the Wisdom of Lao Tzu that “A dao that may be spoken is not the enduring Dao.” Along the lines of Bornagain77, Yeshua of Nazareth was quoted as saying “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” He was also described as the incarnation of the Logos (word, message, reason, plan, concept) that was with God and was God from the beginning, which is very deep. What we typically consider “truth” is by nature a multidimensional abstraction dependent on definition and context. “Is the sky blue?” - No, it ranges from black gray to multiple shades of blue to white. - No, it’s always black on the moon. - No, it depends on where the observer is located. - No, it depends on what day in history. - No, it depends on the color of my sunglasses. - No, it usually varies depending on where one is looking (horizon, mottled with clouds, etc.) - It depends on the whether the measured wavelength of the light on a spectrometer is between 450 and 495 nm. And so on. Can you imagine blue without thinking of the word, “blue”? -Q Querius

PMI, trying to blow smoke for his preferred, ahem, 'theory', once again flails about and states, "That’s because Lakatos was skeptical that there was any demarcation criterion for ever being able to determine whether a theory counted as “scientific” or not." It is interesting to note that many 'academic atheists', and particularly Darwinists, (as PMI is doing now), will often scoff at Popper’s criteria of falsification (since Darwin's theory has been experimentally falsified time and time again, see post 73), yet Richard Feynman himself, primary founder of Quantum Electrodynamics (QED), thought that falsifiability was the ‘key to science’. i.e. “If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science.”

“Now I’m going to discuss how we would look for a new law. In general, we look for a new law by the following process. First, we guess it (audience laughter), no, don’t laugh, that’s the truth. Then we compute the consequences of the guess, to see what, if this is right, if this law we guess is right, to see what it would imply and then we compare the computation results to nature or we say compare to experiment or experience, compare it directly with observations to see if it works. If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science. It doesn’t make any difference how beautiful your guess is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are who made the guess, or what his name is … If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong. That’s all there is to it.” – Richard Feynman – Richard Feynman Teaches you the Scientific Method https://fs.blog/2009/12/mental-model-scientific-method/

Shoot, even Einstein himself also held falsification in great esteem

“The scientific theorist is not to be envied. For Nature, or more precisely experiment, is an inexorable and not very friendly judge of his work. It never says “Yes” to a theory. In the most favorable cases it says “Maybe,” and in the great majority of cases simply “No.” If an experiment agrees with a theory it means for the latter “Maybe,” and if it does not agree it means “No.” – Einstein

Moreover, if any theories have ever survived repeated attempts at empirical falsification, and came out the other end with flying colors, Feynman’s theory of Quantum Electrodynamics (QED) and Einstein’s theories of relativity are those theories.

“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 The Most Precisely Tested Theory in the History of Science – May 5, 2011 Excerpt: So, which of the two (general relativity or QED) is The Most Precisely Tested Theory in the History of Science? It’s a little tough to quantify a title like that, but I think relativity can claim to have tested the smallest effects. Things like the aluminum ion clock experiments showing shifts in the rate of a clock set moving at a few m/s, or raised by a foot, measure relativistic shifts of a few parts in 10^16. That is, if one clock ticks 10,000,000,000,000,000 times, the other ticks 9,999,999,999,999,999 times. That’s an impressively tiny effect, but the measured value is in good agreement with the predictions of relativity. In the end, though, I have to give the nod to QED, because while the absolute effects in relativity may be smaller, the precision of the measurements in QED is more impressive. Experimental tests of relativity measure tiny shifts, but to only a few decimal places. Experimental tests of QED measure small shifts, but to an absurd number of decimal places. The most impressive of these is the “anomalous magnetic moment of the electron,” expressed is terms of a number g whose best measured value is: g/2 = 1.001 159 652 180 73 (28) Depending on how you want to count it, that’s either 11 or 14 digits of precision (the value you would expect without QED is exactly 1, so in some sense, the shift really starts with the first non-zero decimal place), which is just incredible. And QED correctly predicts all those decimal places (at least to within the measurement uncertainty, given by the two digits in parentheses at the end of that). http://scienceblogs.com/principles/2011/05/05/the-most-precisely-tested-theo/

So tell me PMI, who should I listen to when it comes to the successful practice of modern science? Einstein and Feynman who have actually brought forth two of our most precisely tested theories ever in the history of science?, Or to some 'armchair academic philosophers' who are only theorizing about what it might take to make a good scientific theory? For me, the answer is not even close. For you, well, that is another matter entirely. Moreover, in regards to having a coherent overarching philosophy/worldview for 'doing science' in the first place, atheistic naturalism, i.e. 'methodological naturalism', is simply a non-starter as a coherent overarching philosophy/worldview in which to base the practice of modern science.,,, In fact, all of science is dependent on essential Theistic, even Judeo-Christian, presuppositions, not on 'naturalistic' presuppositions.

“Science in its modern form arose in the Western civilization alone, among all the cultures of the world”, because only the Christian West possessed the necessary “intellectual presuppositions”. – Ian Barbour Presupposition 1: The contingency of nature “In 1277, the Etienne Tempier, the bishop of Paris, writing with support of Pope John XXI, condemned “necessarian theology” and 219 separate theses influenced by Greek philosophy about what God could and couldn’t do.”,, “The order in nature could have been otherwise (therefore) the job of the natural philosopher, (i.e. scientist), was not to ask what God must have done but (to ask) what God actually did.” Presupposition 2: The intelligibility of nature “Modern science was inspired by the conviction that the universe is the product of a rational mind who designed it to be understood and who (also) designed the human mind to understand it.” (i.e. human exceptionalism), “God created us in his own image so that we could share in his own thoughts” – Johannes Kepler Presupposition 3: Human Fallibility “Humans are vulnerable to self-deception, flights of fancy, and jumping to conclusions.”, (i.e. original sin), Scientists must therefore employ “systematic experimental methods.” (Francis Bacon’s championing of inductive reasoning over and above the deductive reasoning of the ancient Greeks) – Stephen Meyer on Intelligent Design and The Return of the God Hypothesis – Hoover Institution https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_8PPO-cAlA

Moreover, casting aside those Judeo-Christian presuppositions, and assuming 'methodological naturalism' to be true as the supposed 'ground rule' for doing science, as atheists insist we do, (R. Lewontin, etc..), instead of providing a fruitful heuristic for doing science, actually drives science itself into catastrophic epistemological failure,

Basically, because of reductive materialism (and/or methodological naturalism), the atheistic materialist (who believes Darwinian evolution to be true) is forced to claim that he is merely a ‘neuronal illusion’ (Coyne, Dennett, etc..), who has the illusion of free will (Harris, Coyne), who has unreliable, (i.e. illusory), beliefs about reality (Plantinga), who has illusory perceptions of reality (Hoffman), who, since he has no real time empirical evidence substantiating his grandiose claims, must make up illusory “just so stories” with the illusory, and impotent, ‘designer substitute’ of natural selection (Behe, Gould, Sternberg), so as to ‘explain away’ the appearance (i.e. the illusion) of design (Crick, Dawkins), and who also must make up illusory meanings and purposes for his life since the hopelessness of the nihilism inherent in his atheistic worldview is simply too much for him to bear (Weikart), and who must also hold morality to be subjective and illusory since he has rejected God (Craig, Kreeft). Who, since beauty cannot be grounded within his materialistic worldview, must also hold beauty itself to be illusory (Darwin). Bottom line, nothing is truly real in the atheist’s worldview, least of all, beauty, morality, meaning and purposes for life.,,, April 18, 2021 - Defense of each claim https://uncommondescent.com/philosophy/philosopher-mary-midgeley-1919-2018-on-scientism/#comment-728595

Thus, although the Darwinian Atheist and/or Methodological Naturalist may firmly, and falsely, believe that he is on the terra firma of science (in his appeal, even demand, for naturalistic explanations over and above God as a viable explanation), the fact of the matter is that, when examining the details of his materialistic/naturalistic worldview, it is found that Darwinists/Atheists themselves are adrift in an ocean of fantasy and imagination with no discernible anchor for reality to grab on to. It would be hard to fathom a worldview more antagonistic to modern science, indeed more antagonistic to reality itself, than Atheistic materialism and/or methodological naturalism have turned out to be.

2 Corinthians 10:5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;

There was a bunch more incoherent nonsense that PMI rambled on about trying to protect his evolutionary worldview, but alas, I only have so much time in the day to deal with such stubborn insanity from evolutionists. bornagain77

@76

You do also realize that Lakatos himself, one of your quote-unquote “favorite philosopher(s) of science”, stated that “nobody to date has yet found a demarcation criterion according to which Darwin can be described as scientific” do you not?

That's because Lakatos was skeptical that there was any demarcation criterion for ever being able to determine whether a theory counted as "scientific" or not. Nothing to do with Darwinism per se. If you want to argue that evolutionary theory is a degenerating research program, then make your own argument, but to the best of my knowledge, Lakatos did not think that evolutionary theory was an example of a degenerating research program.

As Ernst Mayr himself conceded, “In biology, as several other people have shown, and I totally agree with them, there are no natural laws in biology corresponding to the natural laws of the physical sciences.”

So what? Lots of sciences don't have laws. What are the laws of psychology, or sociology? Heck, I'm suspicious of laws even in physics -- have you read Cartwright's How the Laws of Physics Lie. She argues that laws are just simplifying descriptions of causal regularities. I don't know enough philosophy of physics to evaluate it, but it doesn't seem bonkers to me. More to the point, laws do not explain anything. You need a model of the causal regularities that explains why the laws hold, to the extent that they do. The Boyle-Charles law tells you how to predict the pressure of a gas if you know the volume and temperature, but it doesn't tell you why those variables are precisely correlated. To do that, you need the kinetic theory of gases. Likewise, the inverse-square law tells you how to calculate the gravitational attraction between two masses, but it doesn't tell you why that happens -- to do that, you need a theory of how mass distorts the geometry of space-time. So the absence of laws in biology doesn't bother me -- what we need, and what we have, is a causal model of what tends to happen to populations of organisms over time as environmental conditions change.

But alas PMI, it is ALWAYS an immaterial mind that judges whether a ‘abstract’ sentence written on a piece of paper may correspond to reality or not, i.e. whether it is true or not.

Immaterial minds have nothing to do with it. I mean, you can insist on it all you want, but insisting on it doesn't make it true. @78

Truth is the means of recognizing “what is”. Something exists. Sentences are a by-product of that.

I defer to Aquinas: veritas est adaequatio intellect et res. Truth is the correspondence of intellect and reality. To grasp that something exists involves the intellect's awareness of that existence. So here's the question -- and it by no means a simple one! -- do we think in language? Or do we think in some other medium which we then translate into language when we express our thoughts? If we always think in language, then our true thoughts are true sentences -- even if only said to oneself. Or consider an example of a nonlinguistic animal. My cats can recognize the sound of the door being opened, or the food can being opened. But would it make sense to say "my cat believed that I wasn't home, and then realized that I was, and then realized that it had had a false belief?" I'm not sure that cats can have beliefs -- let alone false ones -- in the absence of a language that allows them to represent themselves as standing or as failing to stand in relation to the world. So while they can have knowledge, it's not a "justified true belief" kind of knowledge. PyrrhoManiac1

Yes Silver Asiatic it is, besides being absurd, the height of irony that an evolutionist, of all people, would try to claim that, "Truth is a property of sentences”. For crying out loud, the entire debate between ID and evolution boils down to the fact that unguided Darwinian processes can't account for the origin of information, i.e. can't even account for the origin of a simple sentence. In fact, this short sentence, "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog" is calculated by Winston Ewert, in this following video at the 10 minute mark, to contain 1000 bits of algorithmic specified complexity, (i.e. functional information), and thus to exceed the Universal Probability Bound (UPB) of 500 bits set by Dr. William Dembski

Proposed Information Metric: Conditional Kolmogorov Complexity - Winston Ewert - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fm3mm3ofAYU?

