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Walking dead mainstream media have yet to notice Royal Society meeting on new trends in evolutionary biology

Denyse O'Leary
November 1, 2016
Culture, Darwinism, Intelligent Design
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The most serious event in this field in decades: Finally, the ongoing conflict between Darwinism and  evolution has made it to the top of the In Tray. And are we seeing much notice from the pop science media? Not if you go by the first page on Google, appended (18:30 EST).

Now, the good news is that serious researchers will get more discussed and done without the pop science media reassuring everyone that Darwin’s reputation is safe.

Royal Society For a handy guidebook to new ideas that will likely be discussed informally, as well as those that will be discussed at the meeting, get and read Suzan Mazur’s Public Evolution Summit.

Searches related to royal society evolution meeting

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Comments
AGW not true because God would never allow that to happen
That MUST be it. Certainly not because of recurring stuff like this. Certainly not.
same sex marriage bad because God hates the gays etc.
Sure, as much as He hates liars ;)Vy
November 2, 2016
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Luskin is off getting a degree.
In what may I ask? I'm sure you can't say where. I dont see why this precludes him writing for the siteREW
November 2, 2016
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Headlined (below the sticky posts): https://uncommondescent.com/atheism/btb-rvb8-vs-deplorably-lazy-id-iots-who-deny-science-and-insist-on-trying-to-detect-a-designer/kairosfocus
November 2, 2016
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RVB8, I see your intended sting in the tail at 18 above:
Actual experiments to detect a designer? Impossible.
It seems, that we deplorable lightweight IDiots need to take a few moments to explore some more BTB . . . back to basics. In the scientific study of origins and similar observation- of- traces contexts, experiment is not possible in the sense of say re-running the actual past. (And computer simulations, never mind execrable abuses of language, are not experiments nor are they manifestations of actual reality.) What is possible is to infer to the best current, empirical evidence controlled explanation. One that is based on empirically reliable findings, and which is subject to further findings. The matter is never utterly closed. This brings us to Newton's vera causa principle: in seeking to explain traces of the unobservable remote past, we should refer to causes we can observe in action that adequately account for materially similar consequences in the here and now. For relevant instance, we readily observe functionally specific complex organisation and/or associated information -- posts in this thread, car engines, even screw threads count. Trillions of cases with a reliable, consistent causal pattern: intelligently directed configuration. Furthermore, as Orgel pointed out in 1973 (and as AutoCAD etc manifest), we may reduce such to description language, in effect a structured yes/no string of bits. Under suitable encoding and compression, aggregate bit string length -- say, n -- is a metric of information content. Which, then specifies a configuration space of 2^n possibilities; with the characteristic that functional configs typically come in clusters, metaphorically, islands of function in seas of non-function. Thence, we see the search challenge on sol system or observed cosmos scale atomic and temporal resources such that 500 - 1,000 bits is a conservative threshold beyond which we can be reliably certain that an entity with that much FSCO/I came about by intelligently directed configuration. As, blind chance and/or mechanical necessity on sol system or observed cosmos scope, are grossly inadequate to address the degree of functional complexity and high contingency implied. That is, we see how the design inference is warranted on seeing at least 500 - 1,000 bits of FSCO/I -- it is the only empirically warranted, causally adequate explanation. (For example, the text of your posts mounts up at 7 bits per ASCII character. Your comment at 18 above is 801 characters, 5,607 bits. 2^5,607 = 7.502 *10^1,687, which cannot be reasonably searched on 10^80 atoms, 13.8*10^9 y (~10^17 s), reaction rates of 10^12 - 10^14/s.) Note also what is perhaps the most important point: the design inference here detects intelligently detected configuration as best current causal explanation, not any particular designer. In short, yet another persistent misrepresentation of the design inference -- one that has persisted for years in the face of repeated correction. In that context, your opening remarks are seen to be wholly unwarranted and revealing of a presumption of superiority:
I don’t think ‘design’ will ‘fizzle out’. We are evolved to see patterns and design in everything, and there will always be those that deny science and lean towards the lazy answer.
If we are simply blindly playing out blind chance and mechanical necessity that shaped brains as GIGO-limited computational substrates, then responsible freedom to logically think, analyse and warrant conclusions vanishes in a poof of evolutionary materialistic self-falsification. As Haldane pointed out long ago:
>"It seems to me immensely unlikely that mind is a mere by-product of matter. For if my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true. They may be sound chemically, but that does not make them sound logically. And hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms. In order to escape from this necessity of sawing away the branch on which I am sitting, so to speak, I am compelled to believe that mind is not wholly conditioned by matter.” ["When I am dead," in Possible Worlds: And Other Essays [1927], Chatto and Windus: London, 1932, reprint, p.209. Cf. here on (and esp here) on the self-refutation by self-falsifying self referential incoherence and on linked amorality.]
