Our valued contributor Niwrad send in this post, on recent claims that cancer disproves ID:
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Evolutionism is systematic negation of reality and inversion of truth. So we must be prepared to listen to ever more unbelievable things from evolutionists. Here I will examine an example that seems particularly meaningful.
Cancer has universally been considered to be biological degeneration. Something in the cellular machinery goes wrong, a proliferation of defective cells grows, leading to a destructive dynamic in the diseased organism. It all starts in the genome, so cancer is an issue of bio-informatics, of programming. In fact, we learned recently that “Microsoft will ‘solve’ cancer within 10 years by ‘reprogramming’ diseased cells.”
Conceptually, bugs that start the cancer appear in the genomic program. Microsoft will try to fix them in the same way as it routinely fixes bugs in Windows or Office. This is fully an intelligent design scenario: A hardware-software system is designed, software shows malfunctions, the programmer patches the programs. It happens every day in the software industry.
Well. But there is Dr. Swamidass, who describes the situation in a different, somehow inverted way. He really reaches a new level of genius in the construction of absurdity! He writes:
If (1) evolutionary genetic tools correctly infer the progress and history of cancer, (2) cancer regularly innovates with proteins of novel function, (3) regularly exhibits convergence at a molecular level, and (4) all the mathematical of machinery of neutral theory works so well, THEN what magically prevents all these things from being true at the species level? This all cannot be true for cancer, but false for evolution. That is the real inconvenience [for intelligent design theory] here. […]
Put another way, if many ID arguments in molecular biology were true, then cancer as we know it would be mathematically impossible, or regularly require the direct intervention of God to initiate and be sustained. […] This casts serious doubt on the ID arguments from molecular biology.
Note how in (2) he tries to invert the truth: Cancer becomes something constructive, it “innovates”, it creates “novel function”. In (1)(3)(4) he in short says that cancer “evolves”, because it behaves according to evolutionary theory. That said he asks “What prevents all these things from being true at the species level?”; that is: cancer is constructive, cancer evolves, cancer happens, then origin of species by evolution is true; corollary: intelligent design is false. Bingo!
Here is how Swamidass succeeds in transforming a destructive process into a constructive system, and — in the same time — a proof of evolution and disproof of ID. Brilliant!
Unfortunately for his thesis, an avalanche also “evolves” like cancer, produces a “proliferation”, grows in size and destructive power, but never creates new buildings. Analogously, cancer cannot be an example of how evolution creates new species.
Moreover, if it were true that evolutionary theory describes cancer and cancer is not a producer of organization, then we can correctly deduce that evolutionary theory doesn’t explain the origin of species (eminently a form of organization). But Swamidass very carefully hides this deduction, which alone would destroy his argument.
He continues: “If many ID arguments in molecular biology were true, then cancer as we know it would be mathematically impossible”. To understand the absurdity of this affirmation, let’s translate it into informatics jargon (the field where Microsoft hopes to impact biology): “If ID arguments in informatics were true, then bugs would be mathematically impossible”.
Bugs mathematically impossible? in what world does Swamidass live?
All this shows how an evolutionist tries to mystify reality and use contrary evidences to promote Darwinian ideas. They are masters in inverting the truth. Somehow Swamidass reminds me of l Monod who wrote:
Indeed, it is legitimate to view the irreversibility of evolution [progress] as an expression of the second law in the biosphere.
Monod said exactly the opposite of the truth: the impossibility of evolution is an expression of the second law in the biosphere. After all, Monod and Swamidass share the same kind of error. The former says that entropy causes evolution, the latter says that genetic entropy (cancer) illustrates evolution and disproves ID. Birds of a feather flock together.
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See also: ID theorists respond on “Cancer refutes intelligent design”
and
Rossiter on Swamidass: Goalposts? What goalposts? I don’t really know what to say here, because, as presented, the argument is entirely incoherent.