Asked at Reason Magazine: How much science research is fraudulent?

Next, Seversky tries to address the falsification of Darwin's theory by the fossil record, I claimed,

Charles Darwin himself held that the gradual unfolding of life would (someday) be self-evident in the fossil record. Yet, from the Cambrian Explosion onward, the fossil record is consistently characterized by the sudden appearance of a group/kind in the fossil record(disparity), then rapid diversity within the group/kind, and then long term stability and even deterioration of variety within the overall group/kind, and within the specific species of the kind, over long periods of time. Of the few dozen or so fossils claimed as transitional, not one is uncontested as a true example of transition between major animal forms out of millions of collected fossils. Moreover, Fossils are found in the “wrong place” all the time (either too early, or too late)

Seversky responded thusly,

Darwin was aware that fossilization was a rare occurrence so gaps were to be expected. The sudden appearance of some species could simply be an artefact of the coarse-grained image preserved in the fossil record. On the other hand, significant environmental changes could allow life to flourish relatively rapidly which could appear as an “explosion” even though it lasted for tens of millions of years. As for transitional fossils, there are plenty to be found in the literature. You could start here if you are actually interested.

The 'artefact hypothesis', as it is termed, is falsified by a couple of different lines of evidence. First , Darwinists hypothesized that we can't discover the numerous transitional fossils that are hypothesized to have existed prior to the Cambrian Explosion because the conditions simply were not right for fossilization. Yet that claim is falsified by the fact that we find fossilized sponge embryos prior to the Cambrian Explosion. And obviously, if conditions were right for the fossilization of something as delicate as a sponge embryo, then they were as right for the fossilization of anything else that would have existed alongside sponges. As Jonathan Wells explained, “The truth is that (finding) “exceptionally preserved microbes” from the late Precambrian actually deepen Darwin’s dilemma, because they suggest that if there had been ancestors to the Cambrian phyla they would have been preserved.”

Deepening Darwin’s Dilemma – Jonathan Wells – Sept. 2009 Excerpt: “The truth is that (finding) “exceptionally preserved microbes” from the late Precambrian actually deepen Darwin’s dilemma, because they suggest that if there had been ancestors to the Cambrian phyla they would have been preserved.” http://www.discovery.org/a/12471 Dr. Stephen Meyer: Darwin's Dilemma - The Significance of Sponge Embryos - video?http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPs8E7y0ySs

While we are on the Cambrian Explosion, and to make the dilemma of the Cambrian Explosion even more antagonistic for Darwinists, the available time window for the Cambrian explosion to occur has now been dramatically shortened from approximately 13 million years to only 410 thousand years! As paleontologist Günter Bechly quipped, "The Cambrian Explosion Has Just Gone Nuclear",,

The Cambrian Explosion Has Just Gone Nuclear - Günter Bechly - April 8, 2021 Evolution’s Big Bang Charles Darwin was quite aware that the sudden appearance of animals in the fossil record poses a major problem for his theory, but he hoped that this problem was due only to our insufficient knowledge of an incomplete fossil record, and therefore will dissolve over time with future research. However, 150 years of paleontological exploration after Darwin has made the problem far worse: not for nothing is it called the Cambrian Explosion. All attempts to explain this problem away have failed (Meyer 2013), including the still beloved artifact hypothesis (Bechly 2020). Recently, I stumbled upon a paper from 2018 that I had previously overlooked, and it proved to be dynamite. It is a study by a research group from the University of Zurich about the transition from the Ediacaran organisms to the Cambrian animal phyla in the Nama Basin of Namibia (Linnemann et al. 2018). What they found is truly mind-blowing. The window of time between the latest appearance date (LAD) of the alien Ediacaran biota and the first appearance date (FAD) of the complex Cambrian biota was only 410,000 years. You read that correctly, just 410 thousand years! This is not an educated guess but based on very precise radiometric U-Pb dating with an error margin of only plus-minus 200 thousand years. This precision is truly a remarkable achievement of modern science considering that we are talking about events 538 million years ago.  https://evolutionnews.org/2021/04/the-cambrian-explosion-has-just-gone-nuclear/

Another line of evidence that falsifies the Darwinian claim that the fossil record conflicts with Darwinian predictions because it is 'an artifact of undersampling of an incomplete fossil record' is what is termed the collectors curve. With the 'collector's curve', we find that the more fossils that we collect, the more they fall into preexisting groups, and the less they 'surprise' us. Thus strongly suggesting that we have a fairly complete picture of the fossil record, since the discovery of outliers are few and far between

"This accumulation of conflicting evidence can no longer be explained away as an artifact of undersampling of an incomplete fossil record, as demonstrated by statistical analyses (collector’s curve)." - How complete is the current fossil record and what does that tell us about the theory of evolution? Gunter Bechly - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCam4z1Ic9w&index=9&t=1s&list=PLtAP1KN7ahiZ80ClsWz-IAmP_fWHpqWar

As the following study, via the 'collector's curve' found, "we find that completeness (of the fossil record) is rather high for many animal groups."

Absolute measures of the completeness of the fossil record. - Foote M1, Sepkoski JJ Jr. - 1999 Excerpt: These measurements are nonetheless highly correlated, with outliers quite explicable, and we find that completeness (of the fossil record) is rather high for many animal groups. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11536900

In short, the longer we study the fossil record, and the more fossils that we discover, the worse the problem Darwinists have with the fossil record becomes. As Luther D. Sunderland explained, "The gaps between major groups of organisms have been growing even wider and more undeniable. They can no longer be ignored or rationalized away with appeals to imperfection of the fossil record."

"Now, after over 120 years of the most extensive and painstaking geological exploration of every continent and ocean bottom, the picture is infinitely more vivid and complete than it was in 1859. Formations have been discovered containing hundreds of billions of fossils and our museums now are filled with over 100 million fossils of 250,000 different species. The availability of this profusion of hard scientific data should permit objective investigators to determine if Darwin was on the right track. What is the picture which the fossils have given us? ... The gaps between major groups of organisms have been growing even wider and more undeniable. They can no longer be ignored or rationalized away with appeals to imperfection of the fossil record." Luther D. Sunderland, Darwin's Enigma 1988, Fossils and Other Problems, 4th edition, Master Books, p. 9

bornagain77

July 19, 2021

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Next Seversky tries to address the fact that 'truly' beneficial mutations are exceedingly rare to non-existent. (An thus falsifies Darwinian evolution because Darwinian evolution simply doesn't have any truly beneficial mutations to work with in the first place) I claimed,

Darwin’s theory holds there to be an extremely beneficial and flexible mutation rate for DNA which was ultimately responsible for all the diversity and complexity of life we see on earth. The mutation rate to DNA is overwhelmingly detrimental. Detrimental to such a point that it is seriously questioned whether there are any truly beneficial, information building, mutations whatsoever.

Seversky responded thusly,

Whether or not you agree with it, you should at least be aware that current thinking holds that the majority of mutations are neutral or nearly-neutral in effect, a much smaller number are detrimental and an even smaller number still are beneficial. The theory argues that natural selection will tend to filter out the detrimental leaving only the beneficial to have any long-lasting effect, the neutral mutations being effectively invisible to selection.

I am aware of the 'current thinking' and I am also aware that the 'current thinking' of Darwinists is falsified. First, the widespread Darwinian belief that mutations can be perfectly neutral is an absurd belief. As Dr. John Sanford explained,

"Moreover, there is strong theoretical reasons for believing there is no truly neutral nucleotide positions. By its very existence, a nucleotide position takes up space, affects spacing between other sites, and affects such things as regional nucleotide composition, DNA folding, and nucleosome building. If a nucleotide carries absolutely no (useful) information, it is, by definition, slightly deleterious, as it slows cell replication and wastes energy.,, Therefore, there is no way to change any given site without some biological effect, no matter how subtle." - John Sanford - Genetic Entropy and The Mystery of The Genome - pg. 21 - Inventor of the 'Gene Gun' (among many other accomplishments)

Secondly, the Darwinian belief that "natural selection will tend to filter out the detrimental (mutations) leaving only the beneficial (mutations) to have any long-lasting effect," is also now shown to be a false claim. Specifically, Darwinists have claimed that “As the load of deleterious mutations grows over time, the pool of possible beneficial mutations also grows with it. This eventually leads to an equilibrium, preventing fitness decline beyond a certain point.,,,,” Yet Darwinists have no basis for presupposing that. As Dr. John Sanford stated in 2020, ’This argument is: 1) merely dismissive, 2) categorically wrong, and 3) without a rational or data-driven basis. Obviously, rapidly accumulating deleterious mutations do not lead to more and more beneficial mutations. Rather, the much more abundant deleterious mutations effectively overwhelm and negate the fitness effects of the extremely rare beneficial mutations.” And Dr. John Sanford further stated, “We have done thousands of numerical simulations showing this. Even given the most generous parameter settings, the near-neutral bad mutations consistently accumulate about 1000 times faster than the beneficial mutations.”

Responding to supposed refutations of genetic entropy from the ‘experts’ by Paul Price, Robert Carter and John Sanford – 1 December 2020 Excerpt: 1 Mutations & Equilibrium Claim: As the load of deleterious mutations grows over time, the pool of possible beneficial mutations also grows with it. This eventually leads to an equilibrium, preventing fitness decline beyond a certain point.,,,, Comments from Dr Sanford: This argument is: 1) merely dismissive, 2) categorically wrong, and 3) without a rational or data-driven basis. Obviously, rapidly accumulating deleterious mutations do not lead to more and more beneficial mutations. Rather, the much more abundant deleterious mutations effectively overwhelm and negate the fitness effects of the extremely rare beneficial mutations. The ratio of bad to good mutations is, minimally, 1000:1. With or without selection, bad mutations will always accumulate much more rapidly that beneficial mutations. We have done thousands of numerical simulations showing this. Even given the most generous parameter settings, the near-neutral bad mutations consistently accumulate about 1000 times faster than the beneficial mutations. https://creation.com/genetic-entropy-defense

Moreover, it is also interesting to note that virtually all, (if not all), of the mutations that Darwinists have classified as being beneficial are only beneficial in a very narrow sense of increasing reproduction and/or fitness, but, in reality, that these supposedly beneficial mutations gain their beneficial effect by breaking something at the molecular level, (i.e. by losing information). In other words, Darwinists are being, (either purposely or ignorantly), deceptive in their claims about the true nature of the supposedly beneficial mutations. As Dr. Michael Behe notes, it is now found 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/ Also see Dr. Behe's fairly recent book "Darwin Devolves"

And as Dr. Spetner noted, "there is no example of a random mutation that adds heritable information to the genome,"

Gloves Off -- Responding to David Levin on the Nonrandom Evolutionary Hypothesis - Lee M. Spetner - Sept. 2016 Excerpt: I wrote in this book (as well in an earlier book) that there is no example of a random mutation that adds heritable information to the genome, and that statement still stands. The statement is important because evolution is about building up information (Spetner 1964, 1968, 1970). Some have offered what they think are counterexamples of my statement, but they are often not of random mutations at all, or they otherwise fail to be valid counterexamples. Levin finds the statement astonishing, and it may well astonish someone who believes evolutionary theory represents reality. But it happens to be true, and I am not surprised that it astonishes him because it deals a deathblow to evolutionary theory. https://evolutionnews.org/2016/09/gloves_off_-_r/

And as if all that was not bad enough for Darwinists, it is now found that supposedly 'beneficial mutations' will, when combined together, be antagonistic towards each other, and not be beneficial towards each other.

Epistasis between Beneficial Mutations - July 2011 Excerpt: We found that epistatic interactions between beneficial mutations were all antagonistic—the effects of the double mutations were less than the sums of the effects of their component single mutations. We found a number of cases of decompensatory interactions, an extreme form of antagonistic epistasis in which the second mutation is actually deleterious in the presence of the first. In the vast majority of cases, recombination uniting two beneficial mutations into the same genome would not be favored by selection, as the recombinant could not outcompete its constituent single mutations. https://uncommondescent.com/epigenetics/darwins-beneficial-mutations-do-not-benefit-each-other/ The diminishing returns of beneficial mutations - July 2011 Excerpt: Evolution thus has three strikes against it: most mutations are not beneficial, practically all mutations destroy specified complexity, and, now, even ‘beneficial’ mutations work against each other. While mutations may be of limited benefit to a single organism in a limited context (e.g., sickle cell anemia can protect against malaria even though the sickle cell trait is harmful), mutations seem to be no benefit whatsoever for microbes-to-man evolution, whether individually or together. http://creation.com/antagonistic-epistasis

Needless to say, this is far short of the type of evidence that Darwinists need just to prove that their theory is scientifically feasible, (not to prove that their theory is true mind you, but just to prove that their theory is scientifically feasible!). As Lee Spetner quipped elsewhere, "Whoever thinks macroevolution can be made by mutations that lose information is like the merchant who lost a little money on every sale but thought he could make it up on volume."

