Evolution explains something yet again!

[godslanguage]

I was going to post this in Zoegirls recent thread but decided its well different enough to get its own unique input.

When you believe in the fairytale of Darwinian Evolution, everything all the sudden becomes explainable by any abstractive illogicalities.
One example here:
On the radio (up here in Canada), Darwin gets his share of attention. Not too Recently on the radio broadcast station 98.1 FM they dedicated a section to Darwinian philosophy and research, primarily evolutionary psychology. They discussed very eloquently (Dawkins style) that when humans look at the sunset, waterfalls, mountains and other beautiful natural landscapes we enjoy the magnificent scenery.
This of course is all due to the "fact" when we were back down our evolutionary mapping we spent lots of time outdoors beside waterfalls and other natural landscapes. Further, this explains how we as humans love to get out of the city and enjoy fishing at the lake etc... LOL!

As incredibly dogmatic and unscientific this explanation was, what was more incredible was the beautiful background music they played as though there was truly something to be beautified. And all the while I thought that all the real beauty of the world was due to the designers handy work, gee...I must be wrong then huh?

Personally, I get bored when I look out at the sunset or waterfalls pretty fast, I enjoy fishing once in a while, but what I especially enjoy is looking at the new videos created by Harvard of complex cell interactions...those are a real scene

[Furstentum Liechtenstein]

On the radio (up here in Canada),

Are you in Toronto?

They discussed very eloquently (Dawkins style) that when humans look at the sunset, waterfalls, mountains and other beautiful natural landscapes we enjoy the magnificent scenery. This of course is all due to the "fact" when we were back down our evolutionary mapping we spent lots of time outdoors beside waterfalls and other natural landscapes.

Aha...I see. Have you ever noticed how the human hand evovled so perfectly as to fit into just about any glove you can buy at a department store? Isn't that amazing?!

[zoegirl]

Also, it doesn't exactly fit the real model. It's not enough to say that we were *around* lakes and waterfalls. There had to be something in us and nature that meant that our *appreciation* of nature somehow counted towards our reproductive success.

Either those of us who appreciated nature were more attractive to our mates and we reproduced more (this is assuming entirely naturalistic models, random processes) or we are wired to enjoy creation by our Creator (there is a third option in theistic evolution but this is not what your show was implying) . These are both equally explanatory and both equally unprovable. As intriguing as that story of evolution is, it is still just a story....akin to adaptive storytelling. ANd as much as they refuse to accept it, it rests upon philosophy and belief.

the craziness is that they are using the word evolution improperly. I don't know if this is more of a criticism towards those in the media, those who produce the nature shows who don't perfectly understand the model, bad editing, or bad writing....I don't know.

But although this is a nice story, it is unprovable. It is locked in the past.

Hmm....those of the population who support birth control because of their supposed love of nature might actually be doing themselves in!! Fewer genes from them in the next population ...pretty soon the human population will be refusing to go fish, farm, preserve nature....

[zoegirl]

And I love nature as well as watching cool shows from Harvard about the cell!!

Love, love love that video....

[David Blacklock]

For those who don't like paleontological fossils, there are always molecular fossils from DNA:

Most mammals can make vitamin C, including most primates - except humans, gorillas, and chimps, who need it in their diets. It takes five enzymes to make vitamin C, but humans, gorillas and chimps only have four, lacking GLO. We have the gene for GLO on chromosome #8 - same location as it is in other mammals, but several mutations have rendered it inactive. These mutations on GLO occurred in the ancestor common to humans, gorillas and chimps. The retained errors (mutations) in DNA leave thousands of trails just like this one that betray our descent from lower animals.

DB

[zoegirl]

I'm NOT DEBATING those particular examples. There is strong genetic evidence for supporting changes in the past. That is why I am progressive creationist. (and I have stated in the past that I wouldn't throw out the possibility of theistic evolution, but that term in so emotionally loaded that I am reluctant to use it, being that so many assume that to support thesitic evolution assumes a naturalistic cause, a deistic model, which I don't)

But "appreciation of nature" and such abstract concepts of the value of nature, beauty of a sunset, "liking" a waterfall remain in the realm of speculation. Unless you can pinpoint a GENE, or a set of genes, that is responsible for these, you have nothing to compare us to.

