Intelligen Design vs Evolution

[bascule]

Epicman, can you provide any evidence which contradicts the theory of humanity's common ancestry with the apes? Do you have any explanation as to why the genetic makeup of the higher apes and man is so very similar?

[john5746]

Mankind being taxonomically listed as a descendant of apes is something that my research has shown to be a theory that is no longer supported by the vast body of current scientific knowledge. I present a theory - scientifically supported - that provides an alternate origin of mankind that is the most reasonable and plausable explanation based upon the current body of scientific knowledge.

 

This sounds interesting, if you actually have evidence supporting your theory and not trying to poke holes in current theories. You will probably be able to sell it to evangelicals - they are used to reading

[john5746]

unsubstantiated garbage.

[Epicman]

Thanks John. Since i am not poking holes and I have evidence then what I have is not unsubstantiated garbage - While I hope the evangelicals will be a small part of my audience they are not the intended one.

[Epicman]

Bascule:

 

After reviewing the link you provided it does reinforce what science supports - they are SIMILAR. I don't even argue that. A similarity does not in and of itself prove anything other than a similarity. I could take the same representation and argue that chimps are descended from man - it doesn't make the arguement any more valid than the reverse does it?

[swansont]

Firstly I am not advertising my book - I never stated a price or where to order it.

 

Secondly I have not asked for a review of my work.

 

What I did do is ask for opinions about the approach I used in my book which I did provide along with enough context to accomplish that.

 

 

Sorry' date=' I was thrown by the [i']Available here or at Amazon.com[/i] link on your website, to which you link in your signature, along with Firstly, content has no meaning without context which is all provided in "Come Together: Creation and Evolution Joined."

 

How is anyone to comment on your approach with the scant information you provide?

[swansont]

Bascule:

 

After reviewing the link you provided it does reinforce what science supports - they are SIMILAR. I don't even argue that. A similarity does not in and of itself prove anything other than a similarity. I could take the same representation and argue that chimps are descended from man - it doesn't make the arguement any more valid than the reverse does it?

You can only start to make that argument if you can find evidence of man that significantly predates chimps.

 

But that isn't the opposite argument, since nobody is saying that man is descended from any extant species. The argument is that chimps and man share a common ancestor.

[bascule]

After reviewing the link you provided it does reinforce what science supports - they are SIMILAR. I don't even argue that. A similarity does not in and of itself prove anything other than a similarity.

 

Modern biology/evolutionary isn't looking so much at individual case instances as it is the cumulative pattern formed by changes in allele frequency. Taxonomy forms a temporally-arranged hierarchy of how traits were passed from parent to offspring and how advantageous variations spread throughout populations in a gradual, incremental process. To put it simply, these kinds of similarities occur in all lifeforms everywhere, and form the basis of evolutionary theory and modern biology.

 

Biologists have observed a high level pattern of allele frequencies changing according to the rules of natural selection, and use similarities in traits/genes to taxonomically classify species by common ancestor. You can't simply say this pattern works for all other animals, but ignore the similarities between apes and men. If you're saying this pattern doesn't exist for other animals at all, then you are completely contradicting evolutionary theory.

 

I could take the same representation and argue that chimps are descended from man - it doesn't make the arguement any more valid than the reverse does it?

 

Please take a look at the linked post again, along with the explanation I just gave, and hopefully you can see what's wrong with your logic here. Namely, this section:

 

By examining ERVs, we can look at ancestral links between these populations. if we look at the presence of retroviruses within a population we can find when a particular group broke away from a different group due to the presence of the retroviruses within the group.

 

here is a chart of ERV distributions in the primates, and the phylogenetic tree constructed from it

 

 

There is a pattern in the interspecies arrangement of similar alleles/traits. That's what biologists are looking for.

[Epicman]

"The argument is that chimps and man share a common ancestor."

