E. O. Wilson on ID

_{William Dembski

November 26, 2007

Intelligent Design}

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Here’s what E. O. Wilson writes in THE NEW SCIENTIST:

. . . Many who accept the fact of evolution cannot, however, on religious grounds, accept the operation of blind chance and the absence of divine purpose implicit in natural selection. They support the alternative explanation of intelligent design. The reasoning they offer is not based on evidence but on the lack of it. The formulation of intelligent design is a default argument advanced in support of a non sequitur. It is in essence the following: there are some phenomena that have not yet been explained and that (most importantly) the critics personally cannot imagine being explained; therefore there must be a supernatural designer at work. The designer is seldom specified, but in the canon of intelligent design it is most certainly not Satan and his angels, nor any god or gods conspicuously different from those accepted in the believer’s faith.

Flipping the scientific argument upside down, the intelligent designers join the strict creationists (who insist that no evolution ever occurred) by arguing that scientists resist the supernatural theory because it is counter to their own personal secular beliefs. This may have a kernel of truth; everybody suffers from some amount of bias. But in this case bias is easily overcome. The critics forget how the reward system in science works. Any researcher who can prove the existence of intelligent design within the accepted framework of science will make history and achieve eternal fame. They will prove at last that science and religious dogma are compatible. Even a combined Nobel prize and Templeton prize (the latter designed to encourage the search for just such harmony) would fall short as proper recognition. Every scientist would like to accomplish such a epoch-making advance. But no one has even come close, because unfortunately there is no evidence, no theory and no criteria for proof that even marginally might pass for science. . . .

Two comments:

(1) ID does not argue from “Shucks, I can’t imagine how material mechanisms could have brought about a biological structure” to “Gee, therefore God must have done it.” This is a strawman. Here is the argument ID proponents actually make:

Premise 1: Certain biological systems have some diagnostic feature, be it IC (irreducible complexity) or SC (specified complexity) or OC (organized complexity) etc.
Premise 2: Materialistic explanations have been spectacularly unsuccessful in explaining such systems — we have no positive evidence for thinking that material mechanisms can generate them.
Premise 3: Intelligent agency is known to have the causal power to produce systems that display IC/SC/OC.
Conclusion: Therefore, biological systems that exhibit IC/SC/OC are likely to be designed.

(2) Wilson’s claim that proving “the existence of intelligent design within the accepted framework of science will make history and achieve eternal fame” is disingenuous. The accepted framework of science precludes ID from the start. Wilson and his materialistic colleagues have stacked the deck so that no evidence could ever support it.

Comments

Magnan, I appreciate your inability to deal with my arguments directly and instead your dismissive comments and whining for censure shows that you have no answers. That said I may have mispoken a bit. The bible tells us all we need to know about science, is true, but a better way to put it is science doesn't tell us anything that we need to know. All that we need to know is the message of the bible: God sent his Son to die for us and redeem our sins, and the only important choice we make here on Earth is to accept Him. Fancy apologetics that simply confuse believers with materialist nonsense (yes, that is exactly what much of what I have seen from ID proponents here is) is not a good witness. Using math and big words does not save any souls. There is no secret inside dog cancer cells or in a blood clot that can do anything to save your eternal soul, and that is all that matters in this world. To argue that I am wrong is to argue that it doesn't matter if you are a good witness to your neighbors and to your family that aren't saved. I don't see how anyone can call themselves a Christian if they do not want to be a good witness, and I don't see why anyone would be interested in the ID movement if they WEREN'T a christian, unless they are simply the same kind of materialists that they claim to be against, and it is a power struggle. This life will pass away, and all the bacteria flagellum in the world will not save you. Only Jesus can, and you will never find Him through science or counting rocks in a microscope. These things are 'knowledgely falsely so-called' that the bible speaks about in the last days, and I hate to see fellow Christians taking the mark of the beast just because they have been led astray by ideologues and false doctrine.Lazarus_{November 27, 2007
