Massive early galaxies defy “prior understanding of the universe”

_{Denyse O'Leary

February 24, 2023

Cosmology, Philosophy, Science}

Share: Facebook; Twitter; LinkedIn; Flipboard; Print; Email

At ScienceDaily:

Six massive galaxies discovered in the early universe are upending what scientists previously understood about the origins of galaxies in the universe.
“These objects are way more massive? than anyone expected,” said Joel Leja, assistant professor of astronomy and astrophysics at Penn State, who modeled light from these galaxies. “We expected only to find tiny, young, baby galaxies at this point in time, but we’ve discovered galaxies as mature as our own in what was previously understood to be the dawn of the universe.” – Penn State (February 23, 2023)

Tip: If all you want is to have your prior beliefs about the universe confirmed, don’t whack a huge telescope into space and code it to send back real-life actual data. Pound lecterns on behalf of manipulated interpretations of prior data instead.

The paper is open access.

Comments

CR What does fallibilism say about self-evident truths such as A=A, 2+2=4, error exists, truth exists, I exist?Origenes_{March 1, 2023
March
03
Mar
1
01
2023
05:36 PM
5
05
36
PM
PDT}

IOW, the idea that there is some barrier after which human reasoning and problem solving cannot pass is to “undermine the credibility of the human mind
Several non sequiturs here. A couple of them are The universe, solar system and Earth are fine tuned? Why? Implies an entity of massive capabilities behind this fine tuning. You placed no limits on humans. Implies eventually there will be unlimited number of god like creatures with unlimited abilities. That would be fun to watch. By the way infinity is out as an explanation. It is self refuting.jerry_{March 1, 2023
March
03
Mar
1
01
2023
10:33 AM
10
10
33
AM
PDT}

CR at 44, Respectfully, you've said nothing new. The Christian God has revealed Himself in Scripture. The ONLY problem is He will not appear in a lab on command to undergo tests that prove He is the real thing.relatd_{March 1, 2023
March
03
Mar
1
01
2023
10:17 AM
10
10
17
AM
PDT}

CR, your knee-jerk denialism does not constitute a legitimate refutation.
Darwinism vs. Falsification - list followed by links to defense of each claim https://docs.google.com/document/d/1I6fT6ATY700Bsx2-JSFqL6l-rzXpMcZcZKZfYRS45h4/
Of supplemental note, Whereas there is apparently no falsification criteria that Darwinists will accept, there is currently a 10 million dollar prize being offered for the first person who can falsify a primary claim of ID. Namely, that only Intelligence can create the coded information that is necessary to explain life,,,
Evolution 2.0 Prize: Unprecedented $10 Million Offered To Replicate Cellular Evolution – Jan 2020 Excerpt: An incentive prize ten times the size of the Nobel – believed to be the largest single award ever in basic science – is being offered to the person or team solving the largest mystery in history: how genetic code inside cells got there, and how cells intentionally self-organize, communicate, then purposely adapt. This $10 million challenge, the Evolution 2.0 Prize can be found at http://www.evo2.org.,, The Evolution 2.0 Prize is designed by Chicago engineer-turned-marketer-turned-business consultant Perry Marshall and his A-list team of partners. They include top genetic experts from Harvard and Oxford, plus a diverse group of investors from private banking, healthcare and biotechnology, software, real estate, publishing and more. “A germ resisting antibiotics does more programming in 12 minutes than a team of Google engineers can do in 12 days,” said Marshall. “One blade of grass is 10,000 years ahead of any computer. If a single firm in Silicon Valley held a fraction of the secrets of this natural code inside a single cell, they’d set the NASDAQ on fire. Organisms self-edit and reprogram in real time in a way that dwarfs anything manmade. If we crack this, it will literally change the course of aging, disease, A.I. and humanity.” https://www.prnewswire.com/in/news-releases/evolution-2-0-prize-unprecedented-10-million-offered-to-replicate-cellular-evolution-875038146.html
bornagain77_{March 1, 2023
March
03
Mar
1
01
2023
09:58 AM
9
09
58
AM
PDT}

First, EVERY worldview, including atheistical ones, must answer to the issue of ultimate origins, thus roots of reality and faces the same burden of comparative difficulties.
That is itself, well, a world view.
For, in reality and in straightforward truth, atheism is the claim to know that there is no God. Indeed, as God is inter alia, a serious candidate necessary being world root, the assertion of atheism is an implicit claim to warrant that God is impossible of being.
For me God, doesn't add to the explanation. He is an inexplicable mind that exists in an inexplicable realm, who operatives via inexplicable means and methods and is driven by inexplicable motives. This just seems to push the problem up a level without improving it. Calling God a necessary being seems in search of a solution for a problem that doesn't exist. And it arbitrarily reflects an end to asking questions, such as why are there necessary beings instead of necessary non-beings? Why would a necessary being want this universe, instead of some other universe? How is it that God can know anything and what is the origin of his knowledge, etc. It's unclear how suggesting "That's just what the necessary being must have wanted" actually explains anything. Rather, it just attempts to justify things. But unless things too are also justified, then it's unclear how it can be a justification, etc.
Going further, over the ages and currently, there are so many millions who have claimed to meet, know and be positively transformed by God, that to imply or invite that we are all delusional, is to self referentially undermine the credibility of the human mind.
Being a fallibilist doesn't mean I think we're delusional or that our that we cannot find knowledge now and then.
Popper’s answer is: We can hope to detect and eliminate error if we set up traditions of criticism—substantive criticism, directed at the content of ideas, not their sources, and directed at whether they solve the problems that they purport to solve. Here is another apparent paradox, for a tradition is a set of ideas that stay the same, while criticism is an attempt to change ideas. But there is no contradiction. Our systems of checks and balances are steeped in traditions—such as freedom of speech and of the press, elections, and parliamentary procedures, the values behind concepts of contract and of tort—that survive not because they are deferred to but precisely because they are not: They themselves are continually criticized, and either survive criticism (which allows them to be adopted without deference) or are improved (for example, when the franchise is extended, or slavery abolished). Democracy, in this conception, is not a system for enforcing obedience to the authority of the majority. In the bigger picture, it is a mechanism for promoting the creation of consent, by creating objectively better ideas, by eliminating errors from existing ones.

Fallibilism, correctly understood, implies the possibility, not the impossibility, of knowledge, because the very concept of error, if taken seriously, implies that truth exists and can be found. The inherent limitation on human reason, that it can never find solid foundations for ideas, does not constitute any sort of limit on the creation of objective knowledge nor, therefore, on progress. The absence of foundation, whether infallible or probable, is no loss to anyone except tyrants and charlatans, because what the rest of us want from ideas is their content, not their provenance: If your disease has been cured by medical science, and you then become aware that science never proves anything but only disproves theories (and then only tentatively), you do not respond “oh dear, I’ll just have to die, then.”
IOW, the idea that there is some barrier after which human reasoning and problem solving cannot pass is to "undermine the credibility of the human mind."critical rationalist_{March 1, 2023
March
03
Mar
1
01
2023
06:57 AM
6
06
57
AM
PDT}

Sev, 35:
The burden of proof may be a foreign concept to you but if believers want others, including scientists, to share their beliefs then they should present compelling reasons and evidence for them. What has been offered thus far does not rise to that standard in my view.
This caught my eye, and given the issue of self referentiality on hard, core questions, it is a doozy. First, EVERY worldview, including atheistical ones, must answer to the issue of ultimate origins, thus roots of reality and faces the same burden of comparative difficulties. That is, you have no default standing to pretend that "absence of belief in a god" [note, abusive lower case typically used] holds a default. For, in reality and in straightforward truth, atheism is the claim to know that there is no God. Indeed, as God is inter alia, a serious candidate necessary being world root, the assertion of atheism is an implicit claim to warrant that God is impossible of being. So, your or some other atheism advocate's warrant that the inherently good, utterly wise creator, a necessary and maximally great being is incoherent and impossible of being is? ________ I suggest, it is far harder to fill that blank cogently than many have suggested, especially post Plantinga, much less post Boethius. Going further, over the ages and currently, there are so many millions who have claimed to meet, know and be positively transformed by God, that to imply or invite that we are all delusional, is to self referentially undermine the credibility of the human mind. Which, actually, is a known, multiply major problem with the most relevant current form of atheism, evolutionary materialistic scientism. The scientism shoots itself in the head by asserting or implying the epistemological claim to monopoly or decisive dominance on knowledge. The evolutionary materialism is hopelessly caught up in implying that brains somehow programmed themselves into credible minds, ending up in spooky claims of grand inexplicable emergence as we have seen in recent months. The basic challenge is that no computational substrate is truly rational, responsibly, rationally free to warrant, instead it is caught up in GIGO driven dynamic stochastic procedures on an architecture likely to be bug riddled. (Recall, even hello world can be argued to be bug ridden.) Going beyond, there is a consistent pattern of such projecting delusion to large swaths of humanity, religious believers, despised social classes, races, sexes, political opponents, neurotics struggling with potty training and linked complexes, operant conditioning, etc. In all cases self referentiality lurks. So, I suggest retiring this particular rhetorical gambit. KFkairosfocus_{February 28, 2023
February
02
Feb
28
28
2023
12:27 PM
12
12
27
PM
PDT}

