Design: All The Way Down

I have an answer to that question, and it should be obvious as well.

Oh, tell us!

Because they don’t like the implications of “the obvious”?

They’ll say that it’s apparent but there is no evidence and it is not falsifiable..
“It’s apparent but not evident”, I guess you could always slap them with a thesaurus upside the head rather than give a long winded reply.

The problem with talk about design is that there are some things that clearly strike us designed, when we know that they are not — faces in clouds, for example. Or eoliths.

The real question is, Why do so many (especially academic intellectuals) work so hard to deny the obvious?

“Denying the obvious” is a very common symptom which is almost always found in those afflicted with Reversed Brain Syndrome. It may take several doctors here to help determine the proper course of action for treatment when academic intellectuals are involved, but due to the highly debilitating and contagious nature of the disease it is recommended that the most extreme cases be dealt with by placing the patients in permanent solitary confinement.

No need to guess. You can get it right from one of the horse’s, er, mouths. This email was written by one of the scientists who tried to get Richard Sternberg to quit the Smithsonian because he allowed an ID article to be peer reviewed. See if you can find a motive here.

http://www.rsternberg.net/OSC_ltr.htm

“After spending 4.5 years in the Bible Belt, I have learned how to carefully phrase things in order to avoid the least amount of negative repercussions for the kids. And I have heard many amazing things!! The most fun we had by far was when my son refused to say the Pledge of Allegiance because of the ‘under dog’ part…” The e-mail concludes by lamenting that the school teacher was “religious” and it was unfortunate that there was “anti-evolution education” in the schools.

ID has to start publishing results in tomes other than books, let’s get the message out and available for free.

Could there be a section here for pieces of scientific work in support of ID?

“ID has to start publishing results in tomes other than books, let’s get the message out and available for free.”

lotf, maybe you haven’t been following the ID vs. blind faith in materialism controversy, but scientists who don’t enjoy being persecuted by wounded atheists aren’t exactly rushing to oppose saint darwin in the public arena.

“I have an answer to that question, and it should be obvious as well.”

I used to think it was because they didn’t want a God telling them what to do, but I think for many of them, their thought process has been infected by Darwinian logic - that is, the persistent denial of reality. I don’t think many of them are even capable of objectively viewing the world any longer.

The have too much to loose! In the it’s all about POPI, the persuite of personal interest.

@shaner74
Yes I am quite new to all this but I would think that most scientists would love to overturn the current paradigm, isn’t that what made Darwin famous in the first place?

@Patrick
Forgive me ignorance as I’m new here can you point me to an example of the explantory filter being used? This is the sort of thing I was meaning when I said we need to get the information out there and for free.

Carl Sachs

Faces in clouds are not machines with intricate interdependent parts and abstract codes working together to accomplish complex tasks. Neither are neoliths.

Try again.

DaveScot,

Fair enough, I suppose. But then again, neither are physical constants or the laws of nucleosynthesis. Part of my point in my glib posting above was that there’s some ambiguity in what is supposed to be taken as designed. Is it just the basics of molecular biology, as (14) suggests? Or is it the entire universe? Or . . . well, what, exactly?

The “faces in the clouds” was there just to say that not everything which seems designed really is. And that’s a good reason for thinking that we need something like Dembski’s explanatory filter.

But then GilDodgen cannot be right to suggest, as I thought he was, that everything which screams out to us as design really is, and that only some conspiracy on the part of materialists prevents the public acknowledgment of this obvious fact.

lotf, Carl Sachs:

anyone who is not familiar with the problems of design inference should try to read with attention Dembski’s works.

Just to give an input, I try here an extreme summary of the main ideas:

Design inference is the best explanation for information (CSI, complex specified information) with the following characteristics:

a) the particular information observed has a very low probability of occurring spontaneously in a random way. In other words, the observed information must be one specific configuration (or set of configurations) in a very large space of configurations. Dembski defines the limit for CSI at 1:10^150, just to be sure, but he is probably very, very generous…

b) the observed information is specified. The concept of specification is more subtle, and certainly subject to further analysis. A very simple summary could be that an information pattern is specified if it can be “recognized” in some precise ways: 1) Prespecification (the pattern has been defined before its occurence); 2) Compressibility (the information can be expressed in a much lower number of bits); 3) Function (the information can effect some specific function)

c) There must be no known law or other circumstance which can explain the observed information as the result of non random processes.

