Jeffrey Shallit also holds forth on Yale’s David Gelernter

The following videos, in a bit more detail, touch upon how consciousness, quantum information theory, and molecular biology correlate

Darwinian Materialism vs. Quantum Biology – Part II - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSig2CsjKbg  How Quantum Mechanics and Consciousness Correlate – video (how consciousness, quantum information theory, and molecular biology correlate – 27 minute mark) https://youtu.be/4f0hL3Nrdas?t=1634 

In other words, Intelligent Design, and a semi-direct inference to God as the Intelligence behind life, (via infinite regress to the omniscient Mind of God), has, for all intents and purposes, achieved experimental confirmation. Of related note to the unavoidable “infinite regress” of information that leads to the necessity of omniscience, specifically to the necessity of the omniscient Mind of God,,

A Mono-Theism Theorem: Gödelian Consistency in the Hierarchy of Inference – Winston Ewert and Robert J. Marks II – June 2014 Abstract: Logic is foundational in the assessment of philosophy and the validation of theology. In 1931 Kurt Gödel derailed Russell and Whitehead’s Principia Mathematica by showing logically that any set of consistent axioms will eventually yield unknowable propositions. Gödel did so by showing that, otherwise, the formal system would be inconsistent. Turing, in the first celebrated application of Gödelian ideas, demonstrated the impossibility of writing a computer program capable of examining another arbitrary program and announcing whether or not that program would halt or run forever. He did so by showing that the existence of a halting program can lead to self-refuting propositions. We propose that, through application of Gödelian reasoning, there can be, at most, one being in the universe omniscient over all other beings. This Supreme Being must by necessity exist or have existed outside of time and space. The conclusion results simply from the requirement of a logical consistency of one being having the ability to answer questions about another. The existence of any question that generates a self refuting response is assumed to invalidate the ability of a being to be all-knowing about the being who was the subject of the question. http://robertmarks.org/REPRINTS/2014_AMonoTheismTheorem.pdf

Also of important note to the relationship between quantum entanglement and immaterial information, i.e. "quantum entanglement can be used as a quantum information channel"

Quantum Entanglement and Information Quantum entanglement is a physical resource, like energy, associated with the peculiar nonclassical correlations that are possible between separated quantum systems. Entanglement can be measured, transformed, and purified. A pair of quantum systems in an entangled state can be used as a quantum information channel to perform computational and cryptographic tasks that are impossible for classical systems. The general study of the information-processing capabilities of quantum systems is the subject of quantum information theory. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qt-entangle/

And whereas atheistic materialists are at a complete loss to explain how particles can be instantly correlated, via quantum entanglement/information in molecular biology, or instantly correlated anywhere else for that matter,,,,

Quantum correlations do not imply instant causation – August 12, 2016 Excerpt: A research team led by a Heriot-Watt scientist has shown that the universe is even weirder than had previously been thought. In 2015 the universe was officially proven to be weird. After many decades of research, a series of experiments showed that distant, entangled objects can seemingly interact with each other through what Albert Einstein famously dismissed as “Spooky action at a distance”. A new experiment by an international team led by Heriot-Watt’s Dr Alessandro Fedrizzi has now found that the universe is even weirder than that: entangled objects do not cause each other to behave the way they do. http://phys.org/news/2016-08-quantum-imply-instant-causation.html  Experimental test of nonlocal causality – August 10, 2016 DISCUSSION Previous work on causal explanations beyond local hidden-variable models focused on testing Leggett’s crypto-nonlocality (7, 42, 43), a class of models with a very specific choice of hidden variable that is unrelated to Bell’s local causality (44). In contrast, we make no assumptions on the form of the hidden variable and test all models ,,, Our results demonstrate that a causal influence from one measurement outcome to the other, which may be subluminal, superluminal, or even instantaneous, cannot explain the observed correlations.,,, http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/2/8/e1600162.full  Looking beyond space and time to cope with quantum theory – 29 October 2012 Excerpt: “Our result gives weight to the idea that quantum correlations somehow arise from outside spacetime, in the sense that no story in space and time can describe them,” http://www.quantumlah.org/highlight/121029_hidden_influences.php 

And whereas atheistic materialists are at a complete loss to explain how particles can be instantly correlated in molecular biology via quantum entanglement/information, on the other hand Christian Theists readily have a beyond space-time, matter-energy, cause that they can appeal to in order to explain the pervasive quantum non-locality within molecular biology:

Colossians 1:17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 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.

The implication of finding 'non-local', beyond space and time, and even ‘conserved’, quantum information in molecular biology on such a massive scale, in every important biomolecule in our bodies, is fairly, and pleasantly, obvious. That pleasant implication, of course, being the fact that we now have very strong empirical evidence suggesting that we do indeed have an eternal soul that is capable of living beyond the death of our material bodies. As Stuart Hameroff states in the following video, the quantum information,,, isn’t destroyed. It can’t be destroyed.,,, it's possible that this quantum information can exist outside the body. Perhaps indefinitely as a soul.”

Leading Scientists Say Consciousness Cannot Die It Goes Back To The Universe - Oct. 19, 2017 - Spiritual Excerpt: “Let’s say the heart stops beating. The blood stops flowing. The microtubules lose their quantum state. But the quantum information, which is in the microtubules, isn’t destroyed. It can’t be destroyed. It just distributes and dissipates to the universe at large. If a patient is resuscitated, revived, this quantum information can go back into the microtubules and the patient says, “I had a near death experience. I saw a white light. I saw a tunnel. I saw my dead relatives.,,” Now if they’re not revived and the patient dies, then it's possible that this quantum information can exist outside the body. Perhaps indefinitely as a soul.” - Stuart Hameroff - Quantum Entangled Consciousness - Life After Death - video (5:00 minute mark) https://www.disclose.tv/leading-scientists-say-consciousness-cannot-die-it-goes-back-to-the-universe-315604

Verse:

Mark 8:37 Is anything worth more than your soul?

Here is an interesting supplemental note: Darwinian materialists, with their reductive materialistic framework, have no clue why our temporal material bodies, conservatively estimated to contain at least a billion trillion molecules, should remain unified as single entity for precisely a lifetime. As Stephen Talbott succinctly puts it, “the question, rather, is why things don’t fall completely apart — as they do, in fact, at the moment of death. What power holds off that moment — precisely for a lifetime, and not a moment longer?”

The Unbearable Wholeness of Beings – Stephen L. Talbott – 2010 Excerpt: Virtually the same collection of molecules exists in the canine cells during the moments immediately before and after death. But after the fateful transition no one will any longer think of genes as being regulated, nor will anyone refer to normal or proper chromosome functioning. No molecules will be said to guide other molecules to specific targets, and no molecules will be carrying signals, which is just as well because there will be no structures recognizing signals. Code, information, and communication, in their biological sense, will have disappeared from the scientist’s vocabulary. ,,, the question, rather, is why things don’t fall completely apart — as they do, in fact, at the moment of death. What power holds off that moment — precisely for a lifetime, and not a moment longer? Despite the countless processes going on in the cell, and despite the fact that each process might be expected to “go its own way” according to the myriad factors impinging on it from all directions, the actual result is quite different. Rather than becoming progressively disordered in their mutual relations (as indeed happens after death, when the whole dissolves into separate fragments), the processes hold together in a larger unity. http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-unbearable-wholeness-of-beings

The Christian Theist, of course, has a ready answer for that question of “What power holds off that moment — precisely for a lifetime, and not a moment longer? “. The answer, as Christians have been saying for two thousand years now, is, of course, that it is the soul that holds that power off “precisely for a lifetime, and not a moment longer”.

James 2:26 As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead. Luke 23:43 Jesus answered him, "Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise."

bornagain77

Bob O'Hara referenced this in regards to himself in post 15

Bob O'Hara Dept of Mathematical Sciences and CBD, NTNU https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=OpCdJIEAAAAJ

That Bob O'Hara, a Darwinian materialist, earns his bread and butter by working with mathematics is very interesting since, as was pointed out in post 4, the very existence of mathematics itself refutes the reductive materialism of his Darwinian worldview,,,

Simply put, Mathematics itself, contrary to the materialistic presuppositions of Darwinists, exists in some sort of timeless realm that does not change and thus mathematics certainly does not need the temporal material world in order to exist. And yet Darwinists, although they deny that anything beyond the physical realm exists exists, need this transcendent and unchanging world of mathematics in order for their theory to be considered scientific in the first place. The predicament that Darwinists find themselves in regards to denying the reality of this transcendent and unchanging immaterial world of mathematics, and yet needing validation from this transcendent and unchanging immaterial world of mathematics in order to be considered scientific in the first place, should be the very definition of a scientifically self-refuting worldview. https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/intelligent-design/jeffrey-shallit-also-holds-forth-on-yales-david-gelernter/#comment-682550

That Bob O'Hara's own occupation, i.e. mathematics, refutes the reductive materialism of his Darwinian worldview, and yet Bob O'Hara apparently cannot see it, is a shining example of what is known as 'cognitive dissonance':

cog·ni·tive dis·so·nance noun - PSYCHOLOGY the state of having inconsistent thoughts, beliefs, or attitudes, especially as relating to behavioral decisions and attitude change.

Semi-simply put, the ontological priority in science of immaterial mathematics refutes the reductive materialism of Darwinian evolution as a ‘science’. This ontological priority of the immaterial realm also plays into scientifically refuting Darwinian evolution on a more direct, i.e. a more empirical, level. The main debate between ID advocates and Darwinists is over the inability of material processes to generate information. Darwinists simply have zero scientific evidence that material processes can generate non-trivial levels of information. Whereas, on the other hand, ID advocates have a veritable infinity of examples that they can point to of intelligent minds generating massive amounts of information. What is interesting about information, and one of the primary reasons that material processes will never be able explain to origination of information, is the immaterial nature of information. As Dr. Stephen Meyer explains, “information is a mass-less quantity. Now, if information is not a material entity, then how can any materialistic explanation account for its origin? How can any material cause explain it’s origin? And this is the real and fundamental problem that the presence of information in biology has posed. It creates a fundamental challenge to the materialistic, evolutionary scenarios because information is a different kind of entity that matter and energy cannot produce.”

