From BBC
Humans are possibly the weirdest species to have ever lived. We have freakishly big brains that allow us to build complicated gadgets, understand abstract concepts and communicate using language. We are also almost hairless with weak jaws, and struggle to give birth. How did such a bizarre creature evolve?
Huh?
1. In a world packed with unusual creatures, what reason have we to assume that humans are “possibly the weirdest species to have ever lived”? Publicly funded broadcasters, like the BBC, can buy this stuff. Whether they could sell it in an open market is another question.
2. “freakishly big brains”? What is the point> of such a claim? Why is it “freaking” to have a big brain when our ears ring with claims about the distressed state of stupider creatures we have—all BBC pensioneers say—displaced?
(Many such creatures are actually too stupid to survive without us)
Why not to believe what they tell you about human evolution
Would Brit readers like to comment? Are you happy to support tax TV in the age of the Internet?
No matter who you are, you gotta see this:
Australopithecines hate them!
as to:
That ‘weirdness’ of Humans, that so dramatically separates us from the other species, is called ‘the image of God’.
Moreover, there is no evidence that that ‘weirdness’ was gradually acquired:
More interesting still to the ‘image of God’ thesis, the three Rs, reading, writing, and arithmetic, i.e. the unique ability to process information inherent to man, are the very first things to be taught to children when they enter elementary school. And yet it is this information processing, i.e. reading, writing, and arithmetic that is found to be foundational to life:
As well, as if that was not ‘spooky enough’, information, not material, is found to be foundational to physical reality:
If that doesn’t strongly support the ‘image of God’ thesis of Theism for a person nothing will!
Also of related interest to the ‘image of God’ thesis. Wallace, co-discover of natural selection, who had far more field work than Darwin did, held that our ability to do math was proof that man has a ‘soul’
An atheist challenged me on this ‘soul’ proof of Wallace this morning and stated:
To which I responded:
Here are the references I cited in support of my position
supplemental notes:
I think that Alfred Wallace’s contention that mathematics itself was proof for the soul has obviously held up quite well to scrutiny. Indeed, dare I say, his contention has been rigorously confirmed to be true!
Verses and Music:
Tweak #15 (100,000ya) Enhanced Dribble. Ok, if they say so. My dog has that too btw.
How about Tweak #16 (Current Time) Emhanced Drivel.
Tweak #17 (200,000y in future) Superconscious Woo. Evolve your Woo, materialists. Deepak more evolved than Dawkins. Deepak has more kids, too. Spreading the woo gene.
BA77:
What exactly is the problem, in your own words? I really doubt Gödel’s theorems have any application here.
as to “What exactly is the problem, in your own words? I really doubt Gödel’s theorems have any application here.”
You did not understand my words the first time?
OK, Let’s simplify it even further:
If you have evidence of material particles creating functional information, specifically codes and axioms, present it. It is the same request for empirical evidence from Darwinists to support their fantastic claims as has been issued by ID proponents for years.
Do you seriously not understand the ‘information problem’ for unguided material processes?
Moreover, Godel’s incompleteness is certainly relevant to the atheist stating to me that our ability with math is no better than a pocket calculator. Specifically Godel, in his debate with Turing, extended his incompleteness to computers (an incompleteness which Chaitin has also supplemented), which I referenced already, but here it is again anyway:
In other words:
Supplemental quotes:
BA77,
In your previous post, you claimed that math is somehow a problem for “reductive materialist explanations”. And in order to disprove this claim, one would need to disprove Gödel’s incompleteness theorem (presumably the first?). Is that correct?
Here’s that first theorem, via the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
So in your view, the above theorem proves that “reductive materialist explanations” cannot exist. I’m asking you to explain that in your own words without more copypasta. What does this theorem have to do with particles following rules?
Edit: The “not provable” symbol seems to be getting borked. Here’s a link to the page.
At first glance I thought the title was “Fifteen Twerks that made us human.”
Which made me think, “Miley Cyrus makes us human?”
Which then made me think, “Miley Cyrus is human?”
