E. O. Wilson on ID

Sounds like this Wilson fellow is one bad man. Whoa, just googled him. He’s pretty old, too.

Well, he’ll know the Truth soon enough.

I find it funny that materialists build their whole belief system on the self-sufficiency of material and chance to explain everything. Yet when material is taken to its most basic level, with quantum mechanics, it defies any presupposed material explanation and only finds a reasonable explanation within the Theistic framework, i.e. a sub-atomic world that is not limited by time or space built by a Creator Who is not limited by time or space.

The other thing is that the number of biological systems that exhibit IC, SC or OC are in the thousands if not more.

So providing evidence of how one of these systems arose would not solve the total picture. However, if biology had a track record of providing evidence instead of speculation for how several of these systems arose then the ID position would be much weaker. But as of today they are essentially batting .000.

This is the first comment on Wilson’s post.

The point is not whether evolution by natural selection is a fact or not. We may well find a more satisfactory theory of evolution. The point is that the ‘facts’ of ‘revealed’ religion are rubbish and the God of ‘revealed’ religion is abominable.

The first point the commenter makes admits what we all know –that random mutations directed by natural selection (orthodox evolution / gradualism) is not a satisfactory explanation for complex adaptations and the general evolution of life. Fair enough – I share this view.

The second point is the interesting one, and I think it summarizes most of the views held by evolutionists. That is, intelligent design = a designer which = god which = the god of the bible. It doesn’t take much then to show that this god (the bible one) is not exactly the meek grey bearded one we would all like to imagine.

Intelligent design is currently the best explanation we have for information rich complex adaptations. And yes, the lack of evidence for naturalistic theories does give more credibility to intelligent design. But to link ID to any religions god is without doubt a blatant strawman tactic.

There is no reason why this intelligent designer should even be a personal being let alone one that has had any interaction with mankind by way of written documents or miraculous acts. Therefore I return to the first point and ask for a more satisfactory theory of evolution, one that can account for what otherwise we would attribute to intelligence.

Taling about SC:
Is this a “designed” SC-structure?

http://www.vsa-apothekensystem e.de/uploads/RTEmagicC_239_Bie nenwaben.jpg.jpg

“Even a combined Nobel prize and Templeton prize (the latter designed to encourage the search for just such harmony) would fall short as proper recognition.”

Aren’t we still waiting for the first Nobel Prize to recognize the publication of the first description of how RM + NS (or any variant on that theme) produces even one complex molecular machine? I wonder why that is? Maybe E.O. should think about the fact that the modern synthesis is “Science of the gaps”. (I almost wrote “of the gasp”, and that would have been accurate too…)

“strict creationists insist that no evolution ever occurred”.

I have never met a “strict creationist” by this definition. Another “straw dummy”?

I have heard it said that Intelligent Design is the best explanation for certain biological systems (supposedly thousands of them).

But it leads me to a puzzle which I have yet to find a satisfactory solution for. Putting aside the veracity or accuracy of design Vs evolution, I am forced to question the value.

From what I have read Evolution represents at least a partial solution (for those who disagree with this, then we are not discussing the same Intelligent Design which I have read about). Evolution has proven useful in the several areas of research including the study of disease and the development of resistance to treatment.

When I investigate Intelligent Design, I am unable to discern the value. The designer, and nature of intervention (frequency, mechanism, reason) appear to be outside the scope.

I don’t wish to present a “strawman” but I have come to my own conclusion that it is analogous to declaring that some problems simply cannot be solved. Even if it is entirely accurate, it this context it seems to serve only as an excuse, a reason to give up on certain research as unsolvable. If this is the case, is it not better to treat all problems (evolutionary steps) as potentially solvable rather than misidentifying one as unsolvable?

‘Evolution’ to the public is defined as ‘change over time’. Then change that definition and proclaim ’strict creationists insist that no evolution ever occurred’

har har

E.O makes no sense whatsover.

ellazimm,

your said

“I will do my best to be open minded but I’d feel better with objective data.”

“Can I please ask everyone to honestly examine the evidence for premise 2. My contention is that there is quite a lot of positive physical evidence that is in accordance with evolutionary theory whereas there is very little positive empirical evidence in support of ID.”

You say you like objective information. Then I think you have to put up or shut up. What is the extensive positive physical evidence that is in accordance with evolutionary theory for creating IC, SC and OC? You have to understand you will be the first one to do this, so we are not too hopeful. But give it a shot. And by the way explain just what is evolutionary theory. There are a lot of theories out there.

Do you disagree that intelligence can create IC, SC and OC? What ID says that this is a given. No one doubts this. It also says that no non intelligent process has ever come close to creating these types of complexity. But you seem to disagree so the onus is on you.

Good luck.

Systems theory says that natural systems are self-organizing and evolve towards greater complexity. It’s really saying the same thing as Intelligent Design, but scientists might find the terminology more acceptable.

Older scientific ideas like systems theory and vitalism are very relevant to the evolution controversy, but are seldom mentioned.

“Any researcher who can prove the existence of intelligent design within the accepted framework of science will make history and achieve eternal fame. They will prove at last that science and religious dogma are compatible.”