“One of the things I do in my classes, to get this idea across to students, is I hold up two computer disks. One is loaded with software, and the other one is blank. And I ask them, ‘what is the difference in mass between these two computer disks, as a result of the difference in the information content that they posses’? And of course the answer is, ‘Zero! None! There is no difference as a result of the information. And that’s because information is a mass-less quantity. Now, if information is not a material entity, then how can any materialistic explanation account for its origin? How can any material cause explain it’s origin? And this is the real and fundamental problem that the presence of information in biology has posed. It creates a fundamental challenge to the materialistic, evolutionary scenarios because information is a different kind of entity that matter and energy cannot produce. In the nineteenth century we thought that there were two fundamental entities in science; matter, and energy. At the beginning of the twenty first century, we now recognize that there’s a third fundamental entity; and its ‘information’. It’s not reducible to matter. It’s not reducible to energy. But it’s still a very important thing that is real; we buy it, we sell it, we send it down wires. Now, what do we make of the fact, that information is present at the very root of all biological function? In biology, we have matter, we have energy, but we also have this third, very important entity; information. I think the biology of the information age, poses a fundamental challenge to any materialistic approach to the origin of life.” -Dr. Stephen C. Meyer earned his Ph.D. in the History and Philosophy of science from Cambridge University for a dissertation on the history of origin-of-life biology and the methodology of the historical sciences. Intelligent design: Why can’t biological information originate through a materialistic process? – Stephen Meyer – video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqiXNxyoof8

In further establishing the immaterial nature of information, it is interesting to note that immaterial information can be encoded on a virtual endless variety of material substrates, and yet the meaning of the information never changes from one material substrate to the next. i.e. Immaterial information is simply not reducible to a materialistic explanation! George Ellis further elucidates the immaterial nature of information and of mind in the following excellent article,,

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

Moreover, one of the primary presuppositions of Darwinists is that they hold that information to be merely emergent from a material basis. Yet, contrary to that primary presupposition of Darwinists, immaterial information is now shown to be its own distinct physical entity that is separate from matter and energy, A distinct physical entity that has, of all things, a ‘thermodynamic content’. In the following 2010 experimental realization of Maxwell’s demon thought experiment, it was demonstrated that knowledge of a particle’s location and/or position converts information into energy.

Maxwell’s demon demonstration turns information into energy – November 2010 Excerpt: Scientists in Japan are the first to have succeeded in converting information into free energy in an experiment that verifies the “Maxwell demon” thought experiment devised in 1867.,,, In Maxwell’s thought experiment the demon creates a temperature difference simply from information about the gas molecule temperatures and without transferring any energy directly to them.,,, Until now, demonstrating the conversion of information to energy has been elusive, but University of Tokyo physicist Masaki Sano and colleagues have succeeded in demonstrating it in a nano-scale experiment. In a paper published in Nature Physics they describe how they coaxed a Brownian particle to travel upwards on a “spiral-staircase-like” potential energy created by an electric field solely on the basis of information on its location. As the particle traveled up the staircase it gained energy from moving to an area of higher potential, and the team was able to measure precisely how much energy had been converted from information. http://www.physorg.com/news/2010-11-maxwell-demon-energy.html

And as the following 2010 article stated about the preceding experiment, “This is a beautiful experimental demonstration that information has a thermodynamic content,”

Demonic device converts information to energy – 2010 Excerpt: “This is a beautiful experimental demonstration that information has a thermodynamic content,” says Christopher Jarzynski, a statistical chemist at the University of Maryland in College Park. In 1997, Jarzynski formulated an equation to define the amount of energy that could theoretically be converted from a unit of information2; the work by Sano and his team has now confirmed this equation. “This tells us something new about how the laws of thermodynamics work on the microscopic scale,” says Jarzynski. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=demonic-device-converts-inform

In fact, in a very exciting breakthrough that holds much promise, researchers have now built “ an information engine—a device that converts information into work—with an efficiency that exceeds the conventional second law of thermodynamics.”

Information engine operates with nearly perfect efficiency – Lisa Zyga – January 19, 2018 Excerpt: Physicists have experimentally demonstrated an information engine—a device that converts information into work—with an efficiency that exceeds the conventional second law of thermodynamics. Instead, the engine’s efficiency is bounded by a recently proposed generalized second law of thermodynamics, and it is the first information engine to approach this new bound.,,, https://phys.org/news/2018-01-efficiency.html

Although the preceding is certainly very strong empirical evidence for the physical reality of immaterial information, the coup de grace for demonstrating that immaterial information is its own distinct physical entity, separate from matter and energy, is Quantum Teleportation:

Quantum Teleportation Enters the Real World – September 19, 2016 Excerpt: Two separate teams of scientists have taken quantum teleportation from the lab into the real world. Researchers working in Calgary, Canada and Hefei, China, used existing fiber optics networks to transmit small units of information across cities via quantum entanglement — Einstein’s “spooky action at a distance.”,,, This isn’t teleportation in the “Star Trek” sense — the photons aren’t disappearing from one place and appearing in another. Instead, it’s the information that’s being teleported through quantum entanglement.,,, ,,, it is only the information that gets teleported from one place to another. http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/2016/09/19/quantum-teleportation-enters-real-world/#.V-HqWNEoDtR

On top of all that, as the following 2017 article states: James Clerk Maxwell (said), “The idea of dissipation of energy depends on the extent of our knowledge.”,,, quantum information theory,,, describes the spread of information through quantum systems.,,, Fifteen years ago, “we thought of entropy as a property of a thermodynamic system,” he said. “Now in (quantum) information theory, we wouldn’t say entropy is a property of a system, but a property of an observer who describes a system.”,,,

The Quantum Thermodynamics Revolution – May 2017 Excerpt: the 19th-century physicist James Clerk Maxwell put it, “The idea of dissipation of energy depends on the extent of our knowledge.” In recent years, a revolutionary understanding of thermodynamics has emerged that explains this subjectivity using quantum information theory — “a toddler among physical theories,” as del Rio and co-authors put it, that describes the spread of information through quantum systems. Just as thermodynamics initially grew out of trying to improve steam engines, today’s thermodynamicists are mulling over the workings of quantum machines. Shrinking technology — a single-ion engine and three-atom fridge were both experimentally realized for the first time within the past year — is forcing them to extend thermodynamics to the quantum realm, where notions like temperature and work lose their usual meanings, and the classical laws don’t necessarily apply. They’ve found new, quantum versions of the laws that scale up to the originals. Rewriting the theory from the bottom up has led experts to recast its basic concepts in terms of its subjective nature, and to unravel the deep and often surprising relationship between energy and information — the abstract 1s and 0s by which physical states are distinguished and knowledge is measured.,,, Renato Renner, a professor at ETH Zurich in Switzerland, described this as a radical shift in perspective. Fifteen years ago, “we thought of entropy as a property of a thermodynamic system,” he said. “Now in (quantum) information theory, we wouldn’t say entropy is a property of a system, but a property of an observer who describes a system.”,,, https://www.quantamagazine.org/quantum-thermodynamics-revolution/

Again to repeat that last sentence, “Now in (quantum) information theory, we wouldn’t say entropy is a property of a system, but a property of an observer who describes a system.”,,,” Think about that statement for a second. These experiments completely blow the reductive materialistic presuppositions of Darwinian evolution, (presuppositions about information being merely ’emergent’ from some material basis), out of the water, and tie the creation of immaterial information directly to the knowledge of the ‘observer’ in quantum theory. In other words, contrary to the reductive materialistic presuppositions of Darwinists, immaterial information, particularly this ‘thermodynamic positional information’, is now experimentally shown, via quantum information theory, to be its own distinct physical entity that, although it is immaterial, it can, none-the-less, interact with matter and energy,,, and is even shown to be its own independent, ‘non-local’ beyond space and time, entity that is separate from matter and energy. On top of all that, this immaterial ‘thermodynamic positional information’ is found, via quantum information theory, to be, of all things, “a property of an observer who describes a system.” bornagain77

Contrary to what Bob O'Hara would like to assert with his appeal to Tiktaalik and Homo erectus, the fossil record is far more antagonistic to Darwinian presuppositions than he is willing to honestly admit. In fact, the fossil record is basically 'upside down' to what Charles Darwin himself predicted. First off, the Cambrian explosion obliterates the Darwinian notion of gradualism:

Cambrian Explosion Ruins Darwin’s Tree of Life (2 minutes in 24 hour day) – video (2:55 minute mark) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vA2LDiWeWb4

Moreover, as Dr. Wells points out in the preceding video, Darwin predicted that minor differences (diversity) between species would gradually appear first and then the differences would grow larger (disparity) between species as time went on. i.e. universal common descent as depicted in Darwin's tree of life. What Darwin predicted should be familiar to everyone and is easily represented in the following graph.

The Theory - Diversity precedes Disparity - graph http://www.veritas-ucsb.org/JOURNEY/IMAGES/F.gif

But that 'tree pattern' that Darwin predicted is not what is found in the fossil record. The fossil record reveals that disparity (the greatest differences) precedes diversity (the smaller differences), which is the exact opposite pattern for what Darwin's theory predicted.