In short, those glib words about how "We are evolved to see patterns and design in everything," prove a tad too much, and bring down the proud tower of evolutionary materialist thought in an explosion of self-falsification. In that light, the sneers about being lazy and denying science are little more than rhetorical posturing and insults against those who dare to question the imposition of a priori evolutionary materialism and its fellow travellers on science. Time for a re-think, it seems. KFkairosfocus
November 2, 2016
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rvb8-"Actual experiments to detect a designer, impossible". Just like I have been asking you for tests or experiments to show fossil ancestry , the science seems to be lacking there also. If we discovered intelligent life on another planet and these creatures could communicate that they know of no God but evolved , man the atheist`s would be over the moon, but what if you travel to another planet but find no life but do find dwellings and structures , how would you determine if these were natural structures or designed and built by some intelligent creatures.Well thats pretty much the same criteria I would use to determine design and intelligence.Marfin
November 2, 2016
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rvb8 you claim that experiments to detect design are impossible. I hold that you are wrong. In fact I will conduct an experiment right now. Exhibit A. The human brain:
Human brain has more switches than all computers on Earth - November 2010 Excerpt: They found that the brain's complexity is beyond anything they'd imagined, almost to the point of being beyond belief, says Stephen Smith, a professor of molecular and cellular physiology and senior author of the paper describing the study: ...One synapse, by itself, is more like a microprocessor--with both memory-storage and information-processing elements--than a mere on/off switch. In fact, one synapse may contain on the order of 1,000 molecular-scale switches. A single human brain has more switches than all the computers and routers and Internet connections on Earth. http://news.cnet.com/8301-27083_3-20023112-247.html "The brain is not a supercomputer in which the neurons are transistors; rather it is as if each individual neuron is itself a computer, and the brain a vast community of microscopic computers. But even this model is probably too simplistic since the neuron processes data flexibly and on disparate levels, and is therefore far superior to any digital system. If I am right, the human brain may be a trillion times more capable than we imagine, and “artificial intelligence” a grandiose misnomer." Brian Ford research biologist – 2009 - The Secret Power of a Single Cell Smart neurons: Single neuronal dendrites can perform computations - October 27, 2013 Excerpt: The results challenge the widely held view that this kind of computation is achieved only by large numbers of neurons working together, and demonstrate how the basic components of the brain are exceptionally powerful computing devices in their own right. Senior author Professor Michael Hausser commented: "This work shows that dendrites, long thought to simply 'funnel' incoming signals towards the soma, instead play a key role in sorting and interpreting the enormous barrage of inputs received by the neuron. Dendrites thus act as miniature computing devices for detecting and amplifying specific types of input. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/10/131027140632.htm Data from the Salk Institute shows brain’s memory capacity is in the petabyte range, as much as entire Web - January 20, 2016 Excerpt: “This is a real bombshell in the field of neuroscience,” says Terry Sejnowski, Salk professor and co-senior author of the paper, which was published in eLife. “We discovered the key to unlocking the design principle for how hippocampal neurons function with low energy but high computation power. Our new measurements of the brain’s memory capacity increase conservative estimates by a factor of 10 to at least a petabyte, in the same ballpark as the World Wide Web.” http://www.salk.edu/news-release/memory-capacity-of-brain-is-10-times-more-than-previously-thought/ Component placement optimization in the brain – 1994 As he comments [106], “To current limits of accuracy … the actual placement appears to be the best of all possible layouts; this constitutes strong evidence of perfect optimization.,, among about 40,000,000 alternative layout orderings, the actual ganglion placement in fact requires the least total connection length. http://www.jneurosci.org/content/14/4/2418.abstract The Half-Truths of Materialist Evolution - DONALD DeMARCO - 02/06/2015 Excerpt: but I would like to direct attention to the unsupportable notion that the human brain, to focus on a single phenomenon, could possibly have evolved by sheer chance. One of the great stumbling blocks for Darwin and other chance evolutionists is explaining how a multitude of factors simultaneously coalesce to form a unified, functioning system. The human brain could not have evolved as a result of the addition of one factor at a time. Its unity and phantasmagorical complexity defies any explanation that relies on pure chance. It would be an underestimation of the first magnitude to say that today’s neurophysiologists know more about the structure and workings of the brain than did Darwin and his associates. Scientists in the field of brain research now inform us that a single human brain contains more molecular-scale switches than all the computers, routers and Internet connections on the entire planet! According to Stephen Smith, a professor of molecular and cellular physiology at the Stanford University School of Medicine, the brain’s complexity is staggering, beyond anything his team of researchers had ever imagined, almost to the point of being beyond belief. In the cerebral cortex alone, each neuron has between 1,000 to 10,000 synapses that result, roughly, in a total of 125 trillion synapses, which is about how many stars fill 1,500 Milky Way galaxies! A single synapse may contain 1,000 molecular-scale switches. A synapse, simply stated, is the place where a nerve impulse passes from one nerve cell to another. Phantasmagorical as this level of unified complexity is, it places us merely at the doorway of the brain’s even deeper mind-boggling organization. Glial cells in the brain assist in