It’s liberating to think of being in a world without a design and designer. Ultimately, you are responsible for nothing and there is nothing to hold you back. There can be no guilt or shame.

Dawkins says that people believe in God because they don’t have the courage think of themselves as not being a product of purpose and that there is no prospect of an afterlife. Perhaps the Dawkinses of the world are materialists because they don’t have the courage to think of themselves as having responsibilities and purpose in their life. This would limit their freedoms.

Why do so many (especially academic intellectuals) work so hard to deny the obvious? I have an answer to that question, and it should be obvious as well.

You have got my attention!!! For I am totally stumped that so many supposedly rational people could deny the obvious!!

Please do tell!!

A poem for ID

Once upon a time on this earth, in a land far, far away,

A lone grain of wheat, amidst the grains of sand silently lay,

Then came the thunderstorms, watering the parched land

Soon afterwards a sprout from that grain of wheat was at hand.

Not one plant grew from any single grain of sand

Though multitudes amidst the soil would stand.

The lone grain of wheat grew to yield many more grains,

The multitudes of sand remained still in their numerous strains.

And so it is with Truth surrounded in a world of lies
The lone living Truth amidst falsehood multiplies.

Gil,

But what caused the worldview and is that cause still operative today helping to sustain it. Otherwise the worldview would slowly wither away like all false worldviews.

Gil, and maybe this relates to Jerry’s question, besides just a fallen world.

A worldview of evolution is connected to a social and cultural worldview. It cannot be disentangled. As is all information, the rejection of God causes information to cease in the eyes of those who reject him. They become blind. He essentially releases them to go their own way into oblivion.

Admitting their worldview is wrong is disconcerting because to play the rebel is easier. To surrender ones will to a Creator is to depose the small god inside us all who says we know what is best for us
(see George Soros; “I have always harbored an exaggerated view of my self-importance – to put it bluntly, I fancied myself as some kind of god.”)

link…
http://books.google.com/books?.....2-PA372,M1

scroll down page 372.

The materialist, atheist, never truly wants to grow up, or they think as a result of their education “today” that they have all the answers the unwashed masses do not. Their desire is to be their own gods, and promote their own worldview so as to live any life they like, to hell with all the rest. Politics is their salvation. Science is their salvation. And any more numerous pathways. But the zealots are there on the left in evolution, scientism, or whatever populist cause of the day. This is why our nation is hamstrung by a miniscule minority over sexual pleasure. Their wish is to be legitimized. The only way they can do so is to put down a Creator that disowns their lust.

Tolerance is only a word for those who agree with them. There is no such idea of tolerance for Christ, only scoffing and mocking. “Dumb” people believe in a Creator.
But it travels far deeper as one rejects God and refuses to grow up.

There is a good excerpt from Courting the Abyss; Free Speech and the Liberal Tradition by John Durham Peters.

http://www.press.uchicago.edu/.....62748.html

“…rather seek
Our own good from our selves, and from our own
Live to our selves, though in this vast recess,
Free, and to none accountable, preferring
Hard liberty before the easie yoke
Of servile pomp.”(Paradise Lost, 2.253–57)

It shows the different thinking between liberals and conservatives, atheist and theist in large part. One believes they must get down in the gutter to experience all of life. This liberal worldview is expressed thru the air of talking media, movie, tv, radio. Much like a scene from one of James Dean’s movies where he convinces a “friend” to try out “homosexual” behavior, yet never does himself. So too, our media today says “try it” you may like it and even if you do not, at least you experienced it and know better afterwards. But this is a lie and sends many people into a downward spiral of hell on earth. The liberal process does not inspect closely its own tennants to see the destruction left behind.

The truth is one not need try everything under the sun, to know the difference between good and evil or what can mess up your life. A man or woman does not need to try out everyone first before getting married. Nor does one need to teach our kids today that “how can you know homosexuality is bad for you if you have not tried it.” But it is being spread. And there exactly is the harm.

