Another species of “hominin” still alive?

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April 21, 2022

Human evolution, Intelligent Design

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Between Ape and Human: An Anthropologist on the Trail of a Hidden Hominoid by [Gregory Forth]

No, it does not make nearly that much sense. The Flores people were real.

Meanwhile, here’s the story by anthropologist Gregory Forth, author of Between Ape and Human (2022) — a summary of his book, more or less — advancing a remarkable claim about still-missing “hominins” at The Scientist:

Coming from a professional anthropologist and ethnobiologist, my conclusions will probably surprise many. They might even be more startling than the discovery of H. floresiensis—once described by paleoanthropologist Peter Brown of the University of New England in New South Wales as tantamount to the discovery of a space alien. Unlike other books concerned with hominin evolution, the focus of my book is not on fossils but on a local human population called the Lio and what these people say about an animal (as they describe it) that is remarkably like a human but is not human—something I can only call an ape-man. My aim in writing the book was to find the best explanation—that is, the most rational and empirically best supported—of Lio accounts of the creatures. These include reports of sightings by more than 30 eyewitnesses, all of whom I spoke with directly. And I conclude that the best way to explain what they told me is that a non-sapiens hominin has survived on Flores to the present or very recent times.
Gregory Forth, “” at The Scientist (April 2018, 2022)

So no one has ever found one of them but we are supposed to take this seriously?

Also:

Lio folk zoology and cosmology also include stories of natural beings, specifically humans, transforming permanently into animals of other kinds. And they do this, in part, by moving into new environments and adopting new ways of life, thus suggesting a qualified Lamarckism.
Gregory Forth, “” at The Scientist (April 2018, 2022)

Which is supposed to make the evidence stronger?

Our initial instinct, I suspect, is to regard the extant ape-men of Flores as completely imaginary. But, taking seriously what Lio people say, I’ve found no good reason to think so.
Gregory Forth, “” at The Scientist (April 2018, 2022)

There is no evidence for the existence of any such life form.

Okay. Untraceable hominins. Elves, fairies, the Abominable Snowman? So this is all “science” now?

Note: The Scientist story riffs off Flores Man, which was a genuine find.

