Review of Darwin’s Doubt slams ID theorists for not publishing in Darwinist-run journals

F/N: As a relevant example, let the objectors reflect on Loennig on the claimed rise of the giraffe: http://ad-multimedia.de/evo/long-necked-giraffe_mU.pdf Is this a tissue of misleading citations, half-truths and reams of outright lies as the rhetorical club "Gish gallop" would imply? On what basis would such a claim stand? (I note, this essay is of monograph length, but is typical of literature I have seen that documents the gap between oh there is a path to the body plan and admissions against interest that show the reality of serious and too often papered over gaps.) KF kairosfocus

Allan Keith:

I sincerelyapologize to KF for suggesting an intentional quote mine.

It's not like quote-mining is morally wrong. Mung

F/N: I took time out to track down the essay where the ideas are introduced by Ms Scott. The taint I pointed out is there from the outset. Ms Scott complains on citing Gould on the trade secret of paleontology, then says:

Creationist debaters (at least the nationally-prominent ones) are masters at presenting these half-truth non-sequiturs that the audience misunderstands as relevant points. These can be very difficult to counter in a debate situation, unless you have a lot of time.

[--> she later contradicts herself on this point, arguing for a tight time debate format that locks out substantiating the big picture problem that is at stake; surely, 45 minutes and what a 20 - 30 minute rebuttal is a lot of time, especially after hundreds of debates have been done and books have been published so the substance is no surprise. BTW, Creation Scientists Answer their critics is a key part of that literature, as well as Gish's Fossils say no series]

And you never have enough time to deal with even a fraction of the half-truths or plain erroneous statements that creationists can come out with. Even if you deal with a handful of the unscientific nonsense spewed out by your opponent, your audience is left with the , "Yeah, but..." syndrome: well, maybe there are intermediate forms and the creationist was wrong about radiometric dating, YEAH, BUT why didn't that evolutionist answer the question about polonium halos?" (or some other argument.)

[--> Thin gruel. If one has solidly broken several key cases AND has laid out the positive evidence that actually shows by clear observed case the pattern of body-plan level macroevo that surely is there all across the fossil record, the other side should be shattered. Oh, maybe, the point is, that from molecular machines in the cell to major body plans, there is a systematic pattern of gaps and islands of function isolated by gaps without functional forms . . . in which case Gish and co clearly have a point, one the public has a RIGHT to hear.]

The evolutionist debater is never going to be able to counter all of the misinformation that a creationist can put out in a lengthy debate format. And the way these things work is that suspicion is sowed in the minds of the audience no matter what . . . .

[--> suspicion that a case has not been made on the empirical merits, substantiating the arguments by icon?]

Now, there are ways to have a formal debate that actually teaches the audience something about science, or evolution, and that has the potential to expose creation science for the junk it is. This is to have a narrowly-focused exchange in which the debaters deal with a limited number of topics. Instead of the "Gish Gallop" format of most debates where the creationist is allowed to run on for 45 minutes or an hour, spewing forth torrents of error

[--> see the contradiction? What about the cross-complaint that YEARS of schooling, hundreds of hours of TV time, acres of museum space and more are used to indoctrinate and it is complained that there should never be a forum where both sides can make the case they have in summary at feature article length or book chapter length?]

that the evolutionist hasn't a prayer of refuting in the format of a debate, the debaters have limited topics and limited time.

There is much that is utterly wrong with this essay, for reasons already highlighted and in part noted in-quote. In particular, a torrent of half-truths is a thinly veiled way of saying reams of lies. For, a half-truth is a whole lie. Including twisted quotation -- as I was accused of above. I here substantiate that my concern was there from the beginning, though Ms Scott is a bit more genteel than the raw statement in Rational Wiki which I found years ago on first encountering this pseudo-fallacy. Where spewing reams of half-truths, lies, distorted dishonest quotes etc is an actual problem, any half-decent lawyer knows that if you pick out several points of error, and properly expose falsity and deceit or even just incompetence, the credibility of the other side is shattered. So, the rhetorical premise Scott offers is fundamentally false. Her claims about Creationists dodging narrow formats is also misleading, as in fact the claimed gradualism is a matter of a wide array of evidence relative to 150 years of fossils, with a broad pattern that should be there but is not. That's Gould's famous trade secret. And no it's not just rates, the rates issue was put up to explain the gaps. The systematic gaps. So, the core point is there, right from the beginning. The term is tainted, it insinuates deceitful insincerity and manipulation of the public. Even, going so far as to suggest that a format that gives time to make the case is calculated to get away with in effect public education fraud. I am reminded of the what, six year old offer here at UD that we would publish an up to 6,000 word or so (the limit is generous and flexible, where at 120 WPM that is 50 minutes of speech, about the times in question) essay that would outline and substantiate the core blind watchmaker thesis case for ooL and tree of life. Links can go elsewhere but the case as a summary must be made in the essay. After a year of pursuing it, no satisfactory submission was received from the penumbra of objector sites. That is relevant to the credibility of the argument Ms Scott made. No, I do not buy the claim, for cause. Coming back to the core point, it is clear that "Gish gallop" is loaded to the point of slander and should not be used. it boils down to saying that if one puts up a sustained, lecture length or magazine feature article length argument with many sources, using expert testimony against interest one is a liar and misquoter, pretty automatically. That is patently false and unjustifiably accusatory. It is time this was set aside. And, web searches show the term is now being migrated into making even more loaded political points in what is in effect a policy opinion verbal war that is deeply poisoning the atmosphere for discussion. Something is wrong here, seriously wrong. Something connected to the obvious ongoing suicide of our civilisation. It is time to turn back before the crumbling cliff's edge collapses underfoot. KF kairosfocus

AK, really? Attack? I asked for a responsible resolution of a very serious conclusion-jumping game directly relevant to the point at stake; recall, you just called a man who has put his life on the line on matters of truth, a deliberate, calculated liar who willfully composed a deceitful construct as a sham definition, to base a meritless complaint. Yes, on Steve-h's direct correction, you pulled back, which is indeed a good first step towards a return to civility. However, in all fairness, an explanation -- as opposed to grovelling -- is reasonable, in the context of that return to civility -- which is the point of an apology; which I am willing to acknowledge. I in turn apologise for not explicitly acknowledging that apology as offered earlier. I trust the voltage can now be turned down to sub-lethal levels. G'night. KF kairosfocus

KairosFocus,

AK, your continued rhetoric is utterly unimpressive.

My continued rhetoric? I wasn’t the one who doubled down and went on the attack after an apology was given. If you can’t accept an apology, the problem lies with you, not me. Allan Keith

AK, your continued rhetoric is utterly unimpressive. The explicit and hinted at meaning of the pseudo-fallacy slander tactic are one and the same, and the just now Wiki reference underscores the fact. The term is irretrievably tainted by its usage across time and it should never be used by a sincere, responsible and civil commenter. In a day and age where "microagressions," so-called, are loudly denounced on far slenderer grounds, the point should not require belabouring. KF kairosfocus

KairosFocus,

I clipped the definition from Rational Wiki verbatim, as described. You suggest that they have amended the definition, and it seems this is done without explanation or apology, it is just pushed into an archived version.

Since you are unwilling to accept an apology, I retract it. You obviously “clipped” it at least four years ago and never checked to see if it had been updated.

Now, the same definition continues, eg: >> https://speakingofresearch.com/2012/09/11/gish-gallop/

Yes. It continued two years before RationalWiki corrected their definition. I didn’t know that time travel was one of your super powers.

Going forward, the use of the same pseudofallacy to accuse us today is slander, false accusation of being a gross liar, and those who resort to it will by that behaviour identify themselves as poisonous slanderers. Period.

So, you are just going to arbitrarily redefine “Gish Gallop”. From now on I will refer to it as the Kairisfocus Canter.

On further thought, I point out that you should examine why you so quickly jumped to a loaded, slanderous conclusion of systematic deceit on my part. I am a man who has put his life on the line on issues of truth.

You used a quote that was corrected four years ago and can only be found by going through the audit trail. I asked you if it was from a different site and offered to apologize if it was. Someone else pointed out where you probably found the quote and I promptly apologized. But rather than acknowledge this and move on, you attack. And then you go all self righteous on me. Obviously you are incapable of following the Christian teachings that you preach about. I think that our conversation has come to an end. Allan Keith

PS: On further thought, I point out that you should examine why you so quickly jumped to a loaded, slanderous conclusion of systematic deceit on my part. I am a man who has put his life on the line on issues of truth. kairosfocus

AK, I clipped the definition from Rational Wiki verbatim, as described. You suggest that they have amended the definition, and it seems this is done without explanation or apology, it is just pushed into an archived version. Now, the same definition continues, eg: >> https://speakingofresearch.com/2012/09/11/gish-gallop/ Gish Gallop is a technique, named after the creationist Duane Gish who employed it, whereby someone argues a cause by hurling as many different half-truths and no-truths into a very short space of time so that their opponent cannot hope to combat each point in real time. This leaves some points unanswered and allows the original speaker to try and claim his opponent lacks the counter-arguments.>> The source for this is obvious, given close resemblance. Next, we see Wiki as of just now: >>"Gish gallop" is a technique used during debating that focuses on overwhelming one's opponent with as many arguments as possible, without regard for accuracy or strength of the arguments. The term was coined by Eugenie C. Scott and named after the creationist Duane T. Gish, who used the technique frequently against science-based opponents on the topic of evolution. During a Gish gallop, a debater confronts an opponent with a rapid series of many specious arguments, half-truths, and misrepresentations in a short space of time, which makes it impossible for the opponent to refute all of them within the format of a formal debate. In practice, each point raised by the "Gish galloper" takes considerably more time to refute or fact-check than it did to state in the first place.>> The slanders and insinuations of being a liar continue, in short. And no, my citation is not out of date as is in your latest suggestion. Finally, the "weak arguments" subtle-form, dog whistle wink-wink, nod-nod version of the claim fails, as it does not responsibly acknowledge how evidence can mutually support and reinforce. ESPECIALLY IN AN INDUCTIVE CONTEXT. A useful contrast is deductive argument chains which snap at a single weak link vs inductive, cumulative ones that are like twisted strands and fibres in a rope. The fibres and strands mutually reinforce, leading to a case where an individually weak and short fibre, joined to others will form a long, strong rope. This is a classic system effect where the whole is greater than the mere sum of parts. (And BTW, I discuss exactly this in my 101.) A capital example is Babbage in the 9th Bridgewater thesis. One familiar witness to the risen Christ may be given say a 1 in 1,000 chance of being mistaken. But when the number of witnesses, variety of relationships, views and circumstances begin to multiply, the odds of all being wrong drop exponentially. That is, we here see the probability meat in the classic saying that in the mouth of two or three witnesses shall a word be established. What happened with Gish is that he did in fact survey the range of cases and correctly identified the systematic gaps, in a context where there are 250+k fossil species with billions of observed cases across the span of the fossiliferous rocks and around the world. Such a sample is not likely to be wrong in such a dominant pattern, Darwin's hope has been dashed. That's why Punctuated equilibria was put on the table, to find another way around the "trade secret" of paleontology. But that too has fizzled. More foundationally, the issue of the origin of the FSCO/I in body plans from OoL up is a separate line of evidence and it highlights the only empirically warranted source: intelligently directed configuration. As I have pointed out, there is a reason why Gish scored 300+:0 in debates, and the slanderous, character assassination pseudofallacy explanation simply does not hold water. Period. Going forward, the use of the same pseudofallacy to accuse us today is slander, false accusation of being a gross liar, and those who resort to it will by that behaviour identify themselves as poisonous slanderers. Period. KF kairosfocus

Steve_h,

Actually the quote appears exactly as KF gave it between October 2012 and February 2014 – and maybe at others times too. You can see it on the ‘Fossil Record’ tab.

Thank you for pointing this out. KF was not fabricating a false quote, just using a quote that was corrected four years ago. I sincerelyapologize to KF for suggesting an intentional quote mine. Allan Keith

Actually the quote appears exactly as KF gave it between October 2012 and February 2014 - and maybe at others times too. You can see it on the 'Fossil Record' tab. steve_h

KF@140, I went back to comment 125 and to your dedicated OP. In both you have written:

And so, we can hardly but observe that you are forced to appeal to our sense of duty to truth, justice and more, even as you work as a saw-tooth cutting away at our connexion to the root of such things. Now, Rational Wiki (and no I will not link the source, do your own search):

The Gish Gallop, named after creationist Duane Gish, is the debating technique of drowning the opponent in such a torrent of half-truths, lies, and straw-man arguments that the opponent cannot possibly answer every falsehood in real time. The term was coined by Eugenie Scott of the National Center for Science Education. Sam Harris describes the technique as “starting 10 fires in 10 minutes.”

The only problem is that the quote you say is from RationalWiki does not appear anywhere on that page. https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Gish_Gallop The actual definition from RationalWiki is:

The Gish Gallop (also known as proof by verbosity[1]) is the fallacious debate tactic of drowning your opponent in a flood of individually-weak arguments in order to prevent rebuttal of the whole argument collection without great effort. The Gish Gallop is a belt-fed version of the on the spot fallacy, as it's unreasonable for anyone to have a well-composed answer immediately available to every argument present in the Gallop. The Gish Gallop is named after creationist Duane Gish, who often abused it.

Although not flattering, it does not say that it is " the debating technique of drowning the opponent in such a torrent of half-truths, lies, and straw-man arguments...", as you implied. Possibly you were mistaken about where you obtained the definition you posted. But I must say that on the face of it, it appears that you picked and chose parts of different sentences from the RationalWiki page and assembled them to suggest a definition that RationalWiki, no fan of ID, never intended. It is possible that your quote comes from a different RationalWiki page, or another site. If you can provide a link to this, I will certainly apologize. Allan Keith

PS: This latest episode also shows the suicidal nature of the alleged tactic. For, AK has here given enough of a performance that -- were there any remaining doubt -- we know the irresponsible, un-serious, unreasonable rhetorical habits we are dealing with in this case. At this point, we can only correct for record. kairosfocus

AK, I highlighted a relevant part of a citation which I gave in more extensive form earlier [including in a headlined OP]. In so doing, I directly demonstrated that -- contrary to your assertions -- the term DOES directly assert half truths and lies in wholesale quantities. You then failed to acknowledge that I had obviously made my point and proceeded to double down with the further accusation of misleading out of context citation. You have thus shown your own utter lack of seriousness, responsibility and reasonableness. Duly noted. KF kairosfocus

Allan Keiths:

Thank you for demonstrating the fine art of the quote-mine.

As if someone ought not quote-mine. Why all the moral judgmentalism Mr. Keith? Mung

Gish gallop does not pertain to blogs and forums such as UD. ET

Kairosfocus,

AK, an actual half truth would be a whole lie, and as was already cited, there is an explicit assertion of piling up reams of lies — Rational Wiki (so-called): ” the debating technique of drowning the opponent in . . . a torrent of half-truths, lies, and straw-man arguments . . .“

Thank you for demonstrating the fine art of the quote-mine. The actual definition from RatialWiki is:

"The Gish Gallop (also known as proof by verbosity[1]) is the fallacious debate tactic of drowning your opponent in a flood of individually-weak arguments in order to prevent rebuttal of the whole argument collection without great effort."

The part about "torrent of lies...", follows on from this sentence:

"Gish Gallops are almost always performed with numerous other logical fallacies baked in. "

This explains that the Gish gallop is often used in conjunction with other questionable debating tactics, including lies, red herrings and straw man erecting. It does not say that the Gish gallop itself involves lies. Gish's debating style often involved bombarding the opponent with mountains of arguments, some weak, some strong. In a timed debate, this dos not allow the opponent time to respond adequately to all of them. My criticism is not with Gish. He employed a tactic for which his opponents could not adequately respond to. That is what debaters try to do. My criticism is with the moderators and his opponents for not calling him on it. Allan Keith

Allan Keith:

The “Gish gallop” style does not make any implications of lying.

Thank God for that! But what's wrong with lying? Mung

AK, an actual half truth would be a whole lie, and as was already cited, there is an explicit assertion of piling up reams of lies -- Rational Wiki (so-called): " the debating technique of drowning the opponent in . . . a torrent of half-truths, lies, and straw-man arguments . . . " That is the context in which I am pointing out that this term was born in slander and lives in slander to this day; unless you are in a position to demonstrate piled up lies, kindly do not use language with that implied accusation. As for matters epistemological, your attempt to project the fallacy of the closed mind to me by snide suggestion obviously reflects your failure to seriously read and reckon with the already linked 101 on worldviews here on. I will note, some things are self-evident (on pain of instant absurdity on the attempted denial; I used error exists and consciousness as cases in point), other things are warranted to lesser degrees. I also think you failed to see why I normally use a weak form understanding of knowledge: warranted, credibly true (and reliable) belief, which for instance applies to many scientific, managerial or historical claims. And so forth. KF kairosfocus

KairosFocus,

AK, you are simply wrong.

I am willing to admit the possibility. Are you?

Remember, you are by DIRECT implication accusing people of trying to win debates by wholesale lying;

No. The “Gish gallop” style does not make any implications of lying. Allan Keith

AK, you are simply wrong. For reasons long since laid out. Further to this, you seem indifferent to the basic discourtesy of a double-slander [which beyond a certain threshold is an outright tort]: Gish to begin with and those you wish to smear, tag and dismiss today. Remember, you are by DIRECT implication accusing people of trying to win debates by wholesale lying; seldom a wise thing to suggest, especially when you deal with those who have put careers and lives on the line on issues of conscience and truth. Blend in the indication that you have caught the bad habit of selective hyperskepticism and we can see the hint of a perfect storm of mutually reinforcing fallacies. KF kairosfocus

So AK, let me see if I got this straight. Disingnuous Darwinian debating tactic #449, or is that tactic #448?, is that if someone presents ample evidence against Darwinian claims, instead of addressing any of the evidence forthrightly, you just issue a ad hominem with what is termed a "Gish Gallop" and then you claim victory and walk away??? Golly gee whiz you just got to luv this Darwinian stuff, no messy research or backing up your claims with actual real time evidence, just attack the man, ignore the research, and call it a day. Of course, those who are not so enamored with all things Darwinian, as you are, might not find your tactics so compelling. But hey, who am I to say anything. All the evidence I presented, and me included, are rendered pointless and moot by your magic two words "Gish Gallop"! :) satire off! bornagain77

KairosFocus,

What part of slander do you not recognise?

Gish’s debates are there for all to see. I think that the definition of Gish Gallop describes his debating style quite accurately. You disagree. The fact that you think it is slander doesn’t make it so. But you will also note that I almost never use the term, even though the definition aptly describes the debating style of two frequent commenters on this site.

My reply stands, “fabrication” is an obviously loaded term and your insinuations and suggestions about “religious programming” are yet further doubling down.

All I will say about this is Google Charles McVety, a recent commenter here, and watch a few of his videos. Allan Keith

AK:

his was coined for the debating style of Duane Gish, a creationist proponent. Whether it accurately describes Gish’s debating style is immaterial.

What part of slander do you not recognise? This further doubling down is sadly telling. Now, on your second assertion, I see:

With regard to evil being a fabrication of religion, I was obliously exaggerating. The term “evil” is used in many fashions in the English language. In its simplest form it is just a qualifier on the good/bad spectrum. However, in the religious frame of reference, it is used to imply something much more. That is the use of evil that is a fabrication of religion. And anyone who watches religious programming will know what I mean.

My reply stands, "fabrication" is an obviously loaded term and your insinuations and suggestions about "religious programming" are yet further doubling down. You have tried to circumvent the issue of gross error regarding the nature of evil by suggesting "The term “evil” is used in many fashions . . . In its simplest form it is just a qualifier on the good/bad spectrum." Good vs bad only manages to use a synonym for evil. Fail. There is a substantial conceptualisation of evil on the table:

what evil is, as a secondary phenomenon: the frustration, twisting, perversion or privation of what is good in itself that prevents or hampers it from attaining its proper end. A proper end that is often naturally evident. Such as, that our minds are properly aimed at and governed by truth and linked correct, cogent reasoning and duties to the just, the good, the prudent, the wise, etc.

KF kairosfocus

Gish Gallop:

"Gish gallop" is a technique used during debating that focuses on overwhelming one's opponent with as many arguments as possible, without regard for accuracy or strength of the arguments.

This was coined for the debating style of Duane Gish, a creationist proponent. Whether it accurately describes Gish’s debating style is immaterial. We have terms in the English language that are commonly used that don’t necessarily accurately reflect the person they are named for. But to argue that it is not a technique often used by ID proponents would be wrong, although to be fair it is also used by others. I used it in reference to BA77’s comments. And anyone who has read BA77’s comments would be hard pressed to find relevance or validity to the points being made. And, with respect, the same could be made for some of KF’s comments. Of what relevance is sawdust and cutting the branch to the use of a certain phrase or a statement about evil? Or lemmings going over a cliff? Or abortion being the greatest holocaust ever? Or Plato’s cave? KF uses these metaphors in the strangest associations. This is all to say that terms like Gish gallop are no more slander than Platonic or Machiavellian are slanderous towards Plato and Machiavelli. However, With regard to evil being a fabrication of religion, I was obliously exaggerating. The term “evil” is used in many fashions in the English language. In its simplest form it is just a qualifier on the good/bad spectrum. However, in the religious frame of reference, it is used to imply something much more. That is the use of evil that is a fabrication of religion. And anyone who watches religious programming will know what I mean. But thank you for posting an OP about something I sai. It is good for the ego. But to be serious, I enjoy these discussions, especially when something I say stimulates further discussion, even when it is in opposition to me those are the most constructive discussions. Allan Keith

Charles,

Let me tell you what radical sex education is doing in Canada. Children as young as eight are being taught how to have anal sex, and how to use condoms to reduce the risk of disease during anal sex. And they are being forced to question what gender they are. This radical sex education is just leading to a generation of perversion.

This level of intentional misrepresentation doesn’t warrant a response. It’s inanity speaks for itself. Allan Keith

CM, zip-zip-zip, as the sawdust piles up and as the branch begins to groan. KF kairosfocus

Headlined: https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/atheism/answering-aks-claims-a-the-so-called-gish-gallop-is-an-id-technique-and-b-evil-is-a-concept-fabricated-by-religion/ kairosfocus

AK, let us go back to your context from 64 above: "the ID technique [--> that's already a Big Lie agit prop tactic and slander] that you excel at called the Gish Gallop [--> diagnostic, terrible sign], made famous by Duane Gish and others [--> root-slander]" and again at 100 above: "evil is a concept fabricated by religion." Before anything else, I note this is an attempt to relativise and dismiss the reality of evil and to side-step two significant developments. First, that while up to the 50's - 70's the appeal to the problem of evils was a favourite tactic of atheists to try to dismiss the reality of God. But after Plantinga's highly successful free will defense was put on the table the deductive form collapsed and the inductive one was broken in its impact. But of course, some of us are old enough to remember and to bear witness. In short, deep inside the dismissal is resentment that a favourite rhetorical appeal of atheism has collapsed decisively, and that at the hands of a Christian theist and leading philosopher. The second matter turns on recognising what evil is, as a secondary phenomenon: the frustration, twisting, perversion or privation of what is good in itself that prevents or hampers it from attaining its proper end. A proper end that is often naturally evident. Such as, that our minds are properly aimed at and governed by truth and linked correct, cogent reasoning and duties to the just, the good, the prudent, the wise, etc. As WmAD famously highlighted from Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy, that issue is the problem of good:

In his Consolation of Philosophy, Boethius states the following paradox: “If God exists, whence evil? But whence good, if God does not exist?” . . .