 

The picture in the link of human and chimp chromosomes proves only one thing: The chromosomes are similar. Similarity in and of itself proves or supports nothing. Apples and oranges are round - did they have a common ancestor? I know that's weak but its essentially the same argument. There may be one million similarities for each difference (I pulled that outta my behind) between human and chimp DNA - It is that one difference that makes them different. The fact that there may be one million similarities proves or supports nothing beyond the fact that the similarities exist.

 

Based upon your statement I would first of all ask who or what is the common ancestor? Would this common ancestor's DNA not be more similar to a human's and at the same time more similar to a chimps making it an intermediate between the two? Why did one descendant de-evolve while the other evolved when comparing the two now?

 

swansont:

 

If you chose to click on the link at the bottom of my post that is great. You are however not required to do so. Essential elements of an advertisement for a book would include a price and where to purchase it neither of which were included in any of my posts. Futher we are in a "News" forum are we not? Additionally we are in a thread entitled "Intelligent Design vs. Evolution". If an author/scientist published scientifically supported theories of ID I believe that appropriate placement would be under "news" and under "ID vs. Evolution."

 

As far as 'scant' details I believe I have presented the full details of what I was looking for comment on:

 

"I only asked for your opinion on what results you may think such an approach may have."

 

Which is: (from my first post)

 

"I am a scientist, an author, and a Christian. After many years of study and research I have released "The Scientific Theory of Intentional and Intelligent Design" and "The Theory of Human Evolution." I renamed the standard ID to set my science-based theories apart from it. These theories support the majority of evolution theory and present new ideas that are supported by the statement: "These are reasonable explanations based upon the current body of scientific knowledge."

 

My concept surrounds the idea that the division in this debate exists because of misconceptions that come from the mistranslation of the work of scientists by the media. People have shut their ears to any evolution theory because they cannot get past the "man from apes" idea that is incorrecty attributed to Darwin.

 

The nature of the title of my work: "Come Together: Creation and Evolution Joined" dictates that I address the issues from both Biblical and scientific perspectives. The book is merely an introduction to my theories and an attempt to gain the broadest support base possible. The statement of my theories from a solely scientific perspective that will be appropriate as a science text supplement in public schools is now in the editing stage.

 

A small example shows - in scientific terms - how the current variety of races could have been descended from a single breeding pair of humans. I also apply the Use and Disuse Theory to humans as well to show the origin of differences in the physical features of the races.

 

Since it is directed at the masses it is written in the language of the masses without the use of the difficult scientific jargon that only scientists and scientifically minded people are capable of understanding. It is not an attack on evolution or Creation but a way for Creationists to tie in evolution with their faith and become more informed about what evolution theory really is."

 

I am asking only for an opinion on the above - not my book or the theories within. Review copies of my book itself have already been sent to appropriate peer review organizations as well as standard book review organizations. While you are free to purchase a copy for your own review that is entirely up to the individual.

 

The direct appeal that I would make to some of you - based upon your posts - is that if you are truly scientifically minded then you should know that science is ever-changing and always open to new ideas and hypotheses. Some of you sound like what I call the 'closed-minded evolution fundamentalists' that think that a particular theory somehow gains some kind of protection that makes it irrefutable. That is not science.

 

Science once supported that the angry gods did not cause communicable disease germs did. The progress of science then showed that simple hand washing would prevent the spread of some diseases. Science further progressed to showing how antibiotics and innoculations could prevent even more of these diseases. Science will always progress and is always subject to criticism, improvement, and change. So get off your high horses and think in scientific terms - if you want to be taken seriously.

 

Just a scientific observation from a scientist...

[bascule]

"The argument is that chimps and man share a common ancestor."

 

The picture in the link of human and chimp chromosomes proves only one thing: The chromosomes are similar.

 

Yes, because you have only two points of reference, therefore you can not see how the allele frequencies may or may not have changed over time.

 

That is why I quoted the section I did, because it specifically addresses your complaint by providing a genetically substantiated phylogenic breakdown of man/apes based on the principles I outlined in my previous post. However once again you have simply glossed over what I have provided.

