Richard Dawkins disappoints again

[Jeff S]

Well, I took to keeping up on my evolution once again and recently (well, last year) purchased a used copy of Dawkins' Greatest Show on Earth. Dawkins is obviously the well-known evolutionist spouting what he thinks is conclusive proof of evolution when my opinion is that it is not. Dawkins, in one of his chapters, talks about evolution we can observe (the origin of new breeds of dogs, for instance) and everything he talks about can be understood as a change within "kinds" (to use the Biblical phrase) or perhaps change within species, if you like. Then Dawkins nails it down. Dawkins suggests that if we just extrapolate the evolution he believes in will happen. Quoting Dawkins:

"What lessons do we learn from the domestication of the dog? First, the great variety among the breeds of dogs . . . demonstrates how easily it is for the non-random selection of genes – the ‘carving and whittling’ of gene pools – to produce truly dramatic changes in anatomy and behaviour, [sic] and so fast – the difference between breeds so dramatic – that you might expect their evolution to take millions of years instead of just a matter of centuries. If so much evolutionary change can be achieved in just a few centuries or even decades, just think what might be achieved in ten or a hundred million years"

Well, by golly, this evolution is sure impressive. But then again, if you extrapolate anything you are bound to find the evidence you seek. Maybe after millions of years all the dogs will be just different breeds of dogs and not undergo changes wider than that. We wouldn't know from Dawkins who just assumes evolution can produce whatever he demands. How about opera singing unicorns? Betcha evolution can produce that too if we just give it millions of years. Dawkins gives us no reason to think his extrapolate argument is correct other than assuming the fact of evolution.

In my library I have a book by Norman Macbeth who, back in the 1970s, surveys the evolutionist literature and found evolutionist Ernst Mayr who said animals have a resistance to change Mayr calls “genetic homeostasis.” Mayr is further quoted by Macbeth as saying "Obviously any drastic improvement under selection must seriously deplete the store of genetic variability. . . The most frequent correlated response of one-sided selection is a drop in general fitness. This plagues virtually every breeding experiment.” This book, quoted by lawyer Phillip Johnson in his book Darwin on Trial, should be known by Dawkins but Dawkins doesn't mention any such claims about the limits of evolution. Mayr is not the only evolutionist to point out such limits either. Why? Probably because Dawkins doesn't want to believe such limits exist. BTW Macbeth's book is Darwin Retried.

That's not the only problem with Dawkins, but that should get you going on doubts about Dawkins.

 

[Job 33:6]

some people insist that "dogs will always be dogs", but there is nothing to anyone's knowledge that would ever prevent genetic change from continuing to occur up to and beyond a genus level.

 

[stevevw]

Well, I took to keeping up on my evolution once again and recently (well, last year) purchased a used copy of Dawkins' Greatest Show on Earth. Dawkins is obviously the well-known evolutionist spouting what he thinks is conclusive proof of evolution when my opinion is that it is not. Dawkins, in one of his chapters, talks about evolution we can observe (the origin of new breeds of dogs, for instance) and everything he talks about can be understood as a change within "kinds" (to use the Biblical phrase) or perhaps change within species, if you like. Then Dawkins nails it down. Dawkins suggests that if we just extrapolate the evolution he believes in will happen. Quoting Dawkins:

"What lessons do we learn from the domestication of the dog? First, the great variety among the breeds of dogs . . . demonstrates how easily it is for the non-random selection of genes – the ‘carving and whittling’ of gene pools – to produce truly dramatic changes in anatomy and behaviour, [sic] and so fast – the difference between breeds so dramatic – that you might expect their evolution to take millions of years instead of just a matter of centuries. If so much evolutionary change can be achieved in just a few centuries or even decades, just think what might be achieved in ten or a hundred million years"

Well, by golly, this evolution is sure impressive. But then again, if you extrapolate anything you are bound to find the evidence you seek. Maybe after millions of years all the dogs will be just different breeds of dogs and not undergo changes wider than that. We wouldn't know from Dawkins who just assumes evolution can produce whatever he demands. How about opera singing unicorns? Betcha evolution can produce that too if we just give it millions of years. Dawkins gives us no reason to think his extrapolate argument is correct other than assuming the fact of evolution.

In my library I have a book by Norman Macbeth who, back in the 1970s, surveys the evolutionist literature and found evolutionist Ernst Mayr who said animals have a resistance to change Mayr calls “genetic homeostasis.” Mayr is further quoted by Macbeth as saying "Obviously any drastic improvement under selection must seriously deplete the store of genetic variability. . . The most frequent correlated response of one-sided selection is a drop in general fitness. This plagues virtually every breeding experiment.” This book, quoted by lawyer Phillip Johnson in his book Darwin on Trial, should be known by Dawkins but Dawkins doesn't mention any such claims about the limits of evolution. Mayr is not the only evolutionist to point out such limits either. Why? Probably because Dawkins doesn't want to believe such limits exist. BTW Macbeth's book is Darwin Retried.