"But all these mutations reduce the information in the gene by making a protein less specific. They add no information and they add no new molecular capability. Indeed, all mutations studied destroy information. None of them can serve as an example of a mutation that can lead to the large changes of macroevolution. ... Whoever thinks macroevolution can be made by mutations that lose information is like the merchant who lost a little money on every sale but thought he could make it up on volume." - Dr. Lee Spetner - Not by Chance: Shattering the Modern Theory of Evolution, pp. 159–60:

Of supplemental note, it is also interesting to note that Dr. John Sanford recently demonstrated that 'current thinking' in Darwinian theory, (as to the realistic rate of beneficial to detrimental mutations), is severely outdated in regards to the experimental evidence that we now have in hand..

Defending the validity and significance of the new theorem “Fundamental Theorem of Natural Selection With Mutations, Part I: Fisher’s Impact – Bill Basener and John Sanford - February 15, 2018 Excerpt: While Fisher’s Theorem is mathematically correct, his Corollary is false. The simple logical fallacy is that Fisher stated that mutations could effectively be treated as not impacting fitness, while it is now known that the vast majority of mutations are deleterious, providing a downward pressure on fitness. Our model and our correction of Fisher’s theorem (The Fundamental Theorem of Natural Selection with Mutations), take into account the tension between the upward force of selection with the downward force of mutations.,,, Our paper shows that Fisher’s corollary is clearly false, and that he misunderstood the implications of his own theorem. He incorrectly believed that his theorem was a mathematical proof that showed that natural selection plus mutation will necessarily and always increase fitness. He also believed his theorem was on a par with a natural law (such as entropic dissipation and the second law of thermodynamics). Because Fisher did not understand the actual fitness distribution of new mutations, his belief in the application of his “fundamental theorem of natural selection” was fundamentally and profoundly wrong – having little correspondence to biological reality. Therefore, we have reformulated Fisher’s model and have corrected his errors, thereby have established a new theorem that better describes biological reality, and allows for the specification of those key variables that will determine whether fitness will increase or decrease. http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/defending-the-validity-and-significance-of-the-new-theorem-fundamental-theorem-of-natural-selection-with-mutations-part-i-fishers-impact/ Geneticist Corrects Fisher’s Theorem, but the Correction Turns Natural Selection Upside Down - December 22, 2017 | David F. Coppedge A new paper corrects errors in Fisher’s Theorem, a mathematical “proof” of Darwinism. Rather than supporting evolution, the corrected theorem inverts it. Excerpt: The authors of the new paper describe the fundamental problems with Fisher’s theorem. They then use Fisher’s first principles, and reformulate and correct the theorem. They have named the corrected theorem The Fundamental Theorem of Natural Selection with Mutations. The correction of the theorem is not a trivial change – it literally flips the theorem on its head. The resulting conclusions are clearly in direct opposition to what Fisher had originally intended to prove.,,, The authors of the new paper realized that one of Fisher’s pivotal assumptions was clearly false, and in fact was falsified many decades ago. In his informal corollary, Fisher essentially assumed that new mutations arose with a nearly normal distribution – with an equal proportion of good and bad mutations (so mutations would have a net fitness effect of zero). We now know that the vast majority of mutations in the functional genome are harmful, and that beneficial mutations are vanishingly rare. The simple fact that Fisher’s premise was wrong, falsifies Fisher’s corollary. Without Fisher’s corollary – Fisher’s Theorem proves only that selection improves a population’s fitness until selection exhausts the initial genetic variation, at which point selective progress ceases. Apart from his corollary, Fisher’s Theorem only shows that within an initial population with variant genetic alleles, there is limited selective progress followed by terminal stasis.,,, The authors observe that the more realistic the parameters, the more likely fitness decline becomes. https://crev.info/2017/12/geneticist-corrects-fishers-theorem/

bornagain77

July 19, 2021

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Here is a note that I should have included above, (in post 50), with Jonathan Wells' reference to saturation mutagenesis studies, i.e. "the Law of Recurrent Variation"

Peer-Reviewed Research Paper on Plant Biology Favorably Cites Intelligent Design and Challenges Darwinian Evolution - Casey Luskin December 29, 2010 Excerpt: Many of these researchers also raise the question (among others), why — even after inducing literally billions of induced mutations and (further) chromosome rearrangements — all the important mutation breeding programs have come to an end in the Western World instead of eliciting a revolution in plant breeding, either by successive rounds of selective “micromutations” (cumulative selection in the sense of the modern synthesis), or by “larger mutations” … and why the law of recurrent variation is endlessly corroborated by the almost infinite repetition of the spectra of mutant phenotypes in each and any new extensive mutagenesis experiment instead of regularly producing a range of new systematic species… (Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig, “Mutagenesis in Physalis pubescens L. ssp. floridana: Some Further Research on Dollo’s Law and the Law of Recurrent Variation,” Floriculture and Ornamental Biotechnology Vol. 4 (Special Issue 1): 1-21 (December 2010).) http://www.evolutionnews.org/2010/12/peer-reviewed_research_paper_o042191.html Dr. Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig, (retired) Senior Scientist (Biology), Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research, Emeritus, Cologne, Germany.

bornagain77

July 18, 2021

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And it is fairly easy to empirically prove that biological form cannot be reduced to DNA, (nor to any other material particulars that Darwinists may try to invoke). In the following experiment, a bacterium, 'after shattering of its 3.2 Mb genome into 20–30 kb pieces,,, miraculously reassembles its genome such that only 3 hr later fully reconstituted nonrearranged chromosomes are present, and the cells carry on, alive as normal.,,,'

Extreme Genome Repair - 2009 Excerpt: If its naming had followed, rather than preceded, molecular analyses of its DNA, the extremophile bacterium Deinococcus radiodurans might have been called Lazarus. After shattering of its 3.2 Mb genome into 20–30 kb pieces by desiccation or a high dose of ionizing radiation, D. radiodurans miraculously reassembles its genome such that only 3 hr later fully reconstituted nonrearranged chromosomes are present, and the cells carry on, alive as normal.,,, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3319128/

This 'miraculous' ability is not just some freak of nature, but is now shown to be an inherent, and common, feature of e-coli.

In the lab, scientists coax E. coli to resist radiation damage - March 17, 2014 Excerpt: ,,, John R. Battista, a professor of biological sciences at Louisiana State University, showed that E. coli could evolve to resist ionizing radiation by exposing cultures of the bacterium to the highly radioactive isotope cobalt-60. "We blasted the cultures until 99 percent of the bacteria were dead. Then we'd grow up the survivors and blast them again. We did that twenty times," explains Cox. The result were E. coli capable of enduring as much as four orders of magnitude more ionizing radiation, making them similar to Deinococcus radiodurans, a desert-dwelling bacterium found in the 1950s to be remarkably resistant to radiation. That bacterium is capable of surviving more than one thousand times the radiation dose that would kill a human. http://www.news.wisc.edu/22641

As well, in the following study, “researchers implanted human embryonic neuronal cells into a mouse embryo”.,,, Yet, “the human neurons, despite having human DNA, had a mouse morphology”. If DNA really ruled morphology, (as Darwinists have presupposed), we would have expected a human morphology.

If DNA really rules (morphology), why did THIS happen? - April 2014 Excerpt: Researchers implanted human embryonic neuronal cells into a mouse embryo. Mouse and human neurons have distinct morphologies (shapes). Because the human neurons feature human DNA, they should be easy to identify. Which raises a question: Would the human neurons implanted in developing mouse brain have a mouse or a human morphology? Well, the answer is, the human neurons had a mouse morphology. They could be distinguished from the mouse ones only by their human genetic markers. If DNA really ruled, we would expect a human morphology. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/if-dna-really-rules-why-did-this-happen/

Along that same line is this tidbit from a UD blogger

"Last year I had a fair chunk of my nose removed in skin cancer surgery (Mohs). The surgeon took flesh from a nearby area to fill in the large hole he’d made. The pictures of it were scary. But in the healing process the replanted cells somehow ‘knew’ how to take a different shape appropriate for the new location so that the nose now looks remarkably natural. The doctor said he could take only half the credit because the cells somehow know how to change form for a different location (though they presumably still follow the same DNA code) . — I’m getting the feeling that we’ve been nearly as reductionist in the 20-21st century as Darwin and his peers were when they viewed cells as little blobs of jelly." leodp - UD blogger

To further drive to point home that the basic form of any particular organism is not reducible to the material particulars of an organism, in the following article it is noted that, Richard Lewontin once described how you can excise the developing limb bud from an amphibian embryo, shake the cells loose from each other, allow them to reaggregate into a random lump, and then replace the lump in the embryo. A normal leg develops. Somehow the form of the limb as a whole is the ruling factor, redefining the parts according to the larger pattern.

What Do Organisms Mean? Stephen L. Talbott - Winter 2011 Excerpt: Harvard biologist Richard Lewontin once described how you can excise the developing limb bud from an amphibian embryo, shake the cells loose from each other, allow them to reaggregate into a random lump, and then replace the lump in the embryo. A normal leg develops. Somehow the form of the limb as a whole is the ruling factor, redefining the parts according to the larger pattern. Lewontin went on to remark: "Unlike a machine whose totality is created by the juxtaposition of bits and pieces with different functions and properties, the bits and pieces of a developing organism seem to come into existence as a consequence of their spatial position at critical moments in the embryo’s development. Such an object is less like a machine than it is like a language whose elements... take unique meaning from their context.[3]",,, http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/what-do-organisms-mean

As experiments like these have made clear, 'biological form' simply cannot be reduced to DNA, nor to any other material particulars that Darwinists may try to invoke. And since material causes are ruled out as the cause of biological form then we are forced, by necessity, to appeal some 'non-material' cause in order to explain biological form. As Brian Miller noted in the following article, "Thom concluded in his book Structural Stability and Morphogenesis that the process of development should be thought of as being controlled by an “algebraic structure outside space-time itself” (p. 119). Likewise, Robert Rosen argued that life can only be understood as a mathematical abstraction consisting of functional relationships, irreducible to mechanistic processes."

Intelligent Design and the Advancement of Science - Brian Miller - December 11, 2017 Excerpt: DNA was expected to be the primary source of causality behind the operation and development of life. Such beliefs have previously raised concerns from leading scientists and mathematicians. For instance, physicist Walter Elsasser argued that the unfathomable complexity of the chemical and physically processes in life was “transcomputational” — beyond the realm of any theoretical means of computation. Moreover, the development of the embryo is not solely directed by DNA. Instead, it requires new “biotonic” principles. As a result, life cannot be reduced to chemistry and physics. An unbridgeable gap separates life from non-life. Similarly, mathematician René Thom argued that the 3D patterns of tissues in an organism’s development from egg to birth and their continuous transformation cannot be understood in terms of isolating the individual proteins generated by DNA and other molecules produced in cells. The problem is that the individual “parts” composing tissues and organs only take on the right form and function in the environment of those tissues and organs. More recent work by Denis Noble further has elucidated how every level of the biological hierarchy affects every other level, from DNA to tissues to the entire organism. Based partly on these insights, Thom concluded in his book Structural Stability and Morphogenesis that the process of development should be thought of as being controlled by an “algebraic structure outside space-time itself” (p. 119). Likewise, Robert Rosen argued that life can only be understood as a mathematical abstraction consisting of functional relationships, irreducible to mechanistic processes. He observed that life is fundamentally different from simple physics and chemistry. It embodies the Aristotelian category of final causation, which is closely related to the idea of purpose. The conclusions of these scholars challenge materialistic philosophy at its core. https://evolutionnews.org/2017/12/intelligent-design-and-the-advancement-of-science/

And at about the 41:00 minute mark of the following video, Dr. Wells, using a branch of mathematics called category theory, demonstrates that, during embryological development, information must somehow be added to the developing embryo, ‘from the outside’, by some ‘non-material’ method.

Design Beyond DNA: A Conversation with Dr. Jonathan Wells – video (41:00 minute mark) – January 2017 https://youtu.be/ASAaANVBoiE?t=2484

Just how much 'non-material' information is coming into an embryo during development? In the following video, it is noted that the information to build a human infant, atom by atom, would take up the equivalent of enough thumb drives to fill the Titanic, multiplied by 2,000.