 

The scientific method is not about selectively ignoring evidence to the contrary; that's called cherrypicking and it's highly frowned upon in most scientific circles (although with the global warming debate I really have to wonder...). If you encounter evidence contrary to your theory then the consistency of your theory is in jeopardy unless you are able to come up with an explanation for contrary evidence which is further supported by evidence/experimentation.

[swansont]

"The argument is that chimps and man share a common ancestor."

 

The picture in the link of human and chimp chromosomes proves only one thing: The chromosomes are similar. Similarity in and of itself proves or supports nothing. Apples and oranges are round - did they have a common ancestor? I know that's weak but its essentially the same argument. There may be one million similarities for each difference (I pulled that outta my behind) between human and chimp DNA - It is that one difference that makes them different. The fact that there may be one million similarities proves or supports nothing beyond the fact that the similarities exist.

 

Based upon your statement I would first of all ask who or what is the common ancestor? Would this common ancestor's DNA not be more similar to a human's and at the same time more similar to a chimps making it an intermediate between the two? Why did one descendant de-evolve while the other evolved when comparing the two now?

 

swansont:

 

If you chose to click on the link at the bottom of my post that is great. You are however not required to do so. Essential elements of an advertisement for a book would include a price and where to purchase it neither of which were included in any of my posts. Futher we are in a "News" forum are we not? Additionally we are in a thread entitled "Intelligent Design vs. Evolution". If an author/scientist published scientifically supported theories of ID I believe that appropriate placement would be under "news" and under "ID vs. Evolution."

 

As far as 'scant' details I believe I have presented the full details of what I was looking for comment on:

 

"I only asked for your opinion on what results you may think such an approach may have."

 

 

The results could be great' date=' if the author were competent at what he was doing, or it could be utter crap, if the author is clueless about evolution.

 

That's my opinion.

 

---

 

One of the problems scientists have in getting information out is that people get the wrong idea when concepts are poorly presented, but you already know this. So it's disheartening to see someone, claiming competence in evolution, use terms like "de-evolve" or present an evolution argument like "Natural Selection is the process that finds that the strongest, or more fit, of a species is much more likely to survive and reproduce no matter what environmental challenges it faces. The weaker members of a species, unable to cope with changes in their environment, are less likely to survive to reproduce." when a central idea of evolution is that "fitness" is [i']defined by the environment[/i].

[Mokele]

A similarity does not in and of itself prove anything other than a similarity. I could take the same representation and argue that chimps are descended from man - it doesn't make the arguement any more valid than the reverse does it?

 

Neither are valid, because chimps and man both descended from a common (chimp-like) ancestor.

 

As for similarity, you need to understand that science is an inductive process, and thus never *proves*, only accumulates evidence. As for humans and other apes, we have lots of genetic evidence, lots of morphological evidence, and lots of fossil evidence.

 

Now, given that we *know* evolution happens (directly observed phenomenon), including macroevolution, it is the logical explanation for the diversity of life. If we see two species who are similar (specifically with shared, derived characteristics), the logical conclusion, in the absence of any flatly contradictory evidence, is that they are closely related.

 

You seem to be arguing from incredulity on that, claiming that even though *all* of the evidence points to it, it's wrong because it's inductive rather than deductive. This shows a lack of understanding of how science works.

 

Seriously, there is more evidence for humans sharing common ancestors with modern ape species (and fossil ape species) than there is for all snakes sharing a common ancestor, yet I don't hear any great protestations about the special creation of burrowing snakes. Just because people object to it does not mean the standard of proof is any higher. As a scientist, I have to achieve the same level of certainty whether it's about the origins of humans or the evolutionary relationships of sand boas. And that level has been met, time and again, for the case of humans and apes.

 

Unless you actually have *empirical* evidence that contradicts the evolutionary theory of human origins, you're just arguing from incredulity. If you have said evidence, please do present it.

 

Mokele

[Epicman]

Bascule:

 

I did not "gloss over" anything... If you look at the times on our posts I was typing mine while you were posting yours. I had to run and I'm on a short break - I will consider your post and post a reply soon.