There is no theory of natural selection. Natural selection is just what happened. So it’s just whatever happened, happened. It’s meaningless as a scientific explanation. It’s a tautology. https://uncommondescent.com/origin-of-life/paul-davies-on-the-gap-between-life-and-non-life/#comment-775881jerry_{February 28, 2023
February
02
Feb
28
28
2023
07:36 AM
7
07
36
AM
PDT}

1. Darwin’s theory holds mutations to the genome to be random. The vast majority of mutations to the genome are not random but are now found to be ‘directed’.
They are random to the particular problem to be solved, not completely random. I mean, this is really basic stuff here BA. What gives?
2. Darwin’s theory holds that Natural Selection is the ‘designer substitute’ that produces the ‘appearance’ and/or illusion of design. Natural Selection, especially for multicellular organisms, is found to be grossly inadequate as the ‘designer substitute.
Which is incredibly vague criticism. The supposed designer on organisms seems to out run their headlights all the time. The knowledge it would have produced has very limited reach. Which is what what we expect in regards to a process that creates non-explanatory knowledge. Why might that be the case?
3. Darwin’s theory holds that mutations to DNA will eventually change the basic biological form of any given species into a new form of a brand new species. Yet, biological form is found to be irreducible to mutations to DNA, nor is biological form reducible to any other material particulars in biology one may wish to invoke.
** First, let’s get past this “Darwin’s theory” stuff. Darwin was mistaken about a number of things. So what? Many people today have a better understanding about general relativity than Einstein did. Your point? Second, this is an appeal / criticism of reductionism. You really ought to get out more.
4. Darwin’s theory, (via Fisher’s Theorem in population genetics), assumed there to be an equal proportion of good and bad mutations to DNA which were, ultimately, responsible for all the diversity and complexity of life we see on earth. Yet, the ratio of detrimental to beneficial mutations is overwhelmingly detrimental. Detrimental to such a point that it is seriously questioned whether there are any truly beneficial, information building, mutations whatsoever.
Again, see above **. Mutations need not be beneficial in the sense you seem to be implying. They just need to get copied into the next generation. In many cases, mutations cause hardship and may eventually result in extinction. But other mutations will not. They play a causal role in being retained when embedded in a storage medium. You don’t have to outrun the bear, just out run the other person.
5. Charles Darwin himself held that the gradual unfolding of life would (someday) be self-evident in the fossil record. Yet, from the Cambrian Explosion onward, the fossil record is consistently characterized by the sudden appearance of a group/kind in the fossil record, (i.e. disparity), then rapid diversity within the group/kind, and then long term stability and even deterioration of variety within the overall group/kind, and within the specific species of the kind, over long periods of time. Of the few dozen or so fossils claimed as transitional, not one is uncontested as a true example of transition between major animal forms out of millions of collected fossils. Moreover, Fossils are found in the “wrong place” all the time (either too early, or too late).
When someone goes behind a tree, does that mean they were not there during that time? We have good explanations (scientific theories, such as geometry, optics, etc.) that explain why we wouldn’t expect to see them. We don’t have any good theories to explain how they would have disappeared either. The same can be said in regards to our explanations as to how fossilization occurs, etc. Again, this really is basic stuff here, BA. You’re grasping as straws here.
6. Darwin’s theory, due to the randomness postulate, holds that patterns will not repeat themselves in supposedly widely divergent species. Yet thousands of instances of what is ironically called ‘convergent evolution’, on both the morphological and genetic level, falsifies the Darwinian belief that patterns will not repeat themselves in widely divergent species.
Again, see above **.
7. Charles Darwin himself stated that “If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.” Yet as Doug Axe pointed out, “Basically every gene and every new protein fold, there is nothing of significance that we can show that can be had in that gradualistic way. It’s all a mirage. None of it happens that way.”
This hasn’t been demonstrated.
8. Charles Darwin himself stated that “If it could be proved that any part of the structure of any one species had been formed for the exclusive good of another species, it would annihilate my theory, for such could not have been produced through natural selection.” Yet as Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig pointed out, “in thousands of plant species often entirely new organs have been formed for the exclusive good of more than 132,930 other species, these ‘ugly facts’ have annihilated Darwin’s theory as well as modern versions of it.”
Like how the bacterial flagellum was provided to be irreducibly complex? Also, how can Neo-darwinism be falsified if it’s not science?
9. Charles Darwin himself stated that, ““The impossibility of conceiving that this grand and wondrous universe, with our conscious selves, arose through chance, seems to me the chief argument for the existence of God. Yet ‘our conscious selves’ are certainly not explainable by ‘chance’ (nor is consciousness explainable by any possible reductive materialistic explanation in general), i.e. ‘the hard problem of consciousness’.
We don’t think it was chance. Come on BA. Is this really all you’ve got?
10. Besides the mathematics of probability consistently showing that Darwinian evolution is impossible, the mathematics of population genetics itself has now shown Darwinian evolution to be impossible. Moreover, ‘immaterial’ mathematics itself, which undergirds all of science, engineering and technology, is held by most mathematicians to exist in some timeless, unchanging, immaterial, Platonic realm. Yet, the reductive materialism that Darwinian theory is based upon denies the existence of the immaterial realm that mathematics exists in. i.e. Darwinian evolution actually denies the objective reality of the one thing, i.e. mathematics, that it most needs in order to be considered scientific in the first place!
Except, probability isn’t a valid way to approach the subject. You haven’t explained how that probably could actually be calculated. See the peppers on constructor theory and this video on probability in science.
11. Donald Hoffman has, via population genetics, shown that if Darwin’s materialistic theory were true then all our observations of reality would be illusory. Yet the scientific method itself is based on reliable observation. Moreover, Quantum Mechanics itself has now shown that conscious observation must come before material reality, i.e. falsification of ‘realism’ proves that our conscious observations are reliable!.
Huh? And no. Quantum mechanics doesn’t show any such thing. But you know this already. That’s an interception of QM, in which you must add something to the theory to explain why conscious beings do not evolve according to the wave function, like the rest of the universe. What might that be BA?
12. The reductive materialism that undergirds Darwinian thought holds that immaterial information is merely ’emergent’ from a material basis. Yet immaterial Information, via experimental realization of the “Maxwell’s Demon” thought experiment, is now found to be its own distinctive physical entity that, although it can interact in a ‘top down’ manner with matter and energy, is separate from matter and energy.
We can bring information, and knowledge, into fundamental physics using constructor theory. Even if we couldn’t, this doesn’t disprove Neo-darwinism. This is yet another non-sequitur.
13. Darwinists hold that Darwin’s theory is true. Yet ‘Truth’ itself is an abstract property of an immaterial mind that is irreducible to the reductive materialistic explanations of Darwinian evolution. i.e. Assuming reductive materialism and/or Naturalism as the starting philosophical position of science actually precludes ‘the truth’ from ever being reached by science!
That’s quite the leap you’ve made there BA!
14. Darwinists, due to their underlying naturalistic philosophy, insist that teleology (i.e. goal directed purpose) does not exist. Yet it is impossible for Biologists to do biological research without constantly invoking words that directly imply teleology. i.e. The very words that Biologists themselves are forced to use when they are doing their research falsifies Darwinian evolution.
You ought you download the lasted version of physics.exe. Your’s seems to be way out of date.critical rationalist_{February 28, 2023
February
02
Feb
28
28
2023
05:32 AM
5
05
32
AM
PDT}