Comments

@ dogdoc, Have to disagree. Modern evolutionary theory does propose an explanation for speciation. Reproductive isolation where a population separates (allopatry, sympatry, founder effect etc) into two populations that can diverge into separate species in exploiting separate niches. Cichlids are the iconic example of sympatry.Fred Hickson_{April 27, 2022
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1) There is no evidence that anything within our brains – or anywhere else – transcends or violates the laws of physics.
:) Do you know what mitosis is ? What laws of physics produce mitosis?
ID is not an empirically based theory
Yes it is. All the codes/signs/symbols we see in living things are the result of ID because laws of physics don't produce codes.
ID cannot be tested against empirical evidence because its explanation is consistent with any possible observation
Compare the organization of a cell and organization of a rock.
2) If our minds are reliable, then Plantinga’s argument is moot – we ended up with reliable minds whether by evolution or divine creation.
:) 1.Life means code and every code have meaning. The same process operates from the cell to brain .Our brain operates with codes and meanings some are automated some are conscious. When we met a code we know that is the product of intelligence even if we can't decode that code to understand the meaning . We see chinese or some ancient hieroglyphs and we know that are not the result of laws of physics even we have no clue what is the meaning of message. 2. Nobody saw one single event/experiment in which physical/chemical laws to produce a code so evolution is nothing more than a belief that make no sense unless is about metaphysical materialism=religion of atheism. 3. Evolution is about survival not about abstract concepts like truth(reliable mind)that are invisible for physical laws.Lieutenant Commander Data_{April 27, 2022
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DogDoc Plantinga's argument:
2) If our minds are reliable, then Plantinga’s argument is moot – we ended up with reliable minds whether by evolution or divine creation.
No, if our minds are reliable then they cannot be the product of a blind, natural, unintelligent cause as evolution would have it. Physical causes don't code things for values or truth. Whatever thoughts that came from a physical cause would occur in the way chemical reactions do - not because they're choosing truth versus falsehood, but because "that's what chemicals do". They don't act for a reason. Blind natural causes are just that - blind to reasoning. So, the fact that we consider our minds to be reliable and we do evaluate propositions for the truth, means they cannot be the product of irrational, unintelligent blind, natural forces like evolution as it purports to be.Silver Asiatic_{April 27, 2022
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DogDoc I just wrote a long reply, almost line by line and dropped my internet signal while posting and lost 20 minutes of work on that ... I might try again, but bottom line: You said: "What created first life? Something intelligent. " That's good common ground. You disagree with ideas that come after that, but we have a starting point at least. I don't believe ID would necessarily have a problem with a "deterministic intelligence". As you rightly point out, an AI system cannot be the cause of the first life on earth. So, we're capable of eliminating some intelligences. As I said, there are different levels of intelligence - plant, insect, bird, animal, human. AI is a type of intelligence. SETI is looking for signals based on what we know of human communication and language and knowing they may find something from beings that are quite different than humans. This does not stop their inferential work. So, the same should be true for ID. We observe signals in nature that indicated intelligence, even though the intelligence is unknown and may be different than human.
Are you suggesting that neurons do not operate according to the laws of physics?
Keep in mind, you said: " following nothing but the laws of physics!" So "nothing but" would rule out anything else and even some quantum effects are interpreted in a non-physical way as some believe consciousness to be". Beyond that, it would be a statement of 100% certainty that God does not exist and/or has no effect in sustaining the universe.
Instead of repeating your answer, try to understand my point here. 1) Let’s say I observe some phenomenon and attempt to find an explanation
You see a rock with some scratching on it which could be deliberate etching or it could be scratches from the random movements of nearby rocks.
2) I fail to find any explanation for that can be empirically tested and confirmed, so I say the answer is not yet known.
You look only at the movement of rocks and find no way to explain the etchings. You conclude, the answer is not known.
3) You come up with some explanation that cannot be empirically tested and confirmed either.
I analyze and match against intelligently designed languages. I notice the scratches can be modeled as certain patterns and, while not a known human language, does appear to be symbolic and also there does not seem to be any way a random, blind, natural source made them. There is no way to empirically test the findings, but only that the scratches cannot be explained by a random cause, and they resemble an intelligently designed cause.
4) I tell you, “Your theory can’t be empirically tested and confirmed”
I say, if you show me in a lab or on the mountainside where you found the rock - that the scratches can be replicated by a blind, natural process - through gravity or a volcano or erosion or glacial activity -- then my inference to intelligent design is falsified. But instead, I see repeated curved shapes, a pattern of slashes the same lengths with spacing, and shapes fitting a row and not haphazard. So, the ID inference here can be challenged.
5) You reply, “Unless you can find a better theory, my theory is the best”
This is just a test between design and natural effects. Its the same with a forensics study. Was it an accident or deliberate? If I claim deliberate, you can show that all the elements could have happened by accident.
If you haven’t noticed, I don’t believe that evolutionary theory answers the questions of either OOL or speciation.
I didn't notice and I assumed you were an evolutionary materialist - so that is good to hear.Silver Asiatic_{April 27, 2022