In a TED Talk, (the Question You May Not Ask,,, Where did the information come from?) - November 29, 2017 Excerpt: Sabatini is charming.,,, he deploys some memorable images. He points out that the information to build a human infant, atom by atom, would take up the equivalent of enough thumb drives to fill the Titanic, multiplied by 2,000. Later he wheels out the entire genome, in printed form, of a human being,,,,: [F]or the first time in history, this is the genome of a specific human, printed page-by-page, letter-by-letter: 262,000 pages of information, 450 kilograms.,,, https://evolutionnews.org/2017/11/in-a-ted-talk-heres-the-question-you-may-not-ask/

Needless to say, that is a massive amount of information that is coming into a developing embryo via some 'non-material' method. And I, as a Christian, just so happen to have beyond space-time cause that I can appeal to so as to be able to give an adequate account for where this massive amount of 'non-material' information is coming from. Moreover, it is a beyond space-time explanation for biological form that has been postulated for thousands of years. Verse:

Psalm 139:13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. John 1:1-4 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men.

bornagain77

July 18, 2021

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Seversky then tries to address the insurmountable problem of 'biological form' for Darwinian evolution. I claimed,,

Darwin’s theory holds that mutations to DNA will eventually change the basic biological form of any given species into a new form of a brand new species. Yet, biological form is found to be irreducible to mutations to DNA, nor is biological form reducible to any other material particulars in biology one may wish to invoke.

and Seversky responded thusly:

Once again, Darwin knew nothing about DNA. He did not propose that “brand new” species would arise just from mutations. He simply argued that descendent species could arise from natural selection acting on variations in the parent species. That said, plenty of experimental evidence has accumulated subsequently for mutations in DNA having dramatic effects on the phenotype.:

Perhaps Seversky should inform the following researcher that Darwinists have the 'problem of biological form' well in hand? The researcher specifically stated that, "At present, the problem of biological form remains unsolved."

On the problem of biological form - Marta Linde-Medina (2020) Excerpt: Embryonic development, which inspired the first theories of biological form, was eventually excluded from the conceptual framework of the Modern Synthesis as irrelevant.,,, At present, the problem of biological form remains unsolved. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12064-020-00317-3

And although Seversky's claimed that "plenty of experimental evidence has accumulated subsequently for mutations in DNA having dramatic effects on the phenotype",,, although Seversky claimed that, that is NOT what I am claiming. I am NOT claiming that mutations can not have any effect whatsoever on an organism's phenotype. What I am claiming is that the 'blueprint' for 'biological form' is irreducible to DNA,, nor is it reducible to any other material particulars in biology that Darwinists may wish to invoke. I readily agree that one can get all sorts of phenotypic oddities by mutating DNA. For instance, there are examples of four winged fruit flies, and examples of fruit flies growing legs out of the heads, but there are no examples of mutations to DNA leading to anything other than deformed and defective fruit flies. As Dr. Jonathan Wells explained, "Studies using saturation mutagenesis in the embryos of fruit flies, roundworms, zebrafish and mice also provide evidence against the idea that DNA specifies the basic form of an organism. Biologists can mutate (and indeed have mutated) a fruit fly embryo in every possible way, and they have invariably observed only three possible outcomes: a normal fruit fly, a defective fruit fly, or a dead fruit fly."

Jonathan Wells: Far from being all-powerful, DNA does not wholly determine biological form - March 31, 2014 Excerpt: Studies using saturation mutagenesis in the embryos of fruit flies, roundworms, zebrafish and mice also provide evidence against the idea that DNA specifies the basic form of an organism. Biologists can mutate (and indeed have mutated) a fruit fly embryo in every possible way, and they have invariably observed only three possible outcomes: a normal fruit fly, a defective fruit fly, or a dead fruit fly. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/jonathan-wells-far-from-being-all-powerful-dna-does-not-wholly-determine-biological-form/ Response to John Wise - October 2010 Excerpt: But there are solid empirical grounds for arguing that changes in DNA alone cannot produce new organs or body plans. A technique called “saturation mutagenesis”1,2 has been used to produce every possible developmental mutation in fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster),3,4,5 roundworms (Caenorhabditis elegans),6,7 and zebrafish (Danio rerio),8,9,10 and the same technique is now being applied to mice (Mus musculus).11,12. None of the evidence from these and numerous other studies of developmental mutations supports the neo-Darwinian dogma that DNA mutations can lead to new organs or body plans–,,, (As Jonathan Wells states),,, We can modify the DNA of a fruit fly embryo in any way we want, and there are only three possible outcomes: A normal fruit fly; A defective fruit fly; or A dead fruit fly. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2010/10/response_to_john_wise038811.html

The 'blueprint' for biological form simply does not reside in DNA as Darwinists had falsely presupposed it to. As Michael Denton remarks in the following article,'"to date the form of no individual cell has been shown to be specified in detail in a genomic blueprint."

The Types: A Persistent Structuralist Challenge to Darwinian Pan-Selectionism - Michael J. Denton - 2013 Excerpt: Cell form ,,,Karsenti comments that despite the attraction of the (genetic) blueprint model there are no “simple linear chains of causal events that link genes to phenotypes” [77: p. 255]. And wherever there is no simple linear causal chain linking genes with phenotypes,,,—at any level in the organic hierarchy, from cells to body plans—the resulting form is bound to be to a degree epigenetic and emergent, and cannot be inferred from even the most exhaustive analysis of the genes.,,, To this author’s knowledge, to date the form of no individual cell has been shown to be specified in detail in a genomic blueprint. As mentioned above, between genes and mature cell form there is a complex hierarchy of self-organization and emergent phenomena, rendering cell form profoundly epigenetic. http://bio-complexity.org/ojs/index.php/main/article/view/BIO-C.2013.3/BIO-C.2013.3

And as Paul Davies stated, "DNA is not a blueprint for an organism,,,, Rather, DNA is a (mostly) passive repository for transcription of stored data into RNA,"

(Paul) Davies And Walker On Origin Of Life: Life As Information - March 7, 2020 Excerpt: However, the genome is only a small part of the story. DNA is not a blueprint for an organism:1 no information is actively processed by DNA alone [17]. Rather, DNA is a (mostly) passive repository for transcription of stored data into RNA, some (but by no means all) of which goes on to be translated into proteins. The biologically relevant information stored in DNA therefore has very little to do with its specific chemical nature (beyond the fact that it is a digital linear polymer). https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/davies-and-walker-on-origin-of-life-life-as-information/

And as Antony Jose stated, "DNA cannot be seen as the 'blueprint' for life,",,, "It is at best an overlapping and potentially scrambled list of ingredients that is used differently by different cells at different times.",,,

DNA may not be life's instruction book—just a jumbled list of ingredients - Kimbra Cutlip, University of Maryland - APRIL 22, 2020 Excerpt: The common view of heredity is that all information passed down from one generation to the next is stored in an organism's DNA. But Antony Jose, associate professor of cell biology and molecular genetics at the University of Maryland, disagrees. In two new papers, Jose argues that DNA is just the ingredient list, not the set of instructions used to build and maintain a living organism.,,, ,,, "DNA cannot be seen as the 'blueprint' for life," Jose said. "It is at best an overlapping and potentially scrambled list of ingredients that is used differently by different cells at different times." ,,, In addition, scientists are unable to determine the complex shape of an organ such as an eye, or that a creature will have eyes at all, by reading the creature's DNA. These fundamental aspects of anatomy are dictated by something outside of the DNA. https://phys.org/news/2020-04-dna-life-bookjust-jumbled-ingredients.html

bornagain77

July 18, 2021

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In response to the falsification of Natural Selection,

Darwin’s theory holds that Natural Selection is the ‘designer substitute’ that produces the ‘appearance’ and/or illusion of design. Natural Selection, especially for multicellular organisms, is found to grossly inadequate as the ‘designer substitute.

In response to the falsification of Natural Selection, Seversky responds thusly,

Darwin’s theory of natural selection offered a naturalistic alternative to creationism which was the only credible explanation for the appearance of design up to that point. It may well be that natural selection is no longer considered to be the primary engine of variation but the much bigger problem for ID/creationists is why we should observe any variation at all in what should be the perfect creations of a perfect creator.

Huh? What in the world are you talking about Seversky? Natural Selection never was considered the "primary engine of variation". Random "chance" always was, and still is, considered the "primary engine of variation".

TRUE DARWINISM IS ALL ABOUT CHANCE - - NOAH BERLATSKY - JUN 14, 2017 Excerpt: Chance is an uncomfortable thing. So Curtis Johnson argues in Darwin's Dice: The Idea of Chance in the Thought of Charles Darwin, and he makes a compelling case. The central controversy, and the central innovation, in Darwin's work is not the theory of natural selection itself, according to Johnson, but Darwin's more basic, and more innovative, turn to randomness as a way to explain natural phenomena. This application of randomness was so controversial, Johnson argues, that Darwin tried to cover it up, replacing words like "accident" and "chance" with terms like "spontaneous variation" in later editions of his work. Nonetheless, the terminological shift was cosmetic: Randomness remained, and still remains, the disturbing center of Darwin's theories. https://psmag.com/environment/wealth-rich-chance-charles-darwin-darwinism-chance-meritocracy-89764

In fact, the fact that Darwinists hold variations to be completely random, (i.e. completely 'spontaneous' and unguided), is what makes it impossible to predict exactly when a particular variation may happen, and is thus what, in and of itself, renders Darwin's theory completely useless as a scientific theory. As Wolfgang 'not even wrong' Pauli explained, "While they (Darwinists) pretend to stay in this way completely ‘scientific’ and ‘rational,’ they become actually very irrational, particularly because they use the word ‘chance’, not any longer combined with estimations of a mathematically defined probability, in its application to very rare single events more or less synonymous with the old word ‘miracle.’”

Pauli’s ideas on mind and matter in the context of contemporary science – Harald Atmanspacher Excerpt: “In discussions with biologists I met large difficulties when they apply the concept of ‘natural selection’ in a rather wide field, without being able to estimate the probability of the occurrence in a empirically given time of just those events, which have been important for the biological evolution. Treating the empirical time scale of the evolution theoretically as infinity they have then an easy game, apparently to avoid the concept of purposesiveness. While they pretend to stay in this way completely ‘scientific’ and ‘rational,’ they become actually very irrational, particularly because they use the word ‘chance’, not any longer combined with estimations of a mathematically defined probability, in its application to very rare single events more or less synonymous with the old word ‘miracle.’” Wolfgang Pauli (pp. 27-28) https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/234f/4989e039089fed5ac47c7d1a19b656c602e2.pdf

Thus, contrary to what Seversky claimed, Natural Selection is not now, nor was it ever, imagined to be the "primary engine of variation". Completely unguided random "chance" always was, and still is, considered the "primary engine of variation" within Darwinian thought. Natural Selection, on the other hand, was always falsely imagined to function as some kind of 'blind' agent, i.e. as a 'designer substitute', with the causal power within itself to scrutinize variations, "even the slightest'. As Charles Darwin himself put it, "natural selection is daily and hourly scrutinising, throughout the world, every variation, even the slightest; rejecting that which is bad, preserving and adding up all that is good";

"natural selection is daily and hourly scrutinising, throughout the world, every variation, even the slightest; rejecting that which is bad, preserving and adding up all that is good; silently and insensibly working, whenever and wherever opportunity offers, at the improvement of each organic being in relation to its organic and inorganic conditions of life." (Darwin 1859, p. 84)

Yet, Charles Darwin was simply completely, and unequivocally, wrong in his claim that Natural Selection can function as some kind of 'blind' agent, i.e. a 'designer substitute', which is "daily and hourly scrutinising, throughout the world, every variation, even the slightest; rejecting that which is bad, preserving and adding up all that is good". Natural Selection is now known to be grossly inadequate as the supposed 'designer substitute' that Darwin had falsely imagined it to be. As Ann Gauger pointed out, "In 2007, Durrett and Schmidt estimated in the journal Genetics that for a single mutation to occur in a nucleotide-binding site and be fixed in a primate lineage would require a waiting time of six million years. The same authors later estimated it would take 216 million years for the binding site to acquire two mutations, if the first mutation was neutral in its effect."

More from Ann Gauger on why humans didn’t happen the way Darwin said - July 2012 Excerpt: Each of these new features probably required multiple mutations. Getting a feature that requires six neutral mutations is the limit of what bacteria can produce. For primates (e.g., monkeys, apes and humans) the limit is much more severe. Because of much smaller effective population sizes (an estimated ten thousand for humans instead of a billion for bacteria) and longer generation times (fifteen to twenty years per generation for humans vs. a thousand generations per year for bacteria), it would take a very long time for even a single beneficial mutation to appear and become fixed in a human population. You don’t have to take my word for it. In 2007, Durrett and Schmidt estimated in the journal Genetics that for a single mutation to occur in a nucleotide-binding site and be fixed in a primate lineage would require a waiting time of six million years. The same authors later estimated it would take 216 million years for the binding site to acquire two mutations, if the first mutation was neutral in its effect. Facing Facts But six million years is the entire time allotted for the transition from our last common ancestor with chimps to us according to the standard evolutionary timescale. Two hundred and sixteen million years takes us back to the Triassic, when the very first mammals appeared. One or two mutations simply aren’t sufficient to produce the necessary changes,, in the time available. At most, a new binding site might affect the regulation of one or two genes. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/more-from-ann-gauger-on-why-humans-didnt-happen-the-way-darwin-said/

And as John Sanford noted, "the waiting time for the fixation of a “string-of-one” is by itself problematic. 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.,,, the fixation of two co-dependent mutations is extremely problematic – requiring at least 84 million years. This is ten-fold longer than the estimated time required for ape-to-man evolution.,,, 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.