neuron speed. These cells outnumber neurons 10 times over, with 860 billion cells. All of this activity is monitored by microglia cells that not only clean up damaged cells but also prune dendrites, forming part of the learning process. The cortex alone contains 100,000 miles of myelin-covered, insulated nerve fibers. The process of mapping the brain would indeed be time-consuming. It would entail identifying every synaptic neuron. If it took a mere second to identify each neuron, it would require four billion years to complete the project. http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/the-half-truths-of-materialist-evolution/ "Complexity Brake" Defies Evolution - August 8, 2012 Excerpt: Consider a neuronal synapse -- the presynaptic terminal has an estimated 1000 distinct proteins. Fully analyzing their possible interactions would take about 2000 years. Or consider the task of fully characterizing the visual cortex of the mouse -- about 2 million neurons. Under the extreme assumption that the neurons in these systems can all interact with each other, analyzing the various combinations will take about 10 million years..., even though it is assumed that the underlying technology speeds up by an order of magnitude each year. - per ENV The Puzzling Role Of Biophotons In The Brain - Dec. 17, 2010 Excerpt: In recent years, a growing body of evidence shows that photons play an important role in the basic functioning of cells. Most of this evidence comes from turning the lights off and counting the number of photons that cells produce. It turns out, much to many people’s surprise, that many cells, perhaps even most, emit light as they work. In fact, it looks very much as if many cells use light to communicate. There’s certainly evidence that bacteria, plants and even kidney cells communicate in this way. Various groups have even shown that rats brains are literally alight thanks to the photons produced by neurons as they work.,,, ,,, earlier this year, one group showed that spinal neurons in rats can actually conduct light. ,, Rahnama and co point out that neurons contain many light sensitive molecules, such as porphyrin rings, flavinic, pyridinic rings, lipid chromophores and aromatic amino acids. In particular, mitochondria, the machines inside cells which produce energy, contain several prominent chromophores. The presence of light sensitive molecules makes it hard to imagine how they might not be not influenced by biophotons.,,, They go on to suggest that the light channelled by microtubules can help to co-ordinate activities in different parts of the brain. 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.,,, (So) 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/ Of related note to “It’s certainly true that electrical activity in the brain is synchronised over distances that cannot be easily explained”, the following video and paper comments on ‘zero time lag’ in synchronous brain activity: Quantum Entangled Consciousness - Life After Death (Conserved Quantum Information) - Stuart Hameroff – video (1:58 minute mark) https://youtu.be/jjpEc98o_Oo?t=117 ,,, 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).,,, Beyond its functional relevance, the zero time lag synchrony among such distant neuronal ensembles must be established by mechanisms that are able to compensate for the delays involved in the neuronal communication. Latencies in conducting nerve impulses down axonal processes can amount to delays of several tens of milliseconds between the generation of a spike in a presynaptic cell and the elicitation of a postsynaptic potential (16). The question is how, despite such temporal delays, the reciprocal interactions between two brain regions can lead to the associated neural populations to fire in unison (i.e. zero time lag).,,, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2575223/
Now my experiment for detecting design is this simple question. Are unguided material processes, or is Intelligent Design, the better explanation for the 'beyond belief' human brain? Since unguided material processes are 'not even wrong' as an explanation for such fantastic complexity then Intelligent Design (ID) is, by far, the better explanation. Moreover, if you try to claim that it is unscientific to infer design like I just did, then, by default, you are also committed to saying that Darwinian Evolution is itself unscientific since ID uses the same exact method of science that Charles Darwin himself used:
Stephen Meyer: Charles Darwin's Methods, Different Conclusion https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqq6JP5gE0E
bornagain77
November 2, 2016
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I don't think 'design' will 'fizzle out'. We are evolved to see patterns and design in everything, and there will always be those that deny science and lean towards the lazy answer. So ideas like design will remain as long as there are humans to assume it. About this site? It has lost most of its 'heavy hitters', and News does tend to be a 'cut and paste' poster. That being said, IDers need a place to post, and who knows, one day design might actually be detected. Although how that would be tested for is the, as yet, unanswered question. Biologos is silent on the topic, and Evolution News is silent. Dembski has his 'explanatory filter', but how that works is unexplained. 'Coin toss' metaphors only get you to an argument from improbability. Actual experiments to detect a designer? Impossible.rvb8
November 1, 2016
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You're right AK, it really feels like the whole thing is fizzling out, doesn't it. You could add VJTorley to that list. And News, remember that Dembski has publicly stated that ID was just a phase in his life that is over now. Despite KF's recent post, most of the discussions here now are religious in nature or influenced by the remaining participants' religious views - AGW not true because God would never allow that to happen, same sex marriage bad because God hates the gays etc.Pindi
November 1, 2016
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And following in Lakatos footsteps, Dr. Hunter has compiled a list of some of the major false predictions generated by evolutionary theory. False predictions that are fundamental to evolutionary theory, i.e. go to the ‘core’ of the theory, and falsify it from the inside out as it were using Lakatos’s demarcation criteria.
