Some random discussion on evolution...

[Bungle_Bear]

See Gallup poll already posted

Seriously? A Gallup poll of US beliefs is your support for beliefs outside US? Why not just admit you have no support and retract the assertion?

 

[Guy Threepwood]

Nevertheless, the data behind big bang model was accepted, and you won't find any mainstream cosmologists who don't accept it.

This suggests that the scientific method wins out over even the amount reluctance you assert (although I think you're exaggerating it).

absolutely I agree, after some 60 years, & I am old enough that I had a physics teacher who still considered the big bang religious pseudoscience.

and I certainly believe Darwinism will go the same way as steady state and Newtonian physics

Because similarly- though the 'ignorant masses' were always skeptical of all these academic essentially Victorian age/ reductionist 'enlightenments'- the objective evidence to support their intuition, came later- and even then, had to patiently outlive individual academic opposition before being accepted.

Academic and pop science authority is still dictated by the likes of Dawkins, who attended 'Oxbridge' in the early 60's and was immersed in the political and ideological positions of that time and place. The information age 'ultraviolet catastrophe' facing Darwinian evolution flies entirely above his head.- not that he is not intelligent, just from another era of scientific understanding

 

[Astrophile]

Just like the primeval atom used to be for most in academia- explicitly for it's overt theistic implications.

George Gamow (1904-1968), one of the founders of the Big Bang theory, was a thoroughgoing agnostic or atheist - George Gamow - Wikipedia - not the sort of man who would be likely to adopt an overtly theistic theory of cosmology.

When I was first learning about cosmology, in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the public library and my secondary school library contained books by Gamow, and most of the astronomy books that I borrowed from these libraries included references to Lemaître and the theory of the Primeval Atom. By that time anti-theistic opposition to the Big Bang appears to have been fairly muted.

And Hoyle stuck to that position till his dying day in the 1980's.

Fred Hoyle died in 2001, not during the 1980's. Hermann Bondi (another atheist) was another of the founders of the Steady State model, but he abandoned it when the evidence turned in favour of the Big Bang.

 

[Astrophile]

'several' blatantly and outwardly complained about the theory not conforming with their atheist beliefs, i.e. did not even attempt a facade of being impartial in this regard- that's not to say others didn't have a similar opinion- the tendency among academics towards atheism, v everyone else, is hardly a controversial observation!

Could you give references for this? I think that Fred Hoyle and W.B. Bonnor objected to Big Bang cosmology because it seemed to be a way of sneaking Christianity into science, but, from my reading during the 1950s and 1960s, most of the debate between the advocates of the Big Bang and the Steady State was conducted on the basis of the scientific evidence.

And actually he was pretty moderate compared to Eddington- who explicitly called the entire concept of a beginning 'repugnant'. 'repugnance' is not a terribly objective scientific measure of truth!

Eddington's opinion was much more nuanced than this. In Chapter IV of The Nature of the Physical World ('The Running-Down of the Universe') he argued from the second law of thermodynamics (that entropy always increases) that there must have been 'a moment when the energy of the world was wholly organized with none of the random element in it', and that since that moment the energy of the universe has become ever more disorganized.

Eddington also understood the dilemma of a choice between an infinitely old universe and a moment of creation. In the same chapter he wrote, 'But the difficulty of an infinite past is appalling. It is inconceivable that we are the heirs of an infinite time of preparation; it is not less inconceivable that there was once a moment with no moment preceding it.' By the way, Eddington was a life-long Quaker, not an atheist.

That would be the point, the majority preferred atheistic/materialistic implications. Lemaitre certainly had to put up with plenty 'atheistic/materialist distractions' but still went out of his way to take the scientific high road, to disassociate his theory with personal beliefs- even telling the Pope to knock it off with all the gloating!

Isn't that how a scientist should operate? But it is the exception rather than the rule unfortunately- and this example of atheism v science is not an isolated one.

You may be interested in the story of the astronomer W.H. McCrea (1904-1999). According to William McCrea (1904-1999), McCrea 'was one of the few people to take seriously the steady-state theory developed by Hermann Bondi, Thomas Gold and Fred Hoyle'. He was also 'a practising Christian and an Anglican', not a man whose opposition to Big Bang cosmology was the result of atheism.

 

[Kylie]

I'm not trying to 'surreptitiously suggest' intelligent design here, I'm deliberately pointing out a common feature of intelligent design; an inbuilt capacity to adapt to different conditions.