See, you can show me multitude examples of vitamin C enzymes, proteins, gene repeats, chromosome fusions, all you want and the power is in the COMPARISON with other organims. YOu can essentially tell me "See, this species and that species and our species all share something similar and we can compare those similarities and contrast the differences and build a map" (although, again, a creator diverging these organisms is equally explanatory in its power, but yes, I understand not provable by traditional scientific methods)

But in this specific example, we see a gross misuse of the evolutionary model (they use a vague concept of "we enjoyed it in the past" not explaining mate selection, etc), not to mention no COMPARISONS. Show me where ANY studies have pondered the genes in the "appreciation of nature" with another species, especially with regards to changes in DNA sequences, pinpointing where the divergence with our ancestors occured. First, they have no clues as to the genes responsible for this abstract notion of appreciaiton and love of nature. Secondly they have not isolated how plastic these characteristics are in relation to their environment (what causes the genes to be fully expressed? what causes the development of that part of thebrain to really appreciate the visual beauty, the part the UNDERSTANDS the beauty, our place in the world....) , which greatly affects how much we can draw conclusions about their affect in the past. And again, they have no ability currently to compare these to ANY OTHER SPECIES, which means they have NOTHING to draw these conclusions (not to mention again that they have the mechanism incorrect).

Which, again, makes this example supremely specualtive, a grand adaptive storytelling. But, cynically, we don't see atheistic evolutionists out there saying "hey, wait a minute, you've missed the point here. You're not really getting it correct in this instance". Which says to me that they (let me be specific here, the ones who support a naturalistic philosophy) are quite happy with this grand indoctrination of the next generation. Let them absorb this speculative idea of why we get such satisfaction and enjoyment from the earth without really critiquing it.

[David Blacklock]

Hi Zoegirl,

Evolutionary psychology has lots of appeal. If we evolved in physical ways, why not social. However, although the physical evidence for evolution is (to me) overwhelming, EP appears just as overwhelmingly speculative. Convincing, but speculative. Unlike physical evolution, no reliable traces of evidence have been left.

I agree with you completely on the "beauty of the sunset" (non)arguments.

DB

[zoegirl]

One of my objections is regarding the poor education, pathetic critical thinking in both camps to their followers. I am equally critical of Christians who seem to have no sense of critiquing a thesis. "It's stupid" "It's ridiculous" seems to have the level of power to "demolish strongholds". I fear for many in this generation of Christians raised in this society of soundbites. I see this more and more in teens, both in my school and in general. As much as the secularists love to proclaim that they are raising skeptics, they really aren't. They are merely raising their own generation of gullible throngs of ignorant soldiers, willing to follow the drum of an atheist worldview, without questioning why. These soldier gleefully throw around "evolution" without understanding it.
Amazingly enough, these statements are increasingly frequent among atheists concerning belief in God. "It's stupid" "It's ridiculous" seem to be seen with increasing "power" in those statements. Lately it seems all an atheist needs to do is simply brandish these all powerful words to demolish theistics arguments. And the most vocal, Dawkins and Hitchens, have elevated these soundbites to a new level. ANd the throng rejoices. "Yes, isn't it ridiculous, whew, glad that's over with".

I am seeing that Evolutionary psychology has great appeal to those who already have a worldview that excludes any supernatural being. And because of it's incredible specualtive nature, still belongs in that fuzzy world of philosophy and worldview. It is all a nice story. But among this new branch, there never seems to be any willingness to concede that it IS speculative. (I appreciate that you do see that). "Of course it happened that way!!" "Wow, glad we have that settled!!" We certainly don't see that in the popular science press.

But, as I believe we have discussed before, any creator worth HIs salt would create beings with the ability to comprehend beauty, morality, ethics, culture, the importance of understanding. My worldview has just as much appeal and explanatory power as evolutionary psychology, and currently, from traditional scientific evidence, just as solid.

[godslanguage]

Are you in Toronto?

Hi, yes I'm in the GTA.

Aha...I see. Have you ever noticed how the human hand evovled so perfectly as to fit into just about any glove you can buy at a department store? Isn't that amazing?!

I will have you know that there are a group of Biologists, secretively in they're basement have gathered up enough data that they are now formulating a patent for four finger gloves, all thanks to the predictive power of Darwinian Evolution.



In regards to the other stuff posted by Zoegirl and David Blacklock:

I think the main thing to realize is that inevitably 'logic' prevails. Every single field of study is about logic, one way or another. From what I am familiar with, which is computers, everything in reality, things we do on a daily basis from driving cars, to recipe cooking, to assembling products etc... are simply transfer of universally applicable logic from one syntax/form to another.