That's not the only problem with Dawkins, but that should get you going on doubts about Dawkins.

Richard Dawkins believes in the all powerful ability of Natural selection to just about create anything. Many people who support evolution beleive natural selection can achieve the impossible but never exxplain exactly how that can happen in any detail. This is a case of giving creation the credit instead of the creator.

 

[Jeff S]

yeah but I bet for awhile after his death he'll think his judgment is only a meme creating an illusion in his head. He had ample chance to change his opinion.

 

[stevevw]

Richard Dawkins is an old man who could die within 10 years. I bet he will repent on his death bed.

just like Dawin did.

 

[DreadCthulhu]

OP: I don't think you understand how evolution works.....

 

[sdowney717]

Macro Evolution does not work.
Prove genes change for the better, what I know is changes cause disease and death or sterility.

Evolution depends on vast lengths of time and errors in the genome to produce a more viable offspring. And evolution is not scriptural. no God needed.

You can argue all you want, it wont change my mind.

Debunking Evolution - Scientific evidence against evolution - Clash between theory and reality

 

[sfs]

Macro Evolution does not work.

Sure it does.

Prove genes change for the better, what I know is changes cause disease and death or sterility.

There are numerous mutations just in humans that are known to be beneficial. Geneticists certainly know about them. Where exactly have you been looking that you haven't learned about them?

And evolution is not scriptural. no God needed.

God is also not needed for auto mechanics. Do you reject that too?

You can argue all you want, it wont change my mind.

What's your goal in commenting, then? You clearly don't know anything about the subject, are not interested in learning, and are never going to convince anyone of anything by taking this approach. So why bother?

 

[NobleMouse]

Sure it does.

In the context of protozoa to man? Never has been and never will be seen. Only place this has been seen is in the mind's eye of those who accept the secular paradigm of billions of years and a beginning without the need of a creator.

 

[Speedwell]

In the context of protozoa to man? Never has been and never will be seen. Only place this has been seen is in the mind's eye of those who accept the secular paradigm of billions of years and a beginning without the need of a creator.

It's not about the existence of God, despite your gratuitous editorial comment, "without the need of a creator." It's about the Bible.

 

[sfs]

In the context of protozoa to man? Never has been and never will be seen. Only place this has been seen is in the mind's eye of those who accept the secular paradigm of billions of years and a beginning without the need of a creator.

In the context of protozoa to man, it works just fine. It's "been seen" -- i.e., it has overwhelming evidential support -- by virtually everyone who is competent to assess the evidence, including both those who do and those who do not believe in the need for a creator.

 

[NobleMouse]

In the context of protozoa to man, it works just fine. It's "been seen" -- i.e., it has overwhelming evidential support -- by virtually everyone who is competent to assess the evidence, including both those who do and those who do not believe in the need for a creator.

What would the evidence really be for something that has never been seen before? The answer is that the evidence would be whatever you personally find convincing in your mind to sell you on believing something is true (this is true of all things not seen). In far contrast to protozoa to man evolution, we have gravity, something that can be completely observed/tested/falsified, here in the present. The "overwhelming evidential support" is fossils and there are no fossils that take us from man back to protozoa - even at the lowest rock layers where supposedly the oldest life is, the life is already extremely complex - hence why it is called the Cambrian explosion. Even the "transitional" fossil is only transitional in that it is imagined to be an intermediate form between different kinds, yet, nobody really knows how it looked alive, how it functioned, how it behaved, it's natural habitat, etc... assumption stacked on assumption with artist's renderings and modeling. Since even the oldest conventionally dated evidence of life is already complex, this is overwhelming evidence that God created life as we are told in His word... not the result of accumulated random mutations over billions of years, but the result of having been created and given the command to multiply and fill the earth.

 

[NobleMouse]

The following quote by Mark Twain does a good job of adding perspective to the evolution/uniformitarianism paradigm:

"In the space of one hundred and seventy-six years the lower Mississippi has shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles. This is an average of a trifle over one mile and a third per year. Therefore, any calm person, who is not blind or idiotic, can see that in the Old Oolitic Silurian period just a million years ago next November, the lower Mississippi river was upward of one million three hundred thousand miles long and stuck out over the Gulf of Mexico like a fishing rod. And, by the same token, any person can see that seven hundred and forty-two years from now, the lower Mississippi will be only a mile and three-quarters long, and Cairo and New Orleans will have joined their streets together, and be plodding comfortably along with a single mayor and a mutual board of Alderman. There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns out of such a trifle investment of fact."
(Samuel L. Clemens, Life on the Mississippi, New York: Harper and Brothers, 1874, p. 156) [emphasis added]

This is exactly what happens within the OE paradigm today, we take observable, testable, repeatable, (and yes, even absolutely true facts that are relevant here in the present) and in by linear mental extension, extrapolate out Neverland fascinations of billions of years and things evolving from basically nothing all the way up to the crowning achievement of God's creation, that which He made in His image, and sent His son to die for. This is how one gets from finches diversifying to have a stronger beak in the Galapagos in an observable, short period of time to assuming all life came from a common ancestor over billions of years ago.