So everything that is designed has this capacity? I can name literally hundreds of things that were definitely designed that are totally incapable of doing this.

sorry- can you rephrase?

You said that what we can scientifically observe is a limiting platform. Can you show that there is anything beyond what we can observe and describe scientifically that can produce any measurable effect on anything?

still controlling color- but aside from the hierarchy problems,

Such a change could also lead to chromatophores, such as what allows octopus and chameleons to change colour.

the overwhelming majority of random errors are deleterious to the function of any design- and observations of life support this- we see fish losing sight, birds losing flight- it's very hard to see examples of anything gradually gaining useful adaptations- not just directly but in the fossil record also. and that was the observation of David Raup- Chicago Field Museum, one of the world's foremost paleontologists.

Care to provide support for this?

And no, fish losing sight because they live in a cave where eyes are useless doesn't count, because evolution explains that very well. And it doesn't count if you talk about birds losing flight because they live away from predators and flight isn't needed for their particular lifestyle. Both of these are examples of a change which has no deleterious results if it is not selected against.

the few 'advantages' we do see appearing generally come from a loss of function, not a new feature- just as anyone can create a faster race car by throwing out the spare tire and back seat... This is what we see in the 'evolution' of bacteria strains also- increased resistance also means a generally less varied and hence ultimately less fit population that has reduced it's options- not increased them- nothing new has been created.

Please give a specific example.

 

[Kylie]

you are welcome.

And yet you remain incapable of providing such criteria.

 

[Astrophile]

absolutely I agree, after some 60 years, & I am old enough that I had a physics teacher who still considered the big bang religious pseudoscience.

Your physics teacher was behind the times. For almost all astronomers and cosmologists, the discovery of the cosmic microwave background in 1965 (seven years before you were born) was compelling evidence for the Big Bang cosmology and against the Steady State.

One of my text-books at University was The New Cosmos by Albrecht Unsöld, published in 1967 (five years before you were born). In Chapter 30 the author discusses the recession of the galaxies, Newtonian cosmology, and relativistic cosmology. From the value of the Hubble constant, he concludes that the age of the Universe is T ~ 13±5×10^9 years, and that at that time 'the whole universe (also in thermodynamic respects) was constituted essentially differently from the way it is at present.'

For a physics teacher, about 15 years later, to reject these conclusions, based on well-established observations and scientific theory, as 'religious pseudoscience' was a deplorable failing in his professional duty.

 

[pitabread]

and I certainly believe Darwinism will go the same way as steady state and Newtonian physics

It already has gone the way of Newtonian physics. Once again, you're making statements/arguments that seem over 50 years out-of-date.

 

[Astrophile]

Irrelevant. A watch is always evidence for design, no matter how it was produced.

Pulsars (rotating neutron stars) are as accurate time-keepers as any watch. Do you think that that fact implies that pulsars were designed for measuring time?

 

[Astrophile]

here is one from wiki:

say that its real for the sake of the argument. design or not?

If, as I suspect, it is a hub-cap or a saucepan lid, it is designed.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

... I certainly believe Darwinism will go the same way as steady state and Newtonian physics...

Strictly speaking, it already has.

Academic and pop science authority is still dictated by the likes of Dawkins, who attended 'Oxbridge' in the early 60's and was immersed in the political and ideological positions of that time and place. The information age 'ultraviolet catastrophe' facing Darwinian evolution flies entirely above his head.- not that he is not intelligent, just from another era of scientific understanding

Dawkins is well aware of how Darwinism has moved on to the Modern Synthesis and from there to the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis and so-on - it's his specialist field. Don't confuse his pro-science, anti-religious public stance with his expertise in evolutionary theory.

 

[SLP]

As for "Darwinism", biology has already progressed beyond that during the 20th century. I don't know why you keep fixating on it.

I do...

 

[SLP]

No, but Darwinism ...'Darwinism' yes...synthesis of Darwinism

Creationist trolls are so yesterday...

 

[SLP]

Piltdown man was an absolute cornerstone of human evolution for several decades

And there it is - proof positive that we are dealing with a standard creationist troll.

Amazing how he linked to and quoted Wikipedia - yet clearly only read what he felt he needed to - for a few paragraphs down from his quote:

"From the outset, some scientists expressed scepticism about the Piltdown find (see above). G.S. Miller, for example, observed in 1915 that "deliberate malice could hardly have been more successful than the hazards of deposition in so breaking the fossils as to give free scope to individual judgment in fitting the parts together". In the decades prior to its exposure as a forgery in 1953, scientists increasingly regarded Piltdown as an enigmatic aberration inconsistent with the path of hominid evolution as demonstrated by fossils found elsewhere."