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Bornagain77, you said, in part: Yet when material is taken to its most basic level, with quantum mechanics, it defies any presupposed material explanation and only finds a reasonable explanation within the Theistic framework, i.e. a sub-atomic world that is not limited by time or space built by a Creator Who is not limited by time or space. Be careful. Not so sure here. I'm a sympathetic ear but what is not easily understood is easily abused. THAT is more likely the case with QM---this flagrantly abused notion that in the QM realm you have properties that "defy" common sense. This abuse now extends to the patently moonbat notions of Man as Exterminator of Cosmic proportions. See for example the latest nutty abuse of QM in http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/11/21/scicosmos121.xml If I truly believed this "extension" of certain uncertainties and destructiveness of mere observations, I'd also ask for a half-dead cat for Christmas. (you won't need to feed it until you open the box to see if its actually alive) :0 S (Schrodenger) WTS Wakefield Tolbert_{November 27, 2007
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Just to rephrase my earlier comment, for the moderators: Allowing this kind of fundamentalist ranting on UD is probably a bad idea and counterproductive. It is a tradeoff at best. Avoid offending some important ID supporters at the cost of wasting time on peripheral issues, giving Panda's Thumb, et. al. plenty of ammunition, and offending or even driving off many other ID advocates.magnan_{November 27, 2007
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ellazimm 62 bornagain77 (#53): I think dog breeding demonstrates the ability to manifest variation but I don’t think the ability to create new breeds of dogs disproves evolutionary theory. The main question is "Did new information arise in the sub-speciation of dogs from wolves?" We can now answer this question from genetic studies that have been done. Here is a Paper that has confirmation of dogs and grey wolves staying within principle of Genetic Entropy. http://jhered.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/90/1/71.pdf of special note: Some sequences found in dogs were identical to those in wolves… The sequence divergence within (breeds of) dogs was surprisingly large: the mean sequence divergence in dogs 2.06 + or - 0.07% was almost identical to the 2.10 + or - 0.04% (sequence divergence) found within wolves. (notice that sequence divergence is slightly smaller for dogs than for wolves) Coupled with the diverse morphology of domesticated dogs and known hazards of dog breeding, this evidence strongly indicates “front loaded adaptations” at a loss of information from parent species. Thus, this is genetic confirmation of the principle of Genetic Entropy for dogs from wolves! This overall pattern of evidence (loss of morphology and loss of genetic diversity) conforms strongly to the evidence supporting the principle of Genetic Entropy found for humans. i.e.;Tishkoff; Andrew Clark, Penn State; Kenneth Kidd, Yale University; Giovanni Destro-Bisol, University “La Sapienza,” Rome, and Himla Soodyall and Trefor Jenkins, WITS University, South Africa, looked at three locations on DNA samples from 13 to 18 populations in Africa and 30 to 45 populations in the remainder of the world. “We found an enormous amount of diversity within and between the African populations, and we found much less diversity in non-African populations,” Tishkoff told attendees today (Jan. 22) at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Anaheim. “Only a small subset of the diversity in Africa is found in Europe and the Middle East, and an even narrower set is found in American Indians.” even mungo man conforms to genetic entropy; http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=33358 Of special note: Adcock et al. (7) clearly demonstrate the actual extinction of an ancient mtDNA lineage belonging to an anatomically modern human, because this lineage is not found in living Australians. Although the fossil evidence provides evidence of the continuity of modern humans over the past 60,000 years, the ancient mtDNA clearly does not. Thus loss of genetic information even though the fossil record is consistent. On and On it goes Elazimm: As Niles Eldredge and Stephen Jay Gould pointed out almost three decades ago, the general pattern for the evolution of diversity (as shown by the fossil record) follows precisely this pattern: a burst of rapid diversity following a major ecological change, and then a gradual decline in diversity over relatively long periods of time. This is clearly the case among east African cichlid fish, such as those in Lake Malawi and Lake Victoria. As numerous studies have pointed out, Lake Victoria is only a little over 12,000 years old, while Lake Malawi is approximately 1.5 million years old. Lake Victoria has (or had, until the introduction of the Nile perch) over 600 species of cichlids, while Lake Malawi has many, many fewer (the exact numbers are not known, due to rapid species turnover and the difficulty of sampling fish species in these lakes). In other words, the older the lake, the lower the species diversity. Allan Macneill http://www.terradaily.com/reports/The_Cambrian_Many_Forms_999.html “That led me into thinking there’s something weird about these very primitive Cambrian trilobites that you don’t see in other (more recent) ones,” he said. The only way to verify his hunch was to conduct an analysis that combined the data compiled in previously published reports. “It’s too much for one person to look at a thousand trilobite species,” Webster said. So for his Science study, Webster combed