Why does E. O. Wilson think that present-day “Scientists” would even understand what they were looking at once it was submitted; especially since they haven’t understood it yet?

- More than likely, religionists would recognize it before scientists would.
- More than likely, it would be discarded as fantasy by “Scientists” and character assassination of the author(s) and his/their followers would begin.
- More than likely, it wouldn’t be taught in schools because of the religious implications involved; especially if it proved the existence of God.
- More than likely, it would end up being the target of mass suppression because it showed that “Good” and “Evil”, “Right” and “Wrong”, “Truth” and “Lie” truly exist.

So, my question is that if someone had such a theory, to whom or to where would they submit it?

This post and the comments by Aquiesce are disturbing to me and I am sure will be plenty disturbing to many other Americans. it sounds as if ID is attempting to distance itself from the God of the Bible. I know for a fact that ID was predicated upon the God of the Bible and it will not behoove the folks who are in charge of ID to attempt to distance themselves from the Designer.

Compartmentalizations such as ‘well, it might be god or it might be aliens or something that has never even had interaction with mankind’ are the same kind of denials that the materialists make with respect to their absolute lack of a moral foundation since they deny the Holy Spirit.

I find it hard to believe that such a godly man as DR Dembski and Phillip Johnson and Jonathan Wells are going on the record as saying it is possible that they are holding to a false faith, or that God might just turn out to be an alien or some aloof hyperdimensional being.

If you don’t accept the God of the Bible then you are just as lost as the direst atheist materialist. What does it profit a man to gain the scientific establishment if he lose his very soul?

“Certain biological systems have some diagnostic feature, be it IC (irreducible complexity) or SC (specified complexity) or OC (organized complexity) etc.”

Can you define these terms such that they are functionally distinct from “I know it when I see it”? If so, then your point would be a lot stronger. What is exact the mathematical definition of SC, for instance?

A journal of information theory would no doubt be very excited to publish such a useful tool that can reliably distinguish active design from the products of things like genetic algorithms (if, of course, you would allow for any such a distinction to be made such that SC wasn’t simply an assumed part of anything that looks complex or well adapted): you wouldn’t even have to mention ID or any implications at that point. Why not do that?

Premise 2: Materialistic explanations have been spectacularly unsuccessful in explaining such systems — we have no positive evidence for thinking that material mechanisms can generate them.

elazimm:
“Premise 2: Again a matter of opinion and there is no positive empirical evidence against a deterministic explanation.”
“…..My contention is that there is quite a lot of positive physical evidence that is in accordance with evolutionary theory whereas there is very little positive empirical evidence in support of ID.”

What would you consider positive empirical evidence for a “non-deterministic” or ID explanation? A pattern in bone microstructure saying “a message from your sponsor”? Somehow observing the event by traveling back in time?

In your disagreement it is your obligation to present the evidence. Please make it more than evidence for microevolution, which is fully accepted by ID proponents. This also needs to be more than fossil evidence of major transitional forms showing large evolutionary innovations at the order, class and higher levels (also accepted by ID proponents), but fossil evidence of the vast numbers of transitional forms to be expected from the NDE process.

Lazarus, didn’t you get the memo?

ID must be totally neutral on all God-talk if it’s going to be introduced in public schools as a scientific alternative to evolution.

Hence design theorists are trying to re-cast the debate as one between a scientific theory which is at least compatible with monotheism (though not implying it) and one that is incompatible with monotheism.

This is part of why, so far as I understand it, design theorists have been severely critical of “theistic evolutionists,” or for that matter, any person of faith who accepts neo-Darwinian evolution.

magnan it sounds like you believe that men are descended from monkeys. If this is what ID is about I am pretty sure that we can do better. Dr Dembski and Phillip Johnson doesn’t believe this crap and I don’t know why he lets you say this sort of stuff on his blog.

If Jesus was just an ape then the bible doesn’t mean anything, and if the bible isn’t true then ID isn’t true. there is not other possible designer than the god of the bible and it is a fools errand to go running around pretending that we don’t know that this is true, all in the name of some liberal postmodern all truths are created equal kind of jibberjabber.

Carl Sachs,

you said

“This is part of why, so far as I understand it, design theorists have been severely critical of “theistic evolutionists,” or for that matter, any person of faith who accepts neo-Darwinian evolution.”

Who are these design theorists who are critical of TE? There are plenty of people here who criticize TE but these are certainly not the design theorists you refer to.

Here we go again. Lazarus, please review the recent debate with your comrade Solon in an earlier thread at http://www.uncommondescent.com.....th-throes/.

Jerry,

I was thinking of Dembski’s criticisms of “theistic evolution”:

As far as design theorists are concerned, theistic evolution is an oxymoron, something like “purposeful purposelessness.” If God purposely created life through the means proposed by Darwin, then God’s purpose was to make it seem as though life was created without any purpose. According to the Darwinian picture, the natural world provides no clue that a purposeful God created life. For all we can tell, our appearance on planet earth is an accident. If it were all to happen again, we wouldn’t be here. No, the heavens do not declare the glory of God, and no, God’s invisible attributes are not clearly seen from God’s creation. This is the upshot of theistic evolution as the design theorists construe it.