As for paying a small tax (the Licence Fee) to enjoy entirely commercial free viewing, let me see now…
Hell, yes!
The point is that we have a very large brain for our body size relative to other animals.
daveS, it is the extension of Godel’s incompleteness by Turing and Chaitin. As Chaitin stated in the video I referenced, Turing made Godel’s Incompleteness much more concrete and less abstract. i.e. the halting problem,,
Chaitin has also extended incompleteness to make it ‘much more concrete and less abstract’:
To falsify that ‘more concrete’ version of incompleteness, you would simply have to demonstrate that unguided material processes can create non-trivial functional information. Specifically, that unguided material processes can create codes and axioms. Does that sound familiar? It should, it is almost the same exact request that has been made for years by ID proponents to Darwinists.
Can you provide that empirical evidence that falsifies the ‘more concrete’ version of incompleteness (and which would also falsify ID)?
of supplemental note on falsification. ID is falsifiable and Darwinian evolution is not:
BA77,
I just read the Chaitin article from Scientific American, but didn’t find anything relating to your argument. If you disagree, please cite specific quotes from it. In any case, it would seem that the author of Proving Darwin doesn’t see things quite the way you do.
I will check out the Robertson paper later tonight.
God is such a tinkerer!
Meanwhile at UD:
Verify that you are human by answering the question below.
Our brain size is not proven to be related to intelligence. it could just be about memory needs.
Pain childbirth was from punishment for Eve. Yes only female humans have such pain. Not apes chicks.
We are entirely covered by hai except on our hands and feet. We jusat never were triggered to grow more hair except under the armpits etc for drying up those areas.
All creatures have a languuage or rather memorized agreement on what sounds mean.
We are simply so much more intelligent that our agreements on sounds is what it is. Yet the same mechanism principals.
We are not weirder but rather we are not animals but beings made in Gods im,age that must break through a common design in biology.
Our brain size is not proven to be related to intelligence. it could just be about memory needs.
Pain childbirth was from punishment for Eve. Yes only female humans have such pain. Not apes chicks.
We are entirely covered by hai except on our hands and feet. We jusat never were triggered to grow more hair except under the armpits etc for drying up those areas.
All creatures have a languuage or rather memorized agreement on what sounds mean.
We are simply so much more intelligent that our agreements on sounds is what it is. Yet the same mechanism principals.
We are not weirder but rather we are not animals but beings made in Gods im,age that must break through a common design in biology.
What are the tweaks that make us inhuman, and how many are there?
Meanwhile at the future of UD:
Verify that you are not inhuman by answering the question below.
dave at 11 as to:
No more quotes from the article to cite,,,. The quote I cited is pretty much the exact quote I wanted to prove the point. i.e. That Chaitin had made Godel’s incompleteness ‘more concrete’ just as he said he had done in the video I referenced.
I guess, I could add the two preceding sentences in the article to give the ‘more concrete’ emphasis more context:
as to
Actually, since Chaitin had written that book, Proving Darwin, in 2013, he has had, due to I believe a conversation he had with Robert Marks, a change of heart:
Chaitin is quoted, by Marks, at 10:00 minute mark of following video in regards to Darwinism’s lack of a mathematical proof –
Dr. Marks also comments on the honesty of Chaitin in personally admitting to him that his long sought after mathematical proof for Darwinian evolution failed to deliver the goods that he thought it had delivered (apparently when he had written his book).
Here is the paper that Marks confronted Chaitin with that caused him to have a change of heart about his supposed mathematical proof for Darwinism:
Of related note: Here is what Gregory Chaitin himself said, in 2011, about the limits of the computer program he was trying to develop to prove that Darwinian evolution was mathematically feasible:
You just can’t make stuff like that up! 🙂
The preceding was a bit funny for me. Here we have a very intelligent man, Chaitin, who had personally ‘suggested’ that ‘”an infinite number of true mathematical theorems exist that cannot be proved from any finite system of axioms”, who, in spite of that, was still trying to prove that a variation of the ‘simplistic’ Darwinian ‘hill climbing algorithm’ could solve for a virtually unlimited set of intricate algorithms:
Personally, to put it mildly, I thought it was a severe disconnect in logic, on Chaitin’s part, to personally know the severe limits for computers on the one hand, and then on the other hand try to prove that the most simplistic of computer algorithms could solve for countless thousands of intricate algorithms and thus prove neo-Darwinian evolution true.