I doubt that you would as cavalierly assert through the confident manner fallacy: evil [--> GOOD] is a concept fabricated by religion . . . But the two are inextricably intertwined, indeed evil parasites off the good and much of its repugnance when its destructive effects are manifest for all to see comes from its patent violation and frustration of what is a manifest proper end. And so, we can hardly but observe that you are forced to appeal to our sense of duty to truth, justice and more, even as you work as a saw-tooth cutting away at our connexion to the root of such things. Now, Rational Wiki (and no I will not link the source, do your own search):

The Gish Gallop, named after creationist Duane Gish, is the debating technique of drowning the opponent in such a torrent of half-truths, lies, and straw-man arguments that the opponent cannot possibly answer every falsehood in real time. The term was coined by Eugenie Scott of the National Center for Science Education. Sam Harris describes the technique as “starting 10 fires in 10 minutes.”

Now, too, before I speak more specifically, remember my metaphor just above on the cumulative impact of corrosive polarising slander and cutting off the roots of our civilisation -- noting, the dismissive genetic fallacy on evil also made by you, AK: one tooth of a zipping saw does not do much, it seems, from how tiny a sawdust shaving is. But once we see many teeth in action, the cumulative effect is huge as the sawdust pile grows and grows and grows zip-zip-zip, especially if the branch we are sitting on is under strain and has to bear all of us. Then, beyond a certain unpredictable point, a critical threshold is hit and CRAACK, SNAP, COLLAPSE. Too late, bitterly too late. Where, we are dealing with a civilisation that -- having nukes -- is far too dangerous to fail safely. In that light, AK's strawman tactic of twisting my words into:

Civilization is going to come crashing down because I used the term “Gish gallop” . . .

. . . only manages to show the sort of destructive blindness caused by evil and in accumulation, the zipping saw at suicidal work in our civilisation may well precipitate the unthinkable. FYI, AK, you sheared off one little curlicue of sawdust from the branch on which we are all sitting. You did this by a doubly slanderous reference. Which, I called you on, and which you show no signs of due responsiveness and responsibility over. And indeed, making that particular reference is a serious sign of how far the rot has progressed in a particular case. I don't know if we can wake up from the stupor of a Plato's Cave suicidal horror show already in progress, but that will take a miracle of mass repentance. This I do know, our civilisation is in self-induced mortal peril, and the saws are busily zipping away with destructive agit prop cutting us off from the root and support that are vital for our civilisation to thrive. Not that the blinded, benumbed and polarised will be particularly inclined to wake up to, face and do something about our common peril. Now, here is my longstanding response to the Gish-smear slander, here at UD (and no it is not a threat to ban, in answer to yet another twister of facts and issues out there):

In short, this term [= Gish gallop] is an accusation of lying, distorting and the like on a wholesale basis, further allegedly in order to overwhelm an opponent and thus prevent answering the flood of falsehoods. Something is very wrong here, however, even after taking the questionable list of sources cited at face value for the moment, for the sake of discussion. For, it is well known that to select several examples of actual falsehood or gross error and to expose them normally suffices to ground the conclusion that the party who has actually indulged such a flood of false assertions, is not responsible or credible and should be dismissed. One slice of such a spoiled cake has in it all the ingredients, and all that. In short, if the accusation were TRUE, it would be quite easy to overturn such an argument. It would fail so spectacularly, that it would be rhetorically suicidal. Provided, the other side of the debate or discussion were in command of the actual facts, not mere ideological talking points and disputable opinions. So, it is quite plain that there is no real need for such a named fallacy. And, in the case of Mr Gish, it is well known that he consistently won debates on origins science by focussing on the problem that the fossil record is full of gaps that lead to a want of on-the-ground evidence for body-plan level macroevolution. [Kindly, see the linked discussion of the real facts, onward at the linked.]

Nobody wins 300+:0 public debates, inducing opponents to find excuses to dodge further debates and to smear the debater unless he stands on solid facts and cogent reasoning. In this case, were [neo-] darwinist evolutionary theory even roughly true, 250+k fossil species in museums and the billions of further readily seen fossils in the field [e.g. Barbados, where I have lived, is literally built out of layers of fossil limestone, often in the form of corals] would overwhelm us with gradualism of body form transformation as a dominant, obvious pattern. Instead, as Gould et al inadvertently highlighted by championing Punctuated Equilibria, the actual pattern is one of systematic gaps and persistent absence of the roots of the tree of life icon -- OoL by blind watchmaker mechanisms. That's why we see so many evolutionary just so stories in the textbooks, the museums, the documentaries and the literature. By utter contrast, we may answer the slanders against ID simply and directly. On a trillion directly observed cases [including your objecting comments above, which are meaningful text strings], functionally specific, complex organisation and associated information -- FSCO/I for handy short -- is a highly reliable sign of intelligently directed configuration [= design] as relevant cause. This is backed up by the search challenge posed by blind chance and mechanical necessity driven needle in haystack search for configuration spaces that start at the 500 to 1,000 bit threshold of complexity. That is, such a search challenge overwhelms sol system or observed cosmos scale resources, given 3.27*10-150 to 1.07*10^301 and sharply up possibilities, overwhemingly non-functional gibberish. The only empirically warranted, analytically plausible cause of FSCO/I is design. The issue is not evidence and analysis, but that design is repugnant to a culturally dominant ideology, evolutionary materialistic scientism. Which, on closer inspection, is readily seen to be self-referentially incoherent and thus irretrievably self-falsifying. KF kairosfocus

Allan @ 123, I have never heard anything more nonsensical in my life. Babies are still being killer in the womb. Even one abortion is too many. And why is accepting homosexuality a good thing? Homosexuality is a sin and a destructive practice, leading to disease and early death. These people don’t need tolerance and acceptance, they need help. Let me tell you what radical sex education is doing in Canada. Children as young as eight are being taught how to have anal sex, and how to use condoms to reduce the risk of disease during anal sex. And they are being forced to question what gender they are. This radical sex education is just leading to a generation of perversion. Charles McVety

Kairosfocus,

PS, I am prompted to suggest that we take a look at sawdust: tiny little shavings. That proves that each tooth of a zipping saw isn’t doing a lot at any given time. But there are a lot of teeth and the saw is going back and forth, zip, zip, zip. If one extrapolates from oh that’s not a lot, to imagine there is not a large cumulative impact, s/he will be sadly mistaken. In this case, the branch that is being sawed away it bearing the load of our civilisation, apparently largely under-recognised. At some critical point, crack propagation takes over at the stress concentration caused by the indent created. Bang, catastrophic failure. Suicidal agit prop can come to a point of cumulative effect hitting a critical threshold, at which point rapid failure of civilisation ensues. Maybe, it is time to stop sawing away at our future.

Civilization is going to come crashing down because I used the term "Gish gallop" juxtaposed against a nonsense accusation that BA77 made against me? Don't you think that your hyperbole is over-the-top? Most measurable indicators show that we are less violent and more tolerant than we have ever been. Largely because we make the effort to understand our differences and accept them as long as they are not doing harm to others. We have better health care and a better social safety net than we have ever had. Our children are better educated. And they are now being provided with comprehensive and factual information about sex, such that rates of unwanted pregnancies and abortions are lower than they were since Roe v. Wade. People are no longer prosecuted,and the level of persecution is lower, for simply being homosexual. Do we face challenges? Of course we do. But I am very optimistic about the future ahead of us. Young people are less hampered by the puritanical edicts of their ancestors; retaining the sensible and logical teachings and discarding the more intolerant ones. We have a lot to learn from our youth. Allan Keith

PS, I am prompted to suggest that we take a look at sawdust: tiny little shavings. That proves that each tooth of a zipping saw isn't doing a lot at any given time. But there are a lot of teeth and the saw is going back and forth, zip, zip, zip. If one extrapolates from oh that's not a lot, to imagine there is not a large cumulative impact, s/he will be sadly mistaken. In this case, the branch that is being sawed away it bearing the load of our civilisation, apparently largely under-recognised. At some critical point, crack propagation takes over at the stress concentration caused by the indent created. Bang, catastrophic failure. Suicidal agit prop can come to a point of cumulative effect hitting a critical threshold, at which point rapid failure of civilisation ensues. Maybe, it is time to stop sawing away at our future. kairosfocus

CM, were this merely personal insult, I would agree. Unfortunately, it is agit-prop and takes its place in the branch-sawing that is currently undermining our civilisation. The intent is Laodicean: to lock out the unwelcome, so that truth knocks politely at the door of the alleged temple of truth, but in vain. Beyond a certain point we must reckon with why Jesus as prophet TWICE drove the money-changers from the Court of the Gentiles (the second time, sparking the plot that judicially murdered him -- and that Sunday was coming does not change the terrible dynamic of corruption thus set loose). I suggest, if you look above, I did not demand an apology but rather pointed out that this is a key step on the road to return to civility. Notice: "anyone who uses the phrase gish gallop here or elsewhere instantly disqualifies himself from serious consideration, pending a straight out apology and pledge never to resort to such slanderous nonsense again." Self-exile from civility requires self-correction, and the manifestation of such correction of oneself is a signal to others that there is a genuine turn. That does not mean that I have demanded, it means I have described, then pointed the correction. Nor, does it mean that I am holding my breath, waiting on the sort of turn that too often requires a crash into reality at rock bottom as it is said. And unfortunately, the cumulative impact of that spreading evil in its many forms is cumulatively suicidal. Sometimes, inadvertent enabling has to be eliminated. KF kairosfocus

KairosFocus

CM, I must disagree. Kindly, see the Rational Wiki to see what I am speaking about. This is slander to the man and to the current target. The intent is to smear without good cause, brand as intellectually dishonest, poison against and dismiss.

Of course this is an attempt to slander and smear. My point is that it fails. Rather than chastising people for doing this, we should allow them. It only makes them look bad. Demanding g that they apologize only gives credence to their views. Charles McVety

CM, I must disagree. Kindly, see the Rational Wiki to see what I am speaking about. This is slander to the man and to the current target. The intent is to smear without good cause, brand as intellectually dishonest, poison against and dismiss. While I am sure Dr Gish would indeed be gracious, the fundamental incivility and disrespect for truth in a context that is heavily freighted with consequences are also clear. That destruction of the civil space for serious discussion on the merits, cumulatively, is part of the suicide of our civilisation. I say suicide as those indulging in sawing off the branch are also sitting on it. KF kairosfocus

Kairosfocus:

AK, anyone who uses the phrase gish gallop here or elsewhere instantly disqualifies himself from serious consideration, pending a straight out apology and pledge never to resort to such slanderous nonsense again.

With respect, I think that you are blowing this way out of proportion. As the President of Canada Christian College, I had the pleasure of meeting Duane on several occasions. He would not have been offended by this phrase. In fact, he would have viewed it as a sign that those who disagree with his arguments are clutching at straws. Charles McVety

AK, are you aware that eye for eye is in effect a statement of the key jurisprudential principle that punishments should be proportionate to crimes? As in, not wildly disproportionate and vindictive? KF kairosfocus

AK, are you aware of the discipline and movement known by the Russian Acronym, TRIZ? I suggest you look it up before suggesting that no frame of addressing how designs are done is on the table. FYI, this has been specifically pointed to by WmAD, years ago. We also have the ongoing work of Venter et al and genetic engineering. Even the gene knockout research technique is relevant. In short, the whole line of your objections is without serious merit. Not to mention, thattwerdun is prior to howtweredun. KF kairosfocus

AK, your ad hom on have YOU published in darwinoist journals is duly noted. FYI, there are several dozen and growing technical, ID supportive articles regarding biology. On cosmology, likely the number is 1 - 2 orders of magnitude higher, given the fine tuning issue. Besides, the argument is the trifecta fallacy in action: red herring led away to a strawman caricature duly set alight to cloud, poison, polarise and frustrate the atmosphere for discussion. The core issue that you obviously have no answer to, is that on a trillion observation base, functionally specific, complex organisation and associated information is a reliable sign that intelligently directed configuration is a material causal factor. You have ZERO cases of reliably, actually observed cases where blind chance and/or mechanical necessity have created such FSCO/I. You have no plausible answer to the implied repeated discovery of islands of function in ultra-large config spaces by blind needle in haystack search. That is, you are championing statistical miracles. This is often done by ideological lock-out of the otherwise well warranted candidate: design. When you can answer the core case on its merits, then you may have something of substance to say otherwise. In the meanwhile you are simply showing just how bankrupt the blind watchmaker case is. KF PS: I won't indulge a long list of articles, I simply point to Abel on the plausibility metric, which I urge you to read before further digging in deeper: https://tbiomed.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1742-4682-6-27 kairosfocus

F/N: re 111, kindly note 64 above. KF kairosfocus

PS: Plato's warning, as is just shown highly relevant by AK at 100:

Ath [in The Laws, Bk X 2,350+ ya]. . . .[The avant garde philosophers and poets, c. 360 BC] say that fire and water, and earth and air [i.e the classical "material" elements of the cosmos], all exist by nature and chance, and none of them by art . . . [such that] all that is in the heaven, as well as animals and all plants, and all the seasons come from these elements, not by the action of mind, as they say, or of any God, or from art, but as I was saying, by nature and chance only [ --> that is, evolutionary materialism is ancient and would trace all things to blind chance and mechanical necessity] . . . . [Thus, they hold] that the principles of justice have no existence at all in nature, but that mankind are always disputing about them and altering them; and that the alterations which are made by art and by law have no basis in nature, but are of authority for the moment and at the time at which they are made.-

[ --> Relativism, too, is not new; complete with its radical amorality rooted in a worldview that has no foundational IS that can ground OUGHT, leading to an effectively arbitrary foundation only for morality, ethics and law: accident of personal preference, the ebbs and flows of power politics, accidents of history and and the shifting sands of manipulated community opinion driven by "winds and waves of doctrine and the cunning craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming . . . " cf a video on Plato's parable of the cave; from the perspective of pondering who set up the manipulative shadow-shows, why.]

These, my friends, are the sayings of wise men, poets and prose writers, which find a way into the minds of youth. They are told by them that the highest right is might,

[ --> Evolutionary materialism -- having no IS that can properly ground OUGHT -- leads to the promotion of amorality on which the only basis for "OUGHT" is seen to be might (and manipulation: might in "spin") . . . ]

and in this way the young fall into impieties, under the idea that the Gods are not such as the law bids them imagine; and hence arise factions [ --> Evolutionary materialism-motivated amorality "naturally" leads to continual contentions and power struggles influenced by that amorality at the hands of ruthless power hungry nihilistic agendas], these philosophers inviting them to lead a true life according to nature, that is,to live in real dominion over others [ --> such amoral and/or nihilistic factions, if they gain power, "naturally" tend towards ruthless abuse and arbitrariness . . . they have not learned the habits nor accepted the principles of mutual respect, justice, fairness and keeping the civil peace of justice, so they will want to deceive, manipulate and crush -- as the consistent history of radical revolutions over the past 250 years so plainly shows again and again], and not in legal subjection to them [--> nihilistic will to power not the spirit of justice and lawfulness].

kairosfocus

AK, 100:

since evil is a concept fabricated by religion

You here put your amorality on public display for all to see. The wise will take due heed, and it is appropriate to cite Plato's warning in The Laws Bk X. To follow. KF kairosfocus

AK, anyone who uses the phrase gish gallop here or elsewhere instantly disqualifies himself from serious consideration, pending a straight out apology and pledge never to resort to such slanderous nonsense again. FYI, I personally met the late Dr Duane Gish and found him to be a decent Christian gentleman. Start there, then multiply by the fact that he won 300+:0 public debates on the evidence for evolution by repeatedly documenting what say Gould has conceded in his last book: the gaps of the fossil record are systematic and should not be there were darwinist gradualism even close to a true account, not with 250,000+ fossil observations on the record from all around the world and across the eras in museums etc and billions more fossils seen in the ground. This was a spectacularly failed prediction of Darwin in Origin. Then, if someone were to pile up reams of lies, distortions and misrepresentations, then to simply pick several key cases and show the true facts would discredit the case. That never happened, instead word was spread to not debate and now the live donkeys delight to kick the dead lions. and if you think that's offensive as a metaphor, kindly read Rational wiki or the like on that claimed fallacy. All such do is show they have no integrity or civility. You, sir, owe an apology bigtime. KF kairosfocus

BA77@102 - 108, seven comments comprising over 6000 words to respond to a single comment. This must be a record. :) Allan Keith

Allan:

Yet computer response times of more than 100 milliseconds are percepatable by everyone.

Only in NYC. But then again 100 milliseconds of green is an eternity for them.

But since evil is a concept fabricated by religion,

That is unsupported trope ET

Correction, this following post should come immediately after post 102,,, The history of the square root of negative one is particularly interesting to look at. Descartes had rejected complex roots and coined the derogatory term "imaginary" to describe the square root of negative one. Whereas, Gauss, who was the mathematician who finally clearly explained the higher dimensional nature behind the square root of negative one, suggested that complex magnitudes be called "lateral" instead of "imaginary" magnitudes since they represent a dimensional extension of the continuum. Gauss also proposed that complex magnitudes be awarded "full civil rights." The author further comments, in the language of Plato's allegory of the cave, complex numbers represent "forms" from a higher dimension casting "shadows" on the real number line.

Complex Magnitudes Excerpt: Descartes had rejected complex roots and coined the derogatory term "imaginary" to describe the square root of negative one, , but Leibniz thought that "The divine spirit found a sublime outlet in that wonder of analysis, that portent of the ideal world, that amphibian between being and non-being, which we call the imaginary root of negative unity." Gauss invented the "complex plane" (shown below) to represent these quantities. He suggested that complex magnitudes be called "lateral" instead of "imaginary" magnitudes since they represent a dimensional extension of the continuum. Gauss also proposed that complex magnitudes be awarded "full civil rights." In the language of Plato's allegory of the cave, complex numbers represent "forms" from a higher dimension casting "shadows" on the real number line. http://www.keplersdiscovery.com/ComplexNum.html

And in quantum mechanics, we find that the square root of negative one is necessary for describing the wave packet prior to measurement.

Why do you need imaginary numbers (the square root of negative one) to describe Quantum Mechanics? “Quantum theory needs existence of an x such that x^2= -1. The reason for this is that orthogonal function spaces, of dimension greater than 2, cannot exist otherwise. In fact the only place where i (the square root of negative one) is needed is in the wave packet prior to measurement. Even the Canonical Commutation Relation doesn't need it. And nor do the eigenvalue equations. In those, any general scalar will do. But in the wave packet, you need an i.” - Steve Faulkner - Philosophy of Science, Logic, Epistemology https://www.researchgate.net/post/Why_do_you_need_imaginary_numbers_to_describe_Quantum_Mechanics2

What was not mentioned in the preceding video, or in the article, is that the wave function is also represented as being in an infinite dimensional Hilbert space:

Wave function Excerpt "wave functions form an abstract vector space",,, This vector space is infinite-dimensional, because there is no finite set of functions which can be added together in various combinations to create every possible function. per wikipedia Why do we need infinite-dimensional Hilbert spaces in physics? You need an infinite dimensional Hilbert space to represent a wavefunction of any continuous observable (like position for example). https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/149786/why-do-we-need-infinite-dimensional-hilbert-spaces-in-physics The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences – Eugene Wigner – 1960 Excerpt: We now have, in physics, two theories of great power and interest: the theory of quantum phenomena and the theory of relativity.,,, The two theories operate with different mathematical concepts: the four dimensional Riemann space and the infinite dimensional Hilbert space, per dartmouth

Here is an interesting quote about the infinite dimensional Hilbert Spaces in quantum mechanics:

The Applicability of Mathematics as a Philosophical Problem - Mark Steiner - (page 44) Excerpt: The role of Hilbert spaces in quantum mechanics.. is much more profound than the descriptive role of a single concept. An entire formalism-the Hilbert space formalism-is matched with nature. Information about nature is being "read off" the details of the formalism. (Imagine reading off details about elementary particles from the rules of chess-castling. en passant-a la Lewis Carro;; in Through the Looking Glass.) No physicist today understands why this is possible.. https://books.google.com/books?id=GKBwKCma1HsC&pg=PA44

Moreover, we find it is an infinite dimensional Hilbert space that takes an infinite amount of information to describe properly.

Explaining Information Transfer in Quantum Teleportation: Armond Duwell †‡ University of Pittsburgh Excerpt: In contrast to a classical bit, the description of a (quantum) qubit requires an infinite amount of information. The amount of information is infinite because two real numbers are required in the expansion of the state vector of a two state quantum system (Jozsa 1997, 1) http://www.cas.umt.edu/phil/faculty/duwell/DuwellPSA2K.pdf Quantum Computing – Stanford Encyclopedia Excerpt: Theoretically, a single qubit can store an infinite amount of information, yet when measured (and thus collapsing the superposition of the Quantum Wave state) it yields only the classical result (0 or 1),,, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qt-quantcomp/#2.1 WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? Infinity – Max Tegmark Excerpt: real numbers with their infinitely many decimals have infested almost every nook and cranny of physics, from the strengths of electromagnetic fields to the wave functions of quantum mechanics: we describe even a single bit of quantum information (qubit) using two real numbers involving infinitely many decimals. - per edge

As should be needless to say, the preceding findings are very comforting to overall Christian concerns. Here is a video that goes over the preceding findings, and how they relate to Christian presuppositions, in a bit more detail

Double Slit, Quantum-Electrodynamics, and Christian Theism- video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AK9kGpIxMRM

bornagain77

Moreover, besides the overall structure of the universe, as revealed by the higher dimensional nature of the mathematics behind special and general relativity giving comfort to overall Christian concerns, we also find, in “quarter power scaling”, that higher dimensional mathematics are ubiquitous in life itself and offers further comfort to the Christian's belief that he has a soul. In particular, Quarter power scaling reveals that “Although living things occupy a three-dimensional space, their internal physiology and anatomy operate as if they were four-dimensional.'

