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Here they are:-http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090914111102.html-
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2009/09/reducible_versus_irreducible_s.html-Plesse read both, as the second article is a refutation of the first; then make up your own mind.

4509 views

Here they are:
> 
> http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090914111102.html
> -Broken link. -> 
> http://www.evolutionnews.org/2009/09/reducible_versus_irreducible_s.html&#... -Will read this when #1 is fixed. -> Plesse read both, as the second article is a refutation of the first; then make up your own mind.

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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"

4573 views

Try this for the science daily article:-
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090914111102.htm

4464 views

Here they are:
> 
> http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090914111102.html
> 
> 
> http://www.evolutionnews.org/2009/09/reducible_versus_irreducible_s.html&#... 
> Plesse read both, as the second article is a refutation of the first; then make up your own mind.-David, it is clear to me that when I asked some months ago for you to google "Wedge Document" you didn't do so.-The Discovery Institute is an organization who has a political goal and as you should be well aware of with issues like global warming--science based on political agendas is bad science. -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wedge_strategy
http://ncseweb.org/creationism/general/wedge-document
http://www.antievolution.org/features/wedge.html-The goal of the Discovery Institute is (quoting from their document) 
"5. Spiritual & cultural renewal:- * Mainline renewal movements begin to appropriate insights from design theory, and to repudiate theologies influenced by materialism
 * Major Christian denomination(s) defend(s) traditional doctrine of creation & repudiate(s)
 * Darwinism Seminaries increasingly recognize & repudiate naturalistic presuppositions
 * Positive uptake in public opinion polls on issues such as sexuality, abortion and belief in God"-The second bullet point should be particularly alarming as to quote it again it says "...defend(s) traditional doctrine of creation..." -Most disturbing is the last bullet-tick, all of us here should ask "What does that have to do with origins?"-Their goal is NOT the "Intelligent Design" you purport, but the Intelligent design of evangelical Christianity. I have stated before that Behe and Dembski have both been shown that they solved important and key equations wrong in their books; if they were about the discussion you and I have been about, they would have fixed these equations in subsequent printings or in errata. They have not. This means that their goal is also equally political, which considering that they are both mouthpieces for this organization... so be it. You should choose your sources more carefully. Accepting arguments from them is like getting your news from Anne Coulter. -I'd be more interested in hearing from scientists like the ones I worked with that are theists and evolutionists--which if you see, they are considered "enemies" in that section of the "Wedge."

--
\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"

4545 views

David, it is clear to me that when I asked some months ago for you to google "Wedge Document" you didn't do so.-Matt, I didn't respond to you request that I look at the Wedge document, because I have seen it many years ago and know what it contains. You seem to forget that I am Jewish. I have no interest in their trying to reimpose Christianity on everyone. Some of my ancient relatives succeeded in making a religion out of a fervent Jewish man who recognized the corruption in the religion that was occurring, and preached according to Hillel, who had preceded him. I can never buy into the fairy stories.-On the other hand, I think you must learn to open your mind to folks who might seem like the enemy. Some of their ideas are quite reasonable, despite the underlying agenda we both are aware of. For example, I don't think the idea of irreducible complexity is unreasonable. You see, I don't think it is possible for stepwise evolution to make a functioning liver or kidney at the human level, and by this I mean latterday mammals in general. Yes, we can dialyze and give folks life, but ask them what that life is like,partially poisoned and anemic. Dialysis is tricks with osmotic pressure, nothing near what a living kidney can do. This is why kidney failure patients want transplants. And we still have no good method of doing liver dialysis, whic is why there are waiting lists for transplants. I do not find Behe unreasonable. I do not see that his book on malaria and mutation rates has an error. His imputed error by critics mistakenly does not recognize his data references, which are accepted science. I'll try and find a reference for you to this mistake on their part.-You need to look at both sides, and stop dismissing out of hand: look at David Berlinski, Jewish atheist, The Devil's Delusion; David Stove: Darwinian Fairytales; Michael Denton, Evolution, A Theory in Crisis, which contains very interesting biochemistry showing the tree of life really doesn't work as yhou might expect.

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David, it is clear to me that when I asked some months ago for you to google "Wedge Document" you didn't do so.
> 
> Matt, I didn't respond to you request that I look at the Wedge document, because I have seen it many years ago and know what it contains. You seem to forget that I am Jewish. I have no interest in their trying to reimpose Christianity on everyone. Some of my ancient relatives succeeded in making a religion out of a fervent Jewish man who recognized the corruption in the religion that was occurring, and preached according to Hillel, who had preceded him. I can never buy into the fairy stories.
> -Nor can I. The story of Abraham and Isaac is one of the most powerfully disturbing stories I've ever heard. Much good and useful mysticism is contained within it. -> On the other hand, I think you must learn to open your mind to folks who might seem like the enemy. Some of their ideas are quite reasonable, despite the underlying agenda we both are aware of. For example, I don't think the idea of irreducible complexity is unreasonable. You see, I don't think it is possible for stepwise evolution to make a functioning liver or kidney at the human level, and by this I mean latterday mammals in general. Yes, we can dialyze and give folks life, but ask them what that life is like,partially poisoned and anemic. Dialysis is tricks with osmotic pressure, nothing near what a living kidney can do. This is why kidney failure patients want transplants. And we still have no good method of doing liver dialysis, whic is why there are waiting lists for transplants. I do not find Behe unreasonable. I do not see that his book on malaria and mutation rates has an error. His imputed error by critics mistakenly does not recognize his data references, which are accepted science. I'll try and find a reference for you to this mistake on their part.
> -I have no problem with design as a valid philosophical position. I have a problem with organizations that try to pass themselves off as scientific organizations when their real goal has absolutely nothing to do with science. The Discovery Institute would be the equivalent of a leftist liberal getting their news from http://leftnews.org/ except that the organization calls itself "http://rightnews.org/" in an attempt to fool the public. It is unethical and immoral. -In Behe's case his algebraic error results in an error of 65 orders of magnitude; it makes his own result less likely. It was on his argument about bacterial flagellum, and it was the key equation of the whole book. Since "Darwin's Black Box" has been in print, this errata has been presented to him in numerous extrememly public events such as college campus debates. He has yet to fix the error. Scientists--when doing their job properly--fix errors when they are brought to their attention. Behe doesn't, therefore he's not a scientist. -
> You need to look at both sides, and stop dismissing out of hand: look at David Berlinski, Jewish atheist, The Devil's Delusion; David Stove: Darwinian Fairytales; Michael Denton, Evolution, A Theory in Crisis, which contains very interesting biochemistry showing the tree of life really doesn't work as yhou might expect.-Again, I have little issue with Design. You criticized me for looking at talkorigins previously--the Discovery Institute is just as awful if not worse, do to its political agenda; it shapes whatever they're willing to do, and they have been shown to flat-out ignore things such as what Behe and Dembski have done. Dembski is actually much worse than Behe in his use of mathematical terminology... cascades of equivocation with no clear intent aside from obfuscation. He even attributes ideas to wrong people and deliberately misquotes in his writing such as when he mis-paraphrased Dennett as advocating quarantining "religious people." (Which he still hasn't retracted.) Behe is just as much a politician... do some more digging. -There are honest authors for design, I simply have been far too jaded by the ones that seem to have the most clout; it destroys the credibility of the entire philosophy, and I for one would think you'd take a stronger position as it is organizations such as the Discovery Institute that poison the water against design by being the PETA of Creationism. Or another stormfront.org. -When my studies are done, keep those authors in mind as I'll look into them; Denton sounds like a good place to start.

--
\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"

4605 views

In Behe's case his algebraic error results in an error of 65 orders of magnitude; it makes his own result less likely. It was on his argument about bacterial flagellum, and it was the key equation of the whole book. Since "Darwin's Black Box" has been in print, this errata has been presented to him in numerous extrememly public events such as college campus debates. He has yet to fix the error. Scientists--when doing their job properly--fix errors when they are brought to their attention. Behe doesn't, therefore he's not a scientist. -Where is this 10^65 error? It is not in Darwin's Black Box in the flagellum section nor any other page I can find.