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/

I know of no one who has challenged the calculations of Durrett and Schmidt, or the calculations of John Sanford., So again, Natural Selection is now found to be grossly inadequate as the supposed 'designer substitute'. And with Natural Selection being mathematically falsified as the supposed 'designer substitute', then the explanation for the 'appearance of design' that we see in life, or course, reverts back to 'real' design as the explanation for the design that we see in life. As Richard Sternberg explains, “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.”

“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

Seversky also made this rather peculiar claim, "but the much bigger problem for ID/creationists is why we should observe any variation at all in what should be the perfect creations of a perfect creator." Well, I certainly don't consider it a 'much bigger problem.' Contrary to what Seversky may believe that the Bible says, I, a Christian, never have believed that we will not see any variation whatsoever in animals. On the contrary, I have always believed that creatures will reproduce 'after their kind'. For instance, I believe, although there is a tremendous amount of variation in the Dogs of the world, that the tremendous amount of variation witnessed in Dogs will always be 'bounded' within the 'Dog kind'. How in the world Seversky gets to the idea that we should not "observe any variation at all in what should be the perfect creations of a perfect creator", I have absolutely no idea. It is clear that Seversky is actually erecting a straw man theological argument, knocking it down, and then declaring victory. But I, nor any Christian I know, has ever held that we will not see any variation whatsoever when an animal reproduces 'after their kind'. Of supplemental note to the 'bounded' variation that we see within the 'Dog kind'.

The Dog Delusion - October 30, 2014 Excerpt: In his latest book, geneticist Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig of the Max Planck Institutes in Germany takes on the widespread view that dog breeds prove macroevolution.,,, He shows in great detail that the incredible variety of dog breeds, going back in origin several thousand years ago but especially to the last few centuries, represents no increase in information but rather a decrease or loss of function on the genetic and anatomical levels. Michael Behe writes: "Dr. Lönnig shows forcefully that one of the chief examples Darwinists rely on to convince the public of macroevolution -- the enormous variation in dogs -- actually shows the opposite. Extremes in size and anatomy come at the cost of broken genes and poor health. Even several gene duplications were found to interfere strongly with normal growth and development as is also often the case in humans. So where is the evidence for Darwinian evolution now?" The science here is indeed solid. Intriguingly, Lönnig's prediction from 2013 on starch digestion in wolves has already been confirmed in a study published this year.,,, http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/10/the_dog_delusio090751.html

Verse:

Genesis 1:24 Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind: cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth after their kind”; and it was so.

bornagain77

July 18, 2021

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Thank you once again, Bornagain77 @44 and Charles @47. Beautifully summarized. It's too bad that Jack refuses to read your posts for the reason that he isn't here to gain information but simply to disseminate outdated and falsified theories that he agrees with. But I'm sure that many other people here have read and appreciated your posts, myself included. Thank you. -QQuerius

July 17, 2021

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Jack @ 27 "If you have evidence that Daniel was written earlier than 2nd century BC, let’s hear it. " Actually, the Septuagint was copied beginning 3rd century B.C. and contains "Daniel" in its entirety. Daniel recorded the existence of Belshazzar (Dan 5), a fact known to Daniel, but otherwise lost to history, archaeology, etc. until the discovery in A.D. 1854, by Sir Henry Rawlinson of the Nabonidus Chronicle (cuneiform tablet) and also Nabonidus Stela, and Nabonidus Cylinder (at the British Museum) in which Nabonidus prayed for his son “Belshazzar” and essentially made Belshazzar co-regent of Babylon in Nabonidus’ absence. Since Nabonidus was first in the kingdom and his son Belshazzar was second, then Daniel would logically have had third authority in the kingdom following Belshazzar, exactly as was offered in Dan 5:16. Daniel knew Belshazzar was second in authority over Babylon, and Cyrus the Great captured Babylon in 539 BC, and Belshazzar's existence was confirmed in the Nabonidus Cylinder. But that fact was unknown to 3rd century (and 2nd century) BC writers as demonstrated by the absolute lack of any historical evidence outside of "Daniel" until Rawlinson's discovery 1854 AD. History that later turns out to be true was not fabricated 'after the fact' in the first place. So if "Daniel" had been written by a 3rd (or 2nd) century BC writer, that writer alone had knowledge of Belshazzar's existence that no one else had in the 2400 years between Cyrus' capture of Babylon from Belshazzar upto Rawlinson's discovery. The only person in that 2400 years who knew Belshazzar existed was Daniel himself, and that fact was not known in 3rd (or 2nd) century BC. The author of "Daniel" had to exist when Belshazzar was known around 539 BC and lost Babylon to Cyrus. Further, "Daniel" is mentioned in Ezekiel, and no one questions that Ezekiel is dated to 592-570 BC.Charles

July 17, 2021

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Seversky then moves on to my list of “list of falsifications”

1. Darwin’s theory holds mutations to the genome to be random. The vast majority of mutations to the genome are not random but are now found to be ‘directed’.

To that specific falsification, Seversky responds

You should at least try to understand the basics. Darwin knew nothing about the genome so had nothing to say about whether mutations were random or directed.

Hold the phones, is Seversky really trying to claim that Darwin's theory does not hold mutations to DNA to be random? Surely that can't be right,, "CHANCE ALONE,” the Nobel Prize-winning chemist Jacques Monod once wrote, “is at the source of every innovation, of all creation in the biosphere. Pure chance, absolutely free but blind, is at the very root of the stupendous edifice of creation.”

“It necessarily follows that chance alone is at the source of every innovation, and of all creation in the biosphere. Pure chance, absolutely free but blind, at the very root of the stupendous edifice of evolution: this central concept of modern biology is no longer one among many other possible or even conceivable hypotheses. It is today the sole conceivable hypothesis, the only one that squares with observed and tested fact. And nothing warrants the supposition - or the hope - that on this score our position is ever likely to be revised. There is no scientific concept, in any of the sciences, more destructive of anthropocentrism than this one.” Jacques Monod, Chance and Necessity: An Essay on the Natural Philosophy of Modern Biology

If Seversky is really trying to claim that Darwin's theory does not hold mutations to DNA to be random, Seversky better inform the Darwinian community a large. Contrary to what Seversky tried to imply, the discovery that mutations, in the vast majority of instances, are found to not be random was quite the surprise to evolutionary biologists,

"It is difficult (if not impossible) to find a genome change operator that is truly random in its action within the DNA of the cell where it works. All careful studies of mutagenesis find statistically significant non-random patterns” James Shapiro - Evolution: A View From The 21st Century - (Page 82) Revisiting the Central Dogma in the 21st Century - James A. Shapiro - 2009 Excerpt (Page 12): Underlying the central dogma and conventional views of genome evolution was the idea that the genome is a stable structure that changes rarely and accidentally by chemical fluctuations (106) or replication errors. This view has had to change with the realization that maintenance of genome stability is an active cellular function and the discovery of numerous dedicated biochemical systems for restructuring DNA molecules.(107–110) Genetic change is almost always the result of cellular action on the genome. These natural processes are analogous to human genetic engineering,,, (Page 14) Genome change arises as a consequence of natural genetic engineering, not from accidents. Replication errors and DNA damage are subject to cell surveillance and correction. When DNA damage correction does produce novel genetic structures, natural genetic engineering functions, such as mutator polymerases and nonhomologous end-joining complexes, are involved. Realizing that DNA change is a biochemical process means that it is subject to regulation like other cellular activities. Thus, we expect to see genome change occurring in response to different stimuli (Table 1) and operating nonrandomly throughout the genome, guided by various types of intermolecular contacts (Table 1 of Ref. 112). http://shapiro.bsd.uchicago.edu/Shapiro2009.AnnNYAcadSciMS.RevisitingCentral%20Dogma.pdf 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 From the discussion of the following paper, "there are fixed probabilities for the type of change in selection pressure-free conditions that are far from random." Probability of change in life: Amino acid changes in single nucleotide substitutions - June 2020 Excerpt of Abstract: mutations are assumed to be random in the bereft of selection pressures,,,, (Yet) Our calculations reveal an enigmatic in-built self-preserving organization of the genetic code that averts disruptive changes at the physicochemical properties level.,,, Discussion We found in-built intrinsic biases and barriers to drastic changes within the genetic code. Within single mutational events, there are fixed probabilities for the type of change in selection pressure-free conditions that are far from random. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0303264720300393

Since mutations to DNA are now known, in the vast majority of instance, to not be truly random, Darwinists will often respond to this (very) inconvenient falsification of a core presupposition of their theory by claiming that mutations are only held to be random with regard to fitness, i.e. to the needs of the individual, (as if that claim gets them out of the severe jam they have with this core falsification to their theory), but even their claim that mutations are only held to be random with regard to fitness, i.e. to the needs of the individual, is now known to be a false claim in and of itself.

(False) Prediction of Darwinism - Mutations are not adaptive - Cornelius Hunter In the twentieth century, the theory of evolution predicted that mutations are not adaptive or directed. In other words, mutations were believed to be random with respect to the needs of the individual. As Julian Huxley put it, “Mutation merely provides the raw material of evolution; it is a random affair, and takes place in all directions. … in all cases they are random in relation to evolution. Their effects are not related to the needs of the organisms.” (Huxley, 36) Or as Jacques Monod explained: "chance alone is at the source of every innovation, of all creation in the biosphere. Pure chance, absolutely free but blind, at the very root of the stupendous edifice of evolution: this central concept of modern biology is no longer one among other possible or even conceivable hypotheses. It is today the sole conceivable hypothesis, the only one that squares with observed and tested fact. And nothing warrants the supposition—or the hope—that on this score our position is likely ever to be revised." (Monod, 112) Ronald Fisher wrote that mutations are “random with respect to the organism’s need” (Orr). This fundamental prediction persisted for decades as a recent paper explained: “mutation is assumed to create heritable variation that is random and undirected.” (Chen, Lowenfeld and Cullis) But that assumption is now known to be false. The first problem is that the mutation rate is adaptive. For instance, when a population of bacteria is subjected to harsh conditions it tends to increase its mutation rate. It is as though a signal has been sent saying, “It is time to adapt.” Also, a small fraction of the population increases its mutation rates even higher yet. These hypermutators ensure that an even greater variety of adaptive change is explored. (Foster) Experiments have also discovered that duplicated DNA segments may be subject to higher mutation rates. Since the segment is a duplicate it is less important to preserve and, like a test bed, appears to be used to experiment with new designs. (Wright) The second problem is that organisms use strategies to direct the mutations according to the threat. Adaptive mutations have been extensively studied in bacteria. Experiments typically alter the bacteria food supply or apply some other environmental stress causing mutations that target the specific environmental stress. (Burkala, et. al.; Moxon, et. al; Wright) Adaptive mutations have also been observed in yeast (Fidalgo, et. al.; David, et. al.) and flax plants. (Johnson, Moss and Cullis) One experiment found repeatable mutations in flax in response to fertilizer levels. (Chen, Schneeberger and Cullis) Another exposed the flax to four different growth conditions and found that environmental stress can induce mutations that result in “sizeable, rapid, adaptive evolutionary responses.” (Chen, Lowenfeld and Cullis) In response to this failed prediction some evolutionists now are saying that evolution somehow created the mechanisms that cause mutations to be adaptive. https://sites.google.com/site/darwinspredictions/mutations-are-not-adaptive

Seversky went on to state that,,,

And, no, the vast majority of mutations in the genome are not found to be “directed”, certainly not in the sense you are implying.

The first part of that claim is simply false, as I have now referenced, the vast majority of mutations in the genome, directly contrary to what Seversky claimed, ARE found to be “directed” As to the second part of Seversky's claim, i.e. "certainly not (directed) in the sense you are implying." And exactly what sense is Seversky trying to claim mutations can be 'directed'? I certainly hope he is not trying to insanely claim they can be 'randomly directed'. That would be a new level of insanity even for Seversky. :) But anyways, regardless of whatever lame excuse Seversky is trying to find, let me lay it on the line, nobody, and I mean NOBODY to especially include Darwinists, has a realistic clue how it is possible for the cell body to locate a specific sequence in DNA just when it needs to find that sequence. Much less does anyone have a realistic clue how it is possible for the cell body to know exactly where to change the DNA in order to address the specific needs of the individual cell, (and/or organism). As Stephen Talbott explained, "Hundreds or thousands of DNA sequences move (or are moved) within vast numbers of cell nuclei, and are subjected to extraordinarily nuanced, locally modulated chemical activity so as to contribute appropriately to bodily requirements that are nowhere codified — least of all in those DNA sequences.,,,",,, "To locate a protein-coding gene of typical size within all that DNA is like homing in on a one-half-inch stretch within those 24 miles."

