From Sarah Chaffee and Granville Sewell at The Spectator:
Whether the standard neo-Darwinian mechanism fully explains the origins of biological novelties is a question that scientists themselves increasingly contest. Yet for the media, evolution is the holy Kaaba of science. Resistance verging on hysteria greets attempts to allow teachers to introduce mainstream controversies found in peer-reviewed scientific literature.
Just look at media coverage about Arizona’s state science standards, currently being revised, where minor changes were decried as a wholesale “attack” on evolution. Louisiana passed its academic freedom law, the Louisiana Science Education Act, in 2008 and critics have been denouncing it ever since, dishonestly, for sneaking in instruction about “intelligent design” or “creationism.” Tennessee passed a similar law in 2012, likewise prompting accusations about a “loophole… through which creationism would creep in.”
Chaffee and Sewell trace the “more certan than gravity” claim back to a 19th-century geologist Joseph Le Conte, who wrote,
[T]he law of evolution is as certain as the law of gravitation. Nay, it is far more certain. The nexus between successive events in time (causation) is far more certain than the nexus between coexistent objects in space (gravitation). The former is a necessary truth, the latter is usually classed as a contingent truth. More.
Chaffee and Sewell respond, “Finally, we understand. The law of gravity is a “contingent” truth. We believe it only as long as the evidence supports it. The theory of evolution is a “necessary” truth. It is not contingent on supporting evidence.”
No, the “theory of evolution” is not contingent on supporting evidence. Failing mainstream media, for example, cannot even report seriously on the slow crumbling of Darwinism. To them, Darwinism IS evolution, a necessary truth, like their other beliefs.
Hat tip: Philip Cunningham
See also: “Sincere and heartfelt apologies” to Granville Sewell from the math journal that dumped his article due to Darwinist pressure (2011)
Mathematician Granville Sewell denied right to respond to rebuttals in journal (2012)
Breaking, breaking: ID friendly math prof gets apology and damages from journal
My Controversial Tautology (Sewell)
Retraction Watch has noted the math journal’s retraction of its treatment of Granville Sewell
More on the withdrawn article (Sewell)
and
Granville Sewell’s vindication latest in string of defeats for Darwin lobby … straw in the wind?
The Le Conte quote seems to be lacking some context. The full text is here.
A fuller excerpt, with some bolding:
FYI, Firefox is refusing to link to the links, claiming that UD’s domain has an ‘expired SSL certificate’. I don’t know if this is true, since Firefox has a habit of issuing false alarms about “security”… but it might be worth noting.
LeConte says that the nexus of successive objects in time is more certain than the nexus of successive objects in space, but didn’t Einstein show that space and time were linked, relatively?
DaveS@1
Except the fossil record does not show continuity and neither do extant organisms today. Where does that leave the argument?
Latemarch,
First, this is the part of the Spectator piece I was objecting to:
Le Conte is clearly not talking exclusively about “Darwinism” here.
Now whether the fossil record is consistent with continuity, I’ll leave to those with more expertise.
Confused ID critic Joshua Swamidass came through here recently saying the same thing about biogenesis. It is an axiom, he says, no longer a hypothesis. Not only does it not need evidence to be installed as scientific fact, but it is wholly immune to the universal evidence against it.
This is not the science I was taught to respect as a child, and it seems hopeless that anyone close to the levers of power care that they are losing (have lost) me. I ask the question, at some point in the future mankind will be able to create a completely novel biological organism. When that time comes, will it matter to anyone that they won’t be able to do it unless they install a code (symbol system) in order to make it work? Will they merely look the other way as someone slips in a little Turing, Von Neumann, and Pierce into the system? Will they assure the population that this is how it all happened without intelligence? Will it be legal to disagree?
Err, no. It’s published by <a href="
As to this claim from the 19th-century geologist Joseph Le Conte
It seems that quantum mechanics could care less for how “far more certain” Le Conte was in his belief in “successive events in time (causation)”
Wheeler’s Delayed Choice Experiment and the Quantum Eraser Experiment have both undermined his notion of “successive events in time (causation)” being “far more certain”.
Besides undermining Le Conte’s ‘far more certain’ belief in ‘successive events in time (causation)’, the Delayed Choice experiment also undermined Le Conte’s ‘lesser certainty’ in “coexistent objects in space (gravitation)”. In the following experiment it was found that, “It proves that measurement is everything. At the quantum level, reality does not exist if you are not looking at it,”.
