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Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for justice: for they shall be filled. Mine eye also shall see my desire on mine enemies, and mine ears shall hear my desire of the wicked that rise up against me. The glory of the Lord shall endure for ever: the Lord shall rejoice in his works. He looketh on the earth, and it trembleth: he toucheth the hills, and they smoke. I will sing unto the Lord as long as I live: I will sing praise to my God while I have my being. My meditation of him shall be sweet: I will be glad in the Lord. Let sinners be consumed out of the earth, and let the wicked be no more. Bless thou the Lord, O my soul. Praise ye the Lord.

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AGelbert

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NEWSWEEK OPINION

7/14/22 By Stephen C. Meyer ✨

How Science Stopped Backing Atheists and Started Pointing Back to God

SNIPPET:

Second, discoveries from physics about the structure of the universe reinforce this theistic conclusion. Since the 1960s, physicists have determined that the fundamental physical laws and parameters of our universe are finely tuned, against all odds, to make our universe capable of hosting life. Even slight alterations of many independent factors—such as the strength of gravitational or electromagnetic attraction, or the initial arrangement of matter and energy in the universe—would have rendered life impossible. Scientists have discovered that we live in a kind of "Goldilocks Universe," or what Australian physicist Luke Barnes calls an extremely "Fortunate Universe."

Not surprisingly, many physicists have concluded that this improbable fine-tuning points to a cosmic "fine-tuner." As former Cambridge astrophysicist Sir Fred Hoyle argued, "A common-sense interpretation of the data suggests that a super-intellect has monkeyed with physics" to make life possible.

Third, molecular biology has revealed the presence in living cells of an exquisite world of informational nanotechnology. These include digital code in DNA and RNA—tiny, intricately constructed molecular machines which vastly exceed our own digital high technology in their storage and transmission capabilities. And even Richard Dawkins has acknowledged that "the machine code of the genes is uncannily computer-like" — implying, it would seem, the activity of a master programmer at work the origin of life. At the very least, the discoveries of modern biology are not what anyone would have expected from blind materialistic processes.

All this underscores a growing disparity between public perceptions of the message of science and what scientific evidence actually shows. Far from pointing to "blind, pitiless indifference," the great discoveries of the last century point to the exquisite design of life and the universe and, arguably, to an intelligent creator behind it all.

READ MORE

Read more:
https://www.newsweek.com/how-science-stopped-backing-atheists-started-pointing-back-god-opinion-1724448

« Last Edit: October 20, 2022, 05:42:03 pm by AGelbert »
So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. Matthew 7:12

AGelbert

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“Bizarre Bird” Highlights the Problem of Biogeography

July 18, 2022, 2:37 PM By David Klinghoffer


Photo credit: Kate from UK, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons.


After complaining about a podcast by Michael Egnor and Casey Luskin, and about Stephen Meyer’s recent Newsweek piece, atheist biologist Jerry Coyne turns almost directly to complaining about an article in The New Yorker. That the author of Why Evolution Is True would not like it is predictable from the headline, “The Bizarre Bird That’s Breaking the Tree of Life,” and the subhead, Darwin thought that family trees could explain evolution. The hoatzin suggests otherwise.”

Coyne dismisses the headline as clickbait. Yet there’s a problem with the “bizarre bird” that would have earned my click, had journalist Ben Crair paid it the attention it deserves. Notes Crair, “Fossils that resemble hoatzins have been found in Europe and Africa, but today the birds can be found only in the river basins of the Amazon and Orinoco of South America.”

A Delightful Evolutionary Conundrum

Europe, Africa, and South America? As you may be anticipating, while the New Yorker article is not about this, the really entertaining difficulty has to do with biogeography. While these birds are bad at flying, evolutionists have been forced to credit hoatzins (rhymes with “Watsons”) with some impressive rafting — unbelievably impressive. Dr. Luskin has written here about “The Case of the Mysterious Hoatzin: Biogeography Fails Neo-Darwinism Again.” He explains:

In 2009, the National Center for Science Education’s Eugenie Scott suggested that scientists should not admit when the evidence contradicts some evolutionary hypothesis, but should rather say that it “sheds new light on this part of evolution.” Since then, I’ve kept an 🧐 eye out for that and similar language.

For example, a recent article on Science Daily was titled “Across the Atlantic on Flotsam: New Fossil Findings Shed Light on the Origins of the Mysterious Bird Hoatzin.” According to the article, hoatzins lacked a known fossil record outside of South America until recently, when “a team consisting of German, Brazilian and French researchers … not only described the earliest known fossil find of the mysterious bird group, but has also produced the first proof outside of South America.” Apparently, the fossil bones from Namibia, Africa are about 17 million years old and have the right characteristics to identify them as belonging to hoatzins. However, finding extinct hoatzin-like birds in Africa poses a problem for Darwinian biogeography. I’ll let the article explain:

“When two related animal groups are discovered on different continents, this can be explained in principle by two mechanisms: either the continents were once connected by land, or the distribution took place directly across the water.

“Africa and South America were once part of a supercontinent called Gondwana, but this had already broken up much longer than 20 million years ago, the continents being separated by the Atlantic. So Hoatzins must have crossed the ocean at some stage in order to get from one continent to the other.

“But how does a bird, which is an especially poor long-distance flyer, manage to cross a sea that is over 1,000 kilometres wide? Even if the flying capabilities of the Hoatzin’s ancestors were better, it is highly unlikely that they could have managed this distance in the air.

“Gerald Mayr and his colleagues from Brazil and France have an explanation that is somewhat unexpected for birds: ‘We assume that the bird crossed the Atlantic upon drifting flotsam.’ This means of travel using flotsam is already familiar with regard to some primates, rodents and lizards, but it would be the first proof of a similar journey by a bird.”

OK, I get it: when common descent cannot explain observed biogeographical data, just assert that your organism rode on rafts across vast of kilometers of ocean, and presto — your problem is solved.

And of course you can’t have just one rafting hoatzin — there must be at least two (or perhaps one brought its clutch of eggs along on the raft for the voyage?) — or your rafting hoatzin will become an evolutionary dead end.

The authors don’t think the rafting hypothesis is a problem since, supposedly, we’ve already seen that “primates, rodents, and lizards” did the same thing. But what’s the evidence that primates, rodents, and lizards crossed oceans on rafts? As I explained here or Jonathan M. explains here, the evidence again is biogeographical data that refutes common descent.

With primates, for example, new world monkeys are said to be descended from African monkeys. But new world monkeys appear in South America at a time when the continent was separated from Africa by 1000+ kilometers of ocean. Proponents of common descent aren’t worried: they can just create myths about seafaring monkeys to solve the problem. Never mind that monkeys have high metabolisms and it’s hard to imagine how they could possibly survive such a trip.

Another recent article at BBC News notes that this same problem besets evolutionary thinking about South American rodents:

“No-one really knows how they got there, but scientists have speculated that some small animals could have made the journey by sea.

“‘They could have got there on some raft of vegetation,’ said Dr Croft.

“‘That maybe sounds like a fantastic tale, but in fact we do see things like this happening today. You can get big logjams of vegetation that get pushed out of rivers during storms, and often you will see mammals on them.

“‘The odds of them making this crossing are obviously very low, but after millions and millions of years the odds of some animals making it go up considerably.”

Let me get this straight: Since we know that common descent is true, and since the rodents, monkeys, and hoatzins exist on continents separated by vast spaces of ocean with no land-based migrational pathway, the fantastic rafting tale must be true. ::)

Rats caught in shrubs for a couple days after a storm, perhaps. But do we observe mammals or birds rafting across oceans?