 

[SLP]

including sophisticated parity bit error checking systems as found in DNA

You might want to actually learn about how these systems actually operate in DNA rather than simply ascribing human computer code error checking to it.

On the other hand, that might undermine your storytelling....

 

[SLP]

FYI - ya'll might want to Google this guy - he's been making the rounds of forums like this since at least 2014.
Came across a gem in which he presented a picture of a bunch of cars with his comment - "repeatedly observed accidentally morphing from one to another?"

And in that same thread, he claims:

"Again, I don't think you acquire significant morphological advantages by accident, certainly not all the way from a single cell to a human being through 'random copying errors' that's mathematically problematic."​

Two people then ask him to show his math.

He replied:

"the math which proves the negative? prove it can't be done or it's true by default?!

I would appreciate it if you showed me the mathematical algorithm which actually successfully solves the problems & models the theory, we can do this for things like photosynthesis, nuclear fission, gravitational redshift, but not for things like astrology, global warming or Darwinian evolution, why not?

Nobody has exact figures on the rates of beneficial v deleterious random mutations, we just know that deleterious ones would (if entirely random) vastly exceed beneficial ones.

As Dawkins noted, evolution/genetics has largely become a branch of information technology "The machine code of the genes is uncannily computer-like. Apart from differences in jargon, the pages of a molecular biology journal might be interchanged with those of a computer engineering journal"​

Unnecessarily verbose way that creationists say "I made it up."

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

And there it is - proof positive that we are dealing with a standard creationist troll.

Amazing how he linked to and quoted Wikipedia - yet clearly only read what he felt he needed to - for a few paragraphs down from his quote:

"From the outset, some scientists expressed scepticism about the Piltdown find (see above). G.S. Miller, for example, observed in 1915 that "deliberate malice could hardly have been more successful than the hazards of deposition in so breaking the fossils as to give free scope to individual judgment in fitting the parts together". In the decades prior to its exposure as a forgery in 1953, scientists increasingly regarded Piltdown as an enigmatic aberration inconsistent with the path of hominid evolution as demonstrated by fossils found elsewhere."

Yes, I'm rapidly tiring of this mendacious quote-mining, cherry-picking, and exaggeration.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

FYI - ya'll might want to Google this guy - he's been making the rounds of forums like this since at least 2014.
Came across a gem in which he presented a picture of a bunch of cars with his comment - "repeatedly observed accidentally morphing from one to another?"

And in that same thread, he claims:

"Again, I don't think you acquire significant morphological advantages by accident, certainly not all the way from a single cell to a human being through 'random copying errors' that's mathematically problematic."​

Two people then ask him to show his math.

He replied:

"the math which proves the negative? prove it can't be done or it's true by default?!

I would appreciate it if you showed me the mathematical algorithm which actually successfully solves the problems & models the theory, we can do this for things like photosynthesis, nuclear fission, gravitational redshift, but not for things like astrology, global warming or Darwinian evolution, why not?

Nobody has exact figures on the rates of beneficial v deleterious random mutations, we just know that deleterious ones would (if entirely random) vastly exceed beneficial ones.

As Dawkins noted, evolution/genetics has largely become a branch of information technology "The machine code of the genes is uncannily computer-like. Apart from differences in jargon, the pages of a molecular biology journal might be interchanged with those of a computer engineering journal"​

Unnecessarily verbose way that creationists say "I made it up."

Following your lead, I found him banging on about Dawkins and Fred Hoyle over a year and a half ago in much the same way as he's done here - to an equally critical reception...

Then there was this from 5 years ago:

"... many atheists mocked and rejected the Big Bang for the exact reasons you state here; the overt implications of a creator that THEY perceived in such a specific creation event. They preferred a range of static/eternal models for the opposite rationale: 'no creation= no creator"​

Sound familiar?

 

[xianghua]

a real UFO.

a real flying machine fron other world. so can you conclude design if you will see such a thing or not?

 

[xianghua]

No. Once again you appear to be forgetting all the previous discussions about this.

The conclusion is based on knowledge of how flying saucer photos were faked back in the mid 20th century coupled with recognition of that particular photo.

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