Darwinism vs. abstract thoughts and language

_{Denyse O'Leary

November 4, 2019

Animal minds, Darwinism, Intelligent Design, Naturalism}

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Naturalists need to pretend that great apes and dolphins think abstractly. It is critical to the mythology:

As the research in the field of genetics comes forth with the finding of mitochondrial Eve and other discoveries, the neo-Darwinists’ philosophy kicks against the goads. Most of the research in the field of language tries to show that human language is merely an extension of animals’ abilities. To be more specific here, the studies address the question of whether or not apes can acquire human language systems. Even though apes can indeed develop a fairly large vocabulary using symbols which correspond to real situations, the overall answer seems to be a loud “NO!” Apes, chimps and other primates cannot engage in human linguistic behaviors such as abstract thinking skills, which is a distinguishing mark of human language and a characteristic of true rationality and intelligence.
Rob Lundberg, “Darwinism cannot answer the design in abstract thoughts & language” at Rob Lundberg’s Online Ministry Page

But there is always some new, ingenious attempt t pretend otherwise and that has been going on for decades:

Researchers: Apes are just like us! And we’re not doing the right things to make them start behaving that way…

Dolphinese: The idea that animals think as we do dies hard. But first it can lead us down strange paths.

and

The real reason why
only human beings speak. Language is a tool for abstract thinking—a necessary tool for abstraction—and humans are the only animals who think abstractly

Comments

Darwin Devolves Is Bacterial Resistance to Antibiotics an Appropriate Example of Evolutionary Change?ET_{November 6, 2019
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Bob and weave.(TM)MatSpirit_{November 6, 2019
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Good one, Mat. You're right. I should have said "can cause" loss of function. People who live certain life styles almost never get heart attacks. That is why I don't need that mutation, Mat.ET_{November 6, 2019
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14 ET: "And we know that beneficial mutations cause loss of function. They make the individual less fit in a normal environment. And yet they help that individual survive under specific scenarios." Google "ApoA-1 Milano". It's "a naturally occurring mutated variant of the apolipoprotein A1protein found in human HDL, the lipoprotein particle that carries cholesterol from tissues to the liver and is associated with protection against cardiovascular disease." Wiki People who have that mutation almost never get heart attacks. Wish I had some. You can't have any, though, because you don't believe it can possibly work.MatSpirit_{November 6, 2019
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seversky:
However, the problem with fossilization , according to the Wikipedia entry is as follows:
Wikipedia proves that the search for a pre-Cambrian rabbit is total nonsense. Which means evos think that total nonsense will refute their claims. But that is because their claims are total nonsense.ET_{November 5, 2019
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Derek:
Typical protein has dozens or hundreds of substitutions you can make with no effect to the function.
That sounds like a strike against evolutionism.ET_{November 5, 2019
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DerekDiMarco, so you apparently believe Darwinian evolution to be true. so again, perhaps you would like to provide actual empirical evidence that non-intelligent processes can create new proteins? Or do you believe, like the rest of the atheistic trolls on UD, in Darwinian evolution despite the fact that you have zero substantiating evidence that it can create new proteins?
Right of Reply: Our Response to Jerry Coyne – September 29, 2019 by Günter Bechly, Brian Miller and David Berlinski Excerpt: David Gelernter observed that amino acid sequences that correspond to functional proteins are remarkably rare among the “space” of all possible combinations of amino acid sequences of a given length. Protein scientists call this set of all possible amino acid sequences or combinations “amino acid sequence space” or “combinatorial sequence space.” Gelernter made reference to this concept in his review of Meyer and Berlinski’s books. He also referenced the careful experimental work by Douglas Axe who used a technique known as site-directed mutagenesis to assess the rarity of protein folds in sequence space while he was working at Cambridge University from 1990-2003. Axe showed that the ratio of sequences in sequence space that will produce protein folds to sequences that won’t is prohibitively and vanishingly small. Indeed, in an authoritative paper published in the Journal of Molecular Biology Axe estimated that ratio at 1 in 10^74. From that information about the rarity of protein folds in sequence space, Gelernter—like Axe, Meyer and Berlinski—has drawn the rational conclusion: finding a novel protein fold by a random search is implausible in the extreme. Not so, Coyne argued. Proteins do not evolve from random sequences. They evolve by means of gene duplication. By starting from an established protein structure, protein evolution had a head start. This is not an irrational position, but it is anachronistic. Indeed, Harvard mathematical biologist Martin Nowak has shown that random searches in sequence space that start from known functional sequences are no more likely to enter regions in sequence space with new protein folds than searches that start from random sequences. The reason for this is clear: random searches are overwhelmingly more likely to go off into a non-folding, non-functional abyss than they are to find a novel protein fold. Why? Because such novel folds are so extraordinarily rare in sequence space. Moreover, as Meyer explained in Darwin’s Doubt, as mutations accumulate in functional sequences, they will inevitably destroy function long before they stumble across a new protein fold. Again, this follows from the extreme rarity (as well as the isolation) of protein folds in sequence space. Recent work by Weizmann Institute protein scientist Dan Tawfik has reinforced this conclusion. Tawfik’s work shows that as mutations to functional protein sequences accumulate, the folds of those proteins become progressively more thermodynamically and structurally unstable. Typically, 15 or fewer mutations will completely destroy the