A physicist looks at biology’s problem of “speciation” in humans

A few notes:

Hominids, Homonyms, and Homo sapiens - 05/27/2009 - Excerpt: Homo erectus is particularly controversial, because it is such a broad classification. Tattersall and Schwartz find no clear connection between the Asian, European and African specimens lumped into this class. “In his 1950 review, Ernst Mayr placed all of these forms firmly within the species Homo erectus,” they explained. “Subsequently, Homo erectus became the standard-issue ‘hominid in the middle,’ expanding to include not only the fossils just mentioned, but others of the same general period....”. They discussed the arbitrariness of this classification: "Put together, all these fossils (which span almost 2 myr) make a very heterogeneous assortment indeed; and placing them all together in the same species only makes any conceivable sense in the context of the ecumenical view of Homo erectus as the middle stage of the single hypervariable hominid lineage envisioned by Mayr (on the basis of a much slenderer record). Viewed from the morphological angle, however, the practice of cramming all of this material into a single Old World-wide species is highly questionable. Indeed, the stuffing process has only been rendered possible by a sort of ratchet effect, in which fossils allocated to Homo erectus almost regardless of their morphology have subsequently been cited as proof of just how variable the species can be." By “ratchet effect,” they appear to mean something like a self-fulfilling prophecy: i.e., “Let’s put everything from this 2-million-year period into one class that we will call Homo erectus.” Someone complains, “But this fossil from Singapore is very different from the others.” The first responds, “That just shows how variable the species Homo erectus can be.” https://crev.info/2009/05/hominids_homonyms_and_homo_sapiens/ Skull of Homo erectus throws story of human evolution into disarray - OCT. 17, 2013 Excerpt: Over decades excavating sites in Africa, researchers have named half a dozen different species of early human ancestor, but most, if not all, are now on shaky ground.,,, If the scientists are right, it would trim the base of the human evolutionary tree and spell the end for names such as H rudolfensis, H gautengensis, H ergaster and possibly H habilis. http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/oct/17/skull-homo-erectus-human-evolution Review of "Contested Bones" (Part 4 - Chapter 4 "Homo erectus") https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rtK0ScrQn4&list=PLHDSWJBW3DNU_twNBjopIqyFOwo_bTkXm&index=4 Good-bye Heidelberg Man: You Never Existed - July 11, 2014 Excerpt: “If someone kills one person they go to jail,” anthropologist Zeresenay Alemseged of the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco noted last month at a meeting here in France’s deep south. “But what happens if you kill off a whole species?” The answer soon became apparent: anguished debate. In the balance was Homo heidelbergensis, a big-brained human ancestor generally seen as a pivotal figure, (common ancestor of modern humans and our extinct closest cousins, the Neandertals), during a murky period of evolution. At the invitation-only meeting, researchers debated whether this species really was a major player—or "no more than a paleoanthropologists’ construct". http://crev.info/2014/07/heidelberg-man-never-existed/ "Habilis is widely recognized by paleo-experts as an invalid taxon, or at best an incoherent assemblage of fragmentary bones. Habilis is a "wastebasket taxon"- a comixture of Australopithecus (ape) and Homo (human) bones. Habilis has failed to fill the "vast gulf" that separates australopith and man. Habilis can now be added to the growing list of falsely claimed "ape-men." John Reader is a distinguished human evolution researcher in the department of Anthropology at University College, London. In his book 'Missing Links'. Reader effectively summarizes the current status of Habilis. "Nearly half a century of accumulating evidence has left Homo Habilis more open to question, more insecure than it ever was... Homo Habilis remains more of an evolutionary idea than an example of anatomical fact linking one species to another." - John Reader - Missing Links - Quote at the 41:49 minute mark: - Review of "Contested Bones" (Part 8 - Chapter 8 "Homo habilis") 3-24-2018 by Paul Giem https://youtu.be/C68QYWePB64?list=PLHDSWJBW3DNU_twNBjopIqyFOwo_bTkXm&t=2504 A Big Bang Theory of Homo - Casey Luskin - August 2012 Excerpt: To the contrary, she explains, habilis "displays much stronger similarities to African ape limb proportions" than even Lucy. She called these results "unexpected in view of previous accounts of Homo habilis as a link between australopithecines and humans." Without habilis as an intermediate, it is difficult to find fossil hominins to serve as direct transitional forms between the australopithecines and Homo. Rather, the fossil record shows dramatic and abrupt changes that correspond to the appearance of Homo. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/08/a_big_bang_theo063141.html New study suggests big bang theory of human evolution - U of M Press Release Excerpt: "The earliest H. sapiens remains differ significantly from australopithecines in both size and anatomical details. Insofar as we can tell, these changes were sudden and not gradual." University of Michigan anthropologist Milford Wolpoff http://www.ns.umich.edu/Releases/2000/Jan00/r011000b.html

bornagain77

daves- As far as I am concerned there was never a common ancestor between chimps and humans. To me kinesiology alone blows that alleged transformation out of the water. So, to me, who were the first humans is a fool's errand because the answer is whoever the first humans were. And also, to me, the sub-humans are the ones banning teleological explanations from science. :razz: :cool: They are devo DEVO ET

ET,

It wouldn’t be if we had actual specimens to examine. But having what we do the best we can say is that under the scenario that chimps and humans shared a common ancestor sub-human populations had to have existed.

Do you see the pattern (or lack thereof?) In answer to the question "who were the first humans?": 1) You say there is a clear boundary between humans and non-humans, but more evidence is needed to locate it 2) Casey Luskin says Homo erectus 3) vjtorley says Homo heidelbergensis 4) someone else suggests Homo sapiens daveS

To further refute daveS's claim that

“it’s very difficult to find a clear boundary between the humans and non-humans.”

Although daveS may find it "very difficult to find a clear boundary between the humans and non-humans", Ian Tattersall and Jeffery Schwartz had no trouble finding a 'clear boundary. Specifically they stated, "Unusual though Homo sapiens may be morphologically, it is undoubtedly our remarkable cognitive qualities that most strikingly demarcate us from all other extant species."

Evolution of the Genus Homo – Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences – Ian Tattersall, Jeffery H. Schwartz, May 2009 Excerpt: “Definition of the genus Homo is almost as fraught as the definition of Homo sapiens. We look at the evidence for “early Homo,” finding little morphological basis for extending our genus to any of the 2.5–1.6-myr-old fossil forms assigned to “early Homo” or Homo habilis/rudolfensis.”,,,, “Unusual though Homo sapiens may be morphologically, it is undoubtedly our remarkable cognitive qualities that most strikingly demarcate us from all other extant species. They are certainly what give us our strong subjective sense of being qualitatively different. And they are all ultimately traceable to our symbolic capacity. Human beings alone, it seems, mentally dissect the world into a multitude of discrete symbols, and combine and recombine those symbols in their minds to produce hypotheses of alternative possibilities. When exactly Homo sapiens acquired this unusual ability is the subject of debate.” http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.earth.031208.100202

Ian Tattersall and Jeffery Schwartz are hardly the only leading experts to note this 'clear boundary'. As the following study found, "there is a significant discontinuity in the degree to which human and nonhuman animals are able to approximate the higher-order, systematic, relational capabilities of a physical symbol system,"

Darwin's mistake: explaining the discontinuity between human and nonhuman minds. - 2008 Excerpt: Over the last quarter century, the dominant tendency in comparative cognitive psychology has been to emphasize the similarities between human and nonhuman minds and to downplay the differences as "one of degree and not of kind" (Darwin 1871).,,, To wit, there is a significant discontinuity in the degree to which human and nonhuman animals are able to approximate the higher-order, systematic, relational capabilities of a physical symbol system (PSS) (Newell 1980). We show that this symbolic-relational discontinuity pervades nearly every domain of cognition and runs much deeper than even the spectacular scaffolding provided by language or culture alone can explain,,, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18479531

And as Juan Arsuaga noted, "No other mammal controls and uses fire, writes books, travels in space, paints portraits, or prays. This is not a question of degree. It is all or nothing",,,

"There is no other animal species that truly resembles our own. A physical and mental chasm separates us from all other living creatures. There is no other bipedal mammal. No other mammal controls and uses fire, writes books, travels in space, paints portraits, or prays. This is not a question of degree. It is all or nothing: there is no semi-bipedal animal, none that makes only small fires, writes only short sentences, builds only rudimentary spaceships, draws just a little bit, or prays only occasionally. The extraordinary originality of our species is not common in the living world. Most species belong to groups of similar ones.,," - Juan Arsuaga (paleoanthropologist) - The Neanderthals Necklace - 2002 - page 3-4

And as the following study noted, "Although technologies became more complex over the history of the genus Homo (Tattersall, 2012), indications of modern-style iconic and representational activities (Henshilwood et al., 2002, 2004) begin only significantly after the first anatomically recognizable H. sapiens appears at a little under 200 thousand years ago,,"

The mystery of language evolution - May 7, 2014 Excerpt: Paleontology and archaeology,,, Although technologies became more complex over the history of the genus Homo (Tattersall, 2012), indications of modern-style iconic and representational activities (Henshilwood et al., 2002, 2004) begin only significantly after the first anatomically recognizable H. sapiens appears at a little under 200 thousand years ago,, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4019876/

And in the following study Marc Hauser, Charles Yang, Robert Berwick, Ian Tattersall, Michael J. Ryan, Jeffrey Watumull, Noam Chomsky and Richard C. Lewontin stated that "We argue instead that the richness of ideas is accompanied by a poverty of evidence, with essentially no explanation of how and why our linguistic computations and representations evolved." To which Casey Luskin rightly noted, “It's difficult to imagine much stronger words from a more prestigious collection of experts.”