BA77 wrote
Critical Rationalist, your arguments unsuccessfully trying to defend Darwinism from Popper’s criticisms, and especially your appeal to Deutsch, does nothing to defend Darwinism from my overall claim that Darwinism is, in fact, a untestable, unfalsifiable, pseudo-science.
You're not even being consistent with your own references. Specifically, I'm referring to the paper you referenced from Sober. What gives?
In Popper’s view, there are three categories into which you can place a theoretical system: sciences that generate empirical knowledge and understanding through the postulation of universal laws of nature, sciences that do not postulate such laws but nonetheless generate knowledge and understanding through the proposal of methodological rules and the construction of models, and pseudosciences that do not generate empirical knowledge and understanding at all.
IOW, Popper didn't think evolution was pseudoscience, as you just claimed. Apparently, you don’t realize your own reference doesn't support your own position. Popper's criticism was focused on Darwin's formulation of natural selection: "survival of the fittest." But, fortunately, we're not stuck with Darwin's formulation. Again, see Dawkins' "The selfish gene", which was published in 1976. Popper addresses this directly...
The fact that the theory of natural selection is difficult to test has led some people, anti-Darwinists and even some great Darwinists, to claim that it is a tautology. . . . I mention this problem because I too belong among the culprits. Influenced by what these authorities say, I have in the past described the theory as "almost tautological," and I have tried to explain how the theory of natural selection could be untestable (as is a tautology) and yet of great scientific interest. My solution was that the doctrine of natural selection is a most successful metaphysical research programme. . . . [Popper, 1978, p. 344]
So, even if Popper had not changed his mind, it would fit into the second category. But Popper did change his mind.
I have changed my mind about the testability and logical status of the theory of natural selection; and I am glad to have an opportunity to make a recantation. . . . [p. 345] The theory of natural selection may be so formulated that it is far from tautological. In this case it is not only testable, but it turns out to be not strictly universally true. There seem to be exceptions, as with so many biological theories; and considering the random character of the variations on which natural selection operates, the occurrence of exceptions is not surprising. [p. 346]
So, despite Darwin's "survival of the fittest" being tautological, natural selection can be reformulated in a way that it's not tautological. Which is in line with Popper. Furthermore, your demand for a "law of evolution", in the sense of Popper's first category, in the current conception of physics. This is addressed in the paper I referenced on the constructor theory of life.
Indeed, the central problem here – i.e., whether and under what circumstances accurate self-reproduction and replication are compatible with no-design laws – is awkward to formulate in the prevailing conception of fundamental physics, which expresses everything in terms of predictions given some initial conditions and laws of motion. This mode of explanation can only approximately express emergent notions such as the appearance of design, no-design laws, etc. Von Neumann, who attempted to investigate self-reproduction within this framework, got as far as discovering its essential (replicator-vehicle) logic, [9]. However his use of the prevailing conception forced his analysis to be in terms of predictions: thus he attempted without success to provide the design of an actual self-reproducer in terms of atoms and microscopic interaction. The very existence of catalysts might be a sign of fine-tuning in the laws of physics, but not fine-tuning for biological adaptations, with which we are concerned here. He finally produced a viable toy model, [15], within cellular automata, but at the cost of severing the connections with actual physics. That model is thus inadequate to address the current problem - whether self-reproduction is compatible with the actual laws of physics un-augmented by any design of adaptations. The prevailing conception also forces a misleading formulation of the problem, as: what initial conditions and laws of motion must (or must probably) produce accurate replicators and self-reproducers (with some probability)? But what is disputed is whether such entities are possible under no-design laws. More generally, it cannot express the very explanation provided by evolutionary theory – that living organisms can have come about without intentionally being designed. It would have aimed at proving that they must occur, given certain initial conditions and dynamical laws.
But, we do not know the initial conditions. IOW, this law you appear to be demeaning would need to predict, after starting out with some initial conditions at the Big Bang, goats would appear billions of years later. (If ID is scientific, does provide a law that predicts human beings will appear billions of years after some specific initial conditions? Which specific conditions?) We don't know exactly what the initial conditions are. But, fortunately for us (but unfortunately for you?), we're not stuck with the current conception of physics. Assuming we are stuck with the current conception reflects an artificially narrow appeal. It's disingenuous.
To overcome these problems I resort to a newly proposed theory of physics, constructor theory. [16, 17, 18]. It provides a new mode of explanation, expressing all laws as statements about which transformations are possible, which are impossible and why. This brings counterfactual statements into fundamental physics, which is key to the solution. The explanation provided by the theory of evolution is already constructor-theoretic: it is possible that the appearance of design has been brought about without intentionally being designed; so is our problem: are the physical processes essential to the theory of evolution - i.e., self- reproduction, replication and natural selection - possible under no-design laws?
critical rationalist_{February 28, 2023
February
02
Feb
28
28
2023
05:32 AM
5
05
32
AM
PDT}

Ba77, Seversky, and a few others here, must defend Darwinism. They have no choice. They see God coming back into science, and facts or no facts, they need to confuse readers here. To make them believe that Darwinism is somehow true when you have clearly, and repeatedly, shown it to be false and not testable science. Seversky's problems with God are another matter, but definitely connected. He, like some atheists, wants God to appear in a lab for some tests, followed by Seversky having a few words with Him...relatd_{February 27, 2023
February
02
Feb
27
27
2023
08:19 AM
8
08
19
AM
PDT}

Seversky, your criticism of me would be much more fitting if it did not apply exponentially more-so to you. For prime example, you never present any compelling empirical evidence for your position, and you ignore numerous lines of falsifying evidence against your Darwinian worldview, and yet, you continually use faulty, even false, theological presuppositions about what God should and should not do, not scientific evidence, to continue to try to cling to your Darwinian atheism. For crying out loud, the self-refuting, and Theologically based, 'argument from evil' is literally your bread and butter argument for Darwinism and against God! See my post this morning on Cornelius Hunter's thread to get a glimpse of just how hypocritically self-refuting your naturalistic/atheistic worldview actually is in regards to scientific evidence and Theological presuppositions.. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/cornelius-hunter-on-evolution-as-a-religious-theory/#comment-776654bornagain77_{February 27, 2023
February
02
Feb
27
27
2023
03:28 AM
3
03
28
AM
PDT}

