Earliest known horseback riders pushed back to 5000 years ago

@25

Directly contrary to PM1’s claim, Darwinists have no realistic clue how man achieved the ability to communicate immaterial information to one another in order to eventually create technology.

You would need a textbook-level understanding of the debate between realism, conceptualism, and nominalism in order for us to continue this discussion.

In 2014, an impressive who’s who list of leading Darwinian experts in the area of language research, authored a paper in which they honestly admitted, after 4 decades of research no less, that they have “essentially no explanation of how and why our linguistic computations and representations evolved.,,,”

2014 was nine years ago. Are you sure that there have been no breakthroughs in the evolution of language in all that time? Not even this one? PyrrhoManiac1

@24

Slagle: According to naturalism, our cognitive faculties evolved to promote our survival and propagation, not to pursue truth. Even if the beliefs produced by those faculties happen to be true, their truth would be only an accidental byproduct, a side effect, of the struggle for survival; and accidentally true beliefs do not qualify as knowledge. This would apply to our belief in evolution itself, so, ironically, naturalism excludes the possibility of knowing that evolution is true.

I'm not sure why you think Slagle is relevant here. I was talking about Dewey's version of pragmatism. Slagle doesn't even mention Dewey. Whatever the merits of Slagle's critique of naturalism, so far as I can tell, it has nothing to do with what Dewey says. Perhaps Dewey simply is not a naturalist in Slagle's sense. I'm about 50% through with Slagle and I put it down because I got convinced that he's attacking a strawman. The Skyhook is an interesting argument form, closely related (as he notes) to transcendental arguments. I find transcendental arguments quite fascinating, so I am by no means averse to the general form of the Skyhook. Here's a quick example of what I find irritating about Slagle's book. In the chapter on "Popper Functions," he quickly canvasses Popper's claim that Quine cannot accommodate the third and fourth functions of language. Well, yes -- Popper does say that. But is Popper correct? Is it really true that Quine's theory of language cannot accommodate the third and fourth functions of language? Slagle has no interest in that question. Likewise, he quickly mentions Popper's response to Sellars's criticism, as if that were sufficient. I don't think it is -- Sellars is making a fairly subtle point about how the third and fourth functions of language can be accommodated by naturalism, and I find Popper's response to be glib and dismissive. Yet Slagle accepts Popper's response as the end of the matter. Now, it's true that if Slagle had delved into the details here, it would have been a much longer book and it would have taken more time. But I think it would have been a much better book as well. I am looking forward to his section on indicators and detectors, since teleosemantics is part of my long-term research project. PyrrhoManiac1

From 1903, when the Wright Brothers made their first powered flight, to 1945, less than 45 years had passed from that achievement to the first jet fighter, the German Me 262 and the first jet bomber, the Ar 234, another German design. The world's first cruise missile, the V-1, and the first ballistic rocket, the V-2. Then the detonation of two atomic bombs over Japan. While terrible, from these beginnings, the foundation of the modern world was laid. Yet, thankfully, nuclear weapons have not been used again. May God continue to have mercy. relatd

PM1: "Our long-distant ancestors evolved the capacity to cooperate to solve collective problems, including the ability to transform our physical and social environments through technology." Yet another lie from PM1, (which is extremely ironic seeing that we are talking about the failure of Darwinism to ground 'truth'). Directly contrary to PM1's claim, Darwinists have no realistic clue how man achieved the ability to communicate immaterial information to one another in order to eventually create technology. In 2014, an impressive who’s who list of leading Darwinian experts in the area of language research, authored a paper in which they honestly admitted, after 4 decades of research no less, that they have “essentially no explanation of how and why our linguistic computations and representations evolved.,,,”

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

The late best selling author Tom Wolfe was so taken aback by this honest confession from leading Darwinists that he wrote a book on the subject. Here is a general outline of his main argument;

The Mystery of Language Evolution “It seems that eight heavyweight evolutionists -linguists, biologists, anthropologists, and computer scientists- had published an article announcing they were giving up, throwing in the towel, folding, crapping out when it came to the question of where speech -language- comes from and how it works.,,, What is the problem? Speech is not one of man’s several unique attributes- speech is the attribute of all attributes! 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 https://books.google.com/books?id=NPslCwAAQBAJ&pg=PT5

In other words, humans have, completely contrary to Darwinian thinking, -i.e. let the strong live and the weak die-, managed to become masters of the planet, not via brute force, but simply by our unique ability to communicate immaterial information, and also to, more specifically, infuse immaterial information into material substrates in order to create, (i.e. intelligently design), objects that are extremely useful for our defense, basic survival in procuring food, furtherance of our knowledge, and also simply for our pleasure.

History of Invention http://www.explainthatstuff.com/timeline.html

And although the ‘top-down’ infusion of immaterial information into material substrates, that allowed humans to become ‘masters of the planet’, was rather crude to begin with, (i.e. spears, arrows, and plows etc..), this top down infusion of immaterial information into material substrates has become much more impressive over the last half century or so. Specifically, the ‘top-down’ infusion of immaterial information into material substrates lies at the very basis of man’s most stunning, almost miraculous, technological advances in recent decades. For primary example, the computer sitting right in front of your face would not exist if it were not for the ability of man to infuse immaterial information into material substrates in a ‘top-down’ manner.

