In a previous post here at TSZ Mark Frank asked why people doubt common descent.
A more interesting question is why did Charles Darwin doubt common descent?
Stephen Meyer has written two books which I think adequately answer both questions.
Those two books are:
In this thread I am willing to discuss either book, but I’d prefer to limit discussion to Meyer’s most recent book, Darwin’s Doubt
While Signature in the Cell concentrated on the origin of life, Darwin’s Doubt concentrates on the “Cambrian Explosion,” the sudden appearance of numerous distinct phyla and their subsequent diversification.
Neo-Darwinism offers no realistic account of origins, with the difference being that Darwinists can in the case of the origin of life assert that their theory does not apply while that excuse fails to apply to the appearance of different animals in the Cambrian and their subsequent diversification.
Just to prove I can – [Edited 09/15/2013]
Deleted from the OP – [Edited 09/201/2013] – Just to prove I can. “The arguments are the same for both:”
The creationist anti-evolution narrative relies upon the most ridiculous conspiracy theory. The implication that atheists have the power to perpetuate a massive science fraud in hundreds of countries worldwide is even more daft than the notion that the buddhists could do it.
Faced with looking like flat-earthers, the most astute (and influential) on the creationist side have even had to admit that evolution does in fact occur, and that common descent is a reality. The validity of evolution has been conceded, and the rest is protesting there must be some magic barrier to macroevolution, without providing any science to show that this barrier actually exists. Worse, the magic barrier “must” exist a priori, because of the insistence on the truth of a literalist interpretation (of the Bible) which is rejected by the scholarly community.
delete double post
Go ahead and provide a mainstream scientific reference that defines “Darwinism” the exact narrow way you do.
Your bluff is being called.
But we do get to insist you use the standard scientific definitions and not make up your own half-baked meaningless ones. Otherwise you’re just pissing into the wind.
Yes, and they function as a whole. You don’t get to arbitrarily demand that each piece separately do the whole job.
I can imagine you challenging an Indy driver:
“I define racecar as one wheel, one broken tie rod, and a single dirty spark plug. The idea that a racecar can average 230MPH around the track is ridiculous!”
😀 😀 😀
No, the additional parts are to better define and explain an amazingly complicated process. That’s what science does.
davehooke:
Not really. I’ll bet that according to your definition there were “conspiracy theorists” against Newton. Wanna bet?
Darwin was an atheist?
No. Plenty of people everywhere have seen through the fraud.
Gregory:
No one here but us SKEPTICS!
petrushka:
Another person who is a critic without having read the book.
You don’t have to read a book on Holocaust Denial or The Stork Brings The Babies to know it’s bunk.
You ever going to address all the battleship-sized flaws in Meyer’s claims that have been raised here? Or are you just going to keep on being a mindless Creationist pimp for his claims?
richardthughes:
So?
If you can just stick this label on it, you don’t have to provide a serious response.
And that’s why this is “The Skeptical Zone.”
LOL! Sure thing Mung. That’s why there are hundreds of new scientific papers published in the professional scientific literature every week by Creationists using the Creationist paradigm for their discoveries.
Oh, wait….
Talkiing of “Darwin’s Doubt” Lizzie seems to have found an important error or misconception in Meyer’s understanding of clades. You seem to have dropped out of the discussion there.
ETA in the Meyer’s Mistake thread.
Irrelevant whether Darwin was an atheist, because Darwin cannot be all the “totalitarians” who must according to you be kept out of science.
You are welcome to your own conspiracy theory. Doesn’t have to be atheists. Can be whoever you want. Care to explain the conspiracy, how it works, and its purpose?
Since you’ve been ducking and running from virtually every point made against Meyer’s disingenuous bumbling what else is there to do?
Patrick:
Laugher of the month? Votes?
Two words:
natural
selection
If only they all agreed on the explanans and the explanandum!
But alas, they do not.
Thornton, may I ask you to cool yer jets? Okay, I just did. Ask you to cool yer jets, I mean.
I’m the angriest most foul-mouthed person in the crowd, usually, and even I wouldn’t call someone here a Creationist pimp.
Save that for Stephen Meyer. He’s the one making money peddling the DI’s line …
Pimping is the entirely correct term for what Mung is doing.
But I understand your point and will take it into future consideration.
Alan Fox:
Yet another unfounded claim of “hit and run.” Alan, why do you think that I have “dropped out” of the discussion there?
Was it because of my recent posting on “Chapter 2” from Meyer’s book here in this thread and my linking to Elizabeth’s thread in it?
davehooke:
As are you.