Of further note:

Answering an Objection: “You Can’t Measure Intelligent Design” Casey Luskin - July 16, 2021 Excerpt: Of course 10^150 represents the “probability bound” for the entire universe, but when we consider the number of elementary particles and time available for different zones of the universe, we obtain the following probability bounds, as well as the information content they represent, measured in bits: Universal probability bound: 10^-150 (or 498 bits) Galactic probability bound: 10^-96 (or 319 bits) Solar System probability bound: 10^-85 (or 282 bits) Earth probability bound: 10^-70 (or 232 bits) https://evolutionnews.org/2021/07/answering-an-objection-you-cant-measure-intelligent-design/ Dilbert - infinite monkeys - cartoon http://dilbert.com/fast/2013-12-12/ That Time Someone Actually Tested The Infinite Monkey Theorem (And Who Came Up With It) February 8, 2020 Excerpt: Regardless of who first put monkeys and typewriters together, the idea has captured the imaginations of many. And in recent times, a few brave researchers have attempted to test the hypothesis and see if they could get monkeys to produce Shakespearean works. For instance, in 2003, lecturers and students with the University of Plymouth’s Institute of Digital Arts and Technology (i-DAT) finagled a £2,000 (roughly $3,665 today) grant from the school’s Arts Council to place a single computer and keyboard in the Sulawesi crested macaques enclosure at the Paignton Zoo. After a month of monkeying around with the computer, Gum, Heather, Mistletoe, Elmo, Holly and Rowan (the macaques) had produced five pages of nonsense text, but otherwise seemed to limit their screen time to urinating and/or defecating on the computer until such time as it stopped working. According to i-DAT’s director, the project was successful though since, being live-streamed on the internet, it “provided very stimulating and fascinating viewing.” Moving on from there to the digital space, a program simulating such a random monkey, this time who could not poop and pee on the computer, was successfully able to create the first 19 letters of The Two Gentlemen of Verona, “VALENTINE. Cease to…” It only took 42,162,500,000 billion billion monkey-years for the virtual monkey to do it. In a similar experiment, The Monkey Shakespeare Simulator, after a mere 2,737,850 million billion billion billion monkey-years the virtual monkey produced part of a line from Henry IV: “RUMOUR. Open your ears…” Another attempt was made beginning on August 21, 2011. These virtual “monkeys” were actually millions of instances of a computer program running on Amazon’s SC2 cloud, with the program set up to spew out random sequences of nine characters. After only one month, they had (sort of) produced A Lover’s Complaint and were just shy of completing the entirety of Shakespeare’s other works. There was a catch, however. Once a “monkey” spewed out a nine-letter sequence that appeared in one of the works, that sequence was considered complete. According to mathematics professor, Dr Ian Steward, this was the only practical way to do the experiment since, “to type up the complete works in the correct order without mistakes would take much longer than the age of the universe.” http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2020/02/time-someone-actually-tested-infinite-monkey-theorem/

As Stephen Meyer has repeatedly noted, every time we find meaningful information, and trace that information to its source, we invariably come to an intelligent mind, an 'author', who created that information, not to some unguided material process,,, (or to infinite monkeys banging away on infinite typewriters :) )

Information Enigma (Where did the information in life come from?) - - Stephen Meyer - Doug Axe - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aA-FcnLsF1g

Verses and quote

Acts 3:15 You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. We are witnesses of this. John 1:1-4 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. "The most fundamental definition of reality is not matter or energy, but information–and it is the processing of information that lies at the root of all physical, biological, economic, and social phenomena." - Vlatko Vedral - Professor of Physics at the University of Oxford, and CQT (Centre for Quantum Technologies) at the National University of Singapore, and a Fellow of Wolfson College

bornagain77

BA77 @ 76 & 77 - brilliant. Its amazing to see the detailed references and citations you have at your fingertips. The idea “Truth is a property of sentences” is absurd and irrational. You can't have sentences without truth. Truth is not a property - it is foundational. Truth is the means of recognizing "what is". Something exists. Sentences are a by-product of that. Anyway, great response. Silver Asiatic

,,, Despite Darwinists constantly speaking as if their theory is on par with, say, general relativity and quantum electrodynamics, there simply is no physical and/or natural ‘law’ within the known universe that we can possibly measure in laboratory, (and thus provide a foundation for Darwinists to ever build a realistic mathematical model upon),,, As Brian Miller recently noted, “To fully comprehend the critique, one simply needs to imagine attempting to craft an evolutionary barometer that measures the selection pressure driving one organism to transform into something different (e.g., fish into an amphibian). The fact that no such instrument could be constructed highlights the fictitious nature of such mystical forces”

Darwin’s Theory of Natural Selection Has Left a Legacy of Confusion over Biological Adaptation Brian Miller – September 20, 2021 Excerpt: Evolutionary biologist Robert Reid stated: “Indeed the language of neo-Darwinism is so careless that the words ‘divine plan’ can be substituted for ‘selection pressure’ in any popular work in the biological literature without the slightest disruption in the logical flow of argument.” Robert Reid, Biological Emergences: Evolution by Natural Experiment, PP. 37-38 To fully comprehend the critique, one simply needs to imagine attempting to craft an evolutionary barometer that measures the selection pressure driving one organism to transform into something different (e.g., fish into an amphibian). The fact that no such instrument could be constructed highlights the fictitious nature of such mystical forces. https://evolutionnews.org/2021/09/darwins-theory-of-natural-selection-has-left-a-legacy-of-confusion-over-biological-adaptation/

Moreover, the second law of thermodynamics, entropy, a law with great mathematical explanatory power in science directly, or almost directly, contradicts the primary Darwinian claim that greater and greater levels of functional complexity can easily be had and/or ‘naturally selected’ for over long periods of time. Indeed, entropy’s main claim is that, over long periods of time, everything in the universe will eventually decay into simpler and simpler states until what is termed thermodynamic equilibrium is finally reached.

Why Tornados Running Backward do not Violate the Second Law – Granville Sewell Professor of Mathematics at University of Texas – El Paso – May 2012 – article with video Excerpt: So, how does the spontaneous rearrangement of matter on a rocky, barren, planet into human brains and spaceships and jet airplanes and nuclear power plants and libraries full of science texts and novels, and supercomputers running partial differential equation solving software , represent a less obvious or less spectacular violation of the second law—or at least of the fundamental natural principle behind this law—than tornados turning rubble into houses and cars? Can anyone even imagine a more spectacular violation? – per uncommon decent

This, (despite their angry denial to the contrary), is NOT a minor problem for Darwinists. As Eddington himself explained, “if your theory is found to be against the Second Law of Thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it to collapse in deepest humiliation.”

“The law that entropy always increases holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of Nature. If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell’s equations – then so much the worse for Maxwell’s equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation – well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the Second Law of Thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it to collapse in deepest humiliation.” – Arthur Eddington, New Pathways in Science

And whereas Darwinian evolution has no known 'law' to appeal to so as to build a realistic mathematical model, and to establish itself as a proper, testable, ‘hard’ science, Intelligent Design does not suffer from such an embarrassing disconnect from physical reality. In other words, Intelligent Design can appeal directly to ‘the laws of conservation of information’ (Dembski, Marks, etc..) in order to establish itself as a proper, testable, and rigorous ‘hard’ science.

Conservation of information, evolution, etc – Sept. 30, 2014 Excerpt: Kurt Gödel’s logical objection to Darwinian evolution: “The formation in geological time of the human body by the laws of physics (or any other laws of similar nature), starting from a random distribution of elementary particles and the field is as unlikely as the separation of the atmosphere into its components. The complexity of the living things has to be present within the material [from which they are derived] or in the laws [governing their formation].” Gödel – As quoted in H. Wang. “On `computabilism’ and physicalism: Some Problems.” in Nature’s Imagination, J. Cornwall, Ed, pp.161-189, Oxford University Press (1995). Gödel’s argument is that if evolution is unfolding from an initial state by mathematical laws of physics, it cannot generate any information not inherent from the start – and in his view, neither the primaeval environment nor the laws are information-rich enough.,,, More recently this led him (Dembski) to postulate a Law of Conservation of Information, or actually to consolidate the idea, first put forward by Nobel-prizewinner Peter Medawar in the 1980s. Medawar had shown, as others before him, that in mathematical and computational operations, no new information can be created, but new findings are always implicit in the original starting points – laws and axioms.,,, http://potiphar.jongarvey.co.uk/2014/09/30/conservation-of-information-evolution-etc/ Evolutionary Computing: The Invisible Hand of Intelligence – June 17, 2015 Excerpt: William Dembski and Robert Marks have shown that no evolutionary algorithm is superior to blind search — unless information is added from an intelligent cause, which means it is not, in the Darwinian sense, an evolutionary algorithm after all. This mathematically proven law, based on the accepted No Free Lunch Theorems, seems to be lost on the champions of evolutionary computing. Researchers keep confusing an evolutionary algorithm (a form of artificial selection) with “natural evolution.” ,,, ,, Any internally generated information is conserved or degraded by the law of Conservation of Information.,,, What Marks and Dembski (mathematically) prove is as scientifically valid and relevant as Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem in mathematics. You can’t prove a system of mathematics from within the system, and you can’t derive an information-rich pattern from within the pattern.,,, http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/06/evolutionary_co_1096931.html

In fact, there is a 10 million dollar prize being offered for the first person who can empirically falsify the theory of Intelligent Design,

Evolution 2.0 Prize: Unprecedented $10 Million Offered To Replicate Cellular Evolution – Jan 2020 Excerpt: An incentive prize ten times the size of the Nobel – believed to be the largest single award ever in basic science – is being offered to the person or team solving the largest mystery in history: how genetic code inside cells got there, and how cells intentionally self-organize, communicate, then purposely adapt. This $10 million challenge, the Evolution 2.0 Prize can be found at http://www.evo2.org.,, The Evolution 2.0 Prize is designed by Chicago engineer-turned-marketer-turned-business consultant Perry Marshall and his A-list team of partners. They include top genetic experts from Harvard and Oxford, plus a diverse group of investors from private banking, healthcare and biotechnology, software, real estate, publishing and more. “A germ resisting antibiotics does more programming in 12 minutes than a team of Google engineers can do in 12 days,” said Marshall. “One blade of grass is 10,000 years ahead of any computer. If a single firm in Silicon Valley held a fraction of the secrets of this natural code inside a single cell, they’d set the NASDAQ on fire. Organisms self-edit and reprogram in real time in a way that dwarfs anything manmade. If we crack this, it will literally change the course of aging, disease, A.I. and humanity.” https://www.prnewswire.com/in/news-releases/evolution-2-0-prize-unprecedented-10-million-offered-to-replicate-cellular-evolution-875038146.html

Verse:

1 Thessalonians 5:21 but test all things. Hold fast to what is good.

The shallow 'hand waving' style of PMI's apologetics for Darwinism goes on when he claims, "Truth is a property of sentences".,,, But alas PMI, it is ALWAYS an immaterial mind that judges whether a 'abstract' sentence written on a piece of paper may correspond to reality or not, i.e. whether it is true or not. Thus, in reality, the ability to discern what is 'truth' is to be considered, first and foremost, a property of an immaterial mind that reads a 'abstract' sentence and decides whether that sentence is true or not, and not the property of the 'abstract' sentences themselves that are written on paper. (i.e. Moreover, why should mathematical 'scribbles' written on a piece of paper in front of me have the audacity to correspond to some truth that is on the other side of the universe? (i.e. the 'miracle' of the applicability of mathematics to the universe, Wigner)

Dec. 2021 - Twenty Arguments For The Existence Of God – Peter Kreeft 11. The Argument from Truth This argument is closely related to the argument from consciousness. It comes mainly from Augustine. 1. Our limited minds can discover eternal truths about being. 2. Truth properly resides in a mind. 3. But the human mind is not eternal. 4. Therefore there must exist an eternal mind in which these truths reside. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/maori-creationism-is-okay-in-new-zealand-schools-objectors-could-be-booted-from-nzs-royal-society/#comment-741814

Verse:

John 14:6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

bornagain77

So PMI, since you have, basically, entirely rejected Popper falsification criteria, (and since you have also failed to give me any falsification criteria by which Darwinism, and/or atheism, can be falsified by empirical observation (and have thus, in principle, rejected the entire scientific method itself), you are, in effect, saying that there is no empirical evidence that can falsify evolution? Well, golly geee whiz, thanks for agreeing with my overall point that Darwinism simply is not falsifiable by experimental evidence. :) As to epicycles being added to protect a theory from empirical falsification (Lakatos), you do also realize that describes Darwinian atheism to a tee do you not?

Here’s That Algae Study That Decouples Phylogeny and Competition – June 17, 2014 Excerpt: “With each new absurdity another new complicated just-so story is woven into evolutionary theory. As Lakatos explained, some theories simply are not falsifiable. But as a result they sacrifice realism and parsimony.” – Cornelius Hunter http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2014/06/heres-that-algae-study-that-decouples.html

You do also realize that Lakatos himself, one of your quote-unquote "favorite philosopher(s) of science", stated that “nobody to date has yet found a demarcation criterion according to which Darwin can be described as scientific” do you not?

In his 1973 LSE Scientific Method Lecture 1[12] he (Lakatos) also claimed that “nobody to date has yet found a demarcation criterion according to which Darwin can be described as scientific”. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imre_Lakatos#Darwin.27s_theory Does Evolution have a Hard Core ? Excerpt: “ people think that there are goodies and baddies among scientific theories, and once you have defined a demarcation criterion. you should divide all your theories between the two groups. You would end up. for example, with a goodies list including Copernicus’s (Theory1), Galileo’s (T2), Kepler’s (T3), Newton’s (T4) … and Einstein’s (T5), along with but this is just my supposition Darwin’s (T6). Let me just anticipate that nobody to date has yet found a demarcation criterion according to which Darwin can be described as scientific, but this is exactly what we are looking for.” – Imre Lakatos (November 9, 1922 – February 2, 1974) a philosopher of mathematics and science, quote was as stated in 1973 LSE Scientific Method Lecture So basically, the demarcation problem is a fun mind-game philosophers enjoy playing, but when they realize the implications regarding the theory of evolution, they quickly back off… http://www.samizdat.qc.ca/cosmos/philo/hardcore_pg.htm

So PMI, even Lakatos himself, one of your favorite philosophers of science, was apparently disenchanted with the endless, evidence free, 'just-so story' telling of Darwinists. Moreover, the main reason that Darwinian evolution does not have a scientific ‘hard core’, i.e. the reason that “nobody to date has yet found a demarcation criterion according to which Darwin can be described as scientific” (Lakatos), is simply because Darwinian evolution has no mathematical model to test against. As Dr. Robert Marks states “Hard sciences are built on foundations of mathematics or definitive simulations. ,,, there exists no model successfully describing undirected Darwinian evolution. According to our current understanding, there never will be.,,,”

“There exists no model successfully describing undirected Darwinian evolution. Hard sciences are built on foundations of mathematics or definitive simulations. Examples include electromagnetics, Newtonian mechanics, geophysics, relativity, thermodynamics, quantum mechanics, optics, and many areas in biology. Those hoping to establish Darwinian evolution as a hard science with a model have either failed or inadvertently cheated. These models contain guidance mechanisms to land the airplane squarely on the target runway despite stochastic wind gusts. Not only can the guiding assistance be specifically identified in each proposed evolution model, its contribution to the success can be measured, in bits, as active information.,,,”,,, “there exists no model successfully describing undirected Darwinian evolution. According to our current understanding, there never will be.,,,” – Robert J. Marks II – Top Ten Questions and Objections to ‘Introduction to Evolutionary Informatics’ – June 12, 2017 https://evolutionnews.org/2017/06/top-ten-questions-and-objections-to-introduction-to-evolutionary-informatics/

And the primary reason why nobody has ever been able to build a realistic mathematical model of Darwinian evolution for us to test against is simply because there is no ‘law’ for mathematicians and physicists to ever build a realistic mathematical model upon: As Ernst Mayr himself conceded, “In biology, as several other people have shown, and I totally agree with them, there are no natural laws in biology corresponding to the natural laws of the physical sciences.”