If two similar species separated by thousands of kilometers across oceans cannot challenge common descent, what biogeographical data can? The way evolutionists treat it, there is virtually no biogeographical data that can challenge common descent even in principle. If that’s the case, then how can biogeography be said to support common descent in the first place? [Emphasis added.]

Very Busy Ocean Travel”

Dr. Luskin concludes with an excellent question. Paleontologist Günter Bechly comments similarly on the difficulty posed for Darwinists, “Yes, even rodents and birds are believed to have crossed the ocean on rafts (Poux et al. 2006, Naish 2011). It looks like there was some very busy ocean travel going on in those times, which suddenly stopped as soon as humans could have observed and recorded it. Rafting animals may be my all-time favorite evolutionary conundrum , and now you know why.
https://evolutionnews.org/2022/07/bizarre-bird-highlights-the-problem-of-biogeography/
« Last Edit: July 21, 2022, 05:27:29 pm by AGelbert »
So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. Matthew 7:12

AGelbert

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Three Scientific Discoveries That Reveal the Mind Behind the Universe.
« Reply #17 on: August 10, 2022, 08:01:22 pm »
 


Hoover Institution 669K subscribers

Recorded on March 30, 2021

To comment please go to: https://www.hoover.org/research/stephen-meyer-intelligent-design-and-return-god-hypothesis

Dr. Stephen Meyer directs the Center for Science and Culture at the Discovery Institute in Seattle. He returns to Uncommon Knowledge with Peter Robinson to discuss his newest book,  Return of the God Hypothesis: Three Scientific Discoveries That Reveal the Mind Behind the Universe. In this wide-ranging and often mind-bending interview, Dr. Meyer explains the God Hypothesis; makes his continuing and evolving case for intelligent design; describes how Judeo-Christian theology gave rise to science; discusses why the discovery of DNA is actually an enigma, as its existence cannot be explained by natural selection; and more.

David Smith
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, 19 because that which is known about God is evident [m]within them; for God made it evident to them. 20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. 21 For even though they knew God, they did not [n]honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. 22 Professing to be wise, they became fools, Because we were made in the image of God, He (God) gave us the intelligence to understand the natural world, and the cosmos

AGelbert > David Smith

Well and truly said!
Proverbs 1:20-21 "The tongue of the just is as choice silver: the heart of the wicked is little worth. The lips of the righteous feed many: but fools die for want of wisdom."

Dr. Stephen Meyer is a righteous man.

The concept of the multiverse, like Darwin's claim that all life is the "evolutionary" result of random undirected processes, is an evident absurdity. The totally evidence lacking, embarrasingly unscientific claim that we inhabit "one of many universes in the multiverse", is just another pathetic straw the Darwinain true believers are grasping at with all their atheism loving, morally bankrupt (SEE: Social Darwinism and "Apex Predators can do whatever they want") ideology.


Social Darwinists believe that ethics based principles are 'limitations pretending to be virtues'. To them, ethics are 'feel good illusions' that humans invented to pretend our species has empathy. To Social Darwinists, empathy is irrefutable evidence of inexcusable weakness. To them, all who are guided by ethics are deluded fools that should be eliminated from the human 'apex predator' gene pool for the "good" of our species.

Enthusiastic converts to Social Darwinism have, to this day, used the language of evolution to frame an understanding of the growing gulf between the rich and the poor, as well as the many differences between cultures all over the world. The explanation they arrived at, and continue to use to justify biosphere trashing profit over people and planet, regardless of any alligator tear filled mendacious claims to the contrary, is that businessmen and others who are economically and socially successful are so because they are biologically and socially “naturally” the fittest.

Conversely, they reason that the poor are “naturally” weak and unfit and it would be an error to allow the weak of the species to continue to breed.

IOW, at the ROOT of these Darwinain (i.e. atheist) fantasies  like the "multiverse" is the ethics REJECTING "might equals right" morally bankrupt ideology that enables scientists to "justify" conducting experiments subjecting animals (and other humans) to disease, pain and agonizing death for the "good" of "science" and "mankind", along with rampant profit over people and planet pollution.

Darwin's atheist converts CORRUPTED science by deliberately divorcing it from ethical requirements that God fearing scientists know are NOT optional. The educational institutions then passed that unethical Darwinian cruel Ideology on to the rest of the population. That is why our society is so physically and spiritually unhealthy today.
« Last Edit: August 10, 2022, 08:58:25 pm by AGelbert »
So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. Matthew 7:12

AGelbert

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AGelbert NOTE: The question below by newestbeginning mod at Class Struggle was due to a comment I had made about all the sacred cows in Academia.

SNIPPET from my comment:
So-called "sacred cows" are all over the place in Academia. The factual evidence that supports all these sacred cows is thin to zero, but that doesn't stop Institutions from pushing them HARD and QUICKLY ostracizing anyone who disagrees with "going with the flow" (of NON-factual ideology based sacred cows).

newestbeginning Mod > AGelbert • 2 days ago
Perhaps the making of another essay?

AGelbert > newestbeginning Mod
Well, the subject is so explosive among champions of education that I hesitate simply because I do not relish the idea of being the target of vigorous vitriol and vituperation.

One of those "modern education" sacred cows that I am absolutely certain has caused the steady corruption of ethical standards in the scientifc community and businesses and the home and marriages (and so ad nauseam on 😞) is the ridiculously unscientific, totally evidence free assumption that life in our universe, the ONLY universe that any scientist who isn't a bold faced liar can claim exists, is the product of "random undirected processes". The hard, irrefutable (see: probability and statistics factorial math for hundreds of fine tuning physical constants there BEFORE the universe expanded beyond the size of a hydrogen atom) scientific evidence is overwhelming against Darwin's socially destructive idea, militantly pushed by Darwinist true believers that we, and even the simplest virus, and everything in between, are just one big evolutionary accident.

The resistance to FACTS by evolutionists (i.e. atheists 'R' US) is so jaw droppingly UNscientific that it is a fruitless gesture to attempt fact based logic with the ideologically compromised Darwinists. Dr. Stephen Meyer, in a recent interview, explained how their "logic" operates with this analogy:

Picture a man in a NAZI concentration camp in Germany during the time Hitler was in charge. He is put before a firing squad of a hundred soldiers about 50 yards away. They, all at once, shoot at him. They all miss, but every bullet comes very close (see: distance of several thousand decimal places to the right of the decimal point in a fraction of a centimeter), leaving a pattern on the wall behind the man of his shape. The man is unscathed. That "explanation" in the form of an analogy for how we "evolved" is preferred to Intelligent Design by Darwinists. They even try to mock that analogy as "unscientific", when, if anything, it is (see: probabilty and statistics for random events in a 14 billion year universe) charitable compared to the gob smacking ignorance Darwinists exhibit in regard to the MATH involving primary, secondary, tertiary and quaternary protein structure AFTER all those exquisitely fine tuned physical constants in our Universe allow atoms to exist in the first place.

Then there is that pesky MATH to get all those molecular structures in the mythical "primordial soup RNA world" (before there was any RNA!) to "self assemble" (randomly of course - see MORE FACTORIAL MATH probability problems) to form that first virus or that first cell that, in a simultaneous RANDOM EVENT, ADDED to the "self-assembly" mind boggling large factorial math, was able to "reproduce" (remember, all those protein structures had to start to "self-assemble" at random square ONE if the cell walls and all those molecular machines inside them were not able to reproduce themselves from the moment the cell was created).

It is like talking to a wall. Logic, reason and scientific evidence go OUT THE WINDOW when the Darwinian morally bankrupt, socially destructive, UNSCIENTIFIC sacred cow is brought up. 🤦‍♂️

That fellow in the flying saucer below uses the exact same "logic" that Darwinist true believers use... 


