Pretending That Darwinism is Sophisticated (and Difficult-to-Understand) Science in Order to Deflect Challenges (or, Mickey Mouse Pretends to be a Scientist)
| April 1, 2009 | Posted by GilDodgen under Intelligent Design |
In DonaldM’s post (‘Analyze and Evaluate’ Are the New Code Words for ‘Creationism’) discussion ensued about high school students and challenges to orthodox evolutionary theory.
One of the ploys of Darwinists is to pretend (and especially to try to fool young students into thinking) that evolutionary theory is like real science (mathematics, chemistry, physics, or electrical, mechanical, aeronautical, software, or other engineering disciplines) — when it is not. It’s Mickey Mouse stuff pretending to be hard science, and is not difficult to understand and therefore not difficult to challenge.
The Darwinist lobby would like us to believe that young people are neither sufficiently intelligent, nor sufficiently sophisticated, nor sufficiently “educated” to appreciate the fact that all challenges to orthodox Darwinism have been refuted. These innocent young victims of the enemies of science must be protected by the intervention of the courts, so that they are not exposed to any dissent (no matter how justified by evidence or logic), otherwise they might start believing in a flat earth and astrology.
It is true that young students who have yet to learn algebra would have a hard time with partial differential equations, but it is not true that young students can’t grasp the problems with orthodox evolutionary theory. It is not hard to figure out that the fossil record, with its various explosions and consistent pattern of discontinuity and stasis, presents a challenge for the Darwinian gradualism claim. It is not hard to figure out that complex information-processing machinery and the information it processes present a problem for the random mutation/variation and natural selection hypothesis. (All young people nowadays are familiar with computers and software and know that computer programs can’t write themselves through random accidents.) There is nothing difficult at all about understanding the claims of Darwinian theory or the perfectly legitimate scientific and evidential challenges to it.
The Darwinian mechanism is 19th-century Mickey Mouse speculation, passed off as “science.”
As Denyse put it: “Darwinian evolution, as a concept, is in ruins. That much is obvious. However the history of the world happened, that wasn’t how.”
So, let’s at least let young people in the public schools know that no one knows for sure how all this came about, and let them evaluate, think about, and consider the options, rather than attempt to coerce them into thinking that they are too stupid to think for themselves, and must be told by authorities what to think about the most important, ultimate issues in their lives: where they ultimately came from, and why they exist.
111 Responses to Pretending That Darwinism is Sophisticated (and Difficult-to-Understand) Science in Order to Deflect Challenges (or, Mickey Mouse Pretends to be a Scientist)
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Mapou,
I don’t know if you’re still reading this, and even if you are, I doubt anything I say will change your mind. Still, here goes nothing.
Anyway, I notice you still have not given me a clear definition of change that illustrates its incompatibility with GR. Here’s the closest you’ve come:
I must admit I have a hard time parsing any of this. But I think I know what you’re getting at. You think that change must be what McTaggart calls “A-series change”. The simple variation of a physical quantity with respect to a temporal parameter is insufficient; the temporal parameter must itself somehow change or “flow”.
I just do not see the motivation for this metaphysics. I am yet to see any argument for why my offered definition of change is not adequate for capturing all observable temporal phenomena. A physical property of a body changes when it takes on different values at points on the body’s worldline parametrized by different proper times. To move is to occupy different spacetime positions at different proper times.
In response you say something like, “But relative to what does the proper time itself change?” Well, proper time itself is the standard of change, so the only answer to this question is trivial: Proper time changes relative to itself at a rate of 1 sec/sec (no meta-tau here). You say this is “nonsense”, but it’s not. It’s merely a consequence of selecting proper time as the parameter for change.
An analogy (due to Tim Maudlin): Let us assume the dollar is the international standard according to which the value of currencies is measured. So the value of the Euro is 0.75 Euro per dollar, the value of the Indian rupee is 50 rupees per dollar, and so on. Now suppose someone asked, what’s the value of a dollar? The answer is trivial: 1 dollar per dollar. But this is not a nonsensical answer. It’s perfectly correct. It expresses the fact that the dollar is our standard for currency exchange. Similarly for proper time.
I suspect this won’t satisfy you, because you are looking for a more robust metaphysical sense in which proper time changes. But why do we need it? What observable phenomena are you thinking of that cannot be accounted for in the framework I have suggested?
Take an ordinary case of change: coffee changing from hot to cold from tau=0 to tau=10. I have a perfectly good explanation of this process. From the four-dimensional perspective, we have a worldline, one end of which is hot and the other end is cold. Near this is another worldline, representing the observer, with a watch measuring proper time. Simultaneous (in the observer’s rest frame) with the point at which the observer measures tau=0, the coffee is hot; simultaneous with the point at which the observer measures tau=10, the coffee is cold. The observer sees the coffee change from hot to cold. None of this makes any reference to the proper time changing relative to some meta-proper time.