Critical Rationalist, your arguments unsuccessfully trying to defend Darwinism from Popper's criticisms, and especially your appeal to Deutsch, does nothing to defend Darwinism from my overall claim that Darwinism is, in fact, a untestable, unfalsifiable, pseudo-science. For instance, after Denis Noble had shown many foundational assumptions of Darwin's theory to be experimentally false,
"Physiology Is Rocking the Foundations of Evolutionary Biology": Another Peer-Reviewed Paper Takes Aim at Neo-Darwinism - Casey Luskin - March 31, 2015 Excerpt: Noble doesn't mince words: "It is not only the standard 20th century views of molecular genetics that are in question. Evolutionary theory itself is already in a state of flux (Jablonka & Lamb, 2005; Noble, 2006, 2011; Beurton et al. 2008; Pigliucci & Muller, 2010; Gissis & Jablonka, 2011; Shapiro, 2011). In this article, I will show that all the central assumptions of the Modern Synthesis (often also called Neo-Darwinism) have been disproved." Noble then recounts those assumptions: (1) that "genetic change is random," (2) that "genetic change is gradual," (3) that "following genetic change, natural selection leads to particular gene variants (alleles) increasing in frequency within the population," and (4) that "inheritance of acquired characteristics is impossible." He then cites examples that refute each of those assumptions,,, He then proposes a new and radical model of biology called the "Integrative Synthesis," where genes don't run the show and all parts of an organism -- the genome, the cell, the body plan, everything -- is integrated. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/03/physiology_is_r094821.html
,, after Denis Noble had shown many foundational assumptions of Darwin's theory to be experimentally false, and Darwinists then subsequently refused to accept those experimental findings as falsifications of their theory, Denis Nodel stated, "If, as the commentator seems to imply, we make neo-Darwinism so flexible as an idea that it can accept even those findings that the originators intended to be excluded by the theory it is then incumbent on modern neo-Darwinists to specify what would now falsify the theory. If nothing can do this then it is not a scientific theory.”
Central tenets of neo-Darwinism broken. Response to ‘Neo-Darwinism is just fine’ – August 1, 2015 Excerpt: “If, as the commentator seems to imply, we make neo-Darwinism so flexible as an idea that it can accept even those findings that the originators intended to be excluded by the theory it is then incumbent on modern neo-Darwinists to specify what would now falsify the theory. If nothing can do this then it is not a scientific theory.” – Denis Noble - President of International Union of Physiological Sciences https://jeb.biologists.org/content/218/16/2659
To further solidify Dr. Noble's claim that Darwin's theory, (at least how Darwinists treat their theory), is unfalsifiable, here is a list of falsifications of Darwin's theory (that Darwinists simply refuse to accept as falsifications off their theory)
1. Darwin’s theory holds mutations to the genome to be random. The vast majority of mutations to the genome are not random but are now found to be ‘directed’. 2. Darwin’s theory holds that Natural Selection is the ‘designer substitute’ that produces the ‘appearance’ and/or illusion of design. Natural Selection, especially for multicellular organisms, is found to be grossly inadequate as the ‘designer substitute. 3. Darwin’s theory holds that mutations to DNA will eventually change the basic biological form of any given species into a new form of a brand new species. Yet, biological form is found to be irreducible to mutations to DNA, nor is biological form reducible to any other material particulars in biology one may wish to invoke. 4. Darwin’s theory, (via Fisher’s Theorem in population genetics), assumed there to be an equal proportion of good and bad mutations to DNA which were, ultimately, responsible for all the diversity and complexity of life we see on earth. Yet, the ratio of detrimental to beneficial mutations is overwhelmingly detrimental. Detrimental to such a point that it is seriously questioned whether there are any truly beneficial, information building, mutations whatsoever. 5. Charles Darwin himself held that the gradual unfolding of life would (someday) be self-evident in the fossil record. Yet, from the Cambrian Explosion onward, the fossil record is consistently characterized by the sudden appearance of a group/kind in the fossil record, (i.e. disparity), then rapid diversity within the group/kind, and then long term stability and even deterioration of variety within the overall group/kind, and within the specific species of the kind, over long periods of time. Of the few dozen or so fossils claimed as transitional, not one is uncontested as a true example of transition between major animal forms out of millions of collected fossils. Moreover, Fossils are found in the “wrong place” all the time (either too early, or too late). 6. Darwin’s theory, due to the randomness postulate, holds that patterns will not repeat themselves in supposedly widely divergent species. Yet thousands of instances of what is ironically called ‘convergent evolution’, on both the morphological and genetic level, falsifies the Darwinian belief that patterns will not repeat themselves in widely divergent species. 7. Charles Darwin himself stated that “If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.” Yet as Doug Axe pointed out, “Basically every gene and every new protein fold, there is nothing of significance that we can show that can be had in that gradualistic way. It’s all a mirage. None of it happens that way.” 8. Charles Darwin himself stated that “If it could be proved that any part of the structure of any one species had been formed for the exclusive good of another species, it would annihilate my theory, for such could not have been produced through natural selection.” Yet as Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig pointed out, “in thousands of plant species often entirely new organs have been formed for the exclusive good of more than 132,930 other species, these ‘ugly facts’ have annihilated Darwin’s theory as well as modern versions of it.” 9. Charles Darwin himself stated that, ““The impossibility of conceiving that this grand and wondrous universe, with our conscious selves, arose through chance, seems to me the chief argument for the existence of God. Yet ‘our conscious selves’ are certainly not explainable by ‘chance’ (nor is consciousness explainable by any possible reductive materialistic explanation in general), i.e. ‘the hard problem of consciousness’. 10. Besides the mathematics of probability consistently showing that Darwinian evolution is impossible, the mathematics of population genetics itself has now shown Darwinian evolution to be impossible. Moreover, ‘immaterial’ mathematics itself, which undergirds all of science, engineering and technology, is held by most mathematicians to exist in some timeless, unchanging, immaterial, Platonic realm. Yet, the reductive materialism that Darwinian theory is based upon denies the existence of the immaterial realm that mathematics exists in. i.e. Darwinian evolution actually denies the objective reality of the one thing, i.e. mathematics, that it most needs in order to be considered scientific in the first place! 11. Donald Hoffman has, via population genetics, shown that if Darwin’s materialistic theory were true then all our observations of reality would be illusory. Yet the scientific method itself is based on reliable observation. Moreover, Quantum Mechanics itself has now shown that conscious observation must come before material reality, i.e. falsification of ‘realism’ proves that our conscious observations are reliable!. 12. The reductive materialism that undergirds Darwinian thought holds that immaterial information is merely ’emergent’ from a material basis. Yet immaterial Information, via experimental realization of the “Maxwell’s Demon” thought experiment, is now found to be its own distinctive physical entity that, although it can interact in a ‘top down’ manner with matter and energy, is separate from matter and energy. 13. Darwinists hold that Darwin’s theory is true. Yet ‘Truth’ itself is an abstract property of an immaterial mind that is irreducible to the reductive materialistic explanations of Darwinian evolution. i.e. Assuming reductive materialism and/or Naturalism as the starting philosophical position of science actually precludes ‘the truth’ from ever being reached by science! 14. Darwinists, due to their underlying naturalistic philosophy, insist that teleology (i.e. goal directed purpose) does not exist. Yet it is impossible for Biologists to do biological research without constantly invoking words that directly imply teleology. i.e. The very words that Biologists themselves are forced to use when they are doing their research falsifies Darwinian evolution. Darwinism vs. Falsification – list of falsifications (that Darwinists simply refuse to accept as falsifications) https://docs.google.com/document/d/1I6fT6ATY700Bsx2-JSFqL6l-rzXpMcZcZKZfYRS45h4/edit
CR, despite your repeated false claims to the contrary, by any reasonable measure, Darwin's theory simply fails to qualify as a real and testable science, but is much more appropriately classified as a pseudo-science, even as a religion for atheists, rather than being classified as a real and testable science. For instance, as Berlinski quipped with the casting aside of natural selection by 'neutral theory', and yet Darwinists subsequent acceptance of neutral theory as if it is somehow compatible with their theory,,,, "By this standard, if the Archangel Gabriel were to accept personal responsibility for the Cambrian explosion, his views would be widely described as neo-Darwinian."
Majestic Ascent: Berlinski on Darwin on Trial - David Berlinski - November 2011 Excerpt: The publication in 1983 of Motoo Kimura's The Neutral Theory of Molecular Evolution consolidated ideas that Kimura had introduced in the late 1960s. On the molecular level, evolution is entirely stochastic, and if it proceeds at all, it proceeds by drift along a leaves-and-current model. Kimura's theories left the emergence of complex biological structures an enigma (since Natural Selection no longer played a role), but they played an important role in the local economy of belief. They allowed biologists to affirm that they welcomed responsible criticism. "A critique of neo-Darwinism," the Dutch biologist Gert Korthof boasted, "can be incorporated into neo-Darwinism if there is evidence and a good theory, which contributes to the progress of science." By this standard, if the Archangel Gabriel were to accept personal responsibility for the Cambrian explosion, his views would be widely described as neo-Darwinian. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/11/berlinski_on_darwin_on_trial053171.html
Verse
1 Thessalonians 5:21 but test all things. Hold fast to what is good.
bornagain77_{February 27, 2023
February
02
Feb
27
27
2023
12:08 AM
12
12
08
AM
PDT}

Whistler/32
“Elite” means satanic. ?
It is good to see there are some who are keeping alive the traditions of Dark Age thinking.Seversky_{February 26, 2023
February
02
Feb
26
26
2023
07:36 PM
7
07
36
PM
PDT}

Bornagain77/31
Well ChuckyD, to point out the obvious once again, (which seems to be a recurring theme with you), most people assume that since most elite scientists are atheistic or agnostic then they must have very good scientific reasons for being atheists and/or agnostics. Yet the surprising thing is that they don’t have very good scientific reasons for being atheists and/or agnostics. It turns out that they are atheists/agnostics for personal reasons, not scientific reasons.
The burden of proof may be a foreign concept to you but if believers want others, including scientists, to share their beliefs then they should present compelling reasons and evidence for them. What has been offered thus far does not rise to that standard in my view.
So thus ChuckyD, to point out the obvious once again, an elite scientist being an atheist/agnostic for personal reasons, not scientific reasons, carries as much weight as anyone else, (your garbageman, your mailman, etc.)., believing what they believe for personal reasons. Their personal beliefs simply carry no scientific weight. It is the scientific evidence itself that matters.
You do realize that that argument applies equally to the religious beliefs of scientists as well? They have no bearing on the science either.
Moreover, I hold that if we take the artificial blinders off of science, specifically take the artificial blinder of ‘methodological naturalism’ off of science, and let the scientific evidence speak for itself, then the scientific evidence itself is very good at pointing us to Theism, not atheistic naturalism, as the true explanation for reality.
The scientific evidence leads us to a number of profound mysteries. It does not point unequivocally towards Theism. As others have pointed out, cherry-picked quotes are a form of confirmation bias and read more like theistic grasping at scientific straws.
Here are a few comparisons:
Do I really need to repeat the rebuttals to those points yet again?
As you can see when we remove the artificial imposition of the naturalistic philosophy (methodological naturalism), from the scientific method, and look carefully at the predictions of both atheistic naturalism and Theism, side by side, we find the scientific method is very good at pointing us in the direction of Theism as the true explanation. – In fact modern science is even very good at pointing us to Christianity as the solution to the much sought after ‘theory of everything’
I find it - ironic - that you decry the principle of methodological naturalism. How else would you conduct science other than through a methodical investigation of the nature of the world in which we find ourselves? Are you suggesting something like a religious Lysenkoism in which the acceptability of the findings of science is determined by the extent to which they are judged to conform to religious presuppositions?Seversky_{February 26, 2023
February
02
Feb
26
26
2023
07:32 PM
7
07
32
PM
PDT}

“In his autobiography, Karl Popper said he had come to the conclusion that “Darwinism is not a testable scientific theory, but a metaphysical research program.”8 To say that a species now living is adapted to its environment “is almost tautological,” he wrote. “Adaptation or fitness is defined by modern evolutionists as survival value, and can be measured by actual success in survival. There is hardly any possibility of testing a theory as feeble as this.”
Popper's autobiography was published in 1976. The page I referenced quotes from Popper after 1976. Your point is?
Further controversy ensued, for Popper—apparently under pressure in England—partially recanted in 1978. Later, in 1988, I had a chance to interview Popper myself, when he spent a week at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. I immediately brought up the issue of natural selection. He told me that his opinion had not changed. He also said he thought that natural selection had in fact been falsified “by Darwin’s own theory.” Distortions introduced by sexual selection sometimes meant that offspring were not better adapted than their parents, he said. When I mentioned that Darwinism had evidently benefited from the idea of Progress, widely accepted in the mid-nineteenth century but widely rejected in the late twentieth, Popper said that “I have been one of the people who have destroyed it.” He said he had “preached” along those lines in his book The Poverty of Historicisms.” – Tom Bethell, Darwin’s House of Cards (2016) (pp. 14–15)