And as to all the icons of evolution that are alleged by evolutionists to be "just innocent textbook errors", I have only this to say: Never attribute to stupidity that which is adequately explained by malice.


I talk too much.
« Last Edit: August 12, 2022, 04:02:03 pm by AGelbert »
So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. Matthew 7:12

AGelbert

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Mammoth Support for Devolution
« Reply #19 on: August 17, 2022, 03:33:56 pm »
August 15, 2022, 6:37 AM by Michael Behe

Image credit: Thomas Quine, CC BY 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons.

Mammoth Support for Devolution

The more science progresses, the more hapless Darwin seems. 

In my 2019 book Darwin Devolves I showed that random mutation and natural selection are powerful de-volutionary forces. That is, they quickly lead to the loss of genetic information. The reason is that, in many environmental circumstances, a species’s lot can be improved most quickly by breaking or blunting pre-existing genes. To get the point across, I used an analogy to a quick way to improve a car’s gas mileage — remove the hood, throw out the doors, get rid of any excess weight. That will help the car go further, but it also reduces the number of features of the car. And it sure doesn’t explain how any of those now-jettisoned parts got there in the first place.

The Bottom Line

The same goes for biology. Helpful mutations that arrive most quickly are very much more likely to degrade genetic features than to construct new ones. The featured illustration in Darwin Devolves was the polar bear, which has accumulated a number of beneficial mutations since it branched off from the brown bear a few hundred thousand years ago. Yet the large majority of those beneficial mutations were degradative — they broke or damaged pre-existing genes. For example, a gene involved in fur pigmentation was damaged, rendering the beast white — that helped; another gene involved in fat metabolism was degraded, allowing the animal to consume lots of seal blubber, its main food in the Arctic — that helped, too. Those mutations were good for the species in the moment — they did improve its chances of survival. But degradative mutations don’t explain how the functioning genes got there in the first place. Even worse, the relentless burning of genetic information to adapt to a changing environment will make a species evolutionarily brittle and more prone to extinction.

The bottom line: Although random mutation and natural selection help a species adapt, Darwinian processes can’t account for the origins of sophisticated biological systems.

In Darwin Devolves, I also mentioned work on DNA extracted from frozen woolly mammoth carcasses that showcased devolution: “26 genes were shown to be seriously degraded, many of which (as with polar bear) were involved in fat metabolism, critical in the extremely cold environments that the mammoth roamed.” It turns out that was an underestimate. A new paper 1 that has sequenced DNA from several more woolly mammoth remains says the true number is more than triple that — 87 genes broken compared to their elephant relatives. The authors write of the advantages provided by destroyed genes (references omitted for readability):

Quote
Gene losses as a consequence of indels and deletions can be adaptive and multiple case studies investigating the fate of such variants have uncovered associations between gene loss and mammalian phenotypes under positive selection. In laboratory selection experiments, gene loss is a frequent cause of adaptations to various environmental conditions. Given that we focused on those indels and large deletions that are fixed among woolly mammoths, the majority of these protein-altering variants likely conveyed adaptive effects and may have been under positive selection at some point during mammoth evolution. We did not find specific biological functions overrepresented among these genes (see methods), but many of the affected genes are related to known mammoth-specific phenotypes, such as total body-fat and fat distribution (EPM2A, RDH16, and SEC31B), fur growth and hair follicle shape and size (CD34, DROSHA, and TP63), skeletal morphology (CD44, ANO5, and HSPG2), ear morphology (ILDR1 and CHRD), and body temperature (CES2). In addition, we find several genes associated with body size (ZBTB20, CIZ1, and TTN), which might have been involved in the decreasing size of woolly mammoths during the late Pleistocene.

There’s Lots More

Quote
The point is that these gene losses aren’t side shows — they are the events that transformed an elephant into a mammoth, that adapted the animal to its changing environment. A job well done, yes, but now those genes are gone forever, unavailable to help with the next change of environment. Perhaps that contributed to eventual mammoth extinction.

As quoted above, the mammoth authors note that gene losses can be adaptive, and they cited a paper that I hadn’t seen before. I checked it out and it’s a wonderful laboratory evolution study of yeast.2 Helsen et al. (2020) used a collection of yeast strains in which one of each different gene in the genome had been knocked out. They grew the knockout yeast in a stressful environment and watched to see how the microbes evolved to handle it. Many of the yeast strains, with different genes initially knocked out, recovered, and some even surpassed the fitness of wild-type yeast under the circumstances. The authors emphasized the fact of the evolutionary recovery. However, they also clearly stated (but don’t seem to have noticed the importance of the fact) that all of the strains rebounded by breaking other genes, ones that had been intact at the beginning of the experiment. None built anything new, all of them devolved.

Well, Duh

That’s hardly a surprise. At least in retrospect, it’s easy to see that devolution must happen — for the simple reason that helpful degradative mutations are more plentiful than helpful constructive ones and thus arrive more quickly for natural selection to multiply. The more recent results recounted here just pile more evidence onto that gathered in Darwin Devolves showing Darwin’s mechanism is powerfully devolutionary. That simple realization neatly explains results ranging from the evolutionary behavior of yeast in a comfy modern laboratory, to the speciation of megafauna in raw nature millions of years ago, and almost certainly to everything in between.

References
1. Van der Valk, Tom, et al. 2022. Evolutionary consequences of genomic deletions and insertions in the woolly mammoth genome. iScience 25, 104826.

2. Helsen, J. et al. 2020. Gene loss predictably drives evolutionary adaptation. Molecular Biology and Evolution 37, 2989–3002.

https://evolutionnews.org/2022/08/mammoth-support-for-devolution/
« Last Edit: August 17, 2022, 04:03:25 pm by AGelbert »
So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. Matthew 7:12

AGelbert

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Re: Darwin
« Reply #20 on: August 24, 2022, 06:00:43 pm »
Forbidden History

Agelbert NOTE: View from the 32:57 mark to 1:10:00 for the meat of the matter. 🧐


Ever notice how evolutionists will manipulate reality to try and do away with creationism? For example, when you ask an evolutionist how they come up with the age of the sedimentary layers in the earth, they will always tell you they date them by the fossils found in those sedimentary layers.   

Then when you ask them how they come up with the age of the fossils, they say their age is determined by which sedimentary layer of rock they’re found in.
           
But how can that be? How can the rocks date the layers, if the layers date the rocks? That's what's called “circular reasoning.” One minute they say the rock determines the age of the fossil, the next they say the fossil determines the age of the rock.

The evolutionist agrees with Darwin and says all life on earth "evolved" from "primordial soup" , which then somehow formed into many different species like birds, animals, plants, fish etc; and those birds, animals, plants and fish evolved into many different types of species themselves. For example, they believe a bird later formed different types of lizards, horses and dogs. They also believe that plants evolved everything from vines to trees to flowers, and fish evolved into dinosaurs, apes and humans.

But, they didn't stop there. They wanted any other theory of how life began on Earth to be prohibited from being taught in ours schools and universities. 

Over the last century or so, they have achieved the thoroughly unscientifc censorship of any scientist that, using objective scientific evidence, exposes the blatant faults in the Theory of Evolution . As this video makes irrefutably clear, Darwinists refuse to accept any empirical scientific evidence that undermines the validity of the Theory of Evolution.
 

To make matters worse, over the last century they have established a coercive, intolerant of other views, monopoly on Education to make sure no competing theory of the origin of life is taught, and no credentialed scientist can publish a paper, no matter how objective and well sourced with empirical scientific observation evidence, that contradicts the Darwinian 🦍 Worldview. This is NOT science; this is ideological tyranny pretending to be "science".