Recognising Top-Down Causation – George Ellis Excerpt: page 5: A: Causal Efficacy of Non Physical entities: Both the program and the data are non-physical entities, indeed so is all software. A program is not a physical thing you can point to, but by Definition 2 it certainly exists. You can point to a CD or flashdrive where it is stored, but that is not the thing in itself: it is a medium in which it is stored. The program itself is an abstract entity, shaped by abstract logic. Is the software “nothing but” its realisation through a specific set of stored electronic states in the computer memory banks? No it is not because it is the precise pattern in those states that matters: a higher level relation that is not apparent at the scale of the electrons themselves. It’s a relational thing (and if you get the relations between the symbols wrong, so you have a syntax error, it will all come to a grinding halt). This abstract nature of software is realised in the concept of virtual machines, which occur at every level in the computer hierarchy except the bottom one [17]. But this tower of virtual machines causes physical effects in the real world, for example when a computer controls a robot in an assembly line to create physical artefacts. Excerpt page 7: The assumption that causation is bottom up only is wrong in biology, in computers, and even in many cases in physics, ,,, The mind is not a physical entity, but it certainly is causally effective: proof is the existence of the computer on which you are reading this text. It could not exist if it had not been designed and manufactured according to someone’s plans, thereby proving the causal efficacy of thoughts, which like computer programs and data are not physical entities. http://fqxi.org/data/essay-contest-files/Ellis_FQXI_Essay_Ellis_2012.pdf

What is more interesting still about the fact that humans have a unique ability to understand and create information, and have come to ‘master the planet’, not via brute force, but through the ‘top-down’ infusion of immaterial information into material substrates, is the fact that, due to advances in science, both the universe and life itself, are now found to be ‘information theoretic’ in their foundational basis.

“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 –

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 via brute force, but precisely because of our ability to infuse immaterial information into material substrates.

John 1:1-4 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 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.

Of course, a more convincing proof that we are ‘made in the image’ of God could be if God Himself became a man, walked on water, healed the sick, raised the dead, and then defeated death itself on a cross. And that just so happens to be precisely the proof that we are ‘made in the image’ of God that is claimed within Christianity.

Shroud of Turin: From discovery of Photographic Negative, to 3D Information, to Hologram – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-TL4QOCiis The evidence for the Shroud of Turin’s authenticity keeps growing stronger. (Timeline of facts) – November 08, 2019 What Is the Shroud of Turin? Facts & History Everyone Should Know – Myra Adams and Russ Breault https://www.christianity.com/wiki/jesus-christ/what-is-the-shroud-of-turin.html

Verse:

John 3:16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

bornagain77

Nancy: For if evolution is true, then it is not true, but only useful. This kind of internal contradiction is fatal, for a theory that asserts something and denies it at the same time is simply nonsense. In short, naturalistic evolution is self-refuting.

PM1: This is simply not correct at all. Evolutionary theory does not entail that theories are not true but only useful.

Ideas are selected for usefulness, and can accidentally be true.

Slagle: According to naturalism, our cognitive faculties evolved to promote our survival and propagation, not to pursue truth. Even if the beliefs produced by those faculties happen to be true, their truth would be only an accidental byproduct, a side effect, of the struggle for survival; and accidentally true beliefs do not qualify as knowledge. This would apply to our belief in evolution itself, so, ironically, naturalism excludes the possibility of knowing that evolution is true.

Origenes

Origenes: "Does rationality require a person who is in control of his thoughts?" PyrrhoManiac1: "No, I don’t think so." https://uncommondescent.com/mind/the-thought-that-stops-thought/#comment-771052

Game over. Of note:

John Dewey (1859-1952) John Dewey was the most significant educational thinker of his era and, many would argue, of the 20th century. As a philosopher, social reformer and educator, he changed fundamental approaches to teaching and learning. His ideas about education sprang from a philosophy of pragmatism and were central to the Progressive Movement in schooling. https://www.pbs.org/onlyateacher/john.html

bornagain77

"One of the innovations we made along the way was the ability to come up with hypotheses — ideas about how the world might be — and then figure out how to manipulate the environment in order to test out which of our hypotheses was closer to being right." Our alleged ancestors were capable of abstract thought? Really? Weren't we just a step or two above apes? Gathering food and maybe, if lucky, not getting eaten in the process? The debates here all end up involving a clash between religious morals and virtue, and secular ideas where only man can educate man. God and religion should be left out. After all, some believe religion to be a hindrance to enjoying life, along with God. Like Richard Dawkins: Take the Atheist Bus Campaign: "The Atheist Bus Campaign was an advertising campaign in 2008 and 2009 that aimed to place "peaceful and upbeat" messages about atheism on transport media in Britain, in response to evangelical Christian advertising.[1] "It was created by comedy writer Ariane Sherine and launched on 21 October 2008, with official support from the British Humanist Association and Richard Dawkins.[2] The campaign's original goal was to raise £5,500 to run 30 buses across London for four weeks early in 2009 with the slogan: "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life." "Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion, agreed to match all donations up to a maximum of £5,500, providing a total of £11,000 if the full amount were to be raised. The campaign reached that target by 10:06 am on 21 October and had raised £100,000 by the evening of 24 October. The campaign closed on 11 April 2009, having raised a total of £153,523.51.[3]" - Wikipedia relatd

@20 There are lot of serious misunderstandings, oversimplifications, and omissions in that historical overview. Just a few examples:

If humans are products of Darwinian natural selection, that obviously includes the human brain—which in turn means all our beliefs and values are products of evolutionary forces: Ideas arise in the human brain by chance, just like Darwin’s chance variations in nature; and the ones that stick around to become firm beliefs and convictions are those that give an advantage in the struggle for survival.

