Post #133,651
1/5/04 11:38:12 AM
1/5/04 12:59:16 PM
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Talk about rapidly changing your position
Your first post claimed that Creationism is where science and religion meet. Now you back off from that to claim that Intelligent Design (a much different position) is where they meet. You throw a huge website at me. And then you immediately go on to rail against people who say that there is definitely no God.
Let's take those one at a time, shall we?
You originally said that, Science and Religion meet here with Creationism. Creationism generally means something rather specific, it means the theory that God created the world exactly as outlined in the Bible, complete with The Flood, every surviving species surviving on Noah's Arc, etc just a few thousand years ago. You haven't defended that. The website that you pointed me at very specifically doesn't defend that view. They relabel it young-earth creationism and right [link|http://www.godandscience.org/evolution/intelligentdesign.html|here] point out that you have to reject the poor "science" of young earth creationism (science in quotes because what passes for science among young-earth creationists very definitely isn't).
Instead it defends the view of Intelligent Design. ID is the theory that evolution is broadly right, but there are gaps that can't be explained, and those gaps are filled in by God. Which gaps need filling in varies between different believers. For instance Michael Behe explicitly accepts macro-evolution as a process but sees God needed to fill in some of the steps along the way, such as abiogenesis, the evolution of eukaryotic cells, and the eye. The authors of the website that you pointed at doesn't accept basic macro-evolution.
What about the website that you pointed me at? Obviously I don't have time to review the whole thing in detail. So let me just grab one page and talk about that. How about [link|http://www.godandscience.org/evolution/evolution.html|General Rebuttal to the Theory of Evolution]? Well first they draw a fairly artificial distinction between micro-evolution and macro-evolution. Secondly they accept micro-evolution (the actual process put forth by Darwin) but then reject that micro-evolution as a process could explain any larger transition from speciation on up.
Uh, oh. First factual mistake. That divisions between species can occur through a series of gradual changes is well-established. One of the most spectactular demonstrations are so-called [link|http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~lindsay/creation/ring_species.html|ring species]. In one place there are two species. But if you take one of them, and go from location to location you find that each interbreeds with the next until you reach the original location - at the other species! There you have what are clearly 2 species and a complete chain of intermediate forms in current existence!
We then have the classic out-of-context quote, this time directed at a 1996 article that I don't have access to. Obviously points of major change are not examples of equilibrium - had they been in equilibrium then change would not have happened. And the biologists in question were asserting their opinion that micro-evolution is not a sufficient mechanism for certain specific gaps (namely the origin of life, the emergence of eukaryotic cells, and the origin of the human capacity for language), well OK, that is an opinion. Oh, right. The origin of life is indeed outside of standard mechanisms of Darwinian evolution (a fact first noted by Darwin). The emergence of eukaryotic cells (ie cells with organelles like mitochondria) is believed to have happened by the emergence of a symbiosis with one bacteria being engulfed by another. That process is indeed outside of simple Darwinian evolution. The origin of the human capacity for language, there is a point of disagreement. One biologist has trouble seeing how it could have happened through micro-evolution, others have no trouble with that, and with the sequencing of the human genome complete there is ongoing research on which genes differ between us and chimpanzees. I have confidence that in the next few decades we will have a pretty good idea which genes give us coherent speech (we already know a couple of key ones which most of us have, chimps don't, and which cause serious speech problems in people who lack them). Research continues.
Going on, they present gradualism versus punctuated equilibrium. The approach taken here is to give all of the traditional arguments that the punctuated equilibrium folks take against gradualism, and then casually dismiss punctuated equilibrium as impossible. They also provide a lack of context. For instance they discuss the amazing punctuation of the boundary of the Cretateous-Tertiary Period without mentioning the punctuation point, an asteriod hitting the Earth, wiping out most species, leaving a layer of dust around the world, and leaving a still-visible crater after over 60 million years. The destruction of an existing order created huge numbers of opportunities. The radiation out from there is quite understood.