Again, we have quotes from Popper that doesn't imply natural selection is a pseudo science from 1978. Darwin can be mistaken about natural selection in regards to survival of the fittest, etc. as described in the selfish gene, which was published in 1976. But this isn't anything new in the present. This is more selective appeal to Popper when it suites your purpose.
The fact that the theory of natural selection is difficult to test has led some people, anti-Darwinists and even some great Darwinists, to claim that it is a tautology. . . . I mention this problem because I too belong among the culprits. Influenced by what these authorities say, I have in the past described the theory as "almost tautological," and I have tried to explain how the theory of natural selection could be untestable (as is a tautology) and yet of great scientific interest. My solution was that the doctrine of natural selection is a most successful metaphysical research programme. . . . [Popper, 1978, p. 344]

I have changed my mind about the testability and logical status of the theory of natural selection; and I am glad to have an opportunity to make a recantation. . . . [p. 345]

The theory of natural selection may be so formulated that it is far from tautological. In this case it is not only testable, but it turns out to be not strictly universally true. There seem to be exceptions, as with so many biological theories; and considering the random character of the variations on which natural selection operates, the occurrence of exceptions is not surprising. [p. 346]

Popper’s Shifting Appraisal of Evolutionary Theory – Mehmet Elgin and Elliott Sober – Feb 2017 Excerpt: Karl Popper argued in 1974 that evolutionary theory contains no testable laws and is therefore a metaphysical research program. Four years later, he said that he had changed his mind. Here we seek to understand Popper’s initial position and his subsequent retraction. We argue, contrary to Popper’s own assessment, that he (Popper) did not change his mind at all about the substance of his original claim. We also explore how Popper’s views have ramifications for contemporary discussion of the nature of laws and the structure of evolutionary theory. Popper’s Shifting Appraisal of Evolutionary Theory – Mehmet Elgin and Elliott Sober – Feb 2017 Excerpt: Karl Popper argued in 1974 that evolutionary theory contains no testable laws and is therefore a metaphysical research program. Four years later, he said that he had changed his mind. Here we seek to understand Popper’s initial position and his subsequent retraction. We argue, contrary to Popper’s own assessment, that he (Popper) did not change his mind at all about the substance of his original claim. We also explore how Popper’s views have ramifications for contemporary discussion of the nature of laws and the structure of evolutionary theory. Popper’s Shifting Appraisal of Evolutionary Theory – Mehmet Elgin and Elliott Sober – Feb 2017 Excerpt: Karl Popper argued in 1974 that evolutionary theory contains no testable laws and is therefore a metaphysical research program. Four years later, he said that he had changed his mind. Here we seek to understand Popper’s initial position and his subsequent retraction. We argue, contrary to Popper’s own assessment, that he (Popper) did not change his mind at all about the substance of his original claim. We also explore how Popper’s views have ramifications for contemporary discussion of the nature of laws and the structure of evolutionary theory.

Yes. Popper's appraisal of Evolutionary theory changed. The lack of laws in the sense of, say, newton's laws, etc. isn't isn't any more of a problem than the principles behind the second law of thermodynamics.
Moreover, the primary reason no one can seem to find any rigid falsification criteria for Darwinian evolution is simply because it is not based on any known physical law nor mathematics. The Evolution of Ernst: Interview with Ernst Mayr – 2004 (page 2 of 14) 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.
First, as Popper pointed out, this isn't a surprise. Variation comes in many forms. Second, natural selection can be formulated in a way that is testable based on existing laws. Biological adaptions can be modeled as abstract replicators, which are forms of information that, once embodied in a physical system, tend to remain there, while others do not. They play a causal role in being retained in future generation. This is testable. What would refute Darwinian evolution?
Evidence which, in the light of the best available explanation, implies that knowledge (in the genes of organisms) came into existence in a different way (than the specific variant of conjecture and criticism found in biology) . For instance, if an organism was observed to undergo other (or mainly) favorable mutations, as produced by Lamarckism or spontaneous generation, then Darwinism's 'random generation' populate would be refuted. If organisms were observed to be born with new, complex adaptions - for anything- of which there were no precursors in their parents, then the gradual-change prediction would be refuted and so would Darwinism's mechanism of knowledge-creation. If an organism was born with a complex adaption that has survival value today, yet was not favored by selection pressure in its ancestry (say, an ability to detect and use internet weather forecasts to decide when to hibernate), then Darwinism would again be refuted. A fundamentally new explanation would be needed. Facing more or less of the same unsolved problem that Paley and Darwin faced, we should have to set about finding an explanation that worked. - David Deutsch, The Beginning of Infinity
Strangely, many ID proponents (falsely) claimed this is the case with the bacterial flagellum. Why would they do this if they didn't think it would reflect a falsification if found to be true?. Third evolution can be represented as a principle. Specifically, as abstract replicators in constructor theory. From this paper
2.10 Laws and principles The deepest known laws of nature, sometimes called ‘principles’, are meta-laws, constraining other laws rather than the behaviour of physical objects directly. For example, the principle of the conservation of energy does not say what forms of energy exist, nor what the energy of any particular system is. Rather, it asserts that for any system S, the object-level laws (those governing S and its interactions with other systems) define a quantity that has the usual properties of energy. Principles purport to constrain all true laws, known and unknown. But there is no way of deducing such an implication from laws expressed in the prevailing conception. At most one can add it informally, or prove that existing laws conform to the principle. But all laws of constructor theory are principles; and when they call a task possible, that rules out the existence of insuperable obstacles to performing it, even from unknown laws. It is sometimes claimed that principles are untestable. An object-level theory is testable if it makes predictions which, if the theory were false, could be contradicted by the outcome of some possible observation, which is then said to falsify the theory. Now, mathematics alone determines whether an object-level law L obeys a principle P. But if it does (so the argument goes), the experimental falsification of L would not falsify P, because it would not rule out that some unknown law L? conforming to P might be true. And if L violates P, the experimental corroboration of L would not falsify P either, because then some alternative explanation might still satisfy P. For example, experiments in the 1920s, interpreted according to the then-prevailing theories (L) of what elementary particles exist, implied that the energy of a nucleus before beta decay is greater than the total energy of the decay products. But that did not falsify the principle (P) of the conservation of energy: Pauli guessed ( L? ) that energy was being carried away by unknown particles (nowadays called antineutrinos). No experimental results could ever rule out that possibility – and the same holds for any principle. But this supposed deficiency is shared by all scientific theories: Tests always depend on background knowledge – assumptions about other laws and about how measuring instruments work (Popper 1963, ch. 10 §4). Logically, should any theory fail a test, one always has the option of retaining it by denying one of those assumptions. Indeed, this has been used as a critique of the very idea of testability (Putnam 1974). But scientific theories are not merely predictions. They are, primarily, explanations: claims about what is there in the physical world and how it behaves. And the negation of an explanation is not an explanation; so a claim such as ‘there could be an undetected particle carrying off the energy’ is not a scientific theory. Nor is ‘perhaps energy is not conserved’. Those are research proposals, not explanations. Consequently the methodology of science includes the rule that any proposal to modify a background-knowledge assumption must itself be a good explanation1. So, if the only explanatory implication of Pauli’s suggestion had been to save the principle of the conservation of energy, both would have been abandoned (as the principle of parity invariance was abandoned as a result of other experiments on beta decay). In the event, it was soon used to account for other observations and became indispensable in the understanding of nuclear phenomena, while no good explanation contradicting energy conservation was found.
Details of this can be found in here.
Neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory explains how the appearance of purposive design in the sophisticated adaptations of living organisms can have come about without their intentionally being designed. The explanation relies crucially on the possibility of certain physical processes: mainly, gene replication and natural selection. In this paper I show that for those processes to be possible without the design of biological adaptations being encoded in the laws of physics, those laws must have certain other properties. The theory of what these properties are is not part of evolution theory proper, and has not been developed, yet without it the neo-Darwinian theory does not fully achieve its purpose of explaining the appearance of design. To this end I apply Constructor Theory's new mode of explanation to provide an exact formulation of the appearance of design, of no-design laws, and of the logic of self-reproduction and natural selection, within fundamental physics. I conclude that self-reproduction, replication and natural selection are possible under no-design laws, the only non-trivial condition being that they allow digital information to be physically instantiated. This has an exact characterisation in the constructor theory of information. I also show that under no-design laws an accurate replicator requires the existence of a "vehicle" constituting, together with the replicator, a self-reproducer.
critical rationalist_{February 26, 2023
February
02
Feb
26
26
2023
06:03 PM
6
06
03
PM
PDT}

"Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me. Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve." Whistler, Today's Gospel reading, as it happens. Andrewasauber_{February 26, 2023
February
02
Feb
26
26
2023
07:27 AM
7
07
27
AM
PDT}

most elite scientists and scholars are atheists.
"Elite" means satanic. ;) Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me. Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.whistler_{February 26, 2023
February
02
Feb
26
26
2023
06:53 AM
6
06
53
AM
PDT}