 

swansont:

 

I am not trying to make scientists of the entire population just to inform a large part of the population on some basic science. I could write an entire book on Natural Selection but that is not the point.

 

Mokele:

 

As I pointed out above - I'll reply soon - I'm not evading.

[john5746]

I see it come up frequently in our e-mail questions concerning my faith and how I could write such a book as "Come Together: Creation and Evolution Joined." Most who ask have not read the book itself. I also assume that many asking will not read the book. Let me assure my brothers and sisters in Christ that I am a faithful follower and student of God and the Bible. I do not dispute a single word within the Bible within my book. It is my sincere desire to unite the sides of the Creation/Evolution debate - not to widen the gap.

 

The above is from your website. I think I will wait until your theories win you a Nobel, then I will listen.

[Kedas]

some news

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn8061

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/being-human/mg18825201.200

[lucaspa]

It's not so much that they're idiots as they are infected with a pathogenic meme.

LOL! We have the ultimate here in Conspiracy Theory. "The meme made me do it! I'm so intellectually impoverished that I can't throw off the meme!" Remember the scientists I chose. These are leaders in the field of evolutionary biology. Dobzhansky was one of the 3 founders of the Modern Synthesis. Ayala is the premier living evolutionary biologist. Kenneth Miller is the most able opponent of ID. It was his testimony before the Ohio Board of Education that prevented ID being taught in that state.

 

Now, Ayala and Miller have argued against ID and creationism. So, they are critical enough of religious memes to discard some. You are saying that this critical ability is suddenly missing when it comes to examining the overall memes "God exists" and "God created"? Does Special Pleading sound familiar to you?

 

Finally, of course, you are using a very controversial theory as tho it is fact. Memes and the behavior you are ascribing to them are far from universally supported.

 

However, there are others that see science as undermining the foundational ideas through which their meme spreads, so the pathogen with which they're infected collectively begins to generate new memes to prevent its own demise.

These guys are infected with the science meme whose one inviolable rule is:

"The only rule of the scientific method is that we must discard any scientific statement if the evidence of our senses shows it to be wrong. " And you say they will discard that rule? Special pleading again.

 

Logic and the scientific method have given us an excellent foundation from which to perform sound thinking and reasoning, but sadly it hasn't yet allowed people to reveal to themselves that they're infected with pathogenic memes which have a detremental effect on society and human behavior.

Why don't you classify atheism as a pathological meme? Isn't atheism a meme? How do you know it is not also acting with a detrimental effect on society and human behavior?

 

Since there are scientists who are atheists, we have other scientists who are not infected with what you call a "pathological meme". They should have published peer-reviewed papers showing deity does not exist. Where are those papers? Find me a peer-reviewed paper that shows deity does not exist.

 

I'd say this is mostly because religion is a meme which has evolved to motivate people to continue its spread through fear of an inescapable and eternal reprisal (i.e. Pascal's Wager) for anyone who "disbelieves," making it not only hard to escape without enduring something of a mental breakdown,

If that were true there would be no agnostics or atheists at all. Besides, with the advent of secular societies, there is no punishment in this life. Now, while the threat of hellfire figures in SOME religions and some denominations of Christianity, it is absent in others. Judaism, for instance, has nothing like what you portray. Nor have I seen any threats of eternal damnation in Hinduism and the "threat" is minimal or non-existent in many Protestant denominations.

 

So, you have advanced one hypothesis. Have you considered alternative hypotheses for the persistance of belief in the existence of deity?

 

Let me put another, althernative hypothesis to you: theism survives like any other idea survives: because of evidence.

 

Yes, religions are excellent memetic replicators; it's just sad they have so many deleterious effects (e.g. 9/11, The Inquisition, The Crusades, ID, etc.)

the Soviet Gulag, the Pol Pot regime, the Cultural Revolution, etc.

 

Unfortuantely, the pathological meme that is atheism seems to blind you to the fact that atheism is a faith. Nice pathological feature, don't you think?

[bascule]

For the record I'm not an atheist, I'm a pantheist/organicist.