I would comment on some of the misrepresentations that I see there (particularly of the Cambrian explosion), but I want to get to their casual dismissal of punctuated equilibrium. First of all they overstate the coincidence needed for punctuated equilibrium to happen. You do not need to isolate a population and then have a series of mutations happen. Instead you isolate a population with normal levels of genetic variability, and chance elimination of variability through inbreeding will drive that population to a somewhat different form. Normally that form won't be better than the original, and reintegration with the main population is a disaster for the isolated segment. But this kind of genetic experiment is going on all the time (and has been identified in the wild right now), and one success in 5 million years of attempts is enough to explain a punctuation.
Secondly when attempting to dismiss a theory, it is unfair to ignore evidence put forth for that theory. For instance Gould and Eldredge's original paper didn't just hypothesize the process, they actually traced a type of tribolite through 2 punctuations, in each of which they were able to locate the punctuations (one in a mine in upstate NY, the other in a mine in China IIRC) to a specific locale over a period of a few thousand years. That is, they didn't just look at a fossil record and say, "How did this sudden shift happen?" Instead they looked at a fossil record where they had detailed documentation of where and when the shifts happened, and found that not once, but twice in a row the shift happened in a small space in a small time in what apparently was an isolated population.
I could go on through that page with more examples of bias, distortion, and omission. I could do the same with the website as a whole. But I think that my point is clear. While I can see how convincing that site might be to someone who doesn't clearly know the facts involved, and who is inclined to believe what they have to say, it isn't convincing me nearly as well as you might hope.
So let me quickly brush over the final point, your railing about attempted proofs of the non-existence of God. Oddly enough I didn't attempt to prove the non-existence of God. For one thing I know better than that, I am fully aware that the existence or non-existence of God is not amenable to proof. Or, more precisely put, there are many "demonstrations" available, but each has a strong tendancy to confirm for all readers their prior belief system on the subject.
My prior belief system says that any God able to create the Universe must, a prior, be far more amazing than the Universe created. Going further, if we consider geological time to be The Eiffel Tower, all of human history is a small fleck of paint partway up the tower. The entire history of science fits on a speck of dust on the fleck of paint. And I am but an amused microbe who hears other microbes going on about how we are clearly the purpose of this whole edifice, what it all leads to, and I'm laughing to myself about the lack of perspective.
But that is my belief. I have no vested interest in anyone else (you, for instance) agreeing with me, and no way to convince you to agree with me even if I wanted to.
Cheers,
Ben
PS Next time, please pick a clearer position and stick to it. While addressing umpteen different positions may be kind of fun, it gets very tedious after a while.
"good ideas and bad code build communities, the other three combinations do not"
- [link|http://archives.real-time.com/pipermail/cocoon-devel/2000-October/003023.html|Stefano Mazzocchi]
Edited by ben_tilly
Jan. 5, 2004, 12:59:16 PM EST
Talk about rapidly changing your position
Your first post claimed that Creationism is where science and religion meet. Now you back off from that to claim that Intelligent Design (a much different position) is where they meet. You throw a huge website at me. And then you immediately go on to rail against people who say that there is definitely no God.
Let's take those one at a time, shall we?
You originally said that, Science and Religion meet here with Creationism. Creationism generally means something rather specific, it means the theory that God created the world exactly as outlined in the Bible, complete with The Flood, every surviving species surviving on Noah's Arc, etc just a few thousand years ago. You haven't defended that. The website that you pointed me at very specifically doesn't defend that view. They relabel it young-earth creationism and right [link|http://www.godandscience.org/evolution/intelligentdesign.html|here] point out that you have to reject the poor "science" of young earth creationism (science in quotes because what passes for science among young-earth creationists very definitely isn't).
Instead it defends the view of Intelligent Design. ID is the theory that evolution is broadly right, but there are gaps that can't be explained, and those gaps are filled in by God. Which gaps need filling in varies between different believers. For instance Michael Behe explicitly accepts macro-evolution as a process but sees God needed to fill in some of the steps along the way, such as abiogenesis, the evolution of eukaryotic cells, and the eye. The authors of the website that you pointed at doesn't accept basic macro-evolution.
What about the website that you pointed me at? Obviously I don't have time to review the whole thing in detail. So let me just grab one page and talk about that. How about [link|http://www.godandscience.org/evolution/evolution.html|General Rebuttal to the Theory of Evolution]? Well first they draw a fairly artificial distinction between micro-evolution and macro-evolution. Secondly they accept micro-evolution (the actual process put forth by Darwin) but then reject that micro-evolution as a process could explain any larger transition from speciation on up.