As Chaitin said himself in the Turing video I cited, it was “too clever by half”,,,
But alas, Darwinian Evolution has made many more than just one really intelligent person do, and say, very irrational things!
BA77,
Frankly, even I would be skeptical of a book entitled Proving Darwin, especially one written by a non-biologist. But there’s no doubt he’s a mathematical giant.
I hate to keep repeating myself, but having read the Douglas article, I’m not sure what support it provides to ID. Let’s be clear that the author is talking about Kolmogorov–Chaitin complexity and not “functional information”. And the stuff on free will is definitely … speculative.
daveS, do you not find it the least bit strange that a preeminent mathematician failed to find a mathematical proof that Darwinian evolution worked? In fact he termed it ‘a scandal’ that Darwinism has no mathematical proof!
And since Darwinism has no known mathematical proof, how can Darwinism even be considered a realistic science in the first place as all our other best theories of science are?
Without a rigid mathematical foundation, what separates Darwinism from pseudo-science dave?
If you say empirical evidence separates neo-Darwinism from pseudo-science, then we are back to square one with you having to provide empirical evidence that unguided material processes can produce functional information, axioms, and codes!
Do you have that empirical evidence? I’ve looked. Many more people than I have looked. Nobody can seem to find any evidence of unguided material processes generating functional information, axioms or codes.
Moreover, since I found the Douglas paper from the header of Robert Marks evoinfo website a few years ago, I’m VERY comfortable with Douglas’s statements on conservation of information and free will.
As to your quip on the ‘speculative’ nature of free will, you do know that if you deny that you have free will then you forfeit any right you have to argue rationally don’t you?
And dave, you also do know that ‘speculative’ free will is integral in quantum mechanics don’t you?
In other words, Its not as if free will is without solid empirical support! (as neo-Darwinism lacks solid empirical support I might add!)
In the following experiment, the claim that past material states determine future conscious choices (determinism) is directly falsified by the fact that present conscious choices are, in fact, effecting past material states:
In other words, if my conscious choices really are just merely the result of whatever state the material particles in my brain happen to be in in the past (deterministic) how in blue blazes are my choices instantaneously effecting the state of material particles into the past? This experiment is simply impossible for any coherent materialistic presupposition!
supplemental note:
BA, you do realize that there is no “rigid mathematical foundation” for much of biology, right?
So does that make biology pseudoscience?
actually biology, and the intricate mathematics being found within biology, is far easier to decipher, and understand, from the Intelligent Design perspective than it is from the Darwinian perspective
Classic BA two-step.
You didn’t answer my question:
Most of biology doesn’t have a “rigid mathematical foundation,” does that mean biology is pseudoscience?
BA77,
Um, not at all. I doubt that “Darwinism” is something you can mathematically prove. After all, the articles you linked to talked about the surprising limitations of mathematics. Douglas discusses the intractability of a particular 3-body problem, which is trivial compared to modeling biological systems. Does that mean we chuck all of physics?
To clarify, I was referring to the author’s application of Chaitin’s work to free will, not free will itself. But I wasn’t aware that the problem of free will had been solved already. lol There’s probably a reason it has been around for thousands of years.
More to the point, the papers you linked to said nothing about “functional information”. I’m still not seeing any relevance to ID.
as to: “Most of biology doesn’t have a “rigid mathematical foundation,” does that mean biology is pseudoscience?”
Contrary to what you believe, all of life/biology is based on, i.e. has its ‘foundation’ based on, highly intricate mathematical information. In fact, the mathematics and overlapping coding found at the basis of all biological life on earth far outclasses anything man has ever devised.