The Actual Fossil Evidence- Disparity precedes Diversity - graph http://www.veritas-ucsb.org/JOURNEY/IMAGES/G.gif Timeline graphic on Cambrian Explosion - from 'Darwin's Doubt' (Disparity preceding Diversity) - infographic http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/07/its_darwins_dou074341.html Investigating Evolution: The Cambrian Explosion Part 1 – (4:45 minute mark - upside-down fossil record) video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DkbmuRhXRY Part 2 – video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZFM48XIXnk Challenging Fossil of a Little Fish Excerpt: "In Chen’s view, his evidence supports a history of life that runs opposite to the standard evolutionary tree diagrams, a progression he calls top-down evolution." Jun-Yuan Chen is professor at the Nanjing Institute of Paleontology and Geology http://www.fredheeren.com/boston.htm “The record of the first appearance of living phyla, classes, and orders can best be described in Wright’s (1) term as ‘from the top down’.” James W. Valentine, “Late Precambrian bilaterians: Grades and clades,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 91: 6751-6757 (July 1994). “Darwin had a lot of trouble with the fossil record because if you look at the record of phyla in the rocks as fossils why when they first appear we already see them all. The phyla are fully formed. It’s as if the phyla were created first and they were modified into classes and we see that the number of classes peak later than the number of phyla and the number of orders peak later than that. So it’s kind of a top down succession, you start with this basic body plans, the phyla, and you diversify them into classes, the major sub-divisions of the phyla, and these into orders and so on. So the fossil record is kind of backwards from what you would expect from in that sense from what you would expect from Darwin’s ideas." James W. Valentine - as quoted from "On the Origin of Phyla: Interviews with James W. Valentine" - (as stated at 1:16:36 mark of interview) "In other words, the morphological distances -- gaps -- between body plans of crown phyla were present when body fossils first appeared during the explosion and have been with us ever since. The morphological disparity is so great between most phyla that the homologous reference points or landmarks required for quantitative studies of morphology are absent." Erwin and Valentine (p. 340) Erwin and Valentine's The Cambrian Explosion Affirms Major Points in Darwin's Doubt: The Cambrian Enigma Is "Unresolved" - June 26, 2013 "Taxonomists classify organisms into categories: species are the very lowest taxonomic category. Species are classified into different genera. Genera are classified into different families. Families are classified into different orders. Orders are classified into different classes. And classes are classified into different phyla. Phyla are among the very highest taxonomic categories (only kingdom and domain are higher), and correspond to the high level of morphological disparity that exists between different animal body plans. Phyla include such groupings as chordates, arthropods, mollusks, and echinoderms. Darwin's theory would predict a cone of diversity whereby the major body-plan differences (morphological disparity) would only appear in the fossil record following numerous lower-level speciation events. What is interesting about the fossil record is that it shows the appearance of the higher taxonomic categories first (virtually all of the major skeletonized phyla appear in the Cambrian, with no obvious fossil transitional precursors, within a relatively small span of geological time). As Roger Lewin (1988) explains in Science, "Several possible patterns exist for the establishment of higher taxa, the two most obvious of which are the bottom-up and the top-down approaches. In the first, evolutionary novelties emerge, bit by bit. The Cambrian explosion appears to conform to the second pattern, the top-down effect." Erwin et al. (1987), in their study of marine invertebrates, similarly conclude that, "The fossil record suggests that the major pulse of diversification of phyla occurs before that of classes, classes before that of orders, orders before that of families. The higher taxa do not seem to have diverged through an accumulation of lower taxa." Indeed, the existence of numerous small and soft-bodied animals in the Precambrian strata undermines one of the most popular responses that these missing transitions can be accounted for by them being too small and too-soft bodied to be preserved." Jonathan M. - Jerry Coyne's Chapter on the Fossil Record Fails to Show "Why Evolution is True" - December 4, 2012

Dr. Meyer notes that there are 'yawning chasms' in the 'morphological space' between the phyla which suddenly appeared in the Cambrian Explosion,,,

"Over the past 150 years or so, paleontologists have found many representatives of the phyla that were well-known in Darwin’s time (by analogy, the equivalent of the three primary colors) and a few completely new forms altogether (by analogy, some other distinct colors such as green and orange, perhaps). And, of course, within these phyla, there is a great deal of variety. Nevertheless, the analogy holds at least insofar as the differences in form between any member of one phylum and any member of another phylum are vast, and paleontologists have utterly failed to find forms that would fill these yawning chasms in what biotechnologists call “morphological space.” In other words, they have failed to find the paleolontogical equivalent of the numerous finely graded intermediate colors (Oedleton blue, dusty rose, gun barrel gray, magenta, etc.) that interior designers covet. Instead, extensive sampling of the fossil record has confirmed a strikingly discontinuous pattern in which representatives of the major phyla stand in stark isolation from members of other phyla, without intermediate forms filling the intervening morphological space." Stephen Meyer - Darwin’s Doubt (p. 70)

Moreover, this top down pattern in the fossil record, which is the complete opposite pattern for what Darwin himself predicted for the fossil record, is not just an anomaly of the Cambrian Explosion, but this 'top down', disparity preceding diversity, pattern is found in the fossil record subsequent to the Cambrian explosion as well.

Scientific study turns understanding about evolution on its head – July 30, 2013 Excerpt: evolutionary biologists,,, looked at nearly one hundred fossil groups to test the notion that it takes groups of animals many millions of years to reach their maximum diversity of form. Contrary to popular belief, not all animal groups continued to evolve fundamentally new morphologies through time. The majority actually achieved their greatest diversity of form (disparity) relatively early in their histories. ,,,Dr Matthew Wills said: “This pattern, known as ‘early high disparity’, turns the traditional V-shaped cone model of evolution on its head. What is equally surprising in our findings is that groups of animals are likely to show early-high disparity regardless of when they originated over the last half a billion years. This isn’t a phenomenon particularly associated with the first radiation of animals (in the Cambrian Explosion), or periods in the immediate wake of mass extinctions.”,,, Author Martin Hughes, continued: “Our work implies that there must be constraints on the range of forms within animal groups, and that these limits are often hit relatively early on. Co-author Dr Sylvain Gerber, added: “A key question now is what prevents groups from generating fundamentally new forms later on in their evolution.,,, http://phys.org/news/2013-07-scientific-evolution.html “A recent analysis of disparity in 98 metazoan clades through the Phanerozoic found a preponderance of clades with maximal disparity early in their history. Thus, whether or not taxonomic diversification slows down most studies of disparity reveal a pattern in which the early evolution of a clade defines the morphological boundaries of a group which are then filled in by subsequent diversification. This pattern is inconsistent with that expected of a classic adaptive radiation in which diversity and disparity should be coupled, at least during the early phase of the radiation.” – Doug Erwin What this admits is that disparity is a worse problem than evolutionists had realized: it’s ubiquitous (throughout the history of life on earth), not just in the Cambrian (Explosion). - In Allaying Darwin’s Doubt, Two Cambrian Experts Still Come Up Short – October 16, 2015 “The lack of ancestral or intermediate forms between fossil species is not a bizarre peculiarity of early metazoan history. Gaps are general and prevalent throughout the fossil record.” R.A. Raff and T.C. Kaufman, Embryos, Genes, and Evolution: The Developmental-Genetic Basis of Evolutionary Change (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1991), 34. “In virtually all cases a new taxon appears for the first time in the fossil record with most definitive features already present, and practically no known stem-group forms.” TS Kemp - Fossils and Evolution,– Curator of Zoological Collections, Oxford University, Oxford Uni Press, p246, 1999 “What is missing are the many intermediate forms hypothesized by Darwin, and the continual divergence of major lineages into the morphospace between distinct adaptive types.” Robert L Carroll (born 1938) – vertebrate paleontologist who specialises in Paleozoic and Mesozoic amphibians "Rather than showing gradual Darwinian evolution, the history of life shows a pattern of explosions where new fossil forms come into existence without clear evolutionary precursors. Evolutionary anthropologist Jeffrey Schwartz summarizes the problem: “We are still in the dark about the origin of most major groups of organisms. They appear in the fossil record as Athena did from the head of Zeus — full-blown and raring to go, in contradiction to Darwin’s depiction of evolution as resulting from the gradual accumulation of countless infinitesimally minute variations. . .”98 – Casey Luskin - Problem 5: Abrupt Appearance of Species in the Fossil Record Does Not Support Darwinian Evolution - January 29, 2015 “The point emerges that if we examine the fossil record in detail, whether at the level of orders or of species, we find’ over and over again’ not gradual evolution, but the sudden explosion of one group at the expense of another.” Paleontologist, Derek V. Ager, “The Nature of the Fossil Record,” 87 Proceedings of the British Geological Association 87 (1976): 133. (Department of Geology &; Oceanography, University College, Swansea, UK) “The record certainly did not reveal gradual transformations of structure in the course of time. On the contrary, it showed that species generally remained constant throughout their history and were replaced quite suddenly by significantly different forms. New types or classes seemed to appear fully formed, with no sign of an evolutionary trend by which they could have emerged from an earlier type.” Peter Bowler, Evolution: The History of an Idea (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1984), 187. “It is a feature of the known fossil record that most taxa appear abruptly. They are not, as a rule, led up to by a sequence of almost imperceptibly changing forerunners such as Darwin believed should be usual in evolution…This phenomenon becomes more universal and more intense as the hierarchy of categories is ascended. Gaps among known species are sporadic and often small. Gaps among known orders, classes and phyla are systematic and almost always large.” G.G.Simpson – one of the most influential American Paleontologist of the 20th century “The facts of greatest general importance are the following. When a new phylum, class, or order appears, there follows a quick, explosive (in terms of geological time) diversification so that practically all orders or families known appear suddenly and without any apparent transitions. Afterwards, a slow evolution follows; this frequently has the appearance of a gradual change, step by step, though down to the generic level abrupt major steps without transitions occur. At the end of such a series, a kind of evolutionary running-wild frequently is observed. Giant forms appear, and odd or pathological types of different kinds precede the extinction of such a line.” Richard B. Goldschmidt, “Evolution, as Viewed by One Geneticist,” American Scientist 40 (January 1952), 97.

Moreover, much contrary to Charles Darwin's belief that increasing resolution of the fossil record, (i.e. the discovery of more fossils), would alleviate his problem with the fossil record, the fact of the matter is that increasing resolution of the fossil record has only made this disparity preceding diversity 'problem' worse for Darwinists since Darwin's day