I'll give a few very basic analogical examples:
*A flow chart for depicting a recipe can be no different then a flow chart for writing a computer program. A simple one could be initiating/setting up variables ( equivalent to preparing the recipe and setting the oven to 350 degrees), entering a loop(putting it in the oven until 30 minutes is passed), going through a loop and updating variables (incrementing timer on oven starting at 0), if countdown is met (exit code ie: equal to 30 minutes), take out delicious pizza and serve.
*Data transmission in TCP/IP network communications model can be compared to how the postal service delivers mail in terms of how the source and destination are specified in encapsulated data and what roles many devices perform (hardware and software wise) to get the data from a local area network, through the internet communication pathways and to the final destination vs. what happens when you drop mail in the box and what addresses are read by various intermediaries (mailman to local mail department etc...) to get from source to destination. Both methods of sending data/mail address the same problems to deal with such as reliability, trustworthiness, speed, cost efficiency, disaster recovery, backup etc...Sorry if I went too far here , usually I just want to make a point.

So the point is that when I mean all fields of study have a tendency to be about logic, one form of logic ends up being compared to another one by virtue and by demand that simply nothing in this world can be so out of the ordinary. Darwinian Evolution, being taught by biologists as religion has been in the progress of serious scrutiny by engineers and mathematicians alike (this is largely a bias shared by ID proponents, which I also hold). This is due to the symbolic transfer and resemblance of logic from one area to another. But primarily, this is happening because of the dramatic uprise in technology in the past century particularly in microscopic technology where biological systems are amplified to a higher degree of resolution then 1x, the Harvard animation of the cell is an example of this outcome. I would have liked if Darwin saw the Harvard video, do you believe his conclusions about the origins and subsequent evolution (ie: chance and luck) would have been the same?

Whats out of the ordinary? Simple, its Darwinian Evolution, its illogical, not because its not comparable to other things in the universe, but because it is comparable to other things. Nobody has to be a biologist with a Phd to grasp the complexities of evolution or other natural phenomena, it just takes patience and in some cases pressure to push elements of thought.

Personally, I believe that all great ideas/thoughts have already been thought, its just a matter of rethinking them again (and writing them down on a notepad ), and Darwinian Evolution was not one of them.

[godslanguage]

And the most vocal, Dawkins and Hitchens, have elevated these soundbites to a new level. ANd the throng rejoices. "Yes, isn't it ridiculous, whew, glad that's over with".

Unfortunately for them, they are outnumbered by...alot. Anyone whos an atheist with a agenda was probably an atheist to begin with. Alot of atheists I know don't even care about Dawkins or PZ Myers even when they heard about them.

Most theists I know don't care about the "evidence", neither do the atheists. Its all hand waving of course, that is until they are required to think or they're faith is challenged, thats when they take either the reactive approach or the proactive one (do some actual thinking and research on your own). When someone is challenged by the opposite belief, usually that person who triggers the challenge has some axe to grind or something to "prove". These are usually the fanatics but sometimes they are people like you and me. What I find is that most people just want to be left alone and they're beliefs are liked to kept private.

Overall, I give credit to Dawkins for being such a good spokesperson and author, I give no credit to him as a scientist(not that he cares what I or anyone else thinks). Anyone who thinks Dawkins is a real scientist must be insane. Hes the Don King of atheism, he makes money off turning people against societies cherished beliefs and freedoms. And lastly, he doesn't know what the hell he himself believes, after the quote captured from Expelled about possible Aliens being the designer. This kind of juggling turns atheists off.

[godslanguage]

David Blacklock wrote:

Evolutionary psychology has lots of appeal. If we evolved in physical ways, why not social. However, although the physical evidence for evolution is (to me) overwhelming, EP appears just as overwhelmingly speculative. Convincing, but speculative. Unlike physical evolution, no reliable traces of evidence have been left.

The problem is that before they made those EP claims, they assumed that Darwinian Evolution HAD overwhelming physical evidence. Given that overwhelming "undeniable" evidence what room do you think that leaves over for any other explanation?



Personally (not directly responding to you here David), I am getting tired of hearing these two-fold conditions. Christians are all the sudden Darwinian Jesus lovers who doubt ID, Darwinians are suddenly open to non-Darwinian explanations including Aliens except God etc...this is getting out of hand. Does any of this even make sense anymore?

