Wasting Time and Energy on the Hopelessly Implausible — An Engineer’s Perspective

_{Gil Dodgen

April 21, 2010

Intelligent Design}

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The Darwinian speculative thesis of random errors filtered by natural selection explaining anything substantial in biology is simply, completely, and astronomically out of the ballpark of plausibility.

In our engineering department (software, hardware, electrical, mechanical, aeronautical) we have a phrase: Does the proposed solution pass the beverage-out-the-nose test? (Meaning, of course: Would the proposed approach have any possibility of success?)

The problem with most Darwinists is that they have no real-world experience in any hard-science discipline with real-world accountability (such as engineering), in which a proposed solution or mechanism must first pass the beverage-out-the-nose test, and then be empirically verified to be capable of what is claimed for it.

Storytelling doesn’t cut it in real science, but that’s basically all Darwinists have left, especially in light of the fact that the underlying mechanisms of living systems are fundamentally based on the most sophisticated computer program ever written.

Comments

Sooner, "Whops, I guess there are some things I didn't address: "There is a great deal of reality that is outside the scope of scientific inquiry. The people on both sides of this argument who are attempting to squeeze their matters of ultimate concern into the arena in which the game of science is played are sad cases, from my perspective. Art, literature, music, philosophy, and religion all have more to say about what is truly important in human life than does science. Einstein did not consider himself to be on the same plane as Gandhi… and rightly so." I don't normally agree with the new atheists, but I recently heard an account involving Christopher Hitchens (I don't really know the legitimacy of this account, but if true, it has an application to what you stated above) in which he was discussing Christianity with a liberal Christian, and she was saying things like, "well, I believe in Jesus and all that, but I don't really accept all the miracles and that Jesus is the only way to heaven and all that nonsense," to which Hitchens responded: (paraphrased from a secondary source) "well then you can't legitimately call your self a Christian, can you, because what you object to is exactly what Christianity teaches." Now while Hitchens in no way accepts Christianity, he has a keener understanding of what Christianity is all about, and its' implications in a real world where we live and breathe than this woman who claimed to be a Christ follower. Perhaps he has this perspective, because of his very prominent Christian brother. So when you say that there is important truth to all of those religious ideas, but they can't approach reality scientifically or in the real world in which we live and breathe, you are essentially saying that they are really lies. I believe in reality, not imagined or 'religious' reality apart from scientific reality. To me reality is just that. If God exists, then it is perfectly reasonable to expect that He has a connection to our experiential reality, not just in a metaphysical or abstract belief system that we've set up for ourselves to understand him. Now Hitchens' real contention with Christianity is precisely the implications of its claims to be exclusive truth, and not simply one among many legitimate faith beliefs. He's more reasonable in that I might add than most who believe that all religions have some merit. I kind of like what W.L. Craig once stated regarding this matter. He stated (and I'm paraphrasing again) that when confronted with the perceived problem of Christian exclusivism as being somewhat arrogant, that he has spent the better part of his life looking into many different belief systems, including Christianity, and poured over the truth claims from a number of religions and philosophies before he was convinced that Christianity was in fact true. He saw that the idea that all religions have truth is not adequate, because most religions have major doctrinal essentials that are opposed to the doctrinal essentials of other religions. That he looked carefully into Christianity, and was persuaded of its truth based on that careful study over many years of contending with it, and concluded that it is in fact true, is in no way a reflection that he views himself any better than a person who has not come to that conclusion. It was the very precepts and evidences for Christianity, which persuaded him, and not some notion that he had decided to believe because it was what he wanted all along, or because he had simply given up on finding anything better. It's the strength of Christianity's truth, which led him to faith. The point is that Christianity makes claims that are in the real world, not in some metaphysical neverland, that we dream up when we're asleep. The claims of Chrisianity are that a man named Jesus who was God in the flesh lived physically among humans, was executed and resurrected himself from the dead as evidence that he was whom he claimed to be. Furthermore, that he left an historical account, which exists physically to this day among his disciples for the truths he claimed about himself, and the acts that he performed. That doesn't leave much room for his historical physicality not having any connection to the real physical world, unless you are like the woman whom Hitchens was talking to, but then what would be the point? The gods of the Greeks are not the same as the God of Abrahamic faiths, which have accounts for Him working physically among certain people through certain historical depictions, and among people we know existed in places we know existed. In the Greek myths, it didn't really matter that they didn't really do