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SA,
In post 152 I provided an abundance of links to evolutionists trying to explain free-will, morality (a function of it), determinism and “evolutionary ethics”.
And I have pointed out many times now: I couldn't care less what "evolutionists" say about free will, or morality, for two reasons: 1) I think it's clear that the science of evolutionary biology is independent of the question of free will. 2) I do not subscribe to the idea that evolutionary theory has successfully explained speciation, nor that anything has explained OOL. Thus, I'm not here to defend evolutionary theory, much less discuss what some people might think are the metaphysical or moral implications of evolutionary theory. Now that's out of the way, I'm content that I have brought multiple arguments to bear against considering ID to be an empirically supported theory of existence of living things and of the universe, including: 1) There is no evidence that anything within our brains - or anywhere else - transcends or violates the laws of physics. ID assumes that libertarian free will is true, and thus ID is not an empirically based theory. 2) The attributes ID claims to be associated with the cause of life and the universe (conscious comprehension, ability to learn, ability to use general-purpose language, and so on) cannot be empirically confirmed, so ID is not an empirically based theory. 3) ID cannot be tested against empirical evidence because its explanation is consistent with any possible observation, so ID is not an empirically testable theory. And by the way, does anyone have a rebuttal to the argument I made against Plantinga's argument against naturalism in @130?dogdoc_{April 27, 2022
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DD, In 1802, Paley:
Suppose, in the next place, that the person who found the watch [in a field and stumbled on the stone in Ch 1 just past, where this is 50 years before Darwin in Ch 2 of a work Darwin full well knew about] should after some time discover that, in addition to
[--> here cf encapsulated, gated, metabolising automaton, and note, "stickiness" of molecules raises a major issue of interfering cross reactions thus very carefully controlled organised reactions are at work in life . . . ]
all the properties [= specific, organised, information-rich functionality] which he had hitherto observed in it, it possessed the unexpected property of producing in the course of its movement another watch like itself [--> i.e. self replication, cf here the code using von Neumann kinematic self replicator that is relevant to first cell based life] -- the thing is conceivable [= this is a gedankenexperiment, a thought exercise to focus relevant principles and issues]; that it contained within it a mechanism, a system of parts -- a mold, for instance, or a complex adjustment of lathes, baffles, and other tools -- evidently and separately calculated for this purpose [--> it exhibits functionally specific, complex organisation and associated information; where, in mid-late C19, cell based life was typically thought to be a simple jelly-like affair, something molecular biology has long since taken off the table but few have bothered to pay attention to Paley since Darwin] . . . . The first effect would be to increase his admiration of the contrivance, and his conviction of the consummate skill of the contriver. Whether he regarded the object of the contrivance, the distinct apparatus, the intricate, yet in many parts intelligible mechanism by which it was carried on, he would perceive in this new observation nothing but an additional reason for doing what he had already done -- for referring the construction of the watch to design and to supreme art
[--> directly echoes Plato in The Laws Bk X on the ART-ificial (as opposed to the strawman tactic "supernatural") vs the natural in the sense of blind chance and/or mechanical necessity as serious alternative causal explanatory candidates; where also the only actually observed cause of FSCO/I is intelligently configured configuration, i.e. contrivance or design]
. . . . He would reflect, that though the watch before him were, in some sense, the maker of the watch, which, was fabricated in the course of its movements, yet it was in a very different sense from that in which a carpenter, for instance, is the maker of a chair -- the author of its contrivance, the cause of the relation of its parts to their use [--> i.e. design]. . . . . We might possibly say, but with great latitude of expression, that a stream of water ground corn ; but no latitude of expression would allow us to say, no stretch cf conjecture could lead us to think, that the stream of water built the mill, though it were too ancient for us to know who the builder was. What the stream of water does in the affair is neither more nor less than this: by the application of an unintelligent impulse to a mechanism previously arranged, arranged independently of it and arranged by intelligence, an effect is produced, namely, the corn is ground. But the effect results from the arrangement. [--> points to intelligently directed configuration as the observed and reasonably inferred source of FSCO/I] The force of the stream cannot be said to be the cause or the author of the effect, still less of the arrangement. Understanding and plan in the formation of the mill were not the less necessary for any share which the water has in grinding the corn; yet is this share the same as that which the watch would have contributed to the production of the new watch . . . . Though it be now no longer probable that the individual watch which our observer had found was made immediately by the hand of an artificer, yet doth not this alteration in anywise affect the inference, that an artificer had been originally employed and concerned in the production. The argument from design remains as it was. Marks of design and contrivance are no more accounted for now than they were before. In the same thing, we may ask for the cause of different properties. We may ask for the cause of the color of a body, of its hardness, of its heat ; and these causes may be all different. We are now asking for the cause of that subserviency to a use, that relation to an end, which we have remarked in the watch before us. No answer is given to this question, by telling us that a preceding watch produced it. There cannot