Firstly, the pragmatists preceded the Modern Synthesis. This matters because the Modern Synthesis emphasized the role of chance in the probability of novel genetic variations. For the pragmatists (and indeed for Darwin), chance did not play a crucial role. Secondly, and more importantly: Dewey did think of intelligence as an evolved biological and social response to complexity of the biological and also social environments. But it no part of his picture that our best ideas are just those that outcompete the others in some struggle for survival. Rather, his point is that intelligence evolves as one way in which organisms handle the problems that they encounter: by solving those problems. But what makes a solution effective is that it really does alter our practical conduct with the world, and it can't do that unless the solution really does map or model some feature of how the world really is. In other words, it is simply not the case that pragmatism dispenses with, or allows us to reject, the correspondence theory of truth -- on the contrary, it shows us how to understand what the correspondence theory of truth is.

One of the leading pragmatists was John Dewey, who had a greater influence on educational theory in America than anyone else in the 20th century.

That's all true -- but it must be stressed that Dewey has had virtually no influence at all on educational practice.

To emphasize how revolutionary this was, up until this time the dominant theory of knowledge or epistemology was based on the biblical doctrine of the image of God.

This skips over a few hundred years of epistemology, including the major innovations of Kant and Hegel. (Not to mention the massive changes in Western philosophy between Aquinas in the mid 1200s and Kant in the late 1700s.) It was Kant, not Dewey, who revolutionized epistemology by making it focused on the epistemic conditions attainable by beings with minds like ours. And he did that in response to Hume's skepticism. Dewey's project was to synthesize the epistemology of Kant and Hegel with Darwin and post-Darwinian biology.

According to the traditional, common-sense approach to knowledge, our ideas are true when the represent or correspond to reality. But according to Darwinian epistemology, ideas are nothing but tools that have evolved to help us control and manipulate the environment.

As argued above, this is a false dichotomy that Dewey very clearly rejected.

For if evolution is true, then it is not true, but only useful. This kind of internal contradiction is fatal, for a theory that asserts something and denies it at the same time is simply nonsense. In short, naturalistic evolution is self-refuting.

This is simply not correct at all. Evolutionary theory does not entail that theories are not true but only useful. Evolutionary theory suggests that intelligence evolved in order to handle specific kinds of environmental complexity. In doing so, new kinds of problems arose -- problems about the complexity of social environments. Our long-distant ancestors evolved the capacity to cooperate to solve collective problems, including the ability to transform our physical and social environments through technology. One of the innovations we made along the way was the ability to come up with hypotheses -- ideas about how the world might be -- and then figure out how to manipulate the environment in order to test out which of our hypotheses was closer to being right. Pearcey is just wrong when she suggests that evolutionary theory is "self-refuting." It does not undercut rationality, nor does it undermine our capacity to explain how science enables us to understand how the world really is. Her argument is based on a historical narrative that is oversimplified, distorted, and misleading. PyrrhoManiac1

