Review: Darwin\'s Doubt (Introduction)
by David Turell 
, Thursday, September 19, 2013, 23:50 (4083 days ago)
A full exposition of the problem the Cambrian Explosion is for Darwinism:-"Here Meyer also demonstrates the mathematical implausibility of the neo-Darwinian explanation for the origin of new genetic information. The speedy appearance of animals with new body plans creates a big statistical problem. Its key point is easily grasped. Guessing a one-digit number might be easy and won't take that long. But guessing a ten or a one hundred digit number will likely take you a very long time. In biology, random mutations are equivalent to the "guesses" and the DNA and proteins are like numbers with hundreds or thousands of precisely arranged digits. The "right guess" corresponds to a DNA sequence that will produce a new protein with some heritable "adaptive" benefit for the offspring.-"If our own minds can disturb matter in ways that cannot be explained by materialists, is it not possible that some larger or more encompassing Mind can impact the world of nature? No, say the materialists. Why not? Because, in their philosophy, matter is all that exists. That's why they call themselves materialists. And that is why Thomas Nagel's book is so significant. His book is subtitled "Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False." Incidentally, Nagel has also gone out of his way to praise Stephen Meyer.-"It follows that those Darwinists who are also materialists — most of them are — can take this philosophy as their backstop and relax. They don't have to master or rebut ID arguments. They don't even have to listen to them. Their science is already built into their philosophy. But if Nagel's doubts about materialism hold up (and few laymen really accept materialism in the first place, because it denies free will and we know that consciousness is real), then the idea that there never was much to support Darwinism may one day be accepted. It was extrapolated from the observed facts of variation; it was assumed but has never been demonstrated. This much is clear: The Darwinists cannot live with ID as their enemy. They can easily co-exist with creationism, but that came from the Bible, which can be dismissed in our secular age. They rage at ID, on the other hand, because it challenges them in what they have seen as their strong suit: Science."-http://spectator.org/archives/2013/09/18/darwinism-and-materialism-they/
Review: Darwin\'s Doubt
DAVID: A full exposition of the problem the Cambrian Explosion is for Darwinism:-QUOTE: "This much is clear: The Darwinists cannot live with ID as their enemy. They can easily co-exist with creationism, but that came from the Bible, which can be dismissed in our secular age. They rage at ID, on the other hand, because it challenges them in what they have seen as their strong suit: Science."-http://spectator.org/archives/2013/09/18/darwinism-and-materialism-they/-This article quite rightly ... in my view ... dismisses random mutations as mathematically implausible, and clearly champions ID, but ID itself (aside from Creationism, which "can be dismissed in our secular age") has no explanation for The Cambrian Explosion other than the nebulous formula "God designed it". QUOTE: "Meyer applies this to the question of the origin of the information necessary to produce new forms of animal life. He argues that the only known cause of the origin of the kind of digital information that arises in the Cambrian explosion is intelligent activity. He quotes the information theorist Henry Quastler who stated that "the creation of information is habitually associated with conscious activity." Thus, he concludes, using Darwin's principle, that intelligent design provides the best explanation for the Cambrian information explosion."-HOW? This, David, is what lies at the heart of our own long discussion on the concept of the intelligent cell. If not through preprogramming or direct creation, then it can only be through the independent workings of the cell.-QUOTE: The protagonists of punctuated equilibrium came up with a mechanism that cannot plausibly produce so much anatomical change so quickly.-There is only one mechanism outside a directly intervening God that COULD produce it: namely, what the article calls "a high-tech nano-factory complicated beyond comprehension" ... which we all know as the cell. So when we talk of ID explaining the Cambrian Explosion, we have four options: 1) God himself designing every new organ, 2) God designing the intelligent mechanism that designed every new organ, 3) the intelligent mechanism creating itself by chance, 4) the intelligent mechanism evolving through some kind of panpsychist process. In 2, 3 and 4, the intelligent mechanism itself is the same. Choose whichever option you like, and you have ID as an explanation of The Cambrian Explosion. What may not seem feasible are the explanations of the explanation (= the four options)!
