Why Richard Dawkins won’t debate William Lane Craig
| December 9, 2009 | Posted by William Dembski under Atheism, Philosophy |
William Lane Craig is not only one of the world’s leading Christian apologists but he has actually made outstanding original contributions to philosophy. Yes, Craig publishes popular-level books. Unlike Dawkins, however, who in 20-years plus has been purely a popularizer (of Darwinian evolution, materialist science, and atheism), Craig continues to publish at the highest levels of the academy addressing scholars of the highest caliber (and gaining their respect). Dawkins, by contrast, increasingly appeals to the lowest common denominator. It’s in this light that Dawkins glib dismissal of Craig should be viewed:
79 Responses to Why Richard Dawkins won’t debate William Lane Craig
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Jerry:
Debating origin of life with Dawkins or any other scientist wouldn’t be a good idea. Science knows no reason why God couldn’t have done it. Science knows no reason why nature couldn’t have done it. End of debate.
The case for naturalistic evolution, Darwinian models …? It has been presented in scientific literature for 150 years. If you find that insufficient, debate won’t be of any use.
AFAIK, the models go to great lengths about how, where and when. Where can I find corresponding scientific information about ID?
Sorry, J should be j
“AFAIK, the models go to great lengths about how, where and when.”
You have just made the case against naturalistic evolution. You said models not evidence. ID agrees there are models but ID agrees that there is no evidence. If there were ID would shut down and everyone could go home.
The how, where and when are all just told stories which is not science.
So thanks for supporting our point of view.
No, I don’t think that is relevant. Firstly, complete genetic barriers are not essential to species originations. This is because geographic isolation, assortative mating and other asepcts of sexual selection are phenomena that contribute to the reduction of gene flow, and are no less important than genetic barriers. You equate genetic barriers to a small change, but complete, rather than incomplete, genetic barriers can take a long time to arise; fertility is lowered but might not be entirely eliminated. Hence the extensive hybridisation we see in the animal and plant kingdoms. Even a partial reproductive barrier is sufficent to reduce gene flow substantially.
If you take a look at the literature on the origination of species, you will find that 20 my is not the estimate of the time it takes an average species to originate. One estimate for mammals, for example, is 1 my.
More importantly, you talk about 20 million years like it’s a very long period of time in evolution. It is not. What major complex systems have arisen since the time of the dinosaurs, considering there were already placental mammals at this time? Has any evolutionary change in this period fallen into the category that you define as macroevolution?
This demonstrates my original point. These systems are not arising all the time, they are very rare, as they should be under naturalistic evolution.
Now, for the fourth time – what about Allium and junk DNA? I realise you guys have in the past said ‘but it’s not junk’ and certainly I agree there is functional stuff there amongst the rest. However there are several critical points that indicate both naturalistic origins and non-functional sequences (and I will quote myself from earlier):
1) Stochastic population-genetic processes related to population size substantially control the amount of excess, non-coding DNA present in an organism, not its level of complexity. There are population size thresholds below which genome expansion occurs by escaping purifying selection; genome size correlates closely and negatively with population size. Intron size also correlates negatively with population size. e.g. Lynch and Conery (2003), Lynch (2006, 2007).
2) Extremely similar species with no important functional differences can have highly divergent amounts of DNA. Consider these congeneric plants: Allium altyncolicum has a genome comprising 6.9 Mbp, while its congener A. ursinum comprises 30.9 Mbp. There is not a rational explanation why plants that only differ in superficial appearance should have such substantial differences (450% difference in # of base pairs) in genome size unless one of them comprises substantially more filler than the other. See Ricroch et al. (2005).
3) Rates of molecular evolution in the majority of non-coding DNA are substantially elevated from coding regions and functionally important non-coding regions. This indicates the absence of purifying selection and therefore the absence of function. e.g. Kimura (1983).
Finally, you said:
If I read you right, then good for them. They must understand the nature of the evidence for organic evolution. Doesn’t ID sound more like God of the gaps when this is one the camps?
Re frontloading:
Well, I certainly should have looked that up before posting. It is a very strange definition of “naturalistic means” you have employed there. That’ll teach me.
I would go so far as to say the concept of frontloading is utterly preposterous to the point of not being worth discussing.
“I would go so far as to say the concept of frontloading is utterly preposterous to the point of not being worth discussing.”
I am not an adherent of front loading but some are and you will have to discuss it with them.
So far I am still waiting for examples of things developing naturally that are leading to complex novel characteristics. As interesting as the nylon eating microbes are, they do not qualify. My guess is that any changes you can document to microbes would not qualify. But we would have to look at each one. None so far have reached the level of complexity that they would defy naturalistic processes and thus, be ID. Some here will probably disagree with me on this but I am not aware of any.
Somewhere I have discussed what ID is in detail. There are a couple of long posts I have made and maybe you should read them before commenting on what ID is. My guess you have a poor understanding of it. However, these comments were made a few months ago and I haven’t the time to find them right now. Maybe some time after Christmas. Till that time I can only peak here every now and then.
It is interesting that over the course of a couple posts, without providing any particular reason, your view on nylon degrading bacteria changes from:
to
So a novel metabolic pathway isn’t of interest to you.
You also say:
But how can I give you examples that defy naturalistic processes, when none exist? Any changes I document are naturalistic. What would be convincing from you would be some recent change that did defy naturalistic processes as proof of ID. That would be compelling for your case. Pointing to every known case and saying that they are “naturalistic” does not help your case at all.
