Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

This guy is one brave journalist

Share
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Flipboard
Print
Email

CBS Virginia’s Mark Holmberg thinks the theory of evolution (= Darwin’s followers’ theory of evolution) should be challenged scientifically:

Typically, anyone who doesn’t believe it is branded as a religious kook or an idiot.

Richard Neves, a Virginia Tech professor emeritus, has long fought this battle, despite being a nationally recognized scientist with an expertise in mussels.

“Those who are in charge of science in this country,” he said in a telephone interview, “from the National Academy of Sciences on down, they will not allow alternative hypothesis to be presented because their philosophical view is as strong as their scientific view.”

Almost religious in nature?

“It is,” Neves replied. “ . . . just as strong as any other typical religion we can think of. . . they need to have a more open mind and look at the lack of evidence that does not support the neo-Darwinian theory.”

I’ll be that kook too. (Something I’m sure many of you had concluded long ago.) The holes in the theory are just too glaring.

Too glaring if evidence matters.

But like we keep saying, Mark, evidence doesn’t matter. It never did. It’s not even about evidence. It’s about Darwin’s followers’ religion of evolution and its stranglehold on the education system.

On the day evidence ever does matter, the main task will be picking up all the pieces from a grand delusion of the age.

Meanwhile, the question isn’t, does Holmberg still have a job but will he ever have a real career again, if he doesn’t someday soon “see da light” about Darwin’s truth?

On the other hand, if Virginia Heffernan survives, maybe he will too.

Note: Evidence doesn’t matter? Oh, that’s true in cosmology, too

Follow UD News at Twitter!