Genes and Organisms: Improvising the Dance of Life - Stephen L. Talbott - Nov. 10, 2015 Excerpt: The performances of countless cells in your body are redirected and coordinated as part of a global narrative for which no localized controller exists. This redirection and coordination includes a unique choreography of gene expression in each individual cell. Hundreds or thousands of DNA sequences move (or are moved) within vast numbers of cell nuclei, and are subjected to extraordinarily nuanced, locally modulated chemical activity so as to contribute appropriately to bodily requirements that are nowhere codified — least of all in those DNA sequences.,,, DNA in its larger matrix You may recall from my earlier article, “Getting Over the Code Delusion” (Talbott 2010), that packing DNA into a typical cell nucleus is like packing about 24 miles of very thin, double-stranded string into a tennis ball, with the string cut up (in the normal human case) into 46 pieces, corresponding to our 46 chromosomes. To locate a protein-coding gene of typical size within all that DNA is like homing in on a one-half-inch stretch within those 24 miles. Or, rather, two relevant half-inch stretches located on different pieces of string, since we typically have two copies of any given gene. Except that sometimes one copy differs from the other and one version is not supposed to be expressed, or one version needs to be expressed more than the other, or the product of one needs to be modified relative to the other. So part of the job may be to distinguish one of those half-inch stretches from the other. “Decisions” everywhere, it seems. http://www.natureinstitute.org/txt/st/org/comm/ar/2015/genes_29.htm

So Seversky, since you said that mutations are, "certainly not (directed) in the sense you are implying", exactly what sense do you mean mutations to be directed? Many people, other than myself, want to understand exactly how it is even possible for a cell to 'know' how to locate a 1/2 inch sequence within 24 miles. Much less, how it is possible to make appropriate 'directed' changes to the 'programming' of DNA, in just the right places. And to do so in the blink of an eye. Compared to our computer programs, such a feat is simply 'science fiction' as far as our best computer technology is concerned. So yes Seversky, please do tell us exactly what you mean when you say that the mutations are 'certainly' not directed in the sense that I implied.bornagain77

July 17, 2021

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At 37 Seversky tries to counter my claim that Darwinists simply ignore many lines of empirical evidence that falsify core Darwinian presuppositions.

I put together my own list of falsifications of Darwin’s theory. Core falsifications of their theory that Darwinists simply refuse to ever accept as falsifications of their theory,

In response Seversky states,

Evolution is recognized and accepted as a theory in science by those far better qualified than you or I,,,

Well actually no it is not. Leading figures of science in the 19th century, Adam Sedgwick and Richard Owen, both rejected Darwin's theory precisely for not being scientific, (i.e. for failing to follow the inductive scientific method that was laid out by Francis Bacon)

Darwin on the Origin of Species (1860) Reviewed by Richard Owen for Edinburg Review Excerpt: The scientific world has looked forward with great interest to the facts which Mr. Darwin might finally deem adequate to the support of his theory on this supreme question in biology, and to the course of inductive original research which might issue in throwing light on ‘that mystery of mysteries.’ But having now cited the chief, if not the whole, of the original observations adduced by its author in the volume now before us, our disappointment may be conceived. http://www.victorianweb.org/science/science_texts/owen_review_of_origin.html From Adam Sedgwick – 24 November 1859 Cambridge My dear Darwin, Excerpt: I have read your book with more pain than pleasure. Parts of it I admired greatly, parts I laughed at till my sides were almost sore; other parts I read with absolute sorrow, because I think them utterly false and grievously mischievous. You have deserted – after a start in that tram-road of all solid physical truth – the true method of induction, and started us in machinery as wild, I think, as Bishop Wilkins’s locomotive that was to sail with us to the moon. Many of your wide conclusions are based upon assumptions which can neither be proved nor disproved, why then express them in the language and arrangement of philosophical induction?- As to your grand principle – natural selection – what is it but a secondary consequence of supposed, or known, primary facts. Development is a better word because more close to the cause of the fact.”,,, ,,, (your conclusions are not) “ever likely to be found any where but in the fertile womb of man’s imagination.” Adam Sedgwick (1785-1873) – one of the founders of modern geology. – The Spectator, 1860 https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/DCP-LETT-2548.xml

As far as being considered a science, things did not improve for Darwin's theory in the 20th century. Both Karl Popper and Imre Lakatos, recognized leading figures of the 20th century in the philosophy of science, both found Darwin's theory to be, to put it mildly, inadequate as a scientific theory. Popper himself called Darwinian evolution, “not a testable scientific theory but a metaphysical research program.”

Dubitable Darwin? Why Some Smart, Nonreligious People Doubt the Theory of Evolution - John Horgan - July 6, 2010 Excerpt: Early in his career, the philosopher Karl Popper ,, called evolution via natural selection “almost a tautology” and “not a testable scientific theory but a metaphysical research program.” Attacked for these criticisms, Popper took them back (in approx 1978). But when I interviewed him in 1992, he blurted out that he still found Darwin’s theory dissatisfying. “One ought to look for alternatives!” Popper exclaimed, banging his kitchen table. http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/dubitable-darwin-why-some-smart-nonreligious-people-doubt-the-theory-of-evolution/

And Lakatos In his 1973 LSE Scientific Method Lecture directly stated that "nobody to date has yet found a demarcation criterion according to which Darwin can be described as scientific".

Imre Lakatos - Pseudoscience - Darwin's Theory Excerpt: In his 1973 LSE Scientific Method Lecture 1[23] he also claimed that "nobody to date has yet found a demarcation criterion according to which Darwin can be described as scientific". Almost 20 years after Lakatos's 1973 challenge to the scientificity of Darwin, in her 1991 The Ant and the Peacock, LSE lecturer and ex-colleague of Lakatos, Helena Cronin, attempted to establish that Darwinian theory was empirically scientific in respect of at least being supported by evidence of likeness in the diversity of life forms in the world, explained by descent with modification. She wrote that "our usual idea of corroboration as requiring the successful prediction of novel facts...Darwinian theory was not strong on temporally novel predictions.." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imre_Lakatos#Pseudoscience

Not exactly a glowing endorsement of Darwin as a supposedly scientific theory for two leading figures in the philosophy of science in the 20th century. Hence, so much for Seversky's false claim that "Evolution is recognized and accepted as a theory in science by those far better qualified than you or I,,," Seversky then, via Paul Nelson, tries to claim that ID itself does not qualify as a science. Yet, by Popper's gold standard of falsification for determining whether something is a testable/falsifiable science, or whether it is a untestable/unfalsifiable pseudoscience,

"In so far as a scientific statement speaks about reality, it must be falsifiable; and in so far as it is not falsifiable, it does not speak about reality." Karl Popper - The Two Fundamental Problems of the Theory of Knowledge (2014 edition), Routledge

,,, by that gold standard of science, ID is easily falsifiable and thus easily qualifies as testable/falsifiable science. Shoot, there is even a 10 Million dollar prize being offered for the first person, or team, that can falsify ID.

Evolution 2.0 Prize: Unprecedented $10 Million Offered To Replicate Cellular Evolution - 14 Jan, 2020 Excerpt: An incentive prize ten times the size of the Nobel – believed to be the largest single award ever in basic science – is being offered to the person or team solving the largest mystery in history: how genetic code inside cells got there, and how cells intentionally self-organize, communicate, then purposely adapt. This $10 million challenge, the Evolution 2.0 Prize can be found at www.evo2.org. https://www.prnewswire.com/in/news-releases/evolution-2-0-prize-unprecedented-10-million-offered-to-replicate-cellular-evolution-875038146.html

As Perry Marshall stated elsewhere, "All you need is a an example of information that does not come from a mind, all you need is one." Thus, since ID can 'potentially' be falsified by experimentation, then that, all by its lonesome, qualifies ID as a science and demarcates it from pseudoscience. On the other hand, nobody can seem to find any rigid falsification criteria within Darwin's theory that would demarcate it as a testable/falsifiable science, and not as a pseudoscience.

Central tenets of neo-Darwinism broken. Response to ‘Neo-Darwinism is just fine’ – 2015 Excerpt: “If, as the commentator seems to imply, we make neo-Darwinism so flexible as an idea that it can accept even those findings that the originators intended to be excluded by the theory it is then incumbent on modern neo-Darwinists to specify what would now falsify the theory. If nothing can do this then it is not a scientific theory.” – Denis Noble https://jeb.biologists.org/content/218/16/2659 “Our theory of evolution has become, as Popper described, one which cannot be refuted by any possible observations. Every conceivable observation can be fitted into it. It is thus “outside empirical science” but not necessarily false. No one can think of ways in which to test it. Ideas, either without basis or based on a few laboratory experiments carried out in extremely simplified systems have attained currency far beyond their validity. They have become part of an evolutionary dogma accepted by most of us as part of our training. The cure seems to us not to be a discarding of the modern synthesis of evolutionary theory, but more skepticism about many of its tenets.” Ehrlich, Paul and L.C. Birch (1967), “Evolutionary History and Population Biology,” Nature, 214:349-352, April 22, p. 352

I will try to address some of Seversky's other false claims later on today if I have the time, but suffice it for now to note that Seversky's claim that Darwin's theory is a science, and ID is not a science, is a demonstrably, and patently, false claim. Shoot, directly contrary to what Seversky presupposes, we can't even 'do science' in the first place without presupposing ID to be true on a deep fundamental level of reality.

From the essential Christian presuppositions that undergird the founding of modern science itself, (namely that the universe is contingent and rational in its foundational nature and that the minds of men, being made in the ‘image of God’, can, therefore, dare understand the rationality that God has imparted onto the universe), to the intelligent design of the scientific instruments and experiments themselves, to the logical and mathematical analysis of experimental results themselves, from top to bottom, science itself is certainly not to be considered a ‘natural’ endeavor of man. Not one scientific instrument would ever exist if men did not first intelligently design that scientific instrument. Not one test tube, microscope, telescope, spectroscope, or etc.. etc.., was ever found just laying around on a beach somewhere which was ‘naturally’ constructed by nature. Not one experimental result would ever be rationally analyzed since there would be no immaterial minds to rationally analyze the immaterial logic and immaterial mathematics that lay behind the intelligently designed experiments in the first place. Again, all of science, every nook and cranny of it, is based on the presupposition of intelligent design and is certainly not based on the presupposition of methodological naturalism.

Verse

1 Thessalonians 5:21 Test all things; hold fast what is good.

bornagain77

July 17, 2021

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"A weakly supported claim." ,,, Others, who have studied this in detail, disagree