Does Lots of Sediment in the Ocean Solve the "Mystery" of the Cambrian Explosion? - Casey Luskin April, 2012 Excerpt: I think the Cambrian fossil record is surprisingly complete. I think it may be more complete than we realize. The reason for that is, for instance, if you look at the stratigraphy of the world, if I go and collect Cambrian rocks in Wales and find certain fossils, if I then go to China, I don't find the same species but I find the same sorts of fossils. If I go into Carboniferous rocks, I go to Canada, they are the same as what I find in this country. So there is a clear set of faunas and floras that take us through geological time. The overall framework is falling into position. - Simon Conway Morris http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/04/lots_of_sedimen059021.html “Now, after over 120 years of the most extensive and painstaking geological exploration of every continent and ocean bottom, the picture is infinitely more vivid and complete than it was in 1859. Formations have been discovered containing hundreds of billions of fossils and our museums now are filled with over 100 million fossils of 250,000 different species. The availability of this profusion of hard scientific data should permit objective investigators to determine if Darwin was on the right track. What is the picture which the fossils have given us? … The gaps between major groups of organisms have been growing even wider and more undeniable. They can no longer be ignored or rationalized away with appeals to imperfection of the fossil record.” Luther D. Sunderland, Darwin’s Enigma 1988, Fossils and Other Problems, 4th edition, Master Books, p. 9 “The evidence we find in the geological record is not nearly as compatible with Darwinian natural selection as we would like it to be …. We now have a quarter of a million fossil species but the situation hasn't changed much. The record of evolution is surprisingly jerky and, ironically, we have even fewer examples of evolutionary transition than in Darwin’s time … so Darwin’s problem has not been alleviated”. David Raup, Curator of Geology at Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History “With the benefit of hindsight, it is amazing that paleontologists could have accepted gradual evolution as a universal pattern on the basis of a handful of supposedly well-documented lineages (e.g. Gryphaea, Micraster, Zaphrentis) none of which actually withstands close scrutiny.” Christopher R.C. Paul, “Patterns of Evolution and Extinction in Invertebrates,” K.C. Allen and D.E.G. Briggs, eds., Evolution and the Fossil Record (Washington, D.C., Smithsonian Institution Press, 1989), 105. “It must be significant that nearly all the evolutionary stories I learned as a student from Trueman’s Ostrea/Gryphaea to Carruthers’ Zaphrentis delanouei, have now been ‘debunked’. Similarly, my own experience of more than twenty years looking for evolutionary lineages among the Mesozoic Brachiopoda has proved them equally elusive.’ Dr. Derek V. Ager (Department of Geology & Oceonography, University College, Swansea, UK), ‘The nature of the fossil record’. Proceedings of the Geologists’ Association, vol.87(2), 1976,p.132. “No one has found any such in-between creatures. This was long chalked up to ‘gaps’ in the fossil records, gaps that proponents of gradualism confidently expected to fill in someday when rock strata of the proper antiquity were eventually located. But all the fossil evidence to date has failed to turn up any such missing links . . . There is a growing conviction among many scientists that these transitional forms never existed.” Niles Eldredge, quoted in George Alexander, “Alternate Theory of Evolution Considered,” Los Angeles Times, November 19, 1978. “It is hard for us paleontologists, steeped as we are in a tradition of Darwinian analysis, to admit that neo-Darwinian explanations for the Cambrian explosion have failed miserably. New data acquired in recent years, instead of solving Darwin’s dilemma, have rather made it worse. Meyer describes the dimensions of the problem with clarity and precision. His book, (Darwin's Doubt), is a game changer for the study of evolution and points us in the right direction as we seek a new theory for the origin of animals.” -Dr. Mark McMenamin – 2013 Paleontologist at Mt. Holyoke College and author of The Emergence of Animals “Gradualism is a concept I believe in, not just because of Darwin’s authority, but because my understanding of genetics seems to demand it. Yet Gould and the American Museum people [i.e., Eldredge] are hard to contradict when they say there are no transitional fossils. As a paleontologist myself, I am much occupied with the philosophical problems of identifying ancestral forms in the fossil record. You say that I should at least ‘show a photo of the fossil from which each type of organism was derived.’ I will lay it on the line – there is not one such fossil for which one could make a watertight argument.” Colin Patterson to Luther Sunderland, April 10, 1979, quoted in Luther .D. Sunderland, Darwin’s Enigma: Fossils and Other Problems, 4th ed. (El Cajon, CA: Master Book Publishers, 1988), 89.

Thus the overall fossil record directly refutes what Darwin himself predicted for the fossil record. And yet, although these facts about the overall fossil record are certainly no secret, Darwinists, such as Bob O'Hara, simply refuse to acknowledge that the overall fossil record is completely discordant to what their 'theory' predicts. This lack of honesty on the part of Bob O'Hara and other Darwinists to admit the obvious falsification of Darwin's theory by the fossil record, (as well as failing to be honest about numerous other lines of falsifying evidence against Darwin's theory), besides being a personal character flaw on their part, is a major impediment to the good practice of science. For empirical science to be successful, it is important for the people participating in it to tell the truth about the evidence especially if a particular truth about the evidence may 'inconvenience' any a-priori biases we may have about the evidence. Needless to say, refusing to follow the evidence where it leads is NOT good science. Darwinists, from the best I can tell, and for the vast majority of instances, (as Bob O'Hara himself gives witness to), simply lack the integrity to be rigorously honest with the evidence. bornagain77

Bob: "I hope you can see the problem with that logic." Ha ha ha. I assure you that it is not me that is having a problem with logic. Shoot, your materialistic Darwinian worldview cannot even ground logic! So it might behoove you to find a worldview that can ground logic in the first place before you want to ponder the question of exactly who is thinking logically.

Naturalism and Self-Refutation – Michael Egnor – January 31, 2018 Excerpt: Furthermore, the very framework of Clark’s argument — logic — is neither material nor natural. Logic, after all, doesn’t exist “in the space-time continuum” and isn’t described by physics. What is the location of modus ponens? How much does Gödel’s incompleteness theorem weigh? What is the physics of non-contradiction? How many millimeters long is Clark’s argument for naturalism? Ironically the very logic that Clark employs to argue for naturalism is outside of any naturalistic frame. The strength of Clark’s defense of naturalism is that it is an attempt to present naturalism’s tenets clearly and logically. That is its weakness as well, because it exposes naturalism to scrutiny, and naturalism cannot withstand even minimal scrutiny. Even to define naturalism is to refute it. https://evolutionnews.org/2018/01/naturalism-and-self-refutation/ Verse and quotes: John 1:1 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” What is the Logos? Logos is a Greek word literally translated as “word, speech, or utterance.” However, in Greek philosophy, Logos refers to divine reason or the power that puts sense into the world making order instead of chaos.,,, In the Gospel of John, John writes “In the beginning was the Word (Logos), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). John appealed to his readers by saying in essence, “You’ve been thinking, talking, and writing about the Word (divine reason) for centuries and now I will tell you who He is.” https://www.compellingtruth.org/what-is-the-Logos.html “Atheists can give no reason why they should value reason, and Christians can show how anyone who believes in reason must also believe in God.” Cogito; Ergo Deus Est by Charles Edward White Philosophy Still Lives Because God Isn’t Dead

bornagain77

Bob o H - Bob seeing we all love the scientific method, how exactly do you test any given fossil to see is it transitional between two groups , and if no testing method exists how scientifically can we know said fossil is a transitional one. Marfin

Bob O'H- Please sow us where in the alleged ToE it says that transitional forms can survive for millions of years AFTER the transition occurs. And then produce a mechanism capable of producing Tiktaalik starting with populations of finned fish. Good luck with that but it could lead to a Nobel Prize if yours has merit. ET

ba77 @ 18 - those first two quotes you give argue that Tiktaalik isn't a transitional fossil because it's not the first in the sequence. I hope you can see the problem with that logic. Bob O'H

Bob O'H:

The evidence in the links that Shallit provided.

Except for the fact there isn't any evidence that supports blind watchmaker evolution at those links. So clearly you will just accept anything as long as you believe it goes against ID. ET

Microevolution and macroevolution are different things, but they involve mostly the same processes.

We know that is not true. Eye color is microevolution. New body plans and new body parts is macro. And we know that different genes are involved in each- well we do NOT know if altering any genes can produce new and viable body plans. We have no idea how to test for such a thing. It is just pure ignorance and desperation that says macro is an accumulation of micro.

Loci that are obviously variable within natural populations do not seem to lie at the basis of many major adaptive changes, while those loci that seemingly do constitute the foundation of many if not most major adaptive changes are not variable.- John McDonald, “The Molecular Basis of Adaptation: A Critical Review of Relevant Ideas and Observation”, Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics: 14, 1983, p77-102

ET

Bob, take your examples of transitional fossils, Tiktaalik and Home erectus, like all other evidence put forth by Darwinists, these examples also fall apart upon closer scrutiny