« Last Edit: August 24, 2022, 06:36:51 pm by AGelbert »
So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. Matthew 7:12

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The Singularity ✨
« Reply #21 on: August 27, 2022, 12:33:00 pm »
AGelbert NOTE: "Crazy" is the correct adjective for the disingenuous attempt to make our precisely fine tuned for life (i.e. NON-random) Universe appear to be "random".

This brief video provides objective scientific (i.e. irrefutable) counter arguments to atheists and advocates of the "Multiverse"

Frank Tipler: The Singularity - Science Uprising Expert Interview

In this bonus interview footage from Science Uprising, distinguished physicist and cosmologist Frank Tipler at Tulane University discusses the Big Bang, fine-tuning, and more. Be sure to visit https://scienceuprising.com/ to find more videos and explore related articles and books.

FRANK J. TIPLER is Professor of Mathematical Physics at Tulane University. He is the co-author of (with John Barrow) The Anthropic Cosmological Principle, about the significance of intelligent life in the universe, and the author of The Physics of Immortality about the ultimate limits of computers, and the role computers will play in the universe, and The Physics of Christianity, about his scientific research into central Christian claims and beliefs.

Other related videos you might be interested in: 🧐

Privileged Species featuring Dr. Michael Denton

Jay Richards: The Privileged Planet

Cosmic Fine-Tuning Would Be Hard to Believe if It Weren’t True: an Interview with Michael Denton

Check out other videos from the Science Uprising playlist.

About Science Uprising
Well-known scientists have been preaching a materialistic worldview rather than presenting the public with all the evidence. We are here to change that. The objective scientific evidence does not prove our universe is blind and purposeless.  It does not show we are simply meat machines. It does not prove that evolutionary mechanisms can completely account for the diversity of life on earth. This is what THEY want you to think. Think for yourself and make an informed decision.

Visit the Science Uprising website to find more videos and explore related articles and books. You can also find out more information about the people interviewed in this episode.

Subscribe to our channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/DiscoveryScienceNews
« Last Edit: August 27, 2022, 01:17:33 pm by AGelbert »
So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. Matthew 7:12

AGelbert

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Gunter Bechly Explains What The Fossil Evidence Really Says
« Reply #22 on: August 27, 2022, 01:37:04 pm »

Nov 23, 2021 110,699 views

Gunter Bechly Explains What The Fossil Evidence Really Says


Discovery Science 169K subscribers

In this bonus interview released as part of the Science Uprising series, paleontologist Gunter Bechly unveils the truth behind the fossil record. There are multiple trade secrets among paleontologists. Chief among them is that Darwin's insistence on gradualism was motivated by his understanding that the dramatic jumps found in the fossil record imply intervention. Darwin hoped that time would reveal his desperately needed transitional fossils. It has not, and what science has learned since Darwin's day would've shattered his hopes as Bechly explains.

============================
The Discovery Science News Channel is the official Youtube channel of Discovery Institute's Center for Science & Culture. The CSC is the institutional hub for scientists, educators, and inquiring minds who think that nature supplies compelling evidence of intelligent design. The CSC supports research, sponsors educational programs, defends free speech, and produce articles, books, and multimedia content. For more information visit https://www.discovery.org/id/
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« Last Edit: August 27, 2022, 01:56:24 pm by AGelbert »
So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. Matthew 7:12

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Scientism Is Unbelievable - Historian of science Michael Keas



Discovery Science 170K subscribers

Historian of science Michael Keas critiques the idea of "scientism," the claim that only science (not religion) is reasonable. He explains how this idea is based on fake stories about Christianity being at war with science in history. According to Keas, scientism also ignores evidence of how Christianity actually stimulated the growth of science.

This presentation was taped at the 2022 Westminster Conference on Science and Faith in the greater Philadelphia area, which was jointly sponsored by Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Westminster Theological Seminary.

Michael Keas is a Senior Fellow with the Center for Science and Culture at Discovery Institute and is author of the book, Unbelievable: 7 Myths about the History and Future of Science and Religion. He serves as lecturer in the history and philosophy of science at Biola University and on the board of directors of Ratio Christi, an alliance of apologetics clubs on college campuses. He earned his PhD in the history of science from the University of Oklahoma.

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So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. Matthew 7:12

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Why Human Skeletal Joints Are Masterpieces of Engineering
« Reply #24 on: September 07, 2022, 10:02:54 pm »
Why Human Skeletal Joints Are Masterpieces of Engineering  


Sep 7, 2022 Discovery Science 170K subscribers

One of Britain's top mechanical engineers, Stuart Burgess explains how the skeletal joints in the human body are masterpieces of intelligent design. He also responds to claims by 👿 some that human joints are badly designed.

This presentation was taped at the 2022 Westminster Conference on Science and Faith in the greater Philadelphia area, which was jointly sponsored by Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Westminster Theological Seminary.

Dr Stuart Burgess has held academic posts at Bristol University (UK), Cambridge University (UK), and Liberty University (USA). He has published over 180 scientific publications on the science of design in engineering and biology. In the last two Olympics he was the lead transmission designer for the British Olympic Cycling Team, helping them on both occasions to be ranked in first place for track cycling. For the last two decades his gearboxes have been used successfully on all the large earth-observation satellites of the European Space Agency. He has received many national and international awards for design, including from the Minister of State for Trade and Industry in the UK. In 2019 he was given the top mechanical engineer award in the UK out of 120,000 professional mechanical engineers.


Whoso loveth instruction loveth knowledge: but he that hateth reproof is brutish. -- Proverbs 12:1
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The Discovery Science News Channel is the official Youtube channel of Discovery Institute's Center for Science & Culture. The CSC is the institutional hub for scientists, educators, and inquiring minds who think that nature supplies compelling evidence of intelligent design. The CSC supports research, sponsors educational programs, defends free speech, and produce articles, books, and multimedia content. For more information visit https://www.discovery.org/id/
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So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. Matthew 7:12

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UNCOMMON DESCENT

Serving The Intelligent Design Community

February 14, 2009 Author O'Leary

Darwin Reader: Darwin’s Racism

In the face of systematic attempts to efface from public view, Darwin’s racism, a friend writes to offer quotes from Darwin’s Descent of Man:

Savages are intermediate states between people and apes:

“It has been asserted that the ear of man alone possesses a lobule; but ‘a rudiment of it is found in the gorilla’ and, as I hear from Prof. Preyer, it is not rarely absent in the negro.

“The sense of smell is of the highest importance to the greater number of mammals–to some, as the ruminants, in warning them of danger; to others, as the Carnivora, in finding their prey; to others, again, as the wild boar, for both purposes combined. But the sense of smell is of extremely slight service, if any, even to the dark coloured races of men, in whom it is much more highly developed than in the white and civilised races.”

“The account given by Humboldt of the power of smell possessed by the natives of South America is well known, and has been confirmed by others. M. Houzeau asserts that he repeatedly made experiments, and proved that Negroes and Indians could recognise persons in the dark by their odour. Dr. W. Ogle has made some curious observations on the connection between the power of smell and the colouring matter of the mucous membrane of the olfactory region as well as of the skin of the body. I have, therefore, spoken in the text of the dark-coloured races having a finer sense of smell than the white races….Those who believe in the principle of gradual evolution, will not readily admit that the sense of smell in its present state was originally acquired by man, as he now exists. He inherits the power in an enfeebled and so far rudimentary condition, from some early progenitor, to whom it was highly serviceable, and by whom it was continually used.”