Darwin’s (failed) Predictions – Cornelius G. Hunter – 2015 This paper evaluates 23 fundamental (false) predictions of evolutionary theory from a wide range of different categories. The paper begins with a brief introduction to the nature of scientific predictions, and typical concerns evolutionists raise against investigating predictions of evolution. The paper next presents the individual predictions in seven categories: early evolution, evolutionary causes, molecular evolution, common descent, evolutionary phylogenies, evolutionary pathways, and behavior. Finally the conclusion summarizes these various predictions, their implications for evolution’s (in)capacity to explain phenomena, and how they bear on evolutionist’s claims about their theory. https://sites.google.com/site/darwinspredictions/home
And here is a broader overview of the many failed predictions of naturalism in general in regards to the major scientific discoveries that have now been revealed by modern science:
Theism compared to Materialism/Naturalism – a comparative overview of the major predictions of each philosophy – video https://youtu.be/QQ9iyCmPmz8
Verse:
1 Thessalonians 5:21 but test everything; hold fast what is good.
Originally posted here: https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/btb-answering-the-id-is-religioncreationism-in-a-cheap-tuxedo-talking-point/#comment-620127bornagain77
November 1, 2016
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And whereas Darwinian evolution has no known law of nature to appeal to so as to establish itself as a proper, testable, science, (in fact it almost directly contradicts entropy), Intelligent Design does not suffer from such a 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.
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 testable and potentially falsifiable, and thus makes Intelligent Design, unlike Darwinism, a rigorous science instead of a unfalsifiable pseudo-science:
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 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 3 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/ It’s (Much) Easier to Falsify Intelligent Design than Darwinian Evolution – Michael Behe, PhD https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_T1v_VLueGk
Of related note: In so far as Darwinian evolution is dependent on the premises of reductive materialism, and regardless of whether Darwinists ever personally accept the falsification or not, Darwinian evolution is now empirically falsified by advances in quantum biology (i.e. non-local quantum entanglement in DNA and proteins):
Jim Al-Khalili, at the 2:30 minute mark of the following video states, “,,and Physicists and Chemists have had a long time to try and get use to it (Quantum Mechanics). Biologists, on the other hand have got off lightly in my view. They are very happy with their balls and sticks models of molecules. The balls are the atoms. The sticks are the bonds between the atoms. And when they can’t build them physically in the lab nowadays they have very powerful computers that will simulate a huge molecule.,, It doesn’t really require much in the way of quantum mechanics in the way to explain it.” At the 6:52 minute mark of the video, Jim Al-Khalili goes on to state: “To paraphrase, (Erwin Schrödinger in his book “What Is Life”), he says at the molecular level living organisms have a certain order. A structure to them that’s very different from the random thermodynamic jostling of atoms and molecules in inanimate matter of the same complexity. In fact, living matter seems to behave in its order and its structure just like inanimate cooled down to near absolute zero. Where quantum effects play a very important role. There is something special about the structure, about the order, inside a living cell. So Schrodinger speculated that maybe quantum mechanics plays a role in life”. Jim Al-Khalili – Quantum biology – video – youtube Molecular Biology – 19th Century Materialism meets 21st Century Quantum Mechanics – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCs3WXHqOv8 The Scientific Method – Richard Feynman – video Quote: ‘If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science. It doesn’t make any difference how beautiful your guess is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are who made the guess, or what his name is… If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong. That’s all there is to it.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OL6-x0modwY
Moreover, even if one tosses straight up empirical falsification out the window, and tries to use ‘predictive power’ as a demarcation for determining whether something is ‘scientific’ or not, (Imre Lakatos), then Darwinian evolution, even on that much looser demarcation criteria, fails to qualify as a science but is still more properly classified as a pseudo-science:
A Philosophical Question…Does Evolution have a Hard Core ? Some Concluding Food for Thought Excerpt: So basically, the demarcation problem is a fun game philosophers enjoy playing, but when they realize the implications regarding the theory of evolution, they quickly back off… http://www.samizdat.qc.ca/cosmos/philo/hardcore_pg.htm
Imre Lakatos, although he tipped toed around the failure of Darwinism to have a rigid demarcation criteria, he was brave enough to state that a good scientific theory will make successful predictions in science and a pseudo-scientific theory will generate ‘epicycle theories’ to cover up embarrassing failed predictions:
In his 1973 LSE Scientific Method Lecture 1[12] he (Lakatos) also claimed that “nobody to date has yet found a demarcation criterion according to which Darwin can be described as scientific”. Almost 20 years after Lakatos’s 1973 challenge to the scientificity of Darwin, in her 1991 The Ant and the Peacock, LSE lecturer and ex-colleague of Lakatos, Helena Cronin, attempted to establish that Darwinian theory was empirically scientific in respect of at least being supported by evidence of likeness in the diversity of life forms in the world, explained by descent with modification. She wrote that “our usual idea of corroboration as requiring the successful prediction of novel facts…Darwinian theory was not strong on temporally novel predictions.” … http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imre_Lakatos#Darwin.27s_theory “In degenerating programmes, however, theories are fabricated only in order to accommodate known facts” – Imre Lakatos (November 9, 1922 – February 2, 1974) a philosopher of mathematics and science, , quote as stated in 1973 LSE Scientific Method Lecture Here’s That Algae Study That Decouples Phylogeny and Competition – June 17, 2014 Excerpt: “With each new absurdity another new complicated just-so story is woven into evolutionary theory. As Lakatos explained, some theories simply are not falsifiable. But as a result they sacrifice realism and parsimony.” – Cornelius Hunter http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2014/06/heres-that-algae-study-that-decouples.html