Having a Creator who knows best what road not to walk down, elminates the liberal subversion. It eliminates this need to explore every dark corner of which some are so proud to do. Essentially, their worldview is chaos. Try everything once in random fashion, much like how we “were created” by evolution. The destructive behavior “try anything once, twice if you like it” is built into the very fabric of those who detest a Creator.

Thus the need for random creation and random decisions in life.

Evolution means not only did we come from a monkey, but we can act like them too. And we can make studies showing that it is precisely because of our chimp ancestors that we act so accordingly to random nature.

If we’re here as a random accident, then our choics in life are meaningless and damn those who think otherwise. The professors won’t admit this, but they do so enjoy seeing the chaos at times that their teachings invoke.

Sorry for the length, no time to cut it down. Thanks for opportunity to state the obvious.

I intended to add the following…

“Consider a second actor, the abyss-redeemer. Abyss-artists and -redeemers have a symbiotic relationship. In the language of pop psychology, redeemers are “enablers,” people who provide material or emotional support for other people’s vices, yet often keep themselves aloof from such behaviors.”

and…

“Classic abyss-redeemers know the serious risks involved, so different from many latter-day liberals and civil libertarians, so certain of their theodicy that “the marketplace of ideas” will somehow take care of itself. Paul swoops into brief moments of heresy—Is God a liar? Should we sin so that grace may abound?— only to reemerge on the other end with a shudder at the thought he has just entertained. Let it not be, he exhorts.”

I’m not sure I share your optimism Gil, though you’re correct of where the evidence leads and even the trends in science publishing.

The key is as the internet grows. There have already been attempts to regulate it. Certainly and unfortunately modern day governments and even those who say, “do no evil” like Google in China, do exactly the opposite by censoring their own search engine.

“Why do so many (especially academic intellectuals) work so hard to deny the obvious?”

Because they’re sheltered from the real world. They begin to believe they’re superior to us “common folk” and this leads to their very own god-complexes, which of course leads to denying any evidence that may point to an actual God. Of course, I’m generalizing. This doesn’t apply to all academic intellectuals (like duh). It’s just that you usually don’t hear football coaches talking about the materialist victory over religious belief, but you may hear a football coach giving advice that could change someones life for the better – something I doubt Dawkins and his ilk does much of.

All the way down to chemistry:

http://exploringourmatrix.blog.....dless.html

I’m dismayed by some of the examples of poor understanding of evolution in some of the comments left here, as well as some of the logical fallacies. Couldn’t someone argue that if, as the Bible says, we were made from dust, then that gives us the right to act like dust? And just because extremists on the other end of the spectrum say that science implies atheism and metaphysical materialism, why take such claims at face value, when so many scientists (a significant number of whom are religious believers) see no such necessary logical implication in the work of the sciences?

As one of these much disparaged academic intellectuals, I honestly feel as though it is ID rather than mainstream science that is “working hard to deny the obvious”.

I’m in agreement with one major point made in (26): when some scientist claims that “science implies atheism and metaphysical materialism,” I don’t see why such arguments are even taken to be convincing. (Here, I’ll even add the important stipulation: not even when ’science’ is read as ‘neo-Darwinian accounts of the history of life’.)

The situation here parallels the association between “Darwinism” and Nazism; no doubt th Nazis claimed that “Darwinism” was an influence, but were they right? Dawkins claims that neo-Darwinism entails materialism/atheism, but is the argument actually any good?

I fear that most people here are willing to accept these claims without examining the reasoning behind them. Or is that not so?

Well, ReligionProf is at it again.

I am sorry he is dismayed by our poor understanding of evolution. For my part, I am really dismayed by his poor (and very creative) understanding of evolution, ID, and probably a bundle of other things.

As he has never answered a single word to any of my many posts about his messages, I won’t go on commenting them. But anyone who really wants to get a feeling of his true thoughts is strongly encouraged to read something from his personal blog, which you can find, in all its glory, at the link shamelessly given by the author himself in his last post. Believe me, it’s something of an experience!

“It’s liberating to think of being in a world without a design and designer. Ultimately, you are responsible for nothing and there is nothing to hold you back. There can be no guilt or shame.”

You can have the with a designer as well.