4432 views

In Behe's case his algebraic error results in an error of 65 orders of magnitude; it makes his own result less likely. It was on his argument about bacterial flagellum, and it was the key equation of the whole book. Since "Darwin's Black Box" has been in print, this errata has been presented to him in numerous extrememly public events such as college campus debates. He has yet to fix the error. Scientists--when doing their job properly--fix errors when they are brought to their attention. Behe doesn't, therefore he's not a scientist. 
> 
> Where is this 10^65 error? It is not in Darwin's Black Box in the flagellum section nor any other page I can find.-Ah, that's because the book I was referring to was "No Free Lunch," written by again, Dembski. (The error is on page 297, and if you remember basic algebra you'll find it very quickly. Sad when a man with no degree can do math better than a PhD in mathematics.) -Grabbed from random biochemist on Behe:-"Behe used a calculation to try to show that a protein like trypsin (which is a protein in your intestines and helps you digest food) could never evolve through natural selection. Trypsin contains a specific kind of bond (called a disulfide bond) that stabilizes the structure of the protein; if this bond isn't formed then the protein doesn't work. Behe decided he'd try to predict the probability of a disulfide forming throughout natural selection. His calculation requires that the protein form a disulfide only at one certain position in the protein's structure, which was his first scientific error. A disulfide bond can form not just in one specific place in the protein for it to stabilize the protein, as Behe presumes in his calculation. Additionally, a protein doesn't necessarily need a disulfide bond to be stable, there are many other mechanisms to stabilize a protein than Behe considers in his calculations. When you factor these 2 caveats into the equations, then natural selection suddenly becomes much, much more attractive as a model for biological change than Behe claims. This is merely a simple criticism of Behe's work; there are also many other, more complicated problems with his work that I won't go into here. "-(I had to pick an argument that I could understand better with my minimal background in organic chemistry.) Behe makes too many assumptions, and we all know what that does. If you pick only one way to form the molecule, the odds are against it. If you loosen your restrictions to other reactions that give similar but not identical results, you have an easier game. You always seem to ask the question "what are the odds that we got to this exact point," but both you and Behe seem to ignore the chain of causation that lead to whatever event you want to study. The odds of a man appearing from thin air is low, but the odds of an amino acid forming in a pool is pretty high. Could we have been seeded from some other means, maybe even an alien race as Dembski suggests? Helluva lot more believable than a mystical driving force.-Why do I think natural selection is sufficient? Changes accumulate in all organisms over time; this is documented fact. But if there's no need to forcibly evolve, why do it? Nature has shown us that it is fairly economical, at least in regards to systems such as the krebs' cycle. The same creationist argument applies to design as it does to evolution: If design is true, we should be able to see macro-evolution happen very rapidly, or we should be able to induce it. However neither of these things has been observed; lots and lots of micro, never any macro. This suggests that evolution is a more passive process that does its job only when it MUST. -For your idea of RNA pushing change, this makes alot of sense when you consider that stress hormones do alot of things to the body, like decrease life expectancy. It makes complete sense that when you're stressed, mutations occur--which would be your epigenetics. Are these changes passed on? If they make to the sex cells, of course they are. [EDIT] And that's the definition of natural selection. [EDIT] But that's not what your question is; your question is about what drives speciation, not evolution. That is a much more abstract question.-EDITED

--
\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"

4595 views


> Ah, that's because the book I was referring to was "No Free Lunch," written by again, Dembski. (The error is on page 297, and if you remember basic algebra you'll find it very quickly. Sad when a man with no degree can do math better than a PhD in mathematics.) -I found the page, thank you. The first time I got to that point in the book I had no idea what was going on. He is discussing perturbation probability, whatever that is, and I still have no idea of how to read it, but I don't see any simple algebra on the page. Dembski has an MS in statistics and a PH. D. in math and another in philosophy. What page are we really talking about?-> 
> "Behe used a calculation to try to show that a protein like trypsin (which is a protein in your intestines and helps you digest food) could never evolve through natural selection. Trypsin contains a specific kind of bond (called a disulfide bond) that stabilizes the structure of the protein; if this bond isn't formed then the protein doesn't work. Behe decided he'd try to predict the probability of a disulfide forming throughout natural selection. His calculation requires that the protein form a disulfide only at one certain position in the protein's structure, which was his first scientific error. A disulfide bond can form not just in one specific place in the protein for it to stabilize the protein, as Behe presumes in his calculation. Additionally, a protein doesn't necessarily need a disulfide bond to be stable, there are many other mechanisms to stabilize a protein than Behe considers in his calculations. When you factor these 2 caveats into the equations, then natural selection suddenly becomes much, much more attractive as a model for biological change than Behe claims. This is merely a simple criticism of Behe's work; there are also many other, more complicated problems with his work that I won't go into here. "-This reference is in neither of his books. As an MD I know about pancreatic trypsin and its functions to digest protein.. Human trypsin has to have an exact structure to work as an enzyme. The disulfide bond has to be in its proper position. There are three disulfide bonds. The molecule itself is huge, molecular weight about 21,000. Behe is a full professor of biochemistry at Leigh U. I doubt that the university allowed him to reach tenure making the kind of imputed mistakes your biochemistry friend attributed to him. To accept any of the above paragraph I would need exact references, not off-hand quotes from a biochemistry friend. I would like to see your research of Behe, and quotations produced by Behe. Like you I can only believe what I find or what is presented to me by reputatble quotations.-You may not like Behe, or Dembski and their association with DI, but I feel they are raising important questions that need to be investigated. I don't reject anyone out of hand. You never know where an important but weird idea may come from.

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> > Ah, that's because the book I was referring to was "No Free Lunch," written by again, Dembski. (The error is on page 297, and if you remember basic algebra you'll find it very quickly. Sad when a man with no degree can do math better than a PhD in mathematics.) 
> 
> I found the page, thank you. The first time I got to that point in the book I had no idea what was going on. He is discussing perturbation probability, whatever that is, and I still have no idea of how to read it, but I don't see any simple algebra on the page. Dembski has an MS in statistics and a PH. D. in math and another in philosophy. What page are we really talking about?
> -It's 297 in the one I have at home. My notebook with the actual work is still packed from my last move. (Will have to wait.) -http://www.talkreason.org/articles/eandsdembski.pdf-For some published Dembski refutations; light on math. -> > 
> > "Behe used a calculation to try to show that a protein like trypsin (which is a protein in your intestines and helps you digest food) could never evolve through natural selection. Trypsin contains a specific kind of bond (called a disulfide bond) that stabilizes the structure of the protein; if this bond isn't formed then the protein doesn't work. Behe decided he'd try to predict the probability of a disulfide forming throughout natural selection. His calculation requires that the protein form a disulfide only at one certain position in the protein's structure, which was his first scientific error. A disulfide bond can form not just in one specific place in the protein for it to stabilize the protein, as Behe presumes in his calculation. Additionally, a protein doesn't necessarily need a disulfide bond to be stable, there are many other mechanisms to stabilize a protein than Behe considers in his calculations. When you factor these 2 caveats into the equations, then natural selection suddenly becomes much, much more attractive as a model for biological change than Behe claims. This is merely a simple criticism of Behe's work; there are also many other, more complicated problems with his work that I won't go into here. "
> 
> This reference is in neither of his books. As an MD I know about pancreatic trypsin and its functions to digest protein.. Human trypsin has to have an exact structure to work as an enzyme. The disulfide bond has to be in its proper position. There are three disulfide bonds. The molecule itself is huge, molecular weight about 21,000. Behe is a full professor of biochemistry at Leigh U. I doubt that the university allowed him to reach tenure making the kind of imputed mistakes your biochemistry friend attributed to him. To accept any of the above paragraph I would need exact references, not off-hand quotes from a biochemistry friend. I would like to see your research of Behe, and quotations produced by Behe. Like you I can only believe what I find or what is presented to me by reputatble quotations.
> 
> You may not like Behe, or Dembski and their association with DI, but I feel they are raising important questions that need to be investigated. I don't reject anyone out of hand. You never know where an important but weird idea may come from.-Good ideas can come from anywhere, but they need to come honestly. I didn't catch Dembski's error (it was pointed out to me and I confirmed it for myself), but Dembski has publicly never acknowledged it one way or another. He hasn't tried to defend it as right, nor has he done anything to reconcile the issue.-In the end their ties to the DI are too many to discount. (As a note, LeHigh university has a disclaimer on their homepage in regards to Behe.) -The process theologian I know also suggested to me once to get a book from a guy who spends most of his writing career writing 9/11 conspiracy theories. -There's a point where you leave loons to their own business. I'm open to design theory, but God help me it's got to be fact-checked and reviewed, and at least in Dembski's case, that doesn't happen. -http://goodmath.blogspot.com/2006/03/king-of-bad-math-dembskis-bad.html