through 68 previously published studies of trilobites, searching for descriptions of evolving characteristics that could be incorporated into his analysis. After eliminating studies that were inappropriate for inclusion, 49 still remained. He focused on actively evolving characteristics. The trilobite head alone, for example, displays many such characteristics. These include differences in ornamentation, number and placement of spines, and the shape of head segments. His findings: Overall, approximately 35 percent of the 982 trilobite species exhibited some variation in some aspect of their appearance that was evolving. But more than 70 percent of early and middle Cambrian species exhibited variation, while only 13 percent of later trilobite species did so. “There’s hardly any variation in the post-Cambrian,” he said. “Even the presence or absence or the kind of ornamentation on the head shield varies within these Cambrian trilobites and doesn’t vary in the post-Cambrian trilobites.” thus conforming to Genetic entropy. Elazimm, Trilobites appeared suddenly at the very beginning of the Cambrian explosion and were in the fossil record for over 270 million years. Don't you think one line would have become something other than a trilobite over all those millions of years? Don't you think within species variation should of increased instead of decreased? Don't you think diversity of the within trilobite orders should of increased instead of decreased? The evidence goes on and on elazimm: without any falsification of the ID/Genetic Entropy mo^del and without any persuasive evidence supporting the validity of the neo-Darwinian mo^del. As well elazimm, if it is possible for complex information to suddenly appear in the Big Bang why is it not also possible for complex information to suddenly appear in the Biological Big Bangs found in the fossil record and alluded to by Eugene Koonin: The Biological Big Bang model for the major transitions in evolution. [My paper] Eugene Koonin ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: Major transitions in biological evolution show the same pattern of sudden emergence of diverse forms at a new level of complexity. The relationships between major groups within an emergent new class of biological entities are hard to decipher and do not seem to fit the tree pattern that, following Darwin's original proposal, remains the dominant description of biological evolution. The cases in point include the origin of complex RNA molecules and protein folds; major groups of viruses; archaea and bacteria, and the principal lineages within each of these prokaryotic domains; eukaryotic supergroups; and animal phyla. In each of these pivotal nexuses in life's history, the principal "types" seem to appear rapidly and fully equipped with the signature features of the respective new level of biological organization. No intermediate "grades" or intermediate forms between different types are detectable. Usually, this pattern is attributed to cladogenesis compressed in time, combined with the inevitable erosion of the phylogenetic signal. http://lib.bioinfo.pl/pmid:17708768 Again Ellazimm, conforming to ID/Genetic Entropy exactly!bornagain77_{November 27, 2007
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Duncan- No, it should not be materialistic intelligent agency. The reason is that even with in the confines of materialistic causes there has to be at the beginning of the historical regress some kind of intelligent organized cause. If the big bang is the cause of all complexity in the world then all those examples of SC, OC, IC had to be factored into the nature of that fist cause. In other words the cause of the fist physical cause must have been intelligence. People can design things within the laws of materialist methodology but the cause of humans and so forth will eventually require intelligence of some other kind. The universal probability bound and all of the empirical evidence of SC,IC in nature support this.Frost122585_{November 27, 2007
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excuse me i meant an athiest methodological materialist- even an athiest could beleive in ID.Frost122585_{November 27, 2007
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"...the bible tells us all we need to know about science." -Lazarus Have you taken your thorozine lately? I think that you are clearly either an insane person or a atheist masquerading as an ID proponent. You cant be dumb because your vocab is too developed. Being that insanity is rare i would say you are a fraud. And i not only warn the people on this web blog about it but i think regular people posting should realize this and ignore you. Even the Amish know that the bible doesn’t tell us all we need to know about science. This is the most ridiculous comment i have heard in a year. "Why am I being treated differently?"(Lazarus) I cant imagine why. Maybe the bible has an answer to this question next to that section about cancer treatments.Frost122585_{November 27, 2007