How Darwinism Dumbs Us Down by Nancy Pearcey Excerpt: To understand how Darwinism undercuts the very concept of rationality, we can think back to the late nineteenth century when the theory first arrived on American shores. Almost immediately, it was welcomed by a group of thinkers who began to work out its implications far beyond science. They realized that Darwinism implies a broader philosophy of naturalism (i.e., that nature is all that exists, and that natural causes are adequate to explain all phenomena). Thus they began applying a naturalistic worldview across the board—in philosophy, psychology, the law, education, and the arts. At the foundation of these efforts, however, was a naturalistic approach to knowledge itself (epistemology). The logic went like this: If humans are products of Darwinian natural selection, that obviously includes the human brain—which in turn means all our beliefs and values are products of evolutionary forces: Ideas arise in the human brain by chance, just like Darwin’s chance variations in nature; and the ones that stick around to become firm beliefs and convictions are those that give an advantage in the struggle for survival. This view of knowledge came to be called pragmatism (truth is what works) or instrumentalism (ideas are merely tools for survival). Darwinian Logic One of the leading pragmatists was John Dewey, who had a greater influence on educational theory in America than anyone else in the 20th century. Dewey rejected the idea that there is a transcendent element in human nature, typically defined in terms of mind or soul or spirit, capable of knowing a transcendent truth or moral order. Instead he treated humans as mere organisms adapting to challenges in the environment. In his educational theory, learning is just another form of adaptation—a kind of mental natural selection. Ideas evolve as tools for survival, no different from the evolution of the lion’s teeth or the eagle’s claws. In a famous essay called “The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy,” Dewey said Darwinism leads to a “new logic to apply to mind and morals and life.” In this new evolutionary logic, ideas are not judged by a transcendent standard of Truth, but by how they work in getting us what we want. Ideas do not “reflect reality” but only serve human interests. To emphasize how revolutionary this was, up until this time the dominant theory of knowledge or epistemology was based on the biblical doctrine of the image of God. Confidence in the reliability of human knowledge derived from the conviction that finite human reason reflects (to some degree at least) an infinite divine Reason. Since the same God who created the universe also created our minds, we can be confident that our mental capacities reflect the structure of the universe. In The Mind of God and the Works of Man, Edward Craig shows that even as Western thinkers began to move away from orthodox Christian theology, in their philosophy most of them still retained the conception that our minds reflect an Absolute Mind as the basis for trust in human cognition. The pragmatists were among the first, however, to face squarely the implications of naturalistic evolution. If evolutionary forces produced the mind, they said, then all are beliefs and convictions are nothing but mental survival strategies, to be judged in terms of their practical success in human conduct. William James liked to say that truth is the “cash value” of an idea: If it pays off, then we call it true. Pragmatism Today This Darwinian logic continues to shape American thought more than we might imagine. Take religion. William James was raised in a household with an intense interest in religion. (In the Second Great Awakening his father converted to Christianity, then later converted to Swedenborgianism). As a result, James applied his philosophy of pragmatism to religion: We decide whether or not God exists depending whether that belief has positive consequences in our experience. “An idea is ‘true’ so long as to believe it is profitable to our lives,” James wrote in What Pragmatism Means. Thus “if theological ideas prove to have a value for concrete life, they will be true.” Does this sound familiar? A great many Americans today choose their religion based on what meets their needs, or “affirms” them, or helps them cope more effectively with personal issues, from losing weight to building a better marriage. I was recently chatting with a Christian who is very active in her church; but when the topic turned to a mutual friend who is not a believer, her response was, “Well, whatever works for you.” Of course, there is a grave problem with choosing a religion according to “whatever works for you”—namely, that we cannot know whether it is really true or just a projection of our own needs. As Lutheran theologian John Warwick Montgomery puts it, “Truths do not always ‘work’, and beliefs that ‘work’ are by no means always true.” If James’s religious pragmatism has become virtually the American approach to spirituality today, then Dewey’s pragmatism has become the preferred approach to education. Virtually across the curriculum—from math class to moral education–teachers are trained to be nondirective “facilitators,” presenting students with problems and allowing them to work out their own pragmatic strategies for solving them. Of course, good teachers have always taught students to think for themselves. But today’s nondirective methodologies go far beyond that. They springboard from a Darwinian epistemology that denies the very existence of any objective or transcendent truth. Take, for example, “constructivism,” a popular trend in education today. Few realize that it is based on the idea that truth is nothing more than a social construction for solving problems. A leading theorist of constructivism, Ernst von Glasersfeld at the University of Georgia, is forthright about its Darwinian roots. “The function of cognition is adaptive in the biological sense,” he writes. “This means that ‘to know’ is not to possess ‘true representations’ of reality, but rather to possess ways and means of acting and thinking that allow one to attain the goals one happens to have chosen.” In short, a Darwinian epistemology implies that ideas are merely tools for meeting human goals. Postmodern Campuses These results of pragmatism are quite postmodern, so it comes as no surprise to learn that the prominent postmodernist Richard Rorty calls himself a neo-pragmatism. Rorty argues that postmodernism is simply the logical outcome of pragmatism, and explains why. According to the traditional, common-sense approach to knowledge, our ideas are true when the represent or correspond to reality. But according to Darwinian epistemology, ideas are nothing but tools that have evolved to help us control and manipulate the environment. As Rorty puts it, our theories “have no more of a representational relation to an intrinsic nature of things than does the anteater’s snout or the bowerbird’s skill at weaving” (Truth and Progress). Thus we evaluate an idea the same way that natural selection preserves the snout or the weaving instinct—not by asking how well it represents objective reality but only how well it works. I once presented this progression from Darwinism to postmodern pragmatism at a Christian college, when a man in the audience raised his hand: “I have only one question. These guys who think all our ideas and beliefs evolved … do they think their own ideas evolved?” The audience broke into delighted applause, because of course he had captured the key fallacy of the Darwinian approach to knowledge. If all ideas are products of evolution, and thus not really true but only useful for survival, then evolution itself is not true either—and why should the rest of us pay any attention to it? Indeed, the theory undercuts itself. For if evolution is true, then it is not true, but only useful. This kind of internal contradiction is fatal, for a theory that asserts something and denies it at the same time is simply nonsense. In short, naturalistic evolution is self-refuting. Clash of Worldviews The media paints the evolution controversy in terms of science versus religion. But it is much more accurate to say it is worldview versus worldview, philosophy versus philosophy. Making this point levels the playing field and opens the door to serious dialogue. Interestingly, a few evolutionists do acknowledge the point. Michael Ruse made a famous admission at the 1993 symposium of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. “Evolution as a scientific theory makes a commitment to naturalism,” he said–that is, it is a philosophy, not just facts. He went on: “Evolution … akin to religion, involves making certain a priori or metaphysical assumptions, which at some level cannot be proven empirically.” Ruse’s colleagues responded with shocked silence and afterward one of them, Arthur Shapiro, wrote a commentary titled, “Did Michael Ruse Give Away the Store?” But, ironically, in the process, Shapiro himself conceded that “there is an irreducible core of ideological assumptions underlying science.” He went on: “Darwinism is a philosophical preference, if by that we mean we choose to discuss the material Universe in terms of material processes accessible by material operations.” It is this worldview dimension that makes the debate over Darwin versus Intelligent Design so important. Every system of thought starts with a creation account that offers an answer to the fundamental question: Where did everything come from? That crucial starting point shapes everything that follows. Today a naturalistic approach to knowledge is being applied to virtually every field. Some say we’re entering an age of “Universal Darwinism,” where it is no longer just a scientific theory but a comprehensive worldview. It has become a commonplace to say that America is embroiled in a “culture war” over conflicting moral standards. But we must remember that morality is always derivative, stemming from an underlying worldview. The culture war reflects an underlying cognitive war over worldviews–and at the core of each worldview is an account of origins. https://www.namb.net/apologetics/resource/how-darwinism-dumbs-us-down/

bornagain77

@16

As I understand it, what we now regard as postmodernism emerged from a mode of literary criticism that arose long after Darwin. I doubt you will find many current evolutionary biologists who hold a postmodernist skepticism towards the possibility of access to objective truth.