A Contemporary Defense of the Authenticity of Daniel - April 2016 Kirk MacGregor at McPherson College Excerpt: 4. Was Darius the Mede a historical figure? Perhaps the most intractable problem surrounding the authenticity of Daniel has been to establish the existence of a Median king who can be positively identified as Darius the Mede. In 2014, this problem seems to have been definitively solved by Steven Anderson. Anderson s solution proceeds in two parts. First, based on the classical Greek historian Xenophon s Cyropaedia (370 BC), one of two ancient biographies of Cyrus the Great, Anderson has persuasively argued that Cyrus shared power with a Median king until two years after the fall of Babylon.47 Xenophon denominates this king as Cyaxares II. According to Xenophon, Cyrus was the son of Cambyses I, King of Persia, who was subordinate to his brother-in-law Astyages, King of Media. At Astyages death, his son Cyaxares II succeeded him to the Median throne at about the time Cyrus reached adulthood.48 When the Babylonians with the assistance of other nations attacked the Medes and Persians, Cyaxares II and Cyrus, then the crown prince of Persia and commander of the Persian army, joined forces to overthrow the Babylonians. Cyaxares II remained in Media with a home guard, while Cyrus conducted the war as the commanding general of both the Medes and Persians.49 In 539 BC, Cyrus became King of Persia upon the death of Cambyses I. Later that same year, Cyrus took Babylon by diverting the Euphrates River and attacking the riverbed on the night of a feast, killing the troops and the king of Babylon, whom Xenophon identifies as the son of the king who then was. 50 At the fall of Babylon, therefore, Cyaxares II was recognized as the highest official in the Medo-Persian Empire, with Cyrus a subordinate co-regent.51 When Cyrus returned to Persia and met Cyaxares II, Cyaxares II gave Cyrus his daughter in marriage and bestowed upon Cyrus accession to the throne of Media at his death. When Cyaxares II died in 537 BC, Cyrus, now king of Media and Persia, united the two peoples under a single monarch.52 Second, Anderson presents strong evidence that Darius the Mede was the throne name of Cyaxares II. Anderson appeals to Berossus, a priest of Bel/Marduk in Babylon who composed the Babyloniaca, an account of Babylonian history from the origins of Babylon to the beginning of the Hellenistic period, between 281 261 BC. The best text-critical reconstruction of the Babyloniaca contains the following description of the fall of Babylon: "But it came to pass in the seventeenth year of [Nabonidus ] reign, that Cyrus came out of Persia with a great army; and having subdued all the rest of his kingdom, he rushed upon Babylonia. And when Nabonidus learned of his attack, he met [him] with his army and joined battle, and was defeated in the battle; and, fleeing with a few [troops], he was confined within the city of the Borsippans. Then Cyrus seized Babylon, and ordered the outer walls of the city to be torn down, because the city had been very troublesome to him, and seemed hard to conquer. He then marched against Borsippa to force Nabonidus to capitulate. But Nabonidus did not wait out the siege, but gave himself up. Cyrus at first treated him kindly, and, giving a residence to him in Carmania, sent him out of Babylonia. But Darius the king took away some of his province for himself. So Nabonidus passed the rest of his time in that land and died."53 This text intersects quite nicely with the account of Xenophon, filling out its missing details. While Xenophon recounted Cyrus killing of a Babylonian king who was co-regnant with his father but said nothing more of the father, Berossus described the surrender, exile, and natural death of that father, Nabonidus. More stunning for our purposes is the italicized line, which reveals that Darius was a king whose rule stretched over the exploits of Cyrus just after the fall of Babylon. Since we know from Xenophon that the only king with this type of authority was Cyaxares II, Anderson concludes that Darius and Cyaxares II were one and the same figure, with Darius serving as his throne name.54 And since this figure was king of Media, it is only natural that the further designation the Mede would be added to the throne name Darius.55 Corroboration for this conclusion comes from the first-century AD Jewish historian Josephus, who reported: Now Darius put an end to the dominion of the Babylonians with Cyrus his relative, being sixty-two years old when he took Babylon who was the son of Astyages, but was called by another name among the Greeks. 56 Because the son of Astyages has been identified by Xenophon, a Greek historian, as Cyaxares II, it follows inescapably from the combined testimony of Josephus and Xenophon that Darius was Cyaxares II. The existence of this earlier Darius before Darius the Great is also confirmed by the second-century AD Greek lexicographer and rhetorician Harpocration, who traced the derivation of the term daric to the earlier Darius reign: Darics are gold staters, and each of them also had the value of what the Athenians call the gold coin. But darics are not named, as most suppose, after Darius the father of Xerxes, but after a certain other more ancient king. 57 In sum, the cumulative force of the ancient evidence permits little doubt that the Median king Cyaxares II was Darius the Mede. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318725539_A_Contemporary_Defense_of_the_Authenticity_of_Daniel

And again, the Conclusion of the paper, a paper which you self admittedly did not bother to read, (i.e. willful ignorance)

CONCLUSION It is clear that liberal scholars are ignorant of the flood of archaeological and textual materials supporting the authenticity of Daniel. Porphyry’s thesis, which serves as the foundation of any modern argument for a late date, collapses under the fact that Daniel 11:40-45 refers to the future reign and destruction of a figure during the world s end times instead of the military defeat and death of Antiochus IV Epiphanes. The Nabonidus Chronicle and the Gezer Calendar demonstrate that no contradiction exists between the chronologies of Daniel 1 and 2, and the Nabonidus Chronicle verifies that Nebuchadnezzar conquered Palestine in 605 BC. Akkadian analogies authenticate the Babylonian names given to Daniel and his friends, and the Greek text of Berossus shows that Chaldeans were professional astrologers long before the sixth century BC. A careful comparison of the Qumran Prayer of Nabonidus with the portrait of Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel 4 establishes the literary independence of these texts. Recent analysis of Xenophon s Cyropaedia indicates that Darius the Mede was the throne name of the sixth-century BC Median king Cyaxares II, who headed the Medo-Persian Empire at Babylon s fall in 539 BC. Inscriptions from Haran demonstrate the existence and kingship of Belshazzar. Further, the Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III and the Moabite Stone of Mesha endorse Daniel s loose description of Belshazzar as the son of Nebuchadnezzar. The Hebrew-Aramaic-Hebrew structure of Daniel reflects the ABA chiastic pattern of Near Eastern composition, and the Hermopolis and Elephantine papyri along with the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit that Daniel’s Hebrew and Aramaic parallel fifth-century BC linguistics rather than second-century BC writings. Excavations at Carchemish, Mesad Hashavyahu, Arad, Babylon, and Pasargadai reveal ample contacts between the Aegean and Near East before Alexander the Great, and the Greek words for musical instruments in the Aramaic are therefore no obstacle for an early date of Daniel. Since the Ugaritic Dn il from the Ras Shamra texts was a Baal-worshiper, the Daniel mentioned in Ezekiel 14:14, 20, and 28:3 must correspond to the namesake of the book of Daniel. The Akkadian Prophecies and the story of Ahiqar demonstrate that late apocalyptic writings were modeled after Daniel and not vice versa, and Daniel s precise reference to the city of Shushan in the province of Elan displays his sixth-century BC knowledge. The E-NUN-MAH sanctuary discovered in the Neo-Babylonian stratum at Ur portrays the mode of worship described in Daniel 3. In sum, the plethora of archaeological and textual evidence surrounding the book of Daniel constitutes a powerful cumulative case that cries out for authorship by the historical prophet Daniel c. 530 BC, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318725539_A_Contemporary_Defense_of_the_Authenticity_of_Daniel Kirk R. MacGregor (Ph.D., University of Iowa) teaches religion at Carthage College and philosophy at the College of DuPage.

bornagain77

July 17, 2021

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Querius: When an ancient manuscript includes detailed information about its writer and when it was written, this is never considered irrelevant. A manuscript could have been written in someone else’s name, but there’s no evidence that this was the case and there’s plenty of internal evidence of a Babylonian origin along with compatible expressions from Persian state documents . . . I didn't claim that Daniel contains no genuine Babylonian elements. I would expect that an author of quasi historical fiction to include elements of stories from the past to bolster the contemporary political/social agenda for which Daniel was apparently written. My original points refer to the dating of Daniel in the form it came to exist. You are unable to defeat those points. There is simply no attestation for a date of the work itself earlier than 200 BCE. Uncomfortable for you I can imagine. Very strange why Paul and the gospel writers didn't quote Daniel 9 as evidence for Jesus or the coming destruction of Jerusalem. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96RgQLeOS0Q Again, read this to understand why nobody in the first and seconds centuries BCE interpreted Daniel 9 along the lines of how Christians interpret it: Daniel 9 and the Date of Messiah’s Coming in Essene, Hellenistic, Pharisaic, Zealot and Early Christian Computation by the emminent scholar Roger Beckwith. You can read it for free on JSTOR. The Christian interpretations are after-the-fact sharpshooter fallacy contortions. https://www.jstor.org/stable/24607004Jack

July 16, 2021

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AD: Also, the Darius question was answered some time back by BA77. I generally skip over BA77's copy and paste. All he said was, "Recent analysis of Xenophon s Cyropaedia indicates that Darius the Mede was the throne name of the sixth-century BC Median king Cyaxares II" A weakly supported claim. https://bloggingtheology.com/2018/12/28/was-daniels-darius-the-mede-really-xenophons-cyaxares-ii/Jack

July 16, 2021

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Seversky @38,

As I think I pointed out before, if your God is omnipresent, in other words present at all points in space and all points in time, He must be present in what is our future. He knows what it holds because He’s been there, He is there. It also means that if He tells us something is going to happen then it will happen because He has seen it happen and there is not a blind thing we can do about it. That is exactly what happened when Peter denied knowing Jesus three times. No coercion required.

Yes that's exactly right. God, who created space-time, of necessity operates outside of space-time. God, who created natural laws, is not constrained by natural laws (i.e. supernatural). Space-time and natural laws cannot create themselves any more than a woman can give birth to herself as Kirk Durston puts it. -QQuerius

July 16, 2021

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Jack, Complete baloney. Once again, you're wrong on so many points, it's apparently a lost cause to convince you of anything when your eyes and ears are tightly shut. When an ancient manuscript includes detailed information about its writer and when it was written, this is never considered irrelevant. A manuscript could have been written in someone else's name, but there's no evidence that this was the case and there's plenty of internal evidence of a Babylonian origin along with compatible expressions from Persian state documents . . . It's become apparent that spending more time responding to your unsupported claims and false statements is a total waste of time. I would guess that's why you're here. -QQuerius

July 16, 2021

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Jack/27 By the way, who was Darius the Mede?

7. Darius the Mede

The case of Darius the Mede is much more difficult than the former, for the monuments have not delivered a single indication which might help us to identify him. Of course critics have not hesitated to lay due stress on this fact. However, this silence does not produce the necessity of abandoning the historical character of this king. Years ago the famous Assyrian king, Sargon, was merely known from the Bible; that this was no reason to doubt his existence was afterwards irrefutable proved by numerous inscriptions that have been found of him. Various solutions of the difficulty have been proposed, some of which, indeed, with more or less probability, do offer an explanation: e.g. that the Persian general Gobryas, who captured the city, or some one of Cyrus’ relatives, had been made king of Babel in name, in order to spare the national feelings of the people. Now the more serious objection attached to the name of Darius the Mede is that the author of the Book of Daniel had the mistaken idea of a separate Median kingdom between the Babylonian and Persian empire, and, therefore, placed this king between Belshazzar and Cyrus. And this again is alleged as a conclusive argument against the historical reliableness of the book. But, on the contrary, it is manifest that the book does not suppose a Median kingdom between the Babylonian and Persian empire, and is in strict harmony with the actual historical course, the Babylonian empire being followed by the Medo-Persian kingdom. This is irrefutably proved by Dan. viii. 3 where the prophet describes a visionary ram which had two horns: and the two horns were high, but one was higher than the other, and the higher came up last. In the explanation which is given by Gabriel this animal is interpreted as “the kings of Media and Persia” (viii. 20). It is one empire composed out of two parts, quite in accordance with the historical reality. And it is therefore utterly unjust to ascribe to the author of Daniel a misrepresentation of the course of events, which is contrary to the deliberate testimony of the book itself.

Seversky

July 16, 2021

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Bornagain77/21

Seversky, and you do realize that foreknowledge does not mean coercion to do what is against free will and thus foreknowledge does not negate free will?

As I think I pointed out before, if your God is omnipresent, in other words present at all points in space and all points in time, He must be present in what is our future. He knows what it holds because He's been there, He is there. It also means that if He tells us something is going to happen then it will happen because He has seen it happen and there is not a blind thing we can do about it. That is exactly what happened when Peter denied knowing Jesus three times. No coercion required.Seversky

July 16, 2021

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Bornagain77 @ 19

I put together my own list of falsifications of Darwin’s theory. Core falsifications of their theory that Darwinists simply refuse to ever accept as falsifications of their theory,

Evolution is recognized and accepted as a theory in science by those far better qualified than you or I to adjudicate on the matter - biologist themselves. Unfortunately for you, the philosopher Paul Nelson admitted that ID fell short in this respect:

Easily, the biggest challenge facing the I.D. community is to develop a full-fledged theory of biological design. We don't have such a theory right now, and that's a real problem. Without a theory, it's very hard to know where to direct your research focus. Right now, we've got a bag of powerful intuitions and a handful of notions, such as irreducible complexity, but as yet, no general theory of biological design.

Moving on to your "list of falsifications", however:

Darwin’s theory holds mutations to the genome to be random. The vast majority of mutations to the genome are not random but are now found to be ‘directed’.

You should at least try to understand the basics. Darwin knew nothing about the genome so had nothing to say about whether mutations were random or directed. And, no, the vast majority of mutations in the genome are not found to be "directed", certainly not in the sense you are implying.

Darwin’s theory holds that Natural Selection is the ‘designer substitute’ that produces the ‘appearance’ and/or illusion of design. Natural Selection, especially for multicellular organisms, is found to grossly inadequate as the ‘designer substitute.

Darwin's theory of natural selection offered a naturalistic alternative to creationism which was the only credible explanation for the appearance of design up to that point. It may well be that natural selection is no longer considered to be the primary engine of variation but the much bigger problem for ID/creationists is why we should observe any variation at all in what should be the perfect creations of a perfect creator.

Darwin’s theory holds that mutations to DNA will eventually change the basic biological form of any given species into a new form of a brand new species. Yet, biological form is found to be irreducible to mutations to DNA, nor is biological form reducible to any other material particulars in biology one may wish to invoke.

Once again, Darwin knew nothing about DNA. He did not propose that "brand new" species would arise just from mutations. He simply argued that descendent species could arise from natural selection acting on variations in the parent species. That said, plenty of experimental evidence has accumulated subsequently for mutations in DNA having dramatic effects on the phenotype.