If I believe in a God who pre-planned/designed everything even if you were to argue that I have “free will” I could state that there is no freedom so long as I am limited to a certain number of choices.

Freedom is absolute, it’s more like “loose will”
Because of my belief that his will was what gave rise to my existence I could then state then anything and everything I do is his will.

And “I” being only a small part in this creation, this ongoing play (full of ironies, tragedies) of his. I am simply following the path he has set for me.

I am therefor not responsible for any of my actions as they are not my own and would happen regardless.

Religion is not a leash it is an escape.

And honestly Richard Dawkins should do the world a favor and stay FAR FAR away from theology.

He is to theology what Rev. Pat Robertson is to diplomacy.
(refference to his calling for the head of hugo chavez.)

I forgot the other part of your comment

“Dawkins says that people believe in God because they don’t have the courage think of themselves as not being a product of purpose”

But stating you belong to a historical lineage in which there is a tournament for survival is a purpose.

I could argue that Dawkins is doing the exact same thing by denying there is agod he can avoid an afterlife with consequences and act carelessly.
His actions are simply what his genes lead him to do.

By fabricating a purpose he like a religious person can avoid unpleasent truths, That’s because he is religious!

Again this man is a walking talking contradiction.

“I’m dismayed by some of the examples of poor understanding of evolution”

I’m beginning to think most ID critics are either broken records or parrots.

I tend to post things on my blog because I just tried to post here and it didn’t go through and now I’ll have to type it all out again - if it lets me!

“I’m dismayed by some of the examples of poor understanding of evolution”

ReligionProf should back up this claim. It is one thing to say something vague and meaningless like the quote above and another to point out the deficiencies of our comments so we can clarify them or learn from the debate. Otherwise the above quote is nothing more than an ad hominem attack and unworthy of anyone who teaches religion.

Religion Professor,
I just saw this quote by Richard Dawkins over at PZ’s site that I thought you may be interested in.

We who doubt that “theology” is a subject at all, or who compare it with the study of leprechauns, are eagerly hoping to be proved wrong. Of course, university departments of theology house many excellent scholars of history, linguistics, literature, ecclesiastical art and music, archaeology, psychology, anthropology, sociology, iconology, and other worthwhile and important subjects. These academics would be welcomed into appropriate departments elsewhere in the university. But as for theology itself, defined as “the organised body of knowledge dealing with the nature, attributes, and governance of God”, a positive case now needs to be made that it has any real content at all, and that it has any place in today’s universities.

Now it is getting personal Professor ,,He’s after your job too!!!

Religious Prof”

I well remember a vist to your website a few months ago, a time when you were singing the praises of Barbara Forrest and encouraging everyone to sign on to her perverse perspectives on ID. It was clear that her fantasty about this so-called religion-based methodology was also your fantasy.

It is ironic, then, that you would claim that UD bloggers don’t understand evolution, which they clearly do, while you claim to understand ID, which you clearly don’t. Given this bizarre situation, I dare you to do two things:

1) Explain Dembski’s explanatory filter in your own words–no googling.

2) Justify your fantasy that it a religion-based methodology.

Obviously, that justification may not include your perception of the author’s motives or any other attempt at psychoanalysis.

Oh yes, and be concise.

Well, I just had to have a look at ReligionProf’s blog and my first impression left me with the following advice.

ReligionProf, you have to find a way to let your epistemic persona comport with the complete set of external epistemic resources at your disposal. It is so out of place to have an internalistic epistemic persona adapted only to what you internally think is knowledge. Something does not become knowledge because you perceived it to be cool based on your own eclectic collection of epistemic resources.

I personally assume that my interaction with other peoples’ thoughts to be part of the complete set of reality and if something seems not to comport I first adjust my “resolution” to ensure that I am functioning properly.

By now I hope that you have guessed it - Most people discussing on UD seems to have moved past Post-modernism a long time ago. Come and join us it is great fun.

I don’t know what gave the impression that I am working within a postmodern framework. Or is “postmodern” just another way of saying “can’t see the logic of our arguments, and so must be working from flawed presuppositions”?

I tried posting several times today but with several instances of the posts vanishing. Some of you may wish to see divine providence in this. This evening we had Sean Carroll speak at the university, and the presentation was very informative, as well as entertaining.