be design without a designer; contrivance, without a contriver; order [--> better, functionally specific organisation], without choice; arrangement, without any thing capable of arranging; subserviency and relation to a purpose, without that which could intend a purpose; means suitable to an end, and executing their office in accomplishing that end, without the end ever having been contemplated, or the means accommodated to it. Arrangement, disposition of parts, subserviency of means to an end, relation of instruments to a use, imply the presence of intelligence and mind. No one, therefore, can rationally believe that the insensible, inanimate watch, from which the watch before us issued, was the proper cause of the mechanism we so much admire m it — could be truly said to have constructed the instrument, disposed its parts, assigned their office, determined their order, action, and mutual dependency, combined their several motions into one result, and that also a result connected with the utilities of other beings. All these properties, therefore, are as much unaccounted for as they were before. Nor is any thing gained by running the difficulty farther back, that is, by supposing the watch before us to have been produced from another watch, that from a former, and so on indefinitely. Our going back ever so far brings us no nearer to the least degree of satisfaction upon the subject. Contrivance is still unaccounted for. We still want a contriver. A designing mind is neither supplied by this supposition nor dispensed with. If the difficulty were diminished the farther we went back, by going back indefinitely we might exhaust it. And this is the only case to which this sort of reasoning applies. "Where there is a tendency, or, as we increase the number of terms, a continual approach towards a limit, there, by supposing the number of terms to be what is called infinite, we may conceive the limit to be attained; but where there is no such tendency or approach, nothing is effected by lengthening the series . . . , And the question which irresistibly presses upon our thoughts is. Whence this contrivance and design ? The thing required is the intending mind, the adapted hand, the intelligence by which that hand was directed. This question, this demand, is not shaken off by increasing a number or succession of substances destitute of these properties; nor the more, by increasing that number to infinity. If it be said, that upon the supposition of one watch being produced from another in the course of that other's movements, and by means of the mechanism within it, we have a cause for the watch in my hand, namely, the watch from which it proceeded — I deny, that for the design, the contrivance, the suitableness of means to an end, the adaptation of instruments to a use, all of which we discover in the watch, we have any cause whatever. It is in vain, therefore, to assign a series of such causes, or to allege that a series may be carried back to infinity; for I do not admit that we have yet any cause at all for the phenomena, still less any series of causes either finite or infinite. Here is contrivance, but no contriver; proofs of design, but no designer. [Paley, Nat Theol, Ch 2]
This anticipated Darwin by about 50 years and von Neumann by about 150. The point is, dynamic stochastic systems are not credible creators of FSCO/I, though they may transmit it. KFkairosfocus_{April 27, 2022
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Sorting it out ... In post 152 I provided an abundance of links to evolutionists trying to explain free-will, morality (a function of it), determinism and "evolutionary ethics". Fred Hickson then replied saying:
“Evolutionary ethics”? Never heard of that. Are you sure you’re not imagining that, Silver Asiatic?
In the post he responded to I offered a link to a paper entitled "Evolutionary Ethics: Its Origin and Contemporary Face" - and FH thinks I just imagining the concept. I was citing Darwinists, trying to explain their own theory and FH had never heard of it and thought I was making it up. Own goal #1. KF was kind enough to follow with another academic article, illustrating what Darwinists have to say about "Evolutionary ethics". It's their term, their concept, their lame idea. Of course they have to come up with something. Morals and ethics exist in the real world, as much as Darwinists try to deny that, so they have to claim it all evolved. The article says:
Evolutionary ethics tries to bridge the gap between philosophy and the natural sciences by arguing that natural selection has instilled human beings with a moral sense ... Morality would be interpreted as a useful adaptation that increases the fitness of its holders by providing a selective advantage. This is certainly the view of Edward O. Wilson, the “father” of sociobiology, who believes that “scientists and humanists should consider together the possibility that the time has come for ethics to be removed temporarily from the hands of the philosophers and biologicized”
Mutations in a biological organism cannot create ethics or morality. Here the Darwinists try to claim that evolution causes moral actions, even though they know that is a lie, just as Darwin lied to try to deceive people. But again, the Darwinists had to do something, so they made up "evolutionary ethics" to try to cover themselves with respectability. Otherwise they're sitting on this mindless, amoral theory and people can see how destructive it is to human life. So, of course, "evolution created free will and moral norms". FH still didn't like that. So, after never having heard of the topic, and then reading a Wikipedia page, FH says:
Not much meat in that sandwich. Tilting at windmills comes to mind.
Own goal #2. Yes, indeed. Not much meat in the evolutionary blather is there? Nobody is surprised that they're titling at windmills - that's the evolutionary enterprise in a nutshell. So, FH doesn't like the lies and manipulations his fellow Darwinists came up with. KF righly responded:
FH, you make my point for me.
Exactly. All I have to do is sit back and watch the Darwinists rip apart their own theorists. In the end, they still have nothing at all. Just more confusion and idiocy. But FH persists, he's really opposed to what the Darwinian theorists came up with. He says next:
The fact is “evolutionary ethics” is a concept that never caught on. And why would it?