And, for the fifth time – what of the Allium genomes? Junk or not?
“And, for the fifth time – what of the Allium genomes? Junk or not?”
I have already said that I am going to keep my discussions to animals. I haven’t a clue about Allium genomes. Why don’t you lay out what this genome entails and why you are impressed by it and maybe someone will discuss it with you. But I do not plan to.
If you want to discuss microbes, go ahead and we can see what you think is impressive about the changes you point out.
So you’re happy to discuss both prokaryotes and eukaryotes, but you’re fussy about which eukaryotes you will include. Sounds fairly arbitrary to me.
I have already laid out twice why the Allium genome is interesting. It’s pretty straightforward, and not related to their being plants.
If you don’t want to dicuss that – it doesn’t appear you’ve so much as read it – I think we’re pretty much done here.
Incidentally, you have provided no evidence actually supporting the ID proposition. You’ve only nitpicked areas you perceive to be lacking in naturalistic evolution, without even being able to provide an unambiguous picture of what one would expect if naturalistic evolution were true. This despite my stated aim to have a debate that considered the balance of evidence.
This is getting to be a joke as it usually does. Present the evidence for naturalistic evolution. No one in the history of the planet has done so. You have presented information for changes in genomes and few would dispute that. So don’t posture as if you are offended at my slights. If naturalistic evolution works it must work on animals and it must produce major changes not trivial stuff. And we are well aware of the C value paradox so your continued allusion to Allium is puzzling and irrelevant at best unless I missed something which is always possible.
The path from microbes to man requires massive changes and would leave a trail, millions of trails if it happened gradually. I said here and said many times that if naturalistic evolution is true for all evolution, it will have to leave trails. Apparently all the trails were lost, most before the Cambrian. So you ask what would convince me, lots of obvious trails. Some like the material subducted under the continents will disappear for ever. But many, many will remain and be obvious if they happened.
paulm c:
I offer just a glimpse of support for ID (including a testable hypothesis):
Intelligent Design: The Design Hypothesis
Intelligent Design in Biology Textbooks
Intelligent Design in Biology Textbooks Continued
The Design Inference in Peer-Review
paulm c:
Reference please.
Ya see ID is an argument against the blind watchmaker having sole dominion over evolution.
Design is a natural process.
Rather than offended by your slights I am frustrated by your disingenuity.
For the nth time, being aware of something is not an argument.
I am not making a standard point regarding the c-value paradox i.e. this amoeba has more DNA than a human etc etc.
The point is that between very similar species within a genus, there can be substantial variation in the amount of DNA – in the case of Allium one species has 4.5 times the amount of DNA.
While disparate comparisons (e.g. protist to human, plant to human) can be waved away by saying we don’t know what the non-coding DNA does, it is pretty hard to do the same with closely related, superficially differentiated species within a single genus. There is no plausible reason why one species needs 450% of the DNA of its congener to do just the same things.
This is strong evidence for the junk DNA hypothesis – again something that ID claims does not exist.
Joesp h @ 74
Well, if you go to the FAQ on this website, which I assume is sanctioned by the more scientific of the lot here, the writers claim that:
“But a new functional protein cannot be built by simple selectable variations”
and
“Function derives from higher levels of order and connection, which cannot emerge from a random accumulation of micro-variations.”.
Perhaps I should have said naturalistic processes. I assume you are not dismissing a supernatural designer…
“This is strong evidence for the junk DNA hypothesis – again something that ID claims does not exist.”
Junk DNA is not an essential thing to ID. Some here are very tied to the DNA in a human being mostly functional. However, it is not essential to ID that it is. It would be interesting to know what % of human DNA is functional but the absolute or percentage amount is not tied to ID being true or not. That you keep on bringing it up is indicative that you do not understand ID.
“For the nth time, being aware of something is not an argument.”
Being aware of something is indicative that we have thought about it. Do you think you are the first one to point out these things.
———-
I have written several long comments about what ID is about. Here are four of them:
http://www.uncommondescent.com.....ent-326046
There are three consecutive comments in the previous post.
What ID is interested in.
http://www.uncommondescent.com.....ent-299358
Here is a comment about why ID science is no different that regular science.
http://www.uncommondescent.com.....ent-304029
Here is a comment that every ID debater should make when he debates ID.
http://www.uncommondescent.com.....ent-296129
I am not sure if everyone here agrees with them but I believe that anyone who publishes on ID agrees with them. At least I have not seen anything in writing they have written that disagree with them.
If you say so. But according to this website’s section “Frequently raised but weak arguments against Intelligent Design”, which I assume is meant to be widely accepted:
I don’t see how on one hand predictions of functionality are important to ID but at the same time non-functionality is unimportant to ID.
Note that the functionality of “junk” is, in fact, one of only two ID predictions listed in the “Frequently raised but weak…” page.
“I don’t see how on one hand predictions of functionality are important to ID but at the same time non-functionality is unimportant to ID.”
We will have to read the specific quotes or predictions. My understanding is that the claims were not absolutes, that is everything will have function but there will be considerable function in the non coding regions. That does not mean that every single nucleotide will be part of some functional process. Though it may be.
But take my word for it, junk DNA having function is not an essential part of ID. At least that is my impression and I have been reading about it for over 10 years. Some people jumped on the the ENCODE project that showed a large amount of the junk DNA was transcribed. I do not think ID would have any problem with the wikipedia discussion of junk DNA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junk_DNA
You seem to be looking for absolutes. I am not aware of any.