stability of known protein folds of average size. Yet, generating (or finding) a new protein fold requires far more amino acid sequence changes than that. Finally, calculations based on Tawfik’s work confirm and extend the applicability of Axe’s original measure of the rarity of protein folds. These calculations confirm that the measure of rarity that Axe determined for the protein he studied is actually representative of the rarity for large classes of other globular proteins. Not surprisingly, Dan Tawfik has described the origination of a truly novel protein or fold as “something like close to a miracle.” Tawfik is on Coyne’s side: He is mainstream. https://quillette.com/2019/09/29/right-of-reply-our-response-to-jerry-coyne/ Of related note: Quantum criticality in a wide range of important biomolecules – March 2015 Excerpt: “Most of the molecules taking part actively in biochemical processes are tuned exactly to the transition point and are critical conductors,” they say. That’s a discovery that is as important as it is unexpected. “These findings suggest an entirely new and universal mechanism of conductance in biology very different from the one used in electrical circuits.” The permutations of possible energy levels of biomolecules is huge so the possibility of finding even one that is in the quantum critical state by accident is mind-bogglingly small and, to all intents and purposes, impossible.,, of the order of 10^-50 of possible small biomolecules and even less for proteins,”,,, “what exactly is the advantage that criticality confers?” https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blog/the-origin-of-life-and-the-hidden-role-of-quantum-criticality-ca4707924552 Quantum Critical Proteins – Stuart Lindsay – Professor of Physics and Chemistry at Arizona State University – 2018 Excerpt: The difficulty with this proposal lies in its improbability. Only an infinitesimal density of random states exists near the critical point.,, Gábor Vattay et al. recently examined a number of proteins and conducting and insulating polymers.14 The distribution for the insulators and conductors were as expected, but the functional proteins all fell on the quantum-critical distribution. Such a result cannot be a consequence of chance.,,, WHAT OF quantum criticality? Vattay et al. carried out electronic structure calculations for the very large protein used in our work. They found that the distribution of energy-level spacings fell on exactly the quantum-critical distribution, implying that this protein is also quantum critical. There is no obvious evolutionary reason why a protein should evolve toward a quantum-critical state, and there is no chance at all that the state could occur randomly.,,, http://inference-review.com/article/quantum-critical-proteins Gábor Vattay et al., “Quantum Criticality at the Origin of Life,” Journal of Physics: Conference Series 626 (2015); Gábor Vattay, Stuart Kauffman, and Samuli Niiranen, “Quantum Biology on the Edge of Quantum Chaos,” PLOS One 9, no. 3 (2014)
Frankly, I think that anyone who believes in Darwinian evolution, with ZERO substantiating evidence that it is even remotely feasible, is suffering from the mental illness of 'Darwin Derangement Syndrome", which is very similar to but not the same as the sheer insanity witnessed in "Trump Derangement Syndrome"
In a 2005 American Spectator article, Jay Homnick wrote: "It is not enough to say that design is a more likely scenario to explain a world full of well-designed things. It strikes me as urgent to insist that you not allow your mind to surrender the absolute clarity that all complex and magnificent things were made that way. Once you allow the intellect to consider that an elaborate organism with trillions of microscopic interactive components can be an accident… you have essentially “lost your mind.” https://evolutionnews.org/2015/11/it_really_isnt/ ...Advantageous anatomical mutations are never observed. The four-winged fruit fly is a case in point: The second set of wings lacks flight muscles, so the useless appendages interfere with flying and mating, and the mutant fly cannot survive long outside the laboratory. Similar mutations in other genes also produce various anatomical deformations, but they are harmful, too. In 1963, Harvard evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr wrote that the resulting mutants “are such evident freaks that these monsters can be designated only as ‘hopeless.’ They are so utterly unbalanced that they would not have the slightest chance of escaping elimination through natural selection." - Jonathan Wells
bornagain77_{November 5, 2019
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DDM didn’t say that deleterious mutations didn’t outweigh beneficial ones. He simply stated that the claim that more than 99.99999% of mutations are negative is a false claim. Which it is. Most mutations are neutral.
Yep. Any of the thousands of scientists who've used FRET on proteins has used the fact that neutral mutations are easy to find all over the place. Typical protein has dozens or hundreds of substitutions you can make with no effect to the function.DerekDiMarco_{November 5, 2019
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And we know that beneficial mutations cause loss of function. They make the individual less fit in a normal environment. And yet they help that individual survive under specific scenarios. What we do NOT have is evidence that blind and mindless processes can produce genes or proteins. Sure, they can break them or alter them for a loss of function, but that is about it.ET_{November 5, 2019
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BA77
November 5, 2019 at 6:34 am DerekDiMarco claims that mutations are not negative and have ‘zero effect’, and yet “It is almost universally acknowledged that beneficial mutations are rare compared to deleterious mutations [1–10].,, DDM didn’t say that deleterious mutations didn’t outweigh beneficial ones. He simply stated that the claim that more than 99.99999% of mutations are negative is a false claim. Which it is. Most mutations are neutral.
The most commonly observed mutations detectable as variation in the genetic makeup of organisms and populations appear to have no visible effect on the fitness of individuals and are therefore neutral.
Ed George_{November 5, 2019
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seversky:
My belief is that the physical world – in other words, anything we can observe, however indirectly – is all that there is.
Your belief doesn't have a mechanism capable of producing a living organism nor its diversity.