If you’ve read the book Darwin’s Doubt and want to discuss it, please say so. If you haven’t read it, an honest response indicating that you haven’t read it would be appreciated. (Yes, I’ll ignore further comments from you, but you can just add that to your tally of conspiracies against you.)
If you are suggesting “natural selection” is undefined that would seem to be untrue. As it is used as a description for a process that evolutionary theory posits, so long as everyone realises what is being referred to, what’s the problem? Darwin originally wanted to use the phrase “struggle for life” and Spencer suggested “survival of the fittest”. I have offered “environmental design” but it’s not catching on. But so long as one is identifying the process, it is that that needs to be considered. After all, we have to live with the unsatisfactory “junk DNA”.
No, it was because you hadn’t commented on Meyer’s apparent error and are active on other threads. I wondered why.
Actually I don’t see your link but I did miss your comment to me that I will respond to now.
Oh, I see it now, sorry.
Alan Fox:
Alan, you stated that I “dropped out of the discussion there.”
I did comment in that thread, else you would have no basis for asserting that I “dropped out.” The fact that I did comment in that thread is easily enough established.
So now the only point of contention available to you is whether or not my comment(s) in that thread addressed “Meyer’s apparent error.”
They clearly did. At least one was specifically addressed to you.
You quote me as saying: “Linnaeus never studied plants.”
And then you go on to argue that he did. Well DUH!
My point was a simple one. Changes between parent and offspring cannot be too great otherwise contribution to the gene pool is lost due to inability to interbreed. But over many generations, small cumulative changes can build up to large changes. Even to speciation where sub-populations become separated. And of course we then have macro-evolution about which many books have been written. 😉
Nitpick but I said you seemed to have.
OK. I am interested in your response to Meyer’s apparent error in understanding of clades.
Yes
I’ll take a look. Does it relate to Meyer’s apparent error in understanding of clades?
I get the impression Linnaeus did study plants. You seem to be wrong on that point.
I have no need to read a book on evolution and paleontology from someone who has no expertise in evolution or paleontology, and indeed has never published a scientific paper on either subject, especially when that book has been thoroughly eviscerated by paleontologists and biologists.
Furthermore, Meyer’s previous book was full of basic errors and misconceptions, according to almost all, if not all, of the scientists who reviewed it.
Last but not least, Meyer is a founder of The Discovery Institute, who advocate ID despite no scientific evidence in favour of it. The DI published the wedge strategy, whose goals were
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.
Meyer is not interested in the honest progress of science, but rather he has a cultural, political, and theistic agenda.
Everything I say is documented and undeniably true. Your claim that there are “totalitarians” who are perverting science by preventing the scientific rejection of Darwin’s theory is a claim without evidence, and furthermore a ridiculous conspiracy theory. If a creationist theist group such as the DI cannot infiltrate science in the USA, creationism being the majority view and held by most of those with political power, then how the hell could “totalitarians” proposing a publicly and politically highly unpopular theory achieve it?
I have already said at the beginning of the thread that I have no interest in reading a book of pseudoscience. The book has been thoroughly debunked.
Just in case someone wants to claim I am ignoring this thread!
What, you mean like ID does?
Nobody can agree on the smallest “fact” regarding ID. I suggest you take a look at your own glasshouse.
When you’ve ignored everyone, does that mean you’ll finally go away?
I was going to respond in full, but Thorton beat me to the punch with essentially what I was going to note, only better. I will then comment on just one part (heh!):
Quite true, but then don’t be surprised when the biological community yawns since your criticism will then have no scientific validity. Here’s another analogy to your criticism you don’t seem to understand:
What you are attempting to do is insist that because no one has tested the probability distribution of the average driver accelerating a variety of cars into traffic, the theory of Driverism doesn’t explain anything about accelerating into traffic and can’t predict when accidents will occur, let alone predict anything about any other driving elements. Yet when we come back and say, “but look, The Principles of Driving Psychology does in fact cover and provide predictions on that very data”, you retort “I’m not arguing against that.” Well, I hate to tell you William, but you can’t just pull RM and NS out and expect that they are not effected by the other elements of Evolutionary Theory. On their own they may not be useful for predicting much, but then nobody who really understands science cares.
Only, I’m not making any such demand. I’m asking that this particular aspect of evolutionary theory be demonstrated to be capable of doing the job it – in particular – is supposed to accomplish within the framework of the theory.
Common Descent doesn’t “do” anything – it doesn’t generate any new biological information or features. All it does is leave a track-able footprint – both in strata and in genes – of the heritable variations of life through time.