The Evolution of Ernst: Interview with Ernst Mayr – 2004 (page 2 of 14) Excerpt: biology (Darwinian Evolution) differs from the physical sciences in that in the physical sciences, all theories, I don’t know exceptions so I think it’s probably a safe statement, all theories are based somehow or other on natural laws. In biology, as several other people have shown, and I totally agree with them, there are no natural laws in biology corresponding to the natural laws of the physical sciences. ,,, And so that’s what I do in this book. I show that the theoretical basis, you might call it, or I prefer to call it the philosophy of biology, has a totally different basis than the theories of physics. https://www.scientificamerican.com/media/pdf/0004D8E1-178C-10EB-978C83414B7F012C.pdf

In the following article, Roger Highfield makes much the same observation that Ernst Mayr did and states, ,,, “Whatever the case, those universal truths—’laws’—that physicists and chemists all rely upon appear relatively absent from biology.”

WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? Evolution is True – Roger Highfield – January 2014 Excerpt: If evolutionary biologists are really Seekers of the Truth, they need to focus more on finding the mathematical regularities of biology, following in the giant footsteps of Sewall Wright, JBS Haldane, Ronald Fisher and so on. ,,, Whatever the case, those universal truths—’laws’—that physicists and chemists all rely upon appear relatively absent from biology. Little seems to have changed from a decade ago when the late and great John Maynard Smith wrote a chapter on evolutionary game theory for a book on the most powerful equations of science: his contribution did not include a single equation. http://www.edge.org/response-detail/25468

Professor Murray Eden of MIT, in a paper entitled “Inadequacies of Neo-Darwinian Evolution as a Scientific Theory” stated that “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.”

“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. https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~christos/evol/compevol_files/Wistar-Eden-1.pdf

Despite Darwinists constantly speaking as if their theory is on par with, say, general relativity and quantum electrodynamics,,,

“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

bornagain77

@73

13. Darwinists hold that Darwin’s theory is true. Yet ‘Truth’ itself is an abstract property of an immaterial mind that is irreducible to the reductive materialistic explanations of Darwinian evolution. i.e. Assuming reductive materialism and/or Naturalism as the starting philosophical position of science actually precludes ‘the truth’ from ever being reached by science!

Nonsense. Truth is a property of sentences: a sentence is true if it corresponds to reality. Sentence are concrete particulars that get their sense from their inferential relationships with each other. Hence truth-as-correspondence is a relation between two systems of concrete particulars: the inferential network of sentences on the one hand, and the causal network of events and processes in the world.

14. Darwinists, due to their underlying naturalistic philosophy, insist that teleology (i.e. goal directed purpose) does not exist. Yet it is impossible for Biologists to do biological research without constantly invoking words that directly imply teleology. i.e. The very words that Biologists themselves are forced to use when they are doing their research falsifies Darwinian evolution.

Again, nonsense. The idea that evolutionary theory presupposes teleology (and hence cannot explain it) is a minority view, but it's gaining ground. (See "Teleology and Its Constitutive Role in Biology</a?") More importantly, teleology is no threat to naturalism. See Organisms, Agency, and Evolution by Walsh, "The Organism as Subject and Object of Evolution" by Levins and Lewontin, or "What Makes Biological Organisation Teleological?" PyrrhoManiac1

@73

Since you are, in effect, saying that atheistic evolution is easily falsifiable, perhaps you can point me to the exact falsification criteria that could potentially falsify one, or both, of the “gene-centric (or the) organism-centric approaches to evolutionary theory”?

This is not a good paraphrase of what I was saying. I was saying rather this: Hunter claims that evolutionary theorists are willing to give up anything as long as "atheistic naturalism" remains a doctrinal commitment. And that is sheer nonsense. The debate between gene-centered and organism-centered approaches to evolutionary theory has nothing at all to do with atheism. It's just apples and oranges. Hunter is utterly confused. As for Popper and falsificationism: it's been fairly well dissected amongst philosophers of science that Popper's philosophy of science is a mistake. There are a few problems with it. Firstly, Popper comes up with falsification because he sees no solution the problem of induction. And in one sense, he's right: the problem of induction in the simplest form cannot be solved. But Popper should have read more Peirce. If he had, he would have realized that we need to understand abduction, deduction, and induction as all playing distinct but important roles in reasoning. (Aside: since Popper thought that induction is a hopeless endeavor, it is a bit odd to see you championing both Popper and Bacon. They are on opposite sides of the question!) Second, Popper's conjecture-and-refutation model doesn't work. For one thing, it doesn't allow for the seemingly plausible idea that some conjectures are more reasonable than others. For another, it doesn't allow for the possibility that any conjecture can survive falsification if you add more ad hoc corollaries to the initial conjecture. Example: If hypothesis H deductively entails observation O1, and we don't observe O1, just add a corollary H2 to the initial hypothesis. (This is what happened with medieval astronomy and the various epicycles!) Eventually that all became far too cumbersome to use and we know what happened next. But Popper doesn't allow us to say that what the medieval astronomers were doing was unreasonable or not good science. So, Popper is not my favorite philosopher of science. I prefer Peirce, and also like Lakatos's distinction between progressive and regressive research programs. PyrrhoManiac1

BA77: You do realize that just confirms the thesis of the OP do you not? i.e. Everything within Darwinian theory is forfeitable save for atheistic naturalism itself. PMI: That’s sheer nonsense. Once you realize that Svensson is only referring to the lively debate between gene-centric and organism-centric approaches to evolutionary theory (that’s what all of his links point to, if one actually read them!), it becomes abundantly clear that Hunter is utterly mistaken.

"Sheer nonsense"? Really??? Since you are, in effect, saying that atheistic evolution is easily falsifiable, perhaps you can point me to the exact falsification criteria that could potentially falsify one, or both, of the "gene-centric (or the) organism-centric approaches to evolutionary theory"? i.e. Falsify one or both in one fell swoop so as to establish one, or both, of them as being scientific instead of being "metaphysical research programs'?

"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 Dubitable Darwin? Why Some Smart, Nonreligious People Doubt the Theory of Evolution - John Horgan - July 6, 2010 Excerpt: Early in his career, the philosopher Karl Popper ,, called evolution via natural selection “almost a tautology” and “not a testable scientific theory but a metaphysical research program.” Attacked for these criticisms, Popper took them back (in approx 1978). But when I interviewed him in 1992, he blurted out that he still found Darwin’s theory dissatisfying. “One ought to look for alternatives!” Popper exclaimed, banging his kitchen table. http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/dubitable-darwin-why-some-smart-nonreligious-people-doubt-the-theory-of-evolution/ “Our theory of evolution has become, as Popper described, one which cannot be refuted by any possible observations. Every conceivable observation can be fitted into it. It is thus “outside empirical science” but not necessarily false. No one can think of ways in which to test it. Ideas, either without basis or based on a few laboratory experiments carried out in extremely simplified systems have attained currency far beyond their validity. They have become part of an evolutionary dogma accepted by most of us as part of our training. The cure seems to us not to be a discarding of the modern synthesis of evolutionary theory, but more skepticism about many of its tenets.” Ehrlich, Paul and L.C. Birch (1967), “Evolutionary History and Population Biology,” Nature, 214:349-352, April 22, p. 352 https://afdave.wordpress.com/more-useful-quotes-for-creationists/ Central tenets of neo-Darwinism broken. Response to ‘Neo-Darwinism is just fine’ – 2015 Excerpt: “If, as the commentator seems to imply, we make neo-Darwinism so flexible as an idea that it can accept even those findings that the originators intended to be excluded by the theory it is then incumbent on modern neo-Darwinists to specify what would now falsify the theory. If nothing can do this then it is not a scientific theory.” – Denis Noble - President of International Union of Physiological Sciences https://jeb.biologists.org/content/218/16/2659

From my years of debating Darwinian atheists here on UD, it has been my experience thus far that there simply is no empirical evidence that they will ever accept as an empirical falsification of their theory. i.e. thus "Everything within Darwinian theory is forfeitable save for atheistic naturalism itself",,, that is, as far as I can tell, very much a valid claim. For instance, here are a few falsifications of Darwinian theory that I have compiled from my years of debating Darwinian atheists. Falsifications that Darwinian atheists simply ignore as if they do not matter to the scientific validity of their, ahem, "theory",

1. Darwin’s theory holds mutations to the genome to be random. The vast majority of mutations to the genome are not random but are now found to be ‘directed’. 2. Darwin’s theory holds that Natural Selection is the ‘designer substitute’ that produces the ‘appearance’ and/or illusion of design. Natural Selection, especially for multicellular organisms, is found to be grossly inadequate as the ‘designer substitute. 3. Darwin’s theory holds that mutations to DNA will eventually change the basic biological form of any given species into a new form of a brand new species. Yet, biological form is found to be irreducible to mutations to DNA, nor is biological form reducible to any other material particulars in biology one may wish to invoke. 4. Darwin’s theory, (via Fisher’s Theorem in population genetics), assumed there to be an equal proportion of good and bad mutations to DNA which were, ultimately, responsible for all the diversity and complexity of life we see on earth. Yet, the ratio of detrimental to beneficial mutations is overwhelmingly detrimental. Detrimental to such a point that it is seriously questioned whether there are any truly beneficial, information building, mutations whatsoever. 5. Charles Darwin himself held that the gradual unfolding of life would (someday) be self-evident in the fossil record. Yet, from the Cambrian Explosion onward, the fossil record is consistently characterized by the sudden appearance of a group/kind in the fossil record, (i.e. disparity), then rapid diversity within the group/kind, and then long term stability and even deterioration of variety within the overall group/kind, and within the specific species of the kind, over long periods of time. Of the few dozen or so fossils claimed as transitional, not one is uncontested as a true example of transition between major animal forms out of millions of collected fossils. Moreover, Fossils are found in the “wrong place” all the time (either too early, or too late). 6. Darwin’s theory, due to the randomness postulate, holds that patterns will not repeat themselves in supposedly widely divergent species. Yet thousands of instances of what is ironically called ‘convergent evolution’, on both the morphological and genetic level, falsifies the Darwinian belief that patterns will not repeat themselves in widely divergent species. 7. Charles Darwin himself stated that “If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.” Yet as Doug Axe pointed out, “Basically every gene and every new protein fold, there is nothing of significance that we can show that can be had in that gradualistic way. It’s all a mirage. None of it happens that way.” 8. Charles Darwin himself stated that “If it could be proved that any part of the structure of any one species had been formed for the exclusive good of another species, it would annihilate my theory, for such could not have been produced through natural selection.” Yet as Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig pointed out, “in thousands of plant species often entirely new organs have been formed for the exclusive good of more than 132,930 other species, these ‘ugly facts’ have annihilated Darwin’s theory as well as modern versions of it.” 9. Charles Darwin himself stated that, ““The impossibility of conceiving that this grand and wondrous universe, with our conscious selves, arose through chance, seems to me the chief argument for the existence of God. Yet ‘our conscious selves’ are certainly not explainable by ‘chance’ (nor is consciousness explainable by any possible reductive materialistic explanation in general), i.e. ‘the hard problem of consciousness’. 10. Besides the mathematics of probability consistently showing that Darwinian evolution is impossible, the mathematics of population genetics itself has now shown Darwinian evolution to be impossible. Moreover, ‘immaterial’ mathematics itself, which undergirds all of science, engineering and technology, is held by most mathematicians to exist in some timeless, unchanging, immaterial, Platonic realm. Yet, the reductive materialism that Darwinian theory is based upon denies the existence of the immaterial realm that mathematics exists in. i.e. Darwinian evolution actually denies the objective reality of the one thing, i.e. mathematics, that it most needs in order to be considered scientific in the first place! 11. Donald Hoffman has, via population genetics, shown that if Darwin’s materialistic theory were true then all our observations of reality would be illusory. Yet the scientific method itself is based on reliable observation. Moreover, Quantum Mechanics itself has now shown that conscious observation must come before material reality, i.e. falsification of ‘realism’ proves that our conscious observations are reliable!. 12. The reductive materialism that undergirds Darwinian thought holds that immaterial information is merely ’emergent’ from a material basis. Yet immaterial Information, via experimental realization of the “Maxwell’s Demon” thought experiment, is now found to be its own distinctive physical entity that, although it can interact in a ‘top down’ manner with matter and energy, is separate from matter and energy. 13. Darwinists hold that Darwin’s theory is true. Yet ‘Truth’ itself is an abstract property of an immaterial mind that is irreducible to the reductive materialistic explanations of Darwinian evolution. i.e. Assuming reductive materialism and/or Naturalism as the starting philosophical position of science actually precludes ‘the truth’ from ever being reached by science! 14. Darwinists, due to their underlying naturalistic philosophy, insist that teleology (i.e. goal directed purpose) does not exist. Yet it is impossible for Biologists to do biological research without constantly invoking words that directly imply teleology. i.e. The very words that Biologists themselves are forced to use when they are doing their research falsifies Darwinian evolution. Darwinism vs. Falsification - links to defense of each claim https://docs.google.com/document/d/1I6fT6ATY700Bsx2-JSFqL6l-rzXpMcZcZKZfYRS45h4/

Verse:

1 Thessalonians 5:21 but test all things. Hold fast to what is good.

bornagain77

@64

So, are you asserting that Gödel’s theorems are restricted to Peano Arithmetic? If so, you might want to review section 1.2.2 of the following article

Thank you for that suggestion -- it does appear that the incompleteness theorems have a wider scope than just the Peano axioms.

