Darwinism? Tcha... You Know What? Uh-uh!

[GotZoom]

SEATTLE, June 22 (UPI) — More than 600 doctoral scientists from all around the world have signed a statement of skepticism about the contemporary theory of Darwinian evolution.

The statement, at dissentfromdarwin.org, reads: "We areskeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged," the Discover Institute said in a statement Thursday.

"I signed the Scientific Dissent From Darwinism statement because I am
absolutely convinced of the lack of true scientific evidence in favor of
Darwinian dogma," said Raul Leguizamon, professor of medicine at the Autonomous University of Guadalajara, Mexico.

"Nobody in the biological sciences, medicine included, needs Darwinism at all," added Leguizamon. "Darwinism is certainly needed, however, in order to pose as a philosopher, since it is primarily a worldview. And an awful one, as Bernard Shaw used to say."

The list of 610 signatories includes scientists from National Academies of Science in Russia, Czech Republic, Hungary, India (Hindustan), Nigeria, Poland, Russia and the United States. Many of the signers are professors or researchers at major universities and international research institutions such as Cambridge University, British Museum of Natural History, Moscow State University, Masaryk University in Czech Republic, Hong Kong University, University of Turku in Finland, Autonomous University of Guadalajara in Mexico, University of Stellenbosch in South Africa, Institut de Paleontologie Humaine in France, Chitose Institute of Science & Technology in Japan, Ben-Gurion University in Israel, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, The Smithsonian and Princeton.

"Dissent from Darwinism has gone global," said Discovery Institute President Bruce Chapman, former US Ambassador to the United Nations in Vienna.

"Darwinists used to claim that virtually every scientist in the world held that Darwinian evolution was true, but we quickly started finding US scientists that disproved that statement. Now we're finding that there are hundreds, and probably thousands, of scientists all over the world that don't subscribe to Darwin's theory."

Discovery Institute first published its Scientific Dissent From Darwinism list in 2001 to challenge false statements about Darwinian evolution made in promoting PBS's "Evolution" series. At the time it was claimed that, "virtually every scientist in the world believes the theory to be true."

http://www.religionandspiritualityforum.com/view.php?StoryID=20060622-082506-9872r

 

[dmp]

awesome. I like seeing scientists actually making sense.

 

[catatonic]

SEATTLE, June 22 (UPI) — More than 600 doctoral scientists from all around the world have signed a statement of skepticism about the contemporary theory of Darwinian evolution.

About time.

Anyone who wants to see the leading arguments themselves can just read

Intelligent Design: The Origin of Biological Information and the Higher Taxonomic Categories
By: Stephen C. Meyer

and compare it to the leading rebuttal

Meyer's Hopeless Monster which refers to this
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/...=Display&dopt=pubmed_pubmed&from_uid=11682312
as its main source of evidence.

Young Earth Creationists on the other hand are hopeless.

 

[Mr.Conley]

Don't bother catatonic. Anyone who doesn't believe in evolution is at this point hopeless.

 

[catatonic]

Ha!

By "About time" I implied that I supported intelligent design.

 

[Hobbit]

Don't bother catatonic. Anyone who doesn't believe in evolution is at this point hopeless.

Yeah, because anybody who refuses to believe a vast, overly complex scheme that began with the random creation of the most complex molecule known to man with only a flimsy stack of evidence to go on and in complete defiance of Occum's Razor must be a nutjob.

 

[Mr.Conley]

Evolution is documented. We have the fossil record, geologic distribution of fossils (Why are identical 70 million year old dinosaur bones found in Africa and South America?). We have the microevolution of microscopic organisms. We have the common chain of ancestry. Geologic features such as volcanos and mountain ranges require a million plus year time scale. Germ Theory and genetics, both well regarded theories, rely on Evolution.

 

[Nienna]

Evolution is documented.

No, it isn't.

We have the fossil record,

which has huge gaps

geologic distribution of fossils (Why are identical 70 million year old dinosaur bones found in Africa and South America?).

the geological column does not exist in pretty layers outside of text books. The same types of dinosaur bones can be found in different places bc the same types of animals lived in those different places. That has nothing to do with evolution. And as far as the fossils being 70 million years old, how do you know that?

We have the microevolution of microscopic organisms.

Which shows?

We have the common chain of ancestry.

Where?

Geologic features such as volcanos and mountain ranges require a million plus year time scale.

Perhaps cataclysmic events could speed things up a bit.

Germ Theory and genetics, both well regarded theories, rely on Evolution.

Don't know much about the germ theory, but genetics DISproves macroevolution.

 

[dmp]

Geologic features such as volcanos and mountain ranges require a million plus year time scale.

Pieces of the lava dome at Mt St Helens - formed with the last twenty years - were sent for radioisotope dating....results ranged from 0.35-2.8 million years!

You don't know how long volcanos take to form. I don't either. I do know that in 1980 A local volcano spewed it's hot wet load over Washington state - and some parts of the world on the back side of the planet.

26 years later the thing is 'growing back'.

 

[MissileMan]

Pieces of the lava dome at Mt St Helens - formed with the last twenty years - were sent for radioisotope dating....results ranged from 0.35-2.8 million years!

You don't know how long volcanos take to form. I don't either. I do know that in 1980 A local volcano spewed it's hot wet load over Washington state - and some parts of the world on the back side of the planet.

26 years later the thing is 'growing back'.

A point to consider. If you build a car today out of metal that is one hundred years old, would you expect radioisotopic dating to return a result of one-day old? There's no telling how long the lava that formed the dome sample had lingered beneath the surface before it was ejected and cooled.