what was attributed to them. Not so with the Abrahamic faiths. If Jesus didn't really exist, and do what was attributed to him, then there's really no truth to Christianity whatsoever, and no point in adhering to it, or applying any part of it to one's life. Even if Jesus was simply a good teacher with some good ideas, but no more mystical or religiously relevant than an armadillo, there would still be no point. There are lots of good teachers with good ideas, what makes Jesus' teachings so important above those of any other? No, no, if Jesus has application to our lives, then what he claimed about himself is the important stuff, and not simply the beatitudes and the sermon on the mount. So I would agree with both Hitchens and Craig on this matter. Christianity makes exclusive claims, and posits certain accounts, which must be true, or else the whole faith is in fact a lie. I just don't have the problem with Christianity's exclusive claims the way Hitchens does. To me, if God is reasonable, then there should be no question as to the truth of His claims. I didn't really want to get into a too deeply theological discussion, but you led me to it, and anyway, how much off topic have we gotten here? :)CannuckianYankee_{April 23, 2010
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Sooner, I missed that you were addressing me in 24. I think my answers to most of what you're referring to has been answered in 26.CannuckianYankee_{April 22, 2010
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Lenoxus, "That’s a decent point. However, there is a disjunction going on there, a conflation of atheism with the theory of evolution. It may indeed be the case that most/all atheists arrive at their atheism by incredulity" I know there's a disjunction, and that's the very point I made. As far as the theory of evolution's conflation with atheism, I wouldn't necessarily concur. The only issue I have with ToE (there may be others, but right now, my main focus) is RM + NS (or Darwin's unique theory) as a sufficient account for the development of life. And when I say the development of life I mean by necessity, the origin of life, to which Darwinists seem to be afraid to apply the logic of RM + NS. Darwinist: "Yeah, sure selection works perfectly well, only I think we are best to apply a sort of chemical evolution, coupled with some as yet unknown force or process of nature when it comes to OOL, which makes us free to speculate willy nilly, 'cause we just don't know." Why must they do this? Because a designer couldn't a or wouldn't a done it. That's it in a nutshell. "But let’s put that aside and ask this simple question: Does the theory of evolution, either as it existed in Darwin’s time or as it exists today, consist of an argument from incredulity that God could not have created life? Really?" Um... yes. Darwin's whole philosophical basis for natural selection was that a designer wouldn't have designed suboptimally; therefore there must be some naturalistic mechanism in place to account for suboptimal 'design', which renders a designer unnecessary. ID doesn't address the issue of suboptimal design, because it is a metaphysical assertion, and not a scientific hypothesis. So if you want to get into metaphysical arguments that account for suboptimal design, fine, there are many sufficient counter arguments to Darwin's assertion, found in natural theology and the like. So Darwin's basis for coming up with natural selection as the overarching accounting mechanism for the 'origin of species' was unwarranted from the start. If that's not incredulity, I don't know what is. But you ask about the theory of evolution in Darwin's time, and that's a very important distinction from ToE today, because in Darwin's time, before he posited RM + NS, evolutionary theory was in some instances, perfectly congruent with design hypotheses. It was that specific naturalistic purposeless and directionless mechanism, which was the fowler of the whole idea of evolution. Those who object to RM + NS as the overarching account for OOL do not object from incredulity - well some might, but overall, those positing design arguments do so out of a weighing of the alternatives. If RM + NS cannot account for OOL, and it's been 150 years in its failure to do so, then perhaps RM + NS is not all that is going on. But RM + NS is the only currently proposed and coherent mechanism for natural processes to develop more functionally complex forms. I suspect that this is so, based on what I've been reading, simply because RM + NS has some limited but less interesting explanatory applications than it's purported account for the 'origin of species.' I think RM + NS is better applied more narrowly to account for certain biological changes within species, and that might be it. But what seems to have the better explanatory power given what we know of the immense improbabilities of a naturalistic mechanism like RM + NS or some as yet unknown naturalistic mechanism to account for Func spec comp Info at the OOL stages, given the relatively young age of the universe, that a non-naturalistic mechanism is the more reasonable alternative. Design eliminates the time + chance improbabilities inherent in naturalistic accounts, which demonstrates that ID is in no way an argument from incredulity. "But the argument that it is, or largely involves, an incredulity argument cannot simply be turned around and fitted on NDE." Agreed, but as design continues to grow, and it's proponents continue to weigh in with more forceful and articulate empirical evidences for why ID is the more parsimonious argument, I think that NDE earns a warrant for becoming more and more incredulous from a perfectly reasonable perspective that it hasn't been sufficient in answering the more fundamentally important questions concerning the OOL, which ID has more sufficiently addressed. The only real