“Scientific facts” seem to be limited to a subset of measured data. Pretty much all else that we think we know consists of logical or speculative interpretations to varying degrees of likelihood. In quantum mechanics, the illustrious Dr. Sabine Hossenfelder often complains about the surfeit of speculation amid the dearth of data. In contrast, “truths” presumably transcend mere data and usually include unstated assumptions and context, and are subject to debate. Let me suggest that pretty much everything we generally hold in highest esteem is accessible only poorly, if at all, to science.

I think there's something to this, but I would phrase it differently, and that difference might matter -- or it could just be a semantic quibble. I quite agree that there all scientific facts are facts of measurement: of rates, duration, distance, energies, etc. So there are no scientific facts about whatever it is that we do not know how to measure. And I agree that much of what matters to us most, in our efforts to live virtuous and satisfactory lives in harmony with others, involves very little that can be objectively measured in that way. @65

You do realize that just confirms the thesis of the OP do you not? i.e. Everything within Darwinian theory is forfeitable save for atheistic naturalism itself.

That's sheer nonsense. Once you realize that Svensson is only referring to the lively debate between gene-centric and organism-centric approaches to evolutionary theory (that's what all of his links point to, if one actually read them!), it becomes abundantly clear that Hunter is utterly mistaken. @66

Would you agree that Karl Marx’s antipathy toward Christianity was more personal than social?

I would not compare one of Douglass's more mature, wise, and reflective statements with a bit of Marx's youthful exuberance. I wrote lots of bad poetry when I was 19 years old, too. (Though Douglass was only 27 when he wrote his autobiography!) Anything else I were to say about Marx would take us even further off-course from our main topic of conversation. @67

Kids going to school expect to be told the truth about every subject. That means they want to trust their teachers who, in turn, want to trust the contributors to the textbooks they use.

In my limited experience as a college teacher, I would say that students just care about doing well on standardized tests, because everyone tells them that that's all that matters. They don't believe what they recite on the tests, and more often than not they don't even retain it. A few years ago I had a reasonably bright student who knew nothing about the American Revolution. She admitted that she was exposed to the subject in school, took a test on it, did well on the test, and retained absolutely nothing. PyrrhoManiac1

Seversky/79 Monte Python--I like it. There used to be a commentor on this site that kept referring to me as the Black Knight from the Holy Grail. I don't recall who it was, but it was amusing in any event...... chuckdarwin

No Q, no issues here. bornagain77

Seversky @68, Nope, not me. I've got Malwarebytes operational, which has saved me several times, but no issues with the Stanford website. Anyone else? -Q Querius

Querius/64

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/goedel-incompleteness/

Anyone else getting a privacy error when clicking on this link?

Your connection is not private Attackers might be trying to steal your information from plato.stanford.edu (for example, passwords, messages, or credit cards). NET::ERR_CERT_COMMON_NAME_INVALID This server could not prove that it is plato.stanford.edu; its security certificate is from ramsey.stanford.edu. This may be caused by a misconfiguration or an attacker intercepting your connection.

Seversky

Ba77, Unguided evolution persists because the marketing campaign for it persists. Including on this site. Kids going to school expect to be told the truth about every subject. That means they want to trust their teachers who, in turn, want to trust the contributors to the textbooks they use. But, in order to control what the masses think, those who prefer them to think a certain way can and will distort the truth and even teach falsehood. For example: Evolution - nothing made you. The common story being the assumption that given a planet, any planet, once the conditions necessary for life exist, life will appear. This is fiction. There is no factual evidence for this. Intelligent Design - Someone made you. As more and more information is published about the actual inner workings of living things, it is apparent that blind, unguided evolution had neither the time or "desire" to go in any particular direction. relatd

PyrrhoManiac1 @62, Off topic, but I can't resist a reply.

I sometimes wonder if Marx would have been more charitable towards religion if he had had more experience with people of faith who side with the powerless and vulnerable. It’s easy to see Marx’s point when we consider someone like Pat Robertson, but much harder to agree with Marx when we consider someone like Desmond Tutu or Martin Luther King, Jr.

Consider the contrast between the attitudes and perspectives toward Christianity of Karl Marx and Frederick Douglass. In his 1845 book, Life of an American Slave, Frederick Douglass wrote

What I have said respecting and against religion, I mean strictly to apply to the slaveholding religion of this land, and with no possible reference to Christianity proper; for, between the Christianity of this land, and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference — so wide, that to receive the one as good, pure, and holy, is of necessity to reject the other as bad, corrupt, and wicked.

And here's a poem written by Karl Marx:

Invocation of One in Despair So a god has snatched from me my all In the curse and rack of Destiny. All his worlds are gone beyond recall! Nothing but revenge is left to me! On myself revenge I'll proudly wreak, On that being, that enthroned Lord, Make my strength a patchwork of what's weak, Leave my better self without reward! I shall build my throne high overhead, Cold, tremendous shall its summit be. For its bulwark-- superstitious dread, For its Marshall--blackest agony. Who looks on it with a healthy eye, Shall turn back, struck deathly pale and dumb; Clutched by blind and chill Mortality May his happiness prepare its tomb. And the Almighty's lightning shall rebound From that massive iron giant. If he bring my walls and towers down, Eternity shall raise them up, defiant.

Would you agree that Karl Marx's antipathy toward Christianity was more personal than social? -Q Querius

PMI "Of the signatories to that “third way”, I know something of the work by Noble, Jablonka, and Newman. They certainly don’t think that the Modern Synthesis is sufficient to explain evolution, but they also don’t think that evolution was “guided” in the sense that theistic evolutionists and some design theorists do." You do realize that just confirms the thesis of the OP do you not? i.e. Everything within Darwinian theory is forfeitable save for atheistic naturalism itself.

Evolutionists themselves can forfeit natural selection, random causes, common descent, etc. How do I know? Because it is in the literature. So, what is evolution? In other words, what is core to the theory — and not forfeitable? It’s naturalism. Period. That is the only thing required of evolutionary theory. And naturalism is a religious requirement, not a scientific one. Aside from naturalism, practically anything is fair game: Uncanny convergence, rapid divergence, lineage-specific biology, evolution of evolution, directed mutations, saltationism, unlikely simultaneous mutations, just-so stories, multiverses … the list goes on. But this is where it gets interesting. Because if you have two theories, you don’t have one theory. In other words, you have a multitude of contradictory theories. And you have heated debates because nothing seems to fit the data. In science, that is not a good sign. But it is exactly what evolutionists have had — for over a century now. There is no such thing as a settled theory of evolution. On that point, textbook orthodoxy is simply false. - Cornelius Hunter https://uncommondescent.com/evolution/at-evolution-news-there-is-no-settled-theory-of-evolution/

In other words, evolution, for all practical purposes, can't be falsified by experimental evidence and is, therefore, not even to be considered a scientific theory.

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

Of related note:

Scientists stunned by the public’s doubt of Darwin – April 22, 2014 Excerpt: (Stephen) Meyer said that view under-represents the real facts being discovered in evolutionary biology. “Very few leading evolutionary biologists today think that natural selection and random mutation are sufficient to produce the new forms of life we see arising in the history of life,” Meyer said. “And then when the public is catching wind of the scientific doubts of Darwinian evolution and expresses them in a poll like this, these self-appointed spokesmen for science say that the public is ignorant. But actually, the public is more in line with what’s going on in science than these spokesmen for science.” https://world.wng.org/2014/04/scientists_stunned_by_the_publics_doubt_of_darwin Lynn Margulis: Evolutionist and Critic of Neo-Darwinism - Stephen C. Meyer - April 25, 2014 Excerpt: in Chapters 15 and 16 of Darwin's Doubt, I addressed six new (that is, post neo-Darwinian) theories of evolution -- theories that proposed new mechanisms to either supplement or replace the reliance upon mutation and natural selection in neo-Darwinian theory.,, I show that, although several of these new evolutionary theories offer some intriguing advantages over the orthodox neo-Darwinian model, they too fail to offer adequate explanations for the origin of the genetic and epigenetic information necessary to account for new forms of animal life -- such as those that arise in the Cambrian period. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/04/lynn_margulis_e084871.html Darwin's Doubt (Part 9) by Paul Giem - video - The Post Darwinian World and Self Organization Chapter 15 and 16 of Darwin's Doubt in which 6 alternative models to neo-Darwinism, that have been proposed by evolutionists (such as those of the Altenberg 16) to 'make up' for the inadequacy in neo-Darwinism, are discussed and the failings of each model is exposed. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iREO1h4h-GU&index=10&list=PLHDSWJBW3DNUaMy2xdaup5ROw3u0_mK8t Time for serious pursuit of post-Darwinian theory, says new BIO-Complexity paper - December 15, 2014 Excerpt: The insights we gain from the critique of neo-Darwinism can and should inform the construction of a new theory to take its place. That is, in pinpointing the key problems with the old theory we are identifying crucial respects in which its replacement must differ from it. We ourselves have become convinced that intelligent causation is essential as a starting point for any successful theory of biological innovation. If this is so, what is needed now is an elaboration of the general principles by which living things have been designed. https://uncommondescent.com/evolution/time-for-serious-pursuit-of-post-darwinian-theory-says-new-bio-complexity-paper/

bornagain77

PyrrhoManiac1 @62,

I think that this obscures a very important difference. Gödel proved that any formal language that could express the Peano axioms for arithmetic cannot be complete: it must contain true propositions that cannot be proved using the axioms of that language.

So, are you asserting that Gödel’s theorems are restricted to Peano Arithmetic? If so, you might want to review section 1.2.2 of the following article: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/goedel-incompleteness/

Whether or not there are truths that cannot be verified by scientific means is, of course, an interesting and important question. I don’t mean to suggest otherwise. But I don’t think that one could establish as a scientific fact that there are such truths, which is what would be the analogue in science of what Gödel did for arithmetic.

“Scientific facts” seem to be limited to a subset of measured data. Pretty much all else that we think we know consists of logical or speculative interpretations to varying degrees of likelihood. In quantum mechanics, the illustrious Dr. Sabine Hossenfelder often complains about the surfeit of speculation amid the dearth of data. In contrast, “truths” presumably transcend mere data and usually include unstated assumptions and context, and are subject to debate. Let me suggest that pretty much everything we generally hold in highest esteem is accessible only poorly, if at all, to science. -Q Querius

Seversky at 61, And what point is that? The grimness of grim reality? In the 1950s, Bishop Fulton Sheen hosted a TV program called Life is Worth Living. I think he had a point. relatd

@32

So no ‘real’ scientist who holds to the false doctrine of ‘methodological naturalism’ doubts unguided Darwinian evolution?, i.e. does not doubt that random mutations and natural selection, all by their lonesome, can account for life and all the diversity therein? Really??? So who are all these ‘naturalistic’ scientists who are daring to doubt that unguided Darwinian processes are capable of explaining life and all the diversity therein?,, chopped liver???

Of the signatories to that "third way", I know something of the work by Noble, Jablonka, and Newman. They certainly don't think that the Modern Synthesis is sufficient to explain evolution, but they also don't think that evolution was "guided" in the sense that theistic evolutionists and some design theorists do. Noble and Newman have both done fascinating work on an organism-centered approach to evolution, and Jablonka has co-authored an incredible book (Evolution in Four Dimensions on the many different kinds of information transmission beyond genetics in the strict sense. @50

“In the mid-19th century, Karl Marx wrote that religion is “the opiate of the masses” – disconnecting disadvantaged people from the here and now, and dulling their engagement in progressive politics..”

Marx thought that the priests and pastors of his time used the idea of eternal reward in exchange for earthly suffering in order to prevent people from rebelling against those who exploited and dominated them. I sometimes wonder if Marx would have been more charitable towards religion if he had had more experience with people of faith who side with the powerless and vulnerable. It's easy to see Marx's point when we consider someone like Pat Robertson, but much harder to agree with Marx when we consider someone like Desmond Tutu or Martin Luther King, Jr. @52

But just as Kurt Gödel was able to prove in mathematics/logic that no single system could lead to all truth, the same limitation exists for the scientific method. In other words, there are valid truths unreachable by the scientific method. And that’s okay.