Own goal #3. Yes, why would anybody listen to what Darwinian theorists have to say? Who would even read their pathetic attempts at scholarship? Ken Miller claims evolution created free will. E.O. Wilson says evolution created morality. Yes, deceptive cover-ups don't tend to catch on. This is aside from the fact that, as ET pointed out, we don't measure the correctness of a theory by how many people like it. KF then agreed.
They tried but could not bridge is and ought
They tried and failed. As usual. As always. Yes, "they" are just as foolish as ever, coming up with incoherent concepts because their theory proposed a blind, mindless cause as the source of human intelligence, moral conscience and rationality itself. It's pretty easy to see how wrong that is. But FH stayed with it - he doesn't like what the Darwinists had to say:
My point is that “they” made no impact on ethics or philosophy. You are attacking a concept that exists in name only.
The Darwinian ethicists, who simply took their own theory and tried to apply it to real life, actually made no impact because evolution renders everything it touches a jumble on nonsense and contradictions. More importantly, evolutionists do not want to touch morality, consciousness, free-will, rational thought. They just pretend those things "emerged" along the way. No need to trace the mutational path that gave us the human soul. Take a chimpanzee, the need to leave the forest for the savanna, and everything just falls in place. No need to discuss it. ET summarized it well:
Darwin is a hypocrite or an ignoramus as there isn’t any moral duty if natural selection produced humans.
Darwin's followers learned from their master how to lie and cover-over problems with their theory and manipulate the public. Seversky just piles on:
There are no evolutionary ethics nor can there be ...
He then quotes Darwin who affirms that evolution means that human act like animals driven by survival and competition, but then he has to contradict himself and say that evolution made us sympathetic and nothing we could do will ever change that, not even a desire to commit genocide against Jews. Nope, evolution would never permit that:
Nor could we check our sympathy, even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature.
This conversation is a high-definition illustration of the confused and irrational "thought processes" that evolutionary thinking produces in people.Silver Asiatic_{April 27, 2022
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SA, Lets say you see Entity 1 acting intelligently, producing novel CSI. You infer that it is intelligent. If Entity 1 is revealed to be a human being, then you let your inference stand that Entity 1 is an intelligent agent. But if Entity 1 is revealed to be some deterministic process then you change your mind after the fact, and decide that Entity 1 is merely simulating intelligence, and the real intelligence must come from the creator of Entity 1, which you hypothesize as Entity 2. You search for Entity 2 and find it, and you see that it creates novel CSI (including Entity 1), and so you declare you were correct. But if Entity 2 was then revealed to be a machine you would again reverse your position and declare that Entity 2 is merely simulated intelligence. And so on, until you finally find an Entity that you didn't understand the workings of (like a human being). As you (or at least some interested reader) should be able to see, the truth is that anything that produces CSI is exhibiting real intelligence no matter how it was created. What created first life? Something intelligent. Was it a deterministic process or something that transcends physical mechanism? That's a religious question - the evidence can't answer it. (By the way, you would likely make the same mistake when shown the intelligent behavior of, say, insects. Insects and learn, communicate, adatp, recognize and remember human faces, build complex structures full of CSI, and so on. Are they intelligent? I would certainly say so, but most IDers would simply attribute these behaviors to an invisible designer instead, but they don't think that insects could have "actual, real" intelligence with free will, etc.)
We’re fully aware of the learning algorithm designed to create winning strategies. It’s merely a memory device that self-optimizes strictly based on the rules of the game.
Your second sentence contradicts your first sentence.
Deeper in the cortex, the neurons – following nothing but the laws of physics! That’s the hypothesis.
Are you suggesting that neurons do not operate according to the laws of physics?
As stated many times, to validate the claim, we need to see how the laws of physics can create the system.
It is interseting that you are not able to understand this point. There are two questions. The first question is, how does the brain (or AI systems) work? The second question is, how did brains (or AI systems) come to exist? They are two seperate questions. Brains and AI systems operate according to physical law and exhibit intelligent behaviors. We know how AI systems come to exist, and we don't know how brains came to exist, but that doesn't change the fact that both systems exhibit intelligence.
We don’t even have a coherent theory as to why evolution supposedly developed vision systems multiple times, completely independently via convergent evolution. It’s impossible to believe it happened once, but we’re told it occurred at least 7 times.
We're not talking about evolution. If you haven't noticed, I don't believe that evolutionary theory answers the questions of either OOL or speciation.
The guy who was called in as the evolutionary expert in a court case against ID stated that “evolution created free will” but that’s like him saying something about Jennifer Anniston?