However, the problem with fossilization , according to the Wikipedia entry is as follows:
And yet evos ALWAYS use the fossil record to try to support their position. Perhaps you should send out a memo explaining why they shouldn't.ET_{November 5, 2019
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DerekDiMarco claims that mutations are not negative and have 'zero effect', and yet "It is almost universally acknowledged that beneficial mutations are rare compared to deleterious mutations [1–10].,, It appears that beneficial mutations may be too rare to actually allow the accurate measurement of how rare they are":
Multiple Overlapping Genetic Codes Profoundly Reduce the Probability of Beneficial Mutation George Montañez 1, Robert J. Marks II 2, Jorge Fernandez 3 and John C. Sanford 4 - May 2013 Excerpt: It is almost universally acknowledged that beneficial mutations are rare compared to deleterious mutations [1–10].,, It appears that beneficial mutations may be too rare to actually allow the accurate measurement of how rare they are [11]. 1. Kibota T, Lynch M (1996) Estimate of the genomic mutation rate deleterious to overall fitness in E. coli . Nature 381:694–696. 2. Charlesworth B, Charlesworth D (1998) Some evolutionary consequences of deleterious mutations. Genetica 103: 3–19. 3. Elena S, et al (1998) Distribution of fitness effects caused by random insertion mutations in Escherichia coli. Genetica 102/103: 349–358. 4. Gerrish P, Lenski R N (1998) The fate of competing beneficial mutations in an asexual population. Genetica 102/103:127–144. 5. Crow J (2000) The origins, patterns, and implications of human spontaneous mutation. Nature Reviews 1:40–47. 6. Bataillon T (2000) Estimation of spontaneous genome-wide mutation rate parameters: whither beneficial mutations? Heredity 84:497–501. 7. Imhof M, Schlotterer C (2001) Fitness effects of advantageous mutations in evolving Escherichia coli populations. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 98:1113–1117. 8. Orr H (2003) The distribution of fitness effects among beneficial mutations. Genetics 163: 1519–1526. 9. Keightley P, Lynch M (2003) Toward a realistic model of mutations affecting fitness. Evolution 57:683–685. 10. Barrett R, et al (2006) The distribution of beneficial mutation effects under strong selection. Genetics 174:2071–2079. 11. Bataillon T (2000) Estimation of spontaneous genome-wide mutation rate parameters: whither beneficial mutations? Heredity 84:497–501. http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/pdf/10.1142/9789814508728_0006 “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/ "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' 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/
Perhaps DerekDiMarco, since he likes proteins, would like to provide empirical evidence that non-intelligent processes can create new proteins?
Right of Reply: Our Response to Jerry Coyne – September 29, 2019 by Günter Bechly, Brian Miller and David Berlinski Excerpt: David Gelernter observed that amino acid sequences that correspond to functional proteins are remarkably rare among the “space” of all possible combinations of amino acid sequences of a given length. Protein scientists call this set of all possible amino acid sequences or combinations “amino acid sequence space” or “combinatorial sequence space.” Gelernter made reference to this concept in his review of Meyer and Berlinski’s books. He also referenced the careful experimental work by Douglas Axe who used a technique known as site-directed mutagenesis to assess the rarity of protein folds in sequence space while he was working at Cambridge University from 1990-2003. Axe showed that the ratio of sequences in sequence space that will produce protein folds to sequences that won’t is prohibitively and vanishingly small. Indeed, in an authoritative paper published in the Journal of Molecular Biology Axe estimated that ratio at 1 in 10^74. From that information about the rarity of protein folds in sequence space, Gelernter—like Axe, Meyer and Berlinski—has drawn the rational conclusion: finding a novel protein fold by a random search is implausible in the extreme. Not so, Coyne argued. Proteins do not evolve from random sequences. They evolve by means of gene duplication. By starting from an established protein structure, protein evolution had a head start. This is not an irrational position, but it is anachronistic. Indeed, Harvard mathematical biologist Martin Nowak has shown that random searches in sequence space that start from known functional sequences are no more likely to enter regions in sequence space with new protein folds than searches that start from random sequences. The reason for this is clear: random searches are overwhelmingly more likely to go off into a non-folding, non-functional abyss than they are to find a novel protein fold. Why? Because such novel folds are so extraordinarily rare in sequence space. Moreover, as Meyer explained in Darwin’s Doubt, as mutations accumulate in functional sequences, they will inevitably destroy function long before they stumble across a new protein fold. Again, this follows from the extreme rarity (as well as the isolation) of protein folds in sequence space. Recent work by Weizmann Institute protein scientist Dan Tawfik has reinforced this conclusion. Tawfik’s work shows that as mutations to functional protein sequences accumulate, the folds of those proteins become progressively more thermodynamically and structurally unstable. Typically, 15 or fewer mutations will completely destroy the stability of known protein folds of average size. Yet, generating (or finding) a new protein fold requires far more amino acid sequence changes than that. Finally, calculations based on Tawfik’s work confirm and extend the applicability of Axe’s original measure of the rarity of protein folds. These calculations confirm that the measure of rarity that Axe determined for the protein he studied is actually representative of the rarity for large classes of other globular proteins. Not surprisingly, Dan Tawfik has described the origination of a truly novel protein or fold as “something like close to a miracle.” Tawfik is on Coyne’s side: He is mainstream. https://quillette.com/2019/09/29/right-of-reply-our-response-to-jerry-coyne/
Of related note:
Quantum criticality in a wide range of important biomolecules – March 2015 Excerpt: “Most of the molecules taking part actively in biochemical processes are tuned exactly to the transition point and are critical conductors,” they say. That’s a discovery that is as important as it is unexpected. “These findings suggest an entirely new and universal mechanism of conductance in biology very different from the one used in electrical circuits.” The permutations of possible energy levels of biomolecules is huge so the possibility of finding even one that is in the quantum critical state by accident is mind-bogglingly small and, to all intents and purposes, impossible.,, of the order of 10^-50 of possible small biomolecules and even less for proteins,”,,, “what exactly is the advantage that criticality confers?” https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blog/the-origin-of-life-and-the-hidden-role-of-quantum-criticality-ca4707924552 Quantum Critical Proteins – Stuart Lindsay – Professor of Physics and Chemistry at Arizona State University – 2018 Excerpt: The difficulty with this proposal lies in its improbability. Only an infinitesimal density of random states exists near the critical point.,, Gábor Vattay et al. recently examined a number of proteins and conducting and insulating polymers.14 The distribution for the insulators and conductors were as expected, but the functional proteins all fell on the quantum-critical distribution. Such a result cannot be a consequence of chance.,,, WHAT OF quantum criticality? Vattay et al. carried out electronic structure calculations for the very large protein used in our work. They found that the distribution of energy-level spacings fell on exactly the quantum-critical distribution, implying that this protein is also quantum critical. There is no obvious evolutionary reason why a protein should evolve toward a quantum-critical state, and there is no chance at all that the state could occur randomly.,,, http://inference-review.com/article/quantum-critical-proteins Gábor Vattay et al., “Quantum Criticality at the Origin of Life,” Journal of Physics: Conference Series 626 (2015); Gábor Vattay, Stuart Kauffman, and Samuli Niiranen, “Quantum Biology on the Edge of Quantum Chaos,” PLOS One 9, no. 3 (2014)
bornagain77_{November 5, 2019
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"since well over 99.99999% of mutations must be negative" When I was researching proteins with FRET, in order to tag the molecules with photophores I had to modify the DNA such that the protein would have serines swapped with cysteines in certain areas. The reason I could do that and still study the protein was because those mutations have basically zero effect on the protein. Saying silly things about science on a blog is going to have about as much effect on science as throwing a butterfly at a bulldozer.DerekDiMarco_{November 5, 2019
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Seversky, at 5, claims that I was being unfair in my cynical assessment of his claim that he would be open to evidence "for some super-intelligent alien being that was indistinguishable from a god for all practical purposes." But alas, after years of dealing with the atheistic troll Seversky, he has earned every ounce of my cynicism towards his claims. For instance, watch Seversky go into full denial mode with this following evidence:
1. Naturalism/Materialism predicted space-time energy-matter always existed. Theism predicted space-time energy-matter were created. Big Bang cosmology now strongly indicates that time-space energy-matter had a sudden creation event approximately 14 billion years ago. 2. Naturalism/Materialism predicted that the universe is a self sustaining system that is not dependent on anything else for its continued existence. Theism predicted that God upholds this universe in its continued existence. Breakthroughs in quantum mechanics reveal that this universe is dependent on a ‘non-local’, beyond space and time, cause for its continued existence. 3. Naturalism/Materialism predicted that consciousness is an ‘emergent property’ of material reality and thus should have no particularly special position within material reality. Theism predicts consciousness precedes material reality and therefore, on that presupposition, consciousness should have a ‘special’ position within material reality. Quantum Mechanics reveals that consciousness has a special, even a central, position within material reality. - 4. Naturalism/Materialism predicted the rate at which time passed was constant everywhere in the universe. Theism predicted God is eternal and is outside of time. – Special Relativity has shown that time, as we understand it, is relative and comes to a complete stop at the speed of light. (Psalm 90:4 – 2 Timothy 1:9) - 5. Naturalism/Materialism predicted the universe did not have life in mind and that life was ultimately an accident of time and chance. Theism predicted this universe was purposely created by God with man in mind. Scientists find the universe is exquisitely fine-tuned for carbon-based life to exist in this universe. Moreover it is found, when scrutinizing the details of physics and chemistry, that not only is the universe fine-tuned for carbon based life, but is specifically fine-tuned for life like human life (R. Collins, M. Denton).- 6. Naturalism/Materialism predicted complex life in this universe should be fairly common. Theism predicted the earth is extremely unique in this universe. Statistical analysis of the hundreds of required parameters which enable complex organic life to be possible on earth gives strong indication the earth is extremely unique in this universe (G. Gonzalez; Hugh Ross). - 7. Naturalism/Materialism predicted it took a very long time for life to develop on earth. Theism predicted life to appear abruptly on earth after water appeared on earth (Genesis 1:10-11). Geochemical evidence from the oldest sedimentary rocks ever found on earth indicates that complex photosynthetic life has existed on earth as long as water has been on the face of earth. - 8. Naturalism/Materialism predicted the first life to be relatively simple. Theism predicted that God is the source for all life on earth. The simplest life ever found on Earth is far more complex than any machine man has made through concerted effort. (Michael Denton PhD) - 9. Naturalism/Materialism predicted the gradual unfolding of life would (someday) be self-evident in the fossil record. Theism predicted complex and diverse animal life to appear abruptly in the seas in God’s fifth day of creation. The Cambrian Explosion shows a sudden appearance of many different and completely unique fossils within a very short “geologic resolution time” in the Cambrian seas. - 10. Naturalism/Materialism predicted there should be numerous transitional fossils found in the fossil record, Theism predicted sudden appearance and rapid diversity within different kinds found in the fossil record. Fossils are consistently characterized by sudden appearance of a group/kind in the fossil record(disparity), then rapid diversity within that 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. - 11. Naturalism/Materialism predicted animal speciation should happen on a somewhat constant basis on earth. Theism predicted man was the last species created on earth – Man (our genus ‘modern homo’ as distinct from the highly controversial ‘early homo’) is the last generally accepted major fossil form to have suddenly appeared in the fossil record. (Tattersall; Luskin)– 12. Naturalism/Materialism predicted that the separation of human intelligence from animal intelligence ‘is one of degree and not of kind’ (C. Darwin). Theism predicted that we are made in the ‘image of God’- Despite an ‘explosion of research’ in this area over the last four decades, human beings alone are found to ‘mentally dissect the world into a multitude of discrete symbols, and combine and recombine those symbols in their minds to produce hypotheses of alternative possibilities.’ (Tattersall; Schwartz). Moreover, both biological life and the universe itself are found to be ‘information theoretic’ in their foundational basis. 13. Naturalism/Materialism predicted much of the DNA code was junk. Theism predicted we are fearfully and wonderfully made – ENCODE research into the DNA has revealed a “biological jungle deeper, denser, and more difficult to penetrate than anyone imagined.”. - 14. Naturalism/Materialism predicted a extremely beneficial and flexible mutation rate for DNA which was ultimately responsible for all the diversity and complexity of life we see on earth. Theism predicted only God created life 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. (M. Behe; JC Sanford) - 15. Naturalism/Materialism predicted morality is subjective and illusory. Theism predicted morality is objective and real. Morality is found to be deeply embedded in the genetic responses of humans. As well, morality is found to be deeply embedded in the structure of the universe. Embedded to the point of eliciting physiological responses in humans before humans become aware of the morally troubling situation and even prior to the event even happening. 16. Naturalism/Materialism predicted that we are merely our material bodies with no transcendent component to our being, and that we die when our material bodies die. Theism predicted that we have minds/souls that are transcendent of our bodies that live past the death of our material bodies. Transcendent, and ‘conserved’, (cannot be created or destroyed), ‘non-local’, (beyond space-time matter-energy), quantum entanglement/information, which is not reducible to matter-energy space-time, is now found in our material bodies on a massive scale (in every DNA and protein molecule). references for each claim at bottom of this link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vHkCYvFiWiZfMlXHKJwwMJ7SJ0tlqWfH83dJ2OgfP78/edit a short defense of all 16 predictions from Seversky's flimsy excuse making: https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/i-finally-figured-out-tszs-motto/#comment-564709
bornagain77_{November 5, 2019
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Seversky at 6 trots out the old flimsy excuse, used by Charles Darwin himself to try to explain away the Cambrian explosion, that the reason that Darwinists can't find missing links is because they just were not fossilized. Yet, as paleontologist Gunter Bechly pointed out, the completeness of the overall fossil record, none the less, can be inferred because the fossils that we do find keep repeatedly falling into already known groups with outliers, i.e. supposed transitional fossils, being rare to non-existent.
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 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 Does Lots of Sediment in the Ocean Solve the "Mystery" of the Cambrian Explosion? - Casey Luskin April, 2012 Excerpt: I think the Cambrian fossil record is surprisingly complete. I think it may be more complete than we realize. The reason for that is, for instance, if you look at the stratigraphy of the world, if I go and collect Cambrian rocks in Wales and find certain fossils, if I then go to China, I don't find the same species but I find the same sorts of fossils. If I go into Carboniferous rocks, I go to Canada, they are the same as what I find in this country. So there is a clear set of faunas and floras that take us through geological time. The overall framework is falling into position. - Simon Conway Morris http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/04/lots_of_sedimen059021.html
Moreover, "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."
Dr. Stephen Meyer: Darwin's Dilemma - The Significance of Sponge Embryos - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPs8E7y0ySs 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
Moreover, it turns out that the fossil record itself is revealing an ‘upside down’ pattern for the appearance of the various classifications than what Darwin’s theory predicted
Günter Bechly, leading paleontologist - (on the very 'Un-Darwinian' ‘top down’ nature of the fossil record) Günter Bechly - video playlist https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtAP1KN7ahiZ80ClsWz-IAmP_fWHpqWar Upside down fossil record https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/why-some-biologists-are-beginning-to-question-the-biological-species-concept/#comment-679510
bornagain77_{November 5, 2019
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It takes tremendous faith to be a Darwinist. There's nothing observable to prove anything. There are no positive mutations that have ever been witnessed in nature. There are no mutations in the fossil records to point to as evidence, since well over 99.99999% of mutations must be negative. Since there has never been a positive mutation discovered, it either doesn't happen or is such a rare occurrence as to make it statistically impossible. Looking at millions of years worth of gaps for every known fossil line is guess work without a single line showing a single mutation. There is no scientific data to actually support evolution and it takes tremendous circular arguments to juggle past the lack of actual evidence.BobRyan_{November 5, 2019
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Vmahuna@ 4
Getting back to the original question, the Darwinists and their cousins NEED for there to be SOMETHING that supports a SMOOTH continuum between sea slugs and Nobel Prize winners. Because if there is in fact a documented GAP between humans and “dumb animals” (“dumb” in the old “deaf and dumb”, “unable to SPEAK” sense), then humans require a SEPARATE explanation for our existence.