 

In lieu of my response in the first quote I probably should've pointed out that you were using an Appeal to Authority.

[john5746]

Let me put another' date=' althernative hypothesis to you: theism survives like any other idea survives: because of evidence.

[/quote']

 

Really? Seems to me it survives because of lack of evidence. The whole point to many religions is to have faith. To explain things we don't understand and may never understand.

 

Religion represents perfection, so it cannot be shown to have falsehoods. It is the opposite of science, where it is great if you can disprove something. So, the more a religion bumps with reality, the more likely it will be discarded.

[PhDP]

Ayala is the premier living evolutionary biologist.

 

That's selective or wishful thinking as best, even if I agree he is a good evolutionary geneticist, he is certainly not "the best". And evolution is so vast, it's hard to know who's the best.

 

Unfortuantely, the pathological meme that is atheism seems to blind you to the fact that atheism is a faith.

 

It's a ridiculously absurd statement. Is it a faith not to believe in the tooth fairy or in dragons ? It certainly doesn't require a lot of faith to discard the idea that some sort of human-like intelligent, conscious, emotional being is behind the universe.

[bascule]

Memetics is far from a science. It's an application of scientific ideas to another field in a way that makes a great deal of sense, but can't be experimentally verified in any easy way. But I think it can be said with some certainty that what sets humans apart from other animals is that the natural selection process was able to come up with a species that interoperated in such a matter that the fundamental concepts of natural selection were used to allow perceptions of reality to resonate between members of that species in such a way that they began to take on the characteristics of natural selection itself, namely by being selected (through an intelligent process) for replication when one member chose to pass an idea onto the other, and through variation, either due to intelligent shaping, a transmission failure, or improper recall.

 

If you look at lifeforms and ideas both as variating replicators which obey some basic principles about trends in systems of variating replicators (in which copies contain a great deal of similarities but may contain some key differences from originals) then you can induce how religions are products of a memetic evolutionary process in the same way that you can induce that man is a product of a genetic evolutionary process. This can be done by similar properties between the evolution of religions and the evolution of lifeforms. There are all sorts of problems with trying to do this, such as that you may end up with similar memes which evolved without ever influencing each other and therefore have no common ancestor, whereas all lifeforms MUST be linked back to a single common ancestor because of the immense improbability of abiogenesis. However it's pretty obvious that Islam, Christianity, and Judaism (as well as Kaballah and various other sects of all the afforementioned religions) share a common ancestor.

 

But bottom line, I see the very nature of religion as being a system of beliefs which is imbued with the properties of good replicators. Namely, that an immense body of the teachings are for the express purpose of ensuring the success of the meme.

 

So yes, it's all an extrapolation. Call it "faith" if you like. But it's a "faith" very much grounded in reality, in seeing patterns between things which science has shown to be demonstratably true and between the rest of reality. What exactly are your religious assumptions grounded on? I very much doubt it's scientifically-oriented thinking.

[kela]

As a practising Hindu and Biology professor I will personally enjoy toying with these unintelligent nuts who push ID by claiming that there is not one god...er designer, but many designers. After all if this science, then my theory would have to be disproved, or they would have to find evidence that supports their theory. But the odds are in my favor for many designers are better than one.

[swansont]

many designers are better than one.

 

Then why is it a joke that a camel is a horse designed by committee? (or, for those down under, a platypus is a duck designed by committee)

[Martin]

hi Swansont and others

 

D.I. divine intervention

purposive

I.D., and so on

trying to think what the concepts mean

 

the conventional Big Bang idea seems to be on the way out. Mostly in the period circa 1950-2000 there was a temporary illusion that science had found a Beginning. In 1951 Pope Pius XII made a statement welcoming the bigbang moment as the moment of creation----this upset Lemaitre who requested a papal audience and straightened the pope out---so in 1953 Pius XII went to a meeting of the IAU (int'l astronom. union) and retracted what he said earlier. He said the bigbang was scientists' business and not to be confused with creation of universe. that turned out to be smart of the pope. I will get a link. Luminet at the Paris Observatory has some history of this online.

