Neo-Darwinian evolution is in trouble INSIDE the scientific community

[Speedwell]

Well, He might have got it wrong.

Oh, wait...

I don't expect to get any traction for that idea with the creationist crowd. The problem is, the existence of such a God is unfalsifiable. Creationists need to find God's greasy fingermarks on the machinery of life so they can "prove" His existence.

 

[Sanoy]

Creationists have been claiming that "Darwinism" has been sinking every since he came up with his theory. Now it has been changed, almost every theory goes through revisions. But these tend to be improvements and clarifications. Like it or not common descent is a fact. And there is no evidence for the hand of a god in evolution.

Common decent is not a fact, it is a theory that uses facts. As a matter of fact all of the facts used in my Highschool text book for evolution were later found to be false, deliberate forgeries, or hoaxes.

Yeah, Christians have been claiming that natural selection and random mutation can't account for what we have for over 200 years. And guess what? We we were right. If science had listened to the counter facts rather than rejecting them primae facie we might not have wasted the last 200 years and we would be on the 5th way by now.

(edit, actually 160ish)

 

[Sanoy]

That He devised it does not mean it is "guided." It is "random" in the sense that heritable variation is random, though subject to non-random natural selection.

How do you devise a specific outcome through randomness? God's reliance on randomness to create mankind logically entails that man could not have occurred. If his randomness does not entail the possibility that man doesn't occur then it isn't random. I'm a believer in God's omniscience but He can't do the logically impossible.

The sinking ship is random mutation and natural selection. The dog doesn't hunt. That is what the whole biologist convention at the royal society in London was all about. Biologist have been saying it's not enough for a long time now. As Perry Marshall says in the video, Science changes one funeral at a time. It takes people dying to actually get past a half century of rhetoric and assurances of the truth and media propaganda.

Random mutation and natural selection have some serious problems that would be alleviated with guided evolution. I don't know why you have retreated so far back that you have made God's magnificent work nothing more than a wind up toy. The Non theists are even giving the cells a form of consciousness to guide the process of evolution past the Darwinian boundaries and here you won't even give God the consciousness effort to do it Himself. (part of the video)

 

[Gene2memE]

Common decent is not a fact, it is a theory that uses facts.

Common descent is neither, it's a hypothesis - but one that is support by an overwhelming amount of evidence. Several formal tests for a universal common ancestor have been proposed, although there have been issues with all of them. Until then, science just has to deal with common ancestry being confirmed every time comparative genetics and morphological hierarchies are examined.

As a matter of fact all of the facts used in my Highschool text book for evolution were later found to be false, deliberate forgeries, or hoaxes.

Such as?

Oh and please don't tell me you're going to bring up Piltdown man, Nebraska man or Ernst Haeckel. Otherwise, your textbooks haven't been updated since the 1960s.

Yeah, Christians have been claiming that natural selection and random mutation can't account for what we have for over 200 years. And guess what? We we were right. If science had listened to the counter facts rather than rejecting them primae facie we might not have wasted the last 200 years and we would be on the 5th way by now.

That's amazing - because Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace only published their initial findings 160 years ago.

Also, natural selection and random mutation aren't the only mechanisms for evolution - and we've known that for the last 60 years.

If you can propose another legitimate theory explaining the diversity of life, I'd be all ears.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

How do you devise a specific outcome through randomness?

A multiverse would do it. Just eliminate all those that don't work out - God seems OK with that sort of approach in the OT

 

[Sanoy]

Common descent is neither, it's a hypothesis - but one that is support by an overwhelming amount of evidence. Several formal tests for a universal common ancestor have been proposed, although there have been issues with all of them. Until then, science just has to deal with common ancestry being confirmed every time comparative genetics and morphological hierarchies are examined.

I'll take hypothesis. I don't see an overwhelming amount of evidence though. That is more of an opinionated term.

the 2 I remember most were the peppered moths and the stages of birth. The updating of those texts books is a well known issue that schools and texts books were not concerned with.

I wasn't going to look up the exact age, the actual age would be a distinction without a difference. Yeah we have had to develop new mechanisms because Darwins theory doesn't have what it takes. When it one naturalistic theory fails, we hypothesize other naturalistic theories, like punctuated equilibrium. That is the process of methodological naturalism.

By legitimate theory you mean a naturalistic theory. God is not natural but supernatural. I don't share your assumption of metaphysical naturalism.

 

[Sanoy]

A multiverse would do it.

That is all the multiverse is. It's thrown into a situation ad hoc to do a job, not to actually be something that exists.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

That is all the multiverse is. It's thrown into a situation ad hoc to do a job, not to actually be something that exists.

It's a prediction (in one form or another) of many (most?) mainstream theories, but we may never know if it's 'real', or even if that's a meaningful question to ask.

 

[Sanoy]

It's a prediction (in one form or another) of many (most?) mainstream theories, but we may never know if it's 'real', or even if that's a meaningful question to ask.