That may well be true if there is such a gap in the fossil record. However, the problem with fossilization , according to the Wikipedia entry is as follows:
Organisms are only rarely preserved as fossils in the best of circumstances, and only a fraction of such fossils have been discovered. This is illustrated by the fact that the number of species known through the fossil record is less than 5% of the number of known living species, suggesting that the number of species known through fossils must be far less than 1% of all the species that have ever lived.[26]
In other words, fossilization is so rare that it is highly unlikely that a smoothly graded sequence will have been captured in the record, even less so that we will have discovered one. So, there are plenty of gaps in the record into which you can plug your preferred god but you can't appeal to Holmes's famous dictum as a justification. In order to eliminate the impossible you must first know all the possibilities and we don't yet.Seversky_{November 4, 2019
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Bornagain77@ 3
Seversky is trying to have his cake and eat it to.
My belief is that the physical world – in other words, anything we can observe, however indirectly – is all that there is. Ghosts, for example, are popularly regarded as supernatural but if we ever found persuasive evidence they actually exist then they would be material/natural phenomena, however elusive they might be. The same would be true for some super-intelligent alien being that was indistinguishable from a god for all practical purposes.
And there you have it folks, black can be white, dogs can be cats, upside down can be rightside up, and an atheistic materialist can be a Christian Theist. Welcome to the insane world of atheistic apologetics.
"Non sequitur!: Your facts are uncoordinated!" To put it another way, the contradictions you list cannot be inferred from what I wrote.Seversky_{November 4, 2019
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Getting back to the original question, the Darwinists and their cousins NEED for there to be SOMETHING that supports a SMOOTH continuum between sea slugs and Nobel Prize winners. Because if there is in fact a documented GAP between humans and "dumb animals" ("dumb" in the old "deaf and dumb", "unable to SPEAK" sense), then humans require a SEPARATE explanation for our existence. And that "exceptional" explanation falls well outside Biology and generally well within Theology. The nature of the Theology is irrelevant to the basic discussion of whether some non-human Intelligence intervened. And I think our sciences have just about reached the point where they can tell us, objectively and in some detail, what would NOT work. And at that point, Sherlock Holmes teaches us, "Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth."vmahuna_{November 4, 2019
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Seversky is trying to have his cake and eat it to.
My belief is that the physical world – in other words, anything we can observe, however indirectly – is all that there is. Ghosts, for example, are popularly regarded as supernatural but if we ever found persuasive evidence they actually exist then they would be material/natural phenomena, however elusive they might be. The same would be true for some super-intelligent alien being that was indistinguishable from a god for all practical purposes.
And there you have it folks, black can be white, dogs can be cats, upside down can be rightside up, and an atheistic materialist can be a Christian Theist. Welcome to the insane world of atheistic apologetics.bornagain77_{November 4, 2019
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Bornagain77@ 1
Whereas Atheistic Materialism and/or Atheistic Naturalism holds that “only matter is real, that the world is just physical and that there is no supernatural (or metaphysical) existence, or that if there is, it has no impact on our physical world.,,,”
This excerpt from the entry on Physicalism in the online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is, I think, a more accurate description and more closely aligns with what I, as a rabid atheist/naturalist/materialist, actually believe:
Some philosophers suggest that ‘physicalism’ is distinct from ‘materialism’ for a reason quite unrelated to the one emphasized by Neurath and Carnap. As the name suggests, materialists historically held that everything was matter — where matter was conceived as “an inert, senseless substance, in which extension, figure, and motion do actually subsist” (Berkeley, Principles of Human Knowledge, par. 9). But physics itself has shown that not everything is matter in this sense; for example, forces such as gravity are physical but it is not clear that they are material in the traditional sense (Lange 1865, Dijksterhuis 1961, Yolton 1983). So it is tempting to use ‘physicalism’ to distance oneself from what seems a historically important but no longer scientifically relevant thesis of materialism, and related to this, to emphasize a connection to physics and the physical sciences. However, while physicalism is certainly unusual among metaphysical doctrines in being associated with a commitment both to the sciences and to a particular branch of science, namely physics, it is not clear that this is a good reason for calling it ‘physicalism’ rather than ‘materialism.’ For one thing, many contemporary physicalists do in fact use the word ‘materialism’ to describe their doctrine (e.g. Smart 1963). Moreover, while ‘physicalism’ is no doubt related to ‘physics’ it is also related to ‘physical object’ and this in turn is very closely connected with ‘material object’, and via that, with ‘matter.’
My belief is that the physical world - in other words, anything we can observe, however indirectly - is all that there is. Ghosts, for example, are popularly regarded as supernatural but if we ever found persuasive evidence they actually exist then they would be material/natural phenomena, however elusive they might be. The same would be true for some super-intelligent alien being that was indistinguishable from a god for all practical purposes.
That is to say that Atheistic Materialism and/or Atheistic Naturalism holds that the abstract realm of thought is not real.
That depends on what you mean by "real". If you mean by that only that which 'exists beyond the domain of our conscious awareness, whether or not it is being observed or experienced' then mental phenomena are not real. But I don't regard subjective experiences as unreal. They do not exist in objective reality but in the mental model of that reality which is part of what we call "mind" but subjective experiences are real in that they do happen as far as it is possible for us to tell.