Comments
Exactly Robert. It's impossible to test something that predicts everything and nothing at the same time.sixthbook
January 19, 2014
January
01
Jan
19
19
2014
09:54 PM
9
09
54
PM
PDT
sixthbook Its right and fine hypothesis are testable and falsifiable. Has this been done on evolution? I say no ! Where are the tests?Robert Byers
January 19, 2014
January
01
Jan
19
19
2014
06:18 PM
6
06
18
PM
PDT
Rob, Evolutionists' trick is that they've designed a system that can accommodate practically any data. It's not an evidence game, but a way of organizing things into an infinite number of cubby holes.... then turning around and telling the public that they victoriously avoided potential falsification every step of the way.lifepsy
January 18, 2014
January
01
Jan
18
18
2014
10:43 AM
10
10
43
AM
PDT
Robert Byers I think you are forgetting something: Hypotheses are testable and falsifiable.sixthbook
January 17, 2014
January
01
Jan
17
17
2014
09:40 PM
9
09
40
PM
PDT
its cool to have media folks take on evolution. they can reach audiences YEC usually can't. it is about evidence and so if evolution is true, and a theory of science no less, then the evidence should be aplenty. If its not true it should be easily shown to be lacking in evidence. in fact it should be shown not to be a theory of science but only a hypothesis. This surely must dbe settled soon.Robert Byers
January 17, 2014
January
01
Jan
17
17
2014
08:27 PM
8
08
27
PM
PDT
its cool to have media folks take on evolution. they can reach audiences YEC usually can't. it is about evidence and so if evolution is true, and a theory of science no less, then the evidence should be aplenty. If its not true it should be easily shown to be lacking in evidence. in fact it should be shown not to be a theory of science but only a hypothesis. This surely must dbe settled soon.Robert Byers
January 17, 2014
January
01
Jan
17
17
2014
08:27 PM
8
08
27
PM
PDT
And another fact that not only points out that Gravity is caused by God, but also points out the fact that God wants us mere humans to readily understand Gravity, is the ease with which Gravity is described mathematically by/for us:
"Newton proposed that Gravitational force is inversely proportional to the Square of the distance between two masses (Inverse Square Law). For an orderly, designed universe, this makes sense – why wouldn’t it be something nice and even, like the square of the distance? For someone who believes in a random universe though – why the Square? Why not r ^ 2.148273.. or r ^ 1.932157.. The universe is full of nice, neat relationships like this, at very fundamental levels – moreso than not. I find the ability of the atheist to accept so many coincidences nothing short of astonishing." drc466 - UD blogger Inverse Square Law http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/forces/isq.html
In fact, all the equations of physics have this overall 'simplicity' about them that strongly suggests God wants us to readily understand them:
How the Recent Discoveries Support a Designed Universe - Dr. Walter L. Bradley - paper Excerpt: Only in the 20th century have we come to fully understand that the incredibly diverse phenomena that we observe in nature are the outworking of a very small number of physical laws, each of which may be described by a simple mathematical relationship. Indeed, so simple in mathematical form and small in number are these physical laws that they can all be written on one side of one sheet of paper, as seen in Table 1. http://www.leaderu.com/real/ri9403/evidence.html
Another interesting point in the comparison of Gravity and Evolution, despite the claim of Darwinists that evolution is as well established as Gravity, is the fact that Gravity itself actually argues against evolution as to being plausible.
Evolution is a Fact, Just Like Gravity is a Fact! UhOh! Excerpt: The results of this paper suggest gravity arises as an entropic force, once space and time themselves have emerged. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/evolution-is-a-fact-just-like-gravity-is-a-fact-uhoh/ Entropy of the Universe - Hugh Ross - May 2010 Excerpt: Egan and Lineweaver found that supermassive black holes are the largest contributor to the observable universe’s entropy. They showed that these supermassive black holes contribute about 30 times more entropy than what the previous research teams estimated. http://www.reasons.org/entropy-universe Shining Light on Dark Energy - October 21, 2012 Excerpt: It (Entropy) explains time; it explains every possible action in the universe;,, Even gravity, Vedral argued, can be expressed as a consequence of the law of entropy.,,, The principles of thermodynamics are at their roots all to do with information theory. Information theory is simply an embodiment of how we interact with the universe —,,, http://crev.info/2012/10/shining-light-on-dark-energy/
But what is devastating for the atheist (or even for the Theistic Evolutionist) who wants ‘randomness’ to be the source for all creativity in the universe, is that randomness, (i.e. the entropic processes of the universe), are now shown, scientifically, to be vastly more likely to destroy functional information within the cell rather than ever building it up’. Here are my notes along that line:
“Is there a real connection between entropy in physics and the entropy of information? …. The equations of information theory and the second law are the same, suggesting that the idea of entropy is something fundamental…” Tom Siegfried, Dallas Morning News, 5/14/90 – Quotes attributed to Robert W. Lucky, Ex. Director of Research, AT&T, Bell Laboratories & John A. Wheeler, of Princeton & Univ. of TX, Austin in the article Demonic device converts information to energy – 2010 Excerpt: “This is a beautiful experimental demonstration that information has a thermodynamic content,” says Christopher Jarzynski, a statistical chemist at the University of Maryland in College Park. In 1997, Jarzynski formulated an equation to define the amount of energy that could theoretically be converted from a unit of information2; the work by Sano and his team has now confirmed this equation. “This tells us something new about how the laws of thermodynamics work on the microscopic scale,” says Jarzynski. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=demonic-device-converts-inform