bornagain77
November 1, 2016
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The primary reason why no scientist has been able to ‘quantify its dictums’ is because there are no known laws of nature for Darwinists to appeal to to base their math on. In other words, there is no known ‘law of evolution’, such as there is a ‘law of gravity’, within the physical universe for Darwinists to base their math on:
“It is our contention that if ‘random’ is given a serious and crucial interpretation from a probabilistic point of view, the randomness postulate is highly implausible and that an adequate scientific theory of evolution must await the discovery and elucidation of new natural laws—physical, physico-chemical, and biological.” Murray Eden, “Inadequacies of Neo-Darwinian Evolution as a Scientific Theory,” Mathematical Challenges to the Neo-Darwinian Interpretation of Evolution, editors Paul S. Moorhead and Martin M. Kaplan, June 1967, p. 109. The Evolution of Ernst: Interview with Ernst Mayr – 2004 Excerpt: biology (Darwinian Evolution) differs from the physical sciences in that in the physical sciences, all theories, I don’t know exceptions so I think it’s probably a safe statement, all theories are based somehow or other on natural laws. In biology, as several other people have shown, and I totally agree with them, there are no natural laws in biology corresponding to the natural laws of the physical sciences. ,,, And so that’s what I do in this book. I show that the theoretical basis, you might call it, or I prefer to call it the philosophy of biology, has a totally different basis than the theories of physics. WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? Evolution is True – Roger Highfield – January 2014 Excerpt:,,, Whatever the case, those universal truths—’laws’—that physicists and chemists all rely upon appear relatively absent from biology. Little seems to have changed from a decade ago when the late and great John Maynard Smith wrote a chapter on evolutionary game theory for a book on the most powerful equations of science: his contribution did not include a single equation. http://www.edge.org/response-detail/25468
In fact, not only does Evolution not have any universal law to appeal to, to base its math on, as other overarching theories of science have, Entropy, a law with great mathematical explanatory power in science, almost directly contradicts Darwinian claims that increases in functional complexity can be easily had (Granville Sewell and Andy McIntosh):
The Common Sense Law of Physics Granville Sewell – March 2016 Excerpt: (The) “compensation” argument, used by every physics text which discusses evolution and the second law to dismiss the claim that what has happened on Earth may violate the more general statements of the second law, was the target of my article “Entropy, Evolution, and Open Systems,” published in the proceedings of the 2011 Cornell meeting Biological Information: New Perspectives (BINP). In that article, I showed that the very equations of entropy change upon which this compensation argument is based actually support, on closer examination, the common sense conclusion that “if an increase in order is extremely improbable when a system is isolated, it is still extremely improbable when the system is open, unless something is entering which makes it not extremely improbable.” The fact that order can increase in an open system does not mean that computers can appear on a barren planet as long as the planet receives solar energy. Something must be entering our open system that makes the appearance of computers not extremely improbable, for example: computers. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2016/03/the_common_sens102725.html Why Tornados Running Backward do not Violate the Second Law – Granville Sewell – May 2012 – article with video Excerpt: So, how does the spontaneous rearrangement of matter on a rocky, barren, planet into human brains and spaceships and jet airplanes and nuclear power plants and libraries full of science texts and novels, and supercomputers running partial differential equation solving software , represent a less obvious or less spectacular violation of the second law—or at least of the fundamental natural principle behind this law—than tornados turning rubble into houses and cars? Can anyone even imagine a more spectacular violation? https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/why-tornados-running-backward-do-not-violate-the-second-law/ Information and Thermodynamics in Living Systems – Andy C. McIntosh professor of thermodynamics and combustion theory at the University of Leeds – 2013 Excerpt: ,,, information is in fact non-material and that the coded information systems (such as, but not restricted to the coding of DNA in all living systems) is not defined at all by the biochemistry or physics of the molecules used to store the data. Rather than matter and energy defining the information sitting on the polymers of life, this approach posits that the reverse is in fact the case. Information has its definition outside the matter and energy on which it sits, and furthermore constrains it to operate in a highly non-equilibrium thermodynamic environment. This proposal resolves the thermodynamic issues and invokes the correct paradigm for understanding the vital area of thermodynamic/organisational interactions, which despite the efforts from alternative paradigms has not given a satisfactory explanation of the way information in systems operates.,,, http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/9789814508728_0008
Moreover, empirical evidence itself tells us that “Genetic Entropy”, the tendency of biological systems to drift towards decreasing complexity and decreasing information content, holds true as an overriding rule for biology over long periods of time.