From “What Every Theologian Should Know about Creation, Evolution, and Design.”

Moreover, I find that Dembski’s stance is well-represented among pro-ID bloggers here. Or am I totally off-base here?

magnan are you going to address my comments or obfuscate and change the subject?

Lazarus, you might not know this, but we’ve had some trouble lately with people who might have been pretending to be pro-ID but really trying to stir up trouble. (Or at least that’s how the situation seemed to most of the posters here. I still don’t know what was going on with “Solon.”)

Don’t be surprised if you get a more critical or hostile response than you were expecting — that is, assuming you’re sincere.

Lazarus,

ID is compatible with Christianity as I see it. I also believe it is compatible with many other religions including pagan religions with multiple gods. It is also compatible with various forms of deism. Even cosmological ID does not necessarily point to monotheism. However, ID is not compatible with atheism. One has to look elsewhere than ID to support their particular religious or philosophical beliefs.

And by the way, theistic evolutionists do not accept ID and consider themselves very good Christians. They look at ID as worshiping a lesser God, one that could not get it right from the beginning and thus had to constantly tinker. They believe God embedded the inevitability of life and all its variants as part of the initial conditions at the Big Bang. That according to them is a truly omnipotent God. Life to them is a high probability event not a low probability one.

I do not agree with the TE’s but that is what many of them believe.

Carl thanks for being mildly civil. I am as concerned as you about folks that purport to be pro-ID but when the roll is called are willing to backpedal and attempt to change the subject about what the true design inference is all about.

I am very concerned that we are harming the cause of Christ.

For those who wish to know, yes i was Solon.

I was banned and not allowed to comment for three days and I gave up.

Following this, a moderator has the temerity to tell me he will be watching my posts in the future!!! Can you believe this? I am eliminated from the conversation, commenters see this as a concession to their ill-conceived and contrived points, and then a MODERATOR tells me that he will be watching me closely! Watching me do what?

This sort of intellectual dishonesty is at the heart of the ‘ID’ movement and is a serious obstacle to the stated goals of ID, namely winning souls for Christ. All this crap about ‘good science’ is just metaphysical masturbation and you would do well to get back to the basics and skip all of the crap that is just a carrot on a stick to non-believers and a political move to enlarge the base.

And when you do that, you are not following Christ.

kairos, I am real, and I don’t really care what your blog says or what kind of garbage you can post here without dealing with the issue: The bible is either true, or not. If it is not true, in your fallen opinion and in the opinion of ‘intelligent’ design, then I will encourage my fellow christians to disassociate themselves from the wolf in sheeps clothing that is ID.

If you be not for Christ, you be not for me. I don’t know if you read the polls, but you need us.

Carl Sachs,

I will have to read Dembski’s article more closely and see how he treats the TE’s, especially the ones at ASA who think ID is screwed up theology.

In the mean time, my beliefs on ID relative to religion are just above and I will have to read all of Dembski article to see if/how he differs. I am not a theologian by any means and Dembski is but so are many of the people at ASA who differ with him.

Lazarus, I (and hopefully others here) see where you’re coming from, but consider the situation from their point of view.

Firstly, if intelligent design is identified with, or necessarily entails, monotheism, then it cannot, under the present law, be taught as an alternative to neo-Darwinian evolution in a public school science class or in any university which relies on state or federal funding.

You might think “so much the worse for the law!” but I’m afraid that’s pretty much how it stands.

Thus, while an ID proponent can be a Christian, nothing about the logic of ID requires her to be a Christian. ID advertises itself as compatible with Christianity, and perhaps it is — but there’s an important difference between “compatible with” and “necessarily entails” and “is identical with.”

Secondly, while you might not be interested in questions of evidence and theory, many of those here are interested in just those questions. You’ll do little but irritate those of us who find those issues of great interest.

At the end of the day, you might be best served by simply saying that you and the IDers are fighting in two very different battles on the same war.

Carl Sachs,

Thanks for pointing out the article by Dembski. I believe it should be required reading for all who come here whether ID supporters or not.

The other interesting thing about the article is that it was written 11 years ago and I find nothing or very little that should be changed.

I have often made the claim that ID subsumes neo Darwinism and this article supports that position and so does Michael Behe.

It is the Blind Watchmaker thesis which is at odds with ID, not neo Darwinism as a scientific theory. We have to recognize that they are different even though many biologists do not see the differences nor do many ID proponents. Both Dembski and Behe accepts neo Darwinism but maintains it has limits and its effect in terms of evolution is real but trivial. I doubt few would question the genetic implications of mutations on inheritance and disease which is classic neo Darwinism and of extreme importance.

All those coming here with the idea that ID is vacuous should read the article before posting their comments that challenge ID.