Again, you need to differentiate a scientific theory from the comments of individual scientists made outside of the scientific literature. Perhaps you have the mindset that scientists are like prophets or gods, and their spoken word is meant as gospel. Science doesn't work that way. Scientific results are vetted by the scientific process and published in journals and textbooks. Comments made in popular books or in spoken interviews do not become part of scientific knowledge just because the commenter is a scientist. Not everything that Charles Darwin said is part of modern evolutionary theory. What journalist Robert Wright says in his popular books is not necessarily part of evolutionary theory. What philosopher G.E. Moore said is not part of evolutionary theory. The opinions of David Barash or E.O. Wilson regarding free will is not part of evolutionary theory. Your quote from Dawkins says nothing about free will or ethics. You quote from the Zygon journal of Religion and Science is not part of evolutionary theory. And so on. None of the quotes or ideas that you have assembled are scientific results concerning the origin of species and biological systems. If my child was taught these opinions about the implications of evolutionary theory for the philosophy of free will or of ethics, then I would strenuously objecct. Evolutionary theory says nothing about morality or free will. I think that is an important point, but it really stands apart from the debate you and I are having, since I am not proposing evolutionary theory as a successful account of how biological systems came to exist. I am saying that there is no successful theory that explains OOL or speciation.
ID does not purport to explain “the first CSI” but only the CSI it observes in nature.
Ok, fair enough.
That CSI is best explained by intelligence...
In all of our experience, we see that CSI requires intelligence, and we also see that intelligence requires CSI. How it got started is a big mystery.
You’re saying “you don’t know” if a blind, natural source can produce the CSI – but you do not show evidence.
In #130 I said "No, I’m not saying that that I don’t know whether or not a “blind watchmaker” can produce the CSI we observe.". So you really are just not listening here. Stop going around in circles.
ID can show that CSI is and can be produced by intelligence.
You mean CSI can be produced by complex physical systems - that is what we can show.
DD: I’m also saying that you have no evidence that any particular attribute of the Intelligent Designer you hypothesize (learning, consciousness, beliefs, desires, etc) is actually an attribute of whatever caused the universe to exist. SA: ID does not hypothesize about the attributes of the designer, but only that there is evidence of intelligence in the design.
You just got through listing all of the attributes that ID claims are possessed by the Intelligent Designer! You finally gave me the definition of intelligence that ID is using, and it includes the abilities to think abstractly, to comprehend ideas, to use language, and to learn". I've pointed out that there is no evidence that whatever process was responsible for the existence of biological complexity was able to learn, or use any general-purpose language, or to consciously comprehend anything at all.
In the same way, if SETI found signals giving evidence of having been caused by intelligence
According to SETI, if we found signals similar to what humans transmit then we would infer some advanced technological civilisation was responsible. In any event, SETI is not a theory, it is a group of people looking for signals similar to what humans would transmit from planetary systems similar to where humans could exist.
DD: I’m also saying that ID describes no limits whatsoever on what an “intelligent cause” is capable of doing, which means it is impossible for any observation to contradict the theory. SA: Again, for the third time. If you can show a natural cause, then ID does not apply.
Instead of repeating your answer, try to understand my point here. 1) Let's say I observe some phenomenon and attempt to find an explanation 2) I fail to find any explanation for that can be empirically tested and confirmed, so I say the answer is not yet known. 3) You come up with some explanation that cannot be empirically tested and confirmed either. 4) I tell you, "Your theory can't be empirically tested and confirmed" 5) You reply, "Unless you can find a better theory, my theory is the best" That is what you are arguing. Can't you see why your argument is invalid? There are no satisfactory theories of the origin of the universe or of life that can be empirically tested and confirmed. ID can't be empirically tested and confirmed because the way it defines "intelligence" could explain anything we could ever observe. Evolution can be empirically tested, and as a result (in my opinion and yours) it cannot be confirmed to be an adequate explanation for OOL / speciation. And that is why I say "nobody knows": Because neither ID nor evolutionary theory nor self-organization theory nor multiverse theory nor any other theory - natural, supernatural, unnatural, hyphernatural, intelligent, unintelligent, whatever - can explain the phenomena and be empirically tested and confirmed.
I’m also saying that machine learning AI systems prove that deterministic mechanisms can produce novel CSI (which is in no way pre-programmed) which undermines ID’s assertion that no possible deterministic mechanism can produce CSI. If you’re saying that AI systems produced the first cell
I assume you're joking? The word "artificial" means "man-made", or "created by human beings. How could something created by human beings produce the first cell? I guess you missed the point again: AI systems that operate according to physical law and produce CSI, which undermines ID's claim that this can never occur. (Here is where you forget everything that I wrote and start talking about how human beings create AI systems, and it starts all over again).
[Science assumes] It is possible to explain the development of all life on earth through material, physical processes alone. In other words, nothing else of any significance exists.
While you can certainly find scientists who talk like this, science itself doesn't distinguish beteween what is material or not material! Is a quantum probability wave a material thing? What does that even mean? Science looks for explanations that can be empirically tested and confirmed, not things that are "material", and it doesn't exclude anything that isn't "material". If you really understand modern physics, you would know that even matter isn't "material" in any sense we can understand.
An example would be when you stated that the eye functions entirely “through physics alone”. That’s a metaphysical assumption, not something that can be proven.
First, science doesn't prove things, it provides empirical evidence for and against theories and generates provisional results. But a great deal of the mechanism of vision has been explained by neural mechanism, just as I was describing, and those explanations do not refer to anything outside of current physics.