It is not my experience that it's mainstream. It's highly publicized by Atheistic apologists due to it's semi relevance to the fine tuning but I think thats where it sits in reality. It is a product of the flaw of naturalism. If all we accept are natural theories then all we can ever believe are natural theories. All you need is a gap of robust naturalistic explanation and any naturalistic hypothesis will do the job, no matter how ridiculous, extravagant, or unnecessary it is nothing else could explain it because only naturalism is allowed to explain it. Naturalism is an epistemic mechanism designed for this very process. The good news is it's voluntary, not required.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Hello Subduction Zone.

You made the statement.

The universe and everything within is the real evidence that not only, that God exists but also that God created the universe.

Nope, it is only evidence that the universe exists. This just goes to show that creationists do not understand the nature of evidence. The universe is also "evidence" that it arose naturally without any supernatural help. A datum that can be used to support any argument is not evidence.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Common decent is not a fact, it is a theory that uses facts. As a matter of fact all of the facts used in my Highschool text book for evolution were later found to be false, deliberate forgeries, or hoaxes.

Yeah, Christians have been claiming that natural selection and random mutation can't account for what we have for over 200 years. And guess what? We we were right. If science had listened to the counter facts rather than rejecting them primae facie we might not have wasted the last 200 years and we would be on the 5th way by now.

Wrong, it is a fact that is supported by mountains of evidence and opposed by none.

You might as well say that "falling off of a cliff is not a fact, it is a theory that uses facts". You are getting your facts and theories conflated with each other.

And please, you must have had a terrible textbook in school. What "facts" were found out to be false, forgeries, or hoaxes? I bet that you get all of them wrong.

And no, creationists, not Christians, were wrong, they still are wrong. You should not conflate Christians with creationists. It is terribly insulting to the majority of Christians. Once again let's hear your supposed "counter facts". I have heard this claim but at best I have only heard ignorance in response.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

It is not my experience that it's mainstream.

Ah, there's your problem.

Why The Multiverse Isn't Just Madness.

 

[Subduction Zone]

It is not my experience that it's mainstream. It's highly publicized by Atheistic apologists due to it's semi relevance to the fine tuning but I think thats where it sits in reality. It is a product of the flaw of naturalism. If all we accept are natural theories then all we can ever believe are natural theories. All you need is a gap of robust naturalistic explanation and any naturalistic hypothesis will do the job, no matter how ridiculous, extravagant, or unnecessary it is nothing else could explain it because only naturalism is allowed to explain it. Naturalism is an epistemic mechanism designed for this very process. The good news is it's voluntary, not required.

If you want to oppose "naturalism" you have to do only one thing. Find some reasonable evidence that supports your beliefs.

 

[Speedwell]

How do you devise a specific outcome through randomness? God's reliance on randomness to create mankind logically entails that man could not have occurred. If his randomness does not entail the possibility that man doesn't occur then it isn't random. I'm a believer in God's omniscience but He can't do the logically impossible.

Not necessarily. Evolution shows a tendency to converge in certain instances. Look how many evolutionary lines have converged on flight, for instance. It is entirely possible that evolution will show the same convergence on intelligence. All that God requires is a creature with sufficient intelligence to reflect on the consequences of his acts. He does not require an erect bipedal mammal specifically.

The sinking ship is random mutation and natural selection. The dog doesn't hunt. That is what the whole biologist convention at the royal society in London was all about. Biologist have been saying it's not enough for a long time now. As Perry Marshall says in the video, Science changes one funeral at a time. It takes people dying to actually get past a half century of rhetoric and assurances of the truth and media propaganda.

Don't hold your breath waiting for all of those scientists to become Bible-believing creationists.

From the Third Way website:
Home | The Third Way of Evolution

"It has come to our attention that THE THIRD WAY web site is wrongly being referenced by proponents of Intelligent Design and creationist ideas as support for their arguments. We intend to make it clear that the website and scientists listed on the web site do not support or subscribe to any proposals that resort to inscrutable divine forces or supernatural intervention, whether they are called Creationism, Intelligent Design, or anything else."

Random mutation and natural selection have some serious problems that would be alleviated with guided evolution. I don't know why you have retreated so far back that you have made God's magnificent work nothing more than a wind up toy. The Non theists are even giving the cells a form of consciousness to guide the process of evolution past the Darwinian boundaries and here you won't even give God the consciousness effort to do it Himself. (part of the video)

Oh, I believe that God's constant causal support is required. However, I also believe 1. That identifying an evidently complete natural cause for any material phenomenon does not rule out simultaneous divine causality, and 2. That the natural causes (which is the only kind science studies) of phenomena in the universe will thus appear to us to comprise a complete closed system of material causality. This is not a new notion. The metaphysical considerations involved go all the way back to Aristotle and have formed the basis of formal theology for many centuries. Protestants tend to have rejected the idea for some reason and it is notable that it is primarily the Protestant denominations which have trouble with evolution. The Roman church accommodated to it without much difficulty and the Orthodox and Oriental churches mostly ignore it, whether they agree with it or not.

 

[pitabread]

I would agree to an extent. Scientists have always had doubts about evolution. It is whether they want to accept or state those doubts as there is too much at stake for voicing their concerns. Many professors lose their jobs just for stating doubts & criticism towards evolution.