--
\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"

4642 views

What page are we really talking about?
> > 
> 
> It's 297 in the one I have at home. My notebook with the actual work is still packed from my last move. (Will have to wait.) 
> 
>
> 
> For some published Dembski refutations; light on math. 
> 
> > > 
> > > "Behe used a calculation to try to show that a protein like trypsin (which is a protein in your intestines and helps you digest food) could never evolve through natural selection. Trypsin contains a specific kind of bond (called a disulfide bond) that stabilizes the structure of the protein; if this bond isn't formed then the protein doesn't work. Behe decided he'd try to predict the probability of a disulfide forming throughout natural selection. His calculation requires that the protein form a disulfide only at one certain position in the protein's structure, which was his first scientific error. A disulfide bond can form not just in one specific place in the protein for it to stabilize the protein, as Behe presumes in his calculation. Additionally, a protein doesn't necessarily need a disulfide bond to be stable, there are many other mechanisms to stabilize a protein than Behe considers in his calculations. When you factor these 2 caveats into the equations, then natural selection suddenly becomes much, much more attractive as a model for biological change than Behe claims. This is merely a simple criticism of Behe's work; there are also many other, more complicated problems with his work that I won't go into here. "
> > 
> > This reference is in neither of his books. As an MD I know about pancreatic trypsin and its functions to digest protein.. Human trypsin has to have an exact structure to work as an enzyme. The disulfide bond has to be in its proper position. There are three disulfide bonds. The molecule itself is huge, molecular weight about 21,000. Behe is a full professor of biochemistry at Leigh U. I doubt that the university allowed him to reach tenure making the kind of imputed mistakes your biochemistry friend attributed to him. To accept any of the above paragraph I would need exact references, not off-hand quotes from a biochemistry friend. I would like to see your research of Behe, and quotations produced by Behe. Like you I can only believe what I find or what is presented to me by reputatble quotations.
> > -
I've reviewed the criticisms of Dembski's theory and they make sense, even though I have no idea how the math works. Your pointed questions about Dembski has made me realize that I am much more influenced by Behe's biological line of reasoning, obviously because of my biologic background and I follow Behe's thoughts more easily. I note that you have not responded about Behe as re-quoted above. Can you, or is the entire issue based on a hearsay conversation?

4524 views

"Behe used a calculation to try to show that a protein like trypsin (which is a protein in your intestines and helps you digest food) could never evolve through natural selection. Trypsin contains a specific kind of bond (called a disulfide bond) that stabilizes the structure of the protein; if this bond isn't formed then the protein doesn't work. Behe decided he'd try to predict the probability of a disulfide forming throughout natural selection. His calculation requires that the protein form a disulfide only at one certain position in the protein's structure, which was his first scientific error. A disulfide bond can form not just in one specific place in the protein for it to stabilize the protein, as Behe presumes in his calculation. Additionally, a protein doesn't necessarily need a disulfide bond to be stable, there are many other mechanisms to stabilize a protein than Behe considers in his calculations. When you factor these 2 caveats into the equations, then natural selection suddenly becomes much, much more attractive as a model for biological change than Behe claims. This is merely a simple criticism of Behe's work; there are also many other, more complicated problems with his work that I won't go into here. "
> > > 
> > > This reference is in neither of his books. As an MD I know about pancreatic trypsin and its functions to digest protein.. Human trypsin has to have an exact structure to work as an enzyme. The disulfide bond has to be in its proper position. There are three disulfide bonds. The molecule itself is huge, molecular weight about 21,000. Behe is a full professor of biochemistry at Leigh U. I doubt that the university allowed him to reach tenure making the kind of imputed mistakes your biochemistry friend attributed to him. To accept any of the above paragraph I would need exact references, not off-hand quotes from a biochemistry friend. I would like to see your research of Behe, and quotations produced by Behe. Like you I can only believe what I find or what is presented to me by reputatble quotations.
> > > 
> 
> 
> I've reviewed the criticisms of Dembski's theory and they make sense, even though I have no idea how the math works. Your pointed questions about Dembski has made me realize that I am much more influenced by Behe's biological line of reasoning, obviously because of my biologic background and I follow Behe's thoughts more easily. I note that you have not responded about Behe as re-quoted above. Can you, or is the entire issue based on a hearsay conversation?-It was in reference to a debate the prof attended where the panelists were given 20 minutes each to make their cases, and then another 20 minute wrap-up. -I will have to look harder to find you valid criticisms about Behe, he appears to be a bit more active (and more hated) than Dembski, probably because biological arguments are not nearly so easy to refute. I can tell you that he shares a strong affiliation with the DI and to me that is enough to poison the water. -Remember: I'm here not because I'm an atheist, I'm here because I'm looking for other searchers, "design" as it were is not invalid.

--
\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"

4583 views

I will have to look harder to find you valid criticisms about Behe, he appears to be a bit more active (and more hated) than Dembski, probably because biological arguments are not nearly so easy to refute. I can tell you that he shares a strong affiliation with the DI and to me that is enough to poison the water. 
> 
> Remember: I'm here not because I'm an atheist, I'm here because I'm looking for other searchers, "design" as it were is not invalid.-I have talked personally with Behe at a conference I attended were I sold some of my books, in Florida about 2 years ago. I promise you he does not have horns and is quite reasonable. I believe both he and Ken Miller are active Catholics. By the way David Berlinski, the Jewish atheist is a Fellow at Discovery I. There are all kinds of folks there,I guess, as long as they are anti-Darwin. It is an interesting group. Michael Medved, the conservative talk show guy, very religious Jew, historian and movie critic is also a Fellow.

4445 views

I will have to look harder to find you valid criticisms about Behe, he appears to be a bit more active (and more hated) than Dembski, probably because biological arguments are not nearly so easy to refute. I can tell you that he shares a strong affiliation with the DI and to me that is enough to poison the water. 
> > 
> > Remember: I'm here not because I'm an atheist, I'm here because I'm looking for other searchers, "design" as it were is not invalid.
> 
> I have talked personally with Behe at a conference I attended were I sold some of my books, in Florida about 2 years ago. I promise you he does not have horns and is quite reasonable. I believe both he and Ken Miller are active Catholics. By the way David Berlinski, the Jewish atheist is a Fellow at Discovery I. There are all kinds of folks there,I guess, as long as they are anti-Darwin. It is an interesting group. Michael Medved, the conservative talk show guy, very religious Jew, historian and movie critic is also a Fellow.-From wikipedia: In responding to Berlinski's arguments, marine biologist Wesley R. Elsberry comments: "I personally like my 'at onces' to refer to events significantly shorter than ten million years."[10]-At core here, is a claim that 10million years isn't long enough for these creatures to appear in the fossil record. -How can you say that if you don't know,-1. The background mutation rate. (Conjectures don't count.) 
2. The nature of the changing environmental conditions
3. The nature of predation
4. A genetic snapshot of every intermediate generation
5. Knowing something about the life cycle and duration of the organism(s) in question.-We can make conjectures about some of these based on what we know now, but the conditions for life now vs. during the Cambrian are completely different, therefore the conjectures are exactly that. -And how can epigenetics explain it better than rapidly changing environmental conditions, considering the gaps in what we know about the Cambrian? It does seem to me that the traditional theory suffices. -And how does epigenetics make a creator more likely?

--
\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"

4536 views

Matt: Could we have been seeded from some other means, maybe even an alien race as Dembski suggests? Helluva lot more believable than a mystical driving force.-Although it's as feasible ... or not ... as any other theory, I can never see the attraction of this particular one, since it only adds a layer to the overall mystery of how we got here. If we're descended from an alien race, how did the alien race get here? As you said earlier, it'll be materialism v. mysticism again. (Apologies to BBella as this doesn't quite cover her concept of never-beginning and never-ending life.) At least we know from the outset that the question of how a universal intelligence got here can't possibly be answered, because if it exists, it's on an entirely different plane from us, and we're simply not equipped to investigate it. 