Attenborough, read your mail: Evolution is messier than TV - February 2014 - with video Excerpt: The Polish trackways establish that Tiktaalik wasn’t anywhere near the first tetrapod, so the most important information about the transition to land doesn’t even include Tiktaalik at present.,,, Some fish today routinely spend time out of the water, using a variety of mechanisms. But there is no particular reason to believe that they are on their way to becoming full time tetrapods or land dwellers. So we would need to be cautious about assuming that specific mechanisms that might be useful on land are definitive evidence of a definite, permanent move to full-time land dwelling. A friend writes to point out a modern-day examples that illustrates this, the walking shark: https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/evolution/attenborough-read-your-mail-evolution-is-messier-than-tv/ The Evolution of the Darwin Fish - February 17, 2018 - David F. Coppedge Excerpt: Darwinians believe that fish crawled out onto land—their fins becoming pentadactyl limbs—then returned back to the sea multiple times in the form of ichthyosaurs, pinnipeds and whales.,,, After Darwin, various ‘transitional’ fish with bony fins were subsequently proposed and deposed (see sign, above), but Darwinians didn’t become excited until Neil Shubin’s Tiktaalik fossil (6 April 2006), though some disagreed (4 December 2008).,,, Subsequently, though, tetrapod tracks were found a full 10 million Darwin Years earlier (6 January 2010), undermining Shubin’s claim to have found a transitional form. Darwinians are still hunting. Some of their claims seem outlandish (if you’ll pardon the pun). Who would think that rays and skates would be candidates? Sharks and rays—cartilaginous fish—don’t look ready to crawl onto the land. Science Daily, though, jumps on a new idea coming out of the New York University School of Medicine: “Walking fish suggests locomotion control evolved much earlier than thought.” [Thought by whom? See tontology.] Cartoons that illustrate evolution depict early vertebrates generating primordial limbs as they move onto land for the first time. But new findings indicate that some of these first ambulatory creatures may have stayed under water, spawning descendants that today exhibit walking behavior on the ocean floor. The results appear February 8 in the journal Cell. “It has generally been thought that the ability to walk is something that evolved as vertebrates transitioned from sea to land,” says senior author Jeremy Dasen, a developmental neurobiologist in the Department of Neuroscience and Physiology at the New York University School of Medicine. “We were surprised to learn that certain species of fish also can walk. In addition, they use a neural and genetic developmental program that is almost identical to the one used by higher vertebrates, including humans.“ https://crev.info/2018/02/evolution-darwin-fish/ Mudskippers. The Strangest Creature ever to Defy Evolution December 14, 2016 Excerpt: No fossil evidence exists for their putative evolution from some pre-mudskipper organism. Scientists are not even able to satisfactorily classify modern mudskippers into a family, leaving their evolution to pure speculation. They were once included in the Oxudercinae subfamily, within the family Gobiidae (gobies), but recent molecular studies do not support this classification. Darwinists are now stymied about their phylogeny, and can only speculate concerning from what and how they could have evolved. A major problem for evolution is that the first mudskipper in the fossil record is morphologically a modern mudskipper. Long assumed to be a transitional animal between a swimming fish and a tetrapod (four footed) animal, a recent study by Kutschera and Elliott (2013, p. 1) concluded that, although some walking fishes such as mudskippers “shed light on the gradual evolutionary transition of ancient fishes to early tetrapods … they are not the ancestors of tetrapods, because extant organisms cannot be progenitors of other living beings.” As Polgar, et al. note, more study is required to detail the evolution of the mudskipper (2014, p. 179). Many experts have hypothesized that fish fins evolved into terrestrial limbs, a theory that also does not fit the facts (Clack, 2012, p. 136). For example, the earliest tetrapods were not pentadactyl (having five fingers and toes) as are modern tetrapods, and the fossil evidence does not support the fin to limb evolution (Clack, 2012, pp. 136-137). Summary In short, the mudskipper is not a fish that evolved legs or an amphibian that evolved to look like a fish, but a graceful well designed swimmer in water that gets along so well out of water that they spend most of their life on land and thrive in large areas of the world. We have no evidence of fish-fin to tetrapod limb evolution, and the mudskipper does not help to explain the major missing links that can bridge the two structures. Like the duck-billed platypus, the mudskipper contains a unique mosaic of features found on many different animals. And this situation is bad news for evolutionists. http://www.create.ab.ca/mudskippers-the-strangest-creature-ever-to-defy-evolution/ Contested Bones: Is There Any Solid Fossil Evidence for Ape-to-Man Evolution? - Dr. John Sanford and Chris Rupe Excerpt: We have spent four years carefully examining the scientific literature on this subject. We have discovered that within this field (paleoanthropology), virtually all the famous hominin types have either been discredited or are still being hotly contested. Within this field, not one of the hominin types have been definitively established as being in the lineage from ape to man. This includes the famous fossils that have been nicknamed Lucy, Ardi, Sediba, Habilis, Naledi, Hobbit, Erectus, and Neaderthal. Well-respected people in the field openly admit that their field is in a state of disarray. It is very clear that the general public has been deceived regarding the credibility and significance of the reputed hominin fossils. We will show that the actual fossil evidence is actually most consistent with the following three points. 1) The hominin bones reveal only two basic types; ape bones (Ardi and Lucy), and human bones (Naledi, Hobbit, Erectus, and Neaderthal). 2) The ape bones and the human bones have been repeatedly found together in the same strata – therefore both lived at the same basic timeframe (the humans were apparently hunting and eating the apes). 3) Because the hominin bones were often found in mixed bone beds (with bones of many animal species in the same site), numerous hominin types represent chimeras (mixtures) of ape and human bones (i.e., Sediba, Habilis). We will also present evidence that the anomalous hominin bones that are of the human (Homo) type most likely represent isolated human populations that experienced severe inbreeding and subsequent genetic degeneration. This best explains why these Homo bones display aberrant morphologies, reduced body size, and reduced brain volume. We conclude that the hominin bones do not reveal a continuous upward progression from ape to man, but rather reveal a clear separation between the human type and the ape type. The best evidence for any type of intermediate “ape-men” derived from bones collected from mixed bone beds (containing bones of both apes and men), which led to the assembly of chimeric skeletons. Therefore, the hominin fossils do not prove human evolution at all.,,, We suggest that the field of paleoanthropology has been seriously distorted by a very strong ideological agenda and by very ambitious personalities. https://ses.edu/contested-bones-is-there-any-solid-fossil-evidence-for-ape-to-man-evolution/ Review of "Contested Bones" (Part 4 - Chapter 4 "Homo erectus") 2-17-2018 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rtK0ScrQn4&list=PLHDSWJBW3DNU_twNBjopIqyFOwo_bTkXm&index=4 Hominids, Homonyms, and Homo sapiens - 05/27/2009 Excerpt: Homo erectus is particularly controversial, because it is such a broad classification. Tattersall and Schwartz find no clear connection between the Asian, European and African specimens lumped into this class. “In his 1950 review, Ernst Mayr placed all of these forms firmly within the species Homo erectus,” they explained. “Subsequently, Homo erectus became the standard-issue ‘hominid in the middle,’ expanding to include not only the fossils just mentioned, but others of the same general period....”. They discussed the arbitrariness of this classification: "Put together, all these fossils (which span almost 2 myr) make a very heterogeneous assortment indeed; and placing them all together in the same species only makes any conceivable sense in the context of the ecumenical view of Homo erectus as the middle stage of the single hypervariable hominid lineage envisioned by Mayr (on the basis of a much slenderer record). Viewed from the morphological angle, however, the practice of cramming all of this material into a single Old World-wide species is highly questionable. Indeed, the stuffing process has only been rendered possible by a sort of ratchet effect, in which fossils allocated to Homo erectus almost regardless of their morphology have subsequently been cited as proof of just how variable the species can be." By “ratchet effect,” they appear to mean something like a self-fulfilling prophecy: i.e., “Let’s put everything from this 2-million-year period into one class that we will call Homo erectus.” Someone complains, “But this fossil from Singapore is very different from the others.” The first responds, “That just shows how variable the species Homo erectus can be.” https://crev.info/2009/05/hominids_homonyms_and_homo_sapiens/ No Known Hominin Is Common Ancestor of Neanderthals and Modern Humans, Study Suggests - Oct. 21, 2013 Excerpt: The article, "No known hominin species matches the expected dental morphology of the last common ancestor of Neanderthals and modern humans," relies on fossils of approximately 1,200 molars and premolars from 13 species or types of hominins -- humans and human relatives and ancestors. Fossils from the well-known Atapuerca sites have a crucial role in this research, accounting for more than 15 percent of the complete studied fossil collection.,,, They conclude with high statistical confidence that none of the hominins usually proposed as a common ancestor, such as Homo heidelbergensis, H. erectus and H. antecessor, is a satisfactory match. "None of the species that have been previously suggested as the last common ancestor of Neanderthals and modern humans has a dental morphology that is fully compatible with the expected morphology of this ancestor," Gómez-Robles said. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/10/131021153202.htm 'Hobbit' species did not evolve from ancestor of modern humans, research finds - 21 April 2017 Excerpt: Homo floresiensis was in fact far more primitive than Homo erectus and had characteristics more similar to Homo habilis, which lived between 1.65m and 2.4m years ago, and which is the most ancient representative of the human genus.,,, The researchers collected 133 cranial, postcranial, mandibular and dental samples from a variety of ancient and more modern species for analysis and comparison, travelling to several countries, including to Africa and Europe. The number of samples collected was more comprehensive and ambitious than had been carried out in the field before. Most previous studies of the species examined only the skull and lower jaw. The researchers also used modern methods of statistical analysis based on latest evidence. Homo erectus and floresiensis were found to have completely different bone structures, particularly in the jaw and pelvis. “A close relationship between Homo erectus and Homo floresiensis is rejected, “Homo floresiensis occupied a very primitive position on the human evolutionary tree,” Lee said. “We can be 99% sure it’s not related to Homo erectus and nearly 100% it isn’t a malformed Homo sapiens.” https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/apr/21/hobbit-species-did-not-evolve-from-ancestor-of-modern-humans-research-finds Skull "Rewrites" Story of Human Evolution -- Again - Casey Luskin - October 22, 2013 Excerpt: "There is a big gap in the fossil record," Zollikofer told NBC News. "I would put a question mark there. Of course it would be nice to say this was the last common ancestor of Neanderthals and us, but we simply don't know." - http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/10/skull_rewrites_078221.html “The evolutionary events that led to the origin of the Homo lineage are an enduring puzzle in paleoanthropology, chiefly because the fossil record from between 3 million and 2 million years ago is frustratingly sparse, especially in eastern Africa.”2 “But with so little evidence to go on, the origin of our genus has remained as mysterious as ever.”3 “The origin of our own genus remains frustratingly unclear.'4 2. Kimbel, W. H. 2013. Palaeoanthropology: Hesitation on hominin history. Nature. 497 (7451): 573-574. 3. Wong, K. 2012. First of Our Kind: Could Australopithecus sediba Be Our Long Lost Ancestor? Scientific American. 306 (4): 30-39. 4. Wood, B. 2011. Did early Homo migrate “out of” or “in to” Africa? Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 108 (26): 10375-10376. “A number of hominid crania are known from sites in eastern and southern Africa in the 400- to 200-thousand-year range, but none of them looks like a close antecedent of the anatomically distinctive Homo sapiens…Even allowing for the poor record we have of our close extinct kin, Homo sapiens appears as distinctive and unprecedented…there is certainly no evidence to support the notion that we gradually became who we inherently are over an extended period, in either the physical or the intellectual sense.” Dr. Ian Tattersall: – paleoanthropologist – emeritus curator of the American Museum of Natural History – (Masters of the Planet, 2012) "The record jumps, and all the evidence shows that the record is real: the gaps we see reflect real events in life's history -- not the artifact of a poor fossil record." (Niles Eldredge and Ian Tattersall, The Myths of Human Evolution, p. 59 (NY: Columbia University Press, 1982).)

As to the supposed science of 'lining up' fossils to match what you imagine evolution must have looked like:

“No fossil is buried with its birth certificate. That, and the scarcity of fossils, means that it is effectively impossible to link fossils into chains of cause and effect in any valid way... To take a line of fossils and claim that they represent a lineage is not a scientific hypothesis that can be tested, but an assertion that carries the same validity as a bedtime story—amusing, perhaps even instructive, but not scientific.” - Henry Gee, In Search of Deep Time: Beyond the Fossil Record to a New History of Life, 1999, pg. 113 & 117

Whenever you decide that you want to talk about real science instead of telling bedtime stories to others and to yourself, drop me a note Bob: bornagain77

Bob O'H- seeing that your position doesn't have a mechanism capable of producing eukaryotes, what mechanism do you propose produced Tiktaalik? And science already knows that macroevolution is NOT just an accumulation of microevolution. That is because science has found out that different genes are involved. But even that is moot because no one knows what DETERMINES what type of organism will develop- and your side can't even account for the existence of developmental biology. So clearly Bob O'H is just a true believer and will accept anything that he thinks will support his position. Desperation is calling on talk origins as it is not a science site. far from it. ET

ba77 @ 14 - I love the arguments against transitional fossils on that creationist wiki page:

Note: Nowhere in Scientific Creationism does Morris say there are no transitional fossils. He [Henry Morris] recognized the existence of fossils that evolutionists call transitional but disagrees with the designation.

I'm not sure the best argument against something existing is to admit it exists. Bob O'H

BobRyan -

Fossils don’t have DNA so they can’t show mutations Which means you can’t say there’s any genetic link at all.

Any genetic link between/with what?

Each phase of macro-evolution should show a slight change in the fossil records.