The situation is not quite that simple. It is true that "postmodernism" first influenced British and American universities through the Literature Departments. But the major influences here are French philosophers who were, in various ways and to different degrees, strongly influenced by Friedrich Nietzsche. (There are lots of reasons why French philosophers gravitated towards Nietzsche in the late 1960s, having to do with the turmoil in French politics, including academic politics, around that time.) Nietzsche is, of course, a hugely controversial and provocative figure here. But I think the following claims are fairly well-attested. Firstly, Nietzsche was deeply skeptical about the possibility of "objective truth". Secondly, Nietzsche thought that the impossibility of objective truth was entailed by facts of physiological psychology. Briefly, he thought that every organism "interprets" its environment in terms that are biased towards what organisms of that kind need in order to flourish (in whatever kind-specific terms "flourishing" means - flourishing for the pike is death for the minnows). He had scant knowledge of Darwinism and he was critical of it in some regards ("one should not mistake Malthus for nature") but he also saw it as broadly consistent with his idea that the ecological and physiological conditions of life could not have generated a capacity to know objective truths. To make a really long story much shorter: it is not entirely absurd to see a line of influence running from Darwin to postmodernism via Nietzsche's reading of Darwinism and his influence on Foucault and Derrida. PyrrhoManiac1

Why does natural Evolution fail? The answer is that the most fine tuned systems outside of the universe itself are ecologies. Nearly all ecologies are made up of thousands of factors, many of them living but many not. For an ecology to persist, it is necessary that there be thousands of tradeoffs. When these tradeoffs are violated there is a substantial chance that the ecology will disappear as one of the variables starts to overwhelm the other factors (killing other life forms, consuming too much of the minerals needed for survival, changing the environmental elements). So the introduction of a new life form by some sort of natural process will inevitably destroy most ecologies and thus itself. The bigger the difference between the new life form and previous life forms, the greater and faster the chance the disappearance of the ecology will happen. We have four candidates for new life forms, Darwinian change, punctuated equilibrium, or some form of emergence are three proposed natural forms. Each of these will eliminate the ecology. The speed with which this happens is correlated with the method of naturalized Evolution proposed. The more offspring left, the faster the demise of the ecology. There is a fourth method and that is design. An intelligence would know how to design change so as not to destroy an ecology. The latter is what we see as basic genetics allows small changes but rarely enough to overwhelm the ecology in which it exists. We all know of a limited intelligence (humans) that has often upset ecologies by introducing new life forms or by eliminating essential variables within an existing ecology. But some much greater intelligence than humans seems to have thought it through and some distant time in the past implemented a design that allows changes for adaptation but not too much. Aside: The main argument against ID is that there is no evidence of an intelligence ever existing so the process must be natural and not some form of guidance. The problem with this argument is the fine tuning. What produced that. No objectors to ID has a coherent answer. Remember, any appeal to infinity is self referentially absurd. jerry

Whatever Seversky. Your hand-waving denialism does not negate the fact that, whether you ever honestly admit it or not, your Darwinian worldview commits epistemological suicide at every turn. For one instance (out of many),

Why Evolutionary Theory Cannot Survive Itself Nancy Pearcey - March 8, 2015 An example of self-referential absurdity is a theory called evolutionary epistemology, a naturalistic approach that applies evolution to the process of knowing. The theory proposes that the human mind is a product of natural selection. The implication is that the ideas in our minds were selected for their survival value, not for their truth-value. But what if we apply that theory to itself? Then it, too, was selected for survival, not truth — which discredits its own claim to truth. Evolutionary epistemology commits suicide. Astonishingly, many prominent thinkers have embraced the theory without detecting the logical contradiction. Philosopher John Gray writes, “If Darwin’s theory of natural selection is true,… the human mind serves evolutionary success, not truth.” What is the contradiction in that statement? Gray has essentially said, if Darwin’s theory is true, then it “serves evolutionary success, not truth.” In other words, if Darwin’s theory is true, then it is not true. Self-referential absurdity is akin to the well-known liar’s paradox: “This statement is a lie.” If the statement is true, then (as it says) it is not true, but a lie. Another example comes from Francis Crick. In The Astonishing Hypothesis, he writes, “Our highly developed brains, after all, were not evolved under the pressure of discovering scientific truths but only to enable us to be clever enough to survive.” But that means Crick’s own theory is not a “scientific truth.” Applied to itself, the theory commits suicide. Of course, the sheer pressure to survive is likely to produce some correct ideas. A zebra that thinks lions are friendly will not live long. But false ideas may be useful for survival. Evolutionists admit as much: Eric Baum says, “Sometimes you are more likely to survive and propagate if you believe a falsehood than if you believe the truth.” Steven Pinker writes, “Our brains were shaped for fitness, not for truth. Sometimes the truth is adaptive, but sometimes it is not.” The upshot is that survival is no guarantee of truth. If survival is the only standard, we can never know which ideas are true and which are adaptive but false. To make the dilemma even more puzzling, evolutionists tell us that natural selection has produced all sorts of false concepts in the human mind. Many evolutionary materialists maintain that free will is an illusion, consciousness is an illusion, even our sense of self is an illusion — and that all these false ideas were selected for their survival value. So how can we know whether the theory of evolution itself is one of those false ideas? The theory undercuts itself. A few thinkers, to their credit, recognize the problem. Literary critic Leon Wieseltier writes, “If reason is a product of natural selection, then how much confidence can we have in a rational argument for natural selection? … Evolutionary biology cannot invoke the power of reason even as it destroys it.” On a similar note, philosopher Thomas Nagel asks, “Is the [evolutionary] hypothesis really compatible with the continued confidence in reason as a source of knowledge?” His answer is no: “I have to be able to believe … that I follow the rules of logic because they are correct — not merely because I am biologically programmed to do so.” Hence, “insofar as the evolutionary hypothesis itself depends on reason, it would be self-undermining.”,,, https://evolutionnews.org/2015/03/why_evolutionar/

bornagain77

Bornagain77/13

Seversky at 11, if you are to present yourself as a purveyor of truth, who is unbiased by religious presuppositions, ought not you first be able to ground ‘truth’ within the reductive materialism of your Darwinian worldview?