Such ideas as protozoa-to-man evolution and billions of years are not supported biblically and not supported unequivocally within the available empirical evidence - again, one has to imagine these things... just like one would have to imagine the lower Mississippi once being 1.3 million miles long a million years ago.

 

[Job 33:6]

Macro Evolution does not work.
Prove genes change for the better, what I know is changes cause disease and death or sterility.

Evolution depends on vast lengths of time and errors in the genome to produce a more viable offspring. And evolution is not scriptural. no God needed.

You can argue all you want, it wont change my mind.

Actually its quite the opposite, change is what results in life. Imagine living on earth and its 100 degrees out, super hot. So your body changes, perhaps you lose your body hair. But imagine if the planet then turned to 20 degrees, it would be freezing and you would die, unless perhaps you had fur. The planet changes, predators change, prey change, and the only way to survive, is to also change yourself.

It isnt that change kills. Change is what allows us to live.

 

[Job 33:6]

In the context of protozoa to man? Never has been and never will be seen. Only place this has been seen is in the mind's eye of those who accept the secular paradigm of billions of years and a beginning without the need of a creator.

Just because you cant read a geologic map, doesn't mean that the worlds geologists are conspiring against God.

 

[Job 33:6]

The "overwhelming evidential support" is fossils and there are no fossils that take us from man back to protozoa - even at the lowest rock layers where supposedly the oldest life is, the life is already extremely complex - hence why it is called the Cambrian explosion.

But the cambrian isn't the lowest section of layers, and it isn't where the oldest or first complex life appears.

You have no idea what you are talking about.

You consistently try to argue against science and geology, but to be fair, you really don't know anything about geology. It's like listening to an engineer trying to argue with a physicist about quantum theory, its quite clear that you don't know what you are talking about.

 

[Jeff S]

In the context of protozoa to man, it works just fine. It's "been seen" -- i.e., it has overwhelming evidential support -- by virtually everyone who is competent to assess the evidence, including both those who do and those who do not believe in the need for a creator.

geez I guess I must have missed it then. Mustve' been reading too many Biblical passages and not paying attention to the animals just macrevolutioning before our very eyes.

Problem is that the evolutionist literature is replete with examples of how macroevolution is NOT witnessed - anywhere. I wrote an article criticizing evolutionist Stephen Gould for the Lutheran Science Institute and you can read it online here:
http://www.lutheranscience.org/home...80153808/2017 Journal Propaganda of Gould.pdf

I featured some quotes and information that show, despite what Gould was trying to claim, the literature shows macroevolution is not seen. Here are some cherry-picked quotes.

First, two from evolutionist Jeremy Rifkin from his book Algeny. He cites two evolutionists Loren Eiseley and Scott Falconer.


It would appear that careful domestic breeding, whatever it may do to improve the quality of race horses or cabbages, is not actually in itself the road to the endless biological deviation which is evolution. [Eiseley]

The improvements that have been made by selection in these [domesticated breeds] have clearly been accompanied by a reduction of fitness for life under natural conditions, and only the fact that domesticated animals and plants do not live under natural conditions has allowed these improvements to be made. [Falconer]

More telling is Stephen Gould himself who says that you can't change some geometric shapes into others and in the same way some animal forms can't be changed into others also. He quotes classical scholar D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson as saying.

"An algebraic curve has its fundamental formula, which defines the family to which it belongs. . . . We never think of “transforming” a helicoid into an ellipsoid, or a circle into a frequency curve. So it is with the forms of animals. We cannot transform an invertebrate into a vertebrate, nor a coelenterate into a worm, by any simple and legitimate deformation. . . . Nature proceeds from one type to another. . . . To seek for steppingstones across the gaps between is to seek in vain, forever."

I could quote more but read my article for the rest. I should mention that Dawkins, in the Greatest Show on Earth, mentions dog breeds, for instance, as evidence of macroevolution without giving any evidence of the possibility of evolution beyond that.

 

[Job 33:6]

Gould is widely known as a proponent of evolution by common descent, throughout all life of the fossil succession. ^

 

[Speedwell]

geez I guess I must have missed it then. Mustve' been reading too many Biblical passages and not paying attention to the animals just macrevolutioning before our very eyes.