[David Blacklock]

Hi, anybody that wants to listen,

Although the lack of supervisory design is a key feature of evolution, I prefer to believe the system was set up by and monitored by God. Unfortunately, the ID people have a much broader agenda than the words "intelligent design" might suggest. What they are doing could legitimately be called a conspiracy theory. The Discovery Institute is a highly organized and well-funded think-tank that would re-define science, assert that scientific evidence is no more valid than any other point of view, and make evolution versus their theory into a merchandizing campaign. Once they owned the public soul on the issue of evolution, they would direct their attention to other sciences that, in their view, wreak havoc for family values in our nation. Their own eloquent summary betrays their conspiracy in a "Wedge" document, leaked to the outside world some years ago. Below are some of my thoughts on this:

1. "Only a theory:" What ranks higher than a theory in science? Nothing! A theory is the top of the food chain. Unfortunately the word has a different common usage that plays right into the hands of those who would distort intended meanings.

2. "Irreducible Complexity" is Behe's trademark phrase and is my pet peeve. Since when does science throw up its hands and say, "it can't be done." Claiming that what is unknown in science today - will never be known - is a lousy bet. Historically, many, many things that were unknown to science - are now known.

3. To Behe, the mousetrap is irreducibly complex. If it's missing any part, it won't work - as a mousetrap. However, I can use parts of the mousetrap to make a tie clip, a catapault, a clipboard, a toothpick - I can add a magnet and make a handy refrigerator magnet. Maybe not a perfect analogy, but neither was Behe's. I guess the mousetrap isn't so irreducibly complex after all.

4. Advocates of creationism and ID word their attacks on evolution so as to make it seem that the principal purpose of teaching evolution in our schools is to demoralize our young people by telling them that their lives are without meaning. Science searches for truth wherever it can be found, following the evidence. Knowledge is generally preferable to ignorance.

5. The Discovery Institute is borrowing ideology from the post-modern left to question science as a valid endeavor - where they think it threatens their value system. This type of thinking is what caused the first Congress to put their famous freedom of (and from) religion clause in the Bill of Rights: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion..."

6. In a 2005 survey of industrialized countries, citizens answered true, false, or not sure to this statement: "Human beings, as we know them, developed from earlier species of animals." Only forty percent from the United States answered "true," a lower score than any of the 33 other industrialized nations, except for last-place Turkey - a country facing the Muslim version of intelligent design.

Many, many believers see no conflict between evolution and religion - and evolution has the advantage of being true. The ID movement is not engaged in any research trying to figure out how God instituted or directs evolution. Instead, against overwhelming evidence, they have decided it simply didn't happen and hang their hat on gaps in our knowledge. What area of science doesn't have gaps? ID, as presented by DI, doesn't deserve the credence it has been granted.

DB

[godslanguage]

Hi, anybody that wants to listen,

Everyone is listening, you can bet on it!

Although the lack of supervisory design is a key feature of evolution, I prefer to believe the system was set up by and monitored by God.

I'm not sure how the latter part could not be a form of ID.

Unfortunately, the ID people have a much broader agenda than the words "intelligent design" might suggest. What they are doing could legitimately be called a conspiracy theory.

I doubt it, but its certainly plausible. If any conspiracy theory formulated by the DI is a bad thing, then I don't know what to call Darwinian Evolution... hell on earth?
The DI is one thing, the evidence for ID is another, I don't see the point in bringing them both up in one sentence. And your telling me there is nothing going on with Dawkins, PZ Myers, etc..., selling t-shirts with a big red 'A''s is not exactly science. Scientific academia appears to be largely in support of these clowns, and your comparing that to the DI (a little office up in a high-rise building)...funny!

1. "Only a theory:" What ranks higher than a theory in science? Nothing! A theory is the top of the food chain. Unfortunately the word has a different common usage that plays right into the hands of those who would distort intended meanings.

I agree with John A. Davison on this one, a theory is a well tested hypothesis and unfortunately Darwinian Evolution remains a 'just a hypothesis', one step below the food chain as you call it.

2. "Irreducible Complexity" is Behe's trademark phrase and is my pet peeve. Since when does science throw up its hands and say, "it can't be done." Claiming that what is unknown in science today - will never be known - is a lousy bet. Historically, many, many things that were unknown to science - are now known.

The topic is Darwinian Evolution vs. goal-directed design. If Darwinian Evolution is the default explanation for all of biological systems, then I understand why you would relate Behes concept of IC to imply "it can't be done".

3. To Behe, the mousetrap is irreducibly complex. If it's missing any part, it won't work - as a mousetrap. However, I can use parts of the mousetrap to make a tie clip, a catapault, a clipboard, a toothpick - I can add a magnet and make a handy refrigerator magnet. Maybe not a perfect analogy, but neither was Behe's. I guess the mousetrap isn't so irreducibly complex after all.