In fact, according to quantum theory, the most fundamental ‘stuff’ of the world is not even matter or energy, (as Darwinian materialists originally presupposed) but is ‘abstract’ immaterial information itself
If that is what quantum theory actually says, that immaterial information has no physical properties - no physical existence at all, then what is it? How does it have any causal effect at all on physical reality? Unless they are saying the physical world we experience is some sort of Matrix-like illusion then they are using the word "information" to mean something very different from what we understand by it. It is not the same as what you and I are exchanging now.
This puts the die-hard materialist in quite the conundrum because, as Bernardo Kastrup further explains in his article, to make sense of this conundrum of a non-material world of pure abstractions we must ultimately appeal to an immaterial mind. i.e. we must ultimately appeal to God!
Even if this case were being made from a religiously neutral standpoint, I would not find it persuasive but coming from someone whose apparent purpose, like yours, is to find lines of argument which lead to your God it is even less so. The difficulty of accounting for conscious experience on a physicalist model of reality is well-known but that does not make Kastrup's case anything more than a God-of-the-gaps argument, there is no physicalist explanation for the mind, therefore God. It may be true but you have a lot of work to do establishing the existence of your God before you can get there.Seversky_{November 4, 2019
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If something is considered to be abstract it is considered to not have a physical or concrete existence.
ab·stract adjective /ab?strakt,?ab?strakt/ 1. existing in thought or as an idea but not having a physical or concrete existence.
Whereas Atheistic Materialism and/or Atheistic Naturalism holds that “only matter is real, that the world is just physical and that there is no supernatural (or metaphysical) existence, or that if there is, it has no impact on our physical world.,,,”
What is the difference between naturalism and materialism? Excerpt: Naturalism is the view that the world can be explained entirely by physical, natural phenomena/laws. Naturalists either assert that there is no supernatural (or metaphysical) existence, or that if there is, it has no impact on our physical world.,,, Materialism is the related view that all existence is matter, that only matter is real, and so that the world is just physical. It simply describes a view on the nature of the universe, while the different branches of Naturalism focus on applications of effectively the same view. Thus, the difference between the two is the purpose of the definition - materialism makes an argument about the ontology of the universe, while naturalism takes a premise (effectively that of materialism) to make an argument on how science/philosophy should function. https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/2406/what-is-the-difference-between-naturalism-and-materialism
That is to say that Atheistic Materialism and/or Atheistic Naturalism holds that the abstract realm of thought is not real. The insurmountable problem for Atheistic Materialists, in their denial of the reality of the abstract realm of thought, (besides the fact that it undermines the validity of their very own thoughts on any given subject (CS Lewis 'the argument from reason'), and besides the fact that they have no clue how humans acquired the ability for abstract thought and language in the first place), is that, due to advances in science, especially due to advances in quantum mechanics, it turns out that atoms themselves are found not to be the solid indivisible concrete particles, as they were originally envisioned to be by materialists, but it turns out that the descriptions we now use to describe atoms themselves, the further down we go, dissolve into “abstract conceptual tools for describing nature, which themselves seem to lack any real, concrete essence.,,,”
Physics Is Pointing Inexorably to Mind So-called “information realism” has some surprising implications By Bernardo Kastrup – March 25, 2019 Excerpt: according to the Greek atomists, if we kept on dividing things into ever-smaller bits, at the end there would remain solid, indivisible particles called atoms, imagined to be so concrete as to have even particular shapes. Yet, as our understanding of physics progressed, we’ve realized that atoms themselves can be further divided into smaller bits, and those into yet smaller ones, and so on, until what is left lacks shape and solidity altogether. At the bottom of the chain of physical reduction there are only elusive, phantasmal entities we label as “energy” and “fields”—abstract conceptual tools for describing nature, which themselves seem to lack any real, concrete essence.,,, https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/physics-is-pointing-inexorably-to-mind/ "The conception of objective reality of the elementary particles has thus evaporated not into the cloud of some obscure new reality concept but into the transparent clarity of a mathematics that represents no longer the behavior of particles but rather our knowledge of this behavior" - Werner Heinsenberg - The Representation of Nature in Contemporary Physics - pg. 100
In fact, according to quantum theory, the most fundamental ‘stuff’ of the world is not even matter or energy, (as Darwinian materialists originally presupposed) but is ‘abstract’ immaterial information itself
“The most fundamental definition of reality is not matter or energy, but information–and it is the processing of information that lies at the root of all physical, biological, economic, and social phenomena.” Vlatko Vedral – Professor of Physics at the University of Oxford, and CQT (Centre for Quantum Technologies) at the National University of Singapore, and a Fellow of Wolfson College – a recognized leader in the field of quantum mechanics. “It is operationally impossible to separate Reality and Information” (48:35 minute mark) “In the beginning was the Word” John 1:1 (49:54 minute mark) Prof Anton Zeilinger speaks on quantum physics. at UCT https://youtu.be/s3ZPWW5NOrw?t=2984
Thus, in irony of ironies, not even the material particles themselves turn to be are ‘real’ and concrete, (on the materialistic definition of what is suppose to be ‘real’ and concrete), but turn out to be “abstract” immaterial information. This puts the die-hard materialist in quite the conundrum because, as Bernardo Kastrup further explains in his article, to make sense of this conundrum of a non-material world of pure abstractions we must ultimately appeal to an immaterial mind. i.e. we must ultimately appeal to God!