I recognize that connecting the physical theory of time we get from GR with our subjective experience of the passage of time is not easy, but while I could not tell you what the connection is (since I do not know how consciousness works), you haven’t given me any argument that demonstrates the incompatibility of GR with our subjective experience of time.
Sotto Voce,
Forget it. Prolonging this discussion about spacetime is futile from my perspective. Thanks.
I offer this summary of my experience here at Uncommon Descent along with an invitation for all to participate in my weblog where the ony prerequisite is full disclosure of ones identity.
http://jadavison.wordpress.com.....mment-1775
#454
jerry [92], you are incorrect. I have read the Gould and Eldredge papers, and they do not describe PE as you do. Nor can I find anything from MacNeill that describes PE the way you do.
To recap, your claims is that PE involves “changes that happen out of sight in unused parts of the genome.” You write that in PE, “[a] very small number of these changes suddenly become functional and this is when a new species or genera are born.” You even write that “This is the essence of punctuated equilibrium.”
Can you provide a quote from Gould or Eldredge that supports this? Can you even provide a quote from MacNeill that supports this? I think you can’t. It shouldn’t be hard. The original PE paper is available online, along with a number of other of Gould’s works on PE.
I would like to see citations supporting your contention as well, jerry. I could find nothing like it in Gould and Eldredge’s papers.
I’d also like to see where Michael Lynch supports that idea as well.
(sorry about the lousy formatting in the previous post)
I am still waiting for a response to the challenges I presented in #90 and #91. Isn’t there a “true believer” in the crowd here? Apparently not. Not even Allen MacNeill? What will his students at Cornell think about that I wonder?
“I will fight it out on this line if it takes all summer.”
General Ulysses S. Grant
It doesn’t get any better than this.
John A. Davison,
This may not mean much coming from a novice/amateur but I am a fan and admire your tenacity.
I know the old adage ‘you can catch more flies with honey’ doesn’t work with ND proponents.
Their shtick as all about slice n’ diceing of data; ie trimmin’ puzzle pieces to make them fit.
Talk about irony! They design an explanatory model to fit a non-designed paradigm; a desing that looks like a picasso, or one of those splash the paint on the canvass masterpieces.
BUT, a word to the wise, stick it out without the rancour. Keep sloggin’ it out point-by-point.
You’ll get more mileage in the long-run.
(and don’t worry about time; you’ve got lots more of it I’m sure).
By the way, my name is Stephan Henry Proulx, a Quebecois currently living in Taiwan, that ‘coutry’ caught in the vise of politics. Fascinating place.
Thanks Stephan Henry Proulx. You are welcome to participate on my weblog. I will be eighty one in June and anyone who thinks he has plenty of time left at eighty one is a damn fool.
I have been perfectly civil here. I have attacked only the Darwinian fairy tale and not the poor souls who still believe it. Christ had it right -
“Forgive them Father for they know not what they do.”
The tough part is the forgiving. I do my level best but it is not easy when you have been banished from nearly all their isolationist, protectionist, intellectual bastions. I am currently being deleted wholesale at Cordova’s thread. Drop by and see for yourself. It is very revealing.
woops, Scordova not Cordova
Stephen
In order to appreciate the extent to which I am being deleted at Scordova’s thread you can visit the “Why Banishment” thread on my weblog where I have copied every comment that I transmitted to that thread which appeared however briefly for others to read. I have never seen such a policy implemented before. It strikes me as a sort of suicidal masochism to practice discrimination in such a flagrant manner.
Maybe that is a good thing!
Thank you Gil for permitting me to hold forth, something fellow “author” Salvador Cordova, “scordova,” is loathe to do. I don’t have anything further to contribute to this thread unless someone has questions. I love to answer questions!
Who is Orly or for that matter who is Alan Fox?
Please all visit my weblog and especially the Why Banishment? thread where I continue to expose the sordid business that is still taking place on Scordova’s thread. It is a sad commentary on the present status of Uncommon Descent as a venue for honest dialogue.
John,
Look here
jerry, when you have time, could you respond substantively to the question I had about your view of punctuated equilibrium? I followed up in [96] above, as did Dave W in subsequent comments.
Punkeek, as the Eldredge/Gould notion is known, was nothing more than recogniton that in the “past” evolution took place in spurts. It sure isn’t doing it now is it.
They offered nothing in the way of mechanism. It was little more than a gimmick to bring attention to the authors both of whom were atheist Darwinians to the core. Eldredge is still a Darwin worshipper of the first water as everybody knows.
It is hard to believe isn’t it?
Not at all. They were “born that way.”
JohnADavison,
Gil didn’t put you into moderation, I did. No reason to be upset with him about being moderated.