But what is generated as heritable variation, and what survives as heritable variation, is supposedly the result of various forms of chance mutation and natural selection. That is the essential nature of what “Darwinism” means.
While evolution as the heritable variation of life over time and common descent may be true, they are not dependent upon Darwinism (RM & NS) (as artificial breeding programs and genetic manipulation demonstrate). Darwinism is nothing more than an unsupportable materialist ideology unless one can demonstrate the probabilistic capacity and limitations of RM & NS within the proposed evolutionary system and timescale.
All you and Robin are doing here is hand-waving. Objecting to my terminology in this manner is nothing more than a dodge and weave technique to avoid engaging the concept: RM & NS are supposed to “do” something quite important in evolutionary theory; yet nowhere is it demonstrated that they are capable of doing any such thing. In fact, with neutral evolution, it appears that natural selection not only does very little, but indicates that if it did as much as previously asserted, evolution could not occur. Recent investigation into protein spaces call into question whether or not any chance mutation process could generate functional sets of interacting proteins.
So, where is the proof that all that is necessary is chance mutation and natural selection?
To my knowledge, there is none. Which is why Darwinism allows all data, but predicts none of it. No macroevolutionary mountain is too steep for RM & NS, because there are no parameters, equations, rules or limitations.
Skeptics about everithing bar ToE that is a fact. Or maybe just a “fact”. But not doubts about it.
You’re not ignoring the thread, you’re ignoring all the critiques of Meyer’s incompetence and dishonesty provided in the thread.
Not that anyone is surprised by a blustering Creationist who runs from questions he can’t answer.
Just like arguing “sure I agree people can ride bicycles around the block, but no one could ride the 3400 km of the supposed Tour De France! It’s too long! The mountains are too high! It’s impossible!!!” 🙄
Why don’t you tell us in general what *you* think the limits are of a process involving random genetic variation filtered by selection and carried forward as heritable traits? We’ve already given you the only limits science knows about – the laws of physics and the mechanical strength of biological materials.
Go ahead and describe this magic barrier that prevents micro changes from adding up into macro ones over time.
That would be your custom definition of “Darwinism”, the one you can’t find in any scientific reference work when your bluff was called, right?
You’re still pitifully ignorant of how science works I see. Science doesn’t do “proof”. Science does best inference based on available data. Right now all the data we have says evolution is responsible for the history and variation of life on Earth over deep time. If you claim it’s not, the burden is on you to provide your own positive evidence that it’s not.
It’s not my job to demonstrate that RM & NS cannot do what it is claimed to do; it is the job of those that claim it can do a job to demonstrate it.
I’ll take this attempt at shifting the burden as your admission you cannot do so.
It is if you want to convince science to drop evolutionary theory.
Of course if your goal is to stay a bloviating willfully ignorant windbag then your “make up my own definitions” approach works just fine.
This is topic tabu in darwinist camp. They admit only some limitations like a cat will not evolve in a dog, but they are never going to admit that as any process in the universe their model of evolution will reach an end point. No matter according to their narrative since 400Mya no other fishlike animal could breath air again, nomatter no new phyla appear since that time, that since 40Mya there is no mammal going to live in the sea, and Homo sapiens seems to be the last example of speciation they will never admit that maybe evolution reached his limit and there will not be other life forms that what we got now.
And that denial it is not scientific. Also if ToE is totally correct, there is no reason to believe that the hypothesis that we reached the end of the process. They deny that hypotesis because of netaphysical reasons. If that hypothesis is true man is the end on evolution, and we ended in teleology. And all the reason to say ToE is a fact is to avoid teleology.
Definition of “proof” from Merriam-Webster:
Science doesn’t do that? Does science not call current evolutionary theory a “fact”? It doesn’t consider the evidence “compelling”?
I didn’t make an argument about “evolution”, so this is either your lack of comprehension about the nature of my argument, or it a deliberate straw man. My argument is about RM & NS (Darwinism), not “evolution”.
There is no biological difference between breeding programs and natural selection. Something discussed at length by Darwin. He credits artificial selection for his idea of natural selection. Somewhat analogous to Newton extrapolating the behavior of planets to the behavior of cannonballs.
Genetic manipulation is precisely what we don’t see in nature. What we see is the a cumulation of small changes.
We cannot disprove the existence and intervention of a sky fairy, so ID is safe from disproof.
William:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_prediction
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_genomics
Explanation and prediction (and tested) from RM and NS.