What Darwin Got Wrong – pg 79 “Although living things occupy a three-dimensional space, their internal physiology and anatomy operate as if they were four-dimensional. Quarter-power scaling laws are perhaps as universal and as uniquely biological as the biochemical pathways of metabolism, the structure and function of the genetic code and the process of natural selection." They comment, "In the words of these authors, natural selection has exploited variations on this fractal theme to produce the incredible variety of biological form and function', but there were severe geometric and physical constraints on metabolic processes." "The conclusion here is inescapable, that the driving force for these invariant scaling laws cannot have been natural selection. It's inconceivable that so many different organisms, spanning different kingdoms and phyla, may have blindly 'tried' all sorts of power laws and that only those that have by chance 'discovered' the one-quarter power law reproduced and thrived." Quotations from Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piatelli-Palmarini, What Darwin Got Wrong (London: Profile Books, 2010), p. 78-79. https://books.google.com/books?id=ZxwO01AAFYMC&pg=PA79 The predominance of quarter-power (4-D) scaling in biology Excerpt: Many fundamental characteristics of organisms scale with body size as power laws of the form: Y = Yo M^b, where Y is some characteristic such as metabolic rate, stride length or life span, Yo is a normalization constant, M is body mass and b is the allometric scaling exponent. A longstanding puzzle in biology is why the exponent b is usually some simple multiple of 1/4 (4-Dimensional scaling) rather than a multiple of 1/3, as would be expected from Euclidean (3-Dimensional) scaling. http://www.nceas.ucsb.edu/~drewa/pubs/savage_v_2004_f18_257.pdf

In fact, unseen 'immaterial' quantum information is now found to be 'holding all the molecules of our material bodies together'.

Darwinian Materialism vs Quantum Biology - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHdD2Am1g5Y

Thus, besides quantum information providing direct empirical falsification of neo-Darwinian claims that say information is emergent from a material basis, the implication of finding 'non-local', beyond space and time, and ‘conserved’, quantum information in molecular biology on such a massive scale, is fairly, and pleasantly, obvious. That pleasant implication, or course, being the fact that we now have direct physical evidence strongly indicating that we do indeed have an eternal soul that is capable of living beyond the death of our material bodies. As Stuart Hameroff notes in this 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.”

“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://youtu.be/jjpEc98o_Oo?t=300

In conclusion, whereas the atheist denies the reality of the unseen immaterial realm, it is found that, number 1, the atheist scientifically cuts his own throat in that he, unwittingly, denies the reality of mathematics, and, number 2, this unseen immaterial realm of mathematics reveals that the universe itself was created and is sustained from a higher unseen dimension and also reveals that we ourselves have a higher dimensional component to our material bodies. The Atheistic materialist simply has no explanation for any of this. In fact the Atheistic materialist, a-priori, denies the 'unseen' reality of any of this. Video and verse:

Quantum Mechanics, Special Relativity, General Relativity and Christianity - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKggH8jO0pk Colossians 1:15-20 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

bornagain77

Besides the tunnel curvature to a higher eternal dimension found in special relativity, we also have tunnel curvature to a very different eternal dimension in general relativity. The following video clip is very good for illustrating that tunnel curvature that is found in general relativity.

Einstein: Einstein's Miracle Year ('Insight into Eternity' – Thought Experiment gravitational well) – video (16:00 minute mark)) https://youtu.be/N0x9gApvuGo?t=995

The following video is also very good for illustrating the tunnel curvature that is found for the space-time of gravity in general relativity. Specifically, it is good for visualizing the tunnel curvature that is found at black holes

Space-Time of a Black hole - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0VOn9r4dq8

What makes the eternity of General Relativity profoundly different than the eternity found at Special Relativity, is that entropy, which is the primary reason why our material bodies grow old and eventually die in this universe,,,

Entropy Explains Aging, Genetic Determinism Explains Longevity, and Undefined Terminology Explains Misunderstanding Both - 2007 Excerpt: There is a huge body of knowledge supporting the belief that age changes are characterized by increasing entropy, which results in the random loss of molecular fidelity, and accumulates to slowly overwhelm maintenance systems [1–4].,,, http://www.plosgenetics.org/article/info%3Adoi/10.1371/journal.pgen.0030220

,,, is found to be greatest at black holes. As the following article stated,, 'supermassive black holes are the largest contributor to the observable universe’s entropy.'

Entropy of the Universe - Hugh Ross - May 2010 Excerpt: Egan and Lineweaver found that supermassive black holes are the largest contributor to the observable universe’s entropy. They showed that these supermassive black holes contribute about 30 times more entropy than what the previous research teams estimated. http://www.reasons.org/entropy-universe How Special Was The Big Bang? “But why was the big bang so precisely organized (to 1 in 10^10^123), whereas the big crunch (or the singularities in black holes) would be expected to be totally chaotic? It would appear that this question can be phrased in terms of the behaviour of the WEYL part of the space-time curvature at space-time singularities. What we appear to find is that there is a constraint WEYL = 0 (or something very like this) at initial space-time singularities-but not at final singularities-and this seems to be what confines the Creator’s choice to this very tiny region of phase space." Roger Penrose – (from the Emperor’s New Mind, Penrose, pp 339-345 copyright 1989, Penguin Books) http://www.ws5.com/Penrose/

In the following quote, Kip Thorne describes what will happen to a hypothetical astronaut as he reaches the singularity of a black-hole. He stated: "Einstein's equation predicts that, as the astronaut reaches the singularity (of the black-hole), the tidal forces grow infinitely strong, and their chaotic oscillations become infinitely rapid. The astronaut dies and the atoms which his body is made become infinitely and chaotically distorted and mixed-and then, at the moment when everything becomes infinite (the tidal strengths, the oscillation frequencies, the distortions, and the mixing), spacetime ceases to exist."

"Einstein's equation predicts that, as the astronaut reaches the singularity (of the black-hole), the tidal forces grow infinitely strong, and their chaotic oscillations become infinitely rapid. The astronaut dies and the atoms which his body is made become infinitely and chaotically distorted and mixed-and then, at the moment when everything becomes infinite (the tidal strengths, the oscillation frequencies, the distortions, and the mixing), spacetime ceases to exist." Kip S. Thorne - "Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein's Outrageous Legacy" pg. 476 http://books.google.com/books?id=GzlrW6kytdoC&pg=PA476#v=onepage&q&f=false Kip Thorne and Charles Misner, and John Wheeler wrote Gravitation (1973), considered a definitive textbook on general relativity.

Or related interest is the extreme temperature that is found at black-holes:

Scientists gear up to take a picture of a black hole - January 2012 Excerpt: "Swirling around the black hole like water circling the drain in a bathtub, the matter compresses and the resulting friction turns it into plasma heated to a billion degrees or more, causing it to 'glow' – and radiate energy that we can detect here on Earth." http://www.physorg.com/news/2012-01-scientists-gear-picture-black-hole.html

Thus the ‘eternity’ that is found at a black hole can rightly be called an ‘eternity of decay and destruction’. Needless to say, to those of us who are of, shall we say, a spiritually minded persuasion, this finding of a eternity of destruction should be fairly sobering. Of related interest, in his resurrection from the dead, and as witnessed by the Shroud of Turin, Jesus Christ bridged this seemingly 'infinite gap' between these two very different entropies that are associated with Special Relativity and General Relativity respectfully. The following video gives an overview of that evidence:

Gödel, Infinity, and Jesus Christ as the Theory of Everything - video https://youtu.be/x1Jw5Y686jY

bornagain77

Four dimensional space was also mentioned in 'The Mathematics Of Higher Dimensionality' video. As was the necessity for Four-dimensional space in the formulation General Relativity also mentioned in the video:

Four-dimensional space - with 4-D animation: Excerpt: The idea of adding a fourth dimension began with Joseph-Louis Lagrange in the mid 1700s and culminated in a precise formalization of the concept in 1854 by Bernhard Riemann.,,, Higher dimensional spaces have since become one of the foundations for formally expressing modern mathematics and physics. Large parts of these topics could not exist in their current forms without the use of such spaces.,,, Einstein's concept of spacetime uses such a 4D space, though it has a Minkowski structure that is a bit more complicated than Euclidean 4D space. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four-dimensional_space animation https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/55/8-cell-simple.gif

What was not mentioned in the  'The Mathematics Of Higher Dimensionality'  video is that special relativity is itself also based on a single four-dimensional continuum now known as Minkowski space. In fact, the higher dimensional nature of special relativity was a discovery that was made by one of Einstein math professors in 1908 prior to Einstein's elucidation of General Relativity in 1915.

Spacetime Excerpt: In 1908, Hermann Minkowski—once one of the math professors of a young Einstein in Zurich—presented a geometric interpretation of special relativity that fused time and the three spatial dimensions of space into a single four-dimensional continuum now known as Minkowski space. A key feature of this interpretation is the definition of a spacetime interval that combines distance and time. Although measurements of distance and time between events differ for measurements made in different reference frames, the spacetime interval is independent of the inertial frame of reference in which they are recorded. Minkowski's geometric interpretation of relativity was to prove vital to Einstein's development of his 1915 general theory of relativity, wherein he showed that spacetime becomes curved in the presence of mass or energy.,,, Einstein, for his part, was initially dismissive of Minkowski's geometric interpretation of special relativity, regarding it as überflüssige Gelehrsamkeit (superfluous learnedness). However, in order to complete his search for general relativity that started in 1907, the geometric interpretation of relativity proved to be vital, and in 1916, Einstein fully acknowledged his indebtedness to Minkowski, whose interpretation greatly facilitated the transition to general relativity.[10]:151–152 Since there are other types of spacetime, such as the curved spacetime of general relativity, the spacetime of special relativity is today known as Minkowski spacetime. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacetime

Moreover, these four dimensional spacetimes that undergird both special relativity and general relativity are also comforting to overall Christian concerns in that they reveal two very different eternities to us. One eternity is found for a hypothetical observer who is going the speed of light, and the another eternity is found for a hypothetical observer falling to the event horizon of a black hole.

Time dilation Excerpt: Time dilation: special vs. general theories of relativity: In Albert Einstein's theories of relativity, time dilation in these two circumstances can be summarized: 1. --In special relativity (or, hypothetically far from all gravitational mass), clocks that are moving with respect to an inertial system of observation are measured to be running slower. (i.e. For any observer accelerating, hypothetically, to the speed of light, time, as we understand it, will come to a complete stop.) 2.--In general relativity, clocks at lower potentials in a gravitational field—such as in closer proximity to a planet—are found to be running slower. (i.e. For any observer falling to the event horizon of a black-hole, time, as we understand it, will come to a complete stop.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_dilation

As was mentioned, the eternity for special relativity is found when a hypothetical observer approaches the speed of light. In this scenario, time, as we understand it, would come to a complete stop for that hypothetical observer as he reached the speed of light.

“Eternity is not a long time. Eternity is the opposite of time: It is no time. It is, as Augustine said, "The now that does not pass away." David Steindl-Rast - Music of Silence – pg 7 https://books.google.com/books?id=q-5aV_i0RYwC&pg=PA7

To grasp the whole concept of time coming to a complete stop at the speed at the speed of light a little more easily, imagine moving away from the face of a clock at the speed of light. Would not the hands on the clock stay stationary as you moved away from the face of the clock at the speed of light? Moving away from the face of a clock at the speed of light happens to be the very same ‘thought experiment’ that gave Einstein his breakthrough insight into special relativity. Here is a short clip from a video that gives us a look into Einstein's breakthrough insight.

Einstein: Einstein's Miracle Year ('Insight into Eternity' – Thought Experiment 55 second mark) - video http://www.history.com/topics/albert-einstein/videos/einstein-einsteins-miracle-year

That time, as we understand it comes to a complete stop at the speed of light, and yet light moves from point A to point B in our universe, and thus light is obviously not 'frozen within time, has some fairly profound implications. In the following audio clip, Michael Strauss, who has a PhD. in particle physics, reflects on one of those profound implications:

Michael Strauss PhD in Particle Physics – Virtual Particles and Special Relativity - video https://www.facebook.com/philip.cunningham.73/videos/vb.100000088262100/1192793360733595/?type=2&theater

The only way it is possible for time not to pass for light, and yet for light to move from point A to point B in our universe, is if light is of a higher dimensional value of time than the temporal time we are currently living in. Otherwise light would simply be 'frozen within time' to our temporal frame of reference.

“For those of us who believe in physics. the distinction between past, present, and future is only an illusion, however tenacious this illusion may be.” – Albert Einstein – March 1955 – in the letter to comfort the family of a dear friend who had passed away. (of note: Einstein passed away the next month, in April of that same year) Einstein: A Biography, pg. 402 "The laws of relativity have changed timeless existence from a theological claim to a physical reality. Light, you see, is outside of time, a fact of nature proven in thousands of experiments at hundreds of universities. I don’t pretend to know how tomorrow can exist simultaneously with today and yesterday. But at the speed of light they actually and rigorously do. Time does not pass." Dr. Richard Swenson - More Than Meets The Eye, Chpt. 11

One way for us to more easily understand this higher dimensional framework for time that light exist in is to visualize what would happen if a hypothetical observer approached the speed of light. In the following video clip, which was made by two Australian University Physics Professors, we find that the 3-Dimensional world ‘folds and collapses’ into a tunnel shape as a ‘hypothetical’ observer approaches the ‘higher dimension’ of the speed of light.

Optical Effects of Special Relativity - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQnHTKZBTI4

To give us a better understanding as to what it would be like to exist in a higher dimension, this following video, Dr. Quantum in Flatland, also gives us a small insight as to what it would be like to exist in an “unseen” higher dimension:

Dr. Quantum in Flatland – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5yxZ5I-zsE

bornagain77

The history of the square root of negative one is particularly interesting to look at. Descartes had rejected complex roots and coined the derogatory term "imaginary" to describe the square root of negative one. Whereas, Gauss, who was the mathematician who finally clearly explained the higher dimensional nature behind the square root of negative one, suggested that complex magnitudes be called "lateral" instead of "imaginary" magnitudes since they represent a dimensional extension of the continuum. Gauss also proposed that complex magnitudes be awarded "full civil rights." The author further comments, in the language of Plato's allegory of the cave, complex numbers represent "forms" from a higher dimension casting "shadows" on the real number line.

Complex Magnitudes Excerpt: Descartes had rejected complex roots and coined the derogatory term "imaginary" to describe the square root of negative one, , but Leibniz thought that "The divine spirit found a sublime outlet in that wonder of analysis, that portent of the ideal world, that amphibian between being and non-being, which we call the imaginary root of negative unity." Gauss invented the "complex plane" (shown below) to represent these quantities. He suggested that complex magnitudes be called "lateral" instead of "imaginary" magnitudes since they represent a dimensional extension of the continuum. Gauss also proposed that complex magnitudes be awarded "full civil rights." In the language of Plato's allegory of the cave, complex numbers represent "forms" from a higher dimension casting "shadows" on the real number line. http://www.keplersdiscovery.com/ComplexNum.html

And in quantum mechanics, we find that the square root of negative one is necessary for describing the wave packet prior to measurement.

Why do you need imaginary numbers (the square root of negative one) to describe Quantum Mechanics? “Quantum theory needs existence of an x such that x^2= -1. The reason for this is that orthogonal function spaces, of dimension greater than 2, cannot exist otherwise. In fact the only place where i (the square root of negative one) is needed is in the wave packet prior to measurement. Even the Canonical Commutation Relation doesn't need it. And nor do the eigenvalue equations. In those, any general scalar will do. But in the wave packet, you need an i.” - Steve Faulkner - Philosophy of Science, Logic, Epistemology https://www.researchgate.net/post/Why_do_you_need_imaginary_numbers_to_describe_Quantum_Mechanics2

What was not mentioned in the preceding video, or in the article, is that the wave function is also represented as being in an infinite dimensional Hilbert space:

Wave function Excerpt "wave functions form an abstract vector space",,, This vector space is infinite-dimensional, because there is no finite set of functions which can be added together in various combinations to create every possible function. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave_function#Wave_functions_as_an_abstract_vector_space Why do we need infinite-dimensional Hilbert spaces in physics? You need an infinite dimensional Hilbert space to represent a wavefunction of any continuous observable (like position for example). https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/149786/why-do-we-need-infinite-dimensional-hilbert-spaces-in-physics The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences – Eugene Wigner – 1960 Excerpt: We now have, in physics, two theories of great power and interest: the theory of quantum phenomena and the theory of relativity.,,, The two theories operate with different mathematical concepts: the four dimensional Riemann space and the infinite dimensional Hilbert space, http://www.dartmouth.edu/~matc/MathDrama/reading/Wigner.html

Here is an interesting quote about the infinite dimensional Hilbert Spaces in quantum mechanics:

The Applicability of Mathematics as a Philosophical Problem - Mark Steiner - (page 44) Excerpt: The role of Hilbert spaces in quantum mechanics.. is much more profound than the descriptive role of a single concept. An entire formalism-the Hilbert space formalism-is matched with nature. Information about nature is being "read off" the details of the formalism. (Imagine reading off details about elementary particles from the rules of chess-castling. en passant-a la Lewis Carro;; in Through the Looking Glass.) No physicist today understands why this is possible.. https://books.google.com/books?id=GKBwKCma1HsC&pg=PA44

Moreover, we find it is an infinite dimensional Hilbert space that takes an infinite amount of information to describe properly.

Explaining Information Transfer in Quantum Teleportation: Armond Duwell †‡ University of Pittsburgh Excerpt: In contrast to a classical bit, the description of a (quantum) qubit requires an infinite amount of information. The amount of information is infinite because two real numbers are required in the expansion of the state vector of a two state quantum system (Jozsa 1997, 1) http://www.cas.umt.edu/phil/faculty/duwell/DuwellPSA2K.pdf Quantum Computing – Stanford Encyclopedia Excerpt: Theoretically, a single qubit can store an infinite amount of information, yet when measured (and thus collapsing the superposition of the Quantum Wave state) it yields only the classical result (0 or 1),,, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qt-quantcomp/#2.1 WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? Infinity – Max Tegmark Excerpt: real numbers with their infinitely many decimals have infested almost every nook and cranny of physics, from the strengths of electromagnetic fields to the wave functions of quantum mechanics: we describe even a single bit of quantum information (qubit) using two real numbers involving infinitely many decimals. https://www.edge.org/response-detail/25344

As should be needless to say, the preceding findings are very comforting to overall Christian concerns. Here is a video that goes over the preceding findings, and how they relate to Christian presuppositions, in a bit more detail

Double Slit, Quantum-Electrodynamics, and Christian Theism- video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AK9kGpIxMRM

bornagain77

Therefore, besides Darwinian evolution already being shown to be mathematically impossible (by Sanford, Dembski, Marks, Axe, Behe, Durston etc.. etc..),,,

The waiting time problem in a model hominin population - John Sanford http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4573302 / LIFE'S CONSERVATION LAW: Why Darwinian Evolution Cannot Create Biological Information - William A. Dembski and Robert J. Marks II http://www.evoinfo.org/publications/lifes-conservation-law/ Estimating the prevalence of protein sequences adopting functional enzyme folds - Doug Axe http://www.toriah.org/articles/axe-2004.pdf Waiting Longer for Two Mutations - Michael J. Behe http://www.discovery.org/a/9461 Measuring the functional sequence complexity of proteins - Kirk K Durston https://tbiomed.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1742-4682-4-47

,,,, Darwinian evolution is further falsified by mathematics as being a scientific theory since Darwinism denies the very reality of one the thing it most needs, i.e. mathematics, in order to be considered scientific in the first place.

Darwinian Evolution vs Mathematics - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3gyx70BHvA

Moreover, this 'unseen' immaterial mathematical realm gives us further compelling evidence that all of reality was created and is sustained by God. Whereas atheists have no compelling evidence for all the various parallel universe and/or multiverse scenarios that they have put forth. In fact, there is fairly strong evidence that can be mustered against their claims for parallel universes and/or multiverses,,

Multiverse Mania vs Reality - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQJV4fH6kMo

Christians, on the other hand, can appeal directly to the higher dimensional mathematics behind Quantum Mechanics, Special Relativity and General Relativity to support their belief that God upholds this universe in its continual existence, as well as to support their belief in a heavenly dimension and in a hellish dimension. In the following video, the discovery of the higher dimensional nature of the square root of negative one, which is integral to quantum mechanics, and the discovery of higher dimensional geometry, which is integral to General Relativity, are discussed:

The Mathematics Of Higher Dimensionality - Gauss & Riemann - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxy3JhPRlV0

bornagain77

Allan Keith, states:

"I also have no grounding for the existance of Santa Clause or unicorns. I don’t see this as a weakness. I see this as being grounded in reality.,,, Again, why do I need to reconcile a non existent god with the fabricated concept of evil? Seems like a waste of time to me."

The only thing that is truly 'fabricated", mythical, and imaginary in the Atheist's worldview is not God but the Atheist himself who denies God. In what I consider to be a shining example of poetic justice, in their claim that God does not really exist as a real person but is merely an illusion, the Atheistic naturalist also ends up claiming that he himself does not really exist as a real person but that he is merely a neuronal illusion. Here are a few references that drive this point home,,,

The Confidence of Jerry Coyne – Ross Douthat – January 6, 2014 Excerpt: But then halfway through this peroration, we have as an aside the confession (by Coyne) that yes, okay, it’s quite possible given materialist premises that “our sense of self is a neuronal illusion.” At which point the entire edifice suddenly looks terribly wobbly — because who, exactly, is doing all of this forging and shaping and purpose-creating if Jerry Coyne, as I understand him (and I assume he understands himself) quite possibly does not actually exist at all? The theme of his argument is the crucial importance of human agency under eliminative materialism, but if under materialist premises the actual agent is quite possibly a fiction, then who exactly is this I who “reads” and “learns” and “teaches,” and why in the universe’s name should my illusory self believe Coyne’s bold proclamation that his illusory self’s purposes are somehow “real” and worthy of devotion and pursuit? (Let alone that they’re morally significant: But more on that below.) Prometheus cannot be at once unbound and unreal; the human will cannot be simultaneously triumphant and imaginary. https://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/06/the-confidence-of-jerry-coyne/?mcubz=3 At the 23:33 minute mark of the following video, Richard Dawkins agrees with materialistic philosophers who say that: “consciousness is an illusion” A few minutes later Rowan Williams asks Dawkins ”If consciousness is an illusion… what isn’t?”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWN4cfh1Fac&t=22m57s “We have so much confidence in our materialist assumptions (which are assumptions, not facts) that something like free will is denied in principle. Maybe it doesn’t exist, but I don’t really know that. Either way, it doesn’t matter because if free will and consciousness are just an illusion, they are the most seamless illusions ever created. Film maker James Cameron wishes he had special effects that good.” Matthew D. Lieberman – neuroscientist – materialist – UCLA professor etc.. etc.. etc...

Besides their sense of self, many other things become imaginary and illusory when the atheist denies the reality of God:

Darwin’s Theory vs Falsification – 39:45 minute mark https://youtu.be/8rzw0JkuKuQ?t=2387 Excerpt: 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. Bottom line, nothing is real in the atheist’s worldview, least of all, morality, meaning and purposes for life.,,, Paper with references for each claim page; Page 34: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pAYmZpUWFEi3hu45FbQZEvGKsZ9GULzh8KM0CpqdePk/edit

Thus, although the Darwinist 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;

Bottom line, if God is not real then nothing can be real. As mentioned in post 99, the main failing of the Atheist's materialistic worldview is the denial of the reality of the unseen immaterial realm.