I am not presenting myself as a "purveyor of truth" but I am critical of the absolute and eternal truths to which some others believe they are privy.

You see Seversky, ‘truth’ is an abstract property of the immaterial mind that simply can’t be grounded within the reductive materialism of your Darwinian worldview.

That depends on your definition of "truth". My working version is what I believe is called the correspondence theory in which the truth value of any claim about the nature of the observable Universe is the extent to which it corresponds to what it purports to describe and/or explain. So what do you understand truth to be?

You see Seversky, ‘truth’ is an abstract property of the immaterial mind that simply can’t be grounded within the reductive materialism of your Darwinian worldview.

No, for me, truth lies in the relationship between what we observe and the narratives we create to explain those observations. Since those explanations can be applied to any or all of the observable layers in the reductionist hierarchy, I see no difficulty in grounding truth therein As for those enamored with the concept of "worldview" I refer them to this blog post by Australian philosopher of science, John S Wilkins,

Who invented worldviews? PUBLISHED 5 FEB 2023 by John S. Wilkins As a young man/teenager, I heard a lot about worldviews, and didn’t think much of it. The philosophers talked about them, the theologians talked about them, and the gurus talked about them. It was always a choice between worldviews. But it was at best only vaguely communicated by these great thinkers what a worldview actually was. In recent years I have dabbled in the question of belief formation, and I have argued that what views a person is best aligned towards are the ones asserted by those of authority in their epistemic world. I will write more on this anon. But, as we all know by now, ideas have genealogies, and each subsequent use of an idea and its terminology owes something to the originators of that idea, either by simply following them, and the assumptions they used to support the idea, or in debates that have occurred since. And so I purchased a little volume Worldview, the history of a concept by David K. Naugle (2002) to trace this back. Naugle is an evangelical scholar, but I have no reason to doubt his historical bona fides, although I suspect I disagree with him on many points. But Naugle’s Christianity is not irrelevant to the topic, as the most frequent users of this concept are indeed Christians, especially those influenced by Kuyperian Reformed Theology, via Hermann Dooyeweerd, as I was in my teens through Francis A. Schaeffer’s popular texts.† In what came to be known as “Presuppositionalism“, these Christian thinkers argued that something is neither rational nor irrational in themselves, but only when based on a set of presuppositions. Science was a source of knowledge with one set of presuppositions, but not with another. One person’s presuppositions are another person’s prejudices. Or, to put it in terms of the late 60s, “What’s true for you isn’t necessarily true for me”. Philosophy knows this as relativism, and it is usually a problem in the field of beliefs. I don’t think it is the bogeyman that some do, but that is for another post. Worldviews came to the fore in the late 19th century in the English-speaking world via the revival of Christian intellectualism, which started after (among other things) Darwin’s theory became widely known. This is also the period during which the so-called “Conflict Thesis” of a war between science and religion was created (by way of bad history, during arguments about secular education). But one of the most influential wordviewers in the English language was Scottish Presbyterian theologian James Orr in his 1891 Kerr Lecture:

A reader of the higher class of works in German theology—especially those that deal with the philosophy of religion—cannot fail to be struck with the constant recurrence of a word for which he finds it difficult to get a precise equivalent in English. It is the word “Weltanschauung,” sometimes interchanged with another compound of the same signification, “Weltansicht.” Both words mean literally “view of the world,” but whereas the phrase in English is limited by associations which connect it predominatingly with physical nature, in German the word is not thus limited, but has almost the force of a technical term, denoting the widest view which the mind can take of things in the effort to grasp them together as a whole from the standpoint of some particular philosophy or theology. To speak, therefore, of a “Christian view of the world” implies that Christianity also has its highest point of view, and its view of life connected therewith, and that this, when developed, constitutes an ordered whole. The Christian View of God and the World, p3

Kant himself used the term Weltanschauung (world intuition, or world perspective) only once, although as Englert (2002) observes, he also uses Weltbegriff (world concept), Weltbetrachtung (world observation), and Weltbeschauung (world inspection) for perspectives on the sensible world.

For it is only by means of this [faculty in the human mind that is itself supersensible] and its idea of a noumenon, which itself admits of no intuition though it presupposes as the substratum of the Weltanschauung as mere appearance, that the infinite of the sensible world is completely comprehended in the pure intellectual estimation of magnitude under a concept, even though it can never be completely thought in the mathematical estimation of magnitude through numerical concepts. Critique of Judgment I, 1, §26, 92; AA 5, pp. 254-5), translated in Englert 2022.

And I have no idea why you are dragging "pragmatic postmodernism" into this,

You don’t have to take my word for the fact that Darwinian evolution can’t ground truth, Postmodern pragmatists, via their Darwinian presuppositions, have been claiming that objective truth does not actually exist for over a century now, ever since Darwin’s theory first made it to the shores of America. (as well they deny the existence of objective morality).

As I understand it, what we now regard as postmodernism emerged from a mode of literary criticism that arose long after Darwin. I doubt you will find many current evolutionary biologists who hold a postmodernist skepticism towards the possibility of access to objective truth. And what do you understand objective truth to be? Seversky

Ba77, The commitment to selling a product called unguided evolution must continue. They have no choice - at least they think they don't. relatd

But anyways, to go a bit further. The existence of objective, immaterial, eternal, 'truths' turns out to be a fairly powerful argument for the existence of God.