Leading Evolutionary Scientists Admit We Have No Evolutionary Explanation of Human Language - December 19, 2014 Excerpt: Understanding the evolution of language requires evidence regarding origins and processes that led to change. In the last 40 years, there has been an explosion of research on this problem as well as a sense that considerable progress has been made. We argue instead that the richness of ideas is accompanied by a poverty of evidence, with essentially no explanation of how and why our linguistic computations and representations evolved.,,, (Marc Hauser, Charles Yang, Robert Berwick, Ian Tattersall, Michael J. Ryan, Jeffrey Watumull, Noam Chomsky and Richard C. Lewontin, "The mystery of language evolution," Frontiers in Psychology, Vol 5:401 (May 7, 2014).) Casey Luskin added: “It's difficult to imagine much stronger words from a more prestigious collection of experts.” http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/12/leading_evoluti092141.html

Thus daveS may have a difficult time finding a clear boundary, but leading experts in the field certainly have no trouble whatsoever finding that 'clear boundary'. The late best selling author Tom Wolfe was so taken aback by this honest confession by leading Darwinists that he wrote a book, "Kingdom of Speech", on the subject. Here is one of his main arguments in his book:

“Speech is 95 percent plus of what lifts man above animal! Physically, man is a sad case. His teeth, including his incisors, which he calls eyeteeth, are baby-size and can barely penetrate the skin of a too-green apple. His claws can’t do anything but scratch him where he itches. His stringy-ligament body makes him a weakling compared to all the animals his size. Animals his size? In hand-to-paw, hand-to-claw, or hand-to-incisor combat, any animal his size would have him for lunch. Yet man owns or controls them all, every animal that exists, thanks to his superpower: speech.” —Tom Wolfe, in the introduction to his book, The Kingdom of Speech

That is to say, although humans are fairly defenseless creatures in the wild compared to other creatures, such as lions, bears, and sharks, etc.., nonetheless, humans have, completely contrary to Darwinian ‘survival of the fittest’ thinking, managed to become masters of the planet, not by brute force, but simply by our unique ability to communicate information and, more specifically, to infuse information into material substrates in order to create, 'intelligently design' tools that are extremely useful for our survival, etc.. etc... What is more interesting still about the fact that humans have a unique ability to understand and create information, and have come to dominate the world through the ‘top-down’ infusion of information into material substrates, is the fact that, due to advances in science, both the universe and life itself, are now found to be ‘information theoretic’ in their foundational basis. As Vlatko Vedral, who is a Professor of Physics at the University of Oxford, stated, "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."

"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 - a recognized leader in the field of quantum mechanics.

It is hard to imagine a more convincing proof that we are made ‘in the image of God’, than finding that both the universe and life itself are ‘information theoretic’ in their foundational basis, and that we, of all the creatures on earth, uniquely possess an ability to understand and create information, and have come to ‘master the planet’ precisely because of our ability infuse information into material substrates. I guess a more convincing evidence could be if God Himself became a man, defeated death on a cross, and then rose from the dead to prove that He was God. And that is precisely the claim of Christianity.

Quantum Mechanics, Special Relativity, General Relativity and Christianity – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4QDy1Soolo Turin Shroud Hologram Reveals The Words “The Lamb” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Tmka1l8GAQ

Verse:

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

daveS repeats his false claim,,,

"it’s very difficult to find a clear boundary between the humans and non-humans."

Yet as was mentioned in post 14 in response to when he first made his false claim, there is a clear boundary in the fossil record between humans and apes:

Any confusion between ape and human fossils is solely due to overeager Darwinists who constantly try to stuff imaginary ‘missing links’ into the the chasm that separates us from apes. Yet when one delves into the details of the fossil record, and sees how disingenuous Darwinists have been with the fossil record, the confusion disappears, and the record reveals itself to be one of sudden appearance and stasis (just like the pattern for the rest of the fossil record)... etc.. etc.. etc.. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/a-physicist-looks-at-biologys-problem-of-speciation-in-humans/#comment-663659

And given the fact that the entire fossil record, as was briefly mentioned in post 4, contradicts Darwinian predictions for gradualism, one would expect that Darwinists would have fairly compelling empirical evidence to substantiate their belief that one type of species can morph into a fundamentally new type of species. But no such empirical evidence exists. In the following paper, Alan H. Linton - emeritus professor of bacteriology, states that 'Bacteria are ideal for this kind of study, But throughout 150 years of the science of bacteriology, there is no evidence that one species of bacteria has changed into another,'

Scant search for the Maker - 2001 Excerpt: But where is the experimental evidence? None exists in the literature claiming that one species has been shown to evolve into another. Bacteria, the simplest form of independent life, are ideal for this kind of study, with generation times of 20 to 30 minutes, and populations achieved after 18 hours. But throughout 150 years of the science of bacteriology, there is no evidence that one species of bacteria has changed into another, in spite of the fact that populations have been exposed to potent chemical and physical mutagens and that, uniquely, bacteria possess extrachromosomal, transmissible plasmids. Since there is no evidence for species changes between the simplest forms of unicellular life, it is not surprising that there is no evidence for evolution from prokaryotic to eukaryotic cells, let alone throughout the whole array of higher multicellular organisms. - Alan H. Linton - emeritus professor of bacteriology, University of Bristol. http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=159282

Ann Gauger and Doug Axe have found that Darwinian processes would need a trillion trillion years or more—to accomplish the seemingly subtle change in enzyme function that requires just a few mutations.

When Theory and Experiment Collide - Douglas Axe - April 16th, 2011 Excerpt: Based on our experimental observations and on calculations we made using a published population model [3], we estimated that Darwin’s mechanism would need a truly staggering amount of time—a trillion trillion years or more—to accomplish the seemingly subtle change in enzyme function that we studied. http://biologicinstitute.org/2011/04/16/when-theory-and-experiment-collide/

Michael Behe, in his book ‘The Edge of Evolution’, noted that the ability of the malaria parasite to develop resistance to chloroquine is a two mutation event with a probability of occurring of 1 in 10^20. He then notes that ‘for humans to achieve a mutation like this by chance, we would have to wait 100 million times 10 million years’ (or 1 quadrillion years)

Waiting Longer for Two Mutations – Michael J. Behe Excerpt: Citing malaria literature sources (White 2004) I had noted that the de novo appearance of chloroquine resistance in Plasmodium falciparum was an event of probability of 1 in 10^20. I then wrote that ‘for humans to achieve a mutation like this by chance, we would have to wait 100 million times 10 million years’ (1 quadrillion years)(Behe 2007) (because that is the extrapolated time that it would take to produce 10^20 humans). Durrett and Schmidt (2008, p. 1507) retort that my number ‘is 5 million times larger than the calculation we have just given’ using their model (which nonetheless “using their model” gives a prohibitively long waiting time of 216 million years). Their criticism compares apples to oranges. My figure of 10^20 is an empirical statistic from the literature; it is not, as their calculation is, a theoretical estimate from a population genetics model. http://www.discovery.org/a/9461

Michael Behe then put what he has dubbed 'the edge of evolution' to be at 10^20 times 10^20, which is 10^40. ,,, Behe puts the edge of evolution at 10^40 since, as he states, 'there have likely been fewer than 10^40 cells in the world in the last 4 billion years,'.

“The immediate, most important implication is that complexes with more than two different binding sites-ones that require three or more proteins-are beyond the edge of evolution, past what is biologically reasonable to expect Darwinian evolution to have accomplished in all of life in all of the billion-year history of the world. The reasoning is straightforward. The odds of getting two independent things right are the multiple of the odds of getting each right by itself. So, other things being equal, the likelihood of developing two binding sites in a protein complex would be the square of the probability for getting one: a double CCC (chloroquine complexity cluster), 10^20 times 10^20, which is 10^40. There have likely been fewer than 10^40 cells in the world in the last 4 billion years, so the odds are against a single event of this variety in the history of life. It is biologically unreasonable.” – Michael Behe – The Edge of Evolution – page 146

Moreover, in terms of morphology, billion year old bacteria "surprisingly looked exactly like modern species," and the similarity in morphology is widespread among fossils of [varying] times,”

Static evolution: is pond scum the same now as billions of years ago? Excerpt: But what intrigues (paleo-biologist) J. William Schopf most is lack of change. Schopf was struck 30 years ago by the apparent similarities between some 1-billion-year-old fossils of blue-green bacteria and their modern microbial counterparts. "They surprisingly looked exactly like modern species," Schopf recalls. Now, after comparing data from throughout the world, Schopf and others have concluded that modern pond scum differs little from the ancient blue-greens. "This similarity in morphology is widespread among fossils of [varying] times," says Schopf. As evidence, he cites the 3,000 such fossils found; http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Static+evolution%3A+is+pond+scum+the+same+now+as+billions+of+years+ago%3F-a014909330

And on and on it goes. As the following video shows, multiple studies conducted on microbes consistently contradict Darwinian claims that one species can morph into another.

Darwin vs. Microbes - video https://youtu.be/ntxc4X9Zt-I

This is not a matter of "Well we have abundant empirical evidence supporting evolution so we can overlook the gaps in the fossil record". Not in the least. No, this is a matter of, "We have multiple lines of empirical evidence that directly contradict Darwinian claims but we will still pretend that the gaps in the fossil record are no big deal". Given Darwinists refusal to ever deal with the evidence properly, Darwinian evolution certainly does not qualify as a testable/falsifiable science. But is more properly classified as a unfalsifiable pseudoscience and/or even a religion that requires extraordinary amounts of blind faith to believe in.

Darwin’s Theory vs Falsification – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rzw0JkuKuQ

bornagain77

daves:

You’re actually illustrating my point—assuming common ancestry, there were non-human populations in our branch, but it’s very difficult to find a clear boundary between the humans and non-humans.

It wouldn't be if we had actual specimens to examine. But having what we do the best we can say is that under the scenario that chimps and humans shared a common ancestor sub-human populations had to have existed. That is what Denyse was referring to ET

ET,

Clearly, if humans and chimps shared a common ancestor then there had to have been sub-humans. That is populations along our branch that were not humans or not quite human.

I agree, assuming your interpretation of "sub-human". You're actually illustrating my point---assuming common ancestry, there were non-human populations in our branch, but it's very difficult to find a clear boundary between the humans and non-humans. daveS

daves:

In binomial nomenclature, please.

So every transitional population has been so labeled? Take your moving goalposts and - well never mind. Clearly, if humans and chimps shared a common ancestor then there had to have been sub-humans. That is populations along our branch that were not humans or not quite human. Or is it that the concept too difficult to grasp? ET

ET,

Wow- any of them who didn’t and couldn’t produce any technology. Knuckle-walkers, obviously

In binomial nomenclature, please. daveS

TE Joshua Swamidass wrote:

Um, I do not accept neo-Darwinism. No one in science does. Neo-Darwinism was falsified in the 1960s with Haldane and Kimura.

bornagain77 was right- the Darwinian atheists didn't do anything ET

Bobby:

They may not be the sort of Christian you like, but Christianity is a broad church, and Fisher and modern-day TEs are certainly not atheists.

TE's say that Darwinism is a joke. "Christian Darwinist" is an oxy-moron. Mendel definitely was not a Darwinist ET

daves:

Who are “they”, specifically?