2 Corinthians 4:18 So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

This problem of denying the reality of the unseen immaterial realm comes back to bite the Darwinist in a particularly hard way in mathematics. Although every rigorous theory of science requires verification from mathematics, and experimentation, in order to be considered scientific in the first place,

"No human investigation can be called real science if it cannot be demonstrated mathematically." - Leonardo da Vinci

,, as mentioned previously, the reductive materialism that Darwinian evolution is based upon denies the existence of anything beyond the material realm.

What is the difference between naturalism and materialism? Excerpt: Naturalism is the view that the world can be explained entirely by physical, natural phenomena/laws. Naturalists either assert that there is no supernatural (or metaphysical) existence, or that if there is, it has no impact on our physical world.,,, Materialism is the related view that all existence is matter, that only matter is real, and so that the world is just physical. It simply describes a view on the nature of the universe, while the different branches of Naturalism focus on applications of effectively the same view. Thus, the difference between the two is the purpose of the definition - materialism makes an argument about the ontology of the universe, while naturalism takes a premise (effectively that of materialism) to make an argument on how science/philosophy should function. https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/2406/what-is-the-difference-between-naturalism-and-materialism

There simply is no place for the immaterial realm of mathematics to find grounding for its reality in the reductive materialism that undergirds Darwinian thought.

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 Platonic World vs Physical World https://i2.wp.com/abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/images/platonic_physical.gif

As David Berlinski states, “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….”

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

bornagain77

AK @ 100: "Since I can reason, I don’t need some moldy god to tell me what is good and bad. Are you so incapable of being able to reason that you need a mythical being to tell you what is right and what is wrong? That is sad." Actually, what is sad is that you would spend so much of your life contributing to a website that you almost completely disagree with. I will never understand why some a/mats spend so much time - a really lot of time - engaged in arguments and exchanging insults on theist websites. Also, BA77 is very capable of reasoning... you just don't like the results of his reasoning. Do you not see this obvious blunder? Truth Will Set You Free

BA77,

Allan Keith, you keep pretending that your materialistic Darwinian worldview can provide you a basis for objective morality.

You obviously haven’t been paying attention.

Atheistic materialism simply provides you no basis for judging whether ANYTHING is good or evil! PERIOD!

Since I can reason, I don’t need some moldy god to tell me what is good and bad. Are you so incapable of being able to reason that you need a mythical being to tell you what is right and what is wrong? That is sad.

To repeat what Dr. Egnor stated: “Even to raise the problem of evil is to tacitly acknowledge transcendent standards, and thus to acknowledge God’s existence.

You can repeat Egnor all you want. But since evil is a concept fabricated by religion, his argument is circular.

The inability of atheistic materialism to deal with the all too real reality of the immaterial realm is, in fact, the primary weakness of their worldview that renders their worldview completely insane.

Further unsupported rhetoric.

As much as you may deny it AK, you simply have no grounding for the objective reality of ‘immaterial morality’ within your materialistic worldview.

I also have no grounding for the existance of Santa Clause or unicorns. I don’t see this as a weakness. I see this as being grounded in reality.

And as Dr Egnor also pointed out, once you honestly acknowledge the necessity of God in order to ground the transcendent reality of objective morality, then, and only then, a robust discussion about Theodicy i.e. reconciling God with the existence of evil) can begin.

Again, why do I need to reconcile a non existent god with the fabricated concept of evil? Seems like a waste of time to me.

Until then, as Dr. Egnor also pointed out, “Atheists lack the standing even to ask the question.”

What is your obsession with Egnor? He is on record as saying that all murders are caused by Democrats. Anyone who makes stupid claims like this are really not worth listening to. Allan Keith

Allan Keith, you keep pretending that your materialistic Darwinian worldview can provide you a basis for objective morality. It can't. You continue to act as if it is readily apparent for everyone to see that, on Atheistic materialism, everyone should intuitively know that "killing homosexuals, wives who aren’t virgins on their wedding night, and children who disrespect their parents" is objectively morally wrong. Atheistic materialism simply provides you no basis for judging whether ANYTHING is good or evil! PERIOD! Morality, like "personhood", free will, mathematics, beauty, justice, logic, etc.. etc.., is basically a immaterial, transcendent, entity. Objective Morality, since it is immaterial, simply finds no place for rigid grounding within Atheistic materialism. To repeat what Dr. Egnor stated: "Even to raise the problem of evil is to tacitly acknowledge transcendent standards, and thus to acknowledge God’s existence. From that starting point, theodicy begins. Theists have explored it profoundly. Atheists lack the standing even to ask the question.,,,"

The Universe Reflects a Mind – Michael Egnor – February 28, 2018 Excerpt: Goff argues that a Mind is manifest in the natural world, but he discounts the existence of God because of the problem of evil. Goff seriously misunderstands the problem of evil. Evil is an insoluble problem for atheists, because if there is no God, there is no objective standard by which evil and good can exist or can even be defined. If God does not exist, “good” and “evil” are merely human opinions. Yet we all know, as Kant observed, that some things are evil in themselves, and not merely as a matter of opinion. Even to raise the problem of evil is to tacitly acknowledge transcendent standards, and thus to acknowledge God’s existence. From that starting point, theodicy begins. Theists have explored it profoundly. Atheists lack the standing even to ask the question.,,, https://evolutionnews.org/2018/02/the-universe-reflects-a-mind/

The inability of atheistic materialism to deal with the all too real reality of the immaterial realm is, in fact, the primary weakness of their worldview that renders their worldview completely insane. As Adam Sedgwick warned Charles Darwin, "There is a moral or metaphysical part of nature as well as a physical A man who denies this is deep in the mire of folly"

From Adam Sedgwick ? 24 November 1859 Cambridge My dear Darwin Excerpt: There is a moral or metaphysical part of nature as well as a physical A man who denies this is deep in the mire of folly Tis the crown & glory of organic science that it does thro’ final cause , link material to moral; & yet does not allow us to mingle them in our first conception of laws, & our classification of such laws whether we consider one side of nature or the other— You have ignored this link; &, if I do not mistake your meaning, you have done your best in one or two pregnant cases to break it. Were it possible (which thank God it is not) to break it, humanity in my mind, would suffer a damage that might brutalize it—& sink the human race into a lower grade of degradation than any into which it has fallen since its written records tell us of its history. https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/DCP-LETT-2548.xml

As much as you may deny it AK, you simply have no grounding for the objective reality of 'immaterial morality' within your materialistic worldview. And as Dr Egnor also pointed out, once you honestly acknowledge the necessity of God in order to ground the transcendent reality of objective morality, then, and only then, a robust discussion about Theodicy i.e. reconciling God with the existence of evil) can begin. Until then, as Dr. Egnor also pointed out, "Atheists lack the standing even to ask the question." Morality and/or the 'argument from evil", as the following quote makes clear, are far deeper issues than you apparently realize in your shallow, baseless, and self-defeating, attempts to, basically, judge God as morally evil. (all while having no true moral basis to do so),,

“My last resistance to the idea of God’s wrath was a casualty of the war in the former Yugoslavia, the region from which I come. According to some estimates, 200,000 people were killed and 3,000,000 displaced. My villages and cities were destroyed, my people shelled day in and day out, some of them brutalized beyond imagination, and I could not imagine God not being angry. Though I used to complain about the indecency of God’s wrath, I came to think that I would have to rebel against a God who wasn’t wrathful at the sight of the world’s evil. God isn’t wrathful in spite of being love. God is wrathful because God is love.” – Miroslav Volf – Croatian theologian

A few more notes along this line of the reality of the immaterial realm:

What Does It Mean to Say That Science & Religion Conflict? - M. Anthony Mills - April 16, 2018 Excerpt: Barr rightly observes that scientific atheists often unwittingly assume,,, reductive materialism, which says all that exists is or is reducible to the material constituents postulated by our most fundamental physical theories. As Barr points out, this implies not only that God does not exist — because God is not material — but that 'you' do not exist. For 'you' are not a material constituent postulated by any of our most fundamental physical theories; at best, you are an aggregate of those constituents, arranged in a particular way. Not just 'you', but tables, chairs, countries, countrymen, symphonies, jokes, legal contracts, moral judgments, and acts of courage or cowardice — all of these must be fully explicable in terms of those more fundamental, material constituents.  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 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/ The mathematical world - James Franklin - 7 April 2014 Excerpt: the intellect (is) immaterial and immortal. If today’s naturalists do not wish to agree with that, there is a challenge for them. ‘Don’t tell me, show me’: build an artificial intelligence system that imitates genuine mathematical insight. There seem to be no promising plans on the drawing board.,,, James Franklin is professor of mathematics at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. http://aeon.co/magazine/world-views/what-is-left-for-mathematics-to-be-about/

bornagain77

Axel,

Allan Keith, in the Old Testament, ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth’, was actually more like a counsel of perfection for the time, since it was normal – and I can understand this, alas – to take out both eyes or even kill the person responsible for your monocularity.

I understand this. But how do you reconcile this with the other punishments commanded in the OT? Thinks like killing homosexuals, wives who aren’t virgins on their wedding night, and children who disrespect their parents? That seems to far exceed the “eye for an eye” instruction. I am not trying to vilify Christianity, but if people are going to justify there actions on scriptures, they have to deal with these horrific ones. Allan Keith

Allan Keith, in the Old Testament, 'An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth', was actually more like a counsel of perfection for the time, since it was normal - and I can understand this, alas - to take out both eyes or even kill the person responsible for your monocularity. Axel

ET,

99.999999999999999999% of the time anything under .5 seconds in imperceptible to 99.999999% of the people.

Yet computer response times of more than 100 milliseconds are percepatable by everyone. Allan Keith

Humans can detect perceptible duration of time in the range of 100 milliseconds.

99.999999999999999999% of the time anything under .5 seconds in imperceptible to 99.999999% of the people. ET

ET,

done, occurring, or acting without any perceptible duration of time 180 milliseconds meets that definition.

Actually it doesn't. Humans can detect perceptible duration of time in the range of 100 milliseconds. Allan Keith

F/N: Just saw this in passing. FYI, the eye for eye principle is a LIMITATION by which the punishment must be proportional to the crime -- not wildly disproportionate. As, was all too commonly applied to people of low status who offended those of high status all around the world. KF kairosfocus

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/instantaneous done, occurring, or acting without any perceptible duration of time 180 milliseconds meets that definition. ET

Allan Keith, the point of the first and second articles that I cited was to show that morality is designed into us, even all the way down into the biological level. The point of the third, fourth, and fifth articles that I cited was to establish that morality cannot be reduced to any possible materialistic explanation. But you apparently completely skipped the later articles to focus on the "milliseconds" response time in the first article. But even if I only referred to 'biological morality', then even then, (seeing as Darwinists cannot even explain the origin of a single neuron, much less the origin of the entire "beyond belief" human brain), even then that biological evidence for morality, contrary to what you desperately want to believe, is further scientific proof that humans are INTELLIGENTLY DESIGNED to be moral creatures. Moreover, you seem to be hung up on the millisecond responses of the first article as if that delay helps alleviate the insurmountable problems you face as a Darwinian materialist,,, (I guess disillusioned, defeated, people grab onto any hope they can from wherever they can, no matter how faint that hope may be),,, and although I know, (since you are a Darwinist), evidence does not really ever matter to you in the least, then it might interest unbiased readers to know that,,, evidence that quantum mechanisms are at play on the macro level of the human brain is revealed by the following. In the following article it is noted that Multielectrode recordings have revealed zero time lag synchronization among remote cerebral cortical areas.

,,, zero time lag neuronal synchrony despite long conduction delays - 2008 Excerpt: Multielectrode recordings have revealed zero time lag synchronization among remote cerebral cortical areas. However, the axonal conduction delays among such distant regions can amount to several tens of milliseconds. It is still unclear which mechanism is giving rise to isochronous discharge of widely distributed neurons, despite such latencies,,, Remarkably, synchrony of neuronal activity is not limited to short-range interactions within a cortical patch. Interareal synchronization across cortical regions including interhemispheric areas has been observed in several tasks (7, 9, 11–14).,,, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2575223/ The Puzzling Role Of Biophotons In The Brain - Dec. 17, 2010 Excerpt: It’s certainly true that electrical activity in the brain is synchronised over distances that cannot be easily explained. Electrical signals travel too slowly to do this job, so something else must be at work.,,, ,,, It’s a big jump to assume that photons do this job. http://www.technologyreview.com/view/422069/the-puzzling-role-of-biophotons-in-the-brain/ Quantum Entangled Consciousness - Life After Death - Stuart Hameroff - video (1:55 minute mark) https://youtu.be/jjpEc98o_Oo?t=118

As well, evidence suggesting that quantum mechanisms are at play on the macro level of the human body itself is also revealed in the following article where it is revealed that a subject perceives a sensory stimulus on the skin at the moment the skin is touched, before the stimulus reaches the brain and before full deliberative consciousness occurs.

Do Perceptions Happen in Your Brain? - Michael Egnor - December 1, 2015 Excerpt: The sensory experiments of Benjamin Libet, a neuroscientist at U.C. San Francisco in the mid 20th century, demonstrated that a subject perceives a sensory stimulus on the skin at the moment the skin is touched, before the stimulus reaches the brain and before full deliberative consciousness occurs. Libet was flabbergasted by this result,,, http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/12/do_perceptions101261.html

Thus AK, as if evidence ever really mattered to you in the first place, you should hold these instantaneous "quantum" actions that are now found to be at play in the brain and the body, (and every molecule of the body), to be further experimental falsification of your Darwinian worldview.

Darwinian Materialism vs. Quantum Biology - video https://youtu.be/LHdD2Am1g5Y

But alas, why I do I know that you will just ignore this falsification of your reductive materialistic worldview just like you do all the rest of the falsifications that are brought against your delusional worldview?? The rest of your post trying to answer my questions on your supposed 'materialistic morality', is, in my personal opinion, and to put it nicely, complete nonsense and rubbish. I am confident the unbiased reader will agree with me and clearly see who is blowing smoke and who is being forthright! bornagain77

ET,

No, it isn’t. It’s pretty stupid to suggest that it is especially given that humans couldn’t tell how short the time was that had elapsed.

Yet the 180 milliseconds is well within the range of measured reflex speeds. Reactions that are purely physical in nature. Reflexes are not instantaneous, as BA77 suggested was the case for the brain's reaction to harm. It sounds like a reflex response to me. Allan Keith

What we're really looking for is process signatures. RM+NS travels along genetic routes in a bottom up approach. It works between genetic adjacencies, and can only check immediate structural and functional results. It lacks operational memory or processing apart from the result space and the current environment, and its time step is from mutation to mutation. It can't chase a functional feature or gradient over holes in the genetic->structural->functional mapping. Designers can take a top down approach. They have independent operational memory and processing that can be used in recursive heuristics in analysis that can freely travel between disconnected neighborhoods of genetic expression. The signature of a designer is consistent and optimal structure and functionality. Convergent and global design patterns and methodologies reused in separate genetic contexts. The signature of a Darwinian process is one of traveling between genetic adjacencies, and unnecessary structure or useless structure resulting from the need to get from point A to point B. If Darwin was right, we shouldn't simply have vestigial organs in the sense he used it; we should be a patchwork of no longer useful vestigial organs, never useful pseudo-organs; and even the working bits should have functionally inexplicable parts. If Darwinian processes produced IC systems by kludging and reducing previously independent systems of different function, we'd be producing more irreducible neutral experiments attached to useful or vital structures than successes. Also, the successes would often be recognizable as kludges. Even in non-IC structures, RM+NS doesn't know what a clean house looks like. It's not looking for mess. If it makes an edit that produces a neutral reduction, it may stick. But it's also just as ready to spend its mutational budget in making mess; and if it makes a neutral mess, that too, can stick. Messy remnants of exploratory experimentation is something even a designer has to work to keep on top of. Clean, optimal structure is also the signature of a meticulous designer. Which sounds more like biology? LocalMinimum

However, we do know that there is no evidence for a mind existing without the physical brain.

How do we know that?

180 milliseconds is far from instantaneous.

No, it isn't. It's pretty stupid to suggest that it is especially given that humans couldn't tell how short the time was that had elapsed.

Yes, I deny its existence as, for the most part, it is a religious fabrication.

What? That is really dumb. Evil is a religious fabrication- wow. ET

BA77,

The illusory immaterial morals of atheists are no morals at all.

You are free to believe this fiction if you would like. That doesn't make it true.

Moreover, whereas atheists have no evidence that Darwinian evolution can create immaterial morality,...

And neither do IDists or theists. However, we do know that there is no evidence for a mind existing without the physical brain.

The following study shows that ‘Moral evaluations of harm are ‘instant and emotional’:

No it doesn't. 180 milliseconds is far from instantaneous.

The intentional harm sequence produced a response in the brain almost instantly. The study showed that within 60 milliseconds, the right posterior superior temporal sulcus (also known as TPJ area), located in the back of the brain, was first activated, with different activity depending on whether the harm was intentional or accidental. It was followed in quick succession by the amygdala, often linked with emotion, and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (180 milliseconds), the portion of the brain that plays a critical role in moral decision-making.

The article also says that the brain is hardwired for this, suggesting a material cause.

And although a ‘instantaneous moral compass’, and the nuanced genetic response between noble vs. hedonic happiness, are pretty good for establishing that “there are moral laws of the universe just as abiding as the physical laws” (Martin Luther King),

Wishful thinking but it still boils down to pure unsupported supposition. If there were universal moral laws, why do we see such great variation in societal morality over time and between cultures. If the moral laws are objective, they are so difficult to ascertain that they might as well not exist.

As to you ranting against “all the atrocities and sadistic acts he (God) was responsible for”,,,, And again, I ask you just where are you getting this sense of good and evil, i.e. morality, from?

Early teaching, indoctrination (brainwashing), reasoning, peer influences, etc. Most of our moral values can be reasoned from first principles and the desire to live in a community. Some commonly held morals, however, cannot be arrived at by these methods. It is these morals that we should be questioning and, if it makes sense, discarding. These would include things like moral stances on birth control, homosexuality, premarital sex, etc.

You seem to unquestionably believe that everyone should just accept the objective reality of this morality you are talking about,...

No. I expect that I would have to convince others of the value and validity of my moral stances. That is how society works.

all the while forgetting that your very own atheistic worldview resolutely denies the very objective reality of good and evil,...

Evil? Yes, I deny its existence as, for the most part, it is a religious fabrication. However, I can argue that my moral stances are either good or bad for the continued thriving of society.

Moreover, you are also completely forgetting that God, besides being the author of morality, is also the ultimate and sole judge against the moral transgressions of man.

That is your opinion, and you are entitled to it. I disagree with you on this.

You are conflating God’s punishment against man’s sin and with sin itself.

How is it possible to conflate two things that do not exist? Allan Keith

Allan Keith,

"If you mean that we (atheists) don’t have any morals then you are out to lunch."

The illusory immaterial morals of atheists are no morals at all. They are self admittedly made-up subjective fictions. Believing a subjective moral fiction represents a objective moral reality is called being delusional and/or being 'out to lunch'. Moreover, whereas atheists have no evidence that Darwinian evolution can create immaterial morality, (nor any evidence that Darwinian evolution can create anything else for that matter), Christian Theists, on the other hand, can appeal directly to science to support their belief that immaterial morality is objectively real. The following study shows that 'Moral evaluations of harm are ‘instant and emotional':

Moral evaluations of harm are instant and emotional, brain study shows – November 29, 2012 Excerpt: People are able to detect, within a split second, if a hurtful action they are witnessing is intentional or accidental, new research on the brain at the University of Chicago shows. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-11-moral-instant-emotional-brain.html

The following study is interesting in that, since Darwinian evolution can’t even explain the origin of a single gene/protein by unguided material processes, (much less can it explain the regulatory networks of genes working in concert), it shows that objective morality is even built/designed, in a very nuanced fashion, into the way our bodies differentiate between ‘hedonic’ and ‘noble’ moral happiness:

Human Cells Respond in Healthy, Unhealthy Ways to Different Kinds of Happiness - July 29, 2013 Excerpt: Human bodies recognize at the molecular level that not all happiness is created equal, responding in ways that can help or hinder physical health,,, The sense of well-being derived from “a noble purpose” may provide cellular health benefits, whereas “simple self-gratification” may have negative effects, despite an overall perceived sense of happiness, researchers found.,,, But if all happiness is created equal, and equally opposite to ill-being, then patterns of gene expression should be the same regardless of hedonic or eudaimonic well-being. Not so, found the researchers. Eudaimonic well-being was, indeed, associated with a significant decrease in the stress-related CTRA gene expression profile. In contrast, hedonic well-being was associated with a significant increase in the CTRA profile. Their genomics-based analyses, the authors reported, reveal the hidden costs of purely hedonic well-being.,, “We can make ourselves happy through simple pleasures, but those ‘empty calories’ don’t help us broaden our awareness or build our capacity in ways that benefit us physically,” she said. “At the cellular level, our bodies appear to respond better to a different kind of well-being, one based on a sense of connectedness and purpose.” http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/07/130729161952.htm

And although a ‘instantaneous moral compass’, and the nuanced genetic response between noble vs. hedonic happiness, are pretty good for establishing that “there are moral laws of the universe just as abiding as the physical laws” (Martin Luther King), the following studies go one step further and shows that our moral intuition transcends space and time:

Quantum Consciousness – Time Flies Backwards? – Stuart Hameroff MD Excerpt: Dean Radin and Dick Bierman have performed a number of experiments of emotional response in human subjects. The subjects view a computer screen on which appear (at randomly varying intervals) a series of images, some of which are emotionally neutral, and some of which are highly emotional (violent, sexual….). In Radin and Bierman’s early studies, skin conductance of a finger was used to measure physiological response They found that subjects responded strongly to emotional images compared to neutral images, and that the emotional response occurred between a fraction of a second to several seconds BEFORE the image appeared! Recently Professor Bierman (University of Amsterdam) repeated these experiments with subjects in an fMRI brain imager and found emotional responses in brain activity up to 4 seconds before the stimuli. Moreover he looked at raw data from other laboratories and found similar emotional responses before stimuli appeared. http://www.quantumconsciousness.org/views/TimeFlies.html Can Your Body Sense Future Events Without Any External Clue? (meta-analysis of 26 reports published between 1978 and 2010) - (Oct. 22, 2012) Excerpt: "But our analysis suggests that if you were tuned into your body, you might be able to detect these anticipatory changes between two and 10 seconds beforehand,,, This phenomenon is sometimes called "presentiment," as in "sensing the future," but Mossbridge said she and other researchers are not sure whether people are really sensing the future. "I like to call the phenomenon 'anomalous anticipatory activity,'" she said. "The phenomenon is anomalous, some scientists argue, because we can't explain it using present-day understanding about how biology works; though explanations related to recent quantum biological findings could potentially make sense. It's anticipatory because it seems to predict future physiological changes in response to an important event without any known clues, and it's an activity because it consists of changes in the cardiopulmonary, skin and nervous systems." http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121022145342.htm