ReligionProf, you just confirm my argument with this response 39 - I gave you advice that show you clearly how to sidestep a special definition of postmodernism that I also described in enough detail. To restate: “Something does not become knowledge because you perceived it to be cool based on your own eclectic collection of epistemic resources.”

Then I explained my own method and then you concluded I don’t understand your logic and don’t like your presuppositions. It seems you need to take my advice more seriously.

There is actually two positions you can have that is not post-modernism. The one is to revert back to some type of reformed dogmatic modernism or to move beyond and free yourself from metaphysical naturalism. Where are you, if not post-modernism?

I suppose Sean Carroll was fun and I hope you managed to find more decorations for your eclectic epistemic collection. I personally love cosmology, dark matter and more, you can have a look at some of my posts that reference the Casimir Effect, Boltzmann Brains and Infinite Multiverse hypothesis.

This is great insight #41. It is my impression is that some professors of religion and psychologists belief they are the courageous knights in shining armor that can make sense of materialist/naturalist reality and lift themselves by their own bootstraps out of the pond of despair, lending the rest of society a hand out of despair. Obviously this great task will land them back in despair at some point. (This idea gives credit to the great minds I unashamedly reference without recalling their names.)

I personally think self imposed metaphysical naturalism is foolish to the n-th degree and comport with very little in nature. But then there are those who belief we only observe material nature, therefore Shakespeare’s work is only material.

Not metaphysical naturalism, when it comes to science. Just methodological.

I’m not sure that my being at a university without religious affiliation makes me a ’secular professor’. Lehigh University is not denominational, so I hope you will be fair and treat him as a ’secular professor’ too!

Religion Prof: Here is my ten-part test for a secular professor. (10 points for every yes)

1) Evolution is a demonstrable fact, but the handiwork of God is undetectable.

2) a. The absolute separation of Church and state protects reasonable people from crazy Chrisitan fundamentalists and upstart critics of evolution.

3) Immanual Kant was the greatest philospher because he taught us how to be skeptical.

4) The Christians initiated all the wars with the Muslims

5) To speak about killing the unborn, especially in polite company, is far worse than doing it.

6) We should worry less about sexual immoralty and more about violence.

7) Jesus Christ did not physically rise from the dead, but we can all experience our own sense of “rebirth.”

All religions are more or less equal in value.

9) We should call illegal aliens “undocumented workers.”

10) The pope is a tyrant, but Stalin was minunderstood.

Religious Prof.
At the risk of boring regular readers of this blog, and in case you haven’t read this list before, I will post the 12 predictions list again just for you, primarily since you claim to be a Theist!

1. Materialism did not predict the big bang. Yet Theism always said the universe was created.

2. Materialism did not predict a sub-atomic (quantum) world that blatantly defies our concepts of time and space. Yet Theism always said the universe is the craftsmanship of God who is not limited by time or space.

3. Materialism did not predict the fact that time, as we understand it, comes to a complete stop at the speed of light, as revealed by Einstein’s special theory of relativity. Yet Theism always said that God exists in a timeless eternity.

4. Materialism did not predict the stunning precision for the underlying universal constants for the universe, found in the Anthropic Principle, which allows life as we know it to be possible. Yet Theism always said God laid the foundation of the universe, so the stunning, unchanging, clockwork precision found for the various universal constants is not at all unexpected for Theism.

5. Materialism predicted that complex life in this universe should be fairly common. Yet statistical analysis of the many required parameters that enable complex life to be possible on earth reveals that the earth is extremely unique in its ability to support complex life in this universe. Theism would have expected the earth to be extremely unique in this universe in its ability to support complex life.

6. Materialism did not predict the fact that the DNA code is, according to Bill Gates, far, far more advanced than any computer code ever written by man. Yet Theism would have naturally expected this level of complexity in the DNA code.

7. Materialism presumed a extremely beneficial and flexible mutation rate for DNA, which is not the case at all. Yet Theism would have naturally presumed such a high if not, what most likely is, complete negative mutation rate to an organism’s DNA.