Matt: If there's no need to forcibly evolve, why do it? [...] If design is true, we should be able to see macro-evolution happen very rapidly, or we should be able to induce it. However neither of these things has been observed. -I'm not at all sure if I've followed your argument throughout this paragraph, so my apologies if I've misunderstood it. That first question is a haunting one. The simple forms of life have proved durably successful, and so they clearly didn't need to evolve. We therefore have to go back to the usual theory of beneficial chance mutations, which were not needed, but conveyed an advantage. Every single organ, faculty, sense which separates us by such a vast gulf from those earliest forms of life would then have come into being initially by pure chance. David has, for instance, asked the provocative question: How Did Sex Pop Up? Bearing in mind that it takes two to tango, and that if those two are to reproduce they will normally have to be male and female, the idea of simultaneous chance mutations puts a mighty strain on one's credulity. -The second part of your statement puzzles me. You seem to be taking just one concept of design into consideration: the designer decides to make a stegosaurus, and hey presto, we have a stegosaurus. But a designer may just as easily have designed the initial programme, allowing for a vast array of variations, and then let it run its own course. Then there would be absolutely no difference between the atheist evolution set in motion by chance and the theist/deist evolution set in motion by God. Or you can have evolution proceeding in fits and starts (punctuated equilibrium) that have been deliberately engineered (by God) or have been brought about by natural circumstances (e.g. by climate change). Of course the latter can also be interpreted as the work of God, whose scientific experiments with matter would have been conducted by manipulation of that matter and not by some mumbo-jumbo. -You suggest that "evolution is a more passive process that does its job only when it MUST". I think "evolution" has to be split up into mutations, adaptation, natural selection. Beneficial mutations ... which I find a huge problem ... are creative, not passive, since they're supposed to produce brand new features. There is no "MUST" here. Adaptations are a MUST, and natural selection is automatic, so yes, I'd say they are passive. But how does any of that make design less likely?-In your latest post about sex, on the subject of stillbirths, you ask: "If we were the product of design, why would we not see something a little more efficient?" Again, I think you're confining yourself to a single concept that equates design with perfection. Do you mean to tell me your car, TV, computer etc. never go wrong? If you rid yourself of the idea of a perfect, omniscient, omnipotent God and focus only on design, there is no reason at all why (a) the design should not be faulty, and (b) why the designer should not deliberately have created processes that are subject to the vagaries of chance. If anything, that would make it all a lot more interesting for him. And you needn't identify that with deism, because there's nothing to stop such a designer from stepping in when he feels like it. -You refer to George's view that life is too chaotic and disorganized for it to be designed. There are two separate kinds of "life" here. Life as a physical fact, in the sense of reproduction, digestion, the senses, emotions, consciousness etc., which are all so complex that some of us can't place our faith in chance to put it all together. Then there is life as it is lived, which is and always has been so "chaotic and disorganized" that some of us can't place our faith in any kind of benevolent father figure up in the sky watching over us. The first problem has nothing to do with the second. Whether God (if he exists) cares for us 100%, 50%, or 0% is a totally separate question from that of design.

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David has, for instance, asked the provocative question: How Did Sex Pop Up? Bearing in mind that it takes two to tango, and that if those two are to reproduce they will normally have to be male and female, the idea of simultaneous chance mutations puts a mighty strain on one's credulity. -
There are other two-to-tango issues: 1)upright posture in humans, and a simultaneously enlarging baby head. The female pelvis is changing at the same time, adapting to the posture and enlarging the outlet, simultaneously with the baby head growth, and ending up with a 90 degree angle in the birth canal. And the baby is a different individual from the mother with only half her DNA.-2) The examples of two cooperating species or parasitic species that I have recently given. Both must have mutually beneficial simultaneous mutations. All of this really strains credulity.

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Matt: If there's no need to forcibly evolve, why do it? [...] If design is true, we should be able to see macro-evolution happen very rapidly, or we should be able to induce it. However neither of these things has been observed.[/i] -It depends on the design. As you know I believe DNA/RNA is a code that drives evolution thru the actions of microRNA, but it also depends on nature's input, mutation, epigentic variation which is inheritable, and therefore is not like a magician pulling the rabbit out of the hat. We know we haven't observed macro, and we know that there are spurts and pauses in the process. We really can't imply or guess what design might do. It is guess work.
> 
> 
> The second part of your statement puzzles me. You seem to be taking just one concept of design into consideration: the designer decides to make a stegosaurus, and hey presto, we have a stegosaurus. But a designer may just as easily have designed the initial programme, allowing for a vast array of variations,-And that is exactly the point I am making. I firmly think evolution is designed to create us, with lots of variation on the way. The universe came in a Big Bang, and life appeared quickly. Then there is a long period of about 3 billion years before complexity of life starts (Cambrian). Would a designer do that? Of course, he can do anything he wants.-> You suggest that "evolution is a more passive process that does its job only when it MUST". I think "evolution" has to be split up into mutations, adaptation, natural selection. Beneficial mutations ... which I find a huge problem ... are creative, not passive, since they're supposed to produce brand new features.-If you mean beneficial mutations are not passive, I agree, but I still insist 
that chance mutation means the overall process is passive. Remember, almost all beneficial.mutations are recessive. Epigenetic mechanisms seem a faster and better way to speciation. That is really the way around Haldane's dilemma, which in my view of the literature is not solved in any other way.

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dhw--alot of stuff here. Forgive me, the next two weeks will be a blur, I just got accepted to a big internship and am transitioning to private insurance as well as handling... everything else. I hope after graduation life calms down, lol.-Your post deserves a better treatment than I can give it right now.

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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"

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dhw:
Matt: If there's no need to forcibly evolve, why do it? [...] If design is true, we should be able to see macro-evolution happen very rapidly, or we should be able to induce it. However neither of these things has been observed.-I'm not at all sure if I've followed your argument throughout this paragraph, so my apologies if I've misunderstood it. That first question is a haunting one. The simple forms of life have proved durably successful, and so they clearly didn't need to evolve. We therefore have to go back to the usual theory of beneficial chance mutations, which were not needed, but conveyed an advantage. Every single organ, faculty, sense which separates us by such a vast gulf from those earliest forms of life would then have come into being initially by pure chance. David has, for instance, asked the provocative question: How Did Sex Pop Up? Bearing in mind that it takes two to tango, and that if those two are to reproduce they will normally have to be male and female, the idea of simultaneous chance mutations puts a mighty strain on one's credulity.-According to conventional evolutionary theory, even though mutations happen at all times in all organisms, the appearance of new organisms only arrives through "need," or in other words, some environmental attribute outside the organism's control starts putting pressure on it, either through predation or through destruction of its habitat by means of any natural phenomenon; sometimes just through moving away from the core group and adapting to a slightly different habitat. Those that manage to survive due to a genetically-linked trait have been "selected," and get to continue on. So that's what I mean that evolution only seems to happen when it has to. It is this particular segment of evolution that David (and you?) seem to be at odds with, and I think I understand why. Technically, if we are collecting and disseminating mutations and passing them along--isn't THAT evolution too? And if it is, is it the random environmental processes that is doing the work? I would say that the design view is looking "inside" the organism whereas the traditional theory is looking "outside." The major obstacle for the design argument is that if it is true, than the event of macroevolution (drastic shift from one body form to another) should be viewable, or at the least, we should be able to induce it at will without needing a corresponding environmental shift. -The answer for your ancient organisms; not all populations would have had to evolve, if the conditions stayed relatively stable. In our primordial soup, it covered the globe, and conditions were going to be different at the poles, for example, than at the equator. There would be a selective difference that would cause a 'NEED' for evolution in these locations. In these instances it wouldn't have been a beneficial mutation that simply "appeared" as you seem to suggest, only that some normal variation (like the changes that make Africans darker-skinned than me) existed that allowed some individuals to survive in a different environment. No one will deny that if I moved to Africa and sat out in the sun naked that I'd probably die, wheras one of my good buddies from Africa (esp. Sudan... holy crap are they dark) would shrug his shoulders. Oh, for the record, I'm nearly as white as my hair is blonde. I'll post a pic sometime...)-The waters get even more cloudy when we add in evolutionary computer sims; in short randomness DOES give rise to ordered structures. (DISCLAIMER: I'm not saying that computer sims provide evidence for or against a creator, only that order can come from chaos without any intervention beyond pressing "play.") -None of this gets us any closer to a final answer, but that's more or less been my position. Materialists see only disorder, immaterialists see design, neither of which leads to any real conclusion about a creator. (My time on this board has only made me more sure about being unsure.)