Modern evolutionary biology is an applied science. In industry, there is profit-driven motive to exploit the biological sciences. There's not much incentive to keep teaching and using flawed science, if there is something better to be had.

 

[pitabread]

As a matter of fact all of the facts used in my Highschool text book for evolution were later found to be false, deliberate forgeries, or hoaxes.

"All" of them? Really?

Somehow, I find that hard to believe...

 

[dmmesdale]

The problem is, the existence of such a God is unfalsifiable.

As is your existence.

 

[Kenny'sID]

When a person is offered help and runs away no one takes his demands seriously.

Run away? lol, always been right here. You can't seem to answer any other of my questions but might as well ask anyway... can you point out were I ran away?

Why don't you claim I'm wearing a clown suit now becuse I'm just into that type thing, I bite my nails, and have bad breath? It may even work to help discredit me for some. I mean once you have no argument to offer, discreditation is about all you have left...right?

So here are the questions you still have not answered:

1)Can't prove evolution.

You only keep talking about how you offered, but cannot post a run down of it here as I asked...and not of opinion, but proof. No cop outs, just do it. Too involved? I'm sorry but we can't let that be an excuse, it sounds way too much like another cop out. In order to make it believable it must be proven, whatever it takes and you know as well as I do, we would be idiots to believe it without proof.

2) Proof I do not understand "evidence".

And yes, Sub actually claimed that. This is way I'm concerned about another cop out and why I keep bring up the possibility...it's not a possibility I dream up as can plainly be seen with accusations like that.

3)Where I actually"ran away" or proof of the accusation.

And no, I got no false hopes of getting any answers to those but I do want to start compiling a list here....let's just say for general purposes.

 

[Gene2memE]

I'll take hypothesis. I don't see an overwhelming amount of evidence though. That is more of an opinionated term.

That's the opinion of experts in the relevant fields of biology.

Koonin and Wolf (2010)

Conclusion
A formal demonstration of the Universal Common Ancestry hypothesis has not been achieved and is unlikely to be feasible in principle. Nevertheless, the evidence in support of this hypothesis provided by comparative genomics is overwhelming.​

Larget et at Statistical evidence for common ancestry: New tests of universal ancestry (2016)

Abstract
While there is no doubt among evolutionary biologists that all living species, or merely all living species within a particular group (e.g., animals), share descent from a common ancestor, formal statistical methods for evaluating common ancestry from aligned DNA sequence data have received criticism. One primary criticism is that prior methods take sequence similarity as evidence for common ancestry while ignoring other potential biological causes of similarity, such as functional constraints. We present a new statistical framework to test separate ancestry versus common ancestry that avoids this pitfall. We illustrate the efficacy of our approach using a recently published large molecular alignment to examine common ancestry of all primates (including humans). We find overwhelming evidence against separate ancestry and in favor of common ancestry for orders and families of primates. We also find overwhelming evidence that humans share a common ancestor with other primate species.​

Yonezawa and Hasegawa Some Problems in Proving the Existence of the Universal Common Ancestor of Life on Earth (2012)

Abstract:
Although overwhelming circumstantial evidence supports the existence of the universal common ancestor of all extant life on Earth, it is still an open question whether the universal common ancestor existed or not.​

the 2 I remember most were the peppered moths and the stages of birth. The updating of those texts books is a well known issue that schools and texts books were not concerned with.

The pepper moth experiment has been replicated and proven to be correct - see this paper based on a six year study conducted between 2002 and 2008, which replicated the results of the original study.

Selective bird predation on the peppered moth: the last experiment of Michael Majerus

So, no the peppered moth is not false, or a deliberate forgery, or a hoax.

The same with the "stages of birth" - by which you have to mean Ernst Haeckel's embryonic drawings. Creationists like to claim that they were falsified, when in reality Haeckel was just interpolating because he lacked sufficient information. Here's the NCSE's take on it.

Yeah we have had to develop new mechanisms because Darwins theory doesn't have what it takes. When it one naturalistic theory fails, we hypothesize other naturalistic theories, like punctuated equilibrium. That is the process of methodological naturalism.

Punctuated equilibrium is a mechanism within the evolutionary framework. It was initially assumed that evolution was a gradual process (phyletic gradualism) that occurred more or less at a steady rate. Gould et al showed that instead, evolution occurs in fits and starts, with periods of explosively rapid (from a geological timeframe) and widespread morphological diversification (cladogenesis), then periods of comparatively slower or more concentrated diversification.

By legitimate theory you mean a naturalistic theory. God is not natural but supernatural. I don't share your assumption of metaphysical naturalism.

Science is necessarily limited to methodological naturalism, ergo any theory that replaces evolution would have to also be limited to the realm of the natural.

If you want to overturn it, you have to provide an explanation of biological diversity that better fits the available evidence - not religious dogma.

 

[Obliquinaut]

TLDR: don't disagree with the group think otherwise they will label you as incompetent and loony.

How would you characterize someone who believes the earth is flat? Would it not be appropriate to suggest they shouldn't hold a position teaching geology or planetary science?

It is one thing to allow for skeptical voices, it is quite another to simply assume that because someone can say something it deserves equal respect to actual science.