objection to ID seems to be based upon a metaphysical dislike for immaterial causes to account for material existence. That seems to be it. If you don't believe me, go to the thread on the radio debate between Davies and Lennox. Listen to what Davies says about design. He just doesn't like the idea of a designer, and so he's committed to avoid it at all costs, even the cost of having no sufficient account for OOL. Does that sound an awful lot like "we can't let a divine foot in the door?" But to be fair, allow me to discuss Davies' real objection. He contends that once we start accepting design arguments, we are then done with science. If there's a designer, this necessitates 'supernaturalism,' which is a slippery slope away from reasonable accounts for nature's mechanisms. Well sorry, but that's also an example of incredulity. I can't accept 'supernaturalism' as I define it, because it is against natural processes, and sooner or later faith healing will be just as valid as modern medicine. I have just one question for Davies on that account: "Has it ever occurred to you that your definition or anybody's definition for 'supernaturalism' is the problem? ID doesn't posit a supernatural God as defined by naturalists. ID posits design, from which one can infer a designer. If ID's reason for a designer is perfectly valid from a scientific perspective, how would the existence of such a reasonable designer validate any unreasonable 'supernaturalistic' explanation for how the world works? If anything, I see that a designer such that ID implies, is perfectly congruent with rational thought and evidences. Davies fails to understand that modern Western sciences developed out of a theistic or design-centric world view. They most certainly could not have developed to the extent they are today if theists believed that 'supernaturalims' was the real world norm, and anything else is a pipe-dream. Theism does not imply fairies or witches, as the extreme new atheists often imply.CannuckianYankee_{April 22, 2010
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22 GilDodgen:
The big problem with Darwinists is that they don’t know what they don’t know, and have isolated themselves in a self-referential cocoon. Living systems represent highly integrated technology, and understanding them requires knowledge far beyond infantile speculation about the unlimited powers of random errors filtered by natural selection.
They just don't know when to quit! YOU'RE IN OVER YOUR HEADS, GUYS. YOU'RE AT THE LIMIT OF THE NATURALISTICALLY EXPLICABLE. GAME OVER.Lenoxus_{April 22, 2010
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Oops, that was for CannuckianYankee.Sooner Emeritus_{April 22, 2010
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Upright BiPed,
And oh, by the way, there just can’t really be a god or gods, it’s simply impossible given our present reality.
Science has progressed by casting out the gods that once accounted for various natural phenomena. Jews and Christians and Muslims didn't complain about the process until it went a God too far. There is no more value in allowing the God of Abraham into scientific explanations than there would be in admitting Apollo, the Greek god who drives the sun-chariot across the sky each day, or Thor, the Norse god who strikes his hammer to the big anvil in the sky to make thunder. This has absolutely nothing to do with whose god is real and whose is not. It has everything to do with the public nature of science, and the corresponding necessity that explanations be in terms of empirical observations that trained observers can agree upon. There is a great deal of reality that is outside the scope of scientific inquiry. The people on both sides of this argument who are attempting to squeeze their matters of ultimate concern into the arena in which the game of science is played are sad cases, from my perspective. Art, literature, music, philosophy, and religion all have more to say about what is truly important in human life than does science. Einstein did not consider himself to be on the same plane as Gandhi... and rightly so.Sooner Emeritus_{April 22, 2010
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Seversky: If I have a toothache I do not go to Joe the Plumber for diagnosis and treatment, even if he does have strong opinions about dentistry. One of the main projects I've worked on as a software engineer is a guided airdrop system (autonomously GPS-guided parachutes for resupplying soldiers on the ground from aircraft flying at high altitudes, in order to keep the pilots and aircraft out of harm's way while delivering the payloads accurately from altitudes up to 25,000 feet MSL). In order to perform my task I've had to learn a lot from the other engineers working on the project. Our chief aeronautical engineer is something of a genius with vast practical experience and a solid understanding of the underlying mathematics, although he is not a software engineer. I've spent many hours working with him in order to understand the subtleties of parachute aerodynamics. Without this knowledge and expertise I could not have done my job competently. The same applies to what I've learned from all the other engineers working on the project, and they have learned a lot from me. Without the constant feedback among all of us, during which we educated each other, the project could never have been realized. The big problem with Darwinists is that they don't know what they don't know, and have isolated themselves in a self-referential cocoon. Living systems represent highly integrated technology, and understanding them requires knowledge far beyond infantile speculation about the unlimited powers of random errors filtered by natural selection. Unfortunately, Darwinists refuse to collaborate with others who have expertise relevant to their field of study, and in doing so they doom themselves to wallowing in self-congratulatory ignorance.GilDodgen_{April 22, 2010
