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Here is Carl Sagan’s Proof of Evolution

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Carl Sagan once responded to an evolution skeptic with a response that Sagan obviously had given some thought to. You can listen to the question and Sagan’s summary beginning at the [0:24] mark:  read more

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Of related note to Coyne trying to censor dissent from Darwinism: Casey Luskin Destroys Dan Barker on Academic Freedom - Michael Medved - podcast/video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-GCn-bVzT4bornagain77
July 8, 2013
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Of note: Muncie paper reports on Ball State’s hiring of ID advocate Guillermo Gonzalez Excerpt: “Do you see any pattern here?” Jerry Coyne, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Chicago, asked. “I’m wondering … why Ball State’s physics and astronomy department has a penchant for ID (intelligent design) people. This (hiring) is a very unwise move for Ball State, particularly when one of its other astronomy professors, Eric Hedin, is under investigation for teaching ID in an astronomy class. If the university wants to retain any scientific credibility, they should start hiring scientists who will teach real science and not religious apologetics.” An atheist who claims religion and science are incompatible, Coyne is behind the investigation of Hedin. He complained about Hedin’s class to the Freedom From Religion Foundation. “Why would [BSU] hire a person who didn’t get tenure at Iowa State because of his poor academic performance … and then went to a small religious school where I’m not sure he was tenured?” Coyne asked. [Gonzalez] declined comment to The Star Press. But his colleague John West, a political scientist and vice president of Discovery Institute, complained that Coyne is “taking it upon himself to try to dictate the curriculum and now the hiring decisions” of BSU’s department of physics and astronomy. Coyne belongs to what West calls “the Darwin lobby.” “They don’t believe in academic freedom for anyone who disagrees with them, and they want to win the intellectual debate simply by silencing and intimidating any scholars who differ from them. In this case, Coyne is trying to destroy the careers of people in a discipline where he has no expertise whatsoever. Frankly, this is outrageous.” http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2013/07/07/muncie-paper-reports-on-ball-states-hiring-of-id-advocate-guiellermo-gonzalez/ Coyne, in irony of ironies, later in his article, cannot even fathom that he himself is operating from a deeply entrenched, and a religiously motivated, position. i.e. reductive materialistic atheism, that he is accusing others from operating from.bornagain77
July 7, 2013
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Sagan highlights three evidences for evolution. The first is fossils. Niles Eldredge, a staunch evolutionist, states that the fossil record shows, not that there is a gradual accumulation of change, but that for long periods of time, “little or no evolutionary change accumulates in most species." To date, scientists worldwide have unearthed and cataloged some 200 million large fossils and billions of small fossils. Many researchers agree that this vast and detailed record shows that all the major groups of animals appeared suddenly and remained virtually unchanged, with many species disappearing as suddenly as they arrived. The second is artificial selection. The evidence from research strongly indicates that mutations cannot produce entirely new kinds of plants or animals. In 1999, evolutionary theorist Jeffrey H. Schwartz wrote that natural selection may be helping species adapt to the changing demands of existence, but it is not creating anything new. The third line of evidence is DNA comparisons. If I see the word "Barbara" engraved into a rock, I naturally assume that there must be an intelligent mind as its source. Considering the matter further, should not also the infinitely more complex and meaningful information found in DNA have an intelligent designer? Information is information no matter where it is found or what the medium may be. Computer and information scientist Donald E. Johnson said that the laws of chemistry and physics are unable to create complex information or systems that process that information. And it stands to reason that the more complex a package of information, the greater the intelligence needed to write it. What is more, “the complexity of biology has seemed to grow by orders of magnitude” with every new discovery, says the journal Nature. To attribute the complex library of information in DNA to blind, unguided processes conflicts with both reason and human experience. Such belief also stretches faith to the breaking point.Barb
July 7, 2013
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Semi OT: Jerry Coyne is not going to like this
BSU hires leader in intelligent design - Guillermo Gonzalez was forced out at Iowa State University - Jul. 6, 2013 http://www.thestarpress.com/article/20130707/NEWS01/307070027/BSU-intelligent-design
It is semi OT since Guillermo Gonzalez almost single handedly overturned the reasoning behind Sagan's 'Pale Blue Dot' with his book 'The Privileged Planet'
The Privileged Planet - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnWyPIzTOTw The Privileged Planet: How Our Place in the Cosmos Is Designed for Discovery - book By Guillermo Gonzalez, Jay Wesley Richards http://books.google.com/books?id=KFdu4CyQ1k0C&pg=PA1&lpg=PA1&dq=#v=onepage&q&f=false Among Darwin Advocates, Premature Celebration over Abundance of Habitable Planets - September 2011 Excerpt: Today, such processes as planet formation details, tidal forces, plate tectonics, magnetic field evolution, and planet-planet, planet-comet, and planet-asteroid gravitational interactions are found to be relevant to habitability.,,, What's more, not only are more requirements for habitability being discovered, but they are often found to be interdependent, forming a (irreducibly) complex "web." This means that if a planetary system is found not to satisfy one of the habitability requirements, it may not be possible to compensate for this deficit by adjusting a different parameter in the system. - Guillermo Gonzalez http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/09/among_darwin_advocates_prematu050871.html
By the way, isn't Ball State the university where Jerry Coyne is currently trying to get a physics professor fired for supporting ID? That is interesting that he would try get a physics professor fired since Coyne himself said:
“In science's pecking order, evolutionary biology lurks somewhere near the bottom, far closer to phrenology than to physics. For evolutionary biology is a historical science, laden with history's inevitable imponderables. We evolutionary biologists cannot generate a Cretaceous Park to observe exactly what killed the dinosaurs; and, unlike "harder" scientists, we usually cannot resolve issues with a simple experiment, such as adding tube A to tube B and noting the color of the mixture.” ? Jerry A. Coyne - professor of evolution at the University of Chicago
But alas, it appears the only truly consistent thing to be found in Darwinism is the lack of consistency of its adherents to any one position!bornagain77
July 7, 2013
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The Darwinian concept of evolution and natural selection is profoundly verified...