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Re. #29: Elazimm, my point was that your requirement for positive physical empirical evidence (i. e. a "maker stamp") for ID was unreasonable. Unless you presume to know the intentions of the inferred intelligence behind evolution. For events in the deep past, fossils and DNA and comparative physiology of living related organisms constitute the physical evidence for any view of how it actually happened. So how does the physical evidence stack up? You say " ....that (fossil) record, as far as I can tell is consistent with our current understanding of evolution.....There will always be gaps in the fossil record but gaps do not disprove the theory. And the gaps keep getting narrower and narrower!" Well, that certainly expresses the party line for NDE. To be technical, the all embracing application of NDE theory espoused by most evolutionists. This is sort of whistling in the dark and an expresssion of faith. The reality of the fossil record was well expressed by Gould: "...the extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology....The history of most fossil species includes two features inconsistent with gradualism: 1. Stasis. Most species exhibit no directional change during their tenure on earth. They appear in the fossil record looking much the same as when they disappear… 2. Sudden Appearance. In any local area, a species does not arise gradually by the steady transformation of its ancestors; it appears all at once and 'fully formed' (Natural History 86(5), 1977, ps. 14, 13). This situation just isn't going away: "No wonder paleontologists shied away from evolution so long. It never seems to happen. When we do see the introduction of evolutionary novelty, it usually shows up with a bang, and often with no firm evidence that the fossils did not evolve elsewhere! Yet that is how the fossil record has struck many a forlorn paleontologist looking to learn something about evolution. (Eldridge, "Reinventing Darwin, 1995, p. 95). The Cambrian Explosion is perhaps the most glaring discrepancy with the expectations of NDE. A couple of quotes from the professional literature show the actual situation for the theory. "If we were to expect to find ancestors to or intermediates between higher taxa, it would be the rocks of the late Precambrian to Ordivician times, when the bulk of the world's higher animal taxa evolved. Yet traditional alliances are unknown or unconfirmed for any of the phyla or classes appearing then." (Valentine, Development As An Evolutionary Process, p.84, 1987). "The Cambrian Explosion occurred in a geological moment, and we have reason to think that all major anatomical designs may have made their evolutionary appearance at that time. ...not only the phylum Chordata itself, but also all its major divisions, arose within the Cambrian Explosion.... Contrary to Darwin's expectation that new data would reveal gradualistic continuity with slow and steady expansion, all major discoveries of the past century have only heightened the massiveness and geological abruptness of this formative event..." (Gould, Nature, Vol.377, 26 10/95, p.682). These quotes are only to show that clearly some of the foremost evolutionists, who know far more than you or me about the fossil evidence, deviate from the "part line" you stated. Of course, as the culture war has heated up, it has become more and more politically incorrect and career damaging for professionals to express such objective, realistic views of the current state of the science. Very recently in another thread, Dr. Allen MacNeill (hardly an ID advocate, but remarkably open minded) stated "As for macroevolution, I agree that at the present time we have little or no formal theory predicting the observed patterns of change in deep evolutionary time". Quite an understatement. Of course he followed this up with the usual affirmation that although there is no valid theory, macroevolution still happened. Of course it did - the issue is how it happened, and the evidence does not support NDE as the explanatory model. The Cambrian explosion, development of oxygen breathing systems, bird and bat wings, dolphin/sperm whale biological sonar, it goes on and on. There is only a lot of speculation, "just so" stories. The important evolutionary transformations in complexity and innovation always happen "somewhere else" and are not captured as fossils. NDE is a gradual tiny step-wise process which should show up as such in the fossil record. But the vast majority of fossils show a sort of stasis in innovation. So it would always have to somehow be taking place in small peripheral populations that are generally not fossilized due to small numbers, or always happens too fast to leave enough fossils to be detected. But the small peripheral populations are too small to have the large pool of variation needed by the NDE process to select from in each generation. If it always happens too fast for fossilization the number of generations for NDE to accomplish the transformation is severely limited. The last possible explanation is that conditions for fossilization always just happen to be unfavorable during macroevolution, clearly untenable. So this is recognized as a major problem in NDE, with no satisfactory solution as of yet. The examples you offered were undeniable examples of microevolution. The NDE model of gradualistic differential selection of modified alleles in a population certainly explains some microevolution. But I specifically asked for more than evidence for microevolution, which is fully accepted by ID evolutionists. Assuming it can account for macroevolution is a huge stretch incompatible with an examination of the empirical fossil data and consideration of the issues of irreducible complexity and specified complexity, the latter two of which you dismissed without justificational backup. You ask, ".... what evidence would convince you that evolution can account for the systems you cite?" If you mean neoDarwinian "blind watchmaker" evolution, the very evidence that continues to be missing despite more than a century of looking.magnan_{November 27, 2007