Well ChuckyD, to point out the obvious once again, (which seems to be a recurring theme with you), most people assume that since most elite scientists are atheistic or agnostic then they must have very good scientific reasons for being atheists and/or agnostics. Yet the surprising thing is that they don't have very good scientific reasons for being atheists and/or agnostics. It turns out that they are atheists/agnostics for personal reasons, not scientific reasons. To further quote from the article, with the part you left off attached,
,,, "Yes, most elite scientists and scholars are atheists. But their reasons for being atheists and agnostics are varied and often personal. And their typical arguments are rather common and shallow – god of the gaps and the existence of evil. It would seem clear that their expertise and elite status is simply not a causal factor behind their atheism.",,, https://shadowtolight.wordpress.com/2016/11/08/elite-scientists-dont-have-elite-reasons-for-being-atheists/
So thus ChuckyD, to point out the obvious once again, an elite scientist being an atheist/agnostic for personal reasons, not scientific reasons, carries as much weight as anyone else, (your garbageman, your mailman, etc.)., believing what they believe for personal reasons. Their personal beliefs simply carry no scientific weight. It is the scientific evidence itself that matters. Moreover, I hold that if we take the artificial blinders off of science, specifically take the artificial blinder of 'methodological naturalism' off of science, and let the scientific evidence speak for itself, then the scientific evidence itself is very good at pointing us to Theism, not atheistic naturalism, as the true explanation for reality. Specifically, Atheistic Naturalism and Theism make, and have made, several basic contradictory predictions about what type of science evidence we will find about reality. These basic contradictory predictions about reality, and the evidence that is now found by modern science, can be compared against one another to see if either atheistic naturalism or Theism was true in its basic predictions about reality. Here are a few comparisons:
1. Naturalism/Materialism predicted space-time energy-matter always existed. Theism predicted space-time energy-matter were created. Big Bang cosmology now strongly indicates that time-space energy-matter had a sudden creation event approximately 14 billion years ago. 2. Naturalism/Materialism predicted that the universe is a self sustaining system that is not dependent on anything else for its continued existence. Theism predicted that God upholds this universe in its continued existence. Breakthroughs in quantum mechanics reveal that this universe is dependent on a ‘non-local’, beyond space and time, cause for its continued existence. 3. Naturalism/Materialism predicted that consciousness is an ‘emergent property’ of material reality and thus should have no particularly special position within material reality. Theism predicts consciousness precedes material reality and therefore, on that presupposition, consciousness should have a ‘special’ position within material reality. Quantum Mechanics reveals that consciousness, (I,e, Conscious observation, measurement), has a special, even a central, position within material reality. - 4. Naturalism/Materialism predicted the rate at which time passed was constant everywhere in the universe. Theism predicted God is eternal and is outside of time. – Special Relativity has shown that time, as we understand it, is relative and comes to a complete stop at the speed of light. (Psalm 90:4 – 2 Timothy 1:9) - 5. Naturalism/Materialism predicted the universe did not have life in mind and that life was ultimately an accident of time and chance. Theism predicted this universe was purposely created by God with man in mind. Scientists find the universe is exquisitely fine-tuned for carbon-based life to exist in this universe. Moreover it is found, when scrutinizing the details of physics and chemistry, that not only is the universe fine-tuned for carbon based life, but is specifically fine-tuned for intelligent life like human life (R. Collins, M. Denton).- 6. Naturalism/Materialism predicted complex life in this universe should be fairly common. Theism predicted the earth is extremely unique in this universe. Statistical analysis of the hundreds of required parameters which enable complex organic life to be possible on earth gives strong indication the earth is extremely unique in this universe (G. Gonzalez; Hugh Ross). - 7. Naturalism/Materialism predicted it took a very long time for life to develop on earth. Theism predicted life to appear abruptly on earth after water appeared on earth (Genesis 1:10-11). Geochemical evidence from the oldest sedimentary rocks ever found on earth indicates that complex photosynthetic life has existed on earth as long as water has been on the face of earth. - 8. Naturalism/Materialism predicted the first life to be relatively simple. Theism predicted that God is the source for all life on earth. The simplest life ever found on Earth is far more complex than any machine man has made through concerted effort. (Michael Denton PhD) - 9. Naturalism/Materialism predicted the gradual unfolding of life would (someday) be self-evident in the fossil record. Theism predicted complex and diverse animal life to appear abruptly in the seas in God’s fifth day of creation. The Cambrian Explosion shows a sudden appearance of many different and completely unique fossils within a very short “geologic resolution time” in the Cambrian seas. - 10. Naturalism/Materialism predicted there should be numerous transitional fossils found in the fossil record, Theism predicted sudden appearance and rapid diversity within different kinds found in the fossil record. Fossils are consistently characterized by sudden appearance of a group/kind in the fossil record(disparity), then rapid diversity within that group/kind, and then long term stability and even deterioration of variety within the overall group/kind, and within the specific species of the kind, over long periods of time. Of the few dozen or so fossils claimed as transitional, not one is uncontested as a true example of transition between major animal forms out of millions of collected fossils. - 11. Naturalism/Materialism predicted animal speciation should happen on a somewhat constant basis on earth. Theism predicted man was the last species created on earth – Man (our genus ‘modern homo’ as distinct from the highly controversial ‘early homo’) is the last generally accepted major fossil form to have suddenly appeared in the fossil record. (Tattersall; Luskin)– 12. Naturalism/Materialism predicted that the separation of human intelligence from animal intelligence ‘is one of degree and not of kind’ (C. Darwin). Theism predicted that we are made in the ‘image of God’- Despite an ‘explosion of research’ in this area over the last four decades, human beings alone are found to ‘mentally dissect the world into a multitude of discrete symbols, and combine and recombine those symbols in their minds to produce hypotheses of alternative possibilities.’ (Tattersall; Schwartz). Moreover, both biological life and the universe itself are found to be ‘information theoretic’ in their foundational basis. 13. Naturalism/Materialism predicted much of the DNA code was junk. Theism predicted we are fearfully and wonderfully made – ENCODE research into the DNA has revealed a “biological jungle deeper, denser, and more difficult to penetrate than anyone imagined.”. - 14. Naturalism/Materialism predicted a extremely beneficial and flexible mutation rate for DNA which was ultimately responsible for all the diversity and complexity of life we see on earth. Theism predicted only God created life on earth – The mutation rate to DNA is overwhelmingly detrimental. Detrimental to such a point that it is seriously questioned whether there are any truly beneficial, information building, mutations whatsoever. (M. Behe; JC Sanford) - 15. Naturalism/Materialism predicted morality is subjective and illusory. Theism predicted morality is objective and real. Morality is found to be deeply embedded in the genetic responses of humans. As well, morality is found to be deeply embedded in the structure of the universe. Embedded to the point of eliciting physiological responses in humans before humans become aware of the morally troubling situation and even prior to the event even happening. 16. Naturalism/Materialism predicted that we are merely our material bodies with no transcendent component to our being, and that we die when our material bodies die. Theism predicted that we have minds/souls that are transcendent of our bodies that live past the death of our material bodies. Transcendent, and ‘conserved’, (cannot be created or destroyed), ‘non-local’, (beyond space-time matter-energy), quantum entanglement/information, which is not reducible to matter-energy space-time, is now found in our material bodies on a massive scale (in every DNA and protein molecule). - Brief defense of all 16 comparisons https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vHkCYvFiWiZfMlXHKJwwMJ7SJ0tlqWfH83dJ2OgfP78/edit
As you can see when we remove the artificial imposition of the naturalistic philosophy (methodological naturalism), from the scientific method, and look carefully at the predictions of both atheistic naturalism and Theism, side by side, we find the scientific method is very good at pointing us in the direction of Theism as the true explanation. - In fact modern science is even very good at pointing us to Christianity as the solution to the much sought after 'theory of everything'
Oct. 2022 – And although there will never be a purely mathematical ‘theory of everything’ that bridges the infinite mathematical divide that exists between quantum mechanics and general relativity, all hope is not lost in finding the correct ‘theory of everything’.,,,, https://uncommondescent.com/cosmology/from-iai-news-how-infinity-threatens-cosmology/#comment-766384 Feb. 2023 - Besides being irrational, the denial of the reality of free will, agent causality, and/or intelligent causation, by atheistic naturalists is also unscientific. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/the-inconsistencies-of-materialism/#comment-776383
So thus in conclusion, regardless of whatever elite scientists may personally choose to believe about God, the scientific evidence itself could care less about what they may personally believe, and the scientific evidence itself is telling us a VERY different story from what 'elite scientists' may personally choose to believe..
1 Thessalonians 5:21 but test all things. Hold fast to what is good.
bornagain77_{February 26, 2023
February
02
Feb
26
26
2023
06:49 AM
6
06
49
AM
PDT}

BA77 & Relatd @27 and 28 Just one final comment and I'm moving on. I watched the video provided by BA77. It is important to note that it is a compilation of short video clips edited by Dr. Jonathan Pararejasingham, a British physician. The key takeaway apropos my comment @23 is:
Yes, most elite scientists and scholars are atheists.
The Nature article provided by Relatd @24, makes the very same conclusion based upon actual survey data. So, I'm not sure exactly what BA77 and Relatd are trying to challenge, they seem to have made my case. But it’s not really news, as the Nature article shows, this is a 100-year trend……chuckdarwin_{February 26, 2023
February
02
Feb
26
26
2023
05:43 AM
5
05
43
AM
PDT}