Now, that’s just Wiki. Let’s see if there’s any actual science. Well…what do you know…?
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC261899/
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v443/n7108/full/nature05113.html
http://www.systemsbiology.org/prediction-phenotype-and-gene-expression-combinations-mutations
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/4029610
So, what exactly are you complaining about?
My bet is on lack of comprehension. That does seem a common element of people who have attempted to follow your thoughts on other matters.
So are you saying you have no problem with the idea of common descent and that you are just not convinced by the mechanisms of change posited by evolutionary theory?
That is indeed what William is saying. Unfortunately that excludes a slew of other elements under Modern Synthesis, but whatever.
Basically it is William’s contention (by analogy) that while he’s ok with the Theory of Gravity reflecting the inverse square law, he dismisses what he calls “gravitism”, that matter “falls” without external force or guidance. He thus adheres to “Intelligent Falling” instead, though that has never been tested at all.
There is none. Science cannot demonstrate that any model is sufficient. The claim that “Darwinists” say that “all that is necessary is chance mutation and natural selection” is a straw man. It’s not a scientific statement.
Of course it “allows all the data”.
Bullshit.
Define “macroevolutionary mountain”.
There are all those things. Until you understand the basics of evolutionary theory, William, you are not in a position to critique it.
And if want a theory that has “no parameters, equations, rules or limitations”, try ID.
I’m not criticizing “evolutionary theory”, Liz. I’m criticizing one aspect of it that is unfounded and non-scientific. If you agree that there is no scientific means of determining whether or not a biological feature requires intelligent/intentional design, there is necessarily (other side of the same coin) no way of determining if chance mutation and natural selection are sufficient to the tasks they are required to achieve under evolutionary theory. It can only be assumed. I think you’ve even agreed in the past that it is assumed that mutation is chance, and that selection is natural, because that is the necessary de facto premise science operates by. I don’t have to “understand evolutionary theory” to make sound logical arguments about what its proponents claim.
I don’t have to be an evolutionary biologist to recognize a failure in logic, and that’s where you consistently fail, Liz. You don’t realize that I (and others) are making conceptual, logical arguments about the things Darwinists claim. That is (apparently) the essence of Meyer’s argument in the quote in the O.P.; it’s about what one would logically expect to find in the strata if common descent were true. You seem to be mistaking his argument to be one about how we categorize biological disparity and diversity. It’s not about that.
Until you understand (and can utilize) the basics of logic and right reason, Liz, you are in no position to critique arguments based on logic.
Whether you agree with it or not, whether it is valid or not, at least ID has put forth equations that attempt to discern what is available to chance and known natural mechanisms, and what probably requires ID. Darwinists are so intellectually dishonest they even attempt to call artificial selection and genetic engineering part of the “chance and natural” environment, and attempt to co-opt some sort of compatibalist “intelligence” and “teleology” as what is “driving” evolution in order to account for data that is increasingly irreconcilable with the “chance” and “natural” dogma of evolutionary theory.
I see WJM is still too slow to grasp the concept that science doesn’t deal in absolute ‘proof’ like formal logic does.
Again, science accepts ToE as the explanation for the history of life on Earth because we have identified natural processes capable of doing the job and have zero evidence for the influence of any external Intelligent Designer.
That doesn’t PROVE ToE is correct, it doesn’t PROVE that there wasn’t a Magic Designer behind the scenes making it look like evolution, but that’s the best inference based on the data we have.
IF there was **no data** that appeared to be irreconcilable with “natural falling”, there would be no reason to challenge gravitists that claim that all falling is “natural”.
But, that is not the case with evolution. Even mainstream evolutionary biologists have openly admitted that life appears to be designed. It’s impossible to discuss biology and evolution without using design and teleological terms, as well as terms that imply intelligence. The increasingly apparent complexity and interdependent architecture of what was once thought to be nothing more than blobs of protoplasm calls into question the assumption that “chance” and “nature” are sufficient explanations. The seemingly intractable nature of the origin of what evolution must have to work – a self-replicating life form with minimum structural and coding specifications – calls these assumptions into question.
If one found objects that fell in what seemed to be intelligently designed patterns (and in fact, was openly admitted to appear to be intelligently designed patterns), then it is appropriate to challenge the “gravitist” assumption view that all “falling” is “chance” and “natural”.
If we all chip in and buy you a good introductory level biology book, will you read it? Your repeated arguments from ignorance and personal incredulity are awfully boring.
Nothing I have argued or said implies that science offers formal or absolute proofs. This is just standard hand-waving and dismissal tactics.