For instance, I found this paper today:
Darwinism seeks to explain the origination of that highly intricate, overlapping, and yes mathematical, information by unguided material processes. In other words, Darwinism seeks to explain the wondrous by appeal to the absurd. Such inherent absurdity in Darwinian explanations makes Darwinism a pseudo-science by definition.
I’d like to point out News’ near pathological hatred of a broadcaster with a string of science credentials that kind of outshine UD a bit; you know ‘Expelled’ and ooh, that’s it.
Life on Earth.
The Life of Plants.
The Life of Mammals.
Panorama (science specials).
The Human Body. (censored in the US I believe because a breast and penis were shown to be important in some obscure way to reproductive biology)
Many, many other one offs. Makes Discovery Channel look underevolved.
There was also the inspired late sixties decision to make David Attenborough head of all science production.
The BBC Denyse, may indeed like to see distressed pensioners, but I doubt it. Perhaps Fox News would distress pensioners more when their outrageous charges for such a shoddy product are billed out. Next of course, being a private entity, they send out the debt collectors.
News, unfortunately for you, the Beeb remains a much loved public institution, right up there with the publicly funded NHS.
Heaven preserve us from any society you prefer. Strict religious indoctrination with tithing mayhap?
well daveS, since you find it not the least little bit suspicious that Darwinism is without a rigid mathematical basis, and since you didn’t even try to provide empirical proof for the extraordinary claims that Darwinists make for unguided material processes to produce ANY non-trivial functional information, axioms and codes, and since you hand waved off direct empirical falsification of deterministic claims against free will, then I guess it is time for me to leave the thread, go to bed, and let the unbiased readers decide for themselves who has presented the best case for their position.
The last word is all yours.
0 for 2 BA.
It’s not what I “believe,” it’s a fact: the vast majority of biology does not have a rigid mathematical foundation.
So one last time, I’ll try, does this make biology a pseudoscience?
You are wrong.
Biology does have a rigid mathematical basis. Darwinism does not. Therefore, among many other considerations, Darwinism is a pseudo-science and biology is not.
Just because the mathematics at the foundation of biology is so intricate that we have not figured it all out (and in all likelihood never will) does not mean that we do not know that biology is indeed ‘information theoretic’ in its basis.
On the other hand, Darwinism gives no hint that a rigid mathematical basis will ever be found for it:
In fact, besides having no discernible mathematical basis, nor even providing any real hope that a mathematical basis will be found, our mathematics continually tells us that Darwinian evolution is extremely unlikely:
BA, first you tell me biology has a rigid mathematical foundation, then you tell me we haven’t figured it all out.
Well which is it?
Let me tell you.
We haven’t figured out even close to a significant fraction of it.
So this means the study of biology has been without a “rigid mathematical foundation” for its entire history and this will likely continue for the foreseeable future.
Now I’ll answer my original question for you.
This does not mean that biology is a pseudoscience, and neither is evolutionary biology.
I’m sure this will all go in one ear and out the other though, and you will be copy/pasting the same BS for years to come.
Oh well. You can’t fix stupid.
Good day.
“We are also almost hairless”
Speak for yourself 😉
Actually any broadcaster can buy this stuff – often they buy it from the BBC which has a fantastic track record of selling programming (£1.7 billion last year) including top science broadcasting to other countries.
Freakish means strikingly unusual – don’t you think human brains are unusually large?
Many, many creatures are dependent on others to survive – including us.
Extremely happy. Despite its controversies it is one of the best things about the UK. If you haven’t lived in a country with a non-commercial broadcasting and Internet service which is not government controlled then you may not appreciate its value. One of the interesting things about having a non-commercial service is that it drives up the standard of the commercial rivals.
“Despite its controversies it is one of the best things about the UK”
Oh come now MF. The BBC is nothing but a propaganda machine. It is certainly not worthy of such praise.
Everyone knows the best thing about the UK is the full English breakfast and our lovely countryside 😉
Curly Howard, neo-Darwinism, an abstract idea, is an attempt to explain the origination of all of biological life in all its splendid diversity, something we can see, in all its unfathomed complexity.