Nice, date align best with and help attest to Pearlman YeC SPIRAL cosmological redshift hypothesis and model. follow project at researchgate dot net and the series available on amazon + kindle. some dated excerpts also on academia www.academia.edu/94346772/Pearlman_YeC_SPIRAL_on_JWTS_JADES_photometry_and_spectroscopyPearlman_{February 25, 2023
February
02
Feb
25
25
2023
08:52 PM
8
08
52
PM
PDT}

CD at 26, Ba77 filled in the details. I thank him.relatd_{February 25, 2023
February
02
Feb
25
25
2023
05:48 PM
5
05
48
PM
PDT}

Of related note to ChuckyD's appeal to "the prevalence of atheism and agnosticism among first flight scientists,"
Elite Scientists Don’t Have Elite Reasons for Being Atheists - November 8, 2016 Excerpt: Dr. Jonathan Pararejasingham has compiled video of elite scientists and scholars to make the connection between atheism and science. Unfortunately for Pararejasingham, once you get past the self-identification of these scholars as non-believers, there is simply very little there to justify the belief in atheism.,,, What I found was 50 elite scientists expressing their personal opinions, but none had some powerful argument or evidence to justify their opinions. In fact, most did not even cite a reason for thinking atheism was true.,,, The few that did try to justify their atheism commonly appealed to God of the Gaps arguments (there is no need for God, therefore God does not exist) and the Argument from Evil (our bad world could not have come from an All Loving, All Powerful God). In other words, it is just as I thought it would be. Yes, most elite scientists and scholars are atheists. But their reasons for being atheists and agnostics are varied and often personal. And their typical arguments are rather common and shallow – god of the gaps and the existence of evil. It would seem clear that their expertise and elite status is simply not a causal factor behind their atheism. Finally, it is also clear the militant atheism of Dawkins is a distinct minority view among these scholars. https://shadowtolight.wordpress.com/2016/11/08/elite-scientists-dont-have-elite-reasons-for-being-atheists/
bornagain77_{February 25, 2023
February
02
Feb
25
25
2023
04:44 PM
4
04
44
PM
PDT}

Relatd How do you figure?chuckdarwin_{February 25, 2023
February
02
Feb
25
25
2023
04:42 PM
4
04
42
PM
PDT}

ChuckyD claims that it is "historical revisionism writ large" to claim that, "All of science was born out of, and is STILL dependent upon, Judeo-Christian presuppositions." Yet actually, it is ChuckyD, and his Darwinian cohorts, who are blatantly guilty of "historical revisionism writ large".
The Two Guys to Blame for the Myth of Constant Warfare between Religion and Science - February 27, 2015 Excerpt: Timothy Larsen, a Christian historian who specializes in the nineteenth century, notes: The so-called “war” between faith and learning, specifically between orthodox Christian theology and science, was manufactured during the second half of the nineteenth century. It is a construct that was created for polemical purposes. No one deserves more blame for this stubborn myth than these two men: Andrew Dickson White (1832-1918), the founding president of Cornell University, and John William Draper (1811-1882), professor of chemistry at the University of New York. http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justintaylor/2015/02/27/the-two-guys-to-blame-for-the-myth-of-constant-warfare-between-religion-and-science/ The Importance of the Warfare Thesis - Cornelius Hunter, PhD in Biophysics - July 26, 2015 Excerpt: Historians have understood for the better part of a century now that this Warfare Thesis (between science and religion) is a false history. It was constructed by evolutionists to frame the origins debate in their favor. In fact the conflict is the exactly the opposite—it is between the metaphysical foundation of evolutionary thought and science. That metaphysical foundation of naturalism is unyielding and unbending, and it makes no sense on the science. It is the evolutionists who have a conflict between their religious beliefs and science. The Warfare Thesis is an attempt to turn the tables and turn the attention away from the obvious problems with evolutionary thought. Evolutionists say that their skeptics suffer from bad religion and bad science. In fact, the metaphysical foundation of naturalism is not biblical (in spite of the fact that it comes from Christians), and evolutionary theory is not scientific. Science does not indicate that the world spontaneously arose.,,, Clear scientific evidence for evolution? Abundant genetic and fossil evidence for evolution? Yes, the scientific evidence is clear, and the genetic and fossil evidence is abundant, but it does not support evolution. Not even remotely. Of course Scripture can have different interpretations. But the science leaves no such wiggle room. It does not prove, indicate or suggest that the species arose spontaneously, as a consequence of natural laws and processes. That is a metaphysical mandate (from atheists) that is in conflict with the science. http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2015/07/heres-whats-going-on-with-biologos.html
I guess the game for ChuckyD here is to accuse Christians of what atheists were, and still are, blatantly guilty of. Despite ChuckyD's dishonest denial to the contrary, the fact that modern science was born out of the Judeo-Christian culture of Medieval Christian Europe is simply a historical fact.
Christians – Not the Enlightenment – Invented Modern Science – Chuck Colson – Oct. 2016 Excerpt: Rodney Stark's,,, book, "For the Glory of God,,,, In Stark's words, "Christian theology was necessary for the rise of science."Science only happened in areas whose worldview was shaped by Christianity, that is, Europe. Many civilizations had alchemy; only Europe developed chemistry. Likewise, astrology was practiced everywhere, but only in Europe did it become astronomy. That's because Christianity depicted God as a "rational, responsive, dependable, and omnipotent being" who created a universe with a "rational, lawful, stable" structure. These beliefs uniquely led to "faith in the possibility of science." So why the Columbus myth? Because, as Stark writes, "the claim of an inevitable and bitter warfare between religion and science has, for more than three centuries, been the primary polemical device used in the atheist attack of faith." Opponents of Christianity have used bogus accounts like the ones I've mentioned to not only discredit Christianity, but also position themselves as "liberators" of the human mind and spirit. Well, it's up to us to set the record straight, and Stark's book is a great place to start. And I think it's time to tell our neighbors that what everyone thinks they know about Christianity and science is just plain wrong. http://www.cnsnews.com/commentary/chuck-colson/weve-been-lied-christians-not-enlightenment-invented-modern-science
And per Stephen Meyer, here are the three essential Judeo-Christian presuppositions that were necessary for the rise of modern science in medieval Christian Europe
New Book: For Kepler, Science Did Not Point to Atheism - Stephen C. Meyer - January 17, 2023 The Conflict Myth Unmade,,, As historian Ian Barbour says, “science in its modern form” arose “in Western civilization alone, among all the cultures of the world,” because only the Christian West had the necessary “intellectual presuppositions underlying the rise of science.”2 So, what were those presuppositions? We can identify three. As Melissa Cain Travis shows, (in her book: "Thinking God’s Thoughts: Johannes Kepler and the Miracle of Cosmic Comprehensibility"), all have their place in Kepler’s seminal works. More generally, all find their origin in the Judeo-Christian idea of a Creator God who fashioned human beings and an orderly universe. (1) Intelligibility First, the (Christian) founders of modern science assumed the intelligibility of nature. They believed that nature had been designed by the mind of a rational God, the same God who made the rational minds of human beings. These thinkers assumed that if they used their minds to carefully study nature, they could understand the order and design that God had placed in the world.,,, (2) The Contingency of Nature Second, early pioneers of science presupposed the contingency of nature. They believed that God had many choices about how to make an orderly world. Just as there are many ways to design a watch, there were many ways that God could have designed the universe. To discover how He did, scientists could not merely deduce the order of nature by assuming what seemed most logical to them; they couldn’t simply use reason alone to draw conclusions, as some of the Greek philosophers had done.,,, (3) The Fallibility of Human Reasoning Third, early scientists accepted a biblical understanding of the power and limits of the human mind. Even as these scientists saw human reason as the gift of a rational God, they also recognized the fallibility of humans and, therefore, the fallibility of human ideas about nature.,,, Such a nuanced view of human nature implied, on the one hand, that human beings could attain insight into the workings of the natural world, but that, on the other, they were vulnerable to self-deception, flights of fancy, and prematurely jumping to conclusions. This composite view of reason — one that affirmed both its capability and fallibility — inspired confidence that the design and order of nature could be understood if scientists carefully studied the natural world, but also engendered caution about trusting human intuition, conjectures, and hypotheses unless they were carefully tested by experiment and observation.11,,, https://evolutionnews.org/2023/01/new-book-for-kepler-science-did-not-point-to-atheism/ Stephen Meyer, (Ph.D. in the philosophy of science from the University of Cambridge)
Moreover, modern science is STILL dependent on Judeo-Christian presuppositions. As Paul Davies succinctly put it, "even the most atheistic scientist accepts as an act of faith that the universe is not absurd, that there is a rational basis to physical existence manifested as law-like order in nature that is at least partly comprehensible to us. So science can proceed only if the scientist adopts an essentially theological worldview.”
Physics and the Mind of God: The Templeton Prize Address – by Paul Davies – August 1995 Excerpt: “People take it for granted that the physical world is both ordered and intelligible. The underlying order in nature-the laws of physics-are simply accepted as given, as brute facts. Nobody asks where they came from; at least they do not do so in polite company. However, even the most atheistic scientist accepts as an act of faith that the universe is not absurd, that there is a rational basis to physical existence manifested as law-like order in nature that is at least partly comprehensible to us. So science can proceed only if the scientist adopts an essentially theological worldview.” https://www.firstthings.com/article/1995/08/003-physics-and-the-mind-of-god-the-templeton-prize-address-24
So thus in conclusion, ChuckyD turns out to be the one who is guilty of the very thing that he accused me of being guilty of. Namely, "historical revisionism writ large". Judeo-Christian presuppositions were, and still are, necessary for the practice of modern science. Of supplemental note, here is a list of major disciplines of science, and the Bible believing scientists who founded them,
Founders of Modern Science Who Believe in God - Tihomir Dimitrov - (pg. 235) Scientific Disciplines – Bible-believing Scientists 1. Analytical Geometry – Rene Descartes – (1596-1650) 2. Anesthesiology – James Simpson – (1811-1870) 3. Antiseptic Surgery – Joseph Lister – (1827-1912) 4. Astronautics – Hermann Oberth – (1894-1989) – Wernher Von Braun – (1912-1977) 5. Atomic Physics – Joseph J. Thomson – (1856-1940) 6. Bacteriology – Louis Pasteur – (1822-1895) 7. Biology – John Ray – (1627-1705) 8. Calculus – Isaac Newton – (1642-1727) – Gottfried Leibniz – (1646-1716) 9. Cardiology – William Harvey – (1578-1657) 10. Celestial Mechanics – Johannes Kepler – (1571-1630) 11. Chemistry – Robert Boyle – (1627-1691) 12. Comparative Anatomy – Georges Cuvier – (1769-1832) 13. Computer Science – Charles Babbage – (1791-1871) 14. Cryology – Lord Kelvin – (1824-1907) 15. Differential Geometry – Carl Friedrich Gauss – (1777-1855) 16. Dimensional Analysis – Lord Rayleigh – (1842-1919) 17. Dynamics – Isaac Newton – (1642-1727) 18. Electrodynamics – James Clerk Maxwell – (1831-1879) Andre-marie Ampere – (1775-1836) 19. Electro-magnetics – Michael Faraday – (1791-1867) 20. Electronics – John Ambrose Fleming – (1849-1945) Michael Faraday – (1791-1867) 21. Electrophysiology – John Eccles – (1903-1997) 22. Embriology – William Harvey – (1578-1657) 23. Energetics – Lord Kelvin – (1824-1907) 24. Entomology Of Living Insects – Henri Fabre – (1823-1915) 25. Experimental Physics – Galileo Galilei – (1564-1642) 26. Field Theory – Michael Faraday – (1791-1867) 27. Fluid Mechanics – George Stokes – (1819-1903) 28. Galactic Astronomy – William Herschel – (1738-1822) 29. Gas Dynamics – Robert Boyle – (1627-1691) 30. Genetics – Gregor Mendel – (1822-1884) 31. Geology – Nicolaus Steno – (1638-1686) 32. Glacial Geology – Louis Agassiz – (1807-1873) 33. Gynecology – James Simpson – (1811-1870) 34. Heliocentric Cosmology – Nicolaus Copernicus – (1473-1543) 35. Hydraulics – Leonardo Da Vinci – (1452-1519) 36. Hydrodynamics – Blaise Pascal – (1623-1662) 37. Hydrography – Matthew Maury – (1806-1873) 38. Hydrostatics – Blaise Pascal – (1623-1662) 39. Ichthyology – Louis Agassiz -(1807-1873) 40. Immunology – Louis Pasteur – (1822-1895) 41. Isotopic Chemistry – William Ramsay – (1852-1916) 42. Laser Science – Charles Townes – (1915-2015) – Arthur Schawlow – (1921-1999) 43. Mathematical Analysis – Leonhard Euler – (1707-1783) 44. Microbiology – Louis Pasteur – (1822-1895) 45. Mineralogy – Georgius Agricola – (1494-1555) 46. Model Analysis – Lord Rayleigh – (1842-1919) 47. Modern Medicine – William Harvey – (1578-1657) 48. Nanotechnology – Richard Smalley – (1943-2005) 49. Natural History – John Ray – (1627-1705) 50. Non-euclidean Geometry – Bernhard Riemann – (1826-1866) 51. Number Theory – Carl Friedrich Gauss – (1777-1855) 52. Oceanography – Matthew Maury – (1806-1873) 53. Optical Mineralogy – David Brewster – (1781-1868) 54. Optics – Johannes Kepler – (1571-1630) 55. Paleontology – John Woodward – (1665-1728) – Georges Cuvier – (1769-1832) 56. Pathology – Rudolph Virchow – (1821-1902) 57. Physical Astronomy – Johannes Kepler – (1571-1630) 58. Physical Chemistry – Mikhail Lomonosov – (1711-1765) 59. Physiology – William Harvey – (1578-1657) 60. Quantum Mechanics – Max Planck – (1858-1947) – Werner Heisenberg – (1901-1976) 61. Reversible Thermodynamics – James Joule – (1818-1889) 62. Statistical Thermodynamics – James Clerk Maxwell – (1831-1879) 63. Stratigraphy – Nicolaus Steno – (1638-1686) 64. Systematic Biology – Carolus Linnaeus – (1707-1778) 65. Taxonomy – John Ray – (1627-1705) 66. Thermodynamics – Lord Kelvin – (1824-1907) 67. Thermokinetics – Humphry Davy – (1778-1829) 68. Transplantology – Alexis Carrel – (1873-1944) – Joseph E. Murray – (1919-2012) 69. Vertebrate Paleontology – Georges Cuvier – (1769-1832) 70. Wave Mechanics – Erwin Schroedinger – (1887-1961) https://www.academia.edu/2739607/Scientific_GOD_Journal
Verse:
1 Thessalonians 5:21 but test all things. Hold fast to what is good.
bornagain77_{February 25, 2023
February
02
Feb
25
25
2023
04:30 PM
4
04
30
PM
PDT}