“The First Rule of Adaptive Evolution”: Break or blunt any functional coded element whose loss would yield a net fitness gain – Michael Behe – December 2010 Excerpt: In its most recent issue The Quarterly Review of Biology has published a review by myself of laboratory evolution experiments of microbes going back four decades.,,, The gist of the paper is that so far the overwhelming number of adaptive (that is, helpful) mutations seen in laboratory evolution experiments are either loss or modification of function. Of course we had already known that the great majority of mutations that have a visible effect on an organism are deleterious. Now, surprisingly, it seems that even the great majority of helpful mutations degrade the genome to a greater or lesser extent.,,, I dub it “The First Rule of Adaptive Evolution”: Break or blunt any functional coded element whose loss would yield a net fitness gain. http://behe.uncommondescent.com/2010/12/the-first-rule-of-adaptive-evolution/ Can Purifying Natural Selection Preserve Biological Information? – May 2013 – Paul Gibson, John R. Baumgardner, Wesley H. Brewer, John C. Sanford In conclusion, numerical simulation shows that realistic levels of biological noise result in a high selection threshold. This results in the ongoing accumulation of low-impact deleterious mutations, with deleterious mutation count per individual increasing linearly over time. Even in very long experiments (more than 100,000 generations), slightly deleterious alleles accumulate steadily, causing eventual extinction. These findings provide independent validation of previous analytical and simulation studies [2–13]. Previous concerns about the problem of accumulation of nearly neutral mutations are strongly supported by our analysis. Indeed, when numerical simulations incorporate realistic levels of biological noise, our analyses indicate that the problem is much more severe than has been acknowledged, and that the large majority of deleterious mutations become invisible to the selection process.,,, http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/pdf/10.1142/9789814508728_0010 Genetic Entropy – references to several peer reviewed numerical simulations analyzing and falsifying all flavors of Darwinian evolution,, (via John Sanford and company) http://www.geneticentropy.org/#!properties/ctzx
bornagain77
November 1, 2016
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In response to AhmedKiaan trolling us, it seems fitting to repost this post from earlier today in which it is revealed that Darwinian evolution is very much a pseudo-scientific religion. ,,, if science can only be conducted minus all Theistic premises, then why is it that ‘evolutionary biology is the most theologically entangled science going’?
Methodological Naturalism: A Rule That No One Needs or Obeys – Paul Nelson – September 22, 2014 Excerpt: It is a little-remarked but nonetheless deeply significant irony that evolutionary biology is the most theologically entangled science going. Open a book like Jerry Coyne’s Why Evolution is True (2009) or John Avise’s Inside the Human Genome (2010), and the theology leaps off the page. A wise creator, say Coyne, Avise, and many other evolutionary biologists, would not have made this or that structure; therefore, the structure evolved by undirected processes. Coyne and Avise, like many other evolutionary theorists going back to Darwin himself, make numerous “God-wouldn’t-have-done-it-that-way” arguments, thus predicating their arguments for the creative power of natural selection and random mutation on implicit theological assumptions about the character of God and what such an agent (if He existed) would or would not be likely to do.,,, ,,,with respect to one of the most famous texts in 20th-century biology, Theodosius Dobzhansky’s essay “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution” (1973). Although its title is widely cited as an aphorism, the text of Dobzhansky’s essay is rarely read. It is, in fact, a theological treatise. As Dilley (2013, p. 774) observes: “Strikingly, all seven of Dobzhansky’s arguments hinge upon claims about God’s nature, actions, purposes, or duties. In fact, without God-talk, the geneticist’s arguments for evolution are logically invalid. In short, theology is essential to Dobzhansky’s arguments.”,, http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/09/methodological_1089971.html Nothing in biology makes sense except in light of theology? – Dilley S. – 2013 Abstract This essay analyzes Theodosius Dobzhansky’s famous article, “Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution,” in which he presents some of his best arguments for evolution. I contend that all of Dobzhansky’s arguments hinge upon sectarian claims about God’s nature, actions, purposes, or duties. Moreover, Dobzhansky’s theology manifests several tensions, both in the epistemic justification of his theological claims and in their collective coherence. I note that other prominent biologists–such as Mayr, Dawkins, Eldredge, Ayala, de Beer, Futuyma, and Gould–also use theology-laden arguments. I recommend increased analysis of the justification, complexity, and coherence of this theology. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23890740 Charles Darwin, Theologian: Major New Article on Darwin’s Use of Theology in the Origin of Species – May 2011 Excerpt: The Origin supplies abundant evidence of theology in action; as Dilley observes: I have argued that, in the first edition of the Origin, Darwin drew upon at least the following positiva theological claims in his case for descent with modification (and against special creation): 1. Human beings are not justified in believing that God creates in ways analogous to the intellectual powers of the human mind. 2. A God who is free to create as He wishes would create new biological limbs de novo rather than from a common pattern. 