,,having a empirically demonstrated direct connection between the entropic processes of the universe and the information inherent within a cell is extremely problematic for Darwinists because of the following principle,,,
“Gain in entropy always means loss of information, and nothing more.” Gilbert Newton Lewis – preeminent Chemist of the first half of last century “Bertalanffy (1968) called the relation between irreversible thermodynamics and information theory one of the most fundamental unsolved problems in biology.” Charles J. Smith – Biosystems, Vol.1, p259.
and this principle is confirmed empirically:
“The First Rule of Adaptive Evolution”: Break or blunt any functional coded element whose loss would yield a net fitness gain – Michael Behe – December 2010 Excerpt: In its most recent issue The Quarterly Review of Biology has published a review by myself of laboratory evolution experiments of microbes going back four decades.,,, The gist of the paper is that so far the overwhelming number of adaptive (that is, helpful) mutations seen in laboratory evolution experiments are either loss or modification of function. Of course we had already known that the great majority of mutations that have a visible effect on an organism are deleterious. Now, surprisingly, it seems that even the great majority of helpful mutations degrade the genome to a greater or lesser extent.,,, I dub it “The First Rule of Adaptive Evolution”: Break or blunt any functional coded element whose loss would yield a net fitness gain. http://behe.uncommondescent.com/2010/12/the-first-rule-of-adaptive-evolution/
Thus, Darwinists are found to be postulating that the ‘random’ entropic events of the universe, which are found to be consistently destroying information in the cell, are instead what are creating information in the cell. ,,, It is the equivalent in science of someone (in this case a ‘consensus of scientists’) claiming that Gravity makes things fall up instead of down, and that is not overstating the bizarre situation we find ourselves in in the least with the claims of atheistic Darwinists and Theistic Evolutionists, since Gravity can now be thought of as an 'entropic force'. Music and Verse:
Creed - Six Feet http://www.youtube.com/v/aQ9GrZ3CEyY&fs=1&source=uds&autoplay=1 Romans 8:18-21 I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.
bornagain77
January 17, 2014
January
01
Jan
17
17
2014
05:22 PM
5
05
22
PM
PDT
It is interesting that Mark Holmberg would start his video,,
Mark Holmberg BS biology - Theory of Evolution Should Be Challenged - video http://wtvr.com/2014/01/15/holmberg-theory-of-evolution-should-be-challenged-scientifically
,,would start his video by comparing Evolution to Gravity because, as was just previously mentioned, Darwinists have a history of declaring that the theory of evolution is just as well as established the theory of gravity (what you never hear is a physicist claiming that the theory of Gravity is just as well established as the theory of Evolution) :) And for good reason, the theory of Gravity can be falsified whereas evolution has no mathematical basis in which to falsify it (and thus evolution as a theory does not even qualify as a 'hard' science in the first place!)
“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) “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/ etc.. etc.. etc..
But there is another interesting point to draw out in this comparison of Gravity and Evolution, besides the fact that Evolution is not even a proper science in the first place. Gravity, when its mathematical details were first being worked out by Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, and, of course, primarily Newton (who were all Christians by the way), their work unlocking the law of Gravity elicited such quotes as these:
"To know the mighty works of God, to comprehend His wisdom and majesty and power; to appreciate, in degree, the wonderful workings of His laws, surely all this must be a pleasing and acceptable mode of worship to the Most High, to whom ignorance cannot be more grateful than knowledge." Nicolaus Copernicus (19 February 1473 – 24 May 1543) - Poland : The Knight Among Nations (1907) by Louis E. Van Norman, p. 290 “Mathematics is the language with which God has written the universe.” Galileo Galilei "God is known by nature in his works, and by doctrine in his revealed word." Galileo Galilei (15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642) ‘O God, I am thinking your thoughts after you!’ Johann Kepler (1571-1630), is said to have been stated by Kepler upon his discovery of the 'elliptical' mathematical laws of planetary motion, quote taken from “Men of Science – Men of God”, an introductory study of many of the founding fathers of modern scientific disciplines by Henry M. Morris "This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being." Sir Isaac Newton (25 December 1642 – 20 March 1727) - Quoted from what many consider the most influential science book ever written, his book "Principia" http://gravitee.tripod.com/genschol.htm
But why would they, since they were unlocking the mysteries of Gravity, give God credit as the cause for Gravity? Well, contrary to the naivete that comes with being overly familiar with a concept, the law of Gravity is JUST a mathematical description of an effect. Gravity is not a 'cause' for anything.
The Laws of Nature (Have Never 'Caused' Anything) by C.S. Lewis - doodle video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_20yiBQAIlk
It seems readily apparent that founders of modern science understood this distinction between cause and effect quite well.
Indeed, it was belief in an intelligent Creator that convinced the great pioneers, Galileo, Kepler, Newton, Clerk Maxwell, Babbage and many others that science could be done. C. S. Lewis put it this way: "Men became scientific because they expected law in nature and they expected law in nature because they believed in a lawgiver." - John Lennox