CD at 23, You are quite mistaken. https://www.nature.com/articles/28478relatd_{February 25, 2023
February
02
Feb
25
25
2023
04:03 PM
4
04
03
PM
PDT}

Apropos PM1 @20, I learned long ago that BA77 refuses to color within the lines. His agenda is driven by two overarching beliefs intertwined with the bugbear of evolution:
[1] All of science was born out of, and is STILL dependent upon, Judeo-Christian presuppositions.... [2] Moreover, the artificial imposition of naturalism onto science by atheists, i.e. methodological naturalism, and as the OP itself gives evidence to, has led to nothing but confusion in science. (emphasis added)
The second belief is belied by the prevalence of atheism and agnosticism among first flight scientists, especially in physics and chemistry. The first belief is historical revisionism writ large. That's not to say that "Judeo-Christian" culture had no effect on the arc of science in the West (that position would be just as ridiculous), it's to say that this fashionable cliche among Christian apologists is clearly an overstatement....chuckdarwin_{February 25, 2023
February
02
Feb
25
25
2023
03:36 PM
3
03
36
PM
PDT}

PMI, the shoe is squarely on the other foot. Darwinists keep repeating the same lies over and over again, even though their claims have been experimentally refuted at every turn. That you would try to defend such anti-science shenanigans reflects very poorly on your capacity to be intellectual honest, not on me. Moreover, it is a bit rich that I would be accused of being a mindless chatbot, when Darwinists are, in fact, the ones who hold their entire sense of self is merely a neuronal illusion (Crick). And that they have no free will (Coyne). For crying out loud, that is literally the definition of a mindless chatbot :)bornagain77_{February 25, 2023
February
02
Feb
25
25
2023
02:19 PM
2
02
19
PM
PDT}

PM1 at 20, Cheap shot. I've read Ba77's posts and they are highly credible. Your accusations are baseless.relatd_{February 25, 2023
February
02
Feb
25
25
2023
02:10 PM
2
02
10
PM
PDT}

@15
IOW, you’re just picking and choosing references, and even appealing to Popper, when it suite your purpose, while rejecting them when they do not. Do you really think this is a valid approach?
Valid or not, it's the only approach he has. I tend to think of bornagain77 as a chatbot that just repeats the same nonsense over and over, regardless of whether it's relevant to the thread, regardless of what others say about it, regardless of all the flaws and omissions that are pointed out to him. If you assume bornagain77 is an AI, like ChatGPT or Sydney, and not an actual person, you'll find your interactions with it much less frustrating.PyrrhoManiac1_{February 25, 2023
February
02
Feb
25
25
2023
01:41 PM
1
01
41
PM
PDT}

CR at 15, It has been stated that humans and apes had a common ancestor. And this assumes that a mostly ape gave birth to something more human - a primitive human. Which self-upgraded into so-called "modern humans." Please give the date (+/- 1,000 years) when this 'common ancestor' lived.relatd_{February 25, 2023
February
02
Feb
25
25
2023
12:23 PM
12
12
23
PM
PDT}

Prev 1 2 3 4 Next

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Leave a Reply