Uh, oh. First factual mistake. That divisions between species can occur through a series of gradual changes is well-established. One of the most spectactular demonstrations are so-called [link|http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~lindsay/creation/ring_species.htmlring species|http://www.cs.colora....htmlring species]. In one place there are two species. But if you take one of them, and go from location to location you find that each interbreeds with the next until you reach the original location - at the other species! There you have what are clearly 2 species and a complete chain of intermediate forms in current existence!
We then have the classic out-of-context quote, this time directed at a 1996 article that I don't have access to. Obviously points of major change are not examples of equilibrium - had they been in equilibrium then change would not have happened. And the biologists in question were asserting their opinion that micro-evolution is not a sufficient mechanism for certain specific gaps (namely the origin of life, the emergence of eukaryotic cells, and the origin of the human capacity for language), well OK, that is an opinion. Oh, right. The origin of life is indeed outside of standard mechanisms of Darwinian evolution (a fact first noted by Darwin). The emergence of eukaryotic cells (ie cells with organelles like mitochondria) is believed to have happened by the emergence of a symbiosis with one bacteria being engulfed by another. That process is indeed outside of simple Darwinian evolution. The origin of the human capacity for language, there is a point of disagreement. One biologist has trouble seeing how it could have happened through micro-evolution, others have no trouble with that, and with the sequencing of the human genome complete there is ongoing research on which genes differ between us and chimpanzees. I have confidence that in the next few decades we will have a pretty good idea which genes give us coherent speech (we already know a couple of key ones which most of us have, chimps don't, and which cause serious speech problems in people who lack them). Research continues.
Going on, they present gradualism versus punctuated equilibrium. The approach taken here is to give all of the traditional arguments that the punctuated equilibrium folks take against gradualism, and then casually dismiss punctuated equilibrium as impossible. They also provide a lack of context. For instance they discuss the amazing punctuation of the boundary of the Cretateous-Tertiary Period without mentioning the punctuation point, an asteriod hitting the Earth, wiping out most species, leaving a layer of dust around the world, and leaving a still-visible crater after over 60 million years. The destruction of an existing order created huge numbers of opportunities. The radiation out from there is quite understood.
I would comment on some of the misrepresentations that I see there (particularly of the Cambrian explosion), but I want to get to their casual dismissal of punctuated equilibrium. First of all they overstate the coincidence needed for punctuated equilibrium to happen. You do not need to isolate a population and then have a series of mutations happen. Instead you isolate a population with normal levels of genetic variability, and chance elimination of variability through inbreeding will drive that population to a somewhat different form. Normally that form won't be better than the original, and reintegration with the main population is a disaster for the isolated segment. But this kind of genetic experiment is going on all the time (and has been identified in the wild right now), and one success in 5 million years of attempts is enough to explain a punctuation.
Secondly when attempting to dismiss a theory, it is unfair to ignore evidence put forth for that theory. For instance Gould and Eldredge's original paper didn't just hypothesize the process, they actually traced a type of tribolite through 2 punctuations, in each of which they were able to locate the punctuations (one in a mine in upstate NY, the other in a mine in China IIRC) to a specific locale over a period of a few thousand years. That is, they didn't just look at a fossil record and say, "How did this sudden shift happen?" Instead they looked at a fossil record where they had detailed documentation of where and when the shifts happened, and found that not once, but twice in a row the shift happened in a small space in a small time in what apparently was an isolated population.
I could go on through that page with more examples of bias, distortion, and omission. I could do the same with the website as a whole. But I think that my point is clear. While I can see how convincing that site might be to someone who doesn't clearly know the facts involved, and who is inclined to believe what they have to say, it isn't convincing me nearly as well as you might hope.
So let me quickly brush over the final point, your railing about attempted proofs of the non-existence of God. Oddly enough I didn't attempt to prove the non-existence of God. For one thing I know better than that, I am fully aware that the existence or non-existence of God is not amenable to proof. Or, more precisely put, there are many "demonstrations" available, but each has a strong tendancy to confirm for all readers their prior belief system on the subject.