I think that this obscures a very important difference. Gödel proved that any formal language that could express the Peano axioms for arithmetic cannot be complete: it must contain true propositions that cannot be proved using the axioms of that language. There is nothing comparable in science: we have not shown (and I don't think could show) that scientific methods necessarily entail that some truths are beyond the scope of scientific methods. Whether or not there are truths that cannot be verified by scientific means is, of course, an interesting and important question. I don't mean to suggest otherwise. But I don't think that one could establish as a scientific fact that there are such truths, which is what would be the analogue in science of what Gödel did for arithmetic. PyrrhoManiac1

Relatd/50

“In the mid-19th century, Karl Marx wrote that religion is “the opiate of the masses” – disconnecting disadvantaged people from the here and now, and dulling their engagement in progressive politics..”

From the Wikipedia article about the quotation:

The quotation, in context, reads as follows (italics in original translation):

The foundation of irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion, religion does not make man. Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man – state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopaedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d’honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion. Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people [bold added]. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.

… Marx used the phrase to make a structural-functionalist argument about religion, and particularly about organized religion.[2][3] In his view, religion may be false, but it is a function of something real.[7] Specifically, Marx believed that religion had certain practical functions in society that were similar to the function of opium in a sick or injured person: it reduced people's immediate suffering and provided them with pleasant illusions which gave them the strength to carry on. In this sense, while Marx may have no sympathy for religion itself, he has deep sympathy for those proletariat who put their trust in it.[

I'm no Marxist but, in this case, I think he had a point. Seversky

Seversky at 59, I'm callin' in the Spanish Inquisition. No need for the Comfy Chair. relatd

Better watch out, CD, or you could be facing ... The Comfy Chair!! Seversky

CD at 57, Watch it buddy, I got contacts with the Spanish Inquisition... :) relatd

Relatd spoken like a true papist....... chuckdarwin

"Unfortunately, I think it’s a tendency among us all." Q, True. And when the answer to a Big Question hangs in the balance, fear/belief/pride just amplifies... and thus belligerent trolls are spawned. Andrew asauber

CD at 54, I'll break it down for you: You've got nothing, as in nothing. No Biology textbook evolution. An existing and growing body of evidence for Design in living things. Something anyone can investigate for themselves. You can call the Cardinal any name you want but he, and the Catholic Church, are on solid footing. relatd

Relatd/50 You are probably not going to find more diametrically opposed, hard-core idealogues than Marx and Schönborn. Out there on the fringe. Having said that, the point of your post escapes me........ chuckdarwin

Bornagain77 @49, Loved the quote from Crick! It also reminds be of a quote from H.L. Mencken, journalist, satirist, and atheist wit (yes, wit, not twit) when he said,

For every human problem, there is a solution. Neat. Plausible. And wrong.

This is how my quantitative analysis prof paraphrased the quote from the original, which I later located in in The Divine Afflatus (1917) if you want to look it up. I remind myself of this on many occasions, and often not frequently enough. (smile) -Q Querius

Asauber @43,

Translated: People on Our Side don’t have to be right about any particular item. We’re right even if we’re wrong. If they at some point regurgitate “Unguided Evolution” they are invincible.

Unfortunately, I think it's a tendency among us all. True science requires the self-discipline to navigate through our prejudices based on experimental evidence and logic. What's wrong is not to recognize or admit to the difference. The best scientists I've met were curious, open, and humble. The worst were opinionated and doctrinaire. But just as Kurt Gödel was able to prove in mathematics/logic that no single system could lead to all truth, the same limitation exists for the scientific method. In other words, there are valid truths unreachable by the scientific method. And that's okay. -Q Querius

PyrrhoManiac1 @30,

Personally, I agree with Denis Walsh in his Organisms, Agency, and Evolution that organism-centrism is not only the correct view but also a return to what Darwin originally accomplished.

I tend to agree, except that factors outside of DNA influencing DNA is becoming more obvious, pointing to engineering as a result. I think my opinion is supported by more recent discoveries of significant gen 0, gen 1, and longer-term adaptations.

Put otherwise, natural selection is not a cause of anything; it is an effect of what tends to happen to populations as a result of what organisms tend to do.

While the effect is on populations, the mechanism is on an individual scale. That’s why fixing an advantageous trait (I’m thinking of insects on windy islands losing their ability to fly) is surprisingly difficult. As a side note, I don’t know of any instances of de novo traits, although at least one disabled trait could be artificially restored through cross breeding (i.e. not spontaneous): https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982207022622

This debate is a threat to evolution in pretty much the same way that the lively debate between different interpretations of quantum mechanics is a threat to quantum mechanics: which is to say, none at all.

I don’t know how familiar you are with the debates among theoretical physicists, but the speculations and rationalizations regarding the observed phenomena are fundamental and heated. For example, some prominent theoretical physicists believe that we’re living in an ancestor simulation as one interpretation of experimental evidence (measured to a precision of up to 10 parts per billion). On the other hand, microevolution of traits (minus any de novo traits) is observed and not disputed, except for the specific means of the genetic changes. However, the extrapolated macroevolution of “coacervates” (haha) into koalas through microevolution has not been observed, merely hypothesized, and I believe falsified numerous times in individual cases. -Q Querius

CD at 47, After reading so-called "reviews" of an Intelligent Design book, the main theme and concern was keeping this out of schools. That is also the main concern here. "... I believe that ad hoc religious explanations will pale and appear childish when the real answers are found. In the meantime, I choose to embrace the vagaries of existence rather than pushing them away and trembling obsessively over my “eternal” fate……" "In the mid-19th century, Karl Marx wrote that religion is “the opiate of the masses” – disconnecting disadvantaged people from the here and now, and dulling their engagement in progressive politics.." -------------- “Any system of thought that denies or seeks to explain away the overwhelming evidence for design in biology is ideology, not science.” "Christoph Cardinal Schönborn is archbishop of Vienna and general editor of the Catechism of the Catholic Church." So, the Marxists/Communists here must have their way, all evidence to the contrary. Like Richard Dawkins, they want you to forget about judgment by God and enjoy your life. Politics is the opiate of the self-proclaimed 'give us what we want' """""progressives"""""". relatd

Q, remember Crick's religious mantra, no matter what you see in biology, no matter how intricately designed it appears to be, you must repeat to yourself, ad nauseam, "it evolved, it evolved, it evolved,,, it evolved,,," and keep repeating it, until you, like some shaman, float serenely above the reality of it all, :)

"Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed, but rather evolved. It might be thought, therefore, that evolutionary arguments would play a large part in guiding biological research, but this is far from the case." - ?Francis Crick - What Mad Pursuit (1988)

bornagain77

to pollute the public-school science curricula with sectarian ideology

Chuck, Chuck this is a no no. You are supposed to want the kids knowledge to be polluted with nonsense. It is working now so don't try to stop it by telling them it may take 1600 years to get some truth. They may begin to doubt the propaganda and we cannot have that. You are right though, we cannot afford evidence and logic to get into the schools. jerry

TLH/28 When you identify as a "creationist" I assume mean that you profess some form of Christianity and take Genesis as a factual, literal description of the origin of the cosmos and life--a young earth creationist. What makes me despondent (although I think "despondent" is overly dramatic) are efforts by creationists and many intelligent design advocates, to pollute the public-school science curricula with sectarian ideology--in this case, Christian origin myths--by using litigation and legislation to force this ideology into the public schools. You are absolutely free to teach and preach whatever you want in parochial schools or at home. Just steer clear of public education. I want to be clear on a couple points so that my position is crystalline. First, I have never identified as "atheist" despite the indiscriminate name-calling found on this site. I find atheists just as dogmatic and anti-intellectual as religionists. I am an agnostic by default. Having said that, I am committed to the notion that scientists will progress independent of the myriad "isms" foisted on them by idealogues to ultimately explain nature's secrets by wholly physical description. Whether it takes 160 years or 160 decades is beside the point. As history has shown us time and again, I believe that ad hoc religious explanations will pale and appear childish when the real answers are found. In the meantime, I choose to embrace the vagaries of existence rather than pushing them away and trembling obsessively over my "eternal" fate....... chuckdarwin

Bornagain77 @26, Dr. Hunter nails it once again. How does switching genes on and off evolve in tiny steps? Similar questions for alternation of generations and metamorphosis. -Q Querius

Jerry @19, Haha! Exactly. Except that the blank canvas represents the “understandable gap in the fossil record over millions and millions of years,” also with the teeny-tiny increments of shades of white, which MUSTA been black to start out with . . . Science fantasy or “How to make fantasy appear to be scientific despite being repeatedly falsified.” -Q Querius

Ba77, The "unguided evolution" types will continue the fight. Even though recent research shows that molecular machines are at work in living tings. That living things are designed. Once the public is clear about this, atheistic materialism will disappear, along with its supporters here, as if it never existed. However, the big problem will become keeping this out of schools. When kids find out someone, not some random "it," made them, their worldview will change. That is the real reason the evolution supporters are here, to stop this from happening if they can. They can't and they know it. relatd

"People get things wrong all the time." Translated: People on Our Side don't have to be right about any particular item. We're right even if we're wrong. If they at some point regurgitate "Unguided Evolution" they are invincible. Andrew asauber

JVL @40

Well, it should be obvious that Dr Croonin got it wrong. So?

if Dr Croonin (origin-of-life researcher) got it wrong, then what lay people like you, Seversky, Chuck, Alan Fox and other lay public .... Would you agree, that lay people are being systematically mislead by Darwinian OoL-researchers ? It is not only Croonin.... i posted a link to recent J. Szostak's interview from 2021 martin_r

JVL, "That’s just your fantasy." Well, coming from someone who holds to a worldview that says he is a 'neuronal illusion', I consider that 'fantasy' remark to be a compliment. :)

The Confidence of Jerry Coyne – Ross Douthat – January 6, 2014 Excerpt: But then halfway through this peroration, we have as an aside the confession (by Coyne) 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. https://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/06/the-confidence-of-jerry-coyne/?mcubz=3 “Our experiences of being and having a body are ‘controlled hallucinations’ of a very distinctive kind.” Anil Seth, "The Real Problem" at Aeon - (Nov. 2, 2016) https://evolutionnews.org/2022/10/is-consciousness-a-controlled-brain-hallucination/ “(Daniel) Dennett concludes, ‘nobody is conscious … we are all zombies’.” J.W. Schooler & C.A. Schreiber – Experience, Meta-consciousness, and the Paradox of Introspection – 2004 The Brain: The Mystery of Consciousness - Monday, Jan. 29, 2007 Part II The Illusion Of Control Another startling conclusion from the science of consciousness is that the intuitive feeling we have that there's an executive "I" that sits in a control room of our brain, scanning the screens of the senses and pushing the buttons of the muscles, is an illusion. Steven Pinker - Professor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University http://www.academia.edu/2794859/The_Brain_The_Mystery_of_Consciousness Sam Harris: “The self is an illusion.” – Michael Egnor Demolishes the Myth of Materialism (Science Uprising EP1) https://youtu.be/Fv3c7DWuqpM?t=267 At the 23:33 minute mark of the following video, Richard Dawkins agrees with materialistic philosophers who say that: “consciousness is an illusion” A few minutes later Rowan Williams asks Dawkins ”If consciousness is an illusion…what isn’t?”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWN4cfh1Fac&t=22m57s

Tell me JVL, why in blue blazes should I give two spits what a Darwinian 'illusion' has to say about reality?

The Illusionist – Daniel Dennett’s latest book marks five decades of majestic failure to explain consciousness. – 2017 Excerpt: “Simply enough, you cannot suffer the illusion that you are conscious because illusions are possible only for conscious minds. This is so incandescently obvious that it is almost embarrassing to have to state it.” – David Bentley Hart https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-illusionist “The principal argument against materialism is not that illustrated in the last two sections: that it is incompatible with quantum theory. The principal argument is that thought processes and consciousness are the primary concepts, that our knowledge of the external world is the content of our consciousness and that the consciousness, therefore, cannot be denied. On the contrary, logically, the external world could be denied—though it is not very practical to do so. In the words of Niels Bohr, “The word consciousness, applied to ourselves as well as to others, is indispensable when dealing with the human situation.” In view of all this, one may well wonder how materialism, the doctrine that “life could be explained by sophisticated combinations of physical and chemical laws,” could so long be accepted by the majority of scientists." – Eugene Wigner, Remarks on the Mind-Body Question, pp 167-177.