Yes indeed. If you begin with evolvable asexual organisms and if you begin with evolvable sexual organisms you get evolution. No huge surprise there and sure, the evidence for it is "profound." (laughs) But that does not answer the question of how you get evolvable asexual organisms and evolvable sexual organisms, and evolutionary "poof-magic" doesn't qualify as a scientific explanation. Not now, not ever.Mung
July 7, 2013
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Dr. Hunter, I've been told for what seems like the millionth time that Intelligent Design is not science but a pseudo-science. Many seemingly intelligent people disagree with this assessment. So to clear the matter up perhaps a neo-Darwinist can be so kind as to show us 'IDiots' the exact mathematical demarcation criteria of neo-Darwinism so that we may finally learn how to properly designate real Darwinian science from the pseudo-scientific tripe that is Intelligent Design?
“nobody to date has yet found a demarcation criterion according to which Darwin can be described as scientific” – Imre Lakatos (November 9, 1922 – February 2, 1974) a philosopher of mathematics and science, quote as stated in 1973 LSE Scientific Method Lecture Oxford University Seeks Mathemagician — May 5th, 2011 by Douglas Axe Excerpt: Grand theories in physics are usually expressed in mathematics. Newton’s mechanics and Einstein’s theory of special relativity are essentially equations. Words are needed only to interpret the terms. Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection has obstinately remained in words since 1859. … http://biologicinstitute.org/2011/05/05/oxford-university-seeks-mathemagician/ “On the other hand, I disagree that Darwin’s theory is as `solid as any explanation in science.; Disagree? I regard the claim as preposterous. Quantum electrodynamics is accurate to thirteen or so decimal places; so, too, general relativity. A leaf trembling in the wrong way would suffice to shatter either theory. What can Darwinian theory offer in comparison?” (Berlinski, D., “A Scientific Scandal?: David Berlinski & Critics,” Commentary, July 8, 2003) Macroevolution, microevolution and chemistry: the devil is in the details – Dr. V. J. Torley – February 27, 2013 Excerpt: After all, mathematics, scientific laws and observed processes are supposed to form the basis of all scientific explanation. If none of these provides support for Darwinian macroevolution, then why on earth should we accept it? Indeed, why does macroevolution belong in the province of science at all, if its scientific basis cannot be demonstrated? https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/macroevolution-microevolution-and-chemistry-the-devil-is-in-the-details/
Whereas nobody can seem to come up with a rigid demarcation criteria for Darwinism, Intelligent Design (ID) does not suffer from such a lack of mathematical rigor:
Evolutionary Informatics Lab – Main Publications http://evoinfo.org/publications/
,, the empirical falsification criteria of ID is much easier to understand than the math is, and is as such:
"Orr maintains that the theory of intelligent design is not falsifiable. He’s wrong. To falsify design theory a scientist need only experimentally demonstrate that a bacterial flagellum, or any other comparably complex system, could arise by natural selection. If that happened I would conclude that neither flagella nor any system of similar or lesser complexity had to have been designed. In short, biochemical design would be neatly disproved." - Dr Behe in 1997 Michael Behe on Falsifying Intelligent Design – video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8jXXJN4o_A
Well, do neo-Darwinists have evidence of even one molecular machine arising by Darwinian processes?,,, I have yet to see evidence of a single novel protein arising by neo-Darwinian processes much less a entire molecular machine! Without such a demonstration and still their dogmatic insistence that Darwinism is true, then as far as I can tell, the actual demarcation threshold for believing neo-Darwinism is true is this:
Darwinism Not Proved Impossible Therefore Its True – video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/10285716/ How Darwinists React to Improbability Arguments – video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9IgLueodZA
,, I hope neo-Darwinists can help us to designate a more rigid threshold for neo-Darwinism, since as far as I can tell, without a rigid demarcation criteria, neo-Darwinism is in actuality the pseudo-science they accuse Intelligent Design of being!bornagain77
July 7, 2013
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