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Leo, Evolution does predict greater information/complexity. It started with simple cells and has resulted in us and other very complex animals. If evolution can't do that, then something else must account for the increase in complexity. Also I really don't think that evidence that a mutation that decreases the complexity of an organism should be taken as evidence that evolution can INCREASE the complexity of an organism.Collin_{November 27, 2007
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Lazarus, I don't want to add to your agony, or shake your belief, but where exactly does the Bible tell us all we need to know about science? Re your post 51: " the fact that the bible tells us all we need to know about science. God Said It, I Believe It, That Settles It." And which version of the Bible do you consider true & infallible?rockyr_{November 27, 2007
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ba77, I know there was a paper, I can't remember in what journal right now but I will try to find it, that characterized chromosome number in HeLa's. The conclusion being a mean of around 90 with a range from 60-140 (numbers are approximations, what I can remember). This seems like an increase in information to me, though, multiple copies of the same code may not qualify. In the same vein, a smaller number of chromosomes does not necessarily mean less information. Furthermore, evolution does not predict greater or lesser information/complexity, just change - it predicts no direction.leo_{November 27, 2007
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lazarus, I apologize, I just thought it was funny. I would ask you something though. If I were Muslim, could I participate in ID without being baptised, or will you refuse to work with me?Collin_{November 27, 2007
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I may have mixed my metaphors but that does not excuse you from contriving means to evade the point.Lazarus_{November 27, 2007
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that last one was in response to Lazarus "theistic materialism ID is throwing the baby out with the dishwater"Collin_{November 27, 2007
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do you put babies in the dishwasher?Collin_{November 27, 2007
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ellazimm #29 A little more background; Comparison of the tumour DNA with that of different dog breeds, conducted with geneticists and computer experts in Chicago, showed that the culprit is likely to have been a wolf or ‘old’ Asian dog breed from China or Siberia, such as a Husky or Shih Tzu. By counting the mutations in the DNA, the team also concluded that the dog lived between 250 and 1000 years ago. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/08/060811075902.htm As well I wanted to ask you "Do you falsely believe, as Dawkins does, that Dog Breeding proves evolution?"bornagain77_{November 27, 2007
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ellazimm #29 All your evidence will conform to Genetic Entropy, I'll disprove this one, and then I'll disprove any other specific one of your choosing if you wish. Sticker’s sarcoma: Canine transmissible venereal tumor (CTVT), also called transmissible venereal tumor (TVT), Sticker tumor and infectious sarcoma is a tumor of the dog and other canids that mainly affects the external genitalia, and is transmitted from animal to animal during copulation. Riddle of infectious dog cancer solved http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn9713&feedId=online-news_rss20 of special note: A mysterious contagious cancer which plagues dogs throughout the world may be the first truly transmittable cancer known, a new study suggests. The cancer cells themselves move directly from dog to dog, acting “parasitically” on each infected animal, the researchers say. Canine transmissible venereal tumour (CTVT) spreads between dogs through sex or other forms of contact, such as licking and biting, they believe. The same cancer appears to infect dogs throughout the world and probably originated from a cancer in a single wolf, or a dog closely related to a wolf, which lived between 250 and 1000 years ago, the researchers say. Direct descendents Previously, viruses were suspected of spreading CTVT in the same way that the human papilloma virus – found in genital warts – spreads cervical cancer to women through sex. But a new genetic analysis shows that the dog cancer cells are direct descendents of tumour cells from the long-dead animal in which the disease originated. “The cancer escaped its original body and became a parasite transmitted from dog to bitch and bitch to dog until it had colonised all over the world,” says lead researcher Robin Weiss at University College London in the UK. “The idea that this is caused by transfer of the cancer cells themselves, not a cancer-causing virus, has been around for 30 years,” says