Philosophical proof that "I" exist,

I choose to hold that “I” exist —— to be clear, with “I” I refer to my consciousness, my viewpoint. I am the only one who has access to my “I”, put another way: no one but me can possibly have an informed opinion on this particular subject, therefor whatever I choose to believe about my “I” can only be my absolute responsibility, can only be the result of my fully self-determined choice. – – – – – – (1.) I do something. (2.) A thing that does not exist cannot do something —— from nothing nothing comes. From (1.) and (2.) (3.) I exist https://uncommondescent.com/cosmology/from-iai-news-how-infinity-threatens-cosmology/#comment-766606

bornagain77

Martin_r: you are completely wrong … just look at this ‘humble’ guy, he will explain to you: Lee Croonin, origin-of-life researcher, TED talk (2011) Well, it should be obvious that Dr Croonin got it wrong. So? People get things wrong all the time. The real work goes on independent of what some cheerleaders and detractors say. Any fool can check that out if they really want to. JVL

Bornagain77: So no ‘real’ scientist who holds to the false doctrine of ‘methodological naturalism’ doubts unguided Darwinian evolution?, i.e. does not doubt that random mutations and natural selection, all by their lonesome, can account for life and all the diversity therein? Actually, if you bothered to keep up with the times, you should know that NO ONE says it's just down to random mutations and natural selection anymore. And, by the way, what percentage of working biologists doubt unguided evolutionary theory? Do you know? The field is not imploding. You can cherry pick bits of speeches where working scientists say: we need to do more work here, or this bit isn't clear yet. But it doesn't mean the whole field is imploding. That's just your fantasy. JVL

BA77 i have noticed Dr. Hunter's latest article over at EN. i like that too:

Here is one reason this contradicts evolutionary theory: the adaptation arises immediately, in direct response to the challenge. Not blindly. Not by random mutation. Not by natural selection.

so beautiful (and true). Darwinism is a hoax. It always was, but today it is too obvious .... martin_r

BA77

“But if (and oh what a big if) we could conceive in some warm little pond with all sorts of ammonia and phosphoric salts, – light, heat, electricity &c. present, that a protein compound was chemically formed, ready to undergo still more complex changes,,,” – Charles Darwin

i wouldn't blame Darwin saying something like that ... he was just very naive guy ... he didn't have all the 21st-century knowledge, so I can understand his naivety. But these clowns like Croonin, Szostak and Co. know very well what they are dealing with, and in spite of it, they keep misleading lay public that to create life is "trivial....easy.... in a few hours" .... And yet, these clowns, e.g. Szostak, spent so far 30 years in OOL-research, and the result of is effort is , that he got NOTHING. But he still keep saying, that to create life in lab is very trivial ... it is like in some mental hospital .... here is a recent interview with Szostak (2021) https://news.uchicago.edu/big-brains-podcast-unraveling-mystery-lifes-origins-earth PS: i can't stand these people ... these people aren't normal ... martin_r

"(we'll have life in) just a few hours, once we’ve set up the right chemistry." - Lee Cronin Yeah, they'll be selling 'life in a lab' toy kits to kids by Christmas. :)

"But if (and oh what a big if) we could conceive in some warm little pond with all sorts of ammonia and phosphoric salts, - light, heat, electricity &c. present, that a protein compound was chemically formed, ready to undergo still more complex changes,,," - Charles Darwin

Something tells me that Lee Cronin and Charles Darwin are, and were,, (because of their personal preference for atheistic naturalism), living in a chemical fantasy-land of their own making.

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/ "We have no idea how to put this structure (a simple cell) together.,, So, not only do we not know how to make the basic components, we do not know how to build the structure even if we were given the basic components. So the gedanken (thought) experiment is this. Even if I gave you all the components. Even if I gave you all the amino acids. All the protein structures from those amino acids that you wanted. All the lipids in the purity that you wanted. The DNA. The RNA. Even in the sequence you wanted. I've even given you the code. And all the nucleic acids. So now I say, "Can you now assemble a cell, not in a prebiotic cesspool but in your nice laboratory?". And the answer is a resounding NO! And if anybody claims otherwise they do not know this area (of research).” - James Tour: The Origin of Life Has Not Been Explained - 4:20 minute mark (The more we know, the worse the problem gets for materialists) https://youtu.be/r4sP1E1Jd_Y?t=255 Dr. James Tour - (Problems with) Abiogenesis Theory - (9 hour lecture series) - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKLgQzWhO4Q 0:00 Reasons for this Series 26:39 Episode 1 - Introduction to Abiogenesis 50:45 Epsode 2 - Primordial Soup 1:03:53 Episode 3 - Hype 1:53:25 Episode 4 - Homochirality 2:19:51 Episode 5 - Carbohydrates 3:05:17 Episode 6 - The Building Blocks of the Building Blocks 3:22:20 Episode 7 - Peptides 4:14:08 Episode 8 - Nucleotides, DNA, and RNA 5:05:57 Episode 9 - Intermediate Summary 5:15:37 Episode 10 - Lipids and the Cell Membrane 6:01:00 Episode 11 - Chiral-induced Spin Selectivity 6:33:12 Episode 12.1 - Cell Construction and the Assembly Problem 7:46:54 Episode 12.2 - Cell Construction and the Assembly Problem 8:34:55 Episode 13 - Summary & Projections Dr. Tour EXPOSES the False Science Behind Origin of Life Research - Oct. 2022 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v36_v4hsB-Y

bornagain77

JVL @29

The origin of life is certainly a complicated issue ...

you are completely wrong ... just look at this 'humble' guy, he will explain to you: Lee Croonin, origin-of-life researcher, TED talk (2011): https://youtu.be/unNRCSj0igI?t=845

Lee Cronin (transcript): So many people think that life took millions of years to kick in. We're proposing to do it in just a few hours, once we've set up the right chemistry.

????? in just a few hours ????? JVL, do you copy ? :)))))) it is not a complex issue at all :)))))) NOT AT ALL :))))) IT IS EASY ... ONLY A FEW HOURS ... PS: Lee Cronin perfectly illustrates insanity of Darwinists .... They perfectly understand what they are dealing with, but they can't resist making this absurdly absurd claims .... of course, one reason might be to receive more grand money or to trick their sponsors or brainwash people like Seversky, JVL, Chuck, Alan Fox .... or i don't know why they enjoy to look stupid .... martin_r

As to this claim from atheists, "This debate is a threat to evolution in pretty much the same way that the lively debate between different interpretations of quantum mechanics is a threat to quantum mechanics: which is to say, none at all." So, according to this line of 'reasoning' from atheists linking Darwinism to quantum mechanics, there is something of an idealist, and/or 'instrumentalist', interpretation that is allowed within evolution theory that directly challenges their atheistic/naturalistic worldview?

The Trouble with Quantum Mechanics – Steven Weinberg – January 2017 Excerpt: Today there are two widely followed approaches to quantum mechanics, the “realist” and “instrumentalist” approaches,9 which view the origin of probability in measurement in two very different ways. For reasons I will explain, neither approach seems to me quite satisfactory.10,,,, In the instrumentalist approach,,, humans are brought into the laws of nature at the most fundamental level. According to Eugene Wigner, a pioneer of quantum mechanics, “it was not possible to formulate the laws of quantum mechanics in a fully consistent way without reference to the consciousness.”11,,,, ,,, In quantum mechanics these probabilities do not exist until people choose what to measure, such as the spin in one or another direction. Unlike the case of classical physics, a choice must be made,,, In the realist approach the history of the world is endlessly splitting; it does so every time a macroscopic body becomes tied in with a choice of quantum states. This inconceivably huge variety of histories has provided material for science fiction. 12 http://quantum.phys.unm.edu/466-17/QuantumMechanicsWeinberg.pdf Quantum Physics Debunks Materialism (v2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wM0IKLv7KrE

Contrary to what the atheists here on UD tried to imply by linking Darwinism to quantum theory, 'some' interpretations of quantum mechanics directly challenge their atheistic/materialistic/naturalistic worldview. Yet, as Dr. Hunter pointed out in the OP of this very thread, such doubting of 'atheistic naturalism' is simply not allowed within evolutionary thinking. i.e. You can doubt anything within evolution theory save for doubting atheistic naturalism itself!

There Is No Settled “Theory Of Evolution” - Nov. 2022 Excerpt: What is evolution? The origin of species by: natural selection, random causes, common descent, gradualism, etc. Right? Wrong. Too often that is what is taught, but it is false. That’s according to evolutionists themselves. A typical example? See, “The study of evolution is fracturing — and that may be a good thing,” by Lund University biologist Erik Svensson, writing at The Conversation. Evolutionists themselves can forfeit natural selection, random causes, common descent, etc. How do I know? Because it is in the literature. So, what is evolution? In other words, what is core to the theory — and not forfeitable? It’s naturalism. Period. That is the only thing required of evolutionary theory. And naturalism is a religious requirement, not a scientific one. Aside from naturalism, practically anything is fair game: Uncanny convergence, rapid divergence, lineage-specific biology, evolution of evolution, directed mutations, saltationism, unlikely simultaneous mutations, just-so stories, multiverses … the list goes on. But this is where it gets interesting. Because if you have two theories, you don’t have one theory. In other words, you have a multitude of contradictory theories. And you have heated debates because nothing seems to fit the data. In science, that is not a good sign. But it is exactly what evolutionists have had — for over a century now. There is no such thing as a settled theory of evolution. On that point, textbook orthodoxy is simply false. - Dr. Cornelius Hunter. https://uncommondescent.com/evolution/at-evolution-news-there-is-no-settled-theory-of-evolution/

Moreover, far from quantum theory supporting Darwinian atheism, advances in quantum biology have given us evidence for a transcendent component to our being, i.e. a 'soul', that is not reducible to the materialistic explanations of Darwinian evolution.

,,, Personally, I consider these recent findings from quantum mechanics and quantum biology to rival all other scientific discoveries over the past century. Surpassing even the discovery of a beginning of the universe, via Big Bang cosmology, in terms of scientific, theological, and even personal, significance. - Nov. 2022 https://uncommondescent.com/mind/at-evolution-news-does-a-new-scientific-study-offer-evidence-of-life-after-death/#comment-769693 As Jesus once asked his disciples along with a crowd of followers, “Is anything worth more than your soul?” Mark 8:37 Is anything worth more than your soul?

bornagain77

JVL @29

... The origin of life is certainly a complicated issue but, ....

so suddenly it is a complicated issue .... Because i heard so many times from people like Nick Lane, Jack Szostak, Lee Cronin, that life can emerge easily ... martin_r

JVL: "Unguided evolution is certainly not imploding",,, So no 'real' scientist who holds to the false doctrine of 'methodological naturalism' doubts unguided Darwinian evolution?, i.e. does not doubt that random mutations and natural selection, all by their lonesome, can account for life and all the diversity therein? Really??? So who are all these 'naturalistic' scientists who are daring to doubt that unguided Darwinian processes are capable of explaining life and all the diversity therein?,, chopped liver???