[From Denyse: Decades ago, I distinguished myself by an ability to smell sugar in coffee. It wasn’t very difficult, with a bit of practice, and it helped to sort out the office coffee orders handily. My best guess is that most people could learn the art if they wanted to. Most human beings don’t even try to develop their sense of smell – we are mostly occupied with avoiding distressing smells or eliminating or else covering them up. I don’t of course, say that we humans would ever have the sense of smell of a wolf, but only that Darwin’s idea here is basically wrong and best explained by racism. ]

“It appears as if the posterior molar or wisdom-teeth were tending to become rudimentary in the more civilised races of man. These teeth are rather smaller than the other molars, as is likewise the case with the corresponding teeth in the chimpanzee and orang; and they have only two separate fangs. … In the Melanian races, on the other hand, the wisdom-teeth are usually furnished with three separate fangs, and are generally sound; they also differ from the other molars in size, less than in the Caucasian races.

“It is an interesting fact that ancient races, in this and several other cases, more frequently present structures which resemble those of the lower animals than do the modern. One chief cause seems to be that the ancient races stand somewhat nearer in the long line of descent to their remote animal-like progenitors.”

[From Denyse: The nice thing about teeth is that, if they give trouble, they can simply be pulled. I would be reluctant to found a big theory on the size or convenience of teeth, given that this  fact must have occurred to our ancestors many thousands of years ago.]

“It has often been said, as Mr. Macnamara remarks, that man can resist with impunity the greatest diversities of climate and other changes; but this is true only of the civilised races. Man in his wild condition seems to be in this respect almost as susceptible as his nearest allies, the anthropoid apes, which have never yet survived long, when removed from their native country.”
[From Denyse: Native North Americans often perished from human diseases to which they had not become immune in childhood. That is probably unrelated to the inability of anthropoid apes to stand cold climates.]

This includes the degraded morals of lower races:

“The above view of the origin and nature of the moral sense, which tells us what we ought to do, and of the conscience which reproves us if we disobey it, accords well with what we see of the early and undeveloped condition of this faculty in mankind…. A North-American Indian is well pleased with himself, and is honoured by others, when he scalps a man of another tribe; and a Dyak cuts off the head of an unoffending person, and dries it as a trophy. … With respect to savages, Mr. Winwood Reade informs me that the negroes of West Africa often commit suicide. It is well known how common it was amongst the miserable aborigines of South America after the Spanish conquest. … It has been recorded that an Indian Thug conscientiously regretted that he had not robbed and strangled as many travellers as did his father before him. In a rude state of civilisation the robbery of strangers is, indeed, generally considered as honourable.”

“As barbarians do not regard the opinion of their women, wives are commonly treated like slaves. Most savages are utterly indifferent to the sufferings of strangers, or even delight in witnessing them. It is well known that the women and children of the North-American Indians aided in torturing their enemies. Some savages take a horrid pleasure in cruelty to animals, and humanity is an unknown virtue….. Many instances could be given of the noble fidelity of savages towards each other, but not to strangers; common experience justifies the maxim of the Spaniard, “Never, never trust an Indian.”

[From Denyse: If early modern Europeans in Canada had not trusted “Indians,” they would all have died off pretty quickly.]

“The other so-called self-regarding virtues, which do not obviously, though they may really, affect the welfare of the tribe, have never been esteemed by savages, though now highly appreciated by civilised nations. The greatest intemperance is no reproach with savages.”

“I have entered into the above details on the immorality of savages, because some authors have recently taken a high view of their moral nature, or have attributed most of their crimes to mistaken benevolence. These authors appear to rest their conclusion on savages possessing those virtues which are serviceable, or even necessary, for the existence of the family and of the tribe,–qualities which they undoubtedly do possess, and often in a high degree.”

[From Denyse: Charles Darwin, let me introduce you to Hollywood, before you say any more silly things about the supposed immorality of “savages.” ]

Making slavery understandable, though of course distasteful now:

“Slavery, although in some ways beneficial during ancient times, is a great crime; yet it was not so regarded until quite recently, even by the most civilised nations. And this was especially the case, because the slaves belonged in general to a race different from that of their masters.”

From Denyse: Not really. In ancient times, slaves were typically unransomed captives in war, convicted criminals, or people who had fallen into irrecoverable debt. In Roman times, there would be nothing unusual about being a slave to someone of the same race as oneself. Slavery based on race alone was an early modern legal invention, aimed against blacks.]

Mass killings of savages is understandable as a type of species extinction:

“At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes, as Professor Schaaffhausen has remarked will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilised state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as now between the negro or Australian and the gorilla.”

“The partial or complete extinction of many races and sub-races of man is historically known….When civilised nations come into contact with barbarians the struggle is short, except where a deadly climate gives its aid to the native race…. The grade of their civilisation seems to be a most important element in the success of competing nations. A few centuries ago Europe feared the inroads of Eastern barbarians; now any such fear would be ridiculous.”

“[Flinders Island], situated between Tasmania and Australia, is forty miles long, and from twelve to eighteen miles broad: it seems healthy, and the natives were well treated. Nevertheless, they suffered greatly in health….With respect to the cause of this extraordinary state of things, Dr. Story remarks that death followed the attempts to civilise the natives.” [–Obviously the problem was trying to civilize these barbarians!]

“Finally, although the gradual decrease and ultimate extinction of the races of man is a highly complex problem, depending on many causes which differ in different places and at different times; it is the same problem as that presented by the extinction of one of the higher animals.”

Of course the degradation extends to the intellectual:

“There is, however, no doubt that the various races, when carefully compared and measured, differ much from each other,–as in the texture of the hair, the relative proportions of all parts of the body …Their mental characteristics are likewise very distinct; chiefly as it would appear in their emotional, but partly in their intellectual faculties. Every one who has had the opportunity of comparison, must have been struck with the contrast between the taciturn, even morose, aborigines of S. America and the light-hearted, talkative negroes. There is a nearly similar contrast between the Malays and the Papuans who live under the same physical conditions, and are separated from each other only by a narrow space of sea.”

[From Denyse: I would imagine that the aborigines of South America felt some resentment over the loss of their continent to invaders from Europe … ]

” A certain amount of absorption of mulattoes into negroes must always be in progress; and this would lead to an apparent diminution of the former. The inferior vitality of mulattoes is spoken of in a trustworthy work as a well-known phenomenon; and this, although a different consideration from their lessened fertility, may perhaps be advanced as a proof of the specific distinctness of the parent races.”

“So far as we are enabled to judge, although always liable to err on this head, none of the differences between the races of man are of any direct or special service to him. The intellectual and moral or social faculties must of course be excepted from this remark.”

And… drum roll.., the main conclusion:

“The main conclusion arrived at in this work, namely, that man is descended from some lowly organised form, will, I regret to think, be highly distasteful to many. But there can hardly be a doubt that we are descended from barbarians. The astonishment which I felt on first seeing a party of Fuegians on a wild and broken shore will never be forgotten by me, for the reflection at once rushed into my mind-such were our ancestors. These men were absolutely naked and bedaubed with paint, their long hair was tangled, their mouths frothed with excitement, and their expression was wild, startled, and distrustful. … He who has seen a savage in his native land will not feel much shame, if forced to acknowledge that the blood of some more humble creature flows in his veins.”

[From Denyse: Sounds like a local rave to me. Not my ancestors (who were, as it happens, rigidly correct people, but my 2009 fellow Torontonians.)]

“For my own part I would as soon be descended from …[a] monkey, or from that old baboon… –as from a savage who delights to torture his enemies, offers up bloody sacrifices, practices infanticide without remorse, treats his wives like slaves, knows no decency, and is haunted by the grossest superstitions.