Wow- any of them who didn't and couldn't produce any technology. Knuckle-walkers, obviously ET

Well seeing as you consistently argue for atheistic materialism until it is pointed out to you that atheistic materialism undermines free-will and personhood, then you switch to arguing for some ill defined form of pantheism, I would hardly consider you a paragon of logically consistent reasoning. But alas, that is only "my" personal opinion, but at least in Christian Theism, I can consistently ground the free will and personhood necessary to have a valid personal opinion in the first place. Of note: Dr. Craig states that Metaphysical Naturalism (Atheism) is reducto ad absurdum on (at least) these eight following points: (8 points which, by the way, Dr. Craig pulled from Dr. Rosenburg's own book on atheism.)

1.) Argument from intentionality 1. If naturalism is true, I cannot think about anything. 2. I am thinking about naturalism. 3. Therefore naturalism is not true. 2.) The argument from meaning 1. If naturalism is true, no sentence has any meaning. 2. Premise (1) has meaning. 3. Therefore naturalism is not true. 3.) The argument from truth 1. If naturalism is true, there are no true sentences. 2. Premise (1) is true. 3. Therefore naturalism is not true. 4.) The argument from moral blame and praise 1. If naturalism is true, I am not morally praiseworthy or blameworthy for any of my actions. 2. I am morally praiseworthy or blameworthy for some of my actions. 3. Therefore naturalism is not true. 5.) Argument from freedom 1. If naturalism is true, I do not do anything freely. 2. I am free to agree or disagree with premise (1). 3. Therefore naturalism is not true. 6.) The argument from purpose 1. If naturalism is true, I do not plan to do anything. 2. I (Dr. Craig) planned to come to tonight's debate. 3. Therefore naturalism is not true. 7.) The argument from enduring 1. If naturalism is true, I do not endure for two moments of time. 2. I have been sitting here for more than a minute. 3. Therefore naturalism is not true. 8.) The argument from personal existence 1. If naturalism is true, I do not exist. 2. I do exist! 3. Therefore naturalism is not true.

I strongly suggest watching Dr. Craig’s following presentation of the 8 points to get a full feel for just how insane the metaphysical naturalist’s (atheist's) position actually is.

Is Metaphysical Naturalism (Atheism) Viable? - William Lane Craig - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzS_CQnmoLQ

,,,Some of the insanity inherent in Atheism in Rosenberg's own words,,,

"There is no self in, around, or as part of anyone’s body. There can’t be. So there really isn’t any enduring self that ever could wake up morning after morning worrying about why it should bother getting out of bed. The self is just another illusion, like the illusion that thought is about stuff or that we carry around plans and purposes that give meaning to what our body does. Every morning’s introspectively fantasized self is a new one, remarkably similar to the one that consciousness ceased fantasizing when we fell sleep sometime the night before. Whatever purpose yesterday’s self thought it contrived to set the alarm last night, today’s newly fictionalized self is not identical to yesterday’s. It’s on its own, having to deal with the whole problem of why to bother getting out of bed all over again. (…) So, the fiction of the enduring self is almost certainly a side effect of a highly effective way of keeping the human body out of harm’s way. It is a by-product of whatever selected for bodies—human and nonhuman—to take pains now that make things better for themselves later. For a long time now, Mother Nature has been filtering for bodies to postpone consumption in the present as investment for the body’s future. It looks a lot like planning. Even squirrels do it, storing nuts for the winter. Does this require each squirrel to have a single real enduring self through time? No. If not, then why take introspection’s word for it when it has a track record of being wrong about things like this, when the self just looks like part of the same illusions and is supposed to have features that physics tells us nothing real can have." - A.Rosenberg, The Atheist’s Guide to Reality, ch.10

bornagain77

Typical: anyone who disagrees with you is biased, but you - you aren't biased, you're right! That's quite a bit of arrogance. jdk

correction: "This reader biased atheist votes for Bob!" There all better! :) bornagain77

This reader votes for Bob! :-) jdk

Whatever Bob (and weave), I'll let the readers decide for themselves who is being honest towards the evidence and who is being disingenuous. As to people who falsely pretend to be believers in God but are, in reality, not, Jesus himself held religious hypocrites to be especially contrary to the will of God above everyone else. In fact the religious leaders and/or hypocrites were the ones who orchestrated his crucifixion. For example:

Matthew 23:13-15 “What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you shut the door of the Kingdom of Heaven in people’s faces. You won’t go in yourselves, and you don’t let others enter either. “What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you cross land and sea to make one convert, and then you turn that person into twice the child of hell you yourselves are!

Needless to say, they certainly considered themselves believers in God, but Jesus would have none of their hypocrisy.

Turin Shroud Hologram Reveals The Words "The Lamb" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Tmka1l8GAQ Shroud of Turin: From discovery of Photographic Negative, to 3D Information, to Quantum Hologram https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-TL4QOCiis

bornagain77

Calling functional atheists Christians does not negate the “smell test” criteria for ascertaining whether something is true or not.

Wait, what? If someone believes in God, and that Jesus was His only begotten son, then they are a Christian, no? Next you'll be telling us that the Pope isn't a Christian either.

Moreover, I did not merely accuse you that you made a patently false statement,,

“we’ve (Darwinian Atheists) worked out the basis of heredity” Darwinian Atheists have done no such thing. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/a-physicist-looks-at-biologys-problem-of-speciation-in-humans/#comment-663649

,,, I proved it!

By providing a series of links to discussions that are not about working out the basis of heredity, but actually assume the mechanisms of heredity that were worked out. Yes, thank you for that interesting approach to logic. Bob O'H

ET,

They are/ were inferior.

Who are "they", specifically? I'm guessing you don't mean Neanderthals or Homo erectus. Which groups are inferior to humans? daveS

LOL, and this is a pristine example of Bob (and weave)'s debating style. Calling functional atheists Christians does not negate the "smell test" criteria for ascertaining whether something is true or not. Moreover, I did not merely accuse you that you made a patently false statement,,

“we’ve (Darwinian Atheists) worked out the basis of heredity” Darwinian Atheists have done no such thing. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/a-physicist-looks-at-biologys-problem-of-speciation-in-humans/#comment-663649

,,, I proved it! And again, I don't care if you read the response or not. bornagain77

bs77 -

Bob (and weave) O’ Hara, In case you did not notice, since you steadfastly refuse to ever be honest towards the evidence, my response was not even directed towards you in the first place, but was directed towards unbiased readers.

OK, so you want to comment on what I write, but you're not interested in responding to me? Nice that you accuse me of falsehoods, and then go on to acknowledge that I was right: not all Darwinians were atheists. They may not be the sort of Christian you like, but Christianity is a broad church, and Fisher and modern-day TEs are certainly not atheists. Bob O'H

Bob (and weave) O' Hara, In case you did not notice, since you steadfastly refuse to ever be honest towards the evidence, my response was not even directed towards you in the first place, but was directed towards unbiased readers. I could care less if you ever read the response or not. My purpose was to expose your argument as fraudulent for those who care for the truth. I have given up any hope that you will ever be truthful towards the evidence at hand. As to religion, you could have thrown Charles Darwin himself in as well. After all, his college degree was in Theology (not 'science or math), and his book, "Origin", is basically one long (bad) Theological argument.

CHARLES DARWIN: VICTORIAN MYTHMAKER By A.N. Wilson (Book Review By Jonathan Wells) - - Wednesday, January 31, 2018 Excerpt: Darwin called “The Origin of Species” “one long argument,” and it was a theology-laden argument against creation by design. Many people have the mistaken impression that Darwin’s theory was accepted because he provided so much scientific evidence for it (he didn’t). Instead, his theory was accepted because it fit the increasingly secular spirit of the times.,,, So Darwinian evolution is not so much a scientific theory as it is a secular creation myth. According to Mr. Wilson, “Darwinism, as is shown by the current state of debate, is resistant to argument because it is resistant to fact. The worship of Darwin as a man, the attribution to him of insights and discoveries which were either part of the common scientific store of knowledge or were the discoveries of others, this is all necessary to bolster the religion of Darwinism.” Mr. Wilson’s book is not flawless, but on this point he’s right. https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/jan/31/book-review-charles-darwin-by-an-wilson/ Charles Darwin, Theologian: Major New Article on Darwin's Use of Theology in the Origin of Species - May 2011 Excerpt: The Origin supplies abundant evidence of theology in action; as Dilley observes: I have argued that, in the first edition of the Origin, Darwin drew upon at least the following positiva theological claims in his case for descent with modification (and against special creation): 1. Human beings are not justified in believing that God creates in ways analogous to the intellectual powers of the human mind. 2. A God who is free to create as He wishes would create new biological limbs de novo rather than from a common pattern. 3. A respectable deity would create biological structures in accord with a human conception of the 'simplest mode' to accomplish the functions of these structures. 4. God would only create the minimum structure required for a given part's function. 5. God does not provide false empirical information about the origins of organisms. 6. God impressed the laws of nature on matter. 7. God directly created the first 'primordial' life. 8. God did not perform miracles within organic history subsequent to the creation of the first life. 9. A 'distant' God is not morally culpable for natural pain and suffering. 10. The God of special creation, who allegedly performed miracles in organic history, is not plausible given the presence of natural pain and suffering. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/05/charles_darwin_theologian_majo046391.html

To this day, Darwinists still use (bad) liberal theology.