Lazarus, look, just get off of the site. This is not your site. And all of this crap about the dishonesty of the ID movement is all BS and you know it. People don’t even allow it to stand on its own two feet so we have to come here and talk to one another without constant interruption by a bunch of people like yourself who use nonsensical irrelevant arguments that have nothing to do with ID. This is why they have to monitor you. I question if you have even read the material and if you are even interested in ID in the first place or if you just come here for a bitch session. If it was my site you would be gone. If Jesus is your thing go do that but ID is not about Jesus. I repeat ID is not about Jesus. It is compatible with fundamentalist Christianity but it is not confined to it nor dependent on it. And we don’t need you. I don’t even want you. We don’t want to win the debate in the political or religious arena we want to win it in the scientific arena. If our (ID’s) ideas can’t champion origin science and appeal to the average mind then it is not meant to be heard. Or as Christ said “let the spiritually dead care for themselves.” It is people like you who constantly conflate ID with religion that are giving this scientific theory a bad name. This is not about Christ. It never has been and it never will be. Christ or no Christ ID stays. It never rested on Christ’s shoulders. ID is supported by the design inference and No Free Lunch and Michael Behe’s work with irreducibly complex biological mechanisms and Stephen Meyers work with fossils, DNA and digital code. We are not selling Christ. If ID increases your faith and that is what you want then great. But don’t come on this site to blabber about nothing and try to pick a political or religious fight. We are trying to progress science and philosophy- trying to move it beyond the fallacy of methodological materialism which ignores truth. If your posy of Christians are only interested in ID as a way of propping up your faith then your not real supporters of ID because you fail to grasp the theory for what it is and worse you are not real Christians because you fail to take Christ for his word. Christ might be the ultimate truth but it’s not provable and it’s not science. Christ always requested faith. Science requires facts.

I was just going to comment that Lazarus was Solon raided from the dead, and there he goes, blowing his own cover. I’m a bit miffed that I didn’t get to post my conjecture before it was confirmed. A body always wants to look a bit prescient, for sure.

Frost122585 - nice post

Those linking ID to any particular religious view are, in my opinion, doing irreparable damaged to its standing at large and especially in the scientific establishment. As Frost has already aptly put it – ID is compatible with many religious views, but is not confined or dependant on them.

Lazarus, you must understand that some people (myself included) could never accept the argument that there is a god which could apparently do what is claimed in the bible. This is not because we hate the idea of god.

H’mm:

I think we could all do with a bit of cooling off from the hot remarks above!

(BTW, Lazarus/Solon — L/S — there is a Kairos here and a (different) Kairosfocus. I take it your remarks [though I was not present when they were made] target me, as Kairos so far as I know does not maintain his own reference site. If you object to the substance of what I have to say in my always linked, why not address it on the merits of fact and logic; here, especially the logic of inference to best explanation which is the underlying context of scientific thought? And, if you doubt that this is a reasonable exercise for a Bible-believing Christian, then perhaps you need to re-read Rom 1 - 2, esp. 1:19 - 24 [notice the appeal to the acknowledged validity of the evidence of nature without and heart and mind within], 2:6 - 8 and 14 - 16. And, of course, you have not to date taken up my invitation to dialogue from the previous thread.)

Having noted as above, can we now focus on the interesting points that lie in the contrast between E O Wilson’s claim . . . .

The formulation of intelligent design is a default argument advanced in support of a non sequitur. It is in essence the following: there are some phenomena that have not yet been explained and that (most importantly) the critics personally cannot imagine being explained; therefore there must be a supernatural designer at work

. . . and Dr Dembski’s summary:

This is a strawman. Here is the argument ID proponents [of whom Dr Dembski is arguably the leading exemplar] actually make:

* Premise 1: Certain biological systems have some diagnostic feature, be it IC (irreducible complexity) or SC (specified complexity) or OC (organized complexity) etc.
* Premise 2: Materialistic explanations have been spectacularly unsuccessful in explaining such systems — we have no positive evidence for thinking that material mechanisms can generate them.
* Premise 3: Intelligent agency is known to have the causal power to produce systems that display IC/SC/OC.
* Conclusion: Therefore, biological systems that exhibit IC/SC/OC are likely to be designed.

I would especially be interested to see how Dr Dembski defines “organised complexity” as that is tied closely to functionally specified and integrated, complex information. At least, if I am correct to infer that he means something like “systems that are based on multiple, interacting, integrated information- using/based structures that work together towards a common target in a specific environment.” That is, an extension of CSI and IC. [I have in mind things like communication systems, control systems, and general processing systems that use information to structure and/or control the way inputs of materials and energy are transformed into useful products. Photosynthesis and the gene to protein process come to mind for life systems.]

Also, I believe that it is indeed fair inference and comment to note that we have abundant evidence that FSCI is a commonly observed product of agency [e.g this post, the PCs we are using to read this on], and AFAIK none that it is an observed product of chance + necessity only.

For in every case where we do observe the causal story directly, we see agents at work, and we have good reasons tied to the underpinnings of statistical thermodynamics, to see that in the context of contingency and sufficiently large configuration spaces, it is maximally unlikely for random walk processes [however filtered for function after the fact] can find the islands and archipelagos of function. That is of course what I discuss in my always linked, Appendix 1 section 6.