Of related note: Immanuel Kant's empirical requirement for the 'moral argument for God' to be validated, (i.e. influences arising from outside space-time), has now been met in quantum mechanics:

God, Immanuel Kant, Richard Dawkins, and the Quantum - Antoine Suarez - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQOwMX4bCqk

The materialist/atheist simply has no beyond space and time cause to appeal to to explain why this 'moral' phenomena should happen! Whereas for a Theist, especially for a Christian Theist who believes that the Lord Jesus Christ died and rose again to pay for our sins, it would be fully expected that ‘objective’ morality would have such a deep, ‘spooky’, beyond space and time, effect. Video:

Turin Shroud Hologram Reveals The Words "The Lamb" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Tmka1l8GAQ

As to you ranting against "all the atrocities and sadistic acts he (God) was responsible for",,,, And again, I ask you just where are you getting this sense of good and evil, i.e. morality, from? You seem to unquestionably believe that everyone should just accept the objective reality of this morality you are talking about, all the while forgetting that your very own atheistic worldview resolutely denies the very objective reality of good and evil, i.e. morality, that you seem to so adamantly believe to be real. ,,, You can't have it both ways. It is called the Law of Non-Contradiction! Moreover, you are also completely forgetting that God, besides being the author of morality, is also the ultimate and sole judge against the moral transgressions of man. You are conflating God's punishment against man's sin and with sin itself. Huge difference! Of related interest to this fallacious and self-refuting 'argument from evil' that atheists constantly try to use against God is this quote from Dr. Michael Egnor

The Universe Reflects a Mind - Michael Egnor - February 28, 2018 Excerpt: Goff argues that a Mind is manifest in the natural world, but he discounts the existence of God because of the problem of evil. Goff seriously misunderstands the problem of evil. Evil is an insoluble problem for atheists, because if there is no God, there is no objective standard by which evil and good can exist or can even be defined. If God does not exist, “good” and “evil” are merely human opinions. Yet we all know, as Kant observed, that some things are evil in themselves, and not merely as a matter of opinion. Even to raise the problem of evil is to tacitly acknowledge transcendent standards, and thus to acknowledge God’s existence. From that starting point, theodicy begins. Theists have explored it profoundly. Atheists lack the standing even to ask the question.,,, https://evolutionnews.org/2018/02/the-universe-reflects-a-mind/

Quote:

“He did not conquer in spite of the dark mystery of evil. He conquered through it.” ~James Stewart~ ——————————— “It is a glorious phrase of the New Testament, that ‘he led captivity captive.’ The very triumphs of His foes, it means, he used for their defeat. He compelled their dark achievements to sub-serve his end, not theirs. They nailed him to the tree, not knowing that by that very act they were bringing the world to his feet. They gave him a cross, not guessing that he would make it a throne. They flung him outside the gates to die, not knowing that in that very moment they were lifting up all the gates of the universe, to let the King of Glory come in. They thought to root out his doctrines, not understanding that they were implanting imperishably in the hearts of men the very name they intended to destroy. They thought they had defeated God with His back (to) the wall, pinned and helpless and defeated: they did not know that it was God Himself who had tracked them down. He did not conquer in spite of the dark mystery of evil. He conquered through it.” - James Stewart (1896–1990) was a minister of the Church of Scotland

bornagain77

BA77,

Allan Keith, besides you ignoring the fact that atheism is completely amoral,

If, by amoral, you mean that we don’t believe that morality is objective, you are correct. If you mean that we don’t have any morals then you are out to lunch.

you do realize that ‘an eye for an eye’ is old testament do you not?

Which is part of the Christian bible, did you not know? Or are you one of these christians who believes that the New Testament absolves your god of all the atrocities and sadistic acts he was responsible for? Allan Keith

Allan Keith, besides you ignoring the fact that atheism is completely amoral, you do realize that 'an eye for an eye' is old testament do you not?

Matthew 5:38-48 Eye for Eye 38 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’[a] 39 But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. 40 And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. 41 If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. 42 Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you. Love for Enemies 43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor[b] and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47 And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? 48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

And yes it is a exceedingly high moral standard that I regularly fail to meet. To which I can only remark, thank God for the grace that is found in Jesus Christ. bornagain77

Allan:

Atheists didn’t propose “an eye for an eye”.

They advocate the use brass knuckles and steel-toed boots ET

BA77,

Seversky, quit stealing from Christian Theism. There is nothing irrational in the atheist’s worldview with using force to win an argument...

Atheists didn’t propose “an eye for an eye”. Allan Keith

Seversky, quit stealing from Christian Theism. There is nothing irrational or immoral in the atheist's worldview with using force to win an argument, as is amply demonstrated by the Communist regimes of the last century and by the present concerted censorship and intimidation of anyone who supports ID in academia in America. Once again, reality itself betrays your delusion that morality and reason can be grounded in reductive materialism.

Where Do Good and Evil Come From? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xliyujhwhNM Can atheists trust their own minds? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byN38dyZb-k

Reductive materialism simply implodes on itself Sev.

Darwin’s Theory vs Falsification – 39:45 minute mark https://youtu.be/8rzw0JkuKuQ?t=2387 Excerpt: 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. Bottom line, nothing is real in the atheist’s worldview, least of all, morality, meaning and purposes for life.,,, Paper with references for each claim page; Page 34: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pAYmZpUWFEi3hu45FbQZEvGKsZ9GULzh8KM0CpqdePk/edit

Thus, although the Darwinist 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; Matthew 7:24-27 “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”

bornagain77

Seversky:

Because ID is a theory of who not how.

No, ID is not about the who nor how. It is about the what

So, even if it were a fully-fledged theory it addresses a different question and can’t be a direct alternative to evolution.

Evolution by design is an alternative to evolution by means of blind and mindless processes ET

bornagain77 @ 19

Again, Seversky, just why is it irrational on the atheist’s ‘survival of the fittest’ worldview to not use force to win arguments?

As far as I'm aware, there are few if any atheists who base a moral worldview on the principle of "survival of the fittest". Most are well aware that such would commit the naturalistic fallacy. And, as I said before, violence wins fights not arguments. Use of a 2 x 4 might bring an argument to an abrupt halt but it doesn't win it. Seversky

Bob O'H: Sorry, I thought you were being obtuse. I didn't realize you were unfamiliar with the metaphors. I duly note they've been explained. As to ID, the central "claim" of ID is that the information found within the genome cannot be explained via random, impersonal processes; nor can the level of information/genomic distances even between species that more taxonomically separated be so explained. Only intelligence can bridge such gaps. The central "claim" of Darwin is based on NS, but actually revolves around the principle of divergence, wherein, via Malthusian "survival of the fittest", and hence ultimately extinction, a 'variety' (what we know as a 'subspecies'), which is really an "incipient species" (per Darwin) gradually mutates until the more 'fit' descendant of some dominant species is eventually displaced and replaced by this 'fitter' variety, which is now on its way to becoming a 'genus.' This is what Wallace claimed to see in Malaysia, and was the principal discovery contained in the letter he wrote to Darwin in 1858/59. The Principle of Divergence claims that these incremental changes and displacements, with sufficient time, will lead to what we would call 'macroevolution.' To the best of my knowledge, no such 'macroevolution' event has been documented. So Darwin's central 'claim' remains in doubt. Meanwhile, we know that if you compare the amount of information in the software running primitive PC's to those running modern-day PC's, Windows 10, e.g., we know what that the explanation for this tremendous growth in information is human intelligence,and human intelligence alone. This should certainly be considered as giving some level of support to ID's central claim. In the end, all Darwinism really does is provide a way for persons looking at a variety of separate species to develop some kind of gradation from less to more of any particular trait or chemical make-up found within the species; IOW, it leads to 'cladistics.' Now, if 'evolutionary trees' actually worked, that is, if you could construct one that doesn't fall apart at some point in its branching structure, this would lend support to Darwin's central 'claim'; however, since 'cladistics' never consistently account for known species using the notion of common descent, this rather undermines Darwin's 'claim' instead. So, what scientific view should we be supporting now? The switch to ID from Darwinian 'gradualism' and 'common descent' would only mean different questions need to be asked in the lab and out in the field. Instead of asking, "Which of these two species is the descendant of the other?," you would ask, "How does this structure/system/behavior 'work' in these different species, and what is the basis for these differences?" But we see this already happening as scientists are looking into how various biological systems work as they seek to imitate the 'genius' solutions to problems found there. Or is this kind of 'reverse-engineering' not really science? PaV

PaV @ 17

None of this slows down Darwinism. Why? Because there’s no other theory out there. Really? Why not use ID?

Because ID is a theory of who not how. So, even if it were a fully-fledged theory it addresses a different question and can't be a direct alternative to evolution.

But it’s not that easy. Why? Well, let me state what Darwin’s friend Hooker stated right after the publication of OoS: “We should accept this theory because it’s the only one that can give us something to test.” (a paraphrase).

Hooker was right. Science has to work with whatever it has until something better comes along. Physicist were well aware of problems with Newtonian mechanics long before relativity came along but they had nothing better to work with until Einstein provided it. Seversky

Allan Keith, Please wake up as you are dreaming. You don't have a mechanism capable of producing eukaryotes so stop linking to articles about developmental biology. As if blind and mindless processes can produce regulatory networks and the genetic toolkit required for developmental biology. Natural selection is not magic even though you need it to be. And on top of that you don't have any idea what is actually being debated even though it has been spelled out for you many times under all of your socks. Your willful ignorance is why PaV talks about the 2x4. You are so dense you are a walking black hole. ET

Allan Keith:

The peer reviewed literature is full of evolutionary hypothesis testing.

Pure equivocation.

The difference between ID and evolution is that evolution is brave enough to propose possible mechanisms, test them, and refine the overall model in response to the results of these tests.

Clueless. Evolutionism is all about the how, ie the mechanisms. Yet peer-review is absent any testing of them that would demonstrate they are up to the task at hand. ID has the methodology that tests whether or not there is intentional design present

This has led to the current understanding which includes sources of variation (mutatation, meiosis, inversions, insertions, etc), drift, HGT, epigenetics, natural selection (including sexual selection), and many other factors.

None of which supports unguided evolution

So far, ID has some nebulous metrics for identifying design, none of which have actually been effectively used, and with no way of extrapolating these to biology.

ID's metrics are better than those used by evolutionists.

As has been mentioned, for ID to get out of this rut will require the development and testing of hypotheses about the mechanisms the designer (who does not have to be god) used to realize these designs.

That just proves that you are scientifically illiterate. We don't even ask about the who nor how until after design has been determined. And even then it is only important to those who are scientifically illiterate. The important questions to be answered are how does it all work together, how can we maintain and repair it. We may never find out who and we are in that position with artifacts. But by studying the design and all relevant evidence we can put some sort of profile together. The science of ID is in the detection of the design. And we don't care if you are too willfully ignorant to understand that. ET

Quantum information simply is not reducible to any reductive materialistic explanation. Period! (i.e. 'non-locality' confirmed to almost unbelievable levels of accuracy!) As the following articles state, “entangled objects (i.e. material particles) do not cause each other to behave the way they do.” and “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,”

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 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

Thus Darwinism is now experimentally falsified in one of its core claims that information is somehow 'emergent' from a material basis. Of supplemental note: Classical 'digital' information is found to be a subset of ‘non-local' (i.e. beyond space and time) quantum entanglement/information by the following method:

Quantum knowledge cools computers: New understanding of entropy – June 2011 Excerpt: No heat, even a cooling effect; In the case of perfect classical knowledge of a computer memory (zero entropy), deletion of the data requires in theory no energy at all. The researchers prove that “more than complete knowledge” from quantum entanglement with the memory (negative entropy) leads to deletion of the data being accompanied by removal of heat from the computer and its release as usable energy. This is the physical meaning of negative entropy. Renner emphasizes, however, “This doesn’t mean that we can develop a perpetual motion machine.” The data can only be deleted once, so there is no possibility to continue to generate energy. The process also destroys the entanglement, and it would take an input of energy to reset the system to its starting state. The equations are consistent with what’s known as the second law of thermodynamics: the idea that the entropy of the universe can never decrease. Vedral says “We’re working on the edge of the second law. If you go any further, you will break it.” http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/06/110601134300.htm Scientists show how to erase information without using energy - January 2011 Excerpt: Until now, scientists have thought that the process of erasing information requires energy. But a new study shows that, theoretically, information can be erased without using any energy at all.,,, "Landauer said that information is physical because it takes energy to erase it. We are saying that the reason it (information) is physical has a broader context than that.", Vaccaro explained. http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-01-scientists-erase-energy.html

Verse:

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.

bornagain77

As to falsifying Darwinian evolution instead of beating around the bushes: Another specific prediction of the reductive materialistic framework that undergirds Darwinian thought is that the information in life is merely 'emergent' from a material basis. (Darwinists use to claim that the information in life was merely a 'metaphor', and that life was just, basically, 'complicated chemistry' but now, since information is found to be far more integral to life than they had originally presupposed, Darwinists backed off and now mainly claim that information is merely 'emergent' from a material basis.)

Information Theory, Evolution, and the Origin of Life - Hubert P. Yockey, 2005 Excerpt: “The belief of mechanist-reductionists that the chemical processes in living matter do not differ in principle from those in dead matter is incorrect. There is no trace of messages determining the results of chemical reactions in inanimate matter. If genetical processes were just complicated biochemistry, the laws of mass action and thermodynamics would govern the placement of amino acids in the protein sequences.” (Let me provide the unstated conclusion:) But they don’t. https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/intelligent-design/living-things-machines-and-intelligent-design-part-two-of-a-response-to-the-smithy/#comment-353336 Information Theory, Evolution, and the Origin of Life - Hubert P. Yockey, 2005 Excerpt: “Information, transcription, translation, code, redundancy, synonymous, messenger, editing, and proofreading are all appropriate terms in biology. They take their meaning from information theory (Shannon, 1948) and are not synonyms, metaphors, or analogies.” http://www.cambridge.org/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521802932&ss=exc

Yet, as this following video shows, directly contrary to that core Darwinian presupposition, immaterial information is now shown to be its own distinct physical entity that is separate from matter and energy.

Information is physical (but not how Rolf Landauer meant) - video https://youtu.be/H35I83y5Uro

A distinct immaterial entity, separate from matter and energy, that has, of all things, 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 New Scientist astounds: Information is physical - May 13, 2016 Excerpt: Recently came the most startling demonstration yet: a tiny machine powered purely by information, which chilled metal through the power of its knowledge. This seemingly magical device could put us on the road to new, more efficient nanoscale machines, a better understanding of the workings of life, and a more complete picture of perhaps our most fundamental theory of the physical world. https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/news/new-scientist-astounds-information-is-physical/ 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

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

In fact, as this following video shows, quantum information, of which classical information is a subset, is now found in molecular biology in every DNA, protein, etc,, molecule of life.

Darwinian Materialism vs Quantum Biology - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHdD2Am1g5Y

bornagain77

I have read all sorts of criticisms here about bad research. But nothing about attempts to rebut this work.

That's exactly the sleight of hand. The research itself and the conclusions drawn aren't the concern. It's the injection of throwaway sentences and clauses asserting an evolutionary explanation which is assumed but never offered. I'm not rebutting the research. Claiming that I am is misdirection. I'm rebutting this statement:

The peer reviewed literature is full of evolutionary hypothesis testing.

The peer reviewed literature is full of biological hypothesis testing which is only connected to evolution by its irrelevant verbal appeals to evolution. OldAndrew

Allan Keith. I noticed that in all your bluff and bluster you did not cite a single example of Darwinian processes producing a single molecular machine. Funny how that is always the case with Darwinists. They are all talk, but when it comes to backing up their grandiose claims that unguided processes can produce machines that greatly outclass our best man-made machines, in terms of engineering parameters, Darwinists are always found to be full of hot air! You guys are pathetic! Of related interest to falsifying Intelligent Design:

More Irreducible Complexity Is Found in Flagellar Assembly - September 24, 2013 Concluding Statement: Eleven years is a lot of time to refute the claims about flagellar assembly made in Unlocking the Mystery of Life, if they were vulnerable to falsification. Instead, higher resolution studies confirm them. Not only that, research into the precision assembly of flagella is provoking more investigation of the assembly of other molecular machines. It's a measure of the robustness of a scientific theory when increasing data strengthen its tenets over time and motivate further research. Irreducible complexity lives! - http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/09/more_irreducibl077051.html

Also of interest:

2016 Nobel Prize in Chemistry Points Strongly to Purposeful Design of Life - Michael Behe - December 6, 2016 Excerpt: The 2016 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to three scientists who built simple “nano” machines out of individual molecules.,,, Articles reporting on the Prize were filled with praise for the ingenuity of the scientists. Yet there was also an undertone of skepticism about the whole project. One German chemist foresaw looming technical difficulties, “I’ve always been a bit skeptical of artificial motors. They’re too difficult to make, too difficult to scale up.” An overview article remarked that “Some chemists argue that although these motors are cute, they are ultimately useless by themselves.” So far the nanomachinery hasn’t been put to any practical use,,, Many of the pioneers of the field drew inspiration from molecular machines discovered in biology such as the bacterial flagellum, a whip-like outboard motor that can propel bacteria through liquid. Yet the molecular machines laboriously constructed by our brightest scientists are Tinkertoys compared to the nanotechnology found in living cells.,,, ,,, right at this very moment sophisticated molecular robot walkers à la Star Wars are transporting critical supplies from one part of your cells to others along molecular highways, guided by information posted on molecular signposts. Molecular solar panels that put our best technology to shame are found in every leaf. Molecular computer control systems run the whole show with a reliability that exceeds that of, say, a nuclear reactor.,,, http://www.cnsnews.com/commentary/michael-behe/2016-nobel-prize-chemistry-points-strongly-purposeful-design-life “I build molecules for a living, I can’t begin to tell you how difficult that job is. I stand in awe of God because of what he has done through his creation. Only a rookie who knows nothing about science would say science takes away from faith. If you really study science, it will bring you closer to God." James Tour – one of the leading nano-tech engineers in the world - Strobel, Lee (2000), The Case For Faith, p. 111

bornagain77

OldAndrew, sorry, but I disagree. I have read all sorts of criticisms here about bad research. But nothing about attempts to rebut this work. There is a process for that. If it is not working properly, present the evidence. Allan Keith

How many scientifically based criticisms of these papers have you submitted to these journals.

That's a dodge. But it's not logical. It's essentially an ad-hominem. You've chosen to address something other than the point I made. That's understandable. OldAndrew

OldAndrew,

The peer reviewed literature is full of all sorts of testing of biological hypotheses. Then it’s sprinkled with language that asserts the existence of some neo-Darwinian explanation without providing it. Over. And over. And over. They cite other research which does more of the same. It’s scientific check-kiting, turtles all the way down. One simply has to read carefully to see the distinction between the actual science and the valueless narrative gloss applied over it.

How many scientifically based criticisms of these papers have you submitted to these journals. BA77? KairosFocus? You do realize that they publish commentary, don’t you? Or are you going to respond with “there is a conspiracy to prevent such criticism”? The Boy Who Cried Wolf Comes to mind. Allan Keith

The peer reviewed literature is full of evolutionary hypothesis testing.

The peer reviewed literature is full of all sorts of testing of biological hypotheses. Then it's sprinkled with language that asserts the existence of some neo-Darwinian explanation without providing it. Over. And over. And over. They cite other research which does more of the same. It's scientific check-kiting, turtles all the way down. One simply has to read carefully to see the distinction between the actual science and the valueless narrative gloss applied over it. OldAndrew

Bob O:

LateMarch @ 49 – Thank you. I wasn’t aware of that parable (it doesn’t seem particularly Biblical, and in the UK “two by four” doesn’t have any particular cultural significance, so I’m afraid that was lost on me. Now can you explain the stake through the heart metaphor. It seems to refer to killing people, but apparently not.

No, nothing biblical about it but it is a very well known parable here in the US. A 2X4 is a very common bit of lumber used to build houses. I'm reminded about a visit to my sister in Canada several years back. This acquaintance said that we would meet at Tim Horton's. For the life of me I couldn't figure out how I was supposed to know where this individual lived so that I could meet the following day. It was then explained to me that Tim Horton's was a doughnut shop there in the middle of the small burgh where I was staying. They are all over Canada. A cultural icon. Who knew? The stake in the heart is a similar thing. It is one of the few ways of killing a vampire. Thus if one refers to driving a stake thru the heart it means the sure killing of the idea or concept. No physical violence intended. The current cultural climate people will often accuse someone of intending physical violence in order to denigrate or distract from the underlying argument. Much like the accusation of racism stops all communication. Thus my post @11 Clear as mud? Or do I have to explain that saying as well? Latemarch

Bob

Or perhaps that’s ID’s biggest failing – it doesn’t have any theory of its own

There's no arguing with determined, willful ignorance. ID doesn't have a theory. It is a theory. It makes a claim and supports it with evidence. If anyone is intellectually courageous, let him or her refute that claim and argue against its evidence. Understanding that a thing was designed is not the same as understanding how it was designed. Let me repeat that for the sake of utter futility, because I realize that the cognitive dissonance will erase these words from many people's perception. Understanding that a thing was designed is not the same as understanding how it was designed. Living things are artifacts of designed technology. The alternative requires an appeal to supernatural miracles by which chemicals are empowered to encode copies of themselves with symbols, decode the symbols to reproduce themselves, all while creating walls to protect the process and mechanisms to collect energy to as to further it, all without intent. That is an appeal to magic, and to take it seriously is irrational. Inferring that a thing is a designed artifact is a rational, reasonable conclusion, whether or not one knows who or what the designer was. Will we understand more? We already do. It will likely take some time, but without exception every discovery reveals more intricate systems of self-repair, self-regulation, and different ways in which the details of living things are encoded. The greatest obstacle is that most scientific research of biological origins is dogmatically restricted to alchemy and 21st-century sorcery, endlessly seeking to prove that maggots spawn from meat and that cells spawn from chemicals and lightning, or whatever the most popular variation is, because the clergy of Miller-Urey demand to see their prophecies fulfilled and seek to ban the apocryphal heresy of ID from their sacred clergy-reviewed journals. We've got so many people looking for it that it must exist! The search itself is progress! It's a mixed blessing. The sorcery and dark-ages ignorance pervades an area where its dogma is untestable. The rest of science, where observations are tested and results are valued over myths is mostly spared. OldAndrew

BA77,

Allan Keith, apparently you are familiar with the Darwinian technique/art of literature bluffing made famous by Nick Matzke and others.