Darrel Falk Downplays the Ramifications of the 2016 Royal Society Meeting Brian Miller – June 2, 2021 Excerpt: In the opening talk, organizer Gerd Müller stated that the SEM, (the standard evolutionary model), could explain the modification or duplication of existing traits, but it could not explain such key challenges as the following (here, here): *The origin of complex new traits such as eyes (here, here, here). *The consistent pattern in the fossil record of the sudden appearance of radically new organisms followed by periods of no significant change (here, here). *The distribution of genetic variation in species. He was referring to the fact that no genetic variation exists in any species that would allow for large-scale transformations (here, here). For instance, crossbreeding dogs will only produce dogs since dogs only have dog genes. https://evolutionnews.org/2021/06/darrel-falk-downplays-the-ramifications-of-the-royal-society-meeting/ 5 Royal Problems with Macro-Evolution - Stephen Meyer & Doug Axe - January 7, 2017 https://streamer1.afa.net/afr-aod/crossexamined/ft_20170107.mp3 Frank Turek interviews Stephen Meyer & Doug Axe - The Royal Society called for a meeting to revise the standard theory of evolution because of the many issues with such theory. Our two guests who are experts in the field went there and are here to talk about the top 5 problems with the Neo-Darwinian, Macro-Evolution, theory. - 11:30 minute mark - 1. Fossil Record 2. Origin of Information 3. Necessity for Early Mutations (in embryological development) 4. Epigenetic or Structural Information 5. Universal Design Intuition we all have "Physiology Is Rocking the Foundations of Evolutionary Biology": Another Peer-Reviewed Paper Takes Aim at Neo-Darwinism - Casey Luskin - March 31, 2015 Excerpt: Noble doesn't mince words: "It is not only the standard 20th century views of molecular genetics that are in question. Evolutionary theory itself is already in a state of flux (Jablonka & Lamb, 2005; Noble, 2006, 2011; Beurton et al. 2008; Pigliucci & Muller, 2010; Gissis & Jablonka, 2011; Shapiro, 2011). In this article, I will show that all the central assumptions of the Modern Synthesis (often also called Neo-Darwinism) have been disproved." Noble then recounts those assumptions: (1) that "genetic change is random," (2) that "genetic change is gradual," (3) that "following genetic change, natural selection leads to particular gene variants (alleles) increasing in frequency within the population," and (4) that "inheritance of acquired characteristics is impossible." He then cites examples that refute each of those assumptions,,, He then proposes a new and radical model of biology called the "Integrative Synthesis," where genes don't run the show and all parts of an organism -- the genome, the cell, the body plan, everything -- is integrated. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/03/physiology_is_r094821.html Does evolutionary theory need a rethink? - 2014 Excerpt: YES, URGENTLY — Kevin Laland and colleagues https://www.nature.com/articles/514161a Nature Admits Scientists Suppress Criticisms of Neo-Darwinism to Avoid Lending Support to Intelligent Design - Casey Luskin October 8, 2014 Excerpt: "The number of biologists calling for change in how evolution is conceptualized is growing rapidly. Strong support comes from allied disciplines, particularly developmental biology, but also genomics, epigenetics, ecology and social science. We contend that evolutionary biology needs revision if it is to benefit fully from these other disciplines. The data supporting our position gets stronger every day. Yet the mere mention of the EES often evokes an emotional, even hostile, reaction among evolutionary biologists. Too often, vital discussions descend into acrimony, with accusations of muddle or misrepresentation. Perhaps haunted by the spectre of intelligent design, evolutionary biologists wish to show a united front to those hostile to science. Some might fear that they will receive less funding and recognition if outsiders -- such as physiologists or developmental biologists -- flood into their field." (Kevin Laland, Tobias Uller, Marc Feldman, Kim Sterelny, Gerd B. Müller, Armin Moczek, Eva Jablonka, and John Odling-Smee, "Does evolutionary theory need a rethink? Yes, urgently," Nature, Vol. 514:161-164 (October 9, 2014) ) http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/10/nature_admits_s090321.html The Third Way - James Shapiro and company Excerpt: Neo-Darwinism ignores important rapid evolutionary processes such as symbiogenesis, horizontal DNA transfer, action of mobile DNA and epigenetic modifications. Moreover, some Neo-Darwinists have elevated Natural Selection into a unique creative force that solves all the difficult evolutionary problems without a real empirical basis. Many scientists today see the need for a deeper and more complete exploration of all aspects of the evolutionary process. https://www.thethirdwayofevolution.com The Third Way - List of scientists who think a fresh look at evolution is needed Except: James A. Shapiro Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology; University of Chicago Denis Noble Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics; University of Oxford Raju Pookottil B.Tech, MBA; Author, engineer, entrepreneur Eva Jablonka The Cohn Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Ideas; Tel Aviv University Evelyn Fox Keller Professor of the History and Philosophy of Science, Emerita (STS); Massachusetts Institute of Technology Gerd B. Müller Department of Theoretical Biology; University of Vienna Guenther Witzany Telos-Philosophische Praxis; Buermoos, Austria Eviatar Nevo Professor emeritus; University of Haifa, Israel Corrado Spadafora Institute of Translational Pharmacology, National Research Council; Rome, Italy Frantisek Baluska Institute of Cellular and Molecular Biology; University of Bonn, Germany Joachim Bauer Specialist in psychotherapeutic medicine; University Hospital Freiburg, Germany Stuart A. Newman Department of Cell Biology & Anatomy; New York Medical College, Valhalla, NY John S. Torday Departments of Pediatrics and Ob/Gyn, Evolutionary Medicine Program, David Geffen School of Medicine; University of California- Los Angeles Robert H. Austin Research Group in Biophysics; Princeton University John Odling-Smee Emeritus Research Fellow; Mansfield College at the University of Oxford John Dupré Director, Centre for the Study of Life Sciences (Egenis), and Professor, Department of Sociology, Philosophy and Anthropology; University of Exeter Lynn Helena Caporale Independent Scholar; - biochemist Richard Irwin (“Dick”) Vane-Wright Honorary Professor of Taxonomy, Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology (DICE); Honorary Professor at University of Kent Scott F. Gilbert Institute of Biotechnology, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland; Department of Biology, Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, PA, USA Kalevi Kull Professor, Department of Semiotics; University of Tartu Peter A. Corning Institute for the Study of Complex Systems; Michael J. Joyner Frank R. and Shari Caywood Professor of Anesthesiology, Mayo Clinic; Frank P. Ryan Honorary Senior Lecturer Department of Medical Education; The University of Sheffield, UK Andrew Packard Retired - formerly Reader in Physiology, Edinburgh, Scotland and Professor of Zoology, Naples, Italy; Denis M. Walsh Professor and Canada Research Chair in Philosophy of Biology; Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Toronto Jonathan T. Delafield-Butt Lecturer, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences; University of Strathclyde, Scotland, U.K. Mariusz Nowacki Professor, Institute of Cell Biology; University of Bern, Switzerland Robert K. Logan Department of Physics; University of Toronto Ehud Lamm The Cohn Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science; Tel Aviv University Mart Krupovic Department of Microbiology; Institut Pasteur, Paris Louise Westling Professor, Department of English; University of Oregon Wendy Wheeler Emeritus Professor of English Literature and Cultural Inquiry, Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities; London Metropolitan University Keith Baverstock Department of Environmental Science; University of Eastern Finland, Kuopio Campus, Kuopio, Finland Andreas Werner Institute for Cell and Molecular Biosciences; Newcastle University Mae-Wan Ho Director/Institute of Science in Society, UK ; Jan Sapp Department of Biology; York University, Toronto Peter Saunders Co-Director, Institute of Science in Society, London; Emeritus professor of Applied Mathematics, King’s College London. Ricardo Flores Institute for Cellular and Molecular Plant Biology, Valencia, Spain; Research Professor of the Spanish Research Council (CSIC) Yoav Soen Department of Biological Chemistry; Weizmann Institute of Science Adrian Bejan Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science; Duke University Gustavo Caetano-Anollés Department of Crop Sciences; University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Stephen L. Talbott The Nature Institute; Ghent, New York Karin Moelling Prof em and Director em of Institute of medical Virology, University of Zürich; Senior Research Guest at Max-Planck-Institute for Molecular Genetics, Berlin. Guest Prof. at Heinrich Pette-Institute for Virology, Hamburg David S. Moore Pitzer College (Psychology Field Group); Claremont Graduate University (Division of Behavioral and Organizational Sciences) Arnold De Loof Department of Biology, Animal Physiology Research Group; University of Leuven-KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium Franklin M. Harold Retired. Affiliate Professor, Department of Microbiology; University of Washington, Seattle. Robert Lickliter Professor, Department of Psychology; Florida International University, Miami, FL Shi Huang State Key Laboratory of Medical Genetics; Xiangya Medical School, Central South University, Changsha, Hunan, China Giorgio Bernardi Visiting Professor, Department of Science; Roma Tre University, Rome David B. Edelman Department of Psychology, University of California, San Diego; Adjunct faculty, Department of Psychological Sciences, University of San Diego Kenneth M. Weiss Evan Pugh Professor Emeritus, Department of Anthropology; Penn State University Bernd Rosslenbroich Institute of Evolutionary Biology and Morphology, Centre for Biomedical Education and Research; Witten/Herdecke University, Germany Didier Raoult Aix-Marseille Université, France; Eric Bapteste Institut de Biologie Paris Seine; Department of evolutionary biology; University Pierre et Marie Curie Gertrudis Van de Vijver Full Professor, department of philosophy and moral sciences; Ghent University, Belgium Luis P Villarreal Professor Emeritus, Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, School of Biological Sciences; University of California, Irvine Marilyn J. Roossinck Professor of Virus Ecology, Department of Plant Pathology and Environmental Microbiology; Pennsylvania State University Victoria N. Alexander Director, Dactyl Foundation; Fulbright Specialist, US Dept of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs Máximo Sandín Departamento de Biología; Universidad Autónoma de Madrid Jordi Gómez Department of Molecular Biology; Institute of Parasitology y Biomedicine “Lopez-Neyra” (IPBLN) in Granada. Spain (IPBLN) .; Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) Erik L. Peterson Assistant Professor of the History of Science/Technology/Medicine, Department of History; The University of Alabama Nathalie Gontier Director of the Applied Evolutionary Epistemology Lab, Centre for Philosophy of Science, Department of History and Philosophy of Science, Faculty of Science; University of Lisbon, Portugal Donald Favareau University Scholars Programme; National University of Singapore Addy Pross Emeritus Professor, Department of Chemistry; Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Be’er Sheva, Israel William S. Peters Affiliate Faculty Advisor, Matai Medical Research and Imaging Lab, Gisborne, New Zealand; Department of Paediatric and Congenital Cardiac Surgery, Starship Hospital, Auckland, New Zealand Azra Raza Professor of Medicine, Director of MDS Center; Columbia University, New York Jacques Demongeot Professor Emeritus, Faculty of Medicine; University Grenoble Alpes Pierangelo Luporini Emeritus Professor in Zoology; University of Camerino Robert Root-Bernstein Professor of Physiology,; Michigan State University Axel Lange Department of Theoretical Biology; University of Vienna Ben Callif Research & Mindset Director; Bader Philanthropies, Inc. Henry H. Heng Center for Molecular Medicine and Genomics; Wayne State University J. Scott Turner Emeritus Professor of Biology; SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, Syracuse, New York Jan J. Spitzer Retired; Industrial R&D Ben Bradley Professor Emeritus, School of Psychology; Charles Sturt University, Bathurst, NSW 2795, Australia Luca Munaron Full Professor of Physiology, Department of Life Sciences and Systems Biology; University of Torino, Italy Amelia Lewis Affiliate/ Independent Researcher; School of Biological Sciences, Queen’s University, Belfast Arto Annila Former Professor of Biophysics; University of Helsinki https://www.thethirdwayofevolution.com/people Scientists stunned by the public’s doubt of Darwin - April 22, 2014 Excerpt: (Stephen) Meyer said that view under-represents the real facts being discovered in evolutionary biology. “Very few leading evolutionary biologists today think that natural selection and random mutation are sufficient to produce the new forms of life we see arising in the history of life,” Meyer said. “And then when the public is catching wind of the scientific doubts of Darwinian evolution and expresses them in a poll like this, these self-appointed spokesmen for science say that the public is ignorant. But actually, the public is more in line with what’s going on in science than these spokesmen for science.” https://world.wng.org/2014/04/scientists_stunned_by_the_publics_doubt_of_darwin

bornagain77

This debate is a threat to evolution in pretty much the same way that the lively debate between different interpretations of quantum mechanics is a threat to quantum mechanics: which is to say, none at all.

Les chiens aboient. La caravane passe. Alan Fox

@14

If you actually read the article by Erik Svensson, you get a much different picture than suggested by the OP. Instead of being on the precipice of disaster per the OP, Svensson sees evolution as a thriving debate among biologists with much work left to do from many specialties in biology.

Exactly so. One wouldn't know it from what Hunter, but Svensson is just discussing the fact that there's a lively debate between the gene-centric and organism-centric ways of thinking about evolution. Personally, I agree with Denis Walsh in his Organisms, Agency, and Evolution that organism-centrism is not only the correct view but also a return to what Darwin originally accomplished. To use Lewin and Lewontin's terms from their "The Organism as Subject and as Object of Evolution", evolution needs to treat organisms not only as objects of evolutionary processes but also as subjects whose purposive, intentional behavior causes evolution. (Put otherwise, natural selection is not a cause of anything; it is an effect of what tends to happen to populations as a result of what organisms tend to do.) This debate is a threat to evolution in pretty much the same way that the lively debate between different interpretations of quantum mechanics is a threat to quantum mechanics: which is to say, none at all. PyrrhoManiac1

Tammie Lee Haynes: I sincerely empathize with how you must feel nowadays, with materialism tanking in the face of the Creationist assendancy caused by 1) Fine Tuning, 2) Orgin of Life, and as pointed out here, the implosion of Evolution. My question is this: Which of these 3 issues has you most depondent? Creationist eh? Don't tell Kairosfocus. I'm guessing the third thing (unnumbered) is the implosion of evolution. I also assume you meant despondent. None of those three things have me despondent. Unguided evolution is certainly not imploding; you have that opinion because of the sources you spend time with all of which want that to be true. No one knows if it is even possible to 'fine tune' the constants of the universe! It's pretty clear, in fact, that the process of evolution has fine tuned life on Earth to match the conditions on Earth. The origin of life is certainly a complicated issue but, as work on the issue has only been going on for a relatively short period of time and because we are gaining new analytic methods I can't imagine throwing in the towel now. Of course, all we will ever be able to do is to provide a plausible path since it's unlikely we will ever be able to 'see' what actually happened billions of years ago. So, I'd say you got it wrong. JVL

As a creationist, I got a question for our nice Athesit Friends. I sincerely empathize with how you must feel nowadays, with materialism tanking in the face of the Creationist assendancy caused by 1) Fine Tuning, 2) Orgin of Life, and as pointed out here, the implosion of Evolution. My question is this: Which of these 3 issues has you most depondent? Myself, when I try to put myself in your shoes, I figure its Origin of Life. For about 160 years theyve been trying to show that life can start without Divine intervention. Matersts have had the Top Gurus, and Nobel Pprize winners, with boatloads of funding, for generations, and nothing nothing to show for it. So all you got today is denial, smokescreens, censorhip, and lame check in the mail BS. Fellas, did I figure right? TAMMIE LEE HAYNES

Ba77 at 26, A very important finding. I'm glad the epi in epigenetics has been explained. I read the technical literature, and while I understand the scientific terms need to be precise, for average readers it needs to be broken down into plain English to speed comprehension. When science becomes more accessible, and easier to understand, for the layman, it improves retention. relatd

New post up from Dr. Hunter,,

Why Epigenetics Contradicts Evolutionary Theory - Cornelius Hunter - November 14, 2022 Excerpt: Epigenetics (epi means “above” genetics) is a term given to mechanisms that do not alter genes in our DNA, but rather turn genes off or on (or influence whether they are turned off or on). Epigenetic mechanisms are complicated and enable organisms to adapt intelligently and rapidly to challenging environments. Here is one reason this contradicts evolutionary theory: the adaptation arises immediately, in direct response to the challenge. Not blindly. Not by random mutation. Not by natural selection. Epigenetic mechanisms are ubiquitous in biology, and extremely important. Because of epigenetics, organisms with otherwise identical genes (e.g., twins) can be quite different.,,, https://evolutionnews.org/2022/11/why-epigenetics-contradicts-evolutionary-theory/

bornagain77

Andrew at 24, :) :) :) relatd

"You mean the teenie, weenie, unobserved gradual changes gives you Creature B?" Relatd, Yes. The Precursors. Can you imagine how many of them there were? Evolution must be true. Andrew asauber

Andrew at 22, You mean the teenie, weenie, unobserved gradual changes gives you Creature B? :) relatd

"When did it change from Creature A to Creature B?" Relatd, Millions and Trillions of Billions of years ago... unless, you ask us about Creature A or B, then there's no such thing as either one. Tails we win, Heads we win, and Tails evolving into Heads we win, and vice versa. Andrew asauber

Andrew at 20, And there you have it: claims without evidence. "Hey! We found this fossil in a rock!" Yeah, so? When did it change from Creature A to Creature B? relatd

Remember, Evolution did it's "heavy lifting" millions and millions of years ago, so we're sorry we can't provide evidence from back then, and we're sorry we can't say Creature A evolved from Creature B, because there was never a Creature A or Creature B and still isn't, and it's not our fault that Natural Selection doesn't select anything, and that anything that ever is obviously designed couldn't possibly be designed because we remove design a priori from anything and everything that could be discussed. Andrew asauber

This is a painting of a cow eating grass.