My prior belief system says that any God able to create the Universe must, a prior, be far more amazing than the Universe created. Going further, if we consider geological time to be The Eiffel Tower, all of human history is a small fleck of paint partway up the tower. The entire history of science fits on a speck of dust on the fleck of paint. And I am but an amused microbe who hears other microbes going on about how we are clearly the purpose of this whole edifice, what it all leads to, and I'm laughing to myself about the lack of perspective.
But that is my belief. I have no vested interest in anyone else (you, for instance) agreeing with me, and no way to convince you to agree with me even if I wanted to.
Cheers,
Ben
PS Next time, please pick a clearer position and stick to it. While addressing umpteen different positions may be kind of fun, it gets very tedious after a while.
"good ideas and bad code build communities, the other three combinations do not"
- [link|http://archives.real-time.com/pipermail/cocoon-devel/2000-October/003023.html|Stefano Mazzocchi]
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Post #134,005
1/7/04 1:48:00 AM
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Not really
Creationism is the theory that the universe, and everything in it was created by a Creator who used Intelligent Design to create the various things. One of which was humans, which were created in his image. The problem is that the details are quite filled in yet, and some Creationists use the book of Genesis as a reference. That is where religion comes in. What I said was that parts of the creation stories in Genesis are true, and the rest are that old "Telephone Game" that distorts things. It still doesn't change the theory of Creationism. Unless you are mistaking the book of Genesis for the theory itself, which I think you are doing.
Oh, right. The origin of life is indeed outside of standard mechanisms of Darwinian evolution (a fact first noted by Darwin).
The origin of life is not outside the theory of Creationism. We know who did it, and we just don't know how or why yet. Provide an alternative to the origin of life if you can. Random Chance just doesn't cut it. Science is unable to reproduce the same results in a controlled environment. These failings show that there was actually some intellgence that provided the origin of life and did so by Intelligent Design. Otherwise scientists could reproduce life in a lab using Random Chance. The fact that Scientists cannot sucessfully clone anything without it breaking down, aging rapidly, or dying, proves that there is copy protection in the Genetic Code. How did it get there? Why is it there? Not only is the copy protection there, it is signed by its creator by it's very design. The creator didn't want us to genetically copy species, at least not in an easy way.
So let me quickly brush over the final point, your railing about attempted proofs of the non-existence of God. Oddly enough I didn't attempt to prove the non-existence of God. For one thing I know better than that, I am fully aware that the existence or non-existence of God is not amenable to proof. Or, more precisely put, there are many "demonstrations" available, but each has a strong tendancy to confirm for all readers their prior belief system on the subject.
In order to prove or disprove the existance of God, you must define what God is. Nobody is qualified to do that. Like trying to define infinity and measure it with finite measuring devices. Nothing I can show in any evidence, in any proof, in any way shape or form will convince you, if you are a skeptic and totally against the idea and do not have an open mind. God goes beyond all logic, all physical laws, time and space itself are meaningless to such a being.
My prior belief system says that any God able to create the Universe must, a prior, be far more amazing than the Universe created. Going further, if we consider geological time to be The Eiffel Tower, all of human history is a small fleck of paint partway up the tower. The entire history of science fits on a speck of dust on the fleck of paint. And I am but an amused microbe who hears other microbes going on about how we are clearly the purpose of this whole edifice, what it all leads to, and I'm laughing to myself about the lack of perspective.
We could be all goldfish swimming in a big bowl, living in our own waste, realtively speaking. :) The whole purpose of the edifice is unknown. Life is only temporary and finite. 1000 years from now, what will it matter? Religion comes in and gives life a purpose. Suddenly the microbes are important, and find that death is not an end, but only the beginning to something different. The physical body gives way to the soul or spirit. Life continues on in the Afterlife in a different form. The edifice is replaced with something more wonderful, something much larger, no more suffering, no more death, life eternal. Then we find out that physical life as we knew it was one big test, either we pass or fail. The one who created life does the judging in the Afterlife. Hope you pass the audition. :)
"Lady I only speak two languages, English and Bad English!" - Corbin Dallas "The Fifth Element"
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