Weiss. “Now we’ve proved it through forensic DNA analysis.” Weiss said that the discovery makes the cancer, otherwise known as Sticker’s sarcoma, “the oldest cancer known to science”, and possibly the world’s longest-lived colony of cloned mammalian cells. also: The disease seems to have been more aggressive in its past, the researchers say. and: Dog cells normally have 78 chromosomes; TVT tumor cells contain 57 - 64 chromosome Thus it has less information than was first present in the dogs/wolfs from whence it came. Thus, It is not proof of the generation of "new" meaningful information in a living organism , which is required to be done to prove evolution true and falsify Genetic Entropy. I can guarantee you that all your examples will conform to Genetic Entropy when scrutinized and that you will never demonstrate the generation of novel, meaningful, information by random processes.bornagain77_{November 27, 2007
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magnan Christ said I come not to bring peace but a sword. That said I don't need to answer Frost in kind. I am not the judge, God is, and I am trying to share with my fellow Christians why I think science is a dead end. Maybe some of you would like to cast off christians from ID but that would be biting the hand that has brought you here. by focusing on answering atheist materialism with theistic materialism ID is throwing the baby out with the dishwater. our one goal should be to win more souls to christ. Philip Johnson agrees. That should be the standard by which ID is measured and if it is then it is failing miserably now. No amount of research into insignificant tiny little invisible organisms can change the fact that the bible tells us all we need to know about science. God Said It, I Believe It, That Settles It. I have read where Dr Dembski has said similar things about the Word. I believe that he would disagree with you but I fear that he is getting caught up in the worldly battle and losing focus on the spiritual battle. So by focusing on the messenger rather than the message you have contrived a convenient path to deny the validity of my comments without dealing with them. I have come to expect this from liberal materialists and atheists but I see that this postmodern relativism has found its way into even those who believe God designed the world with a purpose. For that I am truly sorry and we will pray for you.Lazarus_{November 27, 2007
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Testing whether I'm still being moderated (for no reason) before bothering to post an indepth response.Jorvicman_{November 27, 2007
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Lazaruus (or is it Solon), Frost122585 (#33) well expressed my views concerning your attempts to disrupt and undermine this site. This is becoming tedious and repetitive, and was already somewhat hashed out on the previous thread I indicated. It is hard to see why you haven't been banned.magnan_{November 27, 2007
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Lazarus, "Why am I being treated differently?" You are being treated differently because you are approaching ID from a strong religous perspective, and condemning anyone who does not do likewise. I don't have the privelage of banning you, but if I did, I would. Then I would go to church on Sunday, and worship the Lord with joy.bFast_{November 27, 2007
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The EO Wilson post is a perfect set-up for ID because of its thinly-veiled contempt for Christian faith. This pervasive contempt is the underlying reason for the strategy articulated by Phillip Johnson: leave God out of ID. As a practical matter, ID cannot win the fight in which it is now engaged if it must also shoulder Christian apologetics. ID is a silver bullet. Life, natural laws, intelligence—all of these cry out “Design!” All ID has to do, then, to bring the propaganda machine for materialism to a grinding halt is to calmly and patiently point out the obvious. History shows that using science in an attempt to describe God is futile, as the Dembski white paper implies. There is a qualitative difference between the mind of the scientist and physical reality. Hence it is impossible to identify God through science without characterizing him as pure difference—pure negation, as seen in Descartes—or pure action, as in Newton and Kant. Science cannot make the designer known, but science can certainly demonstrate that he exists. And this is just what is happening, not just in ID circles but in many areas of basic research, where less and less attention is being paid every day to the fanciful metanarrative that is Darwinism. It makes perfect sense to let the silver bullet slay the beast and carry on the other conversation(s) separately. Leaving God out of the conversation should not mean being ashamed of Christ, however. In that case the wedge strategy ceases to be a wedge and becomes subsumed by the very thing it abhors.allanius_{November 27, 2007