3. A respectable deity would create biological structures in accord with a human conception of the ‘simplest mode’ to accomplish the functions of these structures. 4. God would only create the minimum structure required for a given part’s function. 5. God does not provide false empirical information about the origins of organisms. 6. God impressed the laws of nature on matter. 7. God directly created the first ‘primordial’ life. 8. God did not perform miracles within organic history subsequent to the creation of the first life. 9. A ‘distant’ God is not morally culpable for natural pain and suffering. 10. The God of special creation, who allegedly performed miracles in organic history, is not plausible given the presence of natural pain and suffering. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/05/charles_darwin_theologian_majo046391.html Charles Darwin’s use of theology in the Origin of Species – STEPHEN DILLEY Abstract This essay examines Darwin’s positiva (or positive) use of theology in the first edition of the Origin of Species in three steps. First, the essay analyses the Origin’s theological language about God’s accessibility, honesty, methods of creating, relationship to natural laws and lack of responsibility for natural suffering; the essay contends that Darwin utilized positiva theology in order to help justify (and inform) descent with modification and to attack special creation. Second, the essay offers critical analysis of this theology, drawing in part on Darwin’s mature ruminations to suggest that, from an epistemic point of view, the Origin’s positiva theology manifests several internal tensions. Finally, the essay reflects on the relative epistemic importance of positiva theology in the Origin’s overall case for evolution. The essay concludes that this theology served as a handmaiden and accomplice to Darwin’s science. http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract;jsessionid=376799F09F9D3CC8C2E7500BACBFC75F.journals?aid=8499239&fileId=S000708741100032X
The reason why ‘evolutionary biology is the most theologically entangled science going’ is because ALL of modern science, every disciple within modern science, especially including evolutionary biology itself, is dependent on basis Theistic presuppositions about the rational intelligibility of the universe and on the unique ability of our ‘made in the image of God’ mind to comprehend that rational intelligibility. i.e. “thinking God’s thoughts after Him”. Where Darwinian evolution goes completely off the rails, scientifically speaking, is that Darwinian evolution uses bad liberal Theology to try to deny the reality of God all the while forgetting that it, to even be considered ‘science’ in the first place. is absolutely dependent on basic Theistic premises about rational intelligibility of the universe and on the unique ability of our ‘made in the image of God’ mind to comprehend that rational intelligibility of the universe.
Science and Theism: Concord, not Conflict* – Robert C. Koons IV. The Dependency of Science Upon Theism (Page 21) Excerpt: Far from undermining the credibility of theism, the remarkable success of science in modern times is a remarkable confirmation of the truth of theism. It was from the perspective of Judeo-Christian theism—and from the perspective alone—that it was predictable that science would have succeeded as it has. Without the faith in the rational intelligibility of the world and the divine vocation of human beings to master it, modern science would never have been possible, and, even today, the continued rationality of the enterprise of science depends on convictions that can be reasonably grounded only in theistic metaphysics. http://www.robkoons.net/media/69b0dd04a9d2fc6dffff80b3ffffd524.pdf
Moreover, if we cast aside those basic Theistic presuppositions about the rational intelligibility of the universe and the ability of our mind to comprehend that rational intelligibility, and try to use naturalism, i.e. methodological naturalism, as our basis for understanding the universe, and for practicing science, then everything within that atheistic/naturalistic worldview, (i.e. supposed evidence for Darwinian evolution, observations of reality, beliefs about reality, sense of self, free will, even reality itself), collapses into self refuting, unrestrained, flights of fantasy and imagination.
Darwinian evolution, and atheism/naturalism in general, are built entirely upon a framework of illusions and fantasy Excerpt: Thus, basically, without God, everything within the atheistic/naturalistic worldview, (i.e. supposed evidence for Darwinian evolution, observations of reality, beliefs about reality, sense of self, free will, even reality itself), collapses into self refuting, unrestrained, flights of fantasy and imagination. It would be hard to fathom a more unscientific worldview than Darwinian evolution and Atheistic materialism/naturalism in general have turned out to be. Scientists should definitely stick with the worldview that brought them to the dance! i.e Christianity! https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Q94y-QgZZGF0Q7HdcE-qdFcVGErhWxsVKP7GOmpKD6o/edit
To go bit further in my critique of evolutionary biology. If one tries to say that in order to be considered scientific all a theory really needs to do is to demonstrate an ability to potentially be falsified by experimentation, i.e. Popper, then evolutionary biology fails to qualify as a science on that score as well. There simply is no experiment, or empirical observation, that Darwinists will ever accept that has the potential to falsify their theory in their eyes.