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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"

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I would say that the design view is looking "inside" the organism whereas the traditional theory is looking "outside." The major obstacle for the design argument is that if it is true, than the event of macroevolution (drastic shift from one body form to another) should be viewable, or at the least, we should be able to induce it at will without needing a corresponding environmental shift.-I like the 'inside, outside' approach. But you've got the 'design' obstacle exactly backwards. The fossil record is staccato. Pause and lurch forward. Punctuated equilibrium. We can follow intermediary forms like the whale progression George provided, but no one has ever found the tiny steps, slow progression thru mutation should provide. Instead we find quick adaptation possibly through epigenetics and microRNA control. We have not seen macro-evolution in the short span of the last 200 years, but it is so short a time period. If, in the future we fully understand the entire genetic coding system, and then can manufacture our own designed animals, it throws Darwin out the window. We have done ID ourselves, and the system is shown to be so complex, it could not have contrived itself naturally, and the designer wins. This has been my view for the last decade. I know you will argue that such a system could arise naturally. Knowing mutation rates, the time involved, the steps that had to be accomplished to create the code, will create odds beyond a probability bound. We should be able to do the math without suppositions at that time.

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I would say that the design view is looking "inside" the organism whereas the traditional theory is looking "outside." The major obstacle for the design argument is that if it is true, than the event of macroevolution (drastic shift from one body form to another) should be viewable, or at the least, we should be able to induce it at will without needing a corresponding environmental shift.
> 
> I like the 'inside, outside' approach. But you've got the 'design' obstacle exactly backwards. The fossil record is staccato. Pause and lurch forward. Punctuated equilibrium. We can follow intermediary forms like the whale progression George provided, but no one has ever found the tiny steps, slow progression thru mutation should provide. -We've been over this before. The only way you could capture that information is to have a fossil from every generation from whale x to whale y, and considering the rarity of fossils in the first place, this is an unrealistic restriction. Who says that 10million years isn't enough? Who says that even 10,000 years isn't enough? This is impossible to know without access to the DNA record so we could actually "see" what was changing; even if we had all the generations between whale x and whale y. If the changes happen from an organism and it passes down to the next--however it happens--basic evolutionary theory as you are trying to fight it remains unchanged, and it still doesn't answer any question about a creator. -
>Instead we find quick adaptation possibly through epigenetics and microRNA control. We have not seen macro-evolution in the short span of the last 200 years, but it is so short a time period. -And here you fall victim to your own reasoning from above. How is 200 years too short with how many millions of species? How about Drosophilia. We've never seen population shifts w/o a corresponding environmental change, nor bacteria on agar plates. Only selection works. -If, in the future we fully understand the entire genetic coding system, and then can manufacture our own designed animals, it throws Darwin out the window. We have done ID ourselves, and the system is shown to be so complex, it could not have contrived itself naturally, and the designer wins. This has been my view for the last decade. I know you will argue that such a system could arise naturally. Knowing mutation rates, the time involved, the steps that had to be accomplished to create the code, will create odds beyond a probability bound. We should be able to do the math without suppositions at that time.-
No... it doesn't throw darwin out of the window because you *must* show that macroevolution happens *without* a corresponding environmental change. That is the *only* way to defeat the argument..n. but it would still stay nothing about a creator. (see above.)-[EDIT] I might not be making myself clear: The only way to say that darwinian evolution is incorrect is to show that macroevolution happens without an outside influence. Building our own animals would prove nothing any better than building our own conscious AI.

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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"

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No... it doesn't throw darwin out of the window because you *must* show that macroevolution happens *without* a corresponding environmental change. That is the *only* way to defeat the argument..n. but it would still stay nothing about a creator. (see above.)
> 
> [EDIT] I might not be making myself clear: The only way to say that darwinian evolution is incorrect is to show that macroevolution happens without an outside influence. Building our own animals would prove nothing any better than building our own conscious AI. -I like your inside outside approach. And I am not making myself clear enough. I think the time will come that we will fully understand the workings of epigenetics and microRNA manipulations of genes. At that point we will be able to show that 'inside mechanisms' can create either a new species or a marked modification of an existing species, beyond simple adaptation.. My point still does not answer you, but it does demonstrate the potency of the coding system, and raises the argument that such a system is so complex it could not have arisen by chance.-The chief tenet of Darwinism is that an organism's environment changes and demands a change by the organism in order for it to survive. That change can be anything, Climate, predators, loss of food, etc. The known fossil record shows stasis and then sudden development. It is possible that sudden development is driven from the coding mechanism within, and only sometimes from adverse forces without. Actually both inside and outside forces can be operative; from the recent epigenetic studies, the findings that methylation of DNA has profound effects, we know the inside mechanisms can be very effective. Now lets go back to the prime known example of sudden changes, the Cambrian Explosion. What were the adverse problems that might have demanded sudden complex development? None are discussed. Instead, the current reason for the explosion is a marked increase in atmospheric oxygen concentration, which allowed the complex development of 57 new species, of which 36 exist today. That seems to say to me, the internal forces were allowed to work. And interestingly, that is what most Darwinists say, 'the oxygen allowed the advance'. They mean mutations could work their amazing magic easily. But only if those mutations appeared in tremendous numbers in a short time geologically and by chance. It is still a passive mechanism.-Modification of species by Environmental change is obvious: the examples I use are the Grand Canyon squirrels. The North Rim group at 2,000 feet higher are somewhat different than the South Rim guys. The process of the lifting of the plateau and the cutting of the rivers took about 10 million years. Enough time to modify.-Your point about intermediate fossils, I think has been dismissed by most paleontologists. Gould has the famous quote about the dark secret of the tree of life only being known at the tips and nodes of branches. Over 150 years ago Darwin knew this and thought intermediates would be found. Surely with all the fossil hunting that has been done, some tiny steps should have appeared. Just a very few are needed to confirm Darwin. There are none. A species appears in the record de novo, and then follow-up modifications are seen spread out over time, and those modifications are always large, i.e., the whales.-Therefore, inside, outside there are two theoretical forces. Either one is capable of being the main drive. I choose inside, you choose outside. Can I prove God is the designer? No. But you can't prove Darwin's Theory by the current record. I still stick to the contention that if the code is as powerful as I propose, a designer with intelligence did it.

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No one will deny that if I moved to Africa and sat out in the sun naked that I'd probably die, wheras one of my good buddies from Africa (esp. Sudan... holy crap are they dark) would shrug his shoulders. Oh, for the record, I'm nearly as white as my hair is blonde. I'll post a pic sometime...)-Believe me, black folks sunburn also. Further a recent review came up with no idea of why we turned white. Can't remember which website.
> 
> The waters get even more cloudy when we add in evolutionary computer sims; in short randomness DOES give rise to ordered structures. (DISCLAIMER: I'm not saying that computer sims provide evidence for or against a creator, only that order can come from chaos without any intervention beyond pressing "play.") -Those computer simulations I've seen look too simplistic to start with.

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No one will deny that if I moved to Africa and sat out in the sun naked that I'd probably die, wheras one of my good buddies from Africa (esp. Sudan... holy crap are they dark) would shrug his shoulders. Oh, for the record, I'm nearly as white as my hair is blonde. I'll post a pic sometime...)
> 
> Believe me, black folks sunburn also. Further a recent review came up with no idea of why we turned white. Can't remember which website.-Moot really, doesn't nullify my point. I'd come out with 2nd degree burns, the other wouldn't. -> > 
> > The waters get even more cloudy when we add in evolutionary computer sims; in short randomness DOES give rise to ordered structures. (DISCLAIMER: I'm not saying that computer sims provide evidence for or against a creator, only that order can come from chaos without any intervention beyond pressing "play.") 
> 
> Those computer simulations I've seen look too simplistic to start with.-You're not looking at that correctly: if you create spontaneous structure from simple rules, the simpler the rule set you can use lowers the bar for complexity to appear.-The more I think about this discussion the more I think that your RNA hypothesis wouldn't be as ground-breaking as it first appears. Natural Selection would still be a better explanation for why species go extinct and why others live. So for some organisms NS clearly will play a strong role in their development. Your idea would create a deeper mess for you; you need to be able to determine which species came about by RNA-driven changes, and which ones appeared due to natural selection. Carried to its logical conclusion, the two concepts are so intrinsically interwoven with each other that all you would have is another chicken-and-egg scenario.-And in my case, you also need to make it clear why exactly it would mean that a creator would be a more tenable position if it were true. From my vantage, you're still in philosophy-ville.