Irreducible complexity is not something on its own, but in parallel with CSI. You can't argue against IC without arguing at both. There are two sub-parts to this, IC is true because if you took out something it won't work, thats exactly what Behe observed, that is science btw. The second part is IF the IC function had previous functions in different states and forms that did different things. This is the part about whether something which is obviously observed to be IC could have evolved by Darwinian Evolution from pre-existing functions into its more complex modular state. Although its true that you could use many parts for different things, whats wrong with this picture is that Behe argues without any preloaded deterministic algorithm you won't get to from A to point B (IC). IC is a function of its specificity, in this case complex specified information.

4. Advocates of creationism and ID word their attacks on evolution so as to make it seem that the principal purpose of teaching evolution in our schools is to demoralize our young people by telling them that their lives are without meaning. Science searches for truth wherever it can be found, following the evidence. Knowledge is generally preferable to ignorance.

I can't sympathize with your here David, I'm sorry. If "science" wanted to seek the truth they would simply teach the strengths of Darwinian Evolution as well as its weaknesses, stop with the dogma and indoctrination.

5. The Discovery Institute is borrowing ideology from the post-modern left to question science as a valid endeavor - where they think it threatens their value system. This type of thinking is what caused the first Congress to put their famous freedom of (and from) religion clause in the Bill of Rights: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion..."

Yaa yaa yaa....sorry that you care so much for the Discovery Institute and not much about the evidence for ID.

6. In a 2005 survey of industrialized countries, citizens answered true, false, or not sure to this statement: "Human beings, as we know them, developed from earlier species of animals." Only forty percent from the United States answered "true," a lower score than any of the 33 other industrialized nations, except for last-place Turkey - a country facing the Muslim version of intelligent design.

If it was backwards it would make the evidence for ID less or more true? Not sure why anyone should care for these statistics. Are you blaming these on ID? Did you know that ID is friendly towards evolution and common descent?

ID is simply about design detection, it can be used to delimit what mechanisms can stop or forward a given "object".

Many, many believers see no conflict between evolution and religion - and evolution has the advantage of being true. The ID movement is not engaged in any research trying to figure out how God instituted or directs evolution. Instead, against overwhelming evidence, they have decided it simply didn't happen and hang their hat on gaps in our knowledge. What area of science doesn't have gaps? ID, as presented by DI, doesn't deserve the credence it has been granted.

Whoah, so David, it seems Darwinian Evolution is incredibly overwhelming for you. Anyone who is seriously keeping track of ID knows that its sky rocketing and attracting people from many different fields of interest (primarily engineering fields), not only in the natural sciences. Its attracting theists, atheists, agnostics etc... Atheists have the reputation of hand-waving, however.

[David Blacklock]

Hi godslanguage,

Thanx for your reply.

>>unfortunately Darwinian Evolution remains a 'just a hypothesis'<<

According to science, gl, evolution has been granted "theory" status by science for over a century. By nonscientific standards, perhaps you're right.

>>CSI. You can't argue against IC without arguing at both<<

CSI is a term invented by, I think, Dembski. It is not a term in scientific usage within the scientific community. About the mousetrap, precursor arrangements of molecules that function elsewhere have been reused during evolution as assembly parts for completely different purposes. In the case of the eye, from which the original analogy came, the functionality of the eye in different species ranges from primitive light sensing devices to complicated eyes with lenses and everything in between, with a similar range of chemical and structural complexity. Some parts in the complex eye are not found in the simpler eye. Just because the simpler eye is missing parts doesn't mean it doesn't function at all.

>>If "science" wanted to seek the truth they would simply teach the strengths of Darwinian Evolution as well as its weaknesses, stop with the dogma and indoctrination<<

Don't have a good answer here. I don't necessarily agree with Dawkins' approach, but he is reacting to the efforts to interfere with the teaching of legitimate science - which is, like it or not, what evolution is - in our schools.

Thanx again for your reply,

DB

[Leprechaun]

This is just an open question and I don't have any particular viewpoint to get across.

Do you believe that humanity is the pinnacle of Creation?

Do you believe in intelligent design?

Then surely the design is finished, why would it continue?

Studies show that evolution is speeding up "Hu­man ev­o­lu­tion has been speed­ing up tremend­ous­ly, a new study con­tends—so much, that the lat­est ev­o­lu­tion­ary changes seem to large­ly ec­lipse ear­l­ier ones that ac­com­pa­nied mod­ern man's “origin.”".
(If anyone wants the link to this website please ask.)
If intelligent design is correct then why does evlution continue?
Just a thought.