Darwin’s theory holds there to be an extremely beneficial and flexible mutation rate for DNA which was ultimately responsible for all the diversity and complexity of life we see on earth. The mutation rate to DNA is overwhelmingly detrimental. Detrimental to such a point that it is seriously questioned whether there are any truly beneficial, information building, mutations whatsoever

Whether or not you agree with it, you should at least be aware that current thinking holds that the majority of mutations are neutral or nearly-neutral in effect, a much smaller number are detrimental and an even smaller number still are beneficial. The theory argues that natural selection will tend to filter out the detrimental leaving only the beneficial to have any long-lasting effect, the neutral mutations being effectively invisible to selection.

Charles Darwin himself held that the gradual unfolding of life would (someday) be self-evident in the fossil record. Yet, from the Cambrian Explosion onward, the fossil record is consistently characterized by the sudden appearance of a group/kind in the fossil record(disparity), then rapid diversity within the group/kind, and then long term stability and even deterioration of variety within the overall group/kind, and within the specific species of the kind, over long periods of time. Of the few dozen or so fossils claimed as transitional, not one is uncontested as a true example of transition between major animal forms out of millions of collected fossils. Moreover, Fossils are found in the “wrong place” all the time (either too early, or too late)

Darwin was aware that fossilization was a rare occurrence so gaps were to be expected. The sudden appearance of some species could simply be an artefact of the coarse-grained image preserved in the fossil record. On the other hand, significant environmental changes could allow life to flourish relatively rapidly which could appear as an "explosion" even though it lasted for tens of millions of years. As for transitional fossils, there are plenty to be found in the literature. You could start here if you are actually interested.

Charles Darwin himself stated that “If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.” Yet as Doug Axe pointed out, “Basically every gene and every new protein fold, there is nothing of significance that we can show that can be had in that gradualistic way. It’s all a mirage. None of it happens that way.”

Axe's case is simply another variant of the argument from incredulity. He can't imagine genetic or protein fold pathways that could lead to complex organs so they could not have happened. But neither Axe's knowledge nor that of any other researcher in this field is exhaustive. Put another way our ignorance is not evidence of impossibility.

Charles Darwin himself stated that “If it could be proved that any part of the structure of any one species had been formed for the exclusive good of another species, it would annihilate my theory, for such could not have been produced through natural selection.” Yet as Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig pointed out, “in thousands of plant species often entirely new organs have been formed for the exclusive good of more than 132,930 other species, these ‘ugly facts’ have annihilated Darwin’s theory as well as modern versions of it.”

Do you have any examples of an organ formed by one species that is exclusively for the benefit of another species and confers no benefit whatsoever on the species which evolved it. How does Loennig show that all these plant species generated organs purely for the benefit of other species rather than for themselves?

Charles Darwin himself stated that, ““The impossibility of conceiving that this grand and wondrous universe, with our conscious selves, arose through chance, seems to me the chief argument for the existence of God. Yet ‘our conscious selves’ are certainly not explainable by ‘chance’ (nor is consciousness explainable by any possible reductive materialistic explanation in general), i.e. ‘the hard problem of consciousness’.

Red herring. Darwin's theory was about how living things could have varied and diversified over time through natural processes, it says nothing about the origins of "life, the Universe and everything". David Chalmers referred to the hard problem of consciousness not the insoluble problem of consciousness. No, we do not have a materialistic explanation for consciousness - yet - but our ignorance does not mean that there isn't one. Abd the "ugly fact" remains that when the brain stops working the associated consciousness disappears irretrievably.

Besides the mathematics of probability consistently showing that Darwinian evolution is impossible, the mathematics of population genetics itself has now shown Darwinian evolution to be impossible. Moreover, ‘immaterial’ mathematics itself, which undergirds all of science, engineering and technology, is held by most mathematicians to exist in some timeless, unchanging, immaterial, Platonic realm. Yet, the reductive materialism that Darwinian theory is based upon denies the existence of the immaterial realm that mathematics exists in. i.e. Darwinian evolution actually denies the objective reality of the one thing, i.e. mathematics, that it most needs in order to be considered scientific in the first place!

The theory of evolution is about living organisms. It says nothing at all about the ontology of mathematics or Platonic realms. Another red herring.

Donald Hoffman has, via population genetics, shown that if Darwin’s materialistic theory were true then all our observations of reality would be illusory. Yet the scientific method itself is based on reliable observation. Moreover, Quantum Mechanics itself has now shown that conscious observation must come before material reality, i.e. falsification of ‘realism’ proves that our conscious observations are reliable!.

Is a map an illusion? It is certainly not a one-to-one representation of all the features of a landscape but, as a model created from the abstraction of salient features, it is nonetheless a very useful tool for navigating around it. As for the existence of objective reality being observer-dependent, that is but one interpretation. And you still haven't answered the obvious objection of, if nothing exists before it is observed, what is being observed in the first place? In those terms, the idea is absurd.

The reductive materialism that undergirds Darwinian thought holds that immaterial information is merely ’emergent’ from a material basis. Yet immaterial Information, via experimental realization of the “Maxwell’s Demon” thought experiment, is now found to be its own distinctive physical entity that, although it can interact in a ‘top down’ manner with matter and energy, is separate from matter and energy.

What is meant by "information" here because it sounds very much like you are equivocating between different usages? What version is being used? You also need to explain how information can be both "immaterial" and a "distinctive physical entity" at one and the same time with out it being a contradiction.

Darwinists hold that Darwin’s theory is true. Yet ‘Truth’ itself is an abstract property of an immaterial mind that is irreducible to the reductive materialistic explanations of Darwinian evolution. i.e. Assuming reductive materialism and/or Naturalism as the starting philosophical position of science actually precludes ‘the truth’ from ever being reached by science!

Science does not deal in "truth" but in explanations. In the correspondence theory of "truth" the truth-value of an explanation lies in the extent to which it is observed to correspond to the phenomena for which it is intended to provide an account. If you are working with a different theory of truth you need to explain it.

Darwinists, due to their underlying naturalistic philosophy, insist that teleology (i.e. goal directed purpose) does not exist. Yet it is impossible for Biologists to do biological research without constantly invoking words that directly imply teleology. i.e. The very words that Biologists themselves use when they are doing their research falsifies Darwinian evolution.

The difficulty of explaining scientific concepts in non-teleological terms most probably arises from humans, being social animals, having evolved languages originally to explain and describe the activities of purposive agents like human beings and other animals. The need for non-teleological terminology is a much more recent requirement. While it is possible, with some difficulty, to formulate accounts using a non-teleological vocabulary, it is all to easy to revert to default teleological forms. Your problem is that, while there are still a lot of questions that need to be answered, none of the objections listed above, especially those of more tangential relevance, taken either singly or together, amount to anything like irrefutable falsification of the theory of evolution.Seversky

July 16, 2021

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What are you then, Jack? Also, the Darius question was answered some time back by BA77. Who is it that isn't reading opposing viewpoints, again? :( "Recent analysis of Xenophon's Cyropaedia indicates that Darius the Mede was the throne name of the sixth-century BC Median king Cyaxares II, who headed the Medo-Persian Empire at Babylon's fall in 539 BC. Wait, don't tell me, BA is wrong, and Darius is actually Cardi B.AnimatedDust

July 16, 2021

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AnimatedDust: "Let the record reflect. Atheist unwilling to do the slightest heavy lifting." I'm not an atheist.Jack

July 16, 2021

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Daniel plainly tells us when it was written.

Irrelevant to when it produced in the final form that exists.

It uses language and historical information (later verified) consistent with Babylon.

Straw man. No scholar claims that no factural information about Babylon exist in Daniel.

Virtually everything that you asserted above is wrong and you don’t produce any evidence to the contrary, simply unsupported assertions. You can keep generating assertions if you want, but they’re meaningless without evidence.

I cited two sources by renown scholars. Did you read them?

There are no/none/zero scholars that assert Daniel was written after 70 C.E.

Straw man. I didn't claim Daniel was written after 70. C.E. Do you actually read what I write?

Nothing of what you claimed is supported by any archaeological or manuscript evidence.

I suggest reading the sources I cited. Sounds like you may be afraid of what you might find. By the way, who was Darius the Mede? Still no answer.Jack

July 16, 2021

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Jack, I've researched the evidence personally. Daniel plainly tells us when it was written. It uses language and historical information (later verified) consistent with Babylon. Virtually everything that you asserted above is wrong and you don't produce any evidence to the contrary, simply unsupported assertions. You can keep generating assertions if you want, but they're meaningless without evidence. There are no/none/zero scholars that assert Daniel was written after 70 C.E. And yet the events predicted in Daniel actually occurred and are archaeologically undisputed. Only one of four similar pronouncements from Babylon that could be the start point of Daniel's seventy sevens (heptads) that specifies precisely the rebuilding of both Jerusalem and the Temple. That was the pronouncement by Artexerxes I to Ezra in 457-8 BCE. Daniel's prophecy indicates that Messiah would come and be killed 69 x 7 heptads or 483 years later. Note that there was no 0 C.E. and 1 BCE goes to 1 CE directly. Doing the subtraction yields 26-27 CE, the beginning of the 3 1/2 year ministry of Yeshua of Nazareth, after which Jesus was killed as Daniel said and following this in 70 CE, Jerusalem and the Temple were destroyed as Daniel prophesied. Nothing of what you claimed is supported by any archaeological or manuscript evidence. -QQuerius

July 15, 2021

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Let the record reflect. Atheist unwilling to do the slightest heavy lifting. Stop the presses! Glad we've never seen that before, here, at UD. Oh, wait... :(AnimatedDust

July 15, 2021

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AD, I made my points and cite my sources after my points are made. If you have points to make, make them. I will be happy to try and see if your points hold up by the sources your cite. So go ahead and make your points and commit to them. "some predictable deflection" Mind reading. A red flag for someone not worthy of interaction. "Much more difficult to accept that one inescapable conclusion, that Jesus Christ is who he claimed to be, and that won’t change, no matter how long you plug your ears and LALALLALALALALALA to the contrary." Irrational religious zealotry on parade. Cringe. At any rate, I'll give you a chance. For a minute.Jack

July 15, 2021

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Jack, wade through that link I posted above on Daniel @17, and then refute it, with evidence. I won't hold my breath, because you'll come up with some predictable deflection. Much more difficult to accept that one inescapable conclusion, that Jesus Christ is who he claimed to be, and that won't change, no matter how long you plug your ears and LALALLALALALALALA to the contrary.AnimatedDust

July 15, 2021

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I've noticed that Seversky made another claim that I did not address. Seversky also claimed that "the immense body of work in genetics" provided compelling evidence for Darwinian evolution. Given Winston Ewert's fairly recent, and impressive, work in this area (Dependency Graph; 2018), it would be a shame if I did not address that particular false claim that Seversky made about the genetic evidence. Although major problems between the genetic evidence and Darwin's theory were known about before,

Bones, molecules…or both? – Gura – 2000 Excerpt: Evolutionary trees constructed by studying biological molecules often don’t resemble those drawn up from morphology. Can the two ever be reconciled?,,, When biologists talk of the ‘evolution wars’, they usually mean the ongoing battle for supremacy in American schoolrooms between Darwinists and their creationist opponents. But the phrase could also be applied to a debate that is raging (between Darwinists) within systematics. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v406/n6793/full/406230a0.html Do orthologous gene phylogenies really support tree-thinking? Excerpt: We conclude that we simply cannot determine if a large portion of the genes have a common history.,,, CONCLUSION: Our phylogenetic analyses do not support tree-thinking. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15913459 “The genomic revolution did more than simply allow credible reconstruction of the gene sets of ancestral life forms. Much more dramatically, it effectively overturned the central metaphor of evolutionary biology (and, arguably, of all biology), the Tree of Life (TOL), by showing that evolutionary trajectories of individual genes are irreconcilably different. Whether the TOL can or should be salvaged—and, if so, in what form—remains a matter of intense debate that is one of the important themes of this book.” Koonin, Eugene V. (2011-06-23). The Logic of Chance: The Nature and Origin of Biological Evolution (FT Press Science) A New Model for Evolution: A Rhizome – Didier Raoult – May 2010 Excerpt: Thus we cannot currently identify a single common ancestor for the gene repertoire of any organism.,,, Overall, it is now thought that there are no two genes that have a similar history along the phylogenic tree.,,,Therefore the representation of the evolutionary pathway as a tree leading to a single common ancestor on the basis of the analysis of one or more genes provides an incorrect representation of the stability and hierarchy of evolution. Finally, genome analyses have revealed that a very high proportion of genes are likely to be newly created,,, and that some genes are only found in one organism (named ORFans). These genes do not belong to any phylogenic tree and represent new genetic creations. http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2010/05/new-model-for-evolution-rhizome.html "The lay-person reading this, or watching the (Richard Dawkins) video above, is given the clear impression that every gene or pseudogene in every living organism gives essentially the same phylogenetic tree, when analysed with its homologs from other species. This is simply not true. If this were true, then phylogeny building in the genomic era would be a walk in the park. But, as many of my readers will know from personal experience, it is not. If this were true, terms like horizontal gene transfer, incomplete lineage sorting, introgression, and molecular convergence would be rare curiosities in the genomic literature. But they are common (click on the links in the previous sentence to see searched for these terms on Google Scholar). If this were true, commonly-used phylogenetic software like ASTRAL, ASTRID and BUCKy, designed to deal with gene tree incongruence, would be seldom used. But they are used often. I hardly need to labour my point to the present audience. Dawkins’ statements are simply wrong. Gloriously and utterly wrong." Richard Buggs, “Obsolete Dawkinsian evidence for evolution” at Nature: Ecology & Evolution https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/dawkinss-claim-every-gene-delivers-approximately-the-same-tree-of-life-contested-at-nature-journal/