,, For something to be ‘coexistent in space’ it would ‘certainly’ seem to be a prerequisite that the object must first exist somewhere in space in the first place independently of whether anyone is observing it or not.
Of related note is the falsification, by quantum mechanics, of Einstein’s apriori ‘materialistic’ notions of what was possible for experimental physics:
Biologists consider it to be a scientific fact that evolution has occurred in that modern organisms differ from past forms, and evolution is still occurring with discernible differences between organisms and their descendants. There is such strong quantitative support for the second that scientists regard common descent as being as factual as the understanding that in the Solar System the Earth orbits the Sun, although the examination of the fundamentals of these processes is still in progress. There are several theories about the mechanisms of evolution, and there are still active debates about specific mechanisms.
source of the above is
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_as_fact_and_theory
The bit I wanted to highlight but could not is
Scientists regard common descent as being as factual as the understanding that in the Solar System the Earth orbits the Sun,
Funny that Darwinists always claim that evolution is as ‘certain’ as gravity, and in Le Conte’s case ‘far more certain’ than gravity, but nobody ever claims that gravity is as ‘certain’ as Darwinian evolution. And in Belfast’s link to wikipedia we find the claim that Darwinian evolution is as ‘factual’ as the heliocentric model. And again, I’ve never seen the counter claim that the heliocentric model is as ‘factual’ as Darwinian evolution.
Myself, I am personally absolutely certain that Darwinian evolution is factually false.
How can I be ‘certain’ of this?
Besides the fact that Darwinian evolution does not even qualify as a science, but is more properly classified as a unfalsifiable pseudoscience,,,
And besides the fact that Darwinian evolution, (with advances in quantum biology, and since it is based on reductive materialism), is not even based on the correct theoretical foundation in order to properly understand biology in the first place,,,
Besides all of that, I am ‘certain’ that Darwinian evolution is false because of the simple fact that if Darwinian evolution were actually true then any ‘certainty’ we could have in anything would be completely undermined.
That is to say, if Darwinian evolution were actually true then nobody could be certain about anything.
“Certainty” is a property of a mind. A person freely chooses whether or not he to be ‘certain’ about anything after weighing the evidence for and against any particular claim. Yet, besides the fact that the scientific evidence itself consistently contradicts the claims from Darwinists that Darwinian evolution is as ‘certain’ as gravity, Darwinian evolution itself, or more specifically the reductive materialistic premises of Darwinian evolution, also undermines any ‘certainty’ we may have in anything by denying the reality of our own immaterial minds and of our free will.
Although the ‘most certain’ thing that we can possibly know about reality is the fact that we actually exist as real persons (Descartes, Chalmers) and that we, as real persons, can freely choose to do, or not do, a veritable infinity of options (free will), Darwinian evolution directly undermines this ‘most certain’ thing that we can possibly know about reality.
Within the reductive materialistic premises of Darwinian evolution we find that both the reality of our conscious minds and our free will are held to be merely illusions.
Bottom line, if you are absolutely ‘certain’ that you really exist as a real person, which is the most certain thing you can possibly know about reality, then you can also be absolutely certain that Darwinian evolution is false.
Of supplemental note:
If Darwinian evolution were actually true, even our perceptions of reality would also become illusory and we could never be ‘certain’ about anything we perceive.:
Since Darwinian evolution denies ‘reliable observation’, which is a necessary cornerstone of the scientific method itself, then Darwinian evolution can never be based upon the scientific method and is therefore falsified once again in its claim to be a scientific theory.
And again, if you are absolutely ‘certain’ that you are reading this post then you can also be absolutely ‘certain’ that Darwinian evolution is false.
Verse:
Universal common descent remains untestable. We still cannot scientifically test the claim that chimps and humans share a common ancestor. Kinesiology argues against such a transformation as muscles and their attachment points have to change and such a change is not coded in the genes
Upright BiPed.
Great points about why “evolutionary science” must become political. So far it’s been without guns.
Polistra @2
I get similar messages on Microsoft Edge, saying “This Site is Not Secure”. I expect the reason is the https on the link, which normally designates a secure site. I am guessing that older UD posts are not “secure” somehow and using the https prefix for them then raises a flag and a warning in Firefox. In my case, I can click on “details” which gives me an option to open the site regardless, and nothing bad happens (so far). Hope this helps, and UD may want to look into it to see if there is a simple fix.