“In so far as a scientific statement speaks about reality, it must be falsifiable; and in so far as it is not falsifiable, it does not speak about reality.” Karl Popper – The Two Fundamental Problems of the Theory of Knowledge (2014 edition), Routledge “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 Deeper into the Royal Society Evolution Paradigm Shift Meeting – 02/08/2016 Suzan Mazur: Peter Saunders in his interview comments to me said that neo-Darwinism is not a theory, it’s a paradigm and the reason it’s not a theory is that it’s not falsifiable. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/suzan-mazur/john-dupre-interview-deep_b_9184812.html Peter Saunders is Co-Director, Institute of Science in Society, London; Emeritus professor of Applied Mathematics, King’s College London. Peter Saunders has been applying mathematics in biology for over 40 years, in microbiology and physiology as well as in development and evolution. He has been a critic of neo-Darwinism for almost as long.
The reason why Darwinian evolution is not falsifiable, as other overarching theories of science are, is that it has no rigid mathematical basis to test against in order to potentially falsify it:
Darwinians Try to Usurp Biomimetics Popularity – October 9, 2014 Excerpt: “it is remarkable, therefore, that formal mathematical, rather than verbal, proof of the fact that natural selection has an optimizing tendency was still lacking after a century and a half later.”,,, More importantly, its proponents are still struggling, a century and a half after Darwin, to provide evidence and the mathematical formalism to demonstrate that random natural processes have the creative power that Darwin, Dawkins, and others claim it has. Everyone already knows that intelligent causes have such creative power. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/10/darwinians_try090231.html Evolution is Missing a Mathematical Formula Excerpt: Virtually all scientists acknowledge that mathematics is the real language of science. Every theory uses words to describe and postulate the theory, but the true test of a theory is numbers and mathematics. It is numbers and mathematical formulae that distinguish true science from hocus-pocus.,,, Every scientific theory that has been promoted to the status of being a scientific law has been quantified and/or embodied into one or more mathematical formulae that make accurate predictions. But no scientist has been able to derive any working formula from the Theory of Evolution and no one has been able to quantify its dictums. Millions of scientists have tried to quantify the Theory of Evolution and they have all failed to do so. http://darwinconspiracy.com/article_1_rev2.php
bornagain77
November 1, 2016
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Design in Nature is increasingly apparent: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1571064511000509 Many science hotshots think the Design is created by s Simulator... https://www.google.com/amp/www.newyorker.com/books/joshua-rothman/what-are-the-odds-we-are-living-in-a-computer-simulation/amp Most Astrophysicist/Physics/Cosmology dudes & dudettes realize chance can't account for life. "Ooops" is laughable haha. Ha.ppolish
November 1, 2016
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december 2005.AhmedKiaan
November 1, 2016
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"The ID science journal PCID is closed down. The role is now taken by Biologic Institute." Did you notice that they stopped publishing their 'science journal' the month that Dover came out?AhmedKiaan
November 1, 2016
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What do they pay you to crosspost science headlines here? That's half the pretense that this is a real site.AhmedKiaan
November 1, 2016
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Spambots would be more fun if they got their facts rght: This isn't for the 'bot but for anyone else interested: Evolution News and Views doesn’t take comments anymore. Never has, but for an experimental phase or two. They did not have the budget to address armies of spambots and still fund research and publishing. Telic Thoughts is gone. Telic Thoughts was a small, dedicated group who never really felt at home with others in the ID community. They burnt out without seeing the things that are happening today, which they would really have found exciting. The ID science journal PCID is closed down. The role is now taken by Biologic Institute. I think this is the last Intelligent Design website. Probably not. But many are not English-language. In any event, the recent trend has been much more to Facebook pages, of which there are many. Sal’s gone, Luskin’s gone, Behe’s gone, Dembski’s gone…How much longer is UD going to last? Sal's not left ID; he was vehement about promoting YEC and we think age-of-the-Earth issues are beside the point. Luskin is off getting a degree. Behe was just featured in a documentary, Revolutionary. Dembski moved on to education issues full time but is still active at Evolutionary Informatics Lab, which has a book coming out. Can someone place an order for a new-gen spambot? One that operates in real time?News
November 1, 2016
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Just kidding. Nobody calculates that because it is fake science. :-DAhmedKiaan
November 1, 2016
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good demonstration of design detection. Maybe you calculated the FSCO/I numbers?AhmedKiaan
November 1, 2016
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If there are active thriving Intelligent Design blogs I could visit instead are out there, please let me know where they are. --- this whole thing seems to be winding down.
IOW, you're a spambot. Got it.Vy
November 1, 2016
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this whole thing seems to be winding down.AhmedKiaan
November 1, 2016
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If there are active thriving Intelligent Design blogs I could visit instead are out there, please let me know where they are.AhmedKiaan
November 1, 2016
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I think this is the last Intelligent Design website...
Your spamish repetition of this blob makes it pretty clear who you're trying to convince.Vy
November 1, 2016
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Evolution News and Views doesn't take comments anymore. Telic Thoughts is gone. The ID science journal PCID is closed down. I think this is the last Intelligent Design website. Sal's gone, Luskin's gone, Behe's gone, Dembski's gone...How much longer is UD going to last?AhmedKiaan
November 1, 2016
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