As opposed to the ID technique that you excel at called the Gish Gallop, made famous by Duane Gish and others. The peer reviewed literature is full of evolutionary hypothesis testing. That you would attempt to deny this fact says more about you than me. Some of these have resulted in modification of the theory. Others have supported the tested hypothesis. The difference between ID and evolution is that evolution is brave enough to propose possible mechanisms, test them, and refine the overall model in response to the results of these tests. This has led to the current understanding which includes sources of variation (mutatation, meiosis, inversions, insertions, etc), drift, HGT, epigenetics, natural selection (including sexual selection), and many other factors. The arguments in science now centre around the relative importance of each of these, not their existance. So far, ID has some nebulous metrics for identifying design, none of which have actually been effectively used, and with no way of extrapolating these to biology. As has been mentioned, for ID to get out of this rut will require the development and testing of hypotheses about the mechanisms the designer (who does not have to be god) used to realize these designs. Were they front loaded? Are they ongoing? Must they follow physical laws? Start with any or all of these and start doing the work. Allan Keith

Allan Keith, apparently you are familiar with the Darwinian technique/art of literature bluffing made famous by Nick Matzke and others. Instead of just literature bluffing and blustering with inaccessible journals, Perhaps you have actual experimental results, for all the readers here to see, showing, I don't know, perhaps Darwinian processes producing a single molecular machine?

“The argument that random variation and Darwinian gradualism may not be adequate to explain complex biological systems is hardly new […} in fact, there are no detailed Darwinian accounts for the evolution of any fundamental biochemical or cellular system, only a variety of wishful speculations. It is remarkable that Darwinism is accepted as a satisfactory explanation for such a vast subject — evolution — with so little rigorous examination of how well its basic theses works in illuminating specific instances of biological adaptation or diversity.” Prof. James Shapiro – “In the Details…What?” National Review, 19 September 1996, pp. 64. ,,,we must concede that there are presently no detailed Darwinian accounts of the evolution of any biochemical or cellular system, only a variety of wishful speculations.’ Franklin M. Harold,* 2001. The way of the cell: molecules, organisms and the order of life, Oxford University Press, New York, p. 205. *Professor Emeritus of Biochemistry, Colorado State University, USA in 2014 Franklin Harold admited: “we may still be missing some essential insight" Franklin Harold - 2014 http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2014/12/origin-of-life-research-has-failed-to.html Talking Back to Goliath: Some Advice for Students in the Evolutionary Biology Classroom - Paul Nelson - September 30, 2014 Excerpt: (if neo-Darwinism) is true, we should be able to find in the scientific literature the detailed explanations for the origin of complex structures and behaviors, rendered strictly in terms of random variation plus natural selection. Guess what? Those explanations aren't there; they don't exist. If anyone doubts this, he should try looking for himself. Choose any complex structure or behavior, and look in the biological literature for the step-by-step causal account where the origin of that structure (that is, its coming-to-be where it did not exist before) is explained via random variation and natural selection. You'll be looking a long time. The explanations just aren't there, and this fact is well known to evolutionary biologists who have become disenchanted with received neo-Darwinian theory. When proponents of the received theory, such as Richard Dawkins, face the task of making random variation and natural selection work, they resort to fictional entities like Dawkins's "biomorphs" -- see Chapter 3 of The Blind Watchmaker (1986) -- or flawed analogies such as the "methinks it is like a weasel" search algorithm scenario. No one would have to employ these toy stories, of course, if evidence were available showing the efficacy of random variation and selection to construct novel complexity. "Research on selection and adaptation," notes Mary Jane West-Eberhard, a disenchanted evolutionary theorist, "may tell us why a trait persisted and spread, but it will not tell us where a trait came from....This transformational aspect of evolutionary change has been oddly neglected in modern evolutionary biology" (2003, p. 197). http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/09/talking_back_to_1090141.html Molecular Machines: - Michael J. Behe Excerpt: JME is a journal that was begun specifically to deal with the topic of how evolution occurs on the molecular level. It has high scientific standards, and is edited by prominent figures in the field.,,, In the past ten years JME has published 886 papers. Of these, 95 discussed the chemical synthesis of molecules thought to be necessary for the origin of life, 44 proposed mathematical models to improve sequence analysis, 20 concerned the evolutionary implications of current structures, and 719 were analyses of protein or polynucleotide sequences. There were zero papers discussing detailed models for intermediates in the development of complex biomolecular structures. This is not a peculiarity of JME. No papers are to be found that discuss detailed models for intermediates in the development of complex biomolecular structures in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, Nature, Science, the Journal of Molecular Biology or, to my knowledge, any journal whatsoever. http://www.arn.org/docs/behe/mb_mm92496.htm “The response I have received from repeating Behe's claim about the evolutionary literature, which simply brings out the point being made implicitly by many others, such as Chris Dutton and so on, is that I obviously have not read the right books. There are, I am sure, evolutionists who have described how the transitions in question could have occurred.” And he continues, “When I ask in which books I can find these discussions, however, I either get no answer or else some titles that, upon examination, do not, in fact, contain the promised accounts. That such accounts exist seems to be something that is widely known, but I have yet to encounter anyone who knows where they exist.” David Ray Griffin - retired professor of philosophy of religion and theology Calling Nick Matzke's literature bluff on molecular machines - DonaldM UD blogger - April 2013 Excerpt: So now, 10 years later in 2006 Matzke and Pallen come along with this review article. The interesting thing about this article is that, despite all the hand waving claims about all these dozens if not hundreds of peer reviewed research studies showing how evolution built a flagellum, Matzke and Pallen didn’t have a single such reference in their bibliography. Nor did they reference any such study in the article. Rather, the article went into great lengths to explain how a researcher might go about conducting a study to show how evolution could have produced the system. Well, if all those articles and studies were already there, why not just point them all out? In shorty, the entire article was a tacit admission that Behe had been right all along. Fast forward to now and Andre’s question directed to Matzke. We’re now some 17 years after Behe’s book came out where he made that famous claim. And, no surprise, there still is not a single peer reviewed research study that provides the Darwinian explanation for a bacterial flagellum (or any of the other irreducibly complex biological systems Behe mentioned in the book). We’re almost 7 years after the Matzke & Pallen article. So where are all these research studies? There’s been ample time for someone to do something in this regard. Matzke will not answer the question because there is no answer he can give…no peer reviewed research study he can reference, other than the usual literature bluffing he’s done in the past. https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/irreducible-complexity/andre-asks-an-excellent-question-regarding-dna-as-a-part-of-an-in-cell-irreducibly-complex-communication-system/#comment-453291

Also of note, Dr. James Tour, a top ten rated synthetic chemist in the world, who, in my honest opinion, currently builds the most sophisticated man-made molecular machines in the world, will buy lunch for anyone who can explain to him exactly how Darwinian evolution works:

Does Science Make Faith Obsolete? James Tour - video - March 9, 2015 (talk given February 18, 2015 - 30:20 minute mark - he publicly asks Darwinists to explain macro-evolution to him) https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=CB3ZmLatcUI#t=1827

After commenting on the failure of ANY atheist to ever respond to his request for lunch for 8 or 10 years in order to explain how Darwinian processes can produce molecular machines, i.e. 'macro-evolution, Dr Tour comments:

“One graduate student from Berkeley, (i.e. Nick Matzke), said that he would come if he had a ticket so somebody said “I’ll buy you the ticket”, but then he said, “Well, I’m not going to go because Tour doesn’t want it recorded.” The reason I didn’t want it recorded is because I did not want one-ups-man-ship. I said ‘I’ll buy you lunch, just explain it to me’. And then the guy said he would send me some articles on evolution of a complex system from a molecular perspective and I am still waiting. That’s over one year ago he was suppose to send them to me. They don’t exist.” – James Tour – 35:22 minute mark of the video https://youtu.be/CB3ZmLatcUI?t=2122

bornagain77

LateMarch @ 49 - Thank you. I wasn't aware of that parable (it doesn't seem particularly Biblical, and in the UK "two by four" doesn't have any particular cultural significance, so I'm afraid that was lost on me. Now can you explain the stake through the heart metaphor. It seems to refer to killing people, but apparently not. Bob O'H

BA77,

Allan Keith, One of the primary failings of Darwinian Theory is its failure to be experimentally criticized (i.e. testability).

So, you have read all of the research papers in here?

https://www.springer.com/life+sciences/evolutionary+%26+developmental+biology/journal/10914 And here? https://www.springer.com/life+sciences/evolutionary+%26+developmental+biology/journal/427 And here? https://www.springer.com/life+sciences/ecology/journal/13127 And here? https://www.springer.com/life+sciences/evolutionary+%26+developmental+biology/journal/239 And here? https://www.springer.com/life+sciences/plant+sciences/journal/606 And here? https://www.springer.com/life+sciences/animal+sciences/journal/12711 And here? https://www.springer.com/life+sciences/journal/11084

And amongst these thousands of papers that you have read (and these are only the Springer journals), you are claiming that none of them have tested various aspects of evolutionary theory? Forgive me if I find this hard to believe. Especially considering the hundreds of papers that News posts on this web site that are critical of various aspects of evolutionary theory. Allan Keith

Allan Keith, One of the primary failings of Darwinian Theory is its failure to be experimentally criticized (i.e. testability). Other theories in science, such as Quantum Theory and General Relativity, (and even Intelligent Design), have become robust theories of science precisely from their ability to withstand repeated testing and/or criticism of their claims. Darwinism simply offers no such criteria to experimentally criticize and/or test against.

“On the other hand, I disagree that Darwin’s theory is as `solid as any explanation in science.; Disagree? I regard the claim as preposterous. Quantum electrodynamics is accurate to thirteen or so decimal places; so, too, general relativity. A leaf trembling in the wrong way would suffice to shatter either theory. What can Darwinian theory offer in comparison?” - Berlinski, D., “A Scientific Scandal?: David Berlinski & Critics,” Commentary, July 8, 2003

That Darwinists would be the ones to complain about criticism of their theory, when other theories in science thrive on surviving experimental criticism and/or testing, is rich indeed.

"Much of the vast neo-Darwinian literature is distressingly uncritical. The possibility that anything is seriously amiss with Darwin's account of evolution is hardly considered. ... The methodological skepticism that characterizes most areas of scientific discourse seems strikingly absent when Darwinism is the topic." Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/07/second_thoughts098141.html

bornagain77

Allan:

Followed by a criticism of evolution.

And that part was followed by support for ID. BTW evolutionism- we argue against evolutionism, ie evolution by means of blind and mindless processes. ID is not anti-evolution. ET

Allan:

Then you obviously did not see the flaw in your response to Bob O’H.

What flaw? Science mandates all design inferences eliminate non-telic processes. So even if Darwin never posited anything about natural selection such a scenario would have to be invented, considered and then eliminated to satisfy that mandate. Thankfully we already have 150+ years of evolutionary failures at fulfilling Darwin's main concept of natural selection being able to produce the appearance of design. In effect evolutionists have eliminated their position as a viable alternative to ID. ba77 also provided support for ID. ET

BA77,

Are you seriously trying to maintain that Darwinian evolution should be immune from criticism???

No. Allan Keith

ET,

You mean your quote-mine of 77? response? Yes, I see the flaw in that.

I'm not sure that you understand what a quote mine is. A quote mine is quoting something out of context to infer a different meaning. Let's re-cap. Bob O'H said,

Or perhaps that’s ID’s biggest failing – it doesn’t have any theory of its own, so it just consists of criticising other theories.

BA77 responded to this with,

Darwinian evolution is not a science. It is a pseudoscience.

Followed by a criticism of evolution. To summarize, he responded to the claim that ID consists of criticizing other theories by criticizing other theories. Allan Keith

Allan Keith, please do tell me the "flaw" in Intelligent Design being found to be a testable/falsifiable science and Darwinian evolution being found to be a unfalsifiable pseudoscience.

Darwin’s Theory vs Falsification – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rzw0JkuKuQ

Are you seriously trying to maintain that Darwinian evolution should be immune from criticism??? Please do tell,,, This will be interesting. I'll go get popcorn and a coke. bornagain77

Bob (and weave), as to the "undead" I almost forgot this gem of a quote from Dennett:

“(Daniel) Dennett concludes, ‘nobody is conscious … we are all zombies’.” J.W. SCHOOLER & C.A. SCHREIBER - Experience, Meta-consciousness, and the Paradox of Introspection - 2004 https://www.scribd.com/document/183053947/Experience-Meta-consciousness-and-the-Paradox-of-Introspection

And there you have it folks, absolute proof that when you deny the reality of your own immaterial mind you have in fact lost your mind! bornagain77

BA77,

Allan Keith, unlike you and other Darwinists, I provided proof for my claim that Darwinian evolution is a unfalsifiable pseudoscience and for Intelligent Design being a testable, potentially falsifiable, science.

Then you obviously did not see the flaw in your response to Bob O'H. Allan Keith

Allan Keith, unlike you and other Darwinists, I provided proof for my claim that Darwinian evolution is a unfalsifiable pseudoscience and for Intelligent Design being a testable, potentially falsifiable, science. Only someone with an personal bias and prior agenda would so blatantly ignore that huge "falsifiable" elephant in the room that I pointed out. But please do go on. I'm certain the unbiased readers can see just how disingenuous Darwinists really are as to the evidence in hand. bornagain77

Allan:

Am I the only one who sees the flaw in BA77’s response?

You mean your quote-mine of 77' response? Yes, I see the flaw in that ET

"PaV made no mention of the undead," No that would be Jerry Coyne, Richard Dawkins, Alex Rosenberg, Brian Farrell, Paul Feyerabend, Richard Rorty, Daniel Dennett, Francis Crick, Steven Pinker, Matthew Lieberman, and Thomas Nagel, who, among other leading atheists, made mention of atheists being "undead" neuronal illusions if Darwinian evolution were actually true! :)

Ross Douthat Is On Another Erroneous Rampage Against Secularism – Jerry Coyne – December 26, 2013 Excerpt: “many (but not all) of us accept the notion that our sense of self is a neuronal illusion.” Jerry Coyne – Professor of Evolutionary Biology – Atheist https://newrepublic.com/article/116047/ross-douthat-wrong-about-secularism-and-ethics At the 23:33 minute mark of the following video, Richard Dawkins agrees with materialistic philosophers who say that: “consciousness is an illusion” A few minutes later Rowan Williams asks Dawkins ”If consciousness is an illusion…what isn’t?”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWN4cfh1Fac&t=22m57s “There is no self in, around, or as part of anyone’s body. There can’t be. So there really isn’t any enduring self that ever could wake up morning after morning worrying about why it should bother getting out of bed. The self is just another illusion, like the illusion that thought is about stuff or that we carry around plans and purposes that give meaning to what our body does. Every morning’s introspectively fantasized self is a new one, remarkably similar to the one that consciousness ceased fantasizing when we fell sleep sometime the night before. Whatever purpose yesterday’s self thought it contrived to set the alarm last night, today’s newly fictionalized self is not identical to yesterday’s. It’s on its own, having to deal with the whole problem of why to bother getting out of bed all over again.” – A.Rosenberg, The Atheist’s Guide to Reality, ch.10 The Consciousness Deniers – Galen Strawson – March 13, 2018 Excerpt: What is the silliest claim ever made? The competition is fierce, but I think the answer is easy. Some people have denied the existence of consciousness: conscious experience, the subjective character of experience, the “what-it-is-like” of experience.,,, Who are the Deniers?,,, Few have been fully explicit in their denial, but among those who have been, we find Brian Farrell, Paul Feyerabend, Richard Rorty, and the generally admirable Daniel Dennett.,,, http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/03/13/the-consciousness-deniers/ “that “You”, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules. As Lewis Carroll’s Alice might have phrased: “You’re nothing but a pack of neurons.” This hypothesis is so alien to the ideas of most people today that it can truly be called astonishing.” Francis Crick – “The Astonishing Hypothesis” 1994 The Brain: The Mystery of Consciousness By Steven Pinker - Monday, Jan. 29, 2007 Part II THE ILLUSION OF CONTROL Another startling conclusion from the science of consciousness is that the intuitive feeling we have that there's an executive "I" that sits in a control room of our brain, scanning the screens of the senses and pushing the buttons of the muscles, is an illusion. http://www.academia.edu/2794859/The_Brain_The_Mystery_of_Consciousness “We have so much confidence in our materialist assumptions (which are assumptions, not facts) that something like free will is denied in principle. Maybe it doesn’t exist, but I don’t really know that. Either way, it doesn’t matter because if free will and consciousness are just an illusion, they are the most seamless illusions ever created. Film maker James Cameron wishes he had special effects that good.” Matthew D. Lieberman – neuroscientist – materialist – UCLA professor "I have argued patiently against the prevailing form of naturalism, a reductive materialism that purports to capture life and mind through its neo-Darwinian extension." "..., I find this view antecedently unbelievable---a heroic triumph of ideological theory over common sense". Thomas Nagel - "Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False" - pg.128

bornagain77

Bob O: Maybe you just don't know the parable. Copied from the web.

A man sold a mule to a farmer and promised that as long as the farmer was nice and polite to the mule, the animal would perform any task without hesitation. For months the farmer politely tried to get the mule to work but the stubborn animal wouldn’t do a thing. Finally, fed up, the farmer called the man who sold him the animal and complained that no matter how polite he was he got no cooperation. The man told him he’d come over to help. The man showed up at the farm and asked the farmer what he wanted the mule to do. The farmer said he wanted the mule to plow his field. As the farmer watched, the salesman walked up to the mule hit him on the head with a two-by-four — hard. He then calmly and politely asked the mule to please plow the farmer’s field. The mule went right to work. Shocked, the farmer exclaimed to the salesman that he told him to be nice and polite to the mule to get him to do anything, yet he had hit him on the head with a chuck of wood. The salesman replied that he was polite, but he first had to get the mule’s attention.

So dense that it requires a 2X4 to the head to get your attention....metaphor. Latemarch

Bob O'H,

Or perhaps that’s ID’s biggest failing – it doesn’t have any theory of its own, so it just consists of criticising other theories. BA77 responds,

Darwinian evolution is not a science. It is a pseudoscience.

Am I the only one who sees the flaw in BA77's response? :)

Allan Keith

kf - PaV made no mention of the undead, so I'm afraid that doesn't help. Unless the undead are a continuation of the metaphor, but then that still doesn't help me understand what the metaphor is. Bob O'H

BO'H, see number 5 on the un-dead. KF kairosfocus

PaV @ 43 - yes, I know what a metaphor is. But I can't work out where the metaphor is @ 4, still less what the metaphorical meaning is. Can you explain it to me? Bob O'H

B O'H:

perhaps that’s ID’s biggest failing – it doesn’t have any theory of its own, so it just consists of criticising other theories

After all these years it is astonishing that it is still so difficult for objectors to acknowledge that simply being able to credibly identify design as a key causal factor due to its observable characteristic traces is highly significant in this generation's intellectual climate. Indeed, revolutionary. KF kairosfocus

Bob O'H: From Merriam Webster:

"You're a peach!" We've all heard the expression, and it's a good example of what we call metaphor. A metaphor is a figure of speech in which a word or phrase denoting one kind of object or action is used in place of another to suggest a likeness or analogy between them: the person being addressed in "you're a peach" is being equated with a peach, with the suggestion being that the person is pleasing or delightful in the way that a peach is pleasing and delightful. A metaphor is an implied comparison, as in "the silk of the singer's voice," in contrast to the explicit comparison of the simile, which uses like or as, as in "a voice smooth like silk."

PaV

TWSYF @ 7:

To be honest, I don’t really like a/mats and could care less what happens to them.

Jesus died even for murderers. Christianity is a hard road.

Blowhard a/mat haters like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Bill Maher, etc. are my enemies… not my friends.

They are arguably among the Pharisees (Sadducees?) of our day, and we see Jesus verbally slapping them in the face on numerous occasions. That being said, I agree with Nietzsche on a few things, including his pointer on fighting with monsters. LocalMinimum

Bob O'H: perhaps that’s ID’s biggest failing – it doesn’t have any theory of its own, so it just consists of criticising other theories. Maybe Darwinists are an anomaly, but I've always understood that real scientists try to falsify their own theories. Darwinist, if they are real scientists with a real theory, or set of theories, should welcome ID theorists with open arms. mike1962

Bob O'H is just confused or scientifically illiterate. There isn't a scientific theory of evolution. There aren't any testable hypotheses borne from the proposed mechanisms. It is a total non-starter. And that means ID does NOT criticize any theories. ALL design centric venues are mandated to eliminate other causes first. Newton's four rules of scientific reasoning tell us why that is. Is there a theory of archaeology? Is forensic science a theory? But I digress. ID is based on three premises and the inference that follows (DeWolf et al., Darwinism, Design and Public Education, pg. 92): 1) High information content (or specified complexity) and irreducible complexity constitute strong indicators or hallmarks of (past) intelligent design. 2) Biological systems have a high information content (or specified complexity) and utilize subsystems that manifest irreducible complexity. 3) Naturalistic mechanisms or undirected causes do not suffice to explain the origin of information (specified complexity) or irreducible complexity. 4) Therefore, intelligent design constitutes the best explanations for the origin of information and irreducible complexity in biological systems. There you have it- to falsify Intelligent Design all one has to do is demonstrate that natural selection can produce irreducibly complex biological systems. The criteria for inferring design in biology is, as Michael J. Behe, Professor of Biochemistry at Leheigh University, puts it in his book Darwin ' s Black Box: "Our ability to be confident of the design of the cilium or intracellular transport rests on the same principles to be confident of the design of anything: the ordering of separate components to achieve an identifiable function that depends sharply on the components.” That is the positive case. That little bit is still by far more than evolutionism has. Focus on your lame position, Bob. Lead by example or shut up. ET

Darwinian evolution is not a science. It is a pseudoscience. Lack of a rigorous falsification criteria is the precise reason why Darwinian evolution is more properly classified as a unfalsifiable pseudoscience rather than a testable science.

Darwin’s Theory vs Falsification – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rzw0JkuKuQ

The primary reason why Darwinian evolution lacks any of the rigor that is usually associated with the hard sciences is because Darwinian evolution has no mathematical model to test against. As Dr. Robert Marks states “Hard sciences are built on foundations of mathematics or definitive simulations. ,,, there exists no model successfully describing undirected Darwinian evolution. According to our current understanding, there never will be.,,,”

“There exists no model successfully describing undirected Darwinian evolution. Hard sciences are built on foundations of mathematics or definitive simulations. Examples include electromagnetics, Newtonian mechanics, geophysics, relativity, thermodynamics, quantum mechanics, optics, and many areas in biology. Those hoping to establish Darwinian evolution as a hard science with a model have either failed or inadvertently cheated. These models contain guidance mechanisms to land the airplane squarely on the target runway despite stochastic wind gusts. Not only can the guiding assistance be specifically identified in each proposed evolution model, its contribution to the success can be measured, in bits, as active information.,,,”,,, “there exists no model successfully describing undirected Darwinian evolution. According to our current understanding, there never will be.,,,” – Robert J. Marks II – Top Ten Questions and Objections to ‘Introduction to Evolutionary Informatics’ – June 12, 2017 https://evolutionnews.org/2017/06/top-ten-questions-and-objections-to-introduction-to-evolutionary-informatics/

And the primary reason why nobody has ever been able to build a realistic mathematical model for Darwinian evolution to test against is simply because there is no ‘law of evolution’ within the known physical universe for mathematicians and physicists to ever build a realistic mathematical model upon:,,, ,,, And whereas Darwinian evolution has no known law of nature to appeal to so as to establish itself as a proper, testable, science, Intelligent Design does not suffer from such an embarrassing disconnect from physical reality. In other words, Intelligent Design can appeal directly to ‘the laws of conservation of information’ (Dembski, Marks, etc..) (and can even appeal to conservation of Quantum information),,, in order to establish itself as a proper, testable, and rigorous science. And since Intelligent Design is mathematically based on the ‘law of conservation of information’, that makes Intelligent Design very much testable and potentially falsifiable, and thus makes Intelligent Design, unlike Darwinism, a rigorous science instead of a unfalsifiable pseudoscience.

