Darwinian evolution - still a theory in crisis.

Fervent · Jul 5, 2025

The Barbarian said:
The real tip-off for everyone was when they faked a laboratory, using stock images to make it look like they actually had a real science lab and do real science:

Intelligent design think tank’s “institute” is a Shutterstock image
A green screen plus a stock image of a lab equals instant credibility.
View attachment 367144

Intelligent design think tank’s “institute” is a Shutterstock image

A green screen plus a stock image of a lab equals instant credibility.

arstechnica.com

The DI imprint puts out books that aren't ID related, and don't masquerade as science. There's certainly a credibility issue with them, but not every book they publish suffers from the confirmation bias issues that plague ID. Blanket attacks on them are more ad hominem than anything else.

The Barbarian · Jul 5, 2025

Mountainmike said:
My detractors contend that there is a pathway to life via abiogenesis after which Darwinian process arrived at present life by more or less known route,

Even Darwin supposed that God created the first living things. Maybe if you learned what Darwin's theory is, you would be more effective in discussing it.

Mountainmike said:
The reality is my detractors seem to get their views from mass media, and they do not study enough , or know enough to notice my views are a mainstream in the minds of many evolutinary biologists.

Name me one major biologist who thinks that evolutionary theory is about the origin of life. I'm sure we'd all like to know.

Mountainmike said:
It takes an entire book just to describe the different schools of thought attempting To address the serious problems with limitations of darwinian thinking , as other than fine micro adaptation, and why for example neither autocatalytic sets nor RNA world cut it as a solution To the second problem I mention.

You've been so programmed to think Darwin's theory is about the origin of life, that you can't focus on what it really is. Let's do this now. Tell me which of Darwin's four points have been refuted by evidence. I don't expect you to answer; YECs never do. For reasons we all understand.

Mountainmike said:
I urge all to read a single book.

“ Michael Denton - evolution still a theory in crisis “

"Contrary to the creationist position, the whole argument presented here is critically dependent on the presumption of the unbroken continuity of the organic world– that is, on the reality of organic evolution and on the presumption that all living organisms on earth are natural forms in the profoundest sense of the word, no less natural than salt crystals, atoms, waterfalls, or galaxies.

In large measure, therefore, the teleological argument presented here and the special creationist worldview are mutually exclusive accounts of the world. In the last analysis, evidence for one is evidence against the other."
Michael Denton, Nature's Destiny

You sure you want to endorse this guy?

Mountainmike said:
That isn’t the world of science, which is seeing further by climbing a mountain of knowledge by study.
there is no 2 minute video to why Darwinism doesn’t work.

Since it's observed working in populations all around us, there's no point in saying it doesn't. But you've confused evolutionary theory with common descent, something even informed YECs like Dr. Kurt Wise and Dr. Todd Wood admit to be supported by much evidence. Clearly, you haven't taken time to learn much about evolutionary theory. Wouldn't it be wise to at least know what it is, before telling us about it?

The Barbarian · Jul 5, 2025

Fervent said:
The DI imprint puts out books that aren't ID related, and don't masquerade as science. There's certainly a credibility issue with them, but not every book they publish suffers from the confirmation bias issues that plague ID. Blanket attacks on them are more ad hominem than anything else.

There's really a wide diversity of views among IDers. There are people with a religious axe to grind, like Jonathan Wells who was given a mission by Myung Son Moon to "destroy Darwinism" for the Unitication Church, sometimes called the Moonies. Then there are academics like Michael Behe, who once bluntly testified that ID is science in the same sense that astrology is science. So a mixed bag. Nevertheless, it was deceptive for whoever made that fake to pretend that IDers at the Discovery Institute were doing real science in lab there.

I have to agree with Michael Denton that the teleology is in the forming of a universe with "front loading" that set the rules that made living things evolve.

Bradskii said:
Oops. Nearly missed this one. Denton is a Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute. So not a creationist as such. But a proponent of ID. So let's make sure the cards are on the table. The Institute's publicly stated aim is:

"To defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural and political legacies"
"To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God"

Technically, that's not their publicly stated aim. The only reason we know about it, is that the so-called "wedge document" was accidentally included in some papers sent out to a printer. Apparently, one of the people at the printer read the document, realized what a bombshell it was, and leaked to to various people. They definitely did not want that out in public, since they had repeatedly claimed to not have a religious motive. That claim was further eroded by the revelation that Of Pandas and People, presented as an ID textbook was actually a YEC text, clumsily edited to remove the word "creationist" and insert "design proponent" in all places in the manuscript. Unfortunately, one edition retained evidence of the switch; it was one of the key facts that led the court to regard ID as creationism modified to get it into public classrooms.