DaveS:
Yes, Le Conte was not saying Darwinism is more certain than gravity, only “evolution”. In my Evolution News version:
https://evolutionnews.org/2018/04/why-evolution-is-more-certain-than-gravity/
I had the more complete quote, and I also have the more complete quote in my book. It was shortened for length concerns for the TAS version, but I thought it was still clear that Le Conte’s “axiom” is that everything must have a natural cause. In the earlier version I also noted that “since there is no chance of finding a natural explanation for the beginning of time, Le Conte’s axiom would force scientists to reject the Big Bang theory before looking at the evidence” but this was also removed to keep the article short.
Granville Sewell,
Thanks for the response and clarification. I agree that Le Conte clearly states that only natural causes are to be considered (as well as the “continuity” principle), both of which are debatable.
So when and how does Form (whatever that means) A become distinct from Form B?
Are there scientific parameters to what constitutes Form A?
I’m sorry people have devoted their lives to Evolutionary Idiocy. This is a joke.
Andrew
According to Le Conte,
However, modern scientific discoveries have revealed that nature is riddled with discontinuities.
For example, let’s begin with the beginning of the universe– the so-called big bang. During Le Conte’s day materialists believed that universe we live in could very well be eternal. However, because of several discoveries made in the 20th century virtually no one believes that today. So how did the universe come into existence? At present there is no scientific explanation. Sure you could invoke the “multiverse” but what scientific evidence is there for the multiverse?
Related to the origin of the universe is its so-called fine tuning. What is fine tuning? It is the empirically derived fact that if certain fundamental physical parameters or constants had been slightly different life and self-conscious life would not exist anywhere is the universe. Many prominent physicists agree. According to the late Stephan Hawking, “The laws of science, as we know them at present, contain many fundamental numbers, like the size of the electric charge of the electron and the ratio of the masses of the proton and the electron. … The remarkable fact is that the values of these numbers seem to have been very finely adjusted to make possible the development of life.”
But the fine-tuning is even more intricate than Hawking’s brief summary suggests. For example, if the ratio of the nuclear strong force to the electromagnetic force had differed by 1 part in 1016, no stars would have formed… no stars… no life.
Or, if the ratio of the electromagnetic force constant to the gravitational force constant had not been precisely balanced to 1 part in 1040, we would have no stars of the right size to support life. We need both fast burning large stars to produce the essential elements for life’s chemistry and planet formation as well as long burning small stars to burn long enough to provide planetary systems habitable for life.
Also, if the nuclear ground state energies for helium 4, beryllium 6, carbon 12, and oxygen16 had not been fine-tuned higher or lower with respect to each other by more than 4% there would not be sufficient oxygen or carbon for the development of life.”
Or if the majority of the electromagnetic radiation emitted by the sun (or any equivalent star) wasn’t within a very narrow band: one part in 10 raised the 25th power (that’s one followed 25 zeros) life could not exist on earth. One part in 10^25 is equivalent to the thickness of one playing card in comparison to a stack of cards that stretch way beyond the confines of our own galaxy. So I guess we’re just really, really lucky! (Yeah, right.)
Physicists have discovered dozens of other of these finely tuned parameters. WAP (the weak anthropic principle) argues that the universe appears to be fine-tuned for life because if it hadn’t been we wouldn’t be here to observe it. SAP, on the other hand, argues that it must be fine-tuned for life. Why? Neither WAP nor SAP provide the answer.
Another discontinuity is the origin of life. If the universe is not eternal life cannot be eternal.
Then there is the origin of consciousness and of mind and intelligence.
And of course, Le Conte himself saw there were discontinuities in the evolution of animal life. But at the time these discontinuities could be rationalized away– for example, the incompleteness of the fossil record. However, with time and the advancement of science these discontinuities have not gone away.
So it appears Le Conte’s axioms are no longer axiomatic. Of course they never really were.
John,
Nice summary (comment 18) of the failures of Le Conte’s “axiom” since he wrote this. One more that you didn’t mention is quantum mechanics. I mentioned in comment 15 that I had included the longer version of the Le Conte quote in my book (In the Beginning… http://www.discoveryinstitutepress.com/sewell), it is actually used as the intro to Chapter 8 on quantum mechanics, where I said “Surprisingly, less than 40 years after his book appeared, Le Conte’s axiom was shattered by the discoveries of quantum mechanics, which introduced, quite literally, a ‘supernatural’ element into science.”
Unfortunately, quantum mechanics and the other discoveries of physics you mention, seem to be unknown or ignored by most biologists today and so Le Conte’s axiom still seems to dominate biology. With some exceptions, of course.