The Law of Physicodynamic Incompleteness – David L. Abel Excerpt: “If decision-node programming selections are made randomly or by law rather than with purposeful intent, no non-trivial (sophisticated) function will spontaneously arise.” If only one exception to this null hypothesis were published, the hypothesis would be falsified. Falsification would require an experiment devoid of behind-the-scenes steering. Any artificial selection hidden in the experimental design would disqualify the experimental falsification. After ten years of continual republication of the null hypothesis with appeals for falsification, no falsification has been provided. The time has come to extend this null hypothesis into a formal scientific prediction: “No non trivial algorithmic/computational utility will ever arise from chance and/or necessity alone.” https://www.academia.edu/Documents/in/The_Law_of_Physicodynamic_Incompleteness

In fact there is currently up to a 5 million dollar prize being offered for the first person that can “Show an example of Information that doesn’t come from a mind. All you need is one.”

The Origin of Information: How to Solve It – Perry Marshall Where did the information in DNA come from? This is one of the most important and valuable questions in the history of science. Cosmic Fingerprints has issued a challenge to the scientific community: “Show an example of Information that doesn’t come from a mind. All you need is one.” “Information” is defined as digital communication between an encoder and a decoder, using agreed upon symbols. To date, no one has shown an example of a naturally occurring encoding / decoding system, i.e. one that has demonstrably come into existence without a designer. A private equity investment group is offering a technology prize for this discovery (up to 5 million dollars). We will financially reward and publicize the first person who can solve this;,,, To solve this problem is far more than an object of abstract religious or philosophical discussion. It would demonstrate a mechanism for producing coding systems, thus opening up new channels of scientific discovery. Such a find would have sweeping implications for Artificial Intelligence research. http://cosmicfingerprints.com/solve/

Verse:

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.

Of supplemental note as to the 'mechanism' of Design.,,, Design DOES HAVE a viable mechanism with Agent Causality! ID, in their appeal to Agency (which is something each of us directly experience first hand), IS NOT appealing to some grossly inadequate or unknown mechanism as atheists are currently doing within neo-Darwinian theory:

A Professor's Journey out of Nihilism: Why I am not an Atheist - University of Wyoming - J. Budziszewski Excerpt page12: "There were two great holes in the argument about the irrelevance of God. The first is that in order to attack free will, I supposed that I understood cause and effect; I supposed causation to be less mysterious than volition. If anything, it is the other way around. I can perceive a logical connection between premises and valid conclusions. I can perceive at least a rational connection between my willing to do something and my doing it. But between the apple and the earth, I can perceive no connection at all. Why does the apple fall? We don't know. "But there is gravity," you say. No, "gravity" is merely the name of the phenomenon, not its explanation. "But there are laws of gravity," you say. No, the "laws" are not its explanation either; they are merely a more precise description of the thing to be explained, which remains as mysterious as before. For just this reason, philosophers of science are shy of the term "laws"; they prefer "lawlike regularities." To call the equations of gravity "laws" and speak of the apple as "obeying" them is to speak as though, like the traffic laws, the "laws" of gravity are addressed to rational agents capable of conforming their wills to the command. This is cheating, because it makes mechanical causality (the more opaque of the two phenomena) seem like volition (the less). In my own way of thinking the cheating was even graver, because I attacked the less opaque in the name of the more. The other hole in my reasoning was cruder. If my imprisonment in a blind causality made my reasoning so unreliable that I couldn't trust my beliefs, then by the same token I shouldn't have trusted my beliefs about imprisonment in a blind causality. But in that case I had no business denying free will in the first place." http://www.undergroundthomist.org/sites/default/files/WhyIAmNotAnAtheist.pdf Albert Einstein vs. Quantum Mechanics and His Own Mind – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxFFtZ301j4

bornagain77

OldAndrew -

First I’ll beat the dead horse. ID is not a theory of how anything was designed. Understanding this requires a child’s level of reading comprehension.

Indeed, isn't that Paul Nelson's point? It's ID's biggest failing.

Sorry, you can’t be a restaurant critic and eat from a dumpster.

Or perhaps that's ID's biggest failing - it doesn't have any theory of its own, so it just consists of criticising other theories. I would genuinely like to see ID develop its own theory - even if I thought it was wrong, I think it would be fascinating to see how it could develop. The nearest you've come to is front-loading, but that doesn't seem to have gone anywhere. Bob O'H

Seversky:

“Easily the biggest challenge facing the ID community is to develop a full-fledged theory of biological design. We don’t have such a theory right now, and that’s a real problem.”

It still is.

This is a jaw-dropping statement. Or it would be if it wasn't so common. First I'll beat the dead horse. ID is not a theory of how anything was designed. Understanding this requires a child's level of reading comprehension. Evolution, on the other hand, is supposedly a theory of "how", and yet carefully skates above offering specifics of how anything evolved. It cloaks itself in science while substituting vague narratives like "it acquired," "it evolved," and "was adapted." The standards are so relaxed that there are none. Without exception any research which claims to explain evolution in any detail simply explain the differences and tack on the detail-starved narrative that those differences arose by some unobserved mechanism of change. Mainstream science has finally gone to the extreme of making up preposterous, unverifiable speculations about physics to support anything that might exclude design. Sorry, you can't be a restaurant critic and eat from a dumpster. OldAndrew

BA, 26 (attn, AK et al), Let's clip his first linked, regarding Nick Matzke:

This is a crucial point: How many times have we heard ID critics (like Matzke) say things like “ID shouldn’t be taken seriously because it doesn’t present research at scientific conferences, or publish scientific papers.” But then what happens when us ID proponents do exactly what they say we should do: We present research papers at a scientific conference at a top research university (Cornell) and then seek to have it published by a world-class scientific publisher (Springer)? Does Matzke applaud us for doing what he demanded? No. ID-critics like Matzke work hard to prevent its publication. This is sheer hypocrisy. But Matzke and his cohorts never had any intention of evaluating ID in a serious way, under any circumstances. This episode is a reminder that ID’s most vehement critics were never interested in giving ID a fair hearing. Their purpose is, at any cost, to prevent ID from being recognized by anyone as possessing any scientific merit whatsoever. For them, this is not a scientific debate at all. It’s an ideological power struggle — one that, moreover, tells you something important about the would-be censors. Do people who are confident they are right normally behave like this? No, they don’t. People who are confident welcome challenges as opportunities to demonstrate the merit of their case and advance its standing in public opinion. Never forget the origins of Biological Information: New Perspectives. It is a story that reveals exactly what the Darwin lobby is about: its main strategy is viewpoint suppression, but note too the inner weakness and doubt that all its bluster tries to conceal.

Springer is a major scientific publisher. Note the comment from article 1 in the series, citing a blurb:

World Scientific Publishing has just released the proceedings of a symposium held in the spring of 2011, where a diverse group of scientists gathered at Cornell University to critically re-examine neo-Darwinian theory. This symposium brought together experts in information theory, computer science, numerical simulation, thermodynamics, evolutionary theory, whole organism biology, developmental biology, molecular biology, genetics, physics, biophysics, mathematics, and linguistics.

Note, what that 1st article goes on to say:

The volume Biological Information: New Perspectives is an interdisciplinary volume. For the most part, it comprises papers presented at the aforementioned Cornell conference. The papers are divided into four main sections. The first is on information theory and biology, and was edited by Robert J. Marks, Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Baylor University. The second, on biological information and genetic theory, was edited by John C. Sanford, Courtesy Professor in the Department of Horticulture at Cornell, and notoriously the primary inventor of the gene gun. Sanford hosted the conference; were it not for his efforts and contributions, the conference probably would not have taken place, and the volume wouldn’t have been published. The third section is on theoretical molecular biology, edited by Michael J. Behe, Professor of Biochemistry at Lehigh University. The final section, on biological information and self-organizational complexity theory, was edited by Bruce L. Gordon, Associate Professor in History and Philosophy of Science at Houston Baptist University. The book contains contributions from some prominent proponents of intelligent design, such as Michael Behe, William Dembski, Jonathan Wells, Douglas Axe, Ann Gauger, and others. However, while some of the papers do expressly advocate intelligent design, it isn’t entirely, or even mostly, about ID. In fact some of the contributors are explicitly anti-ID. For example, the fourth main section of the book, “Biological Information and Self-Organizational Complexity Theory,” contains contributions by scientists who are critical of Darwinism but believe the solution to the problem of origins is a materialistic form of evolution along the lines of self-organization

Science works on the celebrity system, and behind the scenes suppression therefore effects a lock-out. We need to instead actually look at the merits. Again, what is the only observed known effective cause of functionally specific, complex organisation and associated information (FSCO/I)? Ans: intelligently directed configuration, backed up by a trillion observed cases and the needle in haystack config space search challenge. Observe how that will be side-stepped and/or dismissed and how what has never been seen to create FSCO/I and has no credible answer to search challenge will be put in its place. Then, observe the ideologies at work. KF kairosfocus

Folks, on the topical issue, I think it is clear that our intellectual culture has become increasingly morally and consequently intellectually bankrupt as radical secularism and ideological activism more and more come to rule the roost. In the case of ID, which is not a specifically Christian but rather a significant scientific movement on cosmological as well as world of life fronts, the prejudice, slander and go with the tide patterns are clear. Despite that, significant research has been done and has been published on both fronts. More than enough to make the point, for those who have enough intellectual integrity left to pay attention -- and yes, at this point, that is a material issue. (Our minds and intellectual life are morally governed by duties to truth, right, reasonableness, sound reasoning, fair-mindedness and much more; if you think you can play with ideologies that utterly corrupt such governance without being tainted, think again.) And, if you think researchers working in the secularist ideological materialist frame of thought with similar background and publication records would have been treated as scientists and thinkers supportive of ID have been, there is fine Caribbean beach front property in Montana for sale at excellent prices. KF kairosfocus

Democrats Boo God (at Democratic National Convention)! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3CRsnMf1xQ The Democrats’ God Gap By DAVID FRENCH - May 2, 2018 Excerpt: There’s a big “God gap” between Republicans and Democrats — 70 percent of Republicans believe in the God of the Bible compared with 45 percent of Democrats — but there’s an even larger God gap within the Democratic party. Only 32 percent of white Democrats believe in the God of the Bible, compared with 61 percent of nonwhite Democrats — an almost 30-point gap: https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/05/democrats-god-religion-gap/ bornagain77

BO'H: anti-Christian bias is palpable among ideologically activist secularists. Targetting Catholicism (as the largest single branch of the Christian faith) follows. I should add that the toll of people of Christian faith murdered under one pretext or another by leftist regimes and movements in the past 100 years easily exceeds the total for the previous 19 centuries; a horrible record. BTW, I agree on antisemitism, noting that the National Socialist German Worker's Party was clearly of the left, despite propaganda by Stalin et al and popular perceptions. Nominal Catholicism is entirely compatible with being part of that agenda, and serious Catholics may well not have a coherent, thought-through position. This holds for the broader context of Christian faith and even more for the trends in a civilisation once called Christendom, but now rapidly advancing to civilisational suicide as apostasy (and yes, that is the right term) becomes a driving force. A circumstance where globally 800+ million of living posterity has been killed in the womb in 40+ years, mounting at about a million more PER WEEK tied to the ideological corruption that protects this worldwide holocaust in progress is a capital example. Sadly, there are many others. KF kairosfocus

PaCV @ 28 - OK then. I'm afraid I'm mystified by what the metaphor in 4 is meant to be about, so can you explain it? Bob O'H

vmahuna - do you realise that the last but one UK Labour Prime Minister (surely the epitome of "Leftist establishment") converted to Roman Catholocism? I think there was a Democratic US President who was a Catholic, too (albeit a few years ago). FWIW the more unpleasant parts of the left are anti-semitic, not anti-Catholic. Bob O'H

Truth @ 7 "Darwinists generally hate theism (especially Christianity) and anything that can be used to support it, including ID." Can you cite even ONE article that condemns Islam or Buddhism or Judaism or even shamanism because they require a belief in God? The Leftist establishment is really only anti-Christian, and most specifically anti-Roman Catholic (the other Catholic communities are simply unknown to American readers). There is some appropriate quote in one of GK Chesterton's stories about the Left fearing and hating Catholicism because they recognize Catholicism as the only serious INTELLECTUAL threat to atheistic socialism. But it has been lo! these many decades since I read Chesterton. vmahuna

BA77 @ 25-27: Well done. Thank you. Truth Will Set You Free

Bob O'H: Let's not be childish. PaV

Here are some of the peer reviewed papers supporting ID that have been published in spite of the systematic bias against ID:

BIBLIOGRAPHIC AND ANNOTATED LIST OF PEER-­REVIEWED PUBLICATIONS SUPPORTING INTELLIGENT DESIGN - UPDATED – July 2017 http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/filesDB-download.php?command=download&id=10141 Evolutionary Informatics Lab - Main Publications http://evoinfo.org/publications/ Bio-Complexity Publication Archive http://bio-complexity.org/ojs/index.php/main/issue/archive Biological Information - New Perspectives - Proceedings of the Symposium - published online May 2013 http://www.worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/8818#t=toc Dr. David L. Abel (The Gene Emergence Project) - list of published papers http://lifeorigin.academia.edu/DrDavidLAbel/Papers

Of related note:

But Darwinism is universally accepted among “real” scientists! - December 30, 2016 Excerpt: A friend started making a list of books that doubt all or most of modern Darwinism, neo-Darwinism, the slightly elastic Extended Synthesis, and came up with a three-tiered, hardly exhaustive, shelf: St. George Mivart, On the Genesis of Species (1871) Charles Hodge, What Is Darwinism (1874) Samuel Butler, Evolution, Old and New (1879) Henri Bergson, Creative Evolution (1907/tr. 1911) Svante Arrhenius Worlds in the Making (1908) Richard Goldschmidt, The Material Basis of Evolution (1940) Jacques Barzun, Darwin, Marx, Wagner: Critique of a Heritage (1941) Lecomte du Nouy, Human Destiny (1947) Gertrude Himmelfarb, Darwin and the Darwinian Revolution (1959) Norman Macbeth, Darwin Retried (Delta, 1971) Pierre Paul Grassé: “L´evolution du vivant” (1973) Gordon Rattray Taylor, The Great Evolution Mystery (Harper, 1983) L. Cohen, Darwin Was Wrong: A Study in Probabilities (1984) Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis (1985) Soren Lovtrup Darwinism: The Refutation of a Myth (1987) Rupert Sheldrake, The Presence of the Past: The Memory of Nature (1988) R. F. Baum, Doctors of Modernity: Darwin, Marx & Freud (1988) Robert Wesson, Beyond Natural Selection, MIT (1991) Dorothy Kurth Boberg, Evolution and Reason – Beyond Darwin (1993) Remy Chauvin: “Le darwinism où le fin d´un mythe” (1997) Lynn Margulis, Symbiotic Life: A New Look at Evolution (1998) Stuart Newman and Gerd Muller (eds.), Origination of Organismal Form” (2002) David Stove, Darwinian Fairytales (2006) Etienne Gilson, From Aristotle to Darwin & Back Again : A Journey in Final Causality, Species and Evolution (2009) Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini, What Darwin God Wrong (2010) Gerd Muller and Massimo Pigliucci, Evolution: the Extended Synthesis” (2010) George McGhee, Convergent Evolution: Limited Forms Most Beautiful, MIT (2011) Thomas Nagel, Mind & Cosmos (2012) A Lima-de-Faria, Evolution without Selection: Form and Function by Autoevolution (2013) Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis (2015 [updated from 1985]) Suzan Mazur’s: The Altenberg 16: An Exposé of the Evolution Industry (2009) Paradigm Shifters (2015) and Public Evolution Summit (2016). https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/intelligent-design/but-darwinism-is-universally-accepted-among-real-scientists/

Even though neo-Darwinists still like to complain that Intelligent Design advocates don't have that many published peer-reviewed papers, it turns out that if one looks at the peer-reviewed papers coming from neo-Darwinists themselves, the evidence will many times directly, and overwhelmingly, support the Intelligent Design position (such as ENCODE research), while their explanation for the evidence is found to be, many times, highly contrived, and twisted, just to support their presupposed philosophical conclusion of neo-Darwinism.

Darwinian 'science' in a nutshell: Jonathan Wells on pop science boilerplate - April 20, 2015 Excerpt: Based on my reading of thousands of Peer-Reviewed Articles in the professional literature, I’ve distilled (the) template for writing scientific articles that deal with evolution: 1. (Presuppose that) Darwinian evolution is a fact. 2. We used [technique(s)] to study [feature(s)] in [name of species], and we unexpectedly found [results inconsistent with Darwinian evolution]. 3. We propose [clever speculations], which might explain why the results appear to conflict with evolutionary theory. 4. We conclude that Darwinian evolution is a fact. https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/darwinism/jon-wells-on-pop-science-boilerplate/

bornagain77

The attempted censorship of the book "Biological Information: New Perspectives"

Censorship Loses: Never Forget the Story of Biological Information: New Perspectives Casey Luskin - August 20, 2013 http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/08/censorship_lose075541.html

James Tour and anyone he knew who signed the "Dissent from Darwinism" list

“In the last few years I have seen a saddening progression at several institutions. I have witnessed unfair treatment upon scientists that do not accept macroevolutionary arguments and for their having signed the above-referenced statement regarding the examination of Darwinism. (Dissent from Darwinism list)(I will comment no further regarding the specifics of the actions taken upon the skeptics; I love and honor my colleagues too much for that.) I never thought that science would have evolved like this. I deeply value the academy; teaching, professing and research in the university are my privileges and joys… ” Professor James M. Tour – one of the ten most cited chemists in the world https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/intelligent-design/a-world-famous-chemist-tells-the-truth-theres-no-scientist-alive-today-who-understands-macroevolution/

If silencing by intimidation, or censorship, does not work, Darwinists simply 'EXPEL' anyone who disagrees with them:

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (full movie) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5EPymcWp-g Slaughter of Dissidents - Book "If folks liked Ben Stein's movie "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed," they will be blown away by "Slaughter of the Dissidents." - Russ Miller http://www.amazon.com/Slaughter-Dissidents-Dr-Jerry-Bergman/dp/0981873405 Origins - Slaughter of the Dissidents with Dr. Jerry Bergman – 2011 - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6rzaM_BxBk Slaughter of the Dissidents - Dr. Jerry Bergman - June 2013 - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2v5nAYU2GD0

bornagain77

at post 9 Allan Keith states this in regards to Darwinian journals not allowing ID friendly papers:

I often here this claim but I have never seen any concrete examples. It would be of great interest to post a rejected paper here along with the reviewers comments and reason for rejection.

Well, here are a few examples of Darwinists publicly suppressing dissent from their views: Richard Sternberg

Richard Sternberg - Smithsonian Controversy In 2004, in my capacity as editor of The Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, I authorized “The Origin of Biological Information and the Higher Taxonomic Categories” by Dr. Stephen Meyer to be published in the journal after passing peer-review. Because Dr. Meyer’s article presented scientific evidence for intelligent design in biology, I faced retaliation, defamation, harassment, and a hostile work environment at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History that was designed to force me out as a Research Associate there. These actions were taken by federal government employees acting in concert with an outside advocacy group, the National Center for Science Education. Efforts were also made to get me fired from my job as a staff scientist at the National Center for Biotechnology Information. Subsequently, there were two federal investigations of my mistreatment, one by the U.S. Office of Special Counsel in 2005 , and the other by subcommittee staff of the U.S. House Committee on Government Reform in 2006. Both investigations unearthed clear evidence that my rights had been repeatedly violated. Because there has been so much misinformation spread about what actually happened to me, I have decided to make available the relevant documents here for those who would like to know the truth. http://www.richardsternberg.com/smithsonian.php

Douglas Axe:

Douglas Axe, director of the Biologic Institute in Seattle, knows this first-hand. As a post-doctoral researcher at the prestigious Medical Research Council Centre in Cambridge in 2002, he was experimenting on protein structures when his superiors discovered that his research was being funded in part by an intelligent design organization. The science was solid – he later published his findings in a prestigious journal – but his association with intelligent design was considered unacceptable. He was asked to leave. http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/interviews-and-profiles/god-evolution-and-darwin-an-interview-with-molecular-biologist-douglas-axe/2016/07/27/

Granville Sewell

ENV readers will recall that last year, University of Texas El Paso mathematics professor Granville Sewell was disallowed from publishing an article in Applied Mathematics Letters (AML) simply because it was (indirectly) critical of Darwinian evolution. https://evolutionnews.org/2012/04/double_censorsh/

Guillermo Gonzalez

As we amply documented at the time, the real reasons Gonzalez did not get tenure at ISU were simple: discrimination and intolerance. Despite an exemplary record as a scientist, Gonzalez was rejected by ISU because of his support for intelligent design. https://evolutionnews.org/2013/07/setting_the_rec/

Günter Bechly

Wikipedia Erases Paleontologist Günter Bechly https://evolutionnews.org/2017/10/wikipedia-erases-paleontologist-gunter-bechly/

William Dembski and Robert Marks:

Academic Freedom Expelled from Baylor University https://evolutionnews.org/2007/09/academic_freedom_expelled_from/

Michael Behe

ID theorist Mike Behe was refused a response in Microbe - September 22, 2013 https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/irreducible-complexity/id-theorist-mike-behe-was-refused-a-response-in-microbe/ So, Michael Behe Was Right After All; What Will the Critics Say Now? - Casey Luskin July 16, 2014 Excerpt: Will Ken Miller, Jerry Coyne, Paul Gross, Nick Matzke, Sean Carroll, Richard Dawkins, and PZ Myers now Apologize to Michael Behe? (for their ad hominem attacks),,, Is an apology from Behe's critics then forthcoming? In a world where debates were conducted with the goal of discovering truth rather (than) scoring points, it sure ought to be. Unfortunately, I'm not sure we live in that world. What we'll probably get is nothing more than PZ Myers's concession, offered in the context of the rant quoted above,,, http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/07/so_michael_behe087901.html

Stephen Meyer

The Letter that Science Refused to Publish - November 8, 2013 Excerpt: Stephen Meyer sought the opportunity to reply, in the pages of Science, to UC Berkeley paleontologist Charles Marshall, who reviewed Darwin's Doubt in the same publication. Without explanation, the editors refused to publish the letter. We offer it for your interest. See more at: http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/11/the_letter_that078871.html

bornagain77

W. Provine: There are no ... purposes, and no goal-directed forces of any kind.

Let's apply that to Provine himself, since, as so many a/mats, he seems to forget doing that. Here goes: whatever Provine says, or does, does not serve the purpose of telling the truth — or any other purpose. When Provine speaks he just starts talking for no reason whatsoever, without any goal, very much like a total lunatic. Hope that helps. Origenes

People, could we get back to the OP topic? Otherwise, I shall feel forced to shut off the flow of free virtual beer. News

BA77 @ 21: "An atheist morally offended against violence?" It's called selective outrage. A/mats don't really care about violence, especially violence against theists of the Christian variety. They actually like that sort of violence. Truth Will Set You Free

An atheist morally offended against violence? Really??? Please do tell me more about this illusory morality against violence that you, an atheist, are having?