GEM of TKI

PS: I, too was very impressed with the paper CS linked, and indeed, this is one of the documents that made me sit up and take notice of the ID movement. I think, based on my reading of Rom 1 - 2 as noted above to L/S, that today’s theistic evolutionists have some significant scientific AND theological challenges to meet. Finally, CS’s civility and fair-mindedness are a model for us all.

kairosfocus,

Below is a quote from Behe at Dover and from this I believe you can see the difference in Organized Complexity from the other two types of complexity though I can see IC can be part of OC in many cases.

” ‘On the next slide is a short summary of the intelligent design argument. The first point is that, we infer design when we see that parts appear to be arranged for a purpose.

The second point is that the strength of the inference, how confident we are in it, is quantitative. The more parts that are arranged, and the more intricately they interact, the stronger is our confidence in design.

The third point is that the appearance of design in aspects of biology is overwhelming.

The fourth point then is that, since nothing other than an intelligent cause has been demonstrated to be able to yield such a strong appearance of design, Darwinian claims notwithstanding, the conclusion that the design seen in life is real design is rationally justified.’ ”

Apparently this explanation was too much for Judge Jones to comprehend.

Jerry

Thanks.

GEM of TKI

Dr Dembski

Your 3rd Premise states: “Intelligent agency is known to have the causal power to produce systems that display IC/SC/OC”.

Shouldn’t that be ‘MATERIALISTIC Intelligent agency …..”?

I see a paradox here (does anyone one else?) which I haven’t managed to get a satisfactory answer to, which is: - if we want to say that materialistic explanations aren’t up to the job (cf: Premise 2) then how can we rely on explanations dependent upon materialism to support our case?

OK WD, What is OC?

Moderator,

Could you please stop “moderating” my comments? To my knowledge, I have made no previous comments that deserve this, yet I have not always had my comments moderated. Usually, by the time my comment is cleared to post it is buried in the quagmire of other posts and forgotten.

Thank you,
John Kelly

Why am I being treated differently? You banned me silently the first time I was here and would not allow posting of comments. Then a moderator used my absence to claim that I was a sockpuppet troll (I had to look that up). It was very frustrating and not a good witness.

ellazimm: I find your responses to Dr D’s premises to be astoundingly short of sense and substance.

1. “Diagnostic”? Explain to us, in Darwinist terms, how exception trapping (error correction) mechanisms can arise w/o intelligence. It cannot be done. Knowledge of correct operation is a prerequisite of of error detection and correction.

2. “matter of opinion”? Surely you jest. Where is the materialist empirical evidence? There isn’t any. The so-called ‘mountains of evidence’ we all keep hearing about is conspicuously absent in the labs. It’s actually mountains of conjecture and wishful thinking.
In my years of debating Darwinists I’ve observed a singular constant, ubiquitous in every conversation. That constant is that every Darwinist thinks that some other Darwinist has a mountain of proof somewhere. However when asked to present that proof all you get is wild speculations based on micro-evolutionary processes - that neither creationist nor IDist contests. The proverbial mountain is always curiously absent.

3. “Sufficient but not necessary.”?
Again, you speak with your foot in your mouth. So what is necessary? And where is your proof? Only intelligence produces symbolic language. Only intelligence produces coded information systems. ONLY intelligence CAN produce such mechanisms.

There has to be intent, convention and meaning in order for symbolic code to exist - code such as the ‘genetic code’. It is indeed a code. It has semantics, syntax, letters, words, sentences etc. DNA contains the book of life. Books don’t write themselves.

You really ought to take a long time meditating on these things.

Shallowness of reasoning is a trait peculiar, not only to the mentally impaired, but also to the materialist scientist. Just as Hoyle stated so clearly.

“So it came about from 1860 onward that new believers [in Darwinism] became in a sense mentally ill, or, more precisely, either you became mentally ill or you quitted the subject of biology, as I had done in my early teens. he trouble for young biologists was that, with everyone around them ill, it became impossible for them to think they were well unless they were ill, which again is a situation you can read all about in the columns of Nature.”

Math & Evolution

The EO Wilson post is a perfect set-up for ID because of its thinly-veiled contempt for Christian faith. This pervasive contempt is the underlying reason for the strategy articulated by Phillip Johnson: leave God out of ID.

As a practical matter, ID cannot win the fight in which it is now engaged if it must also shoulder Christian apologetics. ID is a silver bullet. Life, natural laws, intelligence—all of these cry out “Design!” All ID has to do, then, to bring the propaganda machine for materialism to a grinding halt is to calmly and patiently point out the obvious.

History shows that using science in an attempt to describe God is futile, as the Dembski white paper implies. There is a qualitative difference between the mind of the scientist and physical reality. Hence it is impossible to identify God through science without characterizing him as pure difference—pure negation, as seen in Descartes—or pure action, as in Newton and Kant.

Science cannot make the designer known, but science can certainly demonstrate that he exists. And this is just what is happening, not just in ID circles but in many areas of basic research, where less and less attention is being paid every day to the fanciful metanarrative that is Darwinism.

It makes perfect sense to let the silver bullet slay the beast and carry on the other conversation(s) separately. Leaving God out of the conversation should not mean being ashamed of Christ, however. In that case the wedge strategy ceases to be a wedge and becomes subsumed by the very thing it abhors.

Lazarus, “Why am I being treated differently?”