Methodological Naturalism: A Rule That No One Needs or Obeys - Paul Nelson - September 22, 2014 Excerpt: It is a little-remarked but nonetheless deeply significant irony that evolutionary biology is the most theologically entangled science going. Open a book like Jerry Coyne's Why Evolution is True (2009) or John Avise's Inside the Human Genome (2010), and the theology leaps off the page. A wise creator, say Coyne, Avise, and many other evolutionary biologists, would not have made this or that structure; therefore, the structure evolved by undirected processes. Coyne and Avise, like many other evolutionary theorists going back to Darwin himself, make numerous "God-wouldn't-have-done-it-that-way" arguments, thus predicating their arguments for the creative power of natural selection and random mutation on implicit theological assumptions about the character of God and what such an agent (if He existed) would or would not be likely to do.,,, ,,,with respect to one of the most famous texts in 20th-century biology, Theodosius Dobzhansky's essay "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution" (1973). Although its title is widely cited as an aphorism, the text of Dobzhansky's essay is rarely read. It is, in fact, a theological treatise. As Dilley (2013, p. 774) observes: "Strikingly, all seven of Dobzhansky's arguments hinge upon claims about God's nature, actions, purposes, or duties. In fact, without God-talk, the geneticist's arguments for evolution are logically invalid. In short, theology is essential to Dobzhansky's arguments.",, http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/09/methodological_1089971.html

In fact, you can still find hundreds, if not thousands, of so called "Theistic Evolutionists" who still use bad liberal theology. As to Fisher in particular, seeing as he promoted both eugenics and racism,,,

In 1910 Fisher joined the Eugenics Society (UK) at University of Cambridge, whose members included John Maynard Keynes, R. C. Punnett, and Horace Darwin. He saw eugenics as addressing pressing social and scientific issues that encompassed and drove his interest in both genetics and statistics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Fisher#Eugenics In 1950, Fisher opposed UNESCO's The Race Question, believing that evidence and everyday experience showed that human groups differ profoundly "in their innate capacity for intellectual and emotional development" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Fisher#Race

Seeing as he promoted both eugenics and racism, I consider his religion, much like Darwin's and modern day Theistic Evolutionists, to be functionally dead in regards to his public life, his science, and how he viewed others. Verse

2 Corinthians 11:13-15 For such people are false apostles, deceitful workers, masquerading as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. It is not surprising, then, if his servants also masquerade as servants of righteousness. Their end will be what their actions deserve. James 2:26 For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.

bornagain77

ba77 @ 6 -

Bob (and weave) O’Hara falsely claims:

“we’ve (Darwinian Atheists) worked out the basis of heredity”

Darwinian Atheists have done no such thing.

Indeed. Mendel was a monk, so I don't think he was an atheist. And Fisher was a lay preacher. Again, not really an atheist. So, you managed to (a) use a deliberately insulting nickname, (b) incorrectly said I made a false claim, (c) mis-attribute my claim (I didn't write anything about the the religious views of the people who worked out heredity), (d) make another false claim (essentially that all of modern genetics is wrong). So, that's not a good start. Why should I bother reading the rest of your response to me? Bob O'H

They are/ were inferior. It isn't a negative connotation any more than saying college football teams are inferior to NFL teams. ET

ET, Here's part of a comment by Ms O'Leary from a previous thread:

The need to find a subhuman means imposing a hierarchy. Neanderthal man and Homo erectus lived pretty much the way other humans did, and not the way a single-celled organism does. If these groups weren’t inferior, where are the subhumans that Darwinian evolution needs? Note: Not every thesis in human evolution would need subhumans but a Darwinian thesis does.

The part I bolded indicates that "not inferior" implies "not subhuman", hence "subhuman" implies "inferior". daveS

daves, I can't see how anyone would read it any other way. Boundary? Technology would be a good start ET

ET, If by "subhuman", News simply means something like an ancestor to humans, without the obvious negative connotations, then perhaps you're right (although the boundaries between types will still be unclear). I don't think that's what she means, though. daveS

daves pointed out that some fossil skulls may be difficult to classify. Universal common descent demands their be a sub-type for every existing type. It cannot be any other way. So far from being a "strange theory" it is the way it has to be given the concept. ET

Here is my theory: In Darwinism, somebody has got to be the subhuman. Otherwise, there is no beginning to human history. Hence the dehumanizing terminology.

This is a very strange theory, even for this place. For evolutionary biologists the distinction between modern human, archaic humans, and apes is diffuse. We know from other species that the barriers between lineages get stronger as those lineages spend more time apart from each other (sometimes we can even measure the rate with a "speciation clock"), so we shold expect recently-diverged lineages to produce hybrids, and more distantly related ones to be more distinct. When we look to humans this is precisely what we see. Lineages with limited divergence like neanderthals and denisovans produce hybrids. But those hybrids didn't to that well, suggesting they were neverthless distinct lineages. On the hand, creationists believe in a very sharp distinction between man and ape. But, as daveS points out, no one can agree on where this obvious line exists! Amblyrhynchus

Quotes vjtorley and wd400 to support his false claim??? Well golly gee whiz, I'm going to start quoting the Wino on the street corner as an 'expert'. :) bornagain77

The problem is that I doubt any of them actually studied the skulls- pictures, maybe but not the skulls. But that is moot as they would need the entire living organism to figure out how human or not it is. ET

ET, Here's an example. Note the disagreements between vjtorley and Casey Luskin. Lots of interesting discussion in that post; wd400's posts are especially relevant, IMHO. daveS

daveS claims

"This is evidenced by the fact that even ID proponents have trouble cleanly separating ancient fossils into “human” and “nonhuman” groups."

Any confusion between ape and human fossils is solely due to overeager Darwinists who constantly try to stuff imaginary 'missing links' into the the chasm that separates us from apes. Yet when one delves into the details of the fossil record, and sees how disingenuous Darwinists have been with the fossil record, the confusion disappears, and the record reveals itself to be one of sudden appearance and stasis (just like the pattern for the rest of the fossil record) Here is a video playlist of Dr. Giem's series reviewing John Sanford’s new book “Contested Bones”. The book “Contested Bones” (by Christopher Rupe and John Sanford) is the result of four years of intense research into the primary scientific literature concerning those bones that are thought to represent transitional forms between ape and man. This book’s title reflects the surprising reality that all the famous “hominin” bones continue to be fiercely contested today—even within the field of paleoanthropology (The last videos listed in the series also deal with the misleading genetic evidence).

“Contested Bones” review by Paul Giem – video playlist https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6ZOKj-YaHA&list=PLHDSWJBW3DNU_twNBjopIqyFOwo_bTkXm

A few related notes and quotes:

Human Origins and the Fossil Record: What Does the Evidence Say? - Casey Luskin - July 2012 Excerpt: Indeed, far from supplying "a nice clean example" of "gradualistic evolutionary change," the record reveals a dramatic discontinuity between ape-like and human-like fossils. Human-like fossils appear abruptly in the record, without clear evolutionary precursors, making the case for human evolution based on fossils highly speculative. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/07/human_origins_a_1061771.html "We are unique and alone now in the world. There is no other animal species that truly resembles our own. A physical and mental chasm separates us from all other living creatures. There is no other bipedal mammal. No other mammal controls and uses fire, writes books, travels in space, paints portraits, or prays. This is not a question of degree. It is all or nothing: there is no semi-bipedal animal, none that makes only small fires, writes only short sentences, builds only rudimentary spaceships, draws just a little bit, or prays only occasionally. The extraordinary originality of our species is not common in the living world. Most species belong to groups of similar ones.,," - Juan Arsuaga (paleoanthropologist) - The Neanderthals Necklace - page 3-4 “We have all seen the canonical parade of apes, each one becoming more human. We know that, as a depiction of evolution, this line-up is tosh (i.e. nonsense). Yet we cling to it. Ideas of what human evolution ought to have been like still colour our debates.” Henry Gee, editor of Nature (478, 6 October 2011, page 34, doi:10.1038/478034a), Skull "Rewrites" Story of Human Evolution -- Again - Casey Luskin - October 22, 2013 Excerpt: "There is a big gap in the fossil record," Zollikofer told NBC News. "I would put a question mark there. Of course it would be nice to say this was the last common ancestor of Neanderthals and us, but we simply don't know." - http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/10/skull_rewrites_078221.html “A number of hominid crania are known from sites in eastern and southern Africa in the 400- to 200-thousand-year range, but none of them looks like a close antecedent of the anatomically distinctive Homo sapiens…Even allowing for the poor record we have of our close extinct kin, Homo sapiens appears as distinctive and unprecedented…there is certainly no evidence to support the notion that we gradually became who we inherently are over an extended period, in either the physical or the intellectual sense.” Dr. Ian Tattersall: – paleoanthropologist – emeritus curator of the American Museum of Natural History – (Masters of the Planet, 2012) Read Your References Carefully: Paul McBride's Prized Citation on Skull-Sizes Supports My Thesis, Not His - Casey Luskin - August 31, 2012 Excerpt of Conclusion: This has been a long article, but I hope it is instructive in showing how evolutionists deal with the fossil hominin evidence. As we've seen, multiple authorities recognize that our genus Homo appears in the fossil record abruptly with a complex suite of characteristics never-before-seen in any hominin. And that suite of characteristics has remained remarkably constant from the time Homo appears until the present day with you, me, and the rest of modern humanity. The one possible exception to this is brain size, where there are some skulls of intermediate cranial capacity, and there is some increase over time. But even there, when Homo appears, it does so with an abrupt increase in skull-size. ,,, The complex suite of traits associated with our genus Homo appears abruptly, and is distinctly different from the australopithecines which were supposedly our ancestors. There are no transitional fossils linking us to that group.,,, http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/08/read_your_refer_1063841.html “Something extraordinary, if totally fortuitous, happened with the birth of our species….Homo sapiens is as distinctive an entity as exists on the face of the Earth, and should be dignified as such instead of being adulterated with every reasonably large-brained hominid fossil that happened to come along.” Anthropologist Ian Tattersall, The Fossil Trail: How We Know What We Think We Know about Human Evolution (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 246. (emeritus curator at the American Museum of Natural History) Later Hominins: The Australopithecine Gap - Casey Luskin - August 2012 Excerpt: Paleoanthropologist Leslie Aiello, who served as head of the anthropology department at University College London, states that when it comes to locomotion, "australopithecines are like apes, and the Homo group are like humans. Something major occurred when Homo evolved, and it wasn't just in the brain." The "something major" that occurred was the abrupt appearance of the human body plan -- without direct evolutionary precursors in the fossil record. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/08/later_hominins_062891.html Man is indeed as unique, as different from all other animals, as had been traditionally claimed by theologians and philosophers. Evolutionist Ernst Mayr (What Evolution Is. 2001) Human/Ape Common Ancestry: Following the Evidence - Casey Luskin - June 2011 Excerpt: So the researchers constructed an evolutionary tree based on 129 skull and tooth measurements for living hominoids, including gorillas, chimpanzees, orangutans and humans, and did the same with 62 measurements recorded on Old World monkeys, including baboons, mangabeys and macaques. They also drew upon published molecular phylogenies. At the outset, Wood and Collard assumed the molecular evidence was correct. “There were so many different lines of genetic evidence pointing in one direction,” Collard explains. But no matter how the computer analysis was run, the molecular and morphological trees could not be made to match15 (see figure, below). Collard says this casts grave doubt on the reliability of using morphological evidence to determine the fine details of evolutionary trees for higher primates. “It is saying it is positively misleading,” he says. The abstract of the pair’s paper stated provocatively that “existing phylogenetic hypotheses about human evolution are unlikely to be reliable”.[10] http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/06/following_the_evidence_where_i047161.html#comment-9266481 Consider what paleontologist Niles Eldredge and paleoanthropologist Ian Tattersal (who are both committed evolutionists) co-wrote in a book on human origins: "The record jumps, and all the evidence shows that the record is real: the gaps we see reflect real events in life's history -- not the artifact of a poor fossil record." (Niles Eldredge and Ian Tattersall, The Myths of Human Evolution, p. 59 (NY: Columbia University Press, 1982).) The Red Ape - Cornelius Hunter - August 2009 Excerpt: "There remains, however, a paradoxical problem lurking within the wealth of DNA data: our morphology and physiology have very little, if anything, uniquely in common with chimpanzees to corroborate a unique common ancestor. Most of the characters we do share with chimpanzees also occur in other primates, and in sexual biology and reproduction we could hardly be more different. It would be an understatement to think of this as an evolutionary puzzle." http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2009/08/red-ape.html