Fervent · Jul 5, 2025

The Barbarian said:
There's really a wide diversity of views among IDers. There are people with a religious axe to grind, like Jonathan Wells who was given a mission by Myung Son Moon to "destroy Darwinism" for the Unitication Church, sometimes called the Moonies. Then there are academics like Michael Behe, who once bluntly testified that ID is science in the same sense that astrology is science. So a mixed bag. Nevertheless, it was deceptive for whoever made that fake to pretend that IDers at the Discovery Institute were doing real science in lab there.

I'm sure there is, though I don't know if the book in question falls into ID or if it is simply a work of philosophy that runs counter to the dominant physicalist hegemony. My contention was simply that attacking a book because of its publisher is a form of ad hominem, even if there are credibility issues for that particular published. There are some decent philosophical works that DI puts out, even if their primary focus is pushing ID.

The Barbarian · Jul 5, 2025

Fervent said:
I'm sure there is, though I don't know if the book in question falls into ID or if it is simply a work of philosophy that runs counter to the dominant physicalist hegemony. My contention was simply that attacking a book because of its publisher is a form of ad hominem, even if there are credibility issues for that particular published. There are some decent philosophical works that DI puts out, even if their primary focus is pushing ID.

I have a copy of Denton's book. There's a lot for a biologist to disagree with, but I do agree with him that the universe was made to produce the diversity of life we see by evolution.

BCP1928 · Jul 5, 2025

Fervent said:
I'm sure there is, though I don't know if the book in question falls into ID or if it is simply a work of philosophy that runs counter to the dominant physicalist hegemony. My contention was simply that attacking a book because of its publisher is a form of ad hominem, even if there are credibility issues for that particular published. There are some decent philosophical works that DI puts out, even if their primary focus is pushing ID.

That's going to be a hard sell around here. We have paying attention to them for decades, read their books, analyzed their papers. I wasn't aware of any philosophical; works other than those by Francis Schaeffer which I would hardly call decent.

sjastro · Jul 5, 2025

The Barbarian said:
The real tip-off for everyone was when they faked a laboratory, using stock images to make it look like they actually had a real science lab and do real science:

Intelligent design think tank’s “institute” is a Shutterstock image
A green screen plus a stock image of a lab equals instant credibility.
View attachment 367144

Intelligent design think tank’s “institute” is a Shutterstock image

A green screen plus a stock image of a lab equals instant credibility.

arstechnica.com

There were a number of lookalikes considered for the photoshoot including this one.

Fervent · Jul 5, 2025

BCP1928 said:
That's going to be a hard sell around here. We have paying attention to them for decades, read their books, analyzed their papers. I wasn't aware of any philosophical; works other than those by Francis Schaeffer which I would hardly call decent.

I'm currently reading one called Minding the Brain edited by Angus Menuge, which presents an assortment of counterpositions and challenges to physicalist theories of mind. I didn't notice it was DI until I was already reading it, and it has nothing to do with ID nor is it expressly religious. The one posted looks like it might be in a similar vein, but I'm not sure. So a lack of interest is fair, but attacking the publisher does nothing to discredit the book.

AV1611VET · Jul 5, 2025

The Barbarian said:
The real tip-off for everyone was when they faked a laboratory, using stock images to make it look like they actually had a real science lab and do real science:

Nothing like a nice blue sky with lots of sunshine, isn't there?

AV1611VET · Jul 5, 2025

The Barbarian said:
Even Darwin supposed that God created the first living things.

From AI Overview:

Charles Darwin did not propose that God created the first living things. Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection focused on how species change over time, but he did not address the origin of life itself. While he didn't explicitly rule out a creator, his work suggested that life could have originated naturally, without divine intervention.

The Barbarian · Jul 5, 2025

AV1611VET said:
From AI Overview:

Charles Darwin did not propose that God created the first living things.

Well, let's take a look. I have a copy of his book, the 1859 edition. He writes:
There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved.
Charles Darwin, last sentence of On the Origin of Species

Maybe AI isn't the best thing to do to check reality. Assuming it does, can be embarrassing, as it was this time.

AV1611VET said:
Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection focused on how species change over time, but he did not address the origin of life itself.