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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"

4541 views

The waters get even more cloudy when we add in evolutionary computer sims; in short randomness DOES give rise to ordered structures. (DISCLAIMER: I'm not saying that computer sims provide evidence for or against a creator, only that order can come from chaos without any intervention beyond pressing "play.")-Perhaps the universal intelligence set it up that way. You math folks have pointed out that simple math and theoretical math seems to have a reality of its own. And points out that math reaches into all sorts of natural geography and biology: fractals for forestry (dendrology); for coastlines; etc.-> > Those computer simulations I've seen look too simplistic to start with.
> 
> You're not looking at that correctly: if you create spontaneous structure from simple rules, the simpler the rule set you can use lowers the bar for complexity to appear. -Kaufman and his computer games make that clear.
> 
> The more I think about this discussion the more I think that your RNA hypothesis wouldn't be as ground-breaking as it first appears. Natural Selection would still be a better explanation for why species go extinct and why others live. -Back to Raup: extinction is mainly bad luck. His argument is (altered slightly per your hypothesis) sudden change kills and mutation-driven change is too slow to correct. -> So for some organisms NS clearly will play a strong role in their development. Your idea would create a deeper mess for you;-If I am right, only to die. Clearly the inside mechanisms can move much more swiftly than the outside mechanism of NS waiting for the chance mutations. No question, inside is more agile.-> 
> And in my case, you also need to make it clear why exactly it would mean that a creator would be a more tenable position if it were true. From my vantage, you're still in philosophy-ville.-Exactly. Any analysis of scientific findings, looking for meaning, looking at reasonable future events is in the suburbs of philosophy. My first wife said the only thing she learned in that class was 'x is a dog'. What I learned was 'matter is energy on the outside and mind is energy on the inside'. I still buy the universal mind idea. To repeat my tenet:If that code is the major inside driver and NS is the minor outside driver, the code is too complex for chance to have created it.

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The waters get even more cloudy when we add in evolutionary computer sims; in short randomness DOES give rise to ordered structures. (DISCLAIMER: I'm not saying that computer sims provide evidence for or against a creator, only that order can come from chaos without any intervention beyond pressing "play.")
> 
> Perhaps the universal intelligence set it up that way. You math folks have pointed out that simple math and theoretical math seems to have a reality of its own. And points out that math reaches into all sorts of natural geography and biology: fractals for forestry (dendrology); for coastlines; etc.
> 
> > > Those computer simulations I've seen look too simplistic to start with.
> > 
> > You're not looking at that correctly: if you create spontaneous structure from simple rules, the simpler the rule set you can use lowers the bar for complexity to appear. 
> 
> Kaufman and his computer games make that clear.
> > 
> > The more I think about this discussion the more I think that your RNA hypothesis wouldn't be as ground-breaking as it first appears. Natural Selection would still be a better explanation for why species go extinct and why others live. 
> 
> Back to Raup: extinction is mainly bad luck. His argument is (altered slightly per your hypothesis) sudden change kills and mutation-driven change is too slow to correct. 
> 
> > So for some organisms NS clearly will play a strong role in their development. Your idea would create a deeper mess for you;
> 
> If I am right, only to die. Clearly the inside mechanisms can move much more swiftly than the outside mechanism of NS waiting for the chance mutations. No question, inside is more agile.
> 
> > 
> > And in my case, you also need to make it clear why exactly it would mean that a creator would be a more tenable position if it were true. From my vantage, you're still in philosophy-ville.
> 
> Exactly. Any analysis of scientific findings, looking for meaning, looking at reasonable future events is in the suburbs of philosophy. My first wife said the only thing she learned in that class was 'x is a dog'. What I learned was 'matter is energy on the outside and mind is energy on the inside'. I still buy the universal mind idea. To repeat my tenet:If that code is the major inside driver and NS is the minor outside driver, the code is too complex for chance to have created it.-Not much for me to say about this post. I do have a much better understanding of your thinking, and thank you for that!

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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"

4575 views

David:
Okay so I lied, I DO have something to say here.
> > > > The waters get even more cloudy when we add in evolutionary computer sims; in short randomness DOES give rise to ordered structures. (DISCLAIMER: I'm not saying that computer sims provide evidence for or against a creator, only that order can come from chaos without any intervention beyond pressing "play.")
> 
> Perhaps the universal intelligence set it up that way. You math folks have pointed out that simple math and theoretical math seems to have a reality of its own. And points out that math reaches into all sorts of natural geography and biology: fractals for forestry (dendrology); for coastlines; etc.-This is why my friends hate me so much: I'll often sound contradictory.-Though there are truths uncovered by mathematics (precious few) at what point can we say that we have found a truth, vs. simply writing a phenomenon into mathematical language? One view of mathematics (George's I'll bet) states that all of mathematics is simply a human language applied to the outside world as any other language. As I have often said, "What great feat is it to say that the most precise language we have developed describes things precisely?"

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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"

4718 views

As I have often said, "What great feat is it to say that the most precise language we have developed describes things precisely?"-
Good question and answer Matt. For me, it brings to mind another question; What if mankind as a whole did finally find out/discover for a fact without any shadow of doubt, there is or is not a UI? Then what? What's past this hump for each of us either way? Would life be any different for any of you personally? What about globally? How would things change here on planet earth? For me personally, nothing would be any different.

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As I have often said, "What great feat is it to say that the most precise language we have developed describes things precisely?"
> 
> 
> Good question and answer Matt. For me, it brings to mind another question; What if mankind as a whole did finally find out/discover for a fact without any shadow of doubt, there is or is not a UI? Then what? What's past this hump for each of us either way? Would life be any different for any of you personally? What about globally? How would things change here on planet earth? For me personally, nothing would be any different.-Truthfully: If it was discovered it wouldn't really be us in our generation that would likely suffer any theosophical consequences. To a great degree, I think as you do: Finding out that God really did exist wouldn't in my case change how I did anything. But my kids? Their kids? It would certainly cause a giant influx in philosophical and theological thinking, and it IS this kind of thinking that shapes and molds societies. We live in two worlds, the physical and the human, and the human world is more shapeable than most of us care to admit. -In my case, I developed essentially god-free, and I note it ironic that even though I did try the whole religion thing... I'm still back to where I was when I was 10-11.

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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"

4468 views

Matt writes: According to conventional evolutionary theory [...] the appearance of new organisms only arrives through "need", or in other words, some environmental attribute outside the organism's control starts putting pressure on it, either through predation or through destruction of its habitat by means of any natural phenomenon. [..] So that's what I mean that evolution only seems to happen when it has to. It is this particular segment of evolution that David (and you?) seem to be at odds with.-I can only speak for myself, but this is not the segment that I am at odds with. Allowing for the fact that those original self-replicating molecules possessed the astonishing potential for all this adaptation (George objects, but if that's how life started, there could have been no evolution without it), I have no problem with that principle, which is what both you and David have referred to as passive evolution, i.e. organisms reacting to changing conditions. After the problem of the origin of life itself, the evolutionary stumbling block for me is not adaptation but innovation.-My starting point is always the first self-replicating molecules. My finishing point (not necessarily the finishing point) is us. If the theory of evolution is true ... and I think it is ... there has to be an unbroken line between blobs of matter that merely reproduced themselves, and us with our senses, sexual organs, heart, lungs, nervous system, brain etc. At one time these did not exist. And yet I am expected to believe that blind, mindless blobs of matter were able somehow to combine themselves in such a way that not only did they manage to reproduce themselves and come to life, but they were also able ... over a vast period of time and in stages from rudimentary (though functioning) to complex ... to bring all the above from non-existence to existence. For instance, what need was there for the first light-sensitive nerve? Come to that, what need was there for light-sensitive nerves to develop into the hitherto non-existent sense of sight? The advantages are clear, but those came after the event.-Your account of evolution seems to begin at a point where the basic structures already exist. Once the mechanism (apologies to George) for adaptation is in place, evolution follows, and natural selection ensures a degree of improvement. But every single feature (a) of that mechanism, and (b) of the faculties etc. that evolution works on, had to begin from scratch. And that entails chance mutations, which somehow no longer seem to figure in your "conventional evolutionary theory". In the context of chance v. design this brings us back, of course, to the monkey on the typewriter, and what you can and can't believe.