In fact so great are the anatomical differences between humans and chimps that a Darwinist, since pigs are anatomically closer to humans than chimps are, actually proposed that a chimp and pig mated with each other and that is what ultimately gave rise to humans:

A chimp-pig hybrid origin for humans? - July 3, 2013 Excerpt: Dr. Eugene McCarthy,, has amassed an impressive body of evidence suggesting that human origins can be best explained by hybridization between pigs and chimpanzees. Extraordinary theories require extraordinary evidence and McCarthy does not disappoint. Rather than relying on genetic sequence comparisons, he instead offers extensive anatomical comparisons, each of which may be individually assailable, but startling when taken together.,,, The list of anatomical specializations we may have gained from porcine philandering is too long to detail here. Suffice it to say, similarities in the face, skin and organ microstructure alone is hard to explain away. A short list of differential features, for example, would include, multipyramidal kidney structure, presence of dermal melanocytes, melanoma, absence of a primate baculum (penis bone), surface lipid and carbohydrate composition of cell membranes, vocal cord structure, laryngeal sacs, diverticuli of the fetal stomach, intestinal "valves of Kerkring," heart chamber symmetry, skin and cranial vasculature and method of cooling, and tooth structure. Other features occasionally seen in humans, like bicornuate uteruses and supernumerary nipples, would also be difficult to incorporate into a purely primate tree. http://phys.org/news/2013-07-chimp-pig-hybrid-humans.html

Moreover, Physorg published a subsequent article, (since the preceding article badly upset the prevailing just so story of the 'march to man' cartoon), showing that the pig-chimp hybrid theory for human origins is much harder to shoot down than some Darwinists, who opposed McCarthy, had first supposed it would be:

Human hybrids: a closer look at the theory and evidence - July 25, 2013 Excerpt: There was considerable fallout, both positive and negative, from our first story covering the radical pig-chimp hybrid theory put forth by Dr. Eugene McCarthy,,,By and large, those coming out against the theory had surprisingly little science to offer in their sometimes personal attacks against McCarthy. ,,,Under the alternative hypothesis (humans are not pig-chimp hybrids), the assumption is that humans and chimpanzees are equally distant from pigs. You would therefore expect chimp traits not seen in humans to be present in pigs at about the same rate as are human traits not found in chimps. However, when he searched the literature for traits that distinguish humans and chimps, and compiled a lengthy list of such traits, he found that it was always humans who were similar to pigs with respect to these traits. This finding is inconsistent with the possibility that humans are not pig-chimp hybrids, that is, it rejects that hypothesis.,,, http://phys.org/news/2013-07-human-hybrids-closer-theory-evidence.html

Simply put, the fossil evidence, despite what may be popularly believed, simply fails to support the claims from Darwinists no matter how much they may falsely imagine that it does. bornagain77

daves:

I think a “Darwinist” would agree that there is no clear beginning to human history.

But there is. We will never find it because of Darwinism, though

This is evidenced by the fact that even ID proponents have trouble cleanly separating ancient fossils into “human” and “nonhuman” groups.

Evidence, please. ET

News, Just noticed this:

Here is my theory: In Darwinism, somebody has got to be the subhuman. Otherwise, there is no beginning to human history. Hence the dehumanizing terminology.

I think a "Darwinist" would agree that there is no clear beginning to human history. This is evidenced by the fact that even ID proponents have trouble cleanly separating ancient fossils into "human" and "nonhuman" groups. Perhaps from a theological perspective this raises issues, but for atheists, it's not a problem. daveS

LoL! @ Bob O'H- Are you seriously suggesting that we should ne see innumerable transitional forms? Really? Or are you that dense that you don't understand what a blending of characteristics entails? ET

There simply is no place for the immaterial realm of mathematics to find grounding for its reality in the reductive materialism that undergirds Darwinian thought.

What Does It Mean to Say That Science & Religion Conflict? - M. Anthony Mills - April 16, 2018 Excerpt: In fact, more problematic for the materialist than the non-existence of persons is the existence of mathematics. Why? Although a committed materialist might be perfectly willing to accept that you do not really exist, he will have a harder time accepting that numbers do not exist. The trouble is that numbers — along with other mathematical entities such as classes, sets, and functions — are indispensable for modern science. And yet — here’s the rub — these “abstract objects” are not material. Thus, one cannot take science as the only sure guide to reality and at the same time discount disbelief in all immaterial realities. https://www.realclearreligion.org/articles/2018/04/16/what_does_it_mean_to_say_that_science_and_religion_conflict.html Platonic World vs Physical World https://i2.wp.com/abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/images/platonic_physical.gif

As David Berlinski states, “There is no argument against religion that is not also an argument against mathematics. Mathematicians are capable of grasping a world of objects that lies beyond space and time….”

An Interview with David Berlinski - Jonathan Witt Berlinski: There is no argument against religion that is not also an argument against mathematics. Mathematicians are capable of grasping a world of objects that lies beyond space and time…. Interviewer:… Come again(?) … Berlinski: No need to come again: I got to where I was going the first time. The number four, after all, did not come into existence at a particular time, and it is not going to go out of existence at another time. It is neither here nor there. Nonetheless we are in some sense able to grasp the number by a faculty of our minds. Mathematical intuition is utterly mysterious. So for that matter is the fact that mathematical objects such as a Lie Group or a differentiable manifold have the power to interact with elementary particles or accelerating forces. But these are precisely the claims that theologians have always made as well – that human beings are capable by an exercise of their devotional abilities to come to some understanding of the deity; and the deity, although beyond space and time, is capable of interacting with material objects. http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/10/found-upon-web-and-reprinted-here.html

Therefore, besides Darwinian evolution already being shown to be mathematically impossible (by Sanford, Dembski, Marks, Axe, Behe, Durston etc.. etc..), Darwinian evolution is further falsified by mathematics as being a scientific theory since Darwinism denies the very reality of one the thing it most needs, i.e. mathematics, in order to be considered scientific in the first place.

Darwinian Evolution vs Mathematics - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3gyx70BHvA

Moreover, many of the 'inherited' characteristics that Bob (and weave) O'Hara and other Darwinists seek to explain the heredity of are in and of themselves immaterial characteristics:

How To Explain Dualism? - Frank Turek - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLKzLBTNj4s The Fundamental Difference Between Humans and Nonhuman Animals - Michael Egnor - November 5, 2015 Excerpt: the differences between humans and apes are so profound as to render the view that humans are apes abject nonsense.,,, Human beings have mental powers that include the material mental powers of animals but in addition entail a profoundly different kind of thinking. Human beings think abstractly, and nonhuman animals do not. Human beings have the power to contemplate universals, which are concepts that have no material instantiation. Human beings think about mathematics, literature, art, language, justice, mercy, and an endless library of abstract concepts. Human beings are rational animals. Human rationality is not merely a highly evolved kind of animal perception. Human rationality is qualitatively different — ontologically different — from animal perception. Human rationality is different because it is immaterial. Contemplation of universals cannot have material instantiation, because universals themselves are not material and cannot be instantiated in matter. https://evolutionnews.org/2015/11/the_fundamental_2/

As Sedgwick told Darwin, "There is a moral or metaphysical part of nature as well as a physical. A man who denies this is deep in the mire of folly."

From Adam Sedgwick - 24 November 1859 Cambridge My dear Darwin, ,,, "There is a moral or metaphysical part of nature as well as a physical. A man who denies this is deep in the mire of folly. Tis the crown & glory of organic science that it does thro’ final cause , link material to moral; & yet does not allow us to mingle them in our first conception of laws, & our classification of such laws whether we consider one side of nature or the other— You have ignored this link; &, if I do not mistake your meaning, you have done your best in one or two pregnant cases to break it. Were it possible (which thank God it is not) to break it, humanity in my mind, would suffer a damage that might brutalize it—& sink the human race into a lower grade of degradation than any into which it has fallen since its written records tell us of its history.",,, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/DCP-LETT-2548.xml

And indeed, as Sedgwick warned Darwin, with the denial of the moral and metaphysical part of man, the 20th century saw that "humanity in my mind, would suffer a damage that might brutalize it—& sink the human race into a lower grade of degradation than any into which it has fallen since its written records tell us of its history." In conclusion, it would be hard to fathom an idea that has been more detrimental to science, and humanity in general, than Darwinian evolution has turned out to be.

Romans 1:28 Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done.

bornagain77

And to top that off, the mathematics of population genetics has now also proven that if neo-Darwinism were actually true, then ALL of our perceptions of reality would be illusory.

The Evolutionary Argument Against Reality - April 2016 The cognitive scientist Donald Hoffman uses evolutionary game theory to show that our perceptions of an independent reality must be illusions. Excerpt: “The classic argument is that those of our ancestors who saw more accurately had a competitive advantage over those who saw less accurately and thus were more likely to pass on their genes that coded for those more accurate perceptions, so after thousands of generations we can be quite confident that we’re the offspring of those who saw accurately, and so we see accurately. That sounds very plausible. But I think it is utterly false. It misunderstands the fundamental fact about evolution, which is that it’s about fitness functions — mathematical functions that describe how well a given strategy achieves the goals of survival and reproduction. The mathematical physicist Chetan Prakash proved a theorem that I devised that says: According to evolution by natural selection, an organism that sees reality as it is will never be more fit than an organism of equal complexity that sees none of reality but is just tuned to fitness. Never.” https://www.quantamagazine.org/20160421-the-evolutionary-argument-against-reality/ The Interface Theory of Perception – 2015 Donald D. Hoffman & Manish Singh & Chetan Prakash http://people.psych.cornell.edu/~jec7/pcd%202015-16%20pubs/interface.pdf Donald Hoffman: Do we see reality as it is? – Video – 9:59 minute mark Quote: “fitness does depend on reality as it is, yes.,,, Fitness is not the same thing as reality as it is, and it is fitness, and not reality as it is, that figures centrally in the equations of evolution. So, in my lab, we have run hundreds of thousands of evolutionary game simulations with lots of different randomly chosen worlds and organisms that compete for resources in those worlds. Some of the organisms see all of the reality. Others see just part of the reality. And some see none of the reality. Only fitness. Who wins? Well I hate to break it to you but perception of reality goes extinct. In almost every simulation, organisms that see none of reality, but are just tuned to fitness, drive to extinction that perceive reality as it is. So the bottom line is, evolution does not favor veridical, or accurate perceptions. Those (accurate) perceptions of reality go extinct. Now this is a bit stunning. How can it be that not seeing the world accurately gives us a survival advantage?” https://youtu.be/oYp5XuGYqqY?t=601

Yet, reliable observation is a necessary cornerstone of the scientific method.