Twenty Arguments For The Existence Of God – Peter Kreeft 11. The Argument from Truth This argument is closely related to the argument from consciousness. It comes mainly from Augustine. 1. Our limited minds can discover eternal truths about being. 2. Truth properly resides in a mind. 3. But the human mind is not eternal. 4. Therefore there must exist an eternal mind in which these truths reside. https://www.peterkreeft.com/topics-more/20_arguments-gods-existence.htm#11

And this argument can be clearly illustrated by simply referencing 1+1=2 and 2+2=4. Although elementary school children intuitively know that 1+1+2 is objectively true, it turns out to be exceedingly difficult to actually try to prove that 1+1+2 is objectively true.

"Whitehead and Russell's Principia Mathematica (1910) is famous for taking a thousand pages to prove that 1+1=2. Of course, it proves a lot of other stuff, too. If they had wanted to prove only that 1+1=2, it would probably have taken only half as much space." https://blog.plover.com/math/PM.html

As well, at the 10:00 minute mark of the following video, the fact that it was exceedingly difficult for mathematicians to try to ‘prove’ that 1+1=2 is discussed.

BBC-Dangerous Knowledge – Part 3 of 5 https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xdoj7y 4 of 5 https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xdoj8c

In fact Godel, (as was touched upon in the preceding videos), ended up proving that in any arithmetic system, even in elementary parts of arithmetic, there are propositions which cannot be proved or disproved within the system.

First incompleteness theorem Excerpt: Any consistent formal system F within which a certain amount of elementary arithmetic can be carried out is incomplete; i.e., there are statements of the language of F which can neither be proved nor disproved in F. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/goedel-incompleteness/

In short, it turns out that it can neither be proved nor disproved that 1+1=2. This puts Darwinian materialists in quite the bind. We all know, even elementary school children intuitively know, that 1+1=2 is objectively and eternally true. Yet Darwinian materialists simply have no way to ground this objective, immaterial, and eternal truth of 1+1=2. As Vern Poythress observed in his analysis of the implications of Godel's proof, without God providing the solid foundation for their epistemology, atheists can’t even ‘know'’ that 2+2=4.

A Biblical View Of Mathematics Vern Poythress - Doctorate in theology, PhD in Mathematics (Harvard) 15. Implications of Gödel’s proof B. Metaphysical problems of anti-theistic mathematics: unity and plurality Excerpt: Because of the above difficulties, anti-theistic philosophy of mathematics is condemned to oscillate, much as we have done in our argument, between the poles of a priori knowledge and a posteriori knowledge. Why? It will not acknowledge the true God, wise Creator of both the human mind with its mathematical intuition and the external world with its mathematical properties. In sections 22-23 we shall see how the Biblical view furnishes us with a real solution to the problem of “knowing” that 2 + 2 = 4 and knowing that S is true. http://www.frame-poythress.org/a-biblical-view-of-mathematics/

Moreover, Godel incompleteness is not just some proof that is limited to the upper echelons of the philosophy of mathematics, but Godel's proof has now been extended into quantum mechanics. And this extension of Godel's proof into quantum physics is simply devastating to the entire reductive materialistic foundation that Darwinian evolution itself is based upon. Specifically, it is now proven that “even a perfect and complete description of the microscopic properties of a material is not enough to predict its macroscopic behaviour.,,,” and that “they also challenge the reductionists' point of view, as the insurmountable difficulty lies precisely in the derivation of macroscopic properties from a microscopic description.".",

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

I would like to think that Godel, (who was a Christian by the way), somewhere in heaven, is very pleased to know that his incompleteness proof has now been extended to undermine the reductive materialism of Darwinian evolution at its very foundation.

Conservation of information, evolution, etc - Sept. 30, 2014 Excerpt: Kurt Gödel’s logical objection to Darwinian evolution: "The formation in geological time of the human body by the laws of physics (or any other laws of similar nature), starting from a random distribution of elementary particles and the field is as unlikely as the separation of the atmosphere into its components. The complexity of the living things has to be present within the material [from which they are derived] or in the laws [governing their formation]." Gödel - As quoted in H. Wang. “On `computabilism’ and physicalism: Some Problems.” in Nature’s Imagination, J. Cornwall, Ed, pp.161-189, Oxford University Press (1995). Gödel’s argument is that if evolution is unfolding from an initial state by mathematical laws of physics, it cannot generate any information not inherent from the start – and in his view, neither the primaeval environment nor the laws are information-rich enough.,,, More recently this led him (Dembski) to postulate a Law of Conservation of Information, or actually to consolidate the idea, first put forward by Nobel-prizewinner Peter Medawar in the 1980s. Medawar had shown, as others before him, that in mathematical and computational operations, no new information can be created, but new findings are always implicit in the original starting points – laws and axioms.,,, http://potiphar.jongarvey.co.uk/2014/09/30/conservation-of-information-evolution-etc/

Verse:

John 14:6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

bornagain77

Seversky at 11, if you are to present yourself as a purveyor of truth, who is unbiased by religious presuppositions, ought not you first be able to ground 'truth' within the reductive materialism of your Darwinian worldview? You see Seversky, 'truth' is an abstract property of the immaterial mind that simply can't be grounded within the reductive materialism of your Darwinian worldview. How much does truth weigh? Does the concept of Truth weigh more in English or in Chinese? How long is the concept of Truth in millimeters? How fast does the concept of Truth go? Is the concept of Truth faster or slower than the speed of light? Is the concept of Truth positively or negatively charged? Or etc.. etc.. ?. The entire concept of 'Truth' is an abstract property and/or definition of the immaterial mind that cannot possibly be reduced to any possible materialistic explanation.