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ellazimm: I find your responses to Dr D's premises to be astoundingly short of sense and substance. 1. "Diagnostic"? Explain to us, in Darwinist terms, how exception trapping (error correction) mechanisms can arise w/o intelligence. It cannot be done. Knowledge of correct operation is a prerequisite of of error detection and correction. 2. "matter of opinion"? Surely you jest. Where is the materialist empirical evidence? There isn't any. The so-called 'mountains of evidence' we all keep hearing about is conspicuously absent in the labs. It's actually mountains of conjecture and wishful thinking. In my years of debating Darwinists I've observed a singular constant, ubiquitous in every conversation. That constant is that every Darwinist thinks that some other Darwinist has a mountain of proof somewhere. However when asked to present that proof all you get is wild speculations based on micro-evolutionary processes - that neither creationist nor IDist contests. The proverbial mountain is always curiously absent. 3. "Sufficient but not necessary."? Again, you speak with your foot in your mouth. So what is necessary? And where is your proof? Only intelligence produces symbolic language. Only intelligence produces coded information systems. ONLY intelligence CAN produce such mechanisms. There has to be intent, convention and meaning in order for symbolic code to exist - code such as the 'genetic code'. It is indeed a code. It has semantics, syntax, letters, words, sentences etc. DNA contains the book of life. Books don't write themselves. You really ought to take a long time meditating on these things. Shallowness of reasoning is a trait peculiar, not only to the mentally impaired, but also to the materialist scientist. Just as Hoyle stated so clearly.
"So it came about from 1860 onward that new believers [in Darwinism] became in a sense mentally ill, or, more precisely, either you became mentally ill or you quitted the subject of biology, as I had done in my early teens. he trouble for young biologists was that, with everyone around them ill, it became impossible for them to think they were well unless they were ill, which again is a situation you can read all about in the columns of Nature."
Math & EvolutionBorne_{November 27, 2007
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I've been meaning to start collecting the "lovely" sort of comments Darwinists typically make. Here's one I just blocked: "Wilson has accomplished more in his life than your or your unenlightened offspring will ever hope to achieve." I hope that makes people understand why moderation on UD is so heavy. I've blocked several instances of stuff like this just in the last couple minutes.Patrick_{November 27, 2007
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09:59 AM
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It's not personal. Besides personal attacks, ranting, and bouts of cursing, unfortunately there are Darwinists who take perverse pleasure in parodying a contrived stance as an "ID proponent". I don't know you so it is difficult to judge your sincerity solely based upon your comments. Google "Shelley the Republican"...I've seen those people organize an attack on ID sites before. Just the other day I blocked a poster who was claiming to be a student but the registration information indicated this person was part of an organized atheist organization that explicitly claims its purpose is to defend their beliefs on the internet. The short response to your stance is that (as Dembski would put it) ID gives epistemic support in the form of greater explanatory power for Christianity. Unfortunately, the core of ID itself does not currently contain the tools/methods necessary for DesignER detection. So we're just being honest when we say ID does not point at a specific Designer such as God--it does not because it cannot. Also, I wasn't the moderator who put a temporary 3 day hold on your Solon account.Patrick_{November 27, 2007
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09:14 AM
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Why am I being treated differently? You banned me silently the first time I was here and would not allow posting of comments. Then a moderator used my absence to claim that I was a sockpuppet troll (I had to look that up). It was very frustrating and not a good witness.Lazarus_{November 27, 2007
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John Kelly, The system is automated and you're being treated the same as everyone else.Patrick_{November 27, 2007
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08:42 AM
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Moderator, Could you please stop "moderating" my comments? To my knowledge, I have made no previous comments that deserve this, yet I have not always had my comments moderated. Usually, by the time my comment is cleared to post it is buried in the quagmire of other posts and forgotten. Thank you, John KellyJohn Kelly_{November 27, 2007
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OK WD, What is OC?vjtorley_{November 27, 2007
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Dr Dembski Your 3rd Premise states: “Intelligent agency is known to have the causal power to produce systems that display IC/SC/OC”. Shouldn’t that be ‘MATERIALISTIC Intelligent agency …..”? I see a paradox here (does anyone one else?) which I haven’t managed to get a satisfactory answer to, which is: - if we want to say that materialistic explanations aren’t up to the job (cf: Premise 2) then how can we rely on explanations dependent upon materialism to support our case?duncan_{November 27, 2007
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