So when modern people claim that the law of Gravity 'causes' something to fall to the earth, they really have no clue what they are talking about and they are missing an important point. Gravity has no causal power within itself as an abstract mathematical description. Only God can give causal adequacy to Gravity or to any other mathematical description of the universe. If anyone thinks otherwise, and thinks Gravity has causal adequacy within itself, they are free to try to explain how the Einstein's 4-D space-time (General Relativity) 'emerged' at the big bang as Hawking tried to do.
BRUCE GORDON: Hawking’s irrational arguments – October 2010 Excerpt: Rather, the transcendent reality on which our universe depends must be something that can exhibit agency – a mind that can choose among the infinite variety of mathematical descriptions and bring into existence a reality that corresponds to a consistent subset of them. This is what “breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe.” Anything else invokes random miracles as an explanatory principle and spells the end of scientific rationality.,,, Universes do not “spontaneously create” on the basis of abstract mathematical descriptions, nor does the fantasy of a limitless multiverse trump the explanatory power of transcendent intelligent design. What Mr. Hawking’s contrary assertions show is that mathematical savants can sometimes be metaphysical simpletons. Caveat emptor. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/oct/1/hawking-irrational-arguments/
The fact is further born out in Godel's incompleteness theorem:
THE GOD OF THE MATHEMATICIANS - DAVID P. GOLDMAN - August 2010 Excerpt: we cannot construct an ontology that makes God dispensable. Secularists can dismiss this as a mere exercise within predefined rules of the game of mathematical logic, but that is sour grapes, for it was the secular side that hoped to substitute logic for God in the first place. Gödel's critique of the continuum hypothesis has the same implication as his incompleteness theorems: Mathematics never will create the sort of closed system that sorts reality into neat boxes. http://www.firstthings.com/article/2010/07/the-god-of-the-mathematicians
i.e. even mathematics itself, at least mathematical equations that are specific enough to have counting numbers within them, are ultimately dependent on God for the truthfulness contained within the mathematics. i.e. God is even the 'cause' for math too! Another strong point in favor of God being the cause of Gravity is the fine tuning of Gravity:
Finely Tuned Gravity (1 in 10^40 tolerance; which is just one inch of tolerance allowed on a imaginary ruler stretching across the diameter of the entire universe) - video http://www.metacafe.com/w/7659795/ Guillermo Gonzalez - Why is the Universe Fine-Tuned for Life? - video Quote: "Having a precision of one part in 10^30 is like firing a bullet and hitting an amoeba at the edge of the observable universe" - Guillermo Gonzalez http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M39BKwtUAyA
bornagain77
January 17, 2014
January
01
Jan
17
17
2014
05:21 PM
5
05
21
PM
PDT
... and that 'thousand-yard squint'. Like stout Cortez, silent upon a peak in Darien. Except that LP has been quite loquacious. Reminds me of a 'head and shoulders' photo that one of Dawkins' hapless groupies had inserted in the Guardian; a wonderfully-impressive, heroic, chin-jutting, Charleton Heston kind of pose, the camera looking up at this Titan among men.Axel
January 17, 2014
January
01
Jan
17
17
2014
02:11 PM
2
02
11
PM
PDT
Yeah but LP is one smart guy. Just look how he holds his hand up to his chinny chin chin in such a thoughtful manner. "Mr. Phipps in the morning sun" RexTugwell
January 17, 2014
January
01
Jan
17
17
2014
12:53 PM
12
12
53
PM
PDT
LP I take it that you will officially denounce all the prior and future Darwinist arguments that compare the Theory of Evolution to Newtons Law of Gravity to argue about it’s ‘factness’? It’ll be glad to know. We can cite your comment in the future.
I wouldn't expect LP to do anything of the sort. According to his website he sees any theist as an "enemy".TSErik
January 17, 2014
January
01
Jan
17
17
2014
12:13 PM
12
12
13
PM
PDT
LP I take it that you will officially denounce all the prior and future Darwinist arguments that compare the Theory of Evolution to Newtons Law of Gravity to argue about it's 'factness'? It'll be glad to know. We can cite your comment in the future.JGuy
January 17, 2014
January
01
Jan
17
17
2014
11:59 AM
11
11
59
AM
PDT
LP Seems you are the one making a quibble over particular words. He is actually making a general issue, and making it clear that evolution shouldn't be taught as a ["fact fact fact"]. On top of that, your making grandiose claims of his intellect based on your dubious quibble. Why not answer his question? "why is it so important for you to believe in evolution?"JGuy
January 17, 2014
January
01
Jan
17
17
2014
11:48 AM
11
11
48
AM
PDT
He doesn't sem to have much of a clue about the differences between law and theory. I suspect he knows that a Law is a generalization and a theory is "a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that can incorporate facts, laws, inferences, and tested hypotheses." (etc etc see Science and Creationism: A View from the National Academy of Sciences, Second Edition (1999) or any other science book you care to read)....he goes for the "only a theory" attack as it's cheap and requires zero thought from both him and his audience.Lincoln Phipps
January 17, 2014
January
01
Jan
17
17
2014
10:59 AM
10
10
59
AM
PDT
I like the ending:
Ask yourself – why is it so important for you to believe in evolution? Why are these words making many of you so angry? (Please spend a moment examining the actual knowledge you have on this subject and measure that against your passion of your conviction. Take a breath. C’mon, a nice big one.)
LOL, and the Darwinian lynch mob in the comments.lifepsy
January 17, 2014
January
01
Jan
17
17
2014
10:24 AM
10
10
24
AM
PDT
Darwinism is challenged scientifically and it has failed every challenge to date.Joe
January 17, 2014
January
01
Jan
17
17
2014
08:17 AM
8
08
17
AM
PDT
Should we start the career countdown clock?JGuy
January 17, 2014
January
01
Jan
17
17
2014
08:06 AM
8
08
06
AM
PDT

Leave a Reply