20TH CENTURY DEMOCIDE http://www.mega.nu/ampp/rummel/dbg.tab1.2.1.gif In the 20th century, Christians have been persecuted by various groups, including the Islamic Ottoman Empire in the form of the Armenian Genocide, the Assyrian Genocide and the Greek Genocide, as well as atheistic states such as the Soviet Union and North Korea. During World War II members of some Christian churches were persecuted in Nazi Germany for resisting Nazi ideology. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Christians For Its Moral Ideals, Evolutionary Materialism "Freeloads" on Christianity - Nancy Pearcey - May 8, 2015 Excerpt: Westerners pride themselves on holding noble ideals such as equality and universal human rights. Yet the dominant worldview of our day -- evolutionary materialism -- denies the reality of human freedom and gives no basis for moral ideals such as human rights. So where did the idea of equal rights come from? The 19th-century political thinker Alexis de Tocqueville said it came from Christianity. "The most profound geniuses of Rome and Greece" never came up with the idea of equal rights, he wrote. "Jesus Christ had to come to earth to make it understood that all members of the human species are naturally alike and equal." The 19th-century atheist Friedrich Nietzsche agreed: "Another Christian concept ... has passed even more deeply into the tissue of modernity: the concept of the 'equality of souls before God.' This concept furnishes the prototype of all theories of equal rights." Contemporary atheist Luc Ferry says the same thing. We tend to take the concept of equality for granted; yet it was Christianity that overthrew ancient social hierarchies between rich and poor, masters and slaves. "According to Christianity, we were all 'brothers,' on the same level as creatures of God," Ferry writes. "Christianity is the first universalist ethos.",,, At the birth of our nation, the American founders deemed it self-evident that human rights must be grounded in God. The Declaration of Independence leads off with those bright, blazing words: "We hold these truths to be self-evident -- that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights." In the summer of 2013, a beer company sparked controversy when it released an advertisement for Independence Day that deleted the crucial words "by their Creator." The ad said, "They are endowed with certain unalienable rights." (Endowed by whom?) The advertisement is emblematic of what many secularists do: They borrow ideals like equality and rights from a biblical worldview but cut them off from their source in the Creator. They are freeloaders. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/05/for_its_moral_i095901.html Sociological Survey Confirms the Dangers of a "Biological" View of Humanity - Richard Weikart - September 28, 2016 Excerpt: He identified three main views of humanity that dominate the academic debate: the theological view, the biological view, and the philosophical view. The theological view is the Judeo-Christian position that considers humans created in the image of God. The biological view is a materialistic vision of humanity that considers humans nothing more than their biological makeup. This view tends to see human behavior as biologically determined. The philosophical view is the position that humans are defined by specific traits, such as rationality or self-awareness.,,, What he found was that people upholding the biological point of view (and the philosophical view) were less likely to support human rights than those embracing the theological perspective. He admits point blank that the critics (including me) are correct: "From the normative perspective of the critics, this all seems quite damning, and the conclusion is clear -- the critics are correct to be concerned about the spread of these anthropologies" http://www.evolutionnews.org/2016/09/sociological_su103175.html

bornagain77

PaV @ 17 - I certainly didn't read it as a metaphor, I'm afraid. Also, your "No. I don’t." response only makes grammatical sense as a response to my "Do you really think such violent rhetoric is appropriate?", which raises the question of why you used such rhetoric. Bob O'H

Seversky, an automaton with no free will, who champions 'survival of the fittest' thinking, states:

You might win a fight using a 2 x 4, you don’t win an argument. Unless you believe might is right.

Really??? Exactly why is it irrational on the Darwinian 'survival of the fittest' worldview to not win an argument with a 2 x 4 ? Besides Darwinists having no free will in which to have a rational argument in the first place, (not to mention having no transcendent immaterial truth to argue for), if Darwinian evolution were actually true then there would be no transcendent objective morals to say hitting someone upside the head with a 2 x 4 to win a argument is wrong? Stalin, Mao and Hitler, all avid Darwinists, certainly had no moral compunctions to prevent them from using force to win arguments against all those who disagreed with them.

"Death is the solution to all problems. No man, no problem." - Joseph Stalin "Communism is not love. Communism is a hammer which we use to crush the enemy." Mao Zedong "It is not truth that matters, but victory." Adolf Hitler

Again, Seversky, just why is it irrational on the atheist's 'survival of the fittest' worldview to not use force to win arguments? You guys really need to come to grips with what your materialistic worldview actually entails and quit stealing from Judeo-Christian presuppositions.

"Let me summarize my views on what modern evolutionary biology tells us loud and clear — and these are basically Darwin’s views. There are no gods, no purposes, and no goal-directed forces of any kind. There is no life after death. When I die, I am absolutely certain that I am going to be dead. That’s the end of me. There is no ultimate foundation for ethics, no ultimate meaning in life, and no free will for humans, either." - William Provine

bornagain77

Has anyone ever been murdered in virtual reality and it turned out to be true in actual reality? That said, talk of violence and murder is bad for business around here. I don't believe any method works for zombies except not believing in them. They are mortally offended because their existence depends on at least one person believing in them. News

Bob O'H: No. I don't. It is obvious metaphor. Severesky:

You might win a fight using a 2 x 4, you don’t win an argument. Unless you believe might is right.

But I use a 2 x 4 because the argument can't be won. Fundamentalism is at work. It is a sad state of affairs. And great harm comes from it, both to science and society. There are not indifferent realities. My hope is that science will accumulate such a massive amount of contra-indicators to the materialist view (tip of the hat to BA77) that science will be forced to return to its senses. My guess: at least 20 years. I was just working with some grade-schoolers, and I used the example of the Adriatic wall lizards, and how quickly they changed their morphologies. I pointed out to them that I had asked tha an experiment be performed where the diet of the lizards was changed and the results observed. What did they find? 20 lizards with 'cecal valves' taken from the island they were transplanted to 30 something years ago were placed in the lab and fed arthropods (insects) for 15 weeks, and then examined. ALL 20 of them LOST their cecal valves. This was something you could predict. It is a non-Darwinian prediction, and it turned out phenomenally right. Then there's "junk-DNA," and again the Darwinian view turned out wrong. None of this slows down Darwinism. Why? Because there's no other theory out there. Really? Why not use ID? But it's not that easy. Why? Well, let me state what Darwin's friend Hooker stated right after the publication of OoS: "We should accept this theory because it's the only one that can give us something to test." (a paraphrase). 160 years later, they're saying the same thing. We're stuck in the 1850's. PaV

Sev-- You might win a fight using a 2 x 4, you don’t win an argument. OTOH, metaphors work well and are especially effective when the opponent takes them as literal when they are obviously not meant as such :-) tribune7

Latemarch @ 11 - Everybody's different, but I don't find the prospect of being murdered terribly amusing. Bob O'H

Seversky is clueless. Where's the scientific theory of evolution? Where are the testable hypotheses tat are supposed to precede it? How do evolutionists "win" arguments. Seversky? It definitely is not via evidence and science. You can't lead by example. At least ID has a scientific methodology to test its claims. You don't even have that ET

PaV @ 4

I, for one, admit to being “bellicose” at times; but only because you need a 2 x 4 to knock some sense into Darwinists (or is it “evolutionary biologists”) for whom only a stake through the heart will disabuse them of the failings and weaknesses of this theory.

You might win a fight using a 2 x 4, you don't win an argument. Unless you believe might is right. Seversky

From the Muth review:

In the end, I doubt ID will amount to much, scientifically. Some of its opponents seem reasonable people and the challenge of positing a falsifiable theory will likely be too daunting.

Paul Nelson in Touchstone magazine, Jul-Aug 2004:

"Easily the biggest challenge facing the ID community is to develop a full-fledged theory of biological design. We don't have such a theory right now, and that's a real problem."

It still is. Seversky

BA77, PAV: And the prediction comes true! See@6

Do you really think such violent rhetoric is appropriate? Aren’t you worried that your words could be used to advocate for assault and murder?

Latemarch

PaV @ 4 -

I, for one, admit to being “bellicose” at times; but only because you need a 2 x 4 to knock some sense into Darwinists (or is it “evolutionary biologists”) for whom only a stake through the heart will disabuse them of the failings and weaknesses of this theory.

Do you really think such violent rhetoric is appropriate? Aren't you worried that your words could be used to advocate for assault and murder? Bob O'H

As for “mainly publishing popular books rather than peer-reviewed articles,” surely Muth is not so naive as to imagine that Darwinist-run journals would publish good ID research?

I often here this claim but I have never seen any concrete examples. It would be of great interest to post a rejected paper here along with the reviewers comments and reason for rejection. Allan Keith

Correction: "couldn't" care less... but I'm sure you got the point. Truth Will Set You Free

Darwinists generally hate theism (especially Christianity) and anything that can be used to support it, including ID. They are hopelessly biased against ID and their journals reflect that bias... even hostility. Darwinist idealogues are a/mat religious zealots who think they are smarter than they really are. And they never seem to consider that their chosen faith may be wrong. To be honest, I don't really like a/mats and could care less what happens to them. Blowhard a/mat haters like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Bill Maher, etc. are my enemies... not my friends. Just being honest. Truth Will Set You Free

BA77: Now you've gone and done it!

Therefore a stake through the heart is not enough to take out a Darwinian zombie. And since, with Darwinists, we are in fact more realistically dealing with mindless/soulless zombies instead of vampires, then the prescribed methods of killing a Darwinian zombie are as such,,,

How to Kill a Zombie – by Erik Henriksen DECAPITATION. To kill zombies, you need to destroy their brains. The most surefire route is simply lopping off the cranium with a chainsaw, machete, or samurai sword. Mind the follow-through, however– anything less than 100 percent severance just isn’t good enough. BLUDGEONING. Any blunt object–from a baseball bat to a brick–wielded with suitable force at the cranium will destroy the brain. But be quick on your feet and keep your eye on the target, slugger–when you’re this close to a zombie, miss even once and you might as well just hand your brains to the zombie on a silver platter. BURNING. Don’t have the convenience of a sniper rifle to take out zombies from afar? The next best thing is a Molotov cocktail–just make sure the zombies are far enough away so they’ll be reduced to ashes before they can shamble after you. EXPLODING. A solid technique, but one that requires heavy weaponry. In the chaos that will doubtlessly strike an urban center after a zombie infestation, make your way to a military storehouse or a morally dubious pawn shop and acquire a rocket launcher. Then shoot, load, and repeat. https://www.portlandmercury.com/news/how-to-kill-a-zombie/Content?oid=32136

They will accuse you of inciting violence against them. Not only do they have no free will, they have no sense of humor ";^) Latemarch

PaV as to,

"for whom only a stake through the heart will disabuse them of the failings and weaknesses of this theory."

Since Darwinists believe in reductive materialism, and are therefore to be regarded as 'neuronal illusions' instead of real persons, I would hold that Darwinists should more properly be classified as mindless/soulless Zombies instead of as Vampires.

Difference Between Zombie and Vampire Excerpt: Vampires are depicted as handsome, charismatic, charming pale human beings that prefer feasting on human blood. Vampires are also depicted as having abilities such as ESP, telepathy, telekinesis and the ability to turn into bats or other animals. Crosses, Wooden stakes, Holy water, certain herbs (vervain), garlic and silver are considered as weaknesses of vampires. Zombies are still depicted as vicious flesh eating creatures. Zombies are corpses that are revived from death, either by magic or drugs. Zombies are most commonly depicted as brain dead, decaying corpses that crave the human flesh and brains. http://www.differencebetween.info/difference-between-zombie-and-vampire

Therefore a stake through the heart, though good enough to stop a Vampire, is not enough to take out a Darwinian zombie. And since, with Darwinists, we are in fact more realistically dealing with mindless/soulless zombies instead of vampires, then the prescribed methods of killing a Darwinian zombie are as such,,,

How to Kill a Zombie - by Erik Henriksen DECAPITATION. To kill zombies, you need to destroy their brains. The most surefire route is simply lopping off the cranium with a chainsaw, machete, or samurai sword. Mind the follow-through, however-- anything less than 100 percent severance just isn't good enough. BLUDGEONING. Any blunt object--from a baseball bat to a brick--wielded with suitable force at the cranium will destroy the brain. But be quick on your feet and keep your eye on the target, slugger--when you're this close to a zombie, miss even once and you might as well just hand your brains to the zombie on a silver platter. BURNING. Don't have the convenience of a sniper rifle to take out zombies from afar? The next best thing is a Molotov cocktail--just make sure the zombies are far enough away so they'll be reduced to ashes before they can shamble after you. EXPLODING. A solid technique, but one that requires heavy weaponry. In the chaos that will doubtlessly strike an urban center after a zombie infestation, make your way to a military storehouse or a morally dubious pawn shop and acquire a rocket launcher. Then shoot, load, and repeat. https://www.portlandmercury.com/news/how-to-kill-a-zombie/Content?oid=32136

:) On the more serious side,, Dr Jonathan Wells has a book entitled 'Zombie Science'

Zombie Science: More Icons of Evolution – March 27, 2017 by Jonathan Wells https://www.amazon.com/Zombie-Science-More-Icons-Evolution/dp/1936599449/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1525620466&sr=8-1&keywords=zombie+science ,,, Discredited icons of evolution rise from the dead while more icons—equally bogus—join their ranks. Like a B horror movie, they just keep coming! Zombies are make believe, but zombie science is real—and it threatens not just science, but our whole culture. Is there a solution? Wells is sure of it, and points the way.

bornagain77

Bob O'H:

Or perhaps he’s taken an evidence-based approach and seen that “good ID research” has been published in “Darwinist-run journals” (e.g. Sanford & Basener’s recent paper).

Or perhaps "Sanford & Basener's" paper was published because it criticized Fisher's Fundamental Theorem, something that had already been done by evolutionists. After all, evolutionists tell us that the "modern synthesis" is dead; of which, Fisher's theorem is part and parcel. I, for one, admit to being "bellicose" at times; but only because you need a 2 x 4 to knock some sense into Darwinists (or is it "evolutionary biologists") for whom only a stake through the heart will disabuse them of the failings and weaknesses of this theory. PaV

as to this quote from the article:

"In the end, I doubt ID will amount to much, scientifically. Some of its opponents seem reasonable people and the challenge of positing a falsifiable theory will likely be too daunting."

Besides Muth being completely wrong about ID not being falsifiable, he erroneously believes Darwinian evolution IS falsifiable??? What a crock. Lack of a rigorous falsification criteria is the precise reason why Darwinian evolution is more properly classified as a unfalsifiable pseudoscience rather than a testable science.

Darwin’s Theory vs Falsification - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rzw0JkuKuQ

The primary reason why Darwinian evolution lacks any of the rigor that is usually associated with the hard sciences is because Darwinian evolution has no mathematical model to test against. As Dr. Robert Marks states “Hard sciences are built on foundations of mathematics or definitive simulations. ,,, there exists no model successfully describing undirected Darwinian evolution. According to our current understanding, there never will be.,,,”

“There exists no model successfully describing undirected Darwinian evolution. Hard sciences are built on foundations of mathematics or definitive simulations. Examples include electromagnetics, Newtonian mechanics, geophysics, relativity, thermodynamics, quantum mechanics, optics, and many areas in biology. Those hoping to establish Darwinian evolution as a hard science with a model have either failed or inadvertently cheated. These models contain guidance mechanisms to land the airplane squarely on the target runway despite stochastic wind gusts. Not only can the guiding assistance be specifically identified in each proposed evolution model, its contribution to the success can be measured, in bits, as active information.,,,”,,, “there exists no model successfully describing undirected Darwinian evolution. According to our current understanding, there never will be.,,,” – Robert J. Marks II – Top Ten Questions and Objections to ‘Introduction to Evolutionary Informatics’ – June 12, 2017 https://evolutionnews.org/2017/06/top-ten-questions-and-objections-to-introduction-to-evolutionary-informatics/

And the primary reason why nobody has ever been able to build a realistic mathematical model for Darwinian evolution to test against is simply because there is no ‘law of evolution’ within the known physical universe for mathematicians and physicists to ever build a realistic mathematical model upon:,,, ,,, And whereas Darwinian evolution has no known law of nature to appeal to so as to establish itself as a proper, testable, science, Intelligent Design does not suffer from such an embarrassing disconnect from physical reality. In other words, Intelligent Design can appeal directly to ‘the laws of conservation of information’ (Dembski, Marks, etc..) in order to establish itself as a proper, testable, and rigorous science.

Conservation of information, evolution, etc – Sept. 30, 2014 Excerpt: Kurt Gödel’s logical objection to Darwinian evolution: “The formation in geological time of the human body by the laws of physics (or any other laws of similar nature), starting from a random distribution of elementary particles and the field is as unlikely as the separation of the atmosphere into its components. The complexity of the living things has to be present within the material [from which they are derived] or in the laws [governing their formation].” Gödel – As quoted in H. Wang. “On `computabilism’ and physicalism: Some Problems.” in Nature’s Imagination, J. Cornwall, Ed, pp.161-189, Oxford University Press (1995). Gödel’s argument is that if evolution is unfolding from an initial state by mathematical laws of physics, it cannot generate any information not inherent from the start – and in his view, neither the primaeval environment nor the laws are information-rich enough.,,, More recently this led him (Dembski) to postulate a Law of Conservation of Information, or actually to consolidate the idea, first put forward by Nobel-prizewinner Peter Medawar in the 1980s. Medawar had shown, as others before him, that in mathematical and computational operations, no new information can be created, but new findings are always implicit in the original starting points – laws and axioms.,,, http://potiphar.jongarvey.co.uk/2014/09/30/conservation-of-information-evolution-etc/ Evolutionary Computing: The Invisible Hand of Intelligence – June 17, 2015 Excerpt: William Dembski and Robert Marks have shown that no evolutionary algorithm is superior to blind search — unless information is added from an intelligent cause, which means it is not, in the Darwinian sense, an evolutionary algorithm after all. This mathematically proven law, based on the accepted No Free Lunch Theorems, seems to be lost on the champions of evolutionary computing. Researchers keep confusing an evolutionary algorithm (a form of artificial selection) with “natural evolution.” ,,, Marks and Dembski account for the invisible hand required in evolutionary computing. The Lab’s website states, “The principal theme of the lab’s research is teasing apart the respective roles of internally generated and externally applied information in the performance of evolutionary systems.” So yes, systems can evolve, but when they appear to solve a problem (such as generating complex specified information or reaching a sufficiently narrow predefined target), intelligence can be shown to be active. Any internally generated information is conserved or degraded by the law of Conservation of Information.,,, What Marks and Dembski (mathematically) prove is as scientifically valid and relevant as Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem in mathematics. You can’t prove a system of mathematics from within the system, and you can’t derive an information-rich pattern from within the pattern.,,, http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/06/evolutionary_co_1096931.html

And since Intelligent Design is mathematically based on the ‘law of conservation of information’, that makes Intelligent Design very much testable and potentially falsifiable, and thus makes Intelligent Design, unlike Darwinism, a rigorous science instead of a unfalsifiable pseudoscience.

The Law of Physicodynamic Incompleteness – David L. Abel Excerpt: “If decision-node programming selections are made randomly or by law rather than with purposeful intent, no non-trivial (sophisticated) function will spontaneously arise.” If only one exception to this null hypothesis were published, the hypothesis would be falsified. Falsification would require an experiment devoid of behind-the-scenes steering. Any artificial selection hidden in the experimental design would disqualify the experimental falsification. After ten years of continual republication of the null hypothesis with appeals for falsification, no falsification has been provided. The time has come to extend this null hypothesis into a formal scientific prediction: “No non trivial algorithmic/computational utility will ever arise from chance and/or necessity alone.” https://www.academia.edu/Documents/in/The_Law_of_Physicodynamic_Incompleteness

In fact there is currently up to a 5 million dollar prize being offered for the first person that can “Show an example of Information that doesn’t come from a mind. All you need is one.”

The Origin of Information: How to Solve It - Perry Marshall Where did the information in DNA come from? This is one of the most important and valuable questions in the history of science. Cosmic Fingerprints has issued a challenge to the scientific community: “Show an example of Information that doesn’t come from a mind. All you need is one.” “Information” is defined as digital communication between an encoder and a decoder, using agreed upon symbols. To date, no one has shown an example of a naturally occurring encoding / decoding system, i.e. one that has demonstrably come into existence without a designer. A private equity investment group is offering a technology prize for this discovery (up to 5 million dollars). We will financially reward and publicize the first person who can solve this;,,, To solve this problem is far more than an object of abstract religious or philosophical discussion. It would demonstrate a mechanism for producing coding systems, thus opening up new channels of scientific discovery. Such a find would have sweeping implications for Artificial Intelligence research. http://cosmicfingerprints.com/solve/

Verse and Quote:

1 Thessalonians 5:21 but test everything; hold fast what is good. "The DNA molecule is literally encoding information into alphabetic or digital form. And that’s a hugely significant discovery, because what we know from experience is that information always comes from an intelligence, whether we’re talking about hieroglyphic inscription or a paragraph in a book or a headline in a newspaper. If we trace information back to its source, we always come to a mind, not a material process. So the discovery that DNA codes information in a digital form points decisively back to a prior intelligence." - Stephen Meyer http://magazine.biola.edu/article/10-summer/can-dna-prove-the-existence-of-an-intelligent-desi/

bornagain77

As for “mainly publishing popular books rather than peer-reviewed articles,” surely Muth is not so naive as to imagine that Darwinist-run journals would publish good ID research?

Or perhaps he's taken an evidence-based approach and seen that "good ID research" has been published in "Darwinist-run journals" (e.g. Sanford & Basener's recent paper). Bob O'H

Sounds a bit hypocritical as there isn't anything in peer-review that supports evolutionism. For example nothing supports the claim that ATP synthase evolved via natural selection, drift or any blind/ mindless process. There isn't even a methodology to test such a claim ET