A few more metaphysical assumptions for evolution are: Reason and logic and truth are valid means for assessing data We can arrive at intelligible truths about life through observation
These are epsitemological assumptions underlying all knowledge.
Evolution has no limit and therefore organisms have no boundaries to their malleability by mutation
I'm not defending evolutionary theory here.
All organisms have a drive or impulse to survive
Where did this come from? It's not really true, for example suicide.
Mathematical modelling provides valid knowledge about life
Also this one - nonsense. Just because you make a model doesn't mean it reflects truth; you actually have to test your model against observations.
Life can ultimately be understood through a reductive process down to the molecular level
Not an assumption of science; this is an hypothesis.dogdoc_{April 27, 2022
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JHolo:
Our ability to think, to reason, to predict consequences of our actions, to learn from mistakes, and our desire to live in group settings is all that is needed.
Our ability to think, to reason, to predict consequences of our actions, to learn from mistakes, and our desire to live in group settings is all via intelligent design.ET_{April 27, 2022
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JHolo All this talk about the is ought gap nonsense. Our ability to think, to reason, to predict consequences of our actions, to learn from mistakes, and our desire to live in group settings is all that is needed.
:) Oh, so you tell us that we ought to think in a certain way even if you also think that is-ought gap is non-sense. You contradict yourself in a sentence and you tell us what we "ought to" do? Secondly, your explanations are preschool type explanations that "explain everything" with the proximate cause that is considered ultimate cause.Lieutenant Commander Data_{April 27, 2022
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All this talk about the is ought gap nonsense. Our ability to think, to reason, to predict consequences of our actions, to learn from mistakes, and our desire to live in group settings is all that is needed.JHolo_{April 27, 2022
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Fred Hickson:
Folks who think the consensus scientific theory of evolution is rubbish should go the extra step and present a better one. Then we can compare it against evolutionary theory for predictive power.
There isn't any scientific theory of evolution. Evolution by means of blind and mindless processes only predicts genetic diseases and deformities. Only fools think that scientific theories are done via consensus.ET_{April 27, 2022
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Fred Hickson:
. On the other hand, Darwin’s theory of natural selection (the non-random process that designs organisms to fit their niche) still forms the basis of current evolutionary theory.
Natural selection is a process of elimination. It is nothing more than contingent serendipity. And there still isn't any scientific theory of evolution. Natural selection is nonrandom is a trivial sense- not all variants have the same probability of being eliminated. Fred Hickson is clearly willfully ignorant and proud of it.ET_{April 27, 2022
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the non-random process that designs organisms to fit their niche
If it's non-random then is a non-darwinist process then is designed.Sandy_{April 27, 2022
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As for impact, evolution by means of blind and mindless processes hasn’t made any impact on our knowledge.
Perhaps. On the other hand, Darwin's theory of natural selection (the non-random process that designs organisms to fit their niche) still forms the basis of current evolutionary theory. Folks who think the consensus scientific theory of evolution is rubbish should go the extra step and present a better one. Then we can compare it against evolutionary theory for predictive power.Fred Hickson_{April 27, 2022
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Darwin is a hypocrite or an ignoramus as there isn't any moral duty if natural selection produced humans. As for impact, evolution by means of blind and mindless processes hasn't made any impact on our knowledge.ET_{April 27, 2022
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There are no evolutionary ethics nor can there be. As the article points out both the is/ought gap and the naturalistic fallacy stand firmly in the way. Darwin himself recognized that our moral duty was to our fellow creatures which meant we should have to override the principle of survival of the fittest, not take it as some sort of moral norm.
With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilised men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination; we build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the weak members of civilised societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed. The aid which we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly an incidental result of the instinct of sympathy, which was originally acquired as part of the social instincts, but subsequently rendered, in the manner previously indicated, more tender and more widely diffused. Nor could we check our sympathy, even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature.
Seversky_{April 27, 2022
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FH. Ukraine is where Russia began, in Kiev. Czar Putin I wants his crib back. But the crib gets a vote, with ATGMs and MANPADs. KFkairosfocus_{April 27, 2022
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Well, maybe eugenics is at play in Putin's argument that Ukraine is not a sovereign nation.Fred Hickson_{April 27, 2022
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FH, sadly, they did. Eugenics is the self-direction of human evolution, they once proudly used as theme for international congresses. Follow the history. KFkairosfocus_{April 27, 2022
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They? My point is that "they" made no impact on ethics or philosophy. You are attacking a concept that exists in name only.Fred Hickson_{April 27, 2022