 

Modern cosmology increasingly lets time extend back prior to bigbang---the model no longer breaks down at the classical (former) singularity. Given that the scientific picture has no beginning, how shall the Purposeful Intervenor be imagined?

 

I think the divine purposive interferer must seen as something that is OUTSIDE the universe and has no detectable effect by which its existence can be disproved (if the effect fails to show up).

 

So if one is going to believe in Purposeful Interference, it has to be a belief in something that is OUTSIDE the universe and NOT DISPROVABLE by empirical method, that is by experiment or observation.

 

Some hypothesis that is not refutable is not part of science. to be scientific a theory has to predict future findings in such a way that it could conceivably be falsified if the findings turned out against it. If an idea is so mushy that it can accomodate any conceivable future observation and no conceivable experiment could falsify it, then it is not part of traditional science (it is more part of literature or mythology or comfort-talk or rationalization of moral authority )

 

so the belief is that there is something outside of time, that does not "dis-predict" any future observation, so that whatever happens, that was the idea I mean like WHATEVER HAPPENS, THAT WAS THE PURPOSE that the outside intervenor had in mind, so one cannot detect or falsify. One cannot detect or not-detect, by any experiment, the existence or non-existence of the thing outside the universe.

 

that is sort of what being outside the universe means anyway. the cosmological model is supposed to be the simplest mathematical model one can construct that accounts for the signals----and that prescription depends on some degree of good faith conventional standards and common sense on the part of the community of cosmologists. Occam's razor and ideas of simplicity are to some extent reliant on intuition, non-rigorous basic mental habit, consensus based on usage of a common language.

 

So one can quibble, but among people making a good faith effort to reach agreement I think that being outside the universe is roughly the same thing as being empirically unTESTABLE, not having any signature by which it can be falsified if you dont see that signature.

 

I think one might argue that scientists are undermining science, or eroding standards, if they talk about stuff that isnt by any stretch of imagination testable. I think that some string theorists do this, with brane worlds and extra dimensions etc. They get off into an unempirical fantasyland. So I think there is an affinity between some string theorists (like Leonard Susskind) who are devaluing the currency of science and some of the Templeton proteges who are boosting the notion of Purpose.

[Martin]

Swansont and others,

I had an idea. Occurs to me that implicit in the idea of design or purpose or intent is that things might not go as intended. when you design something it has to be logically possible for you to say, at some point, "that was not what i intended" or "that was a flaw in the design"

 

If you are a very good designer/builder then it might not happen in a million years, but the possibility is inherent in the notion. So to be able to impute a purpose to the cosmos I think one needs some criterion by which one could identify something that was NOT going according to plan. Can't think of one.

[MaxCathedral]

Here's is the latest..

 

Professor Slams Intelligent Design

 

from Reuters News

 

HARRISBURG, Pennsylvania (Oct. 12) - A professor on Wednesday slammed the teaching of intelligent design as a blow to science education as he testified in a lawsuit over whether the theory should be introduced in schools as an alternative to evolution.

 

Teaching intelligent design is "probably the worst thing I have ever heard of in science education," said Brian Alters, who teaches science education at Harvard University and McGill University in Montreal and was called as an expert witness by parents suing the Dover, Pennsylvania, school district.

 

"Evolution does not deny the existence of God," he said. "It's not about God. You can play the game of science and still have your religious beliefs."

 

Alters warned that high school students who were taught intelligent design may suffer a loss of credibility in college academics by mixing theology and science.

 

"It engenders misconceptions not only about evolution but also about the whole process of science," he said.

 

Alters cited a recent survey by the 50,000-member National Science Teachers Association showing that 31 percent of its members reported being under pressure to teach creationism or other nonscientific beliefs in science classes.

 

In at least 30 U.S. states, proponents of intelligent design are trying to introduce it into classrooms through school boards, state education standards or state legislation.

 

The trial is in its third week and is expected to last into November. The defense is expected to begin presenting its case on Monday.