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Matt writes: According to conventional evolutionary theory [...] the appearance of new organisms only arrives through "need", or in other words, some environmental attribute outside the organism's control starts putting pressure on it, either through predation or through destruction of its habitat by means of any natural phenomenon. [..] So that's what I mean that evolution only seems to happen when it has to. It is this particular segment of evolution that David (and you?) seem to be at odds with.
> 
> I can only speak for myself, but this is not the segment that I am at odds with. Allowing for the fact that those original self-replicating molecules possessed the astonishing potential for all this adaptation (George objects, but if that's how life started, there could have been no evolution without it), I have no problem with that principle, which is what both you and David have referred to as passive evolution, i.e. organisms reacting to changing conditions. -[EDIT]
Not even that according to evolutionary theory: The organisms must already have *a* trait (or behavior) that allows them to survive in the new environment. Chances are low for them to develop one in time if the pressure is lethal. -After the problem of the origin of life itself, the evolutionary stumbling block for me is not adaptation but innovation.
> -> t they were also able ... over a vast period of time and in stages from rudimentary (though functioning) to complex ... to bring all the above from non-existence to existence. For instance, what need was there for the first light-sensitive nerve? Come to that, what need was there for light-sensitive nerves to develop into the hitherto non-existent sense of sight? The advantages are clear, but those came after the event.
>-Widen your scope. The same incredulity can be applied to our galaxy, yet physics had done a pretty damn good job of putting together how galaxies and stars formed: and for all we know those systems are more complex than we are. There is still much to discover!
 
> Your account of evolution seems to begin at a point where the basic structures already exist. Once the mechanism (apologies to George) for adaptation is in place, evolution follows, and natural selection ensures a degree of improvement. -Firstly: Evolution does not need to explain the origin of life in order to be an explanation that applies to life. Evolution says absolutely nothing about origins. Evolution makes no supposition about abiogenesis. Newton's theory of gravity didn't have to account for the big bang or biblical creation, yet it is still a perfectly valid theory. (Newton's equations are what we use to send objects into space.) Evolution only explains life after life got here. How does a theory that describes life describe nonlife?-Secondly, I will quote myself: "even though mutations happen at all times in all organisms..." How is that not figuring in chance mutations? And this plugs into my very first question to the site: What definition of chance are you talking about? I can read two possibilities from you here. 
1. that something beneficial happens through random changes. 
2. That an organism is selected against. -My answer to 1 would be: So nothing good ever happens by chance?-Mutations happen at all times in all organisms for a combination of inner and outer reasons. Standard theory predicts that only when environmental conditions change to favor some trait will you see a population shift in terms of those that have that trait. If you add environmental stress to the situation, you start stacking the deck towards more change, faster. Of course, this also increases the error rate, but the way chance works, if you increase the number of iterators, you increase the likelihood of a good outcome. This is why "The house always wins" in Vegas. -My answer to 2 would be: There is no tails in a game of coins? Flippancy aside, the greater part of interest to standard theory is actually on THIS question, not the first. The first is generally assumed, and in general evidence supports that mutations happen from millions of internal reasons alone. David and you are focused on the first question, but the standard model essentially considers that question to be answered. When an environment changes, either the population has a trait, or stress helps the population find a genetically transmissible solution. My point of contention with David on this issue is on being able to determine whether the mutations are random or not. I don't think you can.

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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"

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dhw:> So that's what I mean that evolution only seems to happen when it has to. It is this particular segment of evolution that David (and you?) seem to be at odds with.[/i]-I don't think that at all. I think that evolution can happen both and without environmental challenges: from epigenetics, from random mutation, and during mitosis as mistakes. Whatever is first presented to nature is what gets sorted out by selection. Remember the first part is passive, the second part (selection), active And the direction of Darwin's evolution is supposed to be directionless. The dinosaurs were a 250 million year detour and there were others like the trillobites, another 1/4 million year detour.- Matt:> My point of contention with David on this issue is on being able to determine whether the mutations are random or not. I don't think you can.-I think they all are random, except the epigenetic ones. Those appeared to be mediated within the cells. If, on the other hand, you meant to say that it may be impossible to sort out epigenetic from the others then I agree.

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For David & dhw,-dhw:
Before I continue let me just say that the past... however many months I've been at this forum have been an absolute blast! It is such a different experience than previous web-locales... Never once have I seen a flame war erupt... ad-hominems are "zero," and there is an atmosphere of respect that most other places I've been to just lack. Excellent work amigo!!-> dhw:> So that's what I mean that evolution only seems to happen when it has to. It is this particular segment of evolution that David (and you?) seem to be at odds with.[/i]
> 
> I don't think that at all. I think that evolution can happen both and without environmental challenges: from epigenetics, from random mutation, and during mitosis as mistakes. Whatever is first presented to nature is what gets sorted out by selection. Remember the first part is passive, the second part (selection), active And the direction of Darwin's evolution is supposed to be directionless. The dinosaurs were a 250 million year detour and there were others like the trillobites, another 1/4 million year detour.
> -There is a drastic difference in perspective between us here... I do not consider natural selection to be "active." For the most part, selection works like a butcher's knife, (or a recession, as it were.) The gristle and fat gets cut down continuously leaving behind only those parts that are truly necessary. But changes in environmental conditions are random. -
> Matt:> My point of contention with David on this issue is on being able to determine whether the mutations are random or not. I don't think you can.
> 
> I think they all are random, except the epigenetic ones. Those appeared to be mediated within the cells. If, on the other hand, you meant to say that it may be impossible to sort out epigenetic from the others then I agree.-
That's more or less my point... for your point to be scientifically valid we would have to be able to tell that difference somehow. Otherwise--we're still in the box of philosophy. (Not to say that philosophy isn't important!)

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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"

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> 
> dhw:
> Before I continue let me just say that the past... however many months I've been at this forum have been an absolute blast! It is such a different experience than previous web-locales... Never once have I seen a flame war erupt... ad-hominems are "zero," and there is an atmosphere of respect that most other places I've been to just lack. Excellent work amigo!!-Over the two years I've been around as an invited member, our number has whittled down. But generally there has been great courtesy. One problem is the site is English. It takes pages of Google in America to turn up, so Americansdon't seem to find it. We need to push Google here. When my book came out I pushed and I was #1 on google for a long time.-
> There is a drastic difference in perspective between us here... I do not consider natural selection to be "active." For the most part, selection works like a butcher's knife, (or a recession, as it were.) The gristle and fat gets cut down continuously leaving behind only those parts that are truly necessary. But changes in environmental conditions are random. 
 
We don't define 'active' the same way. Mutations, except the epigenetic ones are at random, passive. Environment is at random,passive, but in a sense acts actively by cutting out the weaker ones if they don't adapt fast enough (as we have discused).Butchering, your metaphor, is an active profession. Natural selection is the only totally active part of Darwin's theoretical process.