Physics Is Pointing Inexorably to Mind So-called “information realism” has some surprising implications By Bernardo Kastrup – March 25, 2019 Excerpt: “To make sense of this conundrum,,, we must stick to what is most immediately present to us: solidity and concreteness are qualities of our experience. The world measured, modeled and ultimately predicted by physics is the world of perceptions, a category of mentation. The phantasms and abstractions reside merely in our descriptions of the behavior of that world, not in the world itself.,,, Where we get lost and confused is in imagining that what we are describing is a non-mental reality underlying our perceptions, as opposed to the perceptions themselves. We then try to find the solidity and concreteness of the perceived world in that postulated underlying reality. However, a non-mental world is inevitably abstract. And since solidity and concreteness are felt qualities of experience—what else?—we cannot find them there. The problem we face is thus merely an artifact of thought, something we conjure up out of thin air because of our theoretical habits and prejudices.,,, As I elaborate extensively in my new book, The Idea of the World, none of this implies solipsism. The mental universe exists in mind but not in your personal mind alone. Instead, it is a transpersonal field of mentation that presents itself to us as physicality—with its concreteness, solidity and definiteness—once our personal mental processes interact with it through observation. This mental universe is what physics is leading us to, not the hand-waving word games of information realism. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/physics-is-pointing-inexorably-to-mind/
Or to put it much more simply, as Physics professor Richard Conn Henry put it at the end of the following article, “The Universe is immaterial — mental and spiritual. Live, and enjoy.”
The mental Universe – Richard Conn Henry The only reality is mind and observations, but observations are not of things. To see the Universe as it really is, we must abandon our tendency to conceptualize observations as things. Excerpt: “The Universe is immaterial — mental and spiritual. Live, and enjoy.” – Richard Conn Henry is a Professor in the Henry A. Rowland Department of Physics and Astronomy, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland http://henry.pha.jhu.edu/The.mental.universe.pdf
It is hard to imagine a more convincing proof that we are ‘made in the image of God’, than finding that both the universe and life itself are ‘information theoretic’ in their foundational basis, and that we, of all the creatures on earth, uniquely possess an ability to understand and create information, and have come to ‘master the planet’, not through brute force, but precisely because of our ability to infuse abstract immaterial information into material substrates.
“Speech is 95 percent plus of what lifts man above animal! Physically, man is a sad case. His teeth, including his incisors, which he calls eyeteeth, are baby-size and can barely penetrate the skin of a too-green apple. His claws can’t do anything but scratch him where he itches. His stringy-ligament body makes him a weakling compared to all the animals his size. Animals his size? In hand-to-paw, hand-to-claw, or hand-to-incisor combat, any animal his size would have him for lunch. Yet man owns or controls them all, every animal that exists, thanks to his superpower: speech.” —Tom Wolfe, in the introduction to his book, The Kingdom of Speech Language Is a Rock Against Which Evolutionary Theory Wrecks Itself - Michael Egnor - September 19, 2016 Excerpt: Wolfe provides a précis of his argument: "Speech is not one of man's several unique attributes -- speech is the attribute of all attributes!" And yet, as Wolfe points out, Darwinists are at an utter loss to explain how language -- the salient characteristic of man -- "evolved." None of the deep drawer of evolutionary just-so stories come anywhere close to explaining how man might have acquired the astonishing ability to craft unlimited propositions and concepts and subtleties within subtleties using a system of grammar and abstract designators (i.e. words) that are utterly lacking anywhere else in the animal kingdom. Darwin and his progeny have had no dearth of fanciful guesses -- birdsongs (Darwin's favorite theory) and grunts and grimaces that mutate (survivors survive!) into Cicero and Shakespeare. Evolutionary theorizing about language has been a colossal waste of time. None of this evolutionary fancifulness makes any sense, nor has any real scientific basis, and these "theories" are published almost sheepishly, as if their authors tacitly acknowledge the fecklessness of Darwinian mechanism in the face of such a gift as language. I have argued before that the human mind is qualitatively different from the animal mind. The human mind has immaterial abilities -- the intellect's ability to grasp abstract universal concepts divorced from any particular thing -- and that this ability makes us more different from apes than apes are from viruses. We are ontologically different. We are a different kind of being from animals. We are not just animals who talk. Although we share much in our bodies with animals, our language -- a simulacrum of our abstract minds -- has no root in the animal world. Language is the tool by which we think abstractly. It is sui generis. It is a gift, a window into the human soul, something we are made with, and it did not evolve. Language is a rock against which evolutionary theory wrecks, one of the many rocks -- the uncooperative fossil record, the jumbled molecular evolutionary tree, irreducible complexity, intricate intracellular design, the genetic code, the collapsing myth of junk DNA, the immaterial human mind -- that comprise the shoal that is sinking Darwin's Victorian fable. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2016/09/language_is_a_r103151.html
I guess a more convincing proof that we are made in the image of God could be if God Himself became a man, defeated death on a cross, and then rose from the dead to prove that He was God. And that is precisely the proof claimed within Christianity.
Turin Shroud Hologram Reveals The Words 'The Lamb' on a Solid Oval Object Under The Beard - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Tmka1l8GAQ
Verses
Genesis 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. John 1:1-4 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was life, and that life was the Light of men.
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