You are being treated differently because you are approaching ID from a strong religous perspective, and condemning anyone who does not do likewise.

I don’t have the privelage of banning you, but if I did, I would. Then I would go to church on Sunday, and worship the Lord with joy.

Lazaruus (or is it Solon), Frost122585 (#33) well expressed my views concerning your attempts to disrupt and undermine this site. This is becoming tedious and repetitive, and was already somewhat hashed out on the previous thread I indicated. It is hard to see why you haven’t been banned.

Testing whether I’m still being moderated (for no reason) before bothering to post an indepth response.

magnan Christ said I come not to bring peace but a sword. That said I don’t need to answer Frost in kind. I am not the judge, God is, and I am trying to share with my fellow Christians why I think science is a dead end. Maybe some of you would like to cast off christians from ID but that would be biting the hand that has brought you here.

by focusing on answering atheist materialism with theistic materialism ID is throwing the baby out with the dishwater. our one goal should be to win more souls to christ. Philip Johnson agrees. That should be the standard by which ID is measured and if it is then it is failing miserably now.

No amount of research into insignificant tiny little invisible organisms can change the fact that the bible tells us all we need to know about science. God Said It, I Believe It, That Settles It. I have read where Dr Dembski has said similar things about the Word. I believe that he would disagree with you but I fear that he is getting caught up in the worldly battle and losing focus on the spiritual battle.

So by focusing on the messenger rather than the message you have contrived a convenient path to deny the validity of my comments without dealing with them. I have come to expect this from liberal materialists and atheists but I see that this postmodern relativism has found its way into even those who believe God designed the world with a purpose. For that I am truly sorry and we will pray for you.

ellazimm #29

All your evidence will conform to Genetic Entropy, I’ll disprove this one, and then I’ll disprove any other specific one of your choosing if you wish.

Sticker’s sarcoma:

Canine transmissible venereal tumor (CTVT), also called transmissible venereal tumor (TVT), Sticker tumor and infectious sarcoma is a tumor of the dog and other canids that mainly affects the external genitalia, and is transmitted from animal to animal during copulation.

Riddle of infectious dog cancer solved

http://www.newscientist.com/ar.....news_rss20

of special note:

A mysterious contagious cancer which plagues dogs throughout the world may be the first truly transmittable cancer known, a new study suggests.

The cancer cells themselves move directly from dog to dog, acting “parasitically” on each infected animal, the researchers say.

Canine transmissible venereal tumour (CTVT) spreads between dogs through sex or other forms of contact, such as licking and biting, they believe.

The same cancer appears to infect dogs throughout the world and probably originated from a cancer in a single wolf, or a dog closely related to a wolf, which lived between 250 and 1000 years ago, the researchers say.
Direct descendents

Previously, viruses were suspected of spreading CTVT in the same way that the human papilloma virus – found in genital warts – spreads cervical cancer to women through sex.

But a new genetic analysis shows that the dog cancer cells are direct descendents of tumour cells from the long-dead animal in which the disease originated.

“The cancer escaped its original body and became a parasite transmitted from dog to bitch and bitch to dog until it had colonised all over the world,” says lead researcher Robin Weiss at University College London in the UK.

“The idea that this is caused by transfer of the cancer cells themselves, not a cancer-causing virus, has been around for 30 years,” says Weiss. “Now we’ve proved it through forensic DNA analysis.”

Weiss said that the discovery makes the cancer, otherwise known as Sticker’s sarcoma, “the oldest cancer known to science”, and possibly the world’s longest-lived colony of cloned mammalian cells.

also:

The disease seems to have been more aggressive in its past, the researchers say.

and:

Dog cells normally have 78 chromosomes; TVT tumor cells contain 57 - 64 chromosome

Thus it has less information than was first present in the dogs/wolfs from whence it came.

Thus, It is not proof of the generation of “new” meaningful information in a living organism , which is required to be done to prove evolution true and falsify Genetic Entropy.

I can guarantee you that all your examples will conform to Genetic Entropy when scrutinized and that you will never demonstrate the generation of novel, meaningful, information by random processes.

ellazimm #29 A little more background;

Comparison of the tumour DNA with that of different dog breeds, conducted with geneticists and computer experts in Chicago, showed that the culprit is likely to have been a wolf or ‘old’ Asian dog breed from China or Siberia, such as a Husky or Shih Tzu. By counting the mutations in the DNA, the team also concluded that the dog lived between 250 and 1000 years ago.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/re.....075902.htm

As well I wanted to ask you “Do you falsely believe, as Dawkins does, that Dog Breeding proves evolution?”

do you put babies in the dishwasher?

that last one was in response to Lazarus
“theistic materialism ID is throwing the baby out with the dishwater”

I may have mixed my metaphors but that does not excuse you from contriving means to evade the point.

lazarus,
I apologize, I just thought it was funny.