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Actually Lenoxus, I believe many things that you would find fantastically unbelievable, but which, unlike evolution, are actually true. Steven Curtis Chapman - Great Expectations http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLKrxg1QDngbornagain77_{April 22, 2010
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# 18 CannuckianYankee: That's a decent point. However, there is a disjunction going on there, a conflation of atheism with the theory of evolution. It may indeed be the case that most/all atheists arrive at their atheism by incredulity. Maybe. But let's put that aside and ask this simple question: Does the theory of evolution, either as it existed in Darwin's time or as it exists today, consist of an argument from incredulity that God could not have created life? Really? Now, I'm not saying ID consists of incredulity; there's a lot more science and philosophy to it than that. But the argument that it is, or largely involves, an incredulity argument cannot simply be turned around and fitted on NDE.Lenoxus_{April 22, 2010
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Reading a headline and post like this, you can see how obviously false that stupid old canard is. ID isn't a "science stopper". It's a science starter. If you don't believe me, just check out any of this blog's posts on the subject of abiogenesis. Lots of fascinating proposals for various mechanisms, many of them testable. No silly pooh-pooing of scientists for bothering to investigate the origin of life or attempting to emulate it. By extension, one is hard-pressed to find negative-framed predictions from the scientific theory of intelligent design that research into the origin of life will never, ever achieve answers or results. Contrast with evolutionists: Ask them "What predictions does your theory make?" and the first or second answer will always be "We predict that non-naturalists will never be able to explain the origin of life apart from 'God did it'. Ain't gonna happen. That's our prediction." So negative!Lenoxus_{April 22, 2010
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uoflcard, Thanks for the duct-tape, concealing linens analogy. It appears that Darwinists have found yet another use for duct tape. Others, The charge of ID being an argument from incredulity appears to be the latest rant from the Darwinists. I've seen this charge not only here, but in other forums of late. Maybe we should have a new thread that discusses this issue. I can't help but notice the charge, while considering the Darwinists' rejection of any thought of there being an intervening immaterial intelligent being, coupled with the startling revelation that this position is far more within the bounds of incredulity than anything the ID theorists have entertained. When I read writers like Barbara Forrest and Eugenie Scott, Richard Dawkins and others talking about God and religion in general, it's not so much a rationally based objection, as it is an emotionally charged polemic against the whole idea. Sure some of them are more nice about it than others, but it's still the same equal dislike for design arguments without much substance. Paul Davies has gone so far as to appear to admit such in a radio broadcast being discussed in another thread. So it goes like this: ID is an argument from incredulity because IDists can't see past their own blockers to accept that there just might be a naturalistic explanation (if not now then one day - in the far distant reaches of future time and space of course, 'cause that's how we know evolution works) for irreducible biological complexity. This kind of objection of our beloved Darwinism is also representative of a poverty of imagination. And oh, by the way, there just can't really be a god or gods, it's simply impossible given our present reality. God wouldn't have done it that way. Does anybody else feel cheated out of an argument?CannuckianYankee_{April 22, 2010
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Seversky you also state: "It is hardly surprising that fossils like Tiktaalik are unearthed by biologists and paleontologists" My first question is what in the world is a biologist doing out in the field digging in the dirt? They certainly did not contribute anything to establishing a relationship: The new animal phylogeny: Reliability and implications: Excerpt: "The new molecular based phylogeny has several important implications. Foremost among them is the disappearance of "intermediate" taxa between sponges, cnidarians, ctenophores, and the last common ancestor of bilaterians or "Urbilateria."...A corollary is that we have a major gap in the stem leading to the Urbilataria. We have lost the hope, so common in older evolutionary reasoning, of reconstructing the morphology of the "coelomate ancestor" through a scenario involving successive grades of increasing complexity based on the anatomy of extant "primitive" lineages." From Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, in 2000 - http://www.pnas.org/content/97/9/4453.full.pdf?ijkey=USJfrrxyih/gM Why Darwin was wrong about the (genetic) tree of life: - 21 January 2009 Excerpt: Syvanen recently compared 2000 genes that are common to humans, frogs, sea squirts, sea urchins, fruit flies and nematodes. In theory, he should have been able to use the gene sequences to construct an evolutionary tree showing the relationships between the six animals. He failed. The problem was that different genes told contradictory evolutionary stories. This was especially true of sea-squirt genes. Conventionally, sea squirts - also known as tunicates - are lumped together with frogs, humans and other vertebrates in the phylum Chordata, but the genes were sending mixed signals. Some genes