Steps of the Scientific Method Observation/Research Hypothesis Prediction Experimentation Conclusion http://www.sciencemadesimple.com/scientific_method.html

Thus, 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. Moreover, completely contrary to what Hoffman found for Darwinian theory, it turns out that accurate perception, i.e. conscious observation, far from being unreliable and illusory, is experimentally found to be far more integral to reality, i.e. far more reliable of reality, than the mathematics of population genetics predicted. In the following experiment, it was found that reality doesn’t exist without an observer.

New Mind-blowing Experiment Confirms That Reality Doesn’t Exist If You Are Not Looking at It – June 3, 2015 Excerpt: The results of the Australian scientists’ experiment, which were published in the journal Nature Physics, show that this choice is determined by the way the object is measured, which is in accordance with what quantum theory predicts. “It proves that measurement is everything. At the quantum level, reality does not exist if you are not looking at it,” said lead researcher Dr. Andrew Truscott in a press release.,,, “The atoms did not travel from A to B. It was only when they were measured at the end of the journey that their wave-like or particle-like behavior was brought into existence,” he said. Thus, this experiment adds to the validity of the quantum theory and provides new evidence to the idea that reality doesn’t exist without an observer. http://themindunleashed.org/2015/06/new-mind-blowing-experiment-confirms-that-reality-doesnt-exist-if-you-are-not-looking-at-it.html

Apparently science itself could care less if atheists are forced to believe, because of the mathematics of population genetics, that their observations of reality are illusory! Moreover, although it is almost universally acknowledged that mathematics exists in some kind of transcendent “Platonic” realm,

Platonic World vs Physical World https://i2.wp.com/abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/images/platonic_physical.gif Mathematical Platonism Excerpt: Mathematical platonism enjoys widespread support and is frequently considered the default metaphysical position with respect to mathematics. This is unsurprising given its extremely natural interpretation of mathematical practice. http://www.iep.utm.edu/mathplat/

, and although every rigorous theory of science requires verification from mathematics, and experimentation, in order to be considered scientific in the first place,

"No human investigation can be called real science if it cannot be demonstrated mathematically." - Leonardo da Vinci

,,, the reductive materialism that Darwinian evolution is based upon denies the existence of anything beyond the material realm.

What is the difference between naturalism and materialism? Excerpt: Naturalism is the view that the world can be explained entirely by physical, natural phenomena/laws. Naturalists either assert that there is no supernatural (or metaphysical) existence, or that if there is, it has no impact on our physical world.,,, Materialism is the related view that all existence is matter, that only matter is real, and so that the world is just physical. It simply describes a view on the nature of the universe, while the different branches of Naturalism focus on applications of effectively the same view. Thus, the difference between the two is the purpose of the definition - materialism makes an argument about the ontology of the universe, while naturalism takes a premise (effectively that of materialism) to make an argument on how science/philosophy should function. https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/2406/what-is-the-difference-between-naturalism-and-materialism

bornagain77

Moreover, as if all that was not more than enough to completely falsify Darwinian claims, Darwinists hold that heredity is based in an organism's genotype (i.e. in an organism's DNA).

,, In the following video, Dr Nobel states that around 1900 there was the integration of Mendelian (discrete) inheritance with evolutionary theory, and about the same time Weismann established what was called the Weismann barrier, which is the idea that germ cells and their genetic materials are not in anyway influenced by the organism itself or by the environment. And then about 40 years later, circa 1940, a variety of people, Julian Huxley, R.A. Fisher, J.B.S. Haldane, and Sewell Wright, put things together to call it ‘The Modern Synthesis’. So what exactly is the ‘The Modern Synthesis’? It is sometimes called neo-Darwinism, and it was popularized in the book by Richard Dawkins, ‘The Selfish Gene’ in 1976. It’s main assumptions are, first of all, is that it is a gene centered view of natural selection. The process of evolution can therefore be characterized entirely by what is happening to the genome. It would be a process in which there would be accumulation of random mutations, followed by selection. Professor Denis Noble is President of the International Union of Physiological Sciences. - Rocking the foundations of biology - video http://www.voicesfromoxford.org/video/physiology-and-the-revolution-in-evolutionary-biology/184

Yet it is now known that a organism's phenotype is not reducible to its genotype. Moreover, even if an organism's phenotype were reducible to its genotype, as Darwinists presuppose, the interweaved complexity of genes underlying any particular trait has completely overwhelmed the mathematics of population genetics. And as such has clearly shown that Darwinists certainly do not have the 'basis of heredity' all worked out as Bob (and weave) O'Hara falsely claimed that they did.

The next evolutionary synthesis: from Lamarck and Darwin to genomic variation and systems biology – Bard - 2011 Excerpt: If more than about three genes (nature unspecified) underpin a phenotype, the mathematics of population genetics, while qualitatively analyzable, requires too many unknown parameters to make quantitatively testable predictions [6]. The inadequacy of this approach is demonstrated by illustrations of the molecular pathways that generates traits [7]: the network underpinning something as simple as growth may have forty or fifty participating proteins whose production involves perhaps twice as many DNA sequences, if one includes enhancers, splice variants etc. Theoretical genetics simply cannot handle this level of complexity, let alone analyse the effects of mutation.. http://www.biosignaling.com/content/pdf/1478-811X-9-30.pdf With a Startling Candor, Oxford Scientist Admits a Gaping Hole in Evolutionary Theory - November 2011 Excerpt: As of now, we have no good theory of how to read [genetic] networks, how to model them mathematically or how one network meshes with another; worse, we have no obvious experimental lines of investigation for studying these areas. There is a great deal for systems biology to do in order to produce a full explanation of how genotypes generate phenotypes,,, http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/11/with_a_startling_candor_oxford052821.html Not Junk After All—Conclusion - August 29, 2013 Excerpt: Many scientists have pointed out that the relationship between the genome and the organism — the genotype-phenotype mapping — cannot be reduced to a genetic program encoded in DNA sequences. Atlan and Koppel wrote in 1990 that advances in artificial intelligence showed that cellular operations are not controlled by a linear sequence of instructions in DNA but by a “distributed multilayer network” [150]. According to Denton and his co-workers, protein folding appears to involve formal causes that transcend material mechanisms [151], and according to Sternberg this is even more evident at higher levels of the genotype-phenotype mapping [152] https://uncommondescent.com/junk-dna/open-mike-cornell-obi-conference-chapter-11-not-junk-after-all-conclusion/ Gene previously linked to obesity is unrelated - June 29, 2015 Excerpt: … in the real world of careful analysis, scientists are just not finding the “genes” that the headline writers need. British geneticist Steve Jones points out that most human traits are influenced by so many genes that there is no likely systematic cause and effect: "We know of more than 50 different genes associated with height … That has not percolated into the public mind, as the Google search for “scientists find the gene for” shows. The three letter word for — the gene FOR something — is the most dangerous word in genetics." And the craze is not harmless, he warns. … https://uncommondescent.com/genetics/gene-previously-linked-to-obesity-is-unrelated/ What If (Almost) Every Gene Affects (Almost) Everything? - JUN 16, 2017 Excerpt: If you told a modern geneticist that a complex trait—whether a physical characteristic like height or weight, or the risk of a disease like cancer or schizophrenia—was the work of just 15 genes, they’d probably laugh. It’s now thought that such traits are the work of thousands of genetic variants, working in concert. The vast majority of them have only tiny effects, but together, they can dramatically shape our bodies and our health. They’re weak individually, but powerful en masse. https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/06/its-like-all-connected-man/530532/ Theory Suggests That All Genes Affect Every Complex Trait - June 20, 2018 Excerpt: Mutations of a single gene are behind sickle cell anemia, for instance, and mutations in another are behind cystic fibrosis. But unfortunately for those who like things simple, these conditions are the exceptions. The roots of many traits, from how tall you are to your susceptibility to schizophrenia, are far more tangled. In fact, they may be so complex that almost the entire genome may be involved in some way,,, One very early genetic mapping study in 1999 suggested that “a large number of loci (perhaps > than 15)” might contribute to autism risk, recalled Jonathan Pritchard, now a geneticist at Stanford University. “That’s a lot!” he remembered thinking when the paper came out. Over the years, however, what scientists might consider “a lot” in this context has quietly inflated. Last June, Pritchard and his Stanford colleagues Evan Boyle and Yang Li (now at the University of Chicago) published a paper about this in Cell that immediately sparked controversy, although it also had many people nodding in cautious agreement. The authors described what they called the “omnigenic” model of complex traits. Drawing on GWAS analyses of three diseases, they concluded that in the cell types that are relevant to a disease, it appears that not 15, not 100, but essentially all genes contribute to the condition. The authors suggested that for some traits, “multiple” loci could mean more than 100,000. https://www.quantamagazine.org/omnigenic-model-suggests-that-all-genes-affect-every-complex-trait-20180620/ The Fairyland of Evolutionary Modeling - May 7, 2013 Excerpt: Salazar-Ciudad and Marín-Riera have shown that not only are suboptimal dead ends an evolutionary possibility, but they are also exceedingly likely to occur in real, developmentally complex structures when fitness is determined by the exact form of the phenotype. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/05/the_fantasy_wor071901.html

bornagain77

Moreover even these ‘directed’ mutations are of no help to Darwinists. Specifically we find that, “Even the great majority of helpful mutations degrade the genome to a greater or lesser extent.”