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Matt argued that according to conventional evolutionary theory, new organisms only arrive through "need", which I see as the passive or adaptive side of evolution. I tried to explain that the "evolutionary stumbling block for me is not adaptation but innovation", in the form of new organs, faculties etc. brought about by random mutations.-Matt: Widen your scope. The same incredulity can be applied to our galaxy...There is still much to discover!
Yes, indeed, but if we're talking about Darwinian evolution, it's no time to launch ourselves into space.-Matt: Evolution does not need to explain the origin of life [...] Evolution makes no supposition about abiogenesis etc.
You sound like me complaining to George about Dawkins, who informs us that "Evolution is the creator of life." You're repeating my own arguments to me! Abiogenesis is a totally separate subject, and we're discussing the problem of random mutations.-My focus, as I say, is exclusively on innovation. As David argues elsewhere, "we can give very good reasons for the benefits of two sexes", just as we can for all our senses and faculties etc., but we have hindsight. The organisms in which these systems first arose had no sight of any kind. The systems had to be "invented". To respond: "So nothing good ever happens by chance?" doesn't convince me that these immensely complex innovations (even in their most rudimentary form) could arise spontaneously. However, let me skip now to your final two sentences: "My point of contention with David on this issue is on being able to determine whether the mutations are random or not. I don't think you can."-This is where you and I almost join forces, though we may not be doing so for the same reasons, because once again I find the line of argument in your last two paragraphs difficult to follow. I like to go from A to B, and you seem to go from A to C to D to B! As usual, though, please accept my apologies if I'm at fault. Here is my A to B: If the mutations are random, we must accept the probability formulae of which you are so fond. Funny things can happen given enough time and enough organisms unconsciously shaking their genetic kaleidoscopes. If the mutations are not random, and are not induced by the necessities of adaptation imposed by the environment (how can they be if the organs never existed before?), then they are the product of design: this could be because they have been pre-programmed, or because there is a designer intervening. David opts, I think, for pre-programming. George opts, I think, for randomness. And maybe in your heart of hearts you opt for randomness, too, but with less certainty than George. I opt out of opting. If this summary is correct, we have probably gone as far as we can go in this discussion, at least for the time being. But maybe I've missed something.-(My thanks to you, David, George and BBella for all the latest very stimulating posts. I'm having a hard time keeping up, but I'll get there eventually!)

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My focus, as I say, is exclusively on innovation. As David argues elsewhere, "we can give very good reasons for the benefits of two sexes", just as we can for all our senses and faculties etc., but we have hindsight. The organisms in which these systems first arose had no sight of any kind. The systems had to be "invented". To respond: "So nothing good ever happens by chance?" doesn't convince me that these immensely complex innovations (even in their most rudimentary form) could arise spontaneously. However, let me skip now to your final two sentences: "My point of contention with David on this issue is on being able to determine whether the mutations are random or not. I don't think you can."
> 
> This is where you and I almost join forces, though we may not be doing so for the same reasons, because once again I find the line of argument in your last two paragraphs difficult to follow. I like to go from A to B, and you seem to go from A to C to D to B! As usual, though, please accept my apologies if I'm at fault. Here is my A to B: If the mutations are random, we must accept the probability formulae of which you are so fond. Funny things can happen given enough time and enough organisms unconsciously shaking their genetic kaleidoscopes. If the mutations are not random, and are not induced by the necessities of adaptation imposed by the environment (how can they be if the organs never existed before?), then they are the product of design: this could be because they have been pre-programmed, or because there is a designer intervening. David opts, I think, for pre-programming. George opts, I think, for randomness. And maybe in your heart of hearts you opt for randomness, too, but with less certainty than George. I opt out of opting. If this summary is correct, we have probably gone as far as we can go in this discussion, at least for the time being. But maybe I've missed something.
> -Well, there's something else, something lightly touched on by literature, and apparently--not at all on this site. There's an alternative possibility to the generation of organs in organisms. (I apologize again, I will try to keep an A-->B-->C-->D format, though my personality type is prone to leap at the instant I find a connection.) -Mitochondria provide an incredibly VITAL clue in the discussion of the origins of multicellular organisms. They have their own unique and distinct DNA. How about 'organs' being the result of colonies of varied cells living in close proximity to each other? If there was a slightly poisonous chemical in the water that one type of cellular organism could process to something harmless (or perhaps for energy, as tube worms do), this would provide the impetus for cells to "decide" to live together; colonies of cells that have managed to become good at somethings better than others.-Not much science to back up this idea, beyond the existence of mitochondrial DNA, and doesn't solve the problem on *how* these colonies perhaps became whole organisms, or how most of them ended up having the same DNA, but it is at least, a different perspective that also sheds light on the fact that virtually *all* moving living things have *some* kind of social structure. Perhaps many of the early organisms participated in linear genetic transfers as bacteria are prone to do. (Just throwing that out there.) -Virii inject their own DNA into the host: Chickenpox victims have a stronger immune system. There's that to consider as well. -In my heart of hearts? My materialism is an operational materialism; I adopt enough of it to use the scientific method. I'm more prepared to accept the materialistic explanation, though that is because of the fact that we can at least *do* something about it. The logic of irreducible complexity boils down to an observation of complexity... but then doing nothing about it. -I feel that in this thread I've done more to help ID advocates in terms of actionable science than their whole movement has done in its roughly 18 year existence. If speciation only occurs due to environmental changes, than there is no *real* evidence to suggest ID's validity. But it's something they can experiment for...

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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"

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The second part of your statement puzzles me. You seem to be taking just one concept of design into consideration: the designer decides to make a stegosaurus, and hey presto, we have a stegosaurus. But a designer may just as easily have designed the initial programme, allowing for a vast array of variations, and then let it run its own course. Then there would be absolutely no difference between the atheist evolution set in motion by chance and the theist/deist evolution set in motion by God. Or you can have evolution proceeding in fits and starts (punctuated equilibrium) that have been deliberately engineered (by God) or have been brought about by natural circumstances (e.g. by climate change). Of course the latter can also be interpreted as the work of God, whose scientific experiments with matter would have been conducted by manipulation of that matter and not by some mumbo-jumbo. 
> -The difference between us here is : Zero. There would be no way to tell the difference between that version of design and evolution. If you're familiar with the mathematical concept of an asymptote... this is exactly what the arguments of design and evolution move to. While you mentioned recently that you might be right or wrong, I think that it's more truthful to recognize the asymptote for what it is. Other people might want to make you or I "make a decision," but I say flatly that there is no decision to be made. If you already don't accept the mumbo-jumbo of religion, we have no pressure at all. -> You suggest that "evolution is a more passive process that does its job only when it MUST". I think "evolution" has to be split up into mutations, adaptation, natural selection. Beneficial mutations ... which I find a huge problem ... are creative, not passive, since they're supposed to produce brand new features. There is no "MUST" here. Adaptations are a MUST, and natural selection is automatic, so yes, I'd say they are passive. But how does any of that make design less likely?
> -It doesn't... I wasn't trying to make that argument, only fill in some details of currently accepted theory that you may/may not have been aware of. My greater overall point is that for either raw materialism or immaterialism, the conclusions of no god and there is a god are purely filled in by philosophical predisposition on the matter. If you do not have this predisposition, the data is clearly inconclusive. -> In your latest post about sex, on the subject of stillbirths, you ask: "If we were the product of design, why would we not see something a little more efficient?" Again, I think you're confining yourself to a single concept that equates design with perfection. Do you mean to tell me your car, TV, computer etc. never go wrong? If you rid yourself of the idea of a perfect, omniscient, omnipotent God and focus only on design, there is no reason at all why (a) the design should not be faulty, and (b) why the designer should not deliberately have created processes that are subject to the vagaries of chance. If anything, that would make it all a lot more interesting for him. And you needn't identify that with deism, because there's nothing to stop such a designer from stepping in when he feels like it. 
> -Gumbyland! However that's a fun place to be...-Here we are presented with the fact that the creator is imperfect. Here, I gather the scent again of a pagan conception of a god that's pretty much like us. Since that might be the case, we would have no way of telling the difference between God and our own selves. My statement is that this line of thinking is projecting humanity for our own sake. -> You refer to George's view that life is too chaotic and disorganized for it to be designed. There are two separate kinds of "life" here. Life as a physical fact, in the sense of reproduction, digestion, the senses, emotions, consciousness etc., which are all so complex that some of us can't place our faith in chance to put it all together. Then there is life as it is lived, which is and always has been so "chaotic and disorganized" that some of us can't place our faith in any kind of benevolent father figure up in the sky watching over us. The first problem has nothing to do with the second. Whether God (if he exists) cares for us 100%, 50%, or 0% is a totally separate question from that of design.-Of course, you are correct here. But that's the problem of philosophizing about a designer... you cannot separate its will from what you observe. If it is an intelligent agent, you have to accept the possibility that if it has the power to do what it will, than questions like "how much does he care?" actually play into the possible results you would get.

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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"

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