I would ask you something though. If I were Muslim, could I participate in ID without being baptised, or will you refuse to work with me?

ba77,

I know there was a paper, I can’t remember in what journal right now but I will try to find it, that characterized chromosome number in HeLa’s. The conclusion being a mean of around 90 with a range from 60-140 (numbers are approximations, what I can remember). This seems like an increase in information to me, though, multiple copies of the same code may not qualify. In the same vein, a smaller number of chromosomes does not necessarily mean less information. Furthermore, evolution does not predict greater or lesser information/complexity, just change - it predicts no direction.

Lazarus, I don’t want to add to your agony, or shake your belief, but where exactly does the Bible tell us all we need to know about science?

Re your post 51: ” the fact that the bible tells us all we need to know about science. God Said It, I Believe It, That Settles It.”

And which version of the Bible do you consider true & infallible?

Leo,

Evolution does predict greater information/complexity. It started with simple cells and has resulted in us and other very complex animals. If evolution can’t do that, then something else must account for the increase in complexity.
Also I really don’t think that evidence that a mutation that decreases the complexity of an organism should be taken as evidence that evolution can INCREASE the complexity of an organism.

Re. #29: Elazimm, my point was that your requirement for positive physical empirical evidence (i. e. a “maker stamp”) for ID was unreasonable. Unless you presume to know the intentions of the inferred intelligence behind evolution. For events in the deep past, fossils and DNA and comparative physiology of living related organisms constitute the physical evidence for any view of how it actually happened.

So how does the physical evidence stack up? You say ” ….that (fossil) record, as far as I can tell is consistent with our current understanding of evolution…..There will always be gaps in the fossil record but gaps do not disprove the theory. And the gaps keep getting narrower and narrower!”

Well, that certainly expresses the party line for NDE. To be technical, the all embracing application of NDE theory espoused by most evolutionists. This is sort of whistling in the dark and an expresssion of faith. The reality of the fossil record was well expressed by Gould: “…the extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology….The history of most fossil species includes two features inconsistent with gradualism: 1. Stasis. Most species exhibit no directional change during their tenure on earth. They appear in the fossil record looking much the same as when they disappear… 2. Sudden Appearance. In any local area, a species does not arise gradually by the steady transformation of its ancestors; it appears all at once and ‘fully formed’ (Natural History 86(5), 1977, ps. 14, 13).

This situation just isn’t going away: “No wonder paleontologists shied away from evolution so long. It never seems to happen. When we do see the introduction of evolutionary novelty, it usually shows up with a bang, and often with no firm evidence that the fossils did not evolve elsewhere! Yet that is how the fossil record has struck many a forlorn paleontologist looking to learn something about evolution. (Eldridge, “Reinventing Darwin, 1995, p. 95).

The Cambrian Explosion is perhaps the most glaring discrepancy with the expectations of NDE. A couple of quotes from the professional literature show the actual situation for the theory. “If we were to expect to find ancestors to or intermediates between higher taxa, it would be the rocks of the late Precambrian to Ordivician times, when the bulk of the world’s higher animal taxa evolved. Yet traditional alliances are unknown or unconfirmed for any of the phyla or classes appearing then.” (Valentine, Development As An Evolutionary Process, p.84, 1987). “The Cambrian Explosion occurred in a geological moment, and we have reason to think that all major anatomical designs may have made their evolutionary appearance at that time. …not only the phylum Chordata itself, but also all its major divisions, arose within the Cambrian Explosion…. Contrary to Darwin’s expectation that new data would reveal gradualistic continuity with slow and steady expansion, all major discoveries of the past century have only heightened the massiveness and geological abruptness of this formative event…” (Gould, Nature, Vol.377, 26 10/95, p.682).

These quotes are only to show that clearly some of the foremost evolutionists, who know far more than you or me about the fossil evidence, deviate from the “part line” you stated.

Of course, as the culture war has heated up, it has become more and more politically incorrect and career damaging for professionals to express such objective, realistic views of the current state of the science.

Very recently in another thread, Dr. Allen MacNeill (hardly an ID advocate, but remarkably open minded) stated “As for macroevolution, I agree that at the present time we have little or no formal theory predicting the observed patterns of change in deep evolutionary time”. Quite an understatement. Of course he followed this up with the usual affirmation that although there is no valid theory, macroevolution still happened. Of course it did - the issue is how it happened, and the evidence does not support NDE as the explanatory model. The Cambrian explosion, development of oxygen breathing systems, bird and bat wings, dolphin/sperm whale biological sonar, it goes on and on. There is only a lot of speculation, “just so” stories.

The important evolutionary transformations in complexity and innovation always happen “somewhere else” and are not captured as fossils. NDE is a gradual tiny step-wise process which should show up as such in the fossil record. But the vast majority of fossils show a sort of stasis in innovation. So it would always have to somehow be taking place in small peripheral populations that are generally not fossilized due to small numbers, or always happens too fast to leave enough fossils to be detected. But the small peripheral populations are too small to have the large pool of variation needed by the NDE process to select from in each generation. If it always happens too fast for fossilization the number of generations for NDE to accomplish the transformation is severely limited. The last possible explanation is that conditions for fossilization always just happen to be unfavorable during macroevolution, clearly untenable. So this is recognized as a major problem in NDE, with no satisfactory solution as of yet.