“The First Rule of Adaptive Evolution”: Break or blunt any functional coded element whose loss would yield a net fitness gain – Michael Behe – December 2010 Excerpt: In its most recent issue The Quarterly Review of Biology has published a review by myself of laboratory evolution experiments of microbes going back four decades.,,, The gist of the paper is that so far the overwhelming number of adaptive (that is, helpful) mutations seen in laboratory evolution experiments are either loss or modification of function. Of course we had already known that the great majority of mutations that have a visible effect on an organism are deleterious. Now, surprisingly, it seems that even the great majority of helpful mutations degrade the genome to a greater or lesser extent.,,, I dub it “The First Rule of Adaptive Evolution”: Break or blunt any functional coded element whose loss would yield a net fitness gain. http://behe.uncommondescent.com/2010/12/the-first-rule-of-adaptive-evolution/ Critic ignores reality of Genetic Entropy – Dr John Sanford – 7 March 2013 Excerpt: Where are the beneficial mutations in man? It is very well documented that there are thousands of deleterious Mendelian mutations accumulating in the human gene pool, even though there is strong selection against such mutations. Yet such easily recognized deleterious mutations are just the tip of the iceberg. The vast majority of deleterious mutations will not display any clear phenotype at all. There is a very high rate of visible birth defects, all of which appear deleterious. Again, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Why are no beneficial birth anomalies being seen? This is not just a matter of identifying positive changes. If there are so many beneficial mutations happening in the human population, selection should very effectively amplify them. They should be popping up virtually everywhere. They should be much more common than genetic pathologies. Where are they? European adult lactose tolerance appears to be due to a broken lactase promoter [see Can’t drink milk? You’re ‘normal’! Ed.]. African resistance to malaria is due to a broken hemoglobin protein [see Sickle-cell disease. Also, immunity of an estimated 20% of western Europeans to HIV infection is due to a broken chemokine receptor—see CCR5-delta32: a very beneficial mutation. Ed.] Beneficials happen, but generally they are loss-of-function mutations, and even then they are very rare! http://creation.com/genetic-entropy

Moreover, when realistic estimates for detrimental mutations are included,,,,

Multiple Overlapping Genetic Codes Profoundly Reduce the Probability of Beneficial Mutation George Montañez 1, Robert J. Marks II 2, Jorge Fernandez 3 and John C. Sanford 4 - May 2013 Excerpt: It is almost universally acknowledged that beneficial mutations are rare compared to deleterious mutations [1–10].,, It appears that beneficial mutations may be too rare to actually allow the accurate measurement of how rare they are [11]. http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/pdf/10.1142/9789814508728_0006

Moreover, when realistic estimates for detrimental mutations are included, "Fisher’s belief that he had developed a mathematical proof that fitness must always increase is also falsified."

The fundamental theorem of natural selection with mutations - June 2018 Excerpt: Because the premise underlying Fisher’s corollary is now recognized to be entirely wrong, Fisher’s corollary is falsified. Consequently, Fisher’s belief that he had developed a mathematical proof that fitness must always increase is also falsified. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00285-017-1190-x Fisher’s proof of Darwinian evolution has been flipped? - December 27, 2017 Excerpt: we re-examine Fisher’s Theorem, showing that because it disregards mutations, and because it is invalid beyond one instant in time, it has limited biological relevance. We build a differential equations model from Fisher’s first principles with mutations added, and prove a revised theorem showing the rate of change in mean fitness is equal to genetic variance plus a mutational effects term. We refer to our revised theorem as the fundamental theorem of natural selection with mutations. Our expanded theorem, and our associated analyses (analytic computation, numerical simulation, and visualization), provide a clearer understanding of the mutation–selection process, and allow application of biologically realistic parameters such as mutational effects. The expanded theorem has biological implications significantly different from what Fisher had envisioned. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/fishers-proof-of-darwinian-evolution-has-been-flipped/

Thus both natural selection and ‘random’ mutations are shown to be virtually non-existent, and even ‘directed’ mutations are found to be detrimental to a greater or lesser extent and are thus of no help to Darwinists. If Darwinian evolution were a normal science, these findings SHOULD HAVE rendered it to the garbage heap of failed scientific theories. But alas, Darwinian Evolution, at least how Darwinists treat it, never really qualified as a testable/falsifiable scientific theory in the first place:

Darwin’s Theory vs Falsification – video https://youtu.be/8rzw0JkuKuQ

To continue on in the falsification of the Darwinian presupposition of ‘randomness’ within biology, it is now found, due to advances in quantum biology, that there is far less ‘randomness’, or more specifically, far less ‘random thermodynamic jostling’ within molecular biology than was originally presupposed by Darwinists: At the 6:52 minute mark of the following video, Jim Al-Khalili states:

“To paraphrase, (Erwin Schrödinger in his book “What Is Life”), he says at the molecular level living organisms have a certain order. A structure to them that’s very different from the random thermodynamic jostling of atoms and molecules in inanimate matter of the same complexity. In fact, living matter seems to behave in its order and its structure just like inanimate matter cooled down to near absolute zero. Where quantum effects play a very important role. There is something special about the structure, about the order, inside a living cell. So Schrodinger speculated that maybe quantum mechanics plays a role in life”. Jim Al-Khalili – Quantum biology – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOzCkeTPR3Q

The following video goes over many more lines of evidence from quantum biology that have now falsified the Darwinian presupposition of a massive amount of ‘random thermodynamic jostling’ within molecular biology.

Darwinian Materialism vs. Quantum Biology – video https://youtu.be/LHdD2Am1g5Y

bornagain77

Bob (and weave) O'Hara falsely claims:

"we’ve (Darwinian Atheists) worked out the basis of heredity"

Darwinian Atheists have done no such thing. If anything, the merging of Mendelian genetics with Darwinian evolution, i.e. the modern synthesis,, neo-Darwinism, has falsified Darwinian claims that they have "worked out the basis of heredity". First off, the mathematics of population genetics has now cast Natural Selection itself, Darwin's infamous "Designer substitute", by the wayside.

The waiting time problem in a model hominin population – 2015 Sep 17 John Sanford, Wesley Brewer, Franzine Smith, and John Baumgardner Excerpt: The program Mendel’s Accountant realistically simulates the mutation/selection process,,, Given optimal settings, what is the longest nucleotide string that can arise within a reasonable waiting time within a hominin population of 10,000? Arguably, the waiting time for the fixation of a “string-of-one” is by itself problematic (Table 2). Waiting a minimum of 1.5 million years (realistically, much longer), for a single point mutation is not timely adaptation in the face of any type of pressing evolutionary challenge. This is especially problematic when we consider that it is estimated that it only took six million years for the chimp and human genomes to diverge by over 5 % [1]. This represents at least 75 million nucleotide changes in the human lineage, many of which must encode new information. While fixing one point mutation is problematic, our simulations show that the fixation of two co-dependent mutations is extremely problematic – requiring at least 84 million years (Table 2). This is ten-fold longer than the estimated time required for ape-to-man evolution. In this light, we suggest that a string of two specific mutations is a reasonable upper limit, in terms of the longest string length that is likely to evolve within a hominin population (at least in a way that is either timely or meaningful). Certainly the creation and fixation of a string of three (requiring at least 380 million years) would be extremely untimely (and trivial in effect), in terms of the evolution of modern man. It is widely thought that a larger population size can eliminate the waiting time problem. If that were true, then the waiting time problem would only be meaningful within small populations. While our simulations show that larger populations do help reduce waiting time, we see that the benefit of larger population size produces rapidly diminishing returns (Table 4 and Fig. 4). When we increase the hominin population from 10,000 to 1 million (our current upper limit for these types of experiments), the waiting time for creating a string of five is only reduced from two billion to 482 million years. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4573302/ “Darwinism provided an explanation for the appearance of design, and argued that there is no Designer — or, if you will, the designer is natural selection. If that’s out of the way — if that (natural selection) just does not explain the evidence — then the flip side of that is, well, things appear designed because they are designed.” Richard Sternberg – Living Waters documentary Whale Evolution vs. Population Genetics – Richard Sternberg and Paul Nelson – (excerpt from Living Waters video) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0csd3M4bc0Q

Empirical evidence supports this mathematical analysis from population genetics:

Genome-wide analysis of a long-term evolution experiment with Drosophila – 2010 Excerpt of concluding paragraph: “Despite decades of sustained selection in relatively small, sexually reproducing laboratory populations, selection did not lead to the fixation of newly arising unconditionally advantageous alleles. This is notable because in wild populations we expect the strength of natural selection to be less intense and the environment unlikely to remain constant for ~600 generations. Consequently, the probability of fixation in wild populations should be even lower than its likelihood in these experiments.” http://www.homepages.ed.ac.uk/aspiliop//2010_2011/Burke%20et%20al%202010.pdf “The Third Way” – James Shapiro, Denis Noble, and etc.. etc..,,, excerpt: “some Neo-Darwinists have elevated Natural Selection into a unique creative force that solves all the difficult evolutionary problems without a real empirical basis.” http://www.thethirdwayofevolution.com/ “the uncritical acceptance of natural selection as an explanatory force for all aspects of biodiversity (without any direct evidence) is not much different than invoking an intelligent designer” Michael Lynch – The Origins of Genome Architecture, p 368

Since natural selection has been cast by the wayside, Darwinists now claim, via neutral theory, that the vast majority of the amazing integrated complexity found in life, i.e. the 'appearance of design'. is the result of pure chance instead of being the result of natural selection. In the following article Larry Moran quotes Austin Hughes who states, ‘Darwinism asserts that natural selection is the driving force of evolutionary change. It is the claim of the neutral theory, on the other hand, that the majority of evolutionary change is due to chance.’