Right. This is, I think, the first time a YEC actually admitted the fact. His theory doesn't include the origin of life, but he did write that God did it.

The Barbarian · Jul 5, 2025

The real tip-off for everyone was when they faked a laboratory, using stock images to make it look like they actually had a real science lab and do real science:

AV1611VET said:
Nothing like a nice blue sky with lots of sunshine, isn't there?

Now that would be something. Do you have any evidence that people at the Discovery Institute actually represented this as an actual photograph of a real scene? What do you have? They might be a bit shifty, but I don't think they're that stupid.

Bradskii · Jul 5, 2025

The Barbarian said:
Technically, that's not their publicly stated aim.

True. I should have perhaps described it as a publically available aim. And wouldn't you know it, my auto correct wrote that out as 'biblically available aim'.

The Barbarian said:
That claim was further eroded by the revelation that Of Pandas and People, presented as an ID textbook was actually a YEC text, clumsily edited to remove the word "creationist" and insert "design proponent" in all places in the manuscript. Unfortunately, one edition retained evidence of the switch; it was one of the key facts that led the court to regard ID as creationism modified to get it into public classrooms.

In one case the change was somewhat clumsy and instead of 'creationists' being changed to 'design proponents' it came out 'cdesign proponentsists'

Cdesign proponentsists

The term "cdesign proponentsists" came into being following the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District trial in Pennsylvania over the legitimacy of teaching intelligent design as science.

rationalwiki.org

The Barbarian · Jul 5, 2025

sjastro said:
There were a number of lookalikes considered for the photoshoot including this one.

View attachment 367151

I wonder if they were aware that Velma likes girls.

Fervent · Jul 5, 2025

The Barbarian said:
I have a copy of Denton's book. There's a lot for a biologist to disagree with, but I do agree with him that the universe was made to produce the diversity of life we see by evolution.

JBS Haldane had an interesting quote, "Teleology is like a mistress to the biologist: he cannot live without her, but he is unwilling to be seen with her in public." There are a lot of issues, philosophically speaking, with things taken for granted in modern academics/the sciences one of which is the notion of an ateleological universe. While fine-tuning arguments tend to be rather spurious, the fact that life arose inevitably certainly gives cause for suspecting there's some sort of purpose to it all.

AV1611VET · Jul 5, 2025

The Barbarian said:
The real tip-off for everyone was when they faked a laboratory, using stock images to make it look like they actually had a real science lab and do real science:

Now that would be something. Do you have any evidence that people at the Discovery Institute actually represented this as an actual photograph of a real scene? What do you have? They might be a bit shifty, but I don't think they're that stupid.

Point taken.

Bradskii · Jul 5, 2025

Fervent said:
....there's some sort of purpose to it all.

Although the question was never actually asked, the answer turned out to be 42. Which most people might think was a random number that Douglas Adams came up with. Whether it was a coincidence or not, 42 is the ascii code for *.

Tinker Grey · Jul 5, 2025

Bradskii said:
Although the question was never actually asked, the answer turned out to be 42. Which most people might think was a random number that Douglas Adams came up with. Whether it was a coincidence or not, 42 is the ascii code for *.

It's also 6 x 9 in base 13.

BCP1928 · Jul 5, 2025

Fervent said:
JBS Haldane had an interesting quote, "Teleology is like a mistress to the biologist: he cannot live without her, but he is unwilling to be seen with her in public." There are a lot of issues, philosophically speaking, with things taken for granted in modern academics/the sciences one of which is the notion of an ateleological universe. While fine-tuning arguments tend to be rather spurious, the fact that life arose inevitably certainly gives cause for suspecting there's some sort of purpose to it all.

Of course, but science doesn't do teleology, Indeed, as far as I know and as my religion teaches, teleology is not to be detected within the closed contingent causality of the universe. Telos must be apprehended in some other way than science. Using religion, perhaps?

Fervent · Jul 5, 2025

BCP1928 said:
Of course, but science doesn't do teleology, Indeed, as far as I know and as my religion teaches, teleology is not to be detected within the closed contingent causality of the universe. Telos must be apprehended in some other way than science. Using religion, perhaps?

Teleology is inescapable, the aversion to teleology is just a capitulation to ontological/philosophical naturalist commitments that are unrequired in science and so the appropriate response should be agnosticism rather than denialism.

Darwinian evolution - still a theory in crisis.

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SCIENCE CAN TAKE A HIKE

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