did indeed cluster within the chordates, but others indicated that tunicates should be placed with sea urchins, which aren't chordates. "Roughly 50 per cent of its genes have one evolutionary history and 50 per cent another," Syvanen says. ...."We've just annihilated the tree of life. It's not a tree any more, it's a different topology entirely," says Syvanen. "What would Darwin have made of that?" http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126921.600-why-darwin-was-wrong-about-the-tree-of-life.html Testing the Orchard Model and the NCSE’s Claims of “Nested Patterns” Supporting a “Tree of Life” Excerpt: Perhaps the reason why different genes are telling “different evolutionary stories” and “one group suggests one biogeographic pattern, and another group suggests another” is because the genes and organisms have wholly different stories to tell, namely stories that indicate that not all living organisms are ancestrally related, thereby fulfilling a testable prediction of the orchard model. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2010/03/testing_the_orchard_model_and.html Congruence Between Molecular and Morphological Phylogenies - Colin Patterson Excerpt: "As morphologists with high hopes of molecular systematics, we end this survey with our hopes dampened. Congruence between molecular phylogenies is as elusive as it is in morphology and as it is between molecules and morphology." http://www.arn.org/docs/odesign/od171/sampler171.htm 'The theory makes a prediction (for amino acid sequence similarity); we've tested it, and the prediction is falsified precisely.' Dr. Colin Patterson Senior Principal Scientific Officer in the Paleontology Department at the British Museum Walter T. Brown, In the Beginning (1989), p. 7 Excerpt: "There is not a trace of evidence on the molecular level for the traditional evolutionary series: simple sea life > fish> amphibians > reptiles> mammals. In general, each of the many categories of organisms appear to be equally isolated." http://evolution-facts.org/Appendix/a21.htm My second question is do you really think Tiktaalik is anything more than a false hope? Tiktaalik Blown "Out of the Water" by Earlier Tetrapod Fossil Footprints - January 2010 Excerpt: The tracks predate the oldest tetrapod skeletal remains by 18 Myr and, more surprisingly, the earliest elpistostegalian fishes by about 10 Myr. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2010/01/tiktaalik_blown_out_of_the_wat.html Seversky the only thing that helped the paleontologists find Tiktaalik was the fact that had a fairly good idea where swampy land was at the time they wanted to look in. i.e. they were hoodwinked by "confirmation bias".bornagain77_{April 22, 2010
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...while Seversky has a mastery of piling up the riffraff to obscure the point. Par.Upright BiPed_{April 22, 2010
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Seversky: as far as who first tried to establish an old age for the earth using scientific methods, that honor goes to the scientist, and Christian apologist, William Thomson - Kelvin, of Entropy fame.bornagain77_{April 22, 2010
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Seversky states: "Unfortunately for neo-Paleyism uoflcard’s rhetoric is just about all it has to offer against the advances achieved by evolutionary biology." I'm sure you don't mind telling us exactly what were the stunning advances that evolutionary thinking was so instrumental in: Materialists like to claim evolution is indispensable to experimental biology and led the way to many breakthroughs in medicine, Yet in a article entitled "Evolutionary theory contributes little to experimental biology", this expert author begs to differ. "Certainly, my own research with antibiotics during World War II received no guidance from insights provided by Darwinian evolution. Nor did Alexander Fleming's discovery of bacterial inhibition by penicillin. I recently asked more than 70 eminent researchers if they would have done their work differently if they had thought Darwin's theory was wrong. The responses were all the same: No. Philip S. Skell - Professor at Pennsylvania State University. http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/index.php?command=view&id=2816 Science Owes Nothing To Darwinian Evolution - Jonathan Wells - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4028096/science_owes_nothing_to_darwinian_evolution_jonathan_wells/bornagain77_{April 22, 2010
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Unfortunately for neo-Paleyism uoflcard's rhetoric is just about all it has to offer against the advances achieved by evolutionary biology. This is hardly encouraging. The argument to the personal incredulity of software engineers is just as vacuous. If I have a toothache I do not go to Joe the Plumber for diagnosis and treatment, even if he does have strong opinions about dentistry. There is a saying that to a man with only a hammer, all the world looks like a nail. Perhaps to software engineers all the world looks like computer code, especially if they have been watching the Matrix movies too often. But computers and logic and mathematics and even human languages are just modeling tools which can be used to represent aspects of external reality. And they all suffer from the same flaw of garbage in/garbage out. You can, for example, construct a perfectly valid logical argument which leads flawlessly to an utterly nonsensical conclusion. You can design immensely detailed and complex computer models of worlds that correspond only very distantly to the observed reality of ours. Think World of Warcraft or Avatar. Unless you go out and collect accurate and reliable data to feed into your models, you will get little useful out. It is hardly surprising that the great age of the Earth was revealed by geologists