From Denyse: Yuh, I know. I know women who have divorced guys like that too … but, when founding a theory in science, it strikes me that … ]

And let’s not forget sexism!

“The chief distinction in the intellectual powers of the two sexes is shewn by man’s attaining to a higher eminence, in whatever he takes up, than can woman–whether requiring deep thought, reason, or imagination, or merely the use of the senses and hands…We may also infer, from the law of the deviation from averages, so well illustrated by Mr. Galton, in his work on ‘Hereditary Genius,’ that if men are capable of a decided pre-eminence over women in many subjects, the average of mental power in man must be above that of woman.”

“The greater intellectual vigour and power of invention in man is probably due to natural selection, combined with the inherited effects of habit, for the most able men will have succeeded best in defending and providing for themselves and for their wives and offspring.”

[From Denyse: Re women vs. men: Actually, if we leave Darwin’s obsession with natural selection out of the matter for a moment, we can come up with a simple explanation for the difference between men’s and women’s achievements. Men are far more likely to win Nobel Prizes than women – but also far more likely to sit on Death Row.

For most normal achievements, women will do as well as men, given a chance. Women do just as well as men at being, say, a family doctor, an accountant, a real estate agent, a high school teacher, etc.

It’s only in outstanding achievements – either for good OR for ill – that men tend to dominate. One way of seeing this is that the curve of women’s achievements fits inside the curve of men’s achievements, either way.

Natural selection does not explain this because most men who have outstanding achievements do not contribute a great deal to the gene pool as a consequence.

Either they produce few or no children, or their children do nothing outstanding. So Darwin did not really have a good explanation for this fact.]

What should we do? Breeding of people and letting the weak die off:

“The advancement of the welfare of mankind is a most intricate problem: all ought to refrain from marriage who cannot avoid abject poverty for their children; for poverty is not only a great evil, but tends to its own increase by leading to recklessness in marriage. On the other hand, as Mr. Galton has remarked, if the prudent avoid marriage, whilst the reckless marry, the inferior members tend to supplant the better members of society. Man, like every other animal, has no doubt advanced to his present high condition through a struggle for existence consequent on his rapid multiplication; and if he is to advance still higher, it is to be feared that he must remain subject to a severe struggle. Otherwise he would sink into indolence, and the more gifted men would not be more successful in the battle of life than the less gifted. Hence our natural rate of increase, though leading to many and obvious evils, must not be greatly diminished by any means. There should be open competition for all men; and the most able should not be prevented by laws or customs from succeeding best and rearing the largest number of offspring.”

“We civilized men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination; we build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the weak members of civilized societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.”

[From Denyse: But how would anyone know who the “worst animals” are among people?]

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Darwin’s “Sacred” Cause: How Opposing Slavery Could Still Enslave

141 Replies    to “Darwin reader: Darwin’s racism”

KRiS February 14, 2009 at 9:24 pm
If only people understood that, contrary to the common view of his time, Darwin was actually racist, then they would understand why evolution must be wrong. Thank you, O’Leary, for bringing this to everyone’s attention.

Nullasalus February 14, 2009 at 10:03 pm
Maybe it’s worth being aware of the social and political baggage Darwin and others attached to the evolutionary theory. I happen to believe in evolution – though I reject the extraneous Darwinian metaphysical baggage that so often is attached to it. If it turned out that Darwin was a racist or worse, it wouldn’t impact the scientific validity of evolution.

It does, however, illustrate the flaws – and perhaps ugliness – of the worldview Darwin extracted from evolution. Nothing wrong with dealing with such, much as it makes some (for whatever silly reason) squirm nowadays.

Allen_MacNeill February 14, 2009 at 10:08 pm
Even granting that Darwin was racist (which I do not, especially by the standards of his day), how does this make him “wrong”? Wrong in what way? Wrong about his theory of evolution by natural selection? Wrong about his theory descent with modification? Wrong about his belief that Down House was drafty in the winter?

Come on, this kind of ridiculous logical fallacy would get one of my students shredded in less than a second, by the other students in the room. What a person believes about any particular subject (and especially what a person’s “character” is like) has absolutely no bearing on whether they are “right” or “wrong” about any other subject at all.

Suppose that Newton were an alcoholic who liked to drown cute little puppies – would that make his theory of gravitation “wrong”? If you think people who listen to rap music are uncultured, and you found out that Richard Dawkins thinks the same thing, would that make him “right” about the theory of evolution?

Allen_MacNeill February 14, 2009 at 10:22 pm
While we’re on the subject, we had a panel discussion here at Cornell during our Darwin Week celebration. The topic: Evolution and Racism. Oddly enough, every single one of the panelists (which included four eminent evolutionary biologists: Warren Almann, Sylvester Gates, Kenneth Kennedy, and Will Provine) agreed that Darwin was:

1) an ardent abolitionist,

2) somewhat less racist than his contemporaries , and

3) generally wrong in his racist and sexist views, when viewed by today’s standards.

All of them also agreed that modern evolutionary theory:

1) has virtually eliminated race as a salient biological characteristic of humans,

2) has provided a scientific basis for treating all people equally (since we are all genetically very similar due to our common ancestry), and

3) has virtually nothing to do with racism , which is primarily an economic, political, and religious phenomenon.

So, what point was O’Leary trying to make with this post?

Tribune7 > Allen_MacNeill February 14, 2009 at 11:12 pm
So, what point was O’Leary trying to make with this post?

Maybe it was just to contrast his view with the one held by Alfred Russel Wallace and to point out this birthday deification thing is just a little too much.

Jerry February 14, 2009 at 11:42 pm
Allen,What made Darwin, “Wrong about his theory of evolution by natural selection? Wrong about his theory descent with modification?”

was that the theory never received the empirical backing for him to have made the conclusions he did in his time or even today. You are right about it having nothing to do with his thoughts on race. It had all to do with the fact the was wrong on most of what he believed and was advocating. He got a couple things right and that is all and for that he is memorialized.

I would have thought your panel would be complaining about the false extolment of his accomplishments.

Of all your time here you have never been able to justify why Darwin should not be more than a small footnote in the history of biology. Mainly for his work on barnacles and earth worms. For that he deserves some credit but on evolution he has been discredited.

Jerry February 14, 2009 at 11:48 pm
Allen, Aren’t you embarrassed that anyone should have a Darwin Week celebration let alone Cornell. I would think you would be protesting an event like that at such a prestigious university. Did you protest it?

Gleaner 63 February 14, 2009 at 11:53 pm
Unless there is a factual error in Denyse’s post, I don’t see why anyone would have a problem with it. Because Charles Darwin was an historical figure of great import, and because of “Darwin Day”, he is natrually going to invite great scrutiny, which is a good thing.
In my experience you have to be careful when discussing certain historical figures (see Martin Luther King and William T. Sherman). Some people like sanitized versions of their idols.

O'Leary February 15, 2009 at 2:02 am
Factual error? The post is merely quotations of Darwin’s views, with a couple of clearly identified reflections from me.

It matters because of the ridiculous hagiography around Darwin, falsely linking him with Lincoln, for example. Students deserve better than that rubbish, and it won’t be MY fault if they don’t get it.

Darwin helped provide a “scientific” basis for racism. I think that fact should just be acknowledged so that we can all move on – instead of the whitewash that has become a regular feature of the false knowledge of our times.

Read more:
Darwin Reader: Darwin’s Racism

« Last Edit: October 05, 2022, 04:39:16 pm by AGelbert »
So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. Matthew 7:12

AGelbert

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Darwininan Theory and Wild Bear Habits Questions
« Reply #26 on: October 12, 2022, 11:23:22 pm »


October 10, 2022, 6:32 AM by Jonathan Wells

Is Darwinism a Theory in Crisis?