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FH, you make my point for me. They tried but could not bridge is and ought; being enormously influential for generations down to today. Yet, we are unified wholes with rationality morally governed such that if that is delusional it takes down our rationality with it. If our conscience stirred sense that we are accountable to law is truthful, then we live in a world with an adequate reality root that bridges is and ought. KF PS, a red ball on a table illustrates and helps draw out principle of distinct identity, with close corollaries non contradiction and excluded middle. The Abu 6500 CT fishing reel exemplifies FSCO/I and its root, and why not talk about something I enjoy in picking a key case to study inductively? PPS, years ago, someone here told us her dad was given the job to reverse engineer the famous Abu reel. He despaired of the job, it was so well and so tightly designed. Abu started by making taxi meters in the days when they were horse drawn. Their first reels were designed during the war when imports -- I presume, Hardy's of London -- were cut off.kairosfocus_{April 27, 2022
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PS try dogdoc with the red ball and the fishing reel, KF. :)Fred Hickson_{April 27, 2022
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Tilt away, KF. The fact is "evolutionary ethics" is a concept that never caught on. And why would it?Fred Hickson_{April 26, 2022
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FH, prezactly, they are trying to answer to the is ought gap and struggle because of gross inadequacy of worldview framework. To bear the weight of ought and bridge is-ought you have to be at reality root, post Hume. Next, post Euthyphro, goodness must neither be independent nor arbitrary. That leads to a bill of requisites for such a root: an adequate, necessary being [from utter non being nothing can come], source of worlds that is inherently good and utterly wise. KFkairosfocus_{April 26, 2022
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DD, have you ever designed, built and programmed a complex digital system? If you had, I doubt you would have seriously proposed as follows. I mark up: >>Calculators are nothing but plastic and metal, wires, buttons, transistors, diodes… T>> 1: Calculators, these days mostly ARM family computers in disguise, are carefully designed and programmed computational substrates with interfaces for users. >>Transistors do not go through a logical analysis and choose what is true. The electrons just go where they go because of conductors and semiconductors.>> 2: Their designers do. The architecture, organisation and programming are very carefully made indeed. 3: You are obviously trying to make the intelligently directed configuration driving the process rhetorically vanish. 4: The Calculator is a non rational, dynamic stochastic entity that reliably produces good calculations as it was designed to do so. 5: That fact of FSCO/I from design is not going away anytime soon. >> Chips don’t understand what a square root is, or a cosine. Still and yet, when presented with a mathematical question they provide the correct answer.>> 6: They only express the rationality of designers who do understand. >>Of course you will, as always, dodge the point by saying that calculators are designed>> 7: Loaded language and an attempted turnabout projection inviting analysis on confession by projection driven by cognitive dissonance. 8: So, you just confessed to dodging key issues, here the manifest first fact of intelligent design of the calculator. Further, you acknowledge that this is yet another example of how FSCO/I comes about by design and the further fact that designed entities that succeed tend to work more or less as advertised. >>by humans.>> 9: Who exemplify designers but are unable to exhaust either possibilities or actuality . . . go look at some beaver dams. >> You will change the subject by talking about how the calculator originally came to exist rather than about what the calculator does.>> 10: You here confess to using distractions and diversions. 11: It is manifest that a calculator reflects a successful purpose and contrivance, much as Paley's watch and onward his self replicating watch. 12: The manifest evidence of design points where you do not wish to look, so you have set up a red herring. >> The fact remains, once the calculator comes into existence it is not guided by anything except its own internal structure, >> 13: that internal structure is an artifact, which reduces to a computational substrate the intent of a rational, responsible, significantly free designer. 14: Therefore, it is guided by its designer who made that substrate to serve his/her purpose. >>and it answers questions truthfully merely because of its structure.>> 15: Because, it successfully implements the intent of a designer. 16: You hereby further confess that you have no cogent reply to the trillions of cases of observed cause of FSCO/I, design, thus making FSCO/I a reliable sign of design. 17: But, the inference on sign you are utterly opposed to so you have constructed a distractive, fallacious appeal. 18: Balance on merits is clear. KFkairosfocus_{April 26, 2022
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OK so I googled https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_ethics Not much meat in that sandwich. Tilting at windmills comes to mind.Fred Hickson_{April 26, 2022
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KF @155 Thank you.
a web search before commenting dismissively
Hoping that attitude will change for the future.Silver Asiatic_{April 26, 2022
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Just to put the idea that AI systems refute ID ... AI is "Artificial Intelligence". Materialist origin-of-life claims and what evolutionary claims are that "blind, natural causes" can produce the CSI (first RNA or DNA) or the organisms (bacterial flagella) in question. AI is artificial, that is intelligently designed, and not a "natural cause".Silver Asiatic_{April 26, 2022
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It's nothing random in all adaptative responses of the organisms to environment therefore darwinism is false. Code (purpose ) is the opposite of randomness. Homeostasis is the opposite of randomness. All genetic diseases are self-distruction programs that are activated . There is a limit for how many DNA mistakes are manageable (ancestral blueprint) if are too many then the organisms will die/will be impaired and not will "evolve" in something else more fit . :)Sandy_{April 26, 2022
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