8. Materialism presumed a very simple first life form. Yet the simplest life ever found on Earth is, according to Geneticist Michael Denton PhD., far more complex than any machine man has made through concerted effort. Yet Theism would have naturally expected this level of complexity for the “simplest” life on earth.

9. Materialism predicted that it took a very long time for life to develop on earth. Yet we find evidence for “complex” photo-synthetic life in the oldest sedimentary rocks ever found on earth (Minik T. Rosing and Robert Frei, “U-Rich Archaean Sea-Floor Sediments from Greenland—Indications of >3700 Ma Oxygenic Photosynthesis”, Earth and Planetary Science Letters 6907 (2003): 1-8) Theism would have naturally expected this sudden appearance of life on earth.

10. Materialism predicted the gradual unfolding of life to be self-evident in the fossil record. The Cambrian Explosion, by itself, destroys this myth. Yet Theism would have naturally expected such sudden appearance of the many different and completely unique fossils in the Cambrian explosion.

11. Materialism predicted that there should be numerous transitional fossils found in the fossil record. Yet fossils are characterized by sudden appearance in the fossil record and overall stability as long as they stay in the fossil record. There is not one clear example of unambiguous transition between major species out of millions of collected fossils. Theism would have naturally expected fossils to suddenly appear in the fossil record with stability afterwards as well as no evidence of transmutation into radically new forms.

12. Materialism predicts animal speciation should happen on a somewhat constant basis on earth. Yet man himself is the last scientifically accepted fossil to suddenly appear in the fossil record. Theism would have predicted that man himself was the last fossil to suddenly appear in the fossil record.

Ooh, a fun test! Can I play, too?

I’d answer “yes” to (1), (6), and (7). The other questions are too vague. I do support separation of church and stat, but not for the reason given; likewise, I do think Kant was one of the greatest philosophers, but not for the reason given. It’s not clear what kind of “value” is involved in (8), and I don’t even see what (9) has to do with it.

Is it a problem that this “test” doesn’t really distinguish between secularism, atheism, and liberalism? I mean, sure, I’m a champion of all three, but surely there are many people, professors or not, who champion only one or two.

If I failed the test, does that mean I’m not a secular professor (perhaps that I’m even, as one person keeps calling me, a ‘religious prof’ and not merely a ‘religion prof’?)

I gave myself a ‘5′ on ones where I only agreed partially (I scored a 35 in total). I certainly agree that evolution is a demonstrable fact. I don’t presuppose that God’s handiwork cannot be detected, although I certainly do not feel I have a basis for assuming that, for there to be such a thing as God’s handiwork, something out of the ordinary MUST BE DETECTABLE.

Would you classify most Christians as secular professors? I think most of us have discerned God’s hand in some event or some aspect of our lives, on the basis of the way things came together, rather than because some aspect of what happened was strictly speaking ‘inexplicable’.

I hope my score helps make a point that I’ve been trying to make all along. There are plenty of places to stop in between the extremes. The slope is only as slippery as you make it. I’ll defer to my blog once again for a discussion of why I think that fundamentalists on both sides are greasing the very slope on which many Christians are trying to find the balanced middle ground.

http://exploringourmatrix.blog.....ck-to.html

Rel. Prof. you stated:

I certainly agree that evolution is a demonstrable fact.

Please do share this demonstrable fact with us and we will gladly show you how it fails to provide conclusive proof!!! On top of that we will most likely show you how your demonstrable fact for evolution actually demonstrates Genetic Entropy, thus actually proves genetic deterioration!!!!

The DNA evidence clinches the case for evolution much the same way it clinches paternity testing. When one adds this sort of evidence to the fossil record, the homologies of organisms, and the witnessing of bacterial evolution on a smaller scale in the lab, there is really no reason to doubt, unless one has a strong ideological bias.

Since scientific evidence seems not to persuade you, perhaps copyright law will. Shared errors are proof of copying. Apply that to DNA, and common ancestry becomes hard to deny. At least, hard for anyone who is seeking to do justice to the evidence, rather than to make it say what they want it to say.

http://biomed.brown.edu/Course.....ution.HTML

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/molgen/

http://www.npr.org/templates/s.....Id=6353991

If you’ve met biologists, you’ll know they aren’t (as a rule) stupid. And since Fred Hoyle’s attempt to maintain a steady state cosmology because it was more compatible with his atheism failed because of the evidence for the Big Bang, the secular atheist conspiracy argument is not only implausible, but laughably so. The only explanation for why all but a few biologists accept the evidence for evolution as persuasive is that the evidence is persuasive, at least if you know enough biology to understand it.