The examples you offered were undeniable examples of microevolution. The NDE model of gradualistic differential selection of modified alleles in a population certainly explains some microevolution. But I specifically asked for more than evidence for microevolution, which is fully accepted by ID evolutionists. Assuming it can account for macroevolution is a huge stretch incompatible with an examination of the empirical fossil data and consideration of the issues of irreducible complexity and specified complexity, the latter two of which you dismissed without justificational backup.

You ask, “…. what evidence would convince you that evolution can account for the systems you cite?” If you mean neoDarwinian “blind watchmaker” evolution, the very evidence that continues to be missing despite more than a century of looking.

“…the bible tells us all we need to know about science.”

-Lazarus

Have you taken your thorozine lately?

I think that you are clearly either an insane person or a atheist masquerading as an ID proponent. You cant be dumb because your vocab is too developed. Being that insanity is rare i would say you are a fraud. And i not only warn the people on this web blog about it but i think regular people posting should realize this and ignore you. Even the Amish know that the bible doesn’t tell us all we need to know about science. This is the most ridiculous comment i have heard in a year.

“Why am I being treated differently?”(Lazarus)

I cant imagine why. Maybe the bible has an answer to this question next to that section about cancer treatments.

excuse me i meant an athiest methodological materialist- even an athiest could beleive in ID.

Duncan-

No, it should not be materialistic intelligent agency. The reason is that even with in the confines of materialistic causes there has to be at the beginning of the historical regress some kind of intelligent organized cause. If the big bang is the cause of all complexity in the world then all those examples of SC, OC, IC had to be factored into the nature of that fist cause. In other words the cause of the fist physical cause must have been intelligence. People can design things within the laws of materialist methodology but the cause of humans and so forth will eventually require intelligence of some other kind. The universal probability bound and all of the empirical evidence of SC,IC in nature support this.

ellazimm 62

bornagain77 (#53): I think dog breeding demonstrates the ability to manifest variation but I don’t think the ability to create new breeds of dogs disproves evolutionary theory.

The main question is “Did new information arise in the sub-speciation of dogs from wolves?”
We can now answer this question from genetic studies that have been done.

Here is a Paper that has confirmation of dogs and grey wolves staying within principle of Genetic Entropy.

http://jhered.oxfordjournals.o.....0/1/71.pdf

of special note:
Some sequences found in dogs were identical to those in wolves…
The sequence divergence within (breeds of) dogs was surprisingly large: the mean sequence divergence in dogs 2.06 + or - 0.07% was almost identical to the 2.10 + or - 0.04% (sequence divergence) found within wolves. (notice that sequence divergence is slightly smaller for dogs than for wolves)
Coupled with the diverse morphology of domesticated dogs and known hazards of dog breeding, this evidence strongly indicates “front loaded adaptations” at a loss of information from parent species. Thus, this is genetic confirmation of the principle of Genetic Entropy for dogs from wolves!

This overall pattern of evidence (loss of morphology and loss of genetic diversity) conforms strongly to the evidence supporting the principle of Genetic Entropy found for humans.

i.e.;Tishkoff; Andrew Clark, Penn State; Kenneth Kidd, Yale University; Giovanni Destro-Bisol, University “La Sapienza,” Rome, and Himla Soodyall and Trefor Jenkins, WITS University, South Africa, looked at three locations on DNA samples from 13 to 18 populations in Africa and 30 to 45 populations in the remainder of the world.

“We found an enormous amount of diversity within and between the African populations, and we found much less diversity in non-African populations,” Tishkoff told attendees today (Jan. 22) at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Anaheim. “Only a small subset of the diversity in Africa is found in Europe and the Middle East, and an even narrower set is found in American Indians.”

even mungo man conforms to genetic entropy;

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.g.....rtid=33358

Of special note:
Adcock et al. (7) clearly demonstrate the actual extinction of an ancient mtDNA lineage belonging to an anatomically modern human, because this lineage is not found in living Australians. Although the fossil evidence provides evidence of the continuity of modern humans over the past 60,000 years, the ancient mtDNA clearly does not.

Thus loss of genetic information even though the fossil record is consistent.

On and On it goes Elazimm:

As Niles Eldredge and Stephen Jay Gould pointed out almost three decades ago, the general pattern for the evolution of diversity (as shown by the fossil record) follows precisely this pattern: a burst of rapid diversity following a major ecological change, and then a gradual decline in diversity over relatively long periods of time. This is clearly the case among east African cichlid fish, such as those in Lake Malawi and Lake Victoria. As numerous studies have pointed out, Lake Victoria is only a little over 12,000 years old, while Lake Malawi is approximately 1.5 million years old. Lake Victoria has (or had, until the introduction of the Nile perch) over 600 species of cichlids, while Lake Malawi has many, many fewer (the exact numbers are not known, due to rapid species turnover and the difficulty of sampling fish species in these lakes). In other words, the older the lake, the lower the species diversity.
Allan Macneill

http://www.terradaily.com/repo.....s_999.html

“That led me into thinking there’s something weird about these very primitive Cambrian trilobites that you don’t see in other (more recent) ones,” he said.

The only way to verify his hunch was to conduct an analysis that combined the data compiled in previously published reports.