Problem is that the evolutionist literature is replete with examples of how macroevolution is NOT witnessed - anywhere. I wrote an article criticizing evolutionist Stephen Gould for the Lutheran Science Institute and you can read it online here:
http://www.lutheranscience.org/home/180015283/180015283/180153808/2017 Journal Propaganda of Gould.pdf

I featured some quotes and information that show, despite what Gould was trying to claim, the literature shows macroevolution is not seen. Here are some cherry-picked quotes.

First, two from evolutionist Jeremy Rifkin from his book Algeny. He cites two evolutionists Loren Eiseley and Scott Falconer.


It would appear that careful domestic breeding, whatever it may do to improve the quality of race horses or cabbages, is not actually in itself the road to the endless biological deviation which is evolution. [Eiseley]

The improvements that have been made by selection in these [domesticated breeds] have clearly been accompanied by a reduction of fitness for life under natural conditions, and only the fact that domesticated animals and plants do not live under natural conditions has allowed these improvements to be made. [Falconer]

More telling is Stephen Gould himself who says that you can't change some geometric shapes into others and in the same way some animal forms can't be changed into others also. He quotes classical scholar D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson as saying.

"An algebraic curve has its fundamental formula, which defines the family to which it belongs. . . . We never think of “transforming” a helicoid into an ellipsoid, or a circle into a frequency curve. So it is with the forms of animals. We cannot transform an invertebrate into a vertebrate, nor a coelenterate into a worm, by any simple and legitimate deformation. . . . Nature proceeds from one type to another. . . . To seek for steppingstones across the gaps between is to seek in vain, forever."

I could quote more but read my article for the rest. I should mention that Dawkins, in the Greatest Show on Earth, mentions dog breeds, for instance, as evidence of macroevolution without giving any evidence of the possibility of evolution beyond that.

All quite true. You will have to explain why you believe any of that contradicts the theory of evolution, because right now I don't think it does. Take the Eiseley quote, for instance (you should really read the whole essay, not just a mined quote from some creationist website, but anyway...) Eiseley is correct, and the reason is that while natural selection depletes the information content of the gene pool, the forced selection of breeding depletes it even faster, faster than natural mechanisms can replace it. Consequently, random variation declines and breeding comes to a stop. Falconer makes essentially the same point.

 

[NobleMouse]

But the cambrian isn't the lowest section of layers, and it isn't where the oldest or first complex life appears.

You have no idea what you are talking about.

You consistently try to argue against science and geology, but to be fair, you really don't know anything about geology. It's like listening to an engineer trying to argue with a physicist about quantum theory, its quite clear that you don't know what you are talking about.

Everything you've stated is an exaggerated and baseless defense aimed solely in an attempt to discredit me so as to uphold theories that [1] are not supported by unequivocal evidence and [2] are supported by unfalsifiable axioms. Clever, but not unexpected. You can become as voluminous and as technical as you wish to be in your knowledge of a given discipline of science, but it does not take away from the basic foundational principles (that anyone can understand) upon which it rests - uniformitarianism and naturalism. This is obvious to any lay person. I'll await the natural law-based theories to be presented that explains how babies are born of virgins, or 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish become enough food for 5,000 men (not counting women and children) leaving 12 baskets full of leftovers, or how people are raised from the dead after scourging and crucifixion, etc...

Just scientifically speaking, macro evolution and billions of years have serious problems. If this were not so, then like gravity, nobody would have doubt of the claims of billions of years and protozoa to man evolution. It is not just the stupid that do not believe in billions of years and macro evolution, but people from all levels of intelligence, all education levels, all walks of life, every culture, every nation that discard and reject these vain imaginings. Is it that secular science has an overwhelmingly apparent truth on it's hands, but just trips and fumbles in its attempt to communicate?? I mean, evolution and billions of years is the only thing allowed to be taught in public schools and universities, and still cannot seem to sell everyone despite the great tactical advantage over just believing the truth of God's word! What an epic failure. If we want to boast about something, let us boast in the Lord (not the ideas of man in fine hubris) - see 2 Corinthians 10:17.

Geologists and biologists who accept billions of years and evolution from a common ancestor to all life will never be able to unequivocally prove these assertions to be true and in the same breath, never be able to disprove the word of God to be true. These theories too will fall away in time and what will remain, in the end, is the word of God. What is being sought, as it relates to the topic of origins, is not scientific proof, but rather the truth. Scientific proof can arrive at truth, but it is apparent from the word of God and the evidence available, that not all truth is arrived at solely from natural law and uniformitarian principles. If you have a problem with that brother then you problem is not with me, but with God. Grace and peace to you friend.