and physicists rather than armchair philosophers, mathematicians or Irish theologians. It is hardly surprising that fossils like Tiktaalik are unearthed by biologists and paleontologists rather than information theorists or software engineers. These scientists base their models on the data that they and others have collected. They are well aware of the gaps in that data, probably better than anyone else. But instead of sitting there complaining about the gaps, they go out and try to fill them. If a software engineer like GilDodgen were to tell me a piece of code was poorly written or couldn't possibly run I would treat that opinion with the respect it deserves. If he tells me that the theory of evolution is absurdly implausible but the overwhelming majority of evolutionary biologists tell me otherwise then I am going to trust the judgement of those who are most likely to have the better knowledge of the field.Seversky_{April 22, 2010
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The problem with engineers is that they have no real world experience as biologists in the field.zeroseven_{April 22, 2010
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uoflcard; the last part of your post, in 9, was simply poetic; "While less personal scientific theories that experience a steady divergence of expectation and observation are discarded, the Darwinian kludge is simply duct-taped, draped with concealing linens and surrounded by an army of militant, tenured scientists (who have become the most trusted people in all of the world by the uneducated public and media) and put back on its pedestal."bornagain77_{April 22, 2010
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I agree with Gil, uoflcard has a mastery of cutting through the riffraff and illustrating the point.Upright BiPed_{April 22, 2010
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uoflcard, You've made my case far more eloquently and persuasively than I. At some point one should admit that he's been chasing a rainbow and invest his efforts in something with promise, like investigating the limits of mutation/selection as Mike Behe has done. This is useful research. For example, we know from Behe's analysis that an anti-malarial agent requiring three simultaneous mutations to counter, would permanently defeat the disease. Instead, Darwinian "researchers" expend countless monetary and human resources trying to cram contrary evidence into a hopelessly failed hypothesis.GilDodgen_{April 22, 2010
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uoflcard, NDE passes the beverage-out-the-nose test for 99.9% of working biologists every day, and the field of evolutionary biology is making fantastic progress these days. Don't you think it merits some time and energy? Or is the BOTNT only valid when performed by those with whom Gil agrees?pelagius_{April 22, 2010
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pelagius, I believe you are mistaken. Gil's post is about wasted time and energy, not 100% refutation. Let's say I go to my boss and propose a ridiculous, drastic idea (without even a model demonstrating hypothetical plausibility). He blows his coffee out of his nose and tells me to get back to work. I say "how do you know this can't work? You are countering with an argument from ignorance". He says "I don't care. I'm not paying you to spend countless hours researching something that doesn't seem remotely probable of working." I counter again with argument from personal incredulity, and he fires me. There are hundreds or thousands of intelligent, driven people dedicating their lives to something that appears to be a very minor aspect of biological novelty. Their talents (and millions or billions of dollars from taxpayers) are surely more useful in other applications. As for your examples, x-rays, aircraft and radio, they are nothing like Darwinian evolution. With all of those examples, as scientists and inventors poured their lives into them, they produced a seemingly continuous string of improvements and novel applications for the technology, almost on an annual basis. We are now approaching our 7th decade of studying the genome, and with each passing decade, we have been driven further and further away from mutation + natural selection being the most likely (or even a remotely possible) candidate for the engineering of biology. If we had made these statements in 1953, they would have been unsubstatiated just as Kelvin's famous 1899 quotes were. But his were immediately and continuously disproven by the scientific community. Our 1953 statement would have been demonstrated and strengthened with the passage of time and the dedicated efforts of countless individuals. It really is a simple, elegant theory. If it were true, I think it would have been demonstrated countless times already via honest, unguided computer simulatioms. Most of everything else that is able to be modeled is done so without significant delay or difficulty. Where is the unguided model that produces significant, functional biological novelty? Why is it that in every other arena of study, science seems to make constant, relentless progress, yet Darwinism seems to be further and further removed from observed reality? Perhaps it is because it is the foundation of a naturalist worldview. While less personal scientific theories that experience a steady divergence of expectation and observation are discarded, the Darwinian kludge is simply duct-taped, draped with concealing linens and surrounded by an army of militant, tenured scientists (who have become the most trusted people in all of the world by the uneducated public and media) and put back on its pedastal.uoflcard_{April 22, 2010
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uoflcard wrote:
At least from my perspective, these comments are not meant to be a rigorous falsification of Darwinism.