What does it mean to say that a theory is “in crisis”? It’s not enough to point out that a theory is inconsistent with evidence. Critics have been pointing out for decades that Darwinism doesn’t fit the evidence from nature.
Continue Reading

Jonathan Wells has received two Ph.D.s, one in Molecular and Cell Biology from the University of California at Berkeley, and one in Religious Studies from Yale University. A Senior Fellow at Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture, he has previously worked as a postdoctoral research biologist at the University of California at Berkeley and the supervisor of a medical laboratory in Fairfield, California. He also taught biology at California State University in Hayward and continues to lecture on the subject.
« Last Edit: October 12, 2022, 11:38:00 pm by AGelbert »
So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. Matthew 7:12

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Editor’s note: We are delighted to present a new series by biologist Jonathan Wells asking, “Is Darwinism a Theory in Crisis?” This is the third post in the series, which is adapted from the recent book, The Comprehensive Guide to Science and Faith . Find the full series here.

Jonathan Wells has received two Ph.D.s, one in Molecular and Cell Biology from the University of California at Berkeley, and one in Religious Studies from Yale University. A Senior Fellow at Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture, he has previously worked as a postdoctoral research biologist at the University of California at Berkeley and the supervisor of a medical laboratory in Fairfield, California. He also taught biology at California State University in Hayward and continues to lecture on the subject.

October 12, 2022, 6:44 AM by Jonathan Wells

🦍 Theory in Crisis? Dissatisfaction and the Proliferation of New Articulations

Photo: Galápagos finch, by Mike's Birds from Riverside, CA, US, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons.

A scientific revolution is fueled in part by growing dissatisfaction among adherents of the old paradigm. This leads to new versions of the theoretical underpinnings of the paradigm. In his 1962 book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn wrote:
Quote
The proliferation of competing articulations, the willingness to try anything, the expression of explicit discontent, the recourse to philosophy and to debate over fundamentals, all these are symptoms of a transition from normal to extraordinary research.1

Serious Problems with Darwin’s 🦍 Theory

A growing number of biologists now acknowledge that there are serious problems with modern evolutionary theory. In 2007, biologist and philosopher Massimo Pigliucci published a paper asking whether we need “an extended evolutionary synthesis” that goes beyond neo-Darwinism.2 The following year, Pigliucci and 15 other biologists (none of them intelligent design advocates) gathered at the Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research just north of Vienna to discuss the question. Science journalist Suzan Mazur called this group “the Altenberg 16.”3 In 2010, the group published a collection of their essays. The authors challenged the Darwinian idea that organisms could evolve solely by the gradual accumulation of small variations preserved by natural selection, and the neo-Darwinian idea that DNA is “the sole agent of variation and unit of inheritance.”4

“A View from the 🔬👨‍🔬 21st Century”

In 2011, biologist James Shapiro (who was not one of Altenberg 16 and is not an intelligent design advocate) published a book titled Evolution: A View from the 21st Century. Shapiro expounded on a concept he called natural genetic engineering and provided evidence that cells can reorganize their genomes in purposeful ways. According to Shapiro, many scientists reacted to the phrase “natural genetic engineering” in the same way they react to intelligent design because it seems “to violate the principles of naturalism that exclude any role for a guiding intelligence outside of nature.” But Shapiro argued that
Quote
the concept of cell-guided natural genetic engineering is well within the boundaries of twenty-first century biological science. Despite widespread philosophical prejudices, cells are now reasonably seen to operate teleologically: Their goals are survival, growth, and reproduction.5

AGelbert NOTE: TELEOLOGICAL is exhibiting or relating to design or purpose, especially in nature.

In 2015, Nature published an exchange of views between scientists who believed that 🦍 evolutionary theory needs “a rethink” and 🦍 scientists who believed it is fine as it is. Those who believed that the theory needs rethinking suggested that those defending it might be “haunted by the specter of intelligent design” and thus want “to show a united front to those hostile to science.” Nevertheless, the former concluded that recent findings in several fields require a “conceptual change in evolutionary biology.”6 These same scientists also published an article in Proceedings of the Royal Society of London,in which they proposed “an alternative conceptual framework,” an “extended evolutionary synthesis” that retains the fundamentals of evolutionary theory “but differs in its emphasis on the role of constructive processes in development and evolution.”7

An Unusual Meeting in London

In 2016, an international group of biologists organized a public meeting to discuss an extended evolutionary synthesis at the Royal Society in London. Biologist Gerd Müller opened the meeting by pointing out that current evolutionary theory fails to explain (among other things) the origin of new anatomical structures (that is, macroevolution). Most of the other speakers agreed that the current theory is inadequate, though two speakers defended it. None of the speakers considered intelligent design an option. One 😈 speaker even caricatured intelligent design as “God did it,” and at one point another 😈 participant blurted out, “Not God — we’re excluding God.”8   

The advocates of an extended evolutionary synthesis proposed various mechanisms that they argued were ignored or downplayed in current theory, but none of the proposed mechanisms moved beyond microevolution (minor changes within existing species). By the end of the meeting, it was clear that none of the speakers had met the challenge posed by Müller on the first day.9

A 2018 article in Evolutionary Biology reviewed some of the still-competing articulations of evolutionary theory. The article concluded by wondering whether the continuing “conceptual rifts and explanatory tensions” will be overcome.10 As long as they continue, however, they suggest that a scientific revolution is in progress.

Next, Theory in Crisis? 👿 Circling the 🦍 Wagons.”

Notes
Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2d ed., 91.
Massimo Pigliucci, “Do we need an extended evolutionary synthesis?,” Evolution 61 (2007), 2743-2749.

Suzan Mazur, The Altenberg 16: An Exposé of the Evolution Industry (Wellington, New Zealand: Scoop Media, 2009).

Massimo Pigliucci and Gerd B. Müller, Evolution: The Extended Synthesis (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2010).

James A. Shapiro, Evolution: A View from the 21st Century (Upper Saddle River, NJ: FT Press Science, 2011), 134-137.

Kevin Laland, Tobias Uller, Marc Feldman, Kim Sterelny, Gerd B. Müller, Armin Moczek, Eva Jablonka, John Odling-Smee, Gregory A. Wray, Hopi E. Hoekstra, Douglas J. Futuyma, Richard E. Lenski, Trudy F.C. Mackay, Dolph Schluter, and Joan E. Strassmann, “Does evolutionary theory need a rethink?” Nature 514 (2014), 161-164.

Kevin N. Laland, Tobias Uller, Marcus W. Feldman, Kim Sterelny, Gerd B. Müller, Armin Moczek, Eva Jablonka, and John Odling-Smee, “The extended evolutionary synthesis: its structure, assumptions and predictions,” Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B 282 (2015), 20151019.

Paul A. Nelson, “Specter of intelligent design emerges at the Royal Society meeting,”Evolution News & Views (November 8, 2016), (accessed August 22, 2020).

Paul A. Nelson and David Klinghoffer, “Scientists confirm: Darwinism is broken,” CNS News (December 13, 2016). (accessed August 22, 2020).

Alejandro Fábregas-Tejeda and Francisco Vergara-Silva, “Hierarchy Theory of Evolution and the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis: Some Epistemic Bridges, Some Conceptual Rifts,” Evolutionary Biology 45 (2018), 127-139.