Although major problems between the genetic evidence and Darwin's theory were known about before, Winston Ewert has now, as of 2018, done a massive study on the genetic evidence. A massive study that has, in no uncertain terms, blown Seversky's claim that the genetic evidence supports Darwinian evolution completely out of the water. Here is Dr. Ewert's paper

The Dependency Graph of Life - Winston Ewert - 2018 Abstract The hierarchical classification of life has been claimed as compelling evidence for universal common ancestry. However, research has uncovered much data which is not congruent with the hierarchical pattern. Nevertheless, biological data resembles a nested hierarchy sufficiently well to require an explanation. While many defenders of intelligent design dispute common descent, no alternative account of the approximate nested hierarchy pattern has been widely adopted. We present the dependency graph hypothesis as an alternative explanation, based on the technique used by software developers to reuse code among different software projects. This hypothesis postulates that different biological species share modules related by a dependency graph. We evaluate several predictions made by this model about both biological and synthetic data, finding them to be fulfilled. https://bio-complexity.org/ojs/index.php/main/article/view/109

And here Dr. Cornelius Hunter comments on the stunning results of Dr. Ewert's paper.

New Paper by Winston Ewert Demonstrates Superiority of Design Model - Cornelius Hunter - July 20, 2018 Excerpt: for the actual, real species data, the dependency graph model is astronomically superior compared to the common descent model. Where It Counts Let me repeat that in case the point did not sink in. Where it counted, common descent failed compared to the dependency graph model. The other data types served as useful checks, but for the data that mattered — the actual, real, biological species data — the results were unambiguous. Ewert amassed a total of nine massive genetic databases. In every single one, without exception, the dependency graph model surpassed common descent. Darwin could never have even dreamt of a test on such a massive scale. Darwin also could never have dreamt of the sheer magnitude of the failure of his theory. Because you see, Ewert’s results do not reveal two competitive models with one model edging out the other. We are not talking about a few decimal points difference. For one of the data sets (HomoloGene), the dependency graph model was superior to common descent by a factor of 10,064. The comparison of the two models yielded a preference for the dependency graph model of greater than ten thousand. Ten thousand is a big number. But it gets worse, much worse.,,, https://evolutionnews.org/2018/07/new-paper-by-winston-ewert-demonstrates-superiority-of-design-model/

Thus, not only is the genetic evidence NOT evidence for gradual Darwinian evolution, the genetic evidence is actually overwhelming evidence for Intelligent Design. Thus, so much for Seversky's claim that "the immense body of work in genetics" provided compelling evidence for Darwinian evolution. That claim is simply false. Has known to be false for a long while. And, via Ewert's recent work, now known to be, with apologies to Wolfgang Pauli, 'not even wrong' in just how false the claim actually is..bornagain77

July 15, 2021

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A Contemporary Defense of the Authenticity of Daniel - Kirk R. MacGregor - 2016 INTRODUCTION The authorship and date of composition of Daniel remains a subject of great controversy. Conservative scholars have traditionally affirmed that the book was composed by the exilic prophet Daniel around 530 BC, while liberal scholars embrace the view of the early Christian critic Porphyry that the work is a vaticinium ex eventu (i.e., prophecy after the fact) written by a Jewish priest to encourage the resistance movement against the tyranny of Antiochus IV Epiphanes in 164 BC. Some evangelical scholars, like John Goldingay in the Word Biblical Commentary on Daniel (1989) and F. F. Bruce in Biblical Exegesis in the Qumran Texts (1959), have adopted the critical assessment.2 Further, John J. Collins Daniel (1993), the most thorough historical-critical commentary to date on this book, has persuaded many scholars of the pseudonymous nature of Daniel, including several Roman Catholic exegetes who now dismiss its authenticity.3 However, the liberal explanation fails to withstand the force of several archaeological and textual discoveries, as scholars including Gleason Archer, Kenneth Kitchen, Edwin Yamauchi, and Steven Anderson have illustrated.4 This piece will summarize the critical argument regarding Daniel and proceed to refute this argument by presenting the archaeological and textual evidence which undermines its foundations.,,,, CONCLUSION It is clear that liberal scholars are ignorant of the flood of archaeological and textual materials supporting the authenticity of Daniel. Porphyry's thesis, which serves as the foundation of any modern argument for a late date, collapses under the fact that Daniel 11:40-45 refers to the future reign and destruction of a figure during the world s end times instead of the military defeat and death of Antiochus IV Epiphanes. The Nabonidus Chronicle and the Gezer Calendar demonstrate that no contradiction exists between the chronologies of Daniel 1 and 2, and the Nabonidus Chronicle verifies that Nebuchadnezzar conquered Palestine in 605 BC. Akkadian analogies authenticate the Babylonian names given to Daniel and his friends, and the Greek text of Berossus shows that Chaldeans were professional astrologers long before the sixth century BC. A careful comparison of the Qumran Prayer of Nabonidus with the portrait of Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel 4 establishes the literary independence of these texts. Recent analysis of Xenophon s Cyropaedia indicates that Darius the Mede was the throne name of the sixth-century BC Median king Cyaxares II, who headed the Medo-Persian Empire at Babylon s fall in 539 BC. Inscriptions from Haran demonstrate the existence and kingship of Belshazzar. Further, the Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III and the Moabite Stone of Mesha endorse Daniel s loose description of Belshazzar as the son of Nebuchadnezzar. The Hebrew-Aramaic-Hebrew structure of Daniel reflects the ABA chiastic pattern of Near Eastern composition, and the Hermopolis and Elephantine papyri along with the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit that Daniel's Hebrew and Aramaic parallel fifth-century BC linguistics rather than second-century BC writings. Excavations at Carchemish, Mesad Hashavyahu, Arad, Babylon, and Pasargadai reveal ample contacts between the Aegean and Near East before Alexander the Great, and the Greek words for musical instruments in the Aramaic are therefore no obstacle for an early date of Daniel. Since the Ugaritic Dn il from the Ras Shamra texts was a Baal-worshiper, the Daniel mentioned in Ezekiel 14:14, 20, and 28:3 must correspond to the namesake of the book of Daniel. The Akkadian Prophecies and the story of Ahiqar demonstrate that late apocalyptic writings were modeled after Daniel and not vice versa, and Daniel s precise reference to the city of Shushan in the province of Elan displays his sixth-century BC knowledge. The E-NUN-MAH sanctuary discovered in the Neo-Babylonian stratum at Ur portrays the mode of worship described in Daniel 3. In sum, the plethora of archaeological and textual evidence surrounding the book of Daniel constitutes a powerful cumulative case that cries out for authorship by the historical prophet Daniel c. 530 BC, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318725539_A_Contemporary_Defense_of_the_Authenticity_of_Daniel Kirk R. MacGregor (Ph.D., University of Iowa) teaches religion at Carthage College and philosophy at the College of DuPage.

bornagain77

July 15, 2021

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All these arguments are from the absence of evidence.

Absense of evidence is still absense of evidence and must be reasonably accounted for esp given claims being made for an old date of Daniel.

The same type of argument was once used to ridicule the Bible for its mention of the “mythical” Hittites

I'm not interested in "ridicule." I'm simply discussing the state of the scholarship. As for the Hittites, views changed when actual dirt evidence was discovered. That's how science/scholarship works.

There’s a sad reason why some minimalist scholars and others fight so hard against Daniel.

I've never met or known any scholar that "fights hard against Daniel." This is just ridiculous. What they do is follow evidence.

Of course Wikipedia is hardly a scholarly reference,

The text I quoted is sourced by two imminent scholars, experts in Daniel and other apocalyptic writing of the era, John Collins and Raymond Hammer.

but the Biblical minimalists have been using the flimsiest of reasons why Daniel couldn’t have been written when it says it was, based on their ideological rejection that accurate prophecy is possible.

Mind reading. If you have evidence that Daniel was written earlier than 2nd century BC, let's hear it.

But archaeological discoveries continue to batter their hostile positions.

Let me know when they find any evidence that attests to an earlier Daniel.

For example, Daniel’s prophecies are highly accurate, including those relating to the Messiah.

They're actually not.

The “seventy sevens” prophecy doesn’t indicate that the temple will be “desecrated,” but rather that both Jerusalem and the temple both will be *destroyed* a second time after being rebuilt–this after the Messiah is killed. Jerusalem and the Temple were indeed both destroyed in 70 C.E. Thus, the Messiah came and was killed before 70 A.D.

Actually, there were several takes on Daniel's 69/70 week prophesy. Absolutely none of them got it right with respect to anything to do with Jesus or the destruction of the temple. (And they knew Hebrew and Aramaic a lot better than you do.) It wasn't until after the destruction of the Temple that the first re-calculations took place that considered 28-33.A.D, 70 A.D. etc. to be a possible relevant dates. The Sharpshooter's Fallacy.

None of these minimalist scholars argue that the Dead Sea Scrolls were written after 70 C.E.

Correct. And irrelevant. I didn't say they did.

According to archaeological evidence, such an order as mentioned by Daniel that began the “seventy sevens” prophecy was issued by Artaxerxes I of Persia in the late summer or fall of 457 B.C.E. Jesus likely started his three and a half years of teaching 483 years later in 26-27 C.E., and was likely crucified by the Romans in the spring of 30 C.E. About 40 years later, Jerusalem and its temple were destroyed by the Roman general Titus in 70 C.E., fulfilling Daniel’s prophecy.

All of the post 70 A.D. interprations rely on the marks placed in the text from the Masoretic text, which was a few centuries later.

What does it matter that some Jews hostile to Jesus put Daniel in the Ketuvim?

Considering that Masoretes were quite superstitious about how they handled what they considered scriptures, it is rather unlikely they would have deliberately mis-categorized Daniel if they considered it to be amongst the Prophets. The fact is, all known copies of the Nevi’im and Ketuvim have Daniel in the Ketuvim and not the Nevi’im. This includes reference to the list of prophets in Sirach, copies of which were found at Qumran.

They also wrote disparagingly about Jesus in the Talmud (both Jerusalem and Babylonian) and recorded miraculous events around the time of Jesus’ crucifixion. For example in the Jerusalem Talmud, we read “Forty years before the destruction of the Temple[in 70 AD], the western light went out, the crimson thread remained crimson, and the lot for the Lord always came up in the left hand. They would close the gates of the Temple by night and get up in the morning and find them wide open.”-Jacob Neusner, The Yerushalmi, p.156-157. What else happened 40 years before 70 C.E.?

Irrelevant to the dating of Daniel. I suggest reading Daniel 9 and the Date of Messiah's Coming in Essene, Hellenistic, Pharisaic, Zealot and Early Christian Computation by the imminent scholar Roger Beckwith. You can read it for free on JSTOR. By the way, who was Darius the Mede?Jack

July 14, 2021

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Yeah, I liked how Charles refused to be sidetracked from his well-researched points on the evidence for the date and authenticity of the book of Daniel and Daniel's amazing prophecies! The skeptics kept trying to change the subject by bringing up new issues, but he kept hammering them on the 483-year prophecy of the appearance and death of Messiah followed by the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple for the second time. This is more amazing since Jerusalem and the temple hadn't even been rebuilt yet from the Babylonian destruction. I just started exploring more of the articles on his web page. -QQuerius

July 14, 2021

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Lol, Q, I did indeed. Charles slapped down the skeptics much as BA77 did just above to Seversky, who then responded by completely changing the subject. All fun and games, for now. It's really just trolling, though he's always polite. BA and others mainly do it for the onlookers, of which I am one. Charles' exposition of Daniel is not a rope either. More like a steel battleship mooring cable. :) I wish he'd come back and opine some more. And thank you for posting that link to his main page. I had lost that long ago! A treasure of biblical scholarship there. :)AnimatedDust

July 14, 2021

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