Assuming the phenotypic change is slight, of course, AND that the fossils are preserved and have been found.

There should be a gradual change of going from gills to lungs. Those would be real transitional fossils, but not one has been discovered.

Really? Here's just one example of a transitional fossil ,with both gills and a primitive lung: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiktaalik

I’m just a little curious, since the basics seem to be lost on you. Have you done any research yourself, or do you simply rely on others to do the work for you?

Yes, I have done research, including collaboration with actual palaeontologists.

As for your quip about e coli and three decades, take into account the lifespan of e coli and you end up with one million years equivalent to humans

i.e. little evolutionary time. In the last 1m years, H. erectus changed in relatively minor ways (e.g. smaller teeth, more erect) to become H. sapiens. (editted to close blockquote correctly) Bob O'H

Shallit and, by default, Bob O'Hara both lean heavily on the Talk Origins website for their supposed empirical evidence to support their unwavering faith that unguided material processes can generate all the life we see around us, in all its unfathomable complexity, and in all its wondrous diversity. To say the Talk Origins website is misleading on the science would be an understatement. Propaganda masquerading as science would be a much more fitting classification of the Talk Origins website. Here are a few websites that debunk the Talk Origins website in detail:

Index to Creationist Claims This page links to responses from creationists to each of the "rebuttals" found on the Talk.Origin's website. http://creationwiki.org/Index_to_Creationist_Claims Transitional fossils are lacking (Talk.Origins) http://creationwiki.org/Transitional_fossils_are_lacking_%28Talk.Origins%29 CB: Biology http://creationwiki.org/Index_to_Creationist_Claims#CB:_Biology “Talk.Origins Archive” Rebuttals https://www.trueorigin.org/#to Evolutionists' Confusion Over Mutations And Information Put To Rest - Dr. Lee Spetner - 2019 https://www.trueorigin.org/spetner3.php Specious Speciation: The Myth of Observed Large-Scale Evolutionary Change A Response to TalkOrigins’ “Observed Instances of Speciation” FAQ (Updated Sept. 9, 2013) by Casey Luskin https://www.discovery.org/m/2019/03/Casey-Luskin-Specious-Speciation.pdf etc.. etc..

In the several years that I have been debating Darwinists I have found that each and every example of empirical evidence, (that Darwinists have tried to put forth as supposedly irrefutable proof for Darwinian evolution), falls apart upon closer scrutiny. There is not a single piece of empirical evidence that I know of that Darwinists can produce that does not fall apart upon closer empirical scrutiny. Moreover, besides all the supposed irrefutable proofs for Darwinian evolution that fall apart upon closer scrutiny, that are many lines of solid empirical evidence, (i.e. lines of evidence that withstand empirical testing), that directly, or semi-directly, falsify Darwinian evolution and the reductive materialistic premises that undergird Darwinian thought. Yet Darwinists completely ignore these many lines of falsifying evidence. That the substantiating evidence for Darwinian evolution is far weaker than Darwinists pretend that it is, and yet Darwinists ignore the many lines of robust falsifying evidence that directly refute Darwnian evolution, is interesting because, as Karl Popper made clear, the gold standard for determining whether a theory is even scientific or not is whether that theory is falsifiable or not Karl Popper stated that "In so far as a scientific statement speaks about reality, it must be falsifiable; and in so far as it is not falsifiable, it does not speak about reality."

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

Here are a few falsification of Darwin's theory that Darwinists simply refuse to ever accept as falsifications for their theory

Darwin’s theory holds mutations to the genome to be random. The vast majority of mutations to the genome are not random but are found to be ‘directed’. Darwin’s theory holds that Natural Selection is the ‘designer substitute’ that produces the ‘appearance’ and/or illusion of design. Natural Selection, especially for multicellular organisms, is found to grossly inadequate as the ‘designer substitute. Darwin’s theory holds that mutations to DNA will eventually change the basic biological form of any given species into a new form of a brand new species. Yet, biological form is found to be irreducible to mutations to DNA, nor is biological form reducible to any other material particulars in biology one may wish to invoke. Darwin’s theory holds there to be an extremely beneficial and flexible mutation rate for DNA which was ultimately responsible for all the diversity and complexity of life we see on earth. The mutation rate to DNA is overwhelmingly detrimental. Detrimental to such a point that it is seriously questioned whether there are any truly beneficial, information building, mutations whatsoever. Charles Darwin himself held that the gradual unfolding of life would (someday) be self-evident in the fossil record. Yet, from the Cambrian Explosion onward, the fossil record is consistently characterized by sudden appearance of a group/kind in the fossil record(disparity), then rapid diversity within that group/kind, and then long term stability and even deterioration of variety within the overall group/kind, and within the specific species of the kind, over long periods of time. Of the few dozen or so fossils claimed as transitional, not one is uncontested as a true example of transition between major animal forms out of millions of collected fossils. Moreover, Fossils are found in the “wrong place” all the time (either too early, or too late). Darwin’s theory, due to the randomness postulate, holds that patterns will not repeat themselves in supposedly widely divergent species. Yet thousands of instances of what is ironically called ‘convergent evolution’, on both the morphological and genetic level, falsifies the Darwinian belief that patterns will not repeat themselves in widely divergent species. Charles Darwin himself stated that “If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.” Yet as Doug Axe pointed out, “Basically every gene and every new protein fold, there is nothing of significance that we can show that can be had in that gradualistic way. It’s all a mirage. None of it happens that way.” Charles Darwin himself stated that “If it could be proved that any part of the structure of any one species had been formed for the exclusive good of another species, it would annihilate my theory, for such could not have been produced through natural selection.” Yet as Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig pointed out, “in thousands of plant species often entirely new organs have been formed for the exclusive good of more than 132,930 other species, these ‘ugly facts’ have annihilated Darwin’s theory as well as the modern versions of it.” Charles Darwin himself stated that, ““The impossibility of conceiving that this grand and wondrous universe, with our conscious selves, arose through chance, seems to me the chief argument for the existence of God.”. Yet ‘our conscious selves’ are certainly not explainable by ‘chance’ (nor is consciousness explainable by any possible reductive materialistic explanation in general), i.e. ‘the hard problem of consciousness’. Besides the mathematics of probability consistently showing that Darwinian evolution is impossible, the mathematics of population genetics itself has now shown Darwinian evolution to be impossible. Moreover, ‘immaterial’ mathematics itself, which undergirds all of science, engineering and technology, is held by most mathematicians to exist in some timeless, unchanging, immaterial, Platonic realm. Yet, the reductive materialism that Darwinian theory is based upon denies the existence of the immaterial realm that mathematics exists in. i.e. Darwinian evolution actually denies the objective reality of the one thing, i.e. mathematics, that it most needs in order to be considered scientific in the first place! Donald Hoffman has, via population genetics, shown that if Darwin’s materialistic theory were true then all our observations of reality would be illusory. Yet the scientific method itself is based on reliable observation. Moreover, Quantum Mechanics itself has now shown that conscious observation must come before material reality, i.e. falsification of ‘realism’ proves that our conscious observations are reliable!. The reductive materialism that undergirds Darwinian thought holds that immaterial information is merely ’emergent’ from a material basis. Yet immaterial Information, via experimental realization of the “Maxwell’s Demon” thought experiment, is now found to be its own distinctive physical entity that, although it can interact in a ‘top down’ manner with matter and energy, is separate from matter and energy. Darwinists hold that Darwin’s theory is true. Yet ‘Truth’ itself is an abstract property of an immaterial mind that is irreducible to the reductive materialistic explanations of Darwinian evolution. i.e. Assuming reductive materialism and/or Naturalism as the starting philosophical position of science actually precludes ‘the truth’ from ever being reached by science! Darwinist’s, due to their underlying naturalistic philosophy, insist that teleology (i.e. goal directed purpose) does not exist. Yet it is impossible for Biologists to do biological research without constantly invoking words that directly imply teleology. i.e. The very words that Biologists themselves use when they are doing their research falsifies Darwinian evolution.

Verse:

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

Besides Darwinists refusing to adhere to the criteria of falsification for their supposed scientific theory, by any other reasonable measure that one may wish to judge whether Darwinian evolution even qualifies as a science in the first place, Darwinism fails to meet those criteria as well:

“There are five standard tests for a scientific hypothesis. Has anyone observed the phenomenon — in this case, Evolution — as it occurred and recorded it? Could other scientists replicate it? Could any of them come up with a set of facts that, if true, would contradict the theory (Karl Popper’s “falsifiability” tests)? Could scientists make predictions based on it? Did it illuminate hitherto unknown or baffling areas of science? In the case of Evolution… well… no… no… no… no… and no.” – Tom Wolfe – The Kingdom of Speech – page 17 Darwinian Evolution Fails the Five Standard Tests of a Scientific Hypothesis – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7f_fyoPybw

Simply put, Darwinian evolution is more properly classified as a pseudoscience, even as a religion for atheists, rather than being classified as a real science. In fact, all of science, every nook and cranny of it, is based on intelligent design and is certainly not based on methodological naturalism as is presupposed by atheistic Darwinists. From the essential Christian presuppositions that undergird the founding of modern science, (i.e. that the universe is rational and that the minds of men, being made in the ‘image of God’, can dare understand that rationality), to the intelligent design of the scientific instruments and experiments themselves, to the logical and mathematical analysis of experimental results, from top to bottom science itself is certainly not ‘natural’. Not one scientific instrument would ever exist if men did not first intelligently design that scientific instrument. Not one test tube, microscope, telescope, spectroscope, or etc.. etc.., was ever found just laying around on a beach somewhere which was ‘naturally’ constructed by nature. Not one experimental result would ever be rationally analysed since there would be no immaterial minds to rationally analyze the immaterial mathematics that lay behind the intelligently designed experiments in the first place. In fact, (as I have pointed out several times now), assuming Naturalism instead of Theism as the worldview on which all of science is based leads to the catastrophic epistemological failure of science itself.