Review: Darwin\'s Doubt
by David Turell , Friday, September 20, 2013, 22:35 (4082 days ago) @ dhw
> http://spectator.org/archives/2013/09/18/darwinism-and-materialism-they/ &#... > dhw: This article quite rightly ... in my view ... dismisses random mutations as mathematically implausible, and clearly champions ID, but ID itself (aside from Creationism, which "can be dismissed in our secular age") has no explanation for The Cambrian Explosion other than the nebulous formula "God designed it".-What is wrong with that? > > dhw: QUOTE: "Meyer applies this to the question of the origin of the information necessary to produce new forms of animal life. He argues that the only known cause of the origin of the kind of digital information that arises in the Cambrian explosion is intelligent activity.- > dhw: HOW? This, David, is what lies at the heart of our own long discussion on the concept of the intelligent cell. If not through preprogramming or direct creation, then it can only be through the independent workings of the cell.-And Meyer and I don't believe coordiated workings of cells can do it independently. It has to be preprogrammed. > > dhw: QUOTE: The protagonists of punctuated equilibrium came up with a mechanism that cannot plausibly produce so much anatomical change so quickly. > > dhw: There is only one mechanism outside a directly intervening God that COULD produce it: namely, what the article calls "a high-tech nano-factory complicated beyond comprehension" ... which we all know as the cell. So when we talk of ID explaining the Cambrian Explosion, we have four options: 1) God himself designing every new organ, 2) God designing the intelligent mechanism that designed every new organ, 3) the intelligent mechanism creating itself by chance, 4) the intelligent mechanism evolving through some kind of panpsychist process. -I'm sticking with number 2, as I have stated before. Possibly with a dabble here and there. -At any rate the Cambrian is the dagger at the heart of Darwinism. There are no valid precursors. We have de novo advanced organisms. One can no longer blame the lack of fossils. They have been found and the earlier ones are lacking of much advancement.
Review: Darwin\'s Doubt
by George Jelliss 
, Crewe, Sunday, September 22, 2013, 17:59 (4080 days ago) @ David Turell
This article by Andrew Parker, from 2005, puts forward the theory that the Cambrian Explosion is due to the evolution of eyes:-http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/scienceshow/cambrian-explosion-explained/3440222#transcript-This of course is just one hypothesis, among many. As far as I know there is no scientific consensus, which is why the subject is open for ID controversialists to play about with.-The statement in the original post that "materialism ... denies free will" is nonsense (but I've an idea that subject has been done to death here previously). Also materialism isn't the belief that "matter is all that exists" these days, one has to include energy.-The tired old statistical arguments based on supposing that everything happens by chance, taking no account of causation, just don't add up.
--
GPJ
Review: Darwin\'s Doubt
by David Turell , Sunday, September 22, 2013, 21:08 (4080 days ago) @ George Jelliss
George:This article by Andrew Parker, from 2005, puts forward the theory > that the Cambrian Explosion is due to the evolution of eyes: > > http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/scienceshow/cambrian-explosion-explained/3... > This of course is just one hypothesis, among many. As far as I know there is no scientific consensus, which is why the subject is open for ID controversialists to play about with.- But that still doesn't explain how such complex eyes with bifocal lenses in trilobites appeared without precursors. It is only one of many advances of organ forms.
Review: Darwin\'s Doubt
GEORGE: This article by Andrew Parker, from 2005, puts forward the theory that the Cambrian Explosion is due to the evolution of eyes:-http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/scienceshow/cambrian-explosion-explained/3...-This of course is just one hypothesis, among many. As far as I know there is no scientific consensus, which is why the subject is open for ID controversialists to play about with.-The subject is equally open for agnostic and atheist controversialists to "play about with". I have followed up Lynn Margulis's concept of cooperation between cells as "conscious entities" to suggest that a dramatic environmental change could trigger dramatic changes among intelligent cell communities, leading to all kinds of innovations. This scenario can be interpreted theistically or atheistically.-GEORGE: The statement in the original post that "materialism ... denies free will" is nonsense (but I've an idea that subject has been done to death here previously). Also materialism isn't the belief that "matter is all that exists" these days, one has to include energy.-In the light of the above, it would be interesting to know how a materialist views consciousness with all its manifestations (will, memory, emotion, imagination, introspection etc.). How does matter produce awareness of itself? Is consciousness energy produced by matter? Can matter produce energy which freely directs the matter that produces it? Or is consciousness a form of energy that interacts with matter but is not dependent on matter for its existence (thus allowing for free will, psychic experiences etc.)?
Review: Darwin\'s Doubt
by David Turell , Saturday, November 02, 2013, 05:14 (4040 days ago) @ dhw
"Yes, it is true that the Darwinian mechanism of mutation & natural selection can cause small changes, "adaptations", as when bacteria develop resistance to antibiotics and insects develop resistance to pesticides. But to repeat what is now a truism, or should become one: "Darwin explains the survival of the fittest, not the arrival of the fittest", the latter being precisely what he promised to explain in his iconic book on the origin of species."-http://victorhanson.com/wordpress/?p=6666#more-6666-As time passes and discoveries deny Darwin, how long before the whole edifice of darwinism crumbles? Not to blame him, but in his time they had no idea of the complexity of life. I don't see much left of his theories. Did we edvolve? I think so. How? Perhaps God knows.