Austin Hughes and Neutral Theory – Laurence A. Moran – June 19, 2017 Excerpt: Originally proposed by Motoo Kimura, Jack King, and Thomas Jukes, the neutral theory of molecular evolution is inherently non-Darwinian. Darwinism asserts that natural selection is the driving force of evolutionary change. It is the claim of the neutral theory, on the other hand, that the majority of evolutionary change is due to chance. http://sandwalk.blogspot.com/2017/06/austin-hughes-and-neutral-theory.html “many genomic features could not have emerged without a near-complete disengagement of the power of natural selection” Michael Lynch – The Origins of Genome Architecture, intro “a relative lack of natural selection may be the prerequisite for major evolutionary advance” Mae Wan Ho – Beyond neo-Darwinism – Evolution by Absence of Selection

Thus, with Natural selection being tossed aside by the mathematics of population genetics, and by empirical evidence, as the explanation for the ‘appearance of design’ that we see in life, Darwinists, instead of accepting the finding as a falsification of their theory, now claim, basically, that random mutations, all by their lonesome, with virtually no help from natural selection, (i.e. neutral theory), created all the amazing integrated complexity, i.e. ‘appearance of design’, that we see in life. To call such a move on the part of Darwinists "disingenuous to the science at hand" would be a severe understatement. Moreover, there is a "small" problem with this heavy reliance that Darwinists now have on ‘random’ mutations to do all the heavy lifting within Darwinian evolution (minus natural selection). Mutations are now, empirically, shown to NOT be random mutations in the first place but are overwhelmingly shown to be 'directed' mutations:

Duality in the human genome – November 28, 2014 Excerpt: The results show that most genes can occur in many different forms within a population: On average, about 250 different forms of each gene exist. The researchers found around four million different gene forms just in the 400 or so genomes they analysed. This figure is certain to increase as more human genomes are examined. More than 85 percent of all genes have no predominant form which occurs in more than half of all individuals. This enormous diversity means that over half of all genes in an individual, around 9,000 of 17,500, occur uniquely in that one person – and are therefore individual in the truest sense of the word. The gene, as we imagined it, exists only in exceptional cases. “We need to fundamentally rethink the view of genes that every schoolchild has learned since Gregor Mendel’s time.,,, According to the researchers, mutations of genes are not randomly distributed between the parental chromosomes. They found that 60 percent of mutations affect the same chromosome set and 40 percent both sets. Scientists refer to these as cis and trans mutations, respectively. Evidently, an organism must have more cis mutations, where the second gene form remains intact. “It’s amazing how precisely the 60:40 ratio is maintained. It occurs in the genome of every individual – almost like a magic formula,” says Hoehe. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2014-11-duality-human-genome.html How life changes itself: the Read-Write (RW) genome. – 2013 Excerpt: Research dating back to the 1930s has shown that genetic change is the result of cell-mediated processes, not simply accidents or damage to the DNA. This cell-active view of genome change applies to all scales of DNA sequence variation, from point mutations to large-scale genome rearrangements and whole genome duplications (WGDs). This conceptual change to active cell inscriptions controlling RW genome functions has profound implications for all areas of the life sciences. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23876611 WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? Fully Random Mutations – Kevin Kelly – 2014 Excerpt: What is commonly called “random mutation” does not in fact occur in a mathematically random pattern. The process of genetic mutation is extremely complex, with multiple pathways, involving more than one system. Current research suggests most spontaneous mutations occur as errors in the repair process for damaged DNA. Neither the damage nor the errors in repair have been shown to be random in where they occur, how they occur, or when they occur. Rather, the idea that mutations are random is simply a widely held assumption by non-specialists and even many teachers of biology. There is no direct evidence for it. On the contrary, there’s much evidence that genetic mutation vary in patterns. For instance it is pretty much accepted that mutation rates increase or decrease as stress on the cells increases or decreases. These variable rates of mutation include mutations induced by stress from an organism’s predators and competition, and as well as increased mutations brought on by environmental and epigenetic factors. Mutations have also been shown to have a higher chance of occurring near a place in DNA where mutations have already occurred, creating mutation hotspot clusters—a non-random pattern. http://edge.org/response-detail/25264

bornagain77

ba77 @ 4 -

If Darwinian evolution were true, we should see a blending together of characteristics between forms, but that is not what we see.

Indeed. It caused Darwin (and indeed Darwinism) problems when Fleeming Jenkin pointed this out. Fortunately we've worked out the basis of heredity, and Darwin was wrong. Bob O'H

If Darwinian evolution were true, we should see a blending together of characteristics between forms, but that is not what we see. As Stephen Meyer stated,"the differences in form between any member of one phylum and any member of another phylum are vast, and paleontologists have utterly failed to find forms that would fill these yawning chasms"

"Over the past 150 years or so, paleontologists have found many representatives of the phyla that were well-known in Darwin’s time (by analogy, the equivalent of the three primary colors) and a few completely new forms altogether (by analogy, some other distinct colors such as green and orange, perhaps). And, of course, within these phyla, there is a great deal of variety. Nevertheless, the analogy holds at least insofar as the differences in form between any member of one phylum and any member of another phylum are vast, and paleontologists have utterly failed to find forms that would fill these yawning chasms in what biotechnologists call “morphological space.” In other words, they have failed to find the paleolontogical equivalent of the numerous finely graded intermediate colors (Oedleton blue, dusty rose, gun barrel gray, magenta, etc.) that interior designers covet. Instead, extensive sampling of the fossil record has confirmed a strikingly discontinuous pattern in which representatives of the major phyla stand in stark isolation from members of other phyla, without intermediate forms filling the intervening morphological space." Stephen Meyer - Darwin’s Doubt (p. 70)

These "yawning chasms" between forms hold for the fossil record subsequent to the Cambrian Explosion as well:

Scientific study turns understanding about evolution on its head – July 30, 2013 Excerpt: evolutionary biologists,,, looked at nearly one hundred fossil groups to test the notion that it takes groups of animals many millions of years to reach their maximum diversity of form. Contrary to popular belief, not all animal groups continued to evolve fundamentally new morphologies through time. The majority actually achieved their greatest diversity of form (disparity) relatively early in their histories. ,,,Dr Matthew Wills said: “This pattern, known as ‘early high disparity’, turns the traditional V-shaped cone model of evolution on its head. What is equally surprising in our findings is that groups of animals are likely to show early-high disparity regardless of when they originated over the last half a billion years. This isn’t a phenomenon particularly associated with the first radiation of animals (in the Cambrian Explosion), or periods in the immediate wake of mass extinctions.”,,, Author Martin Hughes, continued: “Our work implies that there must be constraints on the range of forms within animal groups, and that these limits are often hit relatively early on. Co-author Dr Sylvain Gerber, added: “A key question now is what prevents groups from generating fundamentally new forms later on in their evolution.,,, http://phys.org/news/2013-07-scientific-evolution.html In Allaying Darwin's Doubt, Two Cambrian Experts Still Come Up Short - October 16, 2015 Excerpt: "A recent analysis of disparity in 98 metazoan clades through the Phanerozoic found a preponderance of clades with maximal disparity early in their history. Thus, whether or not taxonomic diversification slows down most studies of disparity reveal a pattern in which the early evolution of a clade defines the morphological boundaries of a group which are then filled in by subsequent diversification. This pattern is inconsistent with that expected of a classic adaptive radiation in which diversity and disparity should be coupled, at least during the early phase of the radiation." - Doug Erwin What this admits is that disparity is a worse problem than evolutionists had realized: it's ubiquitous (throughout the history of life on earth), not just in the Cambrian (Explosion). http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/10/in_allaying_dar100111.html

A when peering into the details of molecular biology, we find that the reductive materialistic explanations for how any particular organism might achieve its basic form are grossly inadequate:

Darwinism vs Biological Form - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyNzNPgjM4w

And as the following paper, which extended Godel's incompleteness theorem to physics, proved, Darwinian explanations, (i.e. just so stories), for how any particular organism might achieve its basic form will forever be beyond its reductive materialistic scope.

Quantum physics problem proved unsolvable: Gödel and Turing enter quantum physics - December 9, 2015 Excerpt: A mathematical problem underlying fundamental questions in particle and quantum physics is provably unsolvable,,, It is the first major problem in physics for which such a fundamental limitation could be proven. The findings are important because they show that even a perfect and complete description of the microscopic properties of a material is not enough to predict its macroscopic behaviour.,,, "We knew about the possibility of problems that are undecidable in principle since the works of Turing and Gödel in the 1930s," added Co-author Professor Michael Wolf from Technical University of Munich. "So far, however, this only concerned the very abstract corners of theoretical computer science and mathematical logic. No one had seriously contemplated this as a possibility right in the heart of theoretical physics before. But our results change this picture. From a more philosophical perspective, they also challenge the reductionists' point of view, as the insurmountable difficulty lies precisely in the derivation of macroscopic properties from a microscopic description." http://phys.org/news/2015-12-quantum-physics-problem-unsolvable-godel.html

To state the obvious, since neo-Darwinian, (i.e. reductive materialistic), explanations are grossly inadequate for explaining how any particular organism might achieve its basic form, then neo-Darwinian speculations for how one type of organism might transform into another type of organism are based on pure fantasy and have no discernible experimental basis in reality. Whereas, on the other hand, Theism, especially with these recent breakthroughs in, "spooky action at a distance', quantum biology,,,

Darwinian Materialism vs Quantum Biology - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHdD2Am1g5Y

,,,is found to be very well supported in its claim that God, Who is beyond space and time, has formed each of us in our mother’s womb. Verses:

Jeremiah 1:5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” Psalm 139:13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.

bornagain77

Another analogy: We find the concept of "extended family" useful, even though it's vague---there is no clear boundary between those in my EF and those not in it. You could make the concept precise by setting a strict definition, but that would arguably make the concept less useful. daveS

Defining things in terms of their current contextual relationship is more natural, more verb-like, more in keeping with how our nervous system works. Everything is expressed as a spatial delta from current baseline, and a temporal delta from previous state. An interesting study on the sense of smell in insects focused on the relationship of actual chemical input to the baseline: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/08/180803103318.htm What kind of insects? Locusts. Did they mean cicadas? No, they meant the form that grasshoppers assume in certain conditions. So it was a self-reflexive study of deltas from baseline, in a "species" that exists only as a delta from baseline. Focusing on the relationship would clarify things like locusts, and the E. coli vs shigella problem. When bacteria + human = illness, the delta is shigella. When bacteria + human = nothing special, the delta is E. coli. polistra

Mathematicians call these “ill-posed” problems and argue that ambiguity in posing the question causes the ambiguity in the result. If we replace the numbers with variables, do some algebra on the sum, we find the answer. It’s not 0 and it’s not 1, it’s 1/2. By the 1800’s a whole field of convergence criteria for infinite sums was well-developed, and the field of “number theory” extended these results for non-integers etc. The point is that a topic we thought we had mastered in first grade–the number line–turned out to be full of subtleties and complications. Someday we will have to abandon the naive definition of “species” if for no other reason than it has been defined improperly for so long. Perhaps “baramin” will replace it, perhaps some other word.

In the case of infinite series, there are a number of different yet valid ways of defining the sum, so there is no one unique correct answer. Perhaps the same holds for species? There may be multiple different, yet valid ways to define the concept, depending on what you want to do with it. daveS