Basically, because of reductive materialism (and/or methodological naturalism), the atheistic materialist is forced to claim that he is merely a ‘neuronal illusion’ (Coyne, Dennett, etc..), who has the illusion of free will (Harris), who has unreliable beliefs about reality (Plantinga), who has illusory perceptions of reality (Hoffman), who, since he has no real time empirical evidence substantiating his grandiose claims, must make up illusory “just so stories” with the illusory, and impotent, ‘designer substitute’ of natural selection (Behe, Gould, Sternberg), so as to ‘explain away’ the appearance (i.e. illusion) of design (Crick, Dawkins), and who must make up illusory meanings and purposes for his life since the reality of the nihilism inherent in his atheistic worldview is too much for him to bear (Weikart), and who must also hold morality to be subjective and illusory since he has rejected God (Craig, Kreeft). Bottom line, nothing is real in the atheist’s worldview, least of all, morality, meaning and purposes for life.,,, – Darwin’s Theory vs Falsification – video – 39:45 minute mark https://youtu.be/8rzw0JkuKuQ?t=2387

Thus, although the Darwinian atheist may firmly believes he is on the terra firma of science (in his appeal, even demand, for methodological naturalism), the fact of the matter is that, when examining the details of his materialistic/naturalistic worldview, it is found that Darwinists/Atheists are adrift in an ocean of fantasy and imagination with no discernible anchor for reality to grab on to. It would be hard to fathom a worldview more antagonistic to modern science than Atheistic materialism and/or methodological naturalism have turned out to be.

2 Corinthians 10:5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;

Thus in conclusion, Shallit's and Bob O'Hara's claim that Darwinian evolution is well supported by empirical evidence, and their literature bluff via the talkorigins website, is found to be an empty claim that amounts to nothing more that bluff and bluster on their part that falls apart upon closer scrutiny. Whereas the falsifying evidence against Darwinian evolution is found to be robust and strong in its ability to withstand empirical scrutiny. Yet, (even though in science it is falsifying evidence that is far more important than substantiating evidence; K. Popper), Shallit and Bob O'Hara refuse to accept (and even ignore) the many lines of robust falsifying evidence against their claims. Bottom line, whatever Shallit and Bob O'Hara may be doing, they certainly are NOT practicing good science. Verses:

Romans 1:20-23 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.

bornagain77

Bob O'H Fossils don’t have DNA so they can’t show mutations Which means you can't say there's any genetic link at all. Since you have a hard time understanding, I'll simplify things for you. Each phase of macro-evolution should show a slight change in the fossil records. There should be a gradual change of going from gills to lungs. Those would be real transitional fossils, but not one has been discovered. How can every line that Darwinists point to show millions of years worth of gaps? I'm just a little curious, since the basics seem to be lost on you. Have you done any research yourself, or do you simply rely on others to do the work for you? As for your quip about e coli and three decades, take into account the lifespan of e coli and you end up with one million years equivalent to humans. BobRyan

BobRyan -

A transitional fossil would show the mutations, as they occur.

Really? Where do you get this idea from? Fossils don't have DNA so they can't show mutations.

The link for positive mutations doesn’t include evidence for positive mutations. All organisms adapt or die, but a mutation is far different from adaptation, as you well know.

All organisms die. Populations adapt. This is basic. I'm afraid I now have no idea what you mean by "positive mutation". I had thought it was one that increased the fitness of the organism carrying it, but perhaps not.

The mechanism for macro-evolution to occur. You know full well what I meant and you have no answer.

Thank you for explaining that, but I'm afraid your mind-reading skills are off. As it happens, I have alink for that too: http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB902.html

The macro-evolution was simply stating that it will never be seen, because it takes too long. It is a lazy answer, because, at minimum, the e coli study should have shown some sign of success. They closed up shop after 3 decades.

How long do you think should macro-evolution take? 3 decades in an environment that doesn't change much doesn't seem to be a long time for macro-evolutionary changes to occur.

I’ll ask again, where is the evidence to support your emotional attachment to evolution?

I've already provided some links. I'm afraid it's clear you don't understand the ideas, so I'd suggest you try to educate yourself first. Bob O'H

Bob O'H @ 10 A transitional fossil would show the mutations, as they occur. Not something that has millions of years worth of gaps. That is a transitional fossil and none have been discovered, as you well know. It's little more than slight of hand from a rather poor magician. The link for positive mutations doesn't include evidence for positive mutations. All organisms adapt or die, but a mutation is far different from adaptation, as you well know. The mechanism for macro-evolution to occur. You know full well what I meant and you have no answer. The macro-evolution was simply stating that it will never be seen, because it takes too long. It is a lazy answer, because, at minimum, the e coli study should have shown some sign of success. They closed up shop after 3 decades. I'll ask again, where is the evidence to support your emotional attachment to evolution? BobRyan

BobRyan:

When you say evidence, what evidence are you referring to?

The evidence in the links that Shallit provided.

Has a transitional fossil been discovered that I haven’t read about?

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CC/CC200.html

Has a positive mutation been witnessed?

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB101.html

Has the mechanism been discovered, or is it still a guess?

I have no idea what you mean - the mechanism for what?

Has macro-evolution been witnessed?

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB901.html

It seems to me like evolutionists are the ones that lack any real evidence.

Please don't confuse your ignorance for actual ignorance. Bob O'H

Bob O'H @ 2 When you say evidence, what evidence are you referring to? Has a transitional fossil been discovered that I haven't read about? Has a positive mutation been witnessed? Has the mechanism been discovered, or is it still a guess? Has macro-evolution been witnessed? It seems to me like evolutionists are the ones that lack any real evidence. BobRyan

Secondary Default Darwinist position: If you can't argue facts, ad hominem. Tertiary Default Darwinist position: If you can't argue facts, declare "debunked elsewhere". drc466

@News I apologize it is something that really angers me when somebody like that mocks other people like they do I will correct myself in the future AaronS1978

LoL! Shallit just blindly accepts the saddest arguments as long as they appear to debunk ID or what IDists say. For example, Arthur Hunt does not have any evidence that blind and mindless processes can produce proteins. So there is no way he has debunked what Doug Axe has written. ET

AaronS1978, friendly language warning here. It's true, we do not encourage a jackass-a-rama around here. We trust every well-meaning person to understand our position. We're one of the few ID-related sites that allow comments. Others don't because they would have to pay a staff member to boot trolls and it is hard to raise money for that in the donor marketplace. (You know, "help make the other side of the story available" vs. "boot a troll"?) We, on the other hand, are mostly volunteer. Also, we don't really represent anyone but our own watering hole. So it is a bit more relaxed and we can offer the service. But it is only a bit more relaxed. Your mod here, for example, is a traditionalist Catholic. Profanity, blasphemy, needless detraction ... anything that would make a person less welcome in a traditional family diner... nah. Thanks all for your understanding. Note: David Gelernter was brought up because a commenter was under the impression that Jeffrey Shallit had ignored him. He had not. News

Bob O' Hara states:

when Shallit tackles the substantive points of Gelernter’s post, he provides links to experts and the actual evidence.

Link to experts??? Links to actual evidence??? Really??? To wit:

In the Cambrian explosion "a striking variety of new organisms—including the first-ever animals—pop up suddenly in the fossil record". Debunked here. "most species enter the evolutionary order fully formed and then depart unchanged". What could it possibly mean for a species to appear not "fully formed"? "no predecessors to the celebrity organisms of the Cambrian explosion": actually, some believe the Ediacaran biota were some of the ancestors of those of the Cambrian explosion, but you won't find the word "Ediacaran" anywhere in Gelernter's review. the 10-77 figure of creationist Doug Axe for the improbability of obtaining a stable protein (Debunked here.) the false claims of Stephen Meyer about "functionally specified digital information" (debunked here and here, among other places)

Wow, just wow. Talk about a huge let down. Not one piece of real time empirical evidence in the whole lot. For instance, he referenced a evidence-free 2007 article by Art Hunt to supposedly debunk Doug Axe's empirical work on the rarity of proteins.. But anyways, rather than just debunking piece by piece his imaginary debunking of the Cambrian explosion, functional proteins and functional information, I will instead show that Shallit does not even understand the ontology of his own, (supposed), area of expertise, i.e. Mathematics, and thus Shallit is certainly not qualified to comment on any other area of study that may lay outside his own, supposed, area of expertise. Like say for instance, molecular biology.

on·tol·o·gy noun 1. the branch of metaphysics dealing with the nature of being. 2. a set of concepts and categories in a subject area or domain that shows their properties and the relations between them.

Mathematics, which provides the backbone for all of science, engineering and technology, exists in a unchanging, transcendent, i.e. beyond space and time, realm which is not reducible any possible materialistic explanation. As David Berlinski states in the following article, “There is no argument against religion that is not also an argument against mathematics. Mathematicians are capable of grasping a world of objects that lies beyond space and time…. The number four, after all, did not come into existence at a particular time, and it is not going to go out of existence at another time. It is neither here nor there. Nonetheless we are in some sense able to grasp the number by a faculty of our minds."

An Interview with David Berlinski - Jonathan Witt Berlinski: There is no argument against religion that is not also an argument against mathematics. Mathematicians are capable of grasping a world of objects that lies beyond space and time…. Interviewer:… Come again(?) … Berlinski: No need to come again: I got to where I was going the first time. The number four, after all, did not come into existence at a particular time, and it is not going to go out of existence at another time. It is neither here nor there. Nonetheless we are in some sense able to grasp the number by a faculty of our minds. Mathematical intuition is utterly mysterious. So for that matter is the fact that mathematical objects such as a Lie Group or a differentiable manifold have the power to interact with elementary particles or accelerating forces. But these are precisely the claims that theologians have always made as well – that human beings are capable by an exercise of their devotional abilities to come to some understanding of the deity; and the deity, although beyond space and time, is capable of interacting with material objects. http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/10/found-upon-web-and-reprinted-here.html

And as M. Anthony Mills states in the following article, "The trouble is that numbers — along with other mathematical entities such as classes, sets, and functions — are indispensable for modern science. And yet — here’s the rub — these “abstract objects” are not material. Thus, one cannot take science as the only sure guide to reality and at the same time discount disbelief in all immaterial realities."

What Does It Mean to Say That Science & Religion Conflict? - M. Anthony Mills - April 16, 2018 Excerpt: In fact, more problematic for the materialist than the non-existence of persons is the existence of mathematics. Why? Although a committed materialist might be perfectly willing to accept that you do not really exist, he will have a harder time accepting that numbers do not exist. The trouble is that numbers — along with other mathematical entities such as classes, sets, and functions — are indispensable for modern science. And yet — here’s the rub — these “abstract objects” are not material. Thus, one cannot take science as the only sure guide to reality and at the same time discount disbelief in all immaterial realities. https://www.realclearreligion.org/articles/2018/04/16/what_does_it_mean_to_say_that_science_and_religion_conflict.html

This timeless and unchanging mathematical realm which is not reducible to any possible temporal materialistic explanation has been referred to as a Platonic mathematical world.