Evolution is demonstrable but one has to be careful with what one means. The number of different cell types in living organisms is over 200 and has been increasing over time. So something is happening. The intelligence level of many new species has increased. The fossil record shows changes in species and it seems to be following a pattern. What is missing is any demonstrable evidence for the mechanism for the changes.

The neo Darwinism definition of evolution is very simple and it is the change in the allele frequency of a population over time. And this is easily seen within many populations.

What has to be guarded against is the equivocal use of words as it means one thing in one sentence and another in a later sentence often in the same paragraph.

I doubt ReligionProf’s definition/use is demonstrable. He cannot seem to provide any evidence even though he admires Sean Carroll and recently heard him speak.

Rel.Prof.
Boy you swallowed the whole hook line and sinker,,bear with me, it is going to take a while to get you unhooked,,,that is IF you want to be unhooked.

First DNA evidence:

Naturalists always try to establish scientific validity for evolution by pointing to suggestive similarities while ignoring the foundational principle of science (genetic entropy) that contradicts their preconceived philosophical bias. For example, naturalists say that evolution is proven true when we look at the 98.8% similarity between certain segments of the DNA in a Chimpanzee and compare them with the same segments of DNA of a Human. Yet that similarity is not nearly good enough to be considered “conclusive” scientific proof. For starters, preliminary comparisons of the complete genome of chimps and the complete genome of man yield a similarity of only 96%. Dr. Hugh Ross states the similarity may actually be closer to 85% to 90%. Secondarily, at the protein level only 29% of genes code for the exact same amino acid sequences in chimps and humans (Nature, 2005). As well, our DNA is 92% similar to mice as well as 92% similar to zebrafish (Simmons PhD., Billions of Missing Links). So are we 92% mouse or are we 92% zebrafish? Our DNA is 70% similar to a fruit fly; So are we therefore 70% fruit fly? Our DNA is 75% similar to a worm; So are we 75% worm? No, of course not!! This type of reasoning is simple minded in its approach and clearly flawed in establishing a solid scientific foundation on which to draw valid inferences from! Clearly, we must find if the DNA is flexible enough to accommodate any type of mutations happening to it in the first place. This one point of evidence, (The actual flexibility of DNA to any random mutations), must be firmly established, first and foremost, before we can draw any meaningful inferences from the genetic data we gather from organisms!! Fortunately we, through the miracle of science, can now establish this crucial point of DNA flexibility. The primary thing that is crushing to the evolutionary theory is this fact. Of the random mutations that do occur, and have manifested traits in organisms that can be measured, at least 999,999 out of 1,000,000 (99.9999%) of these mutations to the DNA have been found to produce traits in organisms that are harmful and/or to the life-form having the mutation (Gerrish and Lenski, 1998)! Professional evolutionary biologists are hard-pressed to cite even one clear-cut example of evolution through a beneficial mutation to DNA that would violate the principle of genetic entropy. Although evolutionists try to claim the lactase persistence mutation as a lonely example of a beneficial mutation in humans, lactase persistence is actually a loss of a instruction in the genome to turn the lactase enzyme off, so the mutation clearly does not violate genetic entropy. Yet at the same time, the evidence for the detrimental nature of mutations in humans is clearly overwhelming, for doctors have already cited over 3500 mutational disorders (Dr. Gary Parker).

“It is entirely in line with the al nature of naturally occurring mutations that extensive tests have agreed in showing the vast majority of them to be detrimental to the organisms in its job of surviving and reproducing, just as changes ally introduced into any artificial mechanism are predominantly harmful to its useful operation” H.J. Muller (Received a Nobel Prize for his work on mutations to DNA)
“But there is no evidence that DNA mutations can provide the sorts of variation needed for evolution… There is no evidence for beneficial mutations at the level of macroevolution, but there is also no evidence at the level of what i