JONATHAN WELLS SENIOR FELLOW, CENTER FOR SCIENCE AND CULTURE
https://evolutionnews.org/2022/10/theory-in-crisis-dissatisfaction-and-the-proliferation-of-new-articulations/
« Last Edit: October 19, 2022, 03:21:05 pm by AGelbert »
So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. Matthew 7:12

AGelbert

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alteng > AGelbert
Union of Concerned Scientists
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These would be the same scientists who fully agree with the rational, sane decision in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District - the Dover, Pennsylvania legal case that demolished the totally nutty "intelligent design" nonsense. Correct?
The legal case that you failed to mention and when it was mentioned you ran away from its logic and its ramifications. Why?

AGelbert > alteng
You aren't kidding, are you? You are REALLY STUCK on a using a LEGAL DECISION to justify the 🦍 Theory of Evolution. Sorry, pal, but ONLY SCIENCE can DO THAT; and SCIENCE HAS FAILED TO DO THAT. You can ramble on about  Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District till the cows come home. Only someone in your ideological echo chamber will listen BECAUSE it is NOT Based on SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE, but SPECULATION from "experts" VOICING THEIR OPINIONS. OPINIONS ARE NOT NOW, OR EVER WILL BE, "Facts" or "Evidence".

I prefer honest debate by scientists. You obviously don't. You want to exclude any scientist from the, "Is Darwn's Theory in Crisis?" debate who doesn't have your hero worshipping opinion of racist bigot Charles Darwin and his pseudo-scientific 🦍 theory.

You can forget trying to convince me that you are basing your defense of Darwin on "reason" or "scientific evidence" with your repetitious "appeals to authority" 👎. That is a fallacious debating technique 👎. Another one is the disingenuous use of the interrogative (i.e. "why") to position yourself as a "rational fellow trying to enlighten a poor deluded dummy" 👎. Condescending mockery 👎 and disdainful arrogance 👎 will get you nowhere.

The use of fallacious debating techniques is the mark of a person who, having no rational basis for his claims, and lacking an in-depth knowledge of the subject matter, resorts to sophistry to "win" the debate. Your repeated attempts to sell me that (🦍 Darwinian) Bridge in Brooklyn expose the insecurity of your ideology.

Here is an example of an ACTUAL debate in 2016 (except for the irrational histrionics by two atheist ideologues 👉 “Not God — we’re excluding God.”) by serious scientists on both sides of the "Is 🦍 Darwn's Theory in Crisis?" debate.
SNIPPET:
Darwinian theory is broken and may not be fixable. That was the takeaway from a meeting last month organized by the world's most distinguished and historic scientific organization, which went mostly unreported by the media.

The three-day conference at the Royal Society in London was remarkable in confirming something that advocates of intelligent design (ID), a controversial scientific alternative to evolution, have said for years. ID proponents point to a chasm that divides how evolution and its evidence are presented to the public, and how scientists themselves discuss it behind closed doors and in technical publications. This chasm has been well hidden from laypeople, yet it was clear to anyone who attended the Royal Society conference, as did a number of ID-friendly scientists.
Read more:
 Paul A. Nelson and David Klinghoffer, “Scientists confirm: Darwinism is broken,” CNS News (December 13, 2016). (accessed August 22, 2020).
Read more:
 Paul A. Nelson, “Specter of intelligent design emerges at the Royal Society meeting,” Evolution News & Views (November 8, 2016), (accessed August 22, 2020).

I had forgotten the definition of "Teleology". I had to look it up (👉  TELEOLOGICAL is exhibiting or relating to design or purpose, especially in nature).  Here is an atheist scientist who makes some interesting assertions, WITH EVIDENCE, that contradict the most basic "random undirected processes" assumptions about of Evolution Theory:
QUOTE:“A View from the 🔬👨‍🔬 21st Century”
In 2011, biologist James Shapiro (who was not one of Altenberg 16 and is not an intelligent design advocate) published a book titled Evolution: A View from the 21st Century. Shapiro expounded on a concept he called natural genetic engineering and provided evidence that cells can reorganize their genomes in purposeful ways. According to Shapiro, many scientists reacted to the phrase “natural genetic engineering” in the same way they react to intelligent design because it seems “to violate the principles of naturalism that exclude any role for a guiding intelligence outside of nature.” But Shapiro argued that
Quote
the concept of cell-guided natural genetic engineering is well within the boundaries of twenty-first century biological science. Despite widespread philosophical prejudices, cells are now reasonably seen to operate teleologically: Their goals are survival, growth, and reproduction.5

Are you familiar with William Paley (1743-1805)? Paley originated the Teleological Argument For Intelligent Design. This 11 minute video, complete with the fellow on the left that makes YOUR arguments against it, will be well worth your while: 🌞👍👍👍

The Teleological Argument (Argument for the Existence of God 🙌🕊️)

The impossibility of random undirected processes producing even the first living cell that, by the way, HAD to be able to reproduce itself in addition to performing all the functions required to live, is evidenced by this irrefutable FACT:

The ability to reproduce COULD NOT take place in a step by step process; it HAD TO come into existence SIMULTANEOUSLY with all the complex cell functions, from the extremely complex glycoprotein molecule cell walls to the thousands of interacting, irreducibly complex, molecular machines that power a living cell, no matter how primitive. Chance and Deep Time will not work to randomly produce self-reproducing life even in a universe 100 times older than ours.

Darwinists labor under the magical thinking that the following low probability random rock positioning below is the "same way life got started".


Even one single cell is trillions and trillions of times more complex.




The "many universes" ::) claim (SEE: MORE magical thinking) is completely devoid of any scientific evidence whatsoever. It is based on circular reasoning by those who do not understand, or do not wish to understand, probability and statistics mathematics.


This is the video ✨ referenced in the above graphic:
« Last Edit: October 20, 2022, 05:47:04 pm by AGelbert »
So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. Matthew 7:12

AGelbert

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Evolution and the "Experts"
« Reply #29 on: October 20, 2022, 06:05:01 pm »
Evolution and the "Experts" - Douglas Axe at Dallas Science Faith Conference 2020


Apr 1, 2020 70,171 views

Discovery Science 176K subscribers

The controversy about Darwinian evolution is often framed as a matter of credentials. We must listen to the “experts”!  In a presentation at the 2020 Dallas Conference on Science & Faith, molecular biologist Douglas Axe explains that “expertise does not necessarily drive you in the right direction.” Sometimes it does the exact opposite. How could that be? Watch now and find out. Evolution and the “Experts”: Douglas Axe at 2020 Dallas Conference on Science & Faith

Douglas Axe is the Maxwell Professor of Molecular Biology at Biola University, the founding Director of Biologic Institute, the founding Editor of BIO-Complexity, and the author of Undeniable: How Biology Confirms Our Intuition That Life Is Designed. After completing his PhD at Caltech, he held postdoctoral and research scientist positions at the University of Cambridge and the Cambridge Medical Research Council Centre. His research, which examines the functional and structural constraints on the evolution of proteins and protein systems, has been featured in many scientific journals, including the Journal of Molecular Biology, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, BIO-Complexity, and Nature, and in such books as Signature in the Cell and Darwin’s Doubt by Stephen Meyer and Life’s Solution by Simon Conway Morris.

The annual Dallas Conference on Science & Faith explores exciting scientific discoveries about the origin of the universe, the origin of life, and the development of biological complexity, as well as critiquing the scientific and cultural impact of Darwinism. It also deals directly with the intersection of science and religion and the role that faith plays in scientific research and study.

Be sure to check out these related videos:

Douglas Axe: Why more scientists are going off-script from the Darwinian Story


James Tour:  The Origin of Life Has Not Been Explained


The Open Mind | Douglas Axe, Ph.D.

So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. Matthew 7:12