Similar. Visa commercial of artist. Posted a few times before. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11EwyJ5fcBI Artist’s canvas is evolutionary biology evidence for natural Evolution. jerry

Jerry @ 16,

Chuckdarwin: Svensson sees evolution as a thriving debate among biologists with much work left to do from many specialties in biology

Gosh, imagine that! And to think that Darwinian evolution was once elevated to the level of "Fact"! The science was supposedly settled. But now there's debate? Much work left to do? I'm shocked, shocked! LOL Darwinism is science fantasy that's finally collapsing under its own weight of speculation, wishful thinking, and complete baloney. Artist: This is a painting of a cow eating grass. Observer: Where's the grass? Artist: The cow has eaten it. Observer: Where's the cow? Artist: After eating the grass, the cow has left to find more grass. -Q Querius

ScuzzaMan @13, Indeed. What's funny is how many of the Darwinian explanations are presented with a Lamarckian perspective, and evolution is even somewhat personified. -Q Querius

Svensson sees evolution as a thriving debate among biologists with much work left to do from many specialties in biology

ChuckDarwin just endorsed ID. Has this debate produced anything? Remember the objective is finding naturalized Evolution. Not necessarily supporting a failed hypothesis such as Darwinian Evolution. Will both be failures. Sounds of Silence. ChuckDarwin confirms. Chuck, remember your assignment. You’re supposed to mock ID not endorse it. Thank you anyway Chuck!!!     Let’s Go Finches jerry

Martin_r @9 and Jerry @11, Thanks for the links. I've queued up the longer, more-complete one. Bornagain @10, Thanks for the link to the Cornelius Hunter article. Yes, the progression from "here's how evolution could have progressed" to "this proves that evolution musta taken this path" by cherry picking and misinterpreting data to produce a body of orthodoxy, resulting in a science fantasy embraced by anyone who wants to become or remain employed in academia. -Q Querius

What exactly is "textbook orthodoxy?" If you actually read the article by Erik Svensson, you get a much different picture than suggested by the OP. Instead of being on the precipice of disaster per the OP, Svensson sees evolution as a thriving debate among biologists with much work left to do from many specialties in biology. As best as I can tell, ID isn't in danger of being seated at the table in the foreseeable future. And to borrow a quote from Svensson, that's a good thing.............. chuckdarwin

@querius "Lamarck must be laughing in his grave." Poor old Stephen J Gould, too. ScuzzaMan

as to:

"So, what is evolution? In other words, what is core to the theory — and not forfeitable? It’s naturalism. Period. That is the only thing required of evolutionary theory. And naturalism is a religious requirement, not a scientific one. Aside from naturalism, practically anything is fair game: Uncanny convergence, rapid divergence, lineage-specific biology, evolution of evolution, directed mutations, saltationism, unlikely simultaneous mutations, just-so stories, multiverses … the list goes on." - Dr. Hunter

Moreover, aside from the scientific evidence itself directly contradicting the 'religion of naturalism' at every turn, assuming Atheistic Naturalism, i.e. 'methodological naturalism', as a starting philosophical presupposition in science, actually drives science itself into catastrophic epistemological failure instead of providing a useful heuristic for science in illuminating a deeper, and truer, understanding of reality,

Basically, because of reductive materialism (and/or methodological naturalism), the atheistic materialist (who believes Darwinian evolution to be true) is forced to claim that he is merely a ‘neuronal illusion’ (Coyne, Dennett, etc..), who has the illusion of free will (Harris, Coyne), who has unreliable, (i.e. illusory), beliefs about reality (Plantinga), who has illusory perceptions of reality (Hoffman), who, since he has no real time empirical evidence substantiating his grandiose claims, must make up illusory “just so stories” with the illusory, and impotent, ‘designer substitute’ of natural selection (Behe, Gould, Sternberg), so as to ‘explain away’ the appearance (i.e. the illusion) of design (Crick, Dawkins), and who also must make up illusory meanings and purposes for his life since the hopelessness of the nihilism inherent in his atheistic worldview is simply too much for him to bear (Weikart), and who must also hold morality to be subjective and illusory since he has rejected God (Craig, Kreeft). Who, since beauty cannot be grounded within his materialistic worldview, must also hold beauty itself to be illusory (Darwin). Bottom line, nothing is truly real in the atheist’s worldview, least of all, beauty, morality, meaning and purposes for life.,,,

Thus, although the Darwinian Atheist and/or Methodological Naturalist may firmly, and falsely, believe that he is on the terra firma of science (in his appeal, even demand, for naturalistic explanations over and above God as a viable explanation), the fact of the matter is that, when examining the details of his materialistic/naturalistic worldview, it is found that Darwinists/Atheists themselves are adrift in an ocean of fantasy and imagination with no discernible anchor for reality to grab on to. It would be hard to fathom a worldview more antagonistic to modern science, indeed more antagonistic to reality itself, than Atheistic materialism and/or methodological naturalism have turned out to be.

2 Corinthians 10:5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;

Moreover, far from science being dependent on naturalistic presuppositions, all of science, every nook and cranny of it, is based on the presupposition of intelligent design and is certainly not based on the presupposition of methodological naturalism.

,,, from the essential Christian presuppositions that undergird the founding of modern science itself, (namely that the universe is contingent and rational in its foundational nature and that the minds of men, being made in the ‘image of God’, can, therefore, dare understand the rationality that God has imparted onto the universe), to the intelligent design of the scientific instruments and experiments themselves, to the logical and mathematical analysis of experimental results themselves, from top to bottom, science itself is certainly not to be considered a ‘natural’ endeavor of man. Not one scientific instrument would ever exist if men did not first intelligently design that scientific instrument. Not one test tube, microscope, telescope, spectroscope, or etc.. etc.., was ever found just laying around on a beach somewhere which was ‘naturally’ constructed by nature. Not one experimental result would ever be rationally analyzed since there would be no immaterial minds to rationally analyze the immaterial logic and immaterial mathematics that lay behind the intelligently designed experiments in the first place. Again, all of science, every nook and cranny of it, is based on the presupposition of intelligent design and is certainly not based on the presupposition of methodological naturalism.

As Robert C. Koons noted,

Science and Theism: Concord, not Conflict* – Robert C. Koons IV. The Dependency of Science Upon Theism (Page 21) Excerpt: Far from undermining the credibility of theism, the remarkable success of science in modern times is a remarkable confirmation of the truth of theism. It was from the perspective of Judeo-Christian theism—and from the perspective alone—that it was predictable that science would have succeeded as it has. Without the faith in the rational intelligibility of the world and the divine vocation of human beings to master it, modern science would never have been possible, and, even today, the continued rationality of the enterprise of science depends on convictions that can be reasonably grounded only in theistic metaphysics. http://www.theistic.net/papers/R.Koons/Koons-science.pdf Rob Koons is a professor of philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin. With degrees from Michigan State, Oxford, and UCLA, he specializes in metaphysics and philosophical logic, with special interest in philosophical theology and the foundations of both science and ethics.

Verse:

Colossians 2:3 in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

Supplemental notes,

The Judeo-Christian Origins of Modern Science - Stephen Meyer - video - (April 2022) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ss-kzyXeqdQ Stephen Meyer Answers Questions about the Judeo-Christian Origins of Science – video https://youtu.be/YBwRC8qJSoI

bornagain77

Here’s a more complete version of the Grants presentation. It’s much longer. The above video looks like a different presentation at some other event. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMcVY__T3Ho Start at hour ten minutes in and then listen for genetic incompatibility a few minutes later. In other words all the so called species of finches can mate and have healthy offspring. The definition of species is fluid depending on whatever’s needed to look good at the moment.     Let’s Go Finches jerry

Cornelius Hunter has another article up at ENV:

Evolution’s Circular Web of Self-Referencing Literature Cornelius Hunter - November 11, 2022 https://evolutionnews.org/2022/11/evolutions-circular-web-of-self-referencing-literature/

bornagain77

Querius, Jerry ... i went to Youtube and i looked up a Peter and Rosemary Grant's presentation on Darwin's finches. I haven't watch it yet, but i will later today. From the video description:

Charles Darwin said evolution was too slow to be observed, but modern studies have corrected this assertion.

in this case, now we can say, that Darwinism is a fake news ... because Darwinists need those millions of years, otherwise, Darwinism does not make any sense ... another quote from the video description:

Their research showed that Darwin’s finches evolve repeatedly when the environment changes.

How is this Darwinian ? You get the right beak-size-change mutation every time you need it ? It just confirms what i wrote above ... there must be some (designed) sensor(s) in finches' beaks that triggers the instant beak size change/adjustment (over and over again and whenever it is needed). Here is the video presentation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLJP9kpymYs martin_r

Querius from the quote,

... But, Pfennig added, the study suggests that evolution due to competition between closely related species ...

these guys just keep misrepresenting the reality over and over again. So the competition did it, and not the built-in "adjust-beak-size"-feature, right ? PS: According to Jerry, Epigenetic did it .... yes, but first you have to explain, why the beak size can change in the first place ... what triggers that instant change - the look at a bigger seed ? Are there any sensors in finches' beaks, e.g. the seed is hard to crack -> increase the beak size ? martin_r

Martin_r @5, Thanks for the link. I especially enjoyed this quote:

David Pfennig at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill agrees that the study has important implications. For Pfennig, the study's greatest surprise was "the apparent speed with which the character displacement occurs—within a single year!" Usually we think of evolution as being a slow grind, he says. But, Pfennig added, the study suggests that evolution due to competition between closely related species "paradoxically may often occur so rapidly that we may actually miss the process taking place."

Whoa, yet another surprise! And what about the itty-bitty, teensy-weensy steps over millions of years? Lamarck must be laughing in his grave. -Q Querius

i wasn’t aware of the fact, that their beak size can change in only 1 generation

For the 200th anniversary of Darwin’s birth, Stanford held a week long conference of invited speakers on evolutionary biology. Two of the invited speakers were Peter and Rosemary Grant. They destroyed Darwinian Evolution during their talk while all there applauded and oohed and aahed as they spoke. They said that it took 32 million years to get a new finch species. They then repeated it near the end. None of the attendees realized that natural Evolution by Darwinian methods just dissolved before their eyes. The beak changes were due to epigenetics.     Let’s Go Finches. jerry

Querius, Thanks for the info on finches’ beaks… i wasn’t aware of the fact, that their beak size can change in only 1 generation. I looked up the paper, they called it ‘instAnt evolution’. Of course, reserchers surprised again …. Just another example how Darwinists misrepresented the reality …. Obviously, species are designed to adjust some of their features anytime they want to …. It is funny to see, that their beaks changed the very same moment scientists were looking at them …. https://www2.nau.edu/gaud/bio301/content/glpfnch/glpfnch.htm martin_r

Seversky at 3, Living things contain clearly engineered systems. relatd

From the same article...

Biologists might disagree on what constitutes an evolutionary process, with natural selection and random changes in DNA being the two best studied processes. Evolutionary processes are not the only interesting aspect of evolution, though. Evolutionary outcomes and the products of evolution – organisms and how they develop – also keep biologists busy. We have come to understand more about how genes and environments interact to shape the development of organisms. These insights from evolutionary developmental biology have clearly enriched our field. That evolutionary biology is increasingly fractured does not worry me either, as long as we recognise that a plurality of approaches is not a weakness, but a strength. If physicists cannot agree upon a grand unified theory of the universe, why should biologists expect to agree on one beyond what we have already achieved? After all, organisms are much more complex than physical particles and processes.

... or engineering analogies. Seversky

Jerry, Heh. It's fun to ask a Darwinist how long it takes for Darwin's finches to "evolve" between thick beaks and thin ones. The answer? A single generation. This is entirely due to stored epigenetic code that controls gene expression. It's also interesting to try to imagine how epigenetic code could have "evolved." Another problem is that the mechanism of random mutation (followed by natural selection, of course) is the weakest and least likely source of genetic variation known so far. The other, more effective mechanisms currently known are transposition, horizontal gene transfer, epigenetics, symbiogenesis, and genome duplication. -Q Querius

There is no validated theory of Evolution!!!! This is a great time for ID to make the distinction between genetics and Evolution. The only thing scientists can say about that is they’re right. Everybody agrees on genetics. Evolution is all over the lot. ID can take the stance that maybe a valid theory will arise. But it’s obvious it’s not here now. Aside: ID could even adopt the Galapagos finch as their mascot since it is a symbol of lack of Evolution.     Let’s go Finches jerry