“Truth is immaterial and can be seen using an open mind that voluntarily follows evidence regardless.” – Andrew Fabich – Associate Professor of Microbiology – Truett McConnell University – 2016

And since Truth is obviously immaterial in its foundational essence then it necessarily follows that Darwinian materialism can never possibly be true since it can't possibly ground truth., (And this 'epistemological' failure of Darwinian evolution as possibly being true comes way before we even start evaluating the myriad of falsifications of Darwin’s theory from empirical science). You don’t have to take my word for the fact that Darwinian evolution can't ground truth, Postmodern pragmatists, via their Darwinian presuppositions, have been claiming that objective truth does not actually exist for over a century now, ever since Darwin’s theory first made it to the shores of America. (as well they deny the existence of objective morality).

"Postmodernists contend that there is no objective truth, rather truth is constructed by society. All ideas of morality are not real, but constructed." - Caleb Garbuio How Darwinism Dumbs Us Down by Nancy Pearcey Excerpt: I once presented this progression from Darwinism to postmodern pragmatism at a Christian college, when a man in the audience raised his hand: “I have only one question. These guys who think all our ideas and beliefs evolved . . . do they think their own ideas evolved?” The audience broke into delighted applause, because of course he had captured the key fallacy of the Darwinian approach to knowledge. If all ideas are products of evolution, and thus not really true but only useful for survival, then evolution itself is not true either–and why should the rest of us pay any attention to it? Indeed, the theory undercuts itself. For if evolution is true, then it is not true, but only useful. This kind of internal contradiction is fatal, for a theory that asserts something and denies it at the same time is simply nonsense. In short, naturalistic evolution is self-refuting. https://www.namb.net/apologetics/resource/how-darwinism-dumbs-us-down/

Of course denying the reality of objective truth, and yet claiming Darwinian evolution is objectively true, is a blatantly self-refuting position for Seversky, or any Darwinist, to be in. But alas, such things never seem to bother Seversky, or other Darwinists, and so I fully expect him/them to keep up his/their Darwinian cheerleading.,,, It is truly sad. bornagain77

KF/10 For heaven’s sake, give it a rest. The article is about horses for crying out loud……. chuckdarwin

I suggest that the most egregious misinformers are those who subscribe to and promote the most absurd conspiracy theories as long as they are judged to conform to their religious and/or political presuppositions and are thereby preferable to what are condemned as "lockstep media education power elite" establishment narratives. And while there may be a difference in degree, is there any difference in kind between the former and those who believe our society has fallen under the influence of reptilian shape-shifters, for example? As for the missteps in the management of the COVID pandemic, they may have provided welcome fodder for the denizens of the conspiriverse but they came as no surprise to those of us who subscribe to the "cock-up" rather than the conspiracy theory of human history Seversky

General Comment: I suggest that the biggest misinformers are those in a lockstep media education power elite establishment who have failed in duty to truth and right reason. For example, Wikipedia is notoriously ideology driven, never mind platitudes about NPOV. It is astonishing that it is not a commonplace that evolutionary materialistic scientism is self refuting, self falsifying and cannot be true. Similarly, the Covid fiasco speaks for itself. Reichstag fire incident agit prop tactics are also closer to hand than we may want to believe, precisely because of narrative domination and ruthless agendas. The media lockstep, censorship and other dubious tactics that the covid fiasco helped to bring in speak for themselves; especially, as narratives begin to unravel. We need to take sober note as to who misled us and doubled down on misleading us. KF kairosfocus

Jerry, IIRC the man had cumulatively run something like 100+ miles. Here they suggest 150 https://www.runnersworld.com/runners-stories/a20836761/the-real-pheidippides-story/ KF kairosfocus

Introduction of the Horse to Battle Horses were common in Ancient Greece, but they were very expensive to buy and maintain. Some horses were so prized that they ate wheat instead of barley and drank wine instead of water. Because horses were so expensive, they were not used in the military until Alexander the Great made them commonplace. Horses were first used to pull chariots into battle around 1500 BCE, but people did not start riding into battle on horseback until 900 BCE. While the Greeks were not the first to ride on a horse, Alexander the Great used this tactic in his military campaigns much more than leaders before him.

Seversky

I take it the key issue isn't domestication per se, but the leatherworking and metallurgy for making the tools that allow riders to communicate with and control their horses. Apparently horses were rarely used in ancient Greece because they were expensive to maintain, and so were exclusive to the rich -- also apparently horses were used to pull chariots, and not ridden. PyrrhoManiac1

Good points, Jerry at 5. We don't know what happened for sure re the marathon. But, generally, horses are considered higher maintenance than donkeys, oxen, or camels, so - for what it is worth - in most cultures they were associated with the upper classes. The exceptions would, of course, be "horse cultures" as such. News

did the Athenians even keep many horses

The battle was in Marathon and today is still very green. I have no idea if the Greek army had any horses but even a donkey would have been faster. The whole event may have been made up as it didn’t get reported for a couple of hundred years. Aside: I have a photo I took of the mound at Marathon where all the soldiers were supposedly buried. jerry

Jerry at 1, probably but did the Athenians even keep many horses? Pasture land was an issue in such places. Horses were actually a luxury. The average person made do with a mule or donkey, content with poorer conditons. News

Asauber at 2, the horse training part is easier than we might think. The trick is to get the foal early enough that he doesn't know that he isn't "supposed to" do that. And, whatever else he knows or doesn't know - he knows where his oats come from and who will fight off the wolf pack. News

Chesterton said something about a friend of his telling him that watching an airplane take off was amazing, but not as wonderful as seeing a horse let a man ride on the horse's back. I gotta find that quote somewhere. I love it. Andrew asauber

I always thought it was interesting that a marathon is determined by the distance from Marathon to Athens. The man who ran the distance announced the winner of the battle at Marathon, then died from the effort. Surely there was a horse somewhere that could easily make the trip much faster. jerry