Not true. Gil writes:
The problem with most Darwinists is that they have no real-world experience in any hard-science discipline with real-world accountability (such as engineering), in which a proposed solution or mechanism must first pass the beverage-out-the-nose test, and then be empirically verified to be capable of what is claimed for it.
That quote and the title of Gil's post ("Wasting Time and Energy on the Hopelessly Implausible") show that Gil thinks the BOTNT is rigorous. If it doesn't pass the BOTNT, don't even bother thinking about it, says Gil. My examples show why this is foolish.pelagius_{April 22, 2010
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osteonectin,
uprigth, are you discussing with your own cranium?
There was a commenter named "cranium", who I banned and deleted his comment.Clive Hayden_{April 22, 2010
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uprigth, are you discussing with your own cranium?osteonectin_{April 22, 2010
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pelagius, At least from my perspective, these comments are not meant to be a rigorous falsification of Darwinism. The other side of the coin (It is true that selected errors programmed the most complex systems known to man, created nano factories and sparked consciousness because it is not proven to be false) is also an argument from incredulity, and it is what the entire "science" of Darwinism is built on; there is no positive evidence that RM+NS can create what exists, yet it is accepted (more certain than gravity). It was accepted before the complexity began to be discovered and has only become more and more dogmatically entrenched as the wondrous engineering feats of nature have come to light. And it was never once questioned by the majority of the biological community.uoflcard_{April 22, 2010
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I'm a software engineer. The entire notion of chance/law being the "creator" of biological systems is laughably absurd. Biology is information-processing on a level of complexity that makes modern technology look like ancient stone tools. To suggest that something like the human brain could come from natural forces is so naive it's almost cute.shaner74_{April 22, 2010
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cranium, Would you like to engage the argument in earnest, or is your previous comment the extent of it?Upright BiPed_{April 21, 2010
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The "beverage-out-the-nose test", otherwise known as "the argument from incredulity". 100% reliable:
The bomb will never go off. I speak as an expert in explosives. Admiral William Leahy to President Harry S Truman
And:
Radio has no future. Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible. X-rays will prove to be a hoax. Lord Kelvin, 1899
And the bolded sentence in this one will ring a bell for readers of Gil's earlier posts:
...for after the rocket quits our air and and really starts on its longer journey, its flight would be neither accelerated nor maintained by the explosion of the charges it then might have left. To claim that it would be is to deny a fundamental law of dynamics, and only Dr. Einstein and his chosen dozen, so few and fit, are licensed to do that. That Professor Goddard with his "chair" in Clark College and the countenancing of the Smithsonian Institution, does not know the relation of action and reaction, and of the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react -- to say that would be absurd. Of course he only seems to lack the knowledge ladled out daily in high schools. Editorial in the New York Times regarding Robert Goddard's pioneering rocketry work, January 13, 1920
pelagius_{April 21, 2010
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I'm an engineer. I ponder these incredible thoughts on a daily basis. How anyone can believe law and chance can produce what exists in biology is awe-inspiring in its absurdity. To me it is the most fascinating aspect of current human civilization. Randomness filtered by natural selection will not produce technology and programming more brilliant than anything any human has ever conceived!! Just doesn't work!uoflcard_{April 21, 2010
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