Platonic mathematical world - image https://image.slidesharecdn.com/quantuminformation2-120301000431-phpapp01/95/quantum-information-14-728.jpg?cb=1330561190

As the following article points out, 'Mathematical platonism enjoys widespread support and is frequently considered the default metaphysical position with respect to mathematics.,,, and that arguments for mathematical platonism typically assert,,, that mathematical entities are not constituents of the spatio-temporal realm.'

Mathematical Platonism Excerpt: Mathematical platonism enjoys widespread support and is frequently considered the default metaphysical position with respect to mathematics. This is unsurprising given its extremely natural interpretation of mathematical practice. In particular, mathematical platonism takes at face-value such well known truths as that "there exist" an infinite number of prime numbers, and it provides straightforward explanations of mathematical objectivity and of the differences between mathematical and spatio-temporal entities. Thus arguments for mathematical platonism typically assert that in order for mathematical theories to be true their logical structure must refer to some mathematical entities, that many mathematical theories are indeed objectively true, and that mathematical entities are not constituents of the spatio-temporal realm.,,, http://www.iep.utm.edu/mathplat/

Simply put, Mathematics itself, contrary to the materialistic presuppositions of Darwinists, exists in some sort of timeless realm that does not change and thus mathematics certainly does not need the temporal material world in order to exist. And yet Darwinists, although they deny that anything beyond the physical realm exists exists, need this transcendent and unchanging world of mathematics in order for their theory to be considered scientific in the first place. The predicament that Darwinists find themselves in regards to denying the reality of this transcendent and unchanging immaterial world of mathematics, and yet needing validation from this transcendent and unchanging immaterial world of mathematics in order to be considered scientific in the first place, should be the very definition of a scientifically self-refuting worldview. In fact, Einstein and Wigner are both on record as to regarding the correct explanation for the applicability of mathematics to the universe as a ‘miracle’:

On the Rational Order of the World: a Letter to Maurice Solovine – Albert Einstein – March 30, 1952 Excerpt: “You find it strange that I consider the comprehensibility of the world (to the extent that we are authorized to speak of such a comprehensibility) as a miracle or as an eternal mystery. Well, a priori, one should expect a chaotic world, which cannot be grasped by the mind in any way .. the kind of order created by Newton’s theory of gravitation, for example, is wholly different. Even if a man proposes the axioms of the theory, the success of such a project presupposes a high degree of ordering of the objective world, and this could not be expected a priori. That is the ‘miracle’ which is constantly reinforced as our knowledge expands. There lies the weakness of positivists and professional atheists who are elated because they feel that they have not only successfully rid the world of gods but “bared the miracles.” -Albert Einstein – Letter to Solovine The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences – Eugene Wigner – 1960 Excerpt: ,,certainly it is hard to believe that our reasoning power was brought, by Darwin’s process of natural selection, to the perfection which it seems to possess.,,, It is difficult to avoid the impression that a miracle confronts us here, quite comparable in its striking nature to the miracle that the human mind can string a thousand arguments together without getting itself into contradictions, or to the two miracles of the existence of laws of nature and of the human mind’s capacity to divine them.,,, The miracle of the appropriateness of the language of mathematics for the formulation of the laws of physics is a wonderful gift which we neither understand nor deserve. We should be grateful for it and hope that it will remain valid in future research and that it will extend, for better or for worse, to our pleasure, even though perhaps also to our bafflement, to wide branches of learning. http://www.dartmouth.edu/~matc/MathDrama/reading/Wigner.html

Since Einstein and Wigner, when it comes to the applicability of mathematics to the physical world, apparently believe in 'miracles', perhaps Shallit now wants to claim that Einstein and Wigner do not understand mathematics? Moreover, like abstract mathematics, abstract logic itself does not exist in the space-time continuum,,,

Naturalism and Self-Refutation – Michael Egnor – January 31, 2018 Excerpt: For Clark, thoughts merely appear out of matter, which has no properties, by the laws of physics, for generating thought. For Clark to assert that naturalistic matter as described by physics gives rise to the mind, without immateriality of any sort, is merely to assert magic. Furthermore, the very framework of Clark’s argument — logic — is neither material nor natural. Logic, after all, doesn’t exist “in the space-time continuum” and isn’t described by physics. What is the location of modus ponens? How much does Gödel’s incompleteness theorem weigh? What is the physics of non-contradiction? How many millimeters long is Clark’s argument for naturalism? Ironically the very logic that Clark employs to argue for naturalism is outside of any naturalistic frame. The strength of Clark’s defense of naturalism is that it is an attempt to present naturalism’s tenets clearly and logically. That is its weakness as well, because it exposes naturalism to scrutiny, and naturalism cannot withstand even minimal scrutiny. Even to define naturalism is to refute it. https://evolutionnews.org/2018/01/naturalism-and-self-refutation/

Perhaps Shallit will now claim that anyone who disbelieves the reductive materialism of Darwinian evolution on account of the timeless, unchanging, and immaterial realm of logic does not understand logic? ,,, Yet, might I be so bold as to point out, again, that it is Shallit himself who does not even understand the ontology of his own, (supposed), area of expertise, i.e. Mathematics (and logic), Many theoretical physicists today believe they can construct a purely mathematical ‘theory of everything’ without recourse to God, Yet Godel, via logic, was able to prove that mathematics itself is ‘incomplete’. As the following article succinctly puts it, Godel proved that “Math could not play the role of God as infinite and autonomous.”

Taking God Out of the Equation – Biblical Worldview – by Ron Tagliapietra – January 1, 2012 Excerpt: Kurt Gödel (1906–1978) proved that no logical systems (if they include the counting numbers) can have all three of the following properties. 1. Validity … all conclusions are reached by valid reasoning. 2. Consistency … no conclusions contradict any other conclusions. 3. Completeness … all statements made in the system are either true or false. The details filled a book, but the basic concept was simple and elegant. He (Godel) summed it up this way: “Anything you can draw a circle around cannot explain itself without referring to something outside the circle—something you have to assume but cannot prove.” For this reason, his proof is also called the Incompleteness Theorem. Kurt Gödel had dropped a bomb on the foundations of mathematics. Math could not play the role of God as infinite and autonomous. It was shocking, though, that logic could prove that mathematics could not be its own ultimate foundation. Christians should not have been surprised. The first two conditions are true about math: it is valid and consistent. But only God fulfills the third condition. Only He is complete and therefore self-dependent (autonomous). God alone is “all in all” (1 Corinthians 15:28), “the beginning and the end” (Revelation 22:13). God is the ultimate authority (Hebrews 6:13), and in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Colossians 2:3). http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v7/n1/equation#

Even Hawking himself conceded that, “Kurt Gödel halted the achievement of a unifying all-encompassing theory of everything in his theorem that: “Anything you can draw a circle around cannot explain itself without referring to something outside the circle—something you have to assume but cannot prove”.

"Kurt Gödel halted the achievement of a unifying all-encompassing theory of everything in his theorem that: “Anything you can draw a circle around cannot explain itself without referring to something outside the circle—something you have to assume but cannot prove”. Thus, based on the position that an equation cannot prove itself, the constructs are based on assumptions some of which will be unprovable.” Cf., Stephen Hawking & Leonard Miodinow, The Grand Design (2010)

Thus in conclusion. Shallit own supposed, area of expertise, mathematics (and logic) is dependent on the reality of God. And since Shallit does not even understand the ontological necessity of God in order to provide a (timeless and unchanging) foundation for the mathematics and logic that he prides himself in, then it directly follows that Shallit is disqualified from ever commenting on anyone else who may comment outside their own area of expertise. As the Bible says, "You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye."

Matthew 7:5 You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.

Verse and quotes:

John 1:1 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” What is the Logos? Logos is a Greek word literally translated as “word, speech, or utterance.” However, in Greek philosophy, Logos refers to divine reason or the power that puts sense into the world making order instead of chaos.,,, In the Gospel of John, John writes “In the beginning was the Word (Logos), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). John appealed to his readers by saying in essence, “You’ve been thinking, talking, and writing about the Word (divine reason) for centuries and now I will tell you who He is.” https://www.compellingtruth.org/what-is-the-Logos.html “Atheists can give no reason why they should value reason, and Christians can show how anyone who believes in reason must also believe in God.” Cogito; Ergo Deus Est by Charles Edward White Philosophy Still Lives Because God Isn't Dead

bornagain77

. Is that right Bob? Lurking behind one of Shallit's links is an 'expert with evidence' that explains "the flagrant appearance of design in nature" - er - like the establishment of coded construction that Gelertner describes, i.e. a way to specify a protein from a heritable memory store? No Bob. You are mistaken. It's not there. Shallit has zilch. . Upright BiPed

Re “Gelernter is not a biologist and (to the best of my knowledge) has no advanced formal training in biology,” we did not realize that math prof Jeffrey Shallit, who defends Darwinism, had biology credentials himself. Well, he must, mustn’t he?

Only if Shallit was becoming a crank: his argument is that stepping outside one's area of training is one sign (of several) of being a crank. And when Shallit tackles the substantive points of Gelernter's post, he provides links to experts and the actual evidence. Bob O'H

Geeeeeeeeeeeewwwwhhhhhhhiiiiiiizzzzz another religiously atheistic atheist (often male) Criticizing people on a subject he probably knows nothing about (religion/god) Often extending his professional basis in mathematics or biology into a theological basis which again he knows nothing about This anti-religious crank whom which I have heard nothing about Has made no major headlines whatsoever in his entire career until I read about him on this site Yes a blog about intelligent design and often religion was the site that I actually heard about this guy and I have never heard about him before hand hmmmmmm ever! Much similarly to all atypical anti-religious atheists whom believe that evolution is infallible, He makes overreaching claims about the individuals he’s criticizing, a typical trait is how belittling he is and how little respect he shows any other colleagues other than himself and other people that believe in evolution So since he likes to call anybody that doesn’t agree with his perspective cranks, I should go forward and generalize everybody who doesn’t agree with my perspective as assholes because they all stink and shit keeps coming out of their mouths Geewhiz I can be sarcastic to, jackass, And this moron doesn’t understand why there’s no real dialogue at all between so-called creationist and themselves. No shots were fired at him from what I can see on any sites including the sites like mind matters which criticized him, they certainly didn’t name called him and they certainly didn’t belittle him This message is directed at people like Shallit And others that decide they want to act like a jackass including myself This excludes pretty much everybody on the site AaronS1978