Abstract Darwinian explanations for the origination of that unfathomed complexity in biology are exercises in tea leaf reading (tea leaf reading is a pseudo-science in case you do not know, (I know you said ‘you can’t fix stupid’ but I’m trying anyway! 🙂 ).
Dawkins himself stated:
Since our mathematics and empirical evidence both tell us that the abstract notion of neo-Darwinism cannot plausibly be the explanation for that overwhelming ‘appearance of design’ in Biology, then Darwinism is a pseudo-science akin, once again, to tea leaf reading.
“Curly Howard, neo-Darwinism, an abstract idea, is an attempt to explain the origination of all of biological life, something we can see, in all its unfathomed complexity.”
No it isn’t. Neo-Darwinism makes absolutely no attempt to explain the origin of life.
as to: “No it isn’t. Neo-Darwinism makes absolutely no attempt to explain the origin of life.”
Oh that’s right, Darwinism ‘merely’ tries the be the explanation for the diversification of all biological life, in all its unfathomed complexity, from a ‘simple cell’.
Materialism, the philosophy which undergirds neo-Darwinian thought, stripped of natural selection, tries to be the explanation for the origin of that ‘simple’ cell
Both fail miserably in their attempted explanations and both are in reality pseudo-sciences:
See Stephen Meyer’s books:
‘Signature in the Cell’ and ‘Darwin’s Doubt’
“Both fail miserably in their attempted explanations and both are in reality pseudo-sciences:”
For a pseudo-science, the theory of evolution is predictive, testable and falsifiable, all of the things that are required by science. ID Creationism? Not so much.
BA77,
I never claimed that I could solve the problem of free will, that I could axiomatize “Darwinism”, or any of these other things.
My position is simply that the Chaitin and Douglas articles don’t say what you imply they say, and for that reason, you should take them out of your rotation.
as to : For a pseudo-science, the theory of evolution is predictive, testable and falsifiable, all of the things that are required by science. ID Creationism? Not so much.
Actually, Darwinism continually makes fundamentally false predictions as to what will be found. False predictions that lead scientists down completely wrong paths. Vestigial organs and Junk DNA for two examples right of the top of my head.
Cornelius Hunter, PhD Biophysics, talks about many more failed predictions of Darwinism here:
Just yesterday, Casey Luskin wrote an article on another major failed prediction of Darwinism that had led scientists on a wild goose chase for years:
As to Darwinism being ‘testable’, Darwinian explanations have been tested and have been found wanting:
As to your claim that Darwinism is falsifiable. That simply is not true. No matter what finding, Darwinists are always able to resort to an assortment of ‘rescue devises’ to save Darwinism from falsification. For instance, Darwinists claim that a pre-Cambrian rabbit would falsify Darwinism. But, contrary to their belief, such a finding would only invoke another round of ‘story telling’ with their rescue devise of ‘convergent evolution’:
Moreover, whereas Darwinism has no rigid falsification criteria so as to separate it from pseudo-science, ID is easily falsifiable:
Of note on falsifiability:
Verse and Music:
dave, since you were shown to be completely wrong on Chaitin’s current beliefs,,,
http://www.uncommondescent.com.....ent-554951
I will safely ignore your advise.,,, If you had a free will I might of even thought you had a good intention behind the advise 🙂
Oh well, Thanks anyway Darwinbot!
BA77,
As expected.
Ok BA, whatever you say.
I’m just glad you’ve come to realize your “evolution doesn’t have a rigid mathematical basis and therefore Is pseudoscience” argument is BS and have moved on.
You’ve moved on to the even more absurd claim of “evolution is like tea leaf reading,” but hey in BA’s world that’s a sound argument.
You can’t fix stupid.
Fifteen Twinkies That Made Us Human
Who could argue?
Mark Frank, almost thinking doesn’t count. Never did, never will.
What is it that makes us inhuman?
not querious:
There isn’t any theory of evolution, unguided evolution doesn’t make any predictions and it cannot be tested. Obviously you are confused or deluded.
Mark has no answer, as expected.