 

[catatonic]

OK, dmp doesn't know what he's talking about. Mr.Conley does.

Evolution is documented. We have the fossil record, geologic distribution of fossils (Why are identical 70 million year old dinosaur bones found in Africa and South America?). We have the microevolution of microscopic organisms. We have the common chain of ancestry. Geologic features such as volcanos and mountain ranges require a million plus year time scale. Germ Theory and genetics, both well regarded theories, rely on Evolution.

Great, but this is also blind denial of Intelligent Design. It is blind faith, pure and simple. The fossil record supports intelligent design. The geologic distribution of fossils supports intelligent design. Microevolution does not imply macroevolution. The common chain of ancestry supports intelligent design. The time scale is irrelevant. Germ Theory and genetics, both well regarded theories, support intelligent design.

The point is you have to be more specific. Did at least one mind do it or did no mind do it? You have to address the question, not deny it and only come up with dismissive hypotheses. A sample question with Germ Theory is, does germ mutation have a purpose in mind? If you don't test it, you are a fundamentalist and not a scientist.

 

[GotZoom]

Evolution is documented. We have the fossil record, geologic distribution of fossils (Why are identical 70 million year old dinosaur bones found in Africa and South America?). We have the microevolution of microscopic organisms. We have the common chain of ancestry. Geologic features such as volcanos and mountain ranges require a million plus year time scale. Germ Theory and genetics, both well regarded theories, rely on Evolution.

You dropped these:

 

[catatonic]

Don't worry about GotZoom, Mr.Conley. Focus on me.

 

[GotZoom]

Don't worry about GotZoom, Mr.Conley. Focus on me.

So even you agree that Mr. Conley is tempted by the bananas....

 

[catatonic]

I'm not impressed with your picture of bananas to discredit both of us when we're on opposite sides, though it was the largest tactic the world could come up with to discredit and shame Darwin (drawing an Ape Darwin). However I am wary of you.

 

[Mr.Conley]

mom4, I respond to your post a little later.

The fossil record supports intelligent design.

Could you please demonstrate how the fossil record supports intelligent design.

The geologic distribution of fossils supports intelligent design.

Could you please demonstrate how the geologic distribution of fossils supports intelligent design.

Microevolution does not imply macroevolution.

Yes and no. While microevolution in and of itself does not mandate that macroevolution must occur, it provides us with a real life, scientifically measurable visualization of the individual genetic processes that occur in macroevolution. Microevolution demonstrates that not only is the understood methiod of macroevolution possible, but that it happens and is indeed the preferred method of change within microscopic organisms. Microevolution, taken together with other scientifically valid evidence, provides an adequate basis of evidence to support evolution.

The common chain of ancestry supports intelligent design.

Again, could you demonstrate how the common chain of ancestry supports intelligent design. You will have to forgive me for asking this same question again and again, but I'm going to have to develop a deeper understanding of what you are claiming in order to accept or rebuke what you are claiming.

The time scale is irrelevant.

It is for intellegent design, I admit. When I wrote my original post, I did so in what I thought was a response to the traditional Bible creation story, not ID.

Germ Theory and genetics, both well regarded theories, support intelligent design.

You are really going to have to back this one up for me.

The point is you have to be more specific.

Most definitely. I merely listed a small portion of the body of evidence supporting evolution. If you want me to look at a particular issue more in depth, please ask (I certainly have done the same with you).

Did at least one mind do it or did no mind do it? You have to address the question, not deny it and only come up with dismissive hypotheses. A sample question with Germ Theory is, does germ mutation have a purpose in mind? If you don't test it, you are a fundamentalist and not a scientist.

Exactly, that is my problem with ID. An "Intelligent Being" could very easily and very possibly influenced the creation and evolution of life; however, we have no way to observe the what, when, where, and why of what he did. The basis of scientific inquiry is that information, in order to be considered valid, must be observable. We have no way of observing how this higher power altered the evolutionary process. We can not observe conscience purpose in the mutations of bacteria from any source expect in our observance. We cannot find any evidence of a designer in the micro or macro evolutionary processes. Does that mean that there is no designer? No. Just that, until observable evidence that fits the criteria of the scientific methiod is discovered, neither I nor scientists are willing to consider ID as an alternative to evolution.

Also, I just finished your article from Stephen Covey. I found a few errors in his thinking, but will wait until I read the rebuttal before commenting on the article.

 

[Hobbit]

First off, let's stop calling it microevolution. It's species adaptation. Calling adaptation micro-evolution is like calling the Sahara desert a 'micro' flat Earth. It doesn't support Darwinism. It has little to do with Darwinism. Drop it.

Second, who needs the damn fossil record to disprove evolution. Things we can observe every day without arguing over the correct assembly of some prehistoric bird can disprove evolution. Evolution is supposed to be random mutation followed by natural selection, right? Well, it doesn't hold water. With the exception of bacteria, random mutations are incapable of producing anything worth having. Take the flagellum, for example. For those of you who don't know, the flagellum is the whiplike tail thingy that acts as an outboard motor for cells such as sperm to provide locomotion. In order for the flagellum to work, 40 different protien strains must work together in exact concert. If even one of these isn't present, the whole thing falls flat and actually makes the flagellum totally useless and the cell far less likely to reproduce. Think of it as a mouse trap (though a mouse trap has about 35 fewer moving parts). If half the parts are missing, it doesn't catch half the mice. In fact, it doesn't do anything at all. For this to have come about by a series of 40 seperate mutations is ludicrous. And that's just a simple mechanism. What about cilia, another form of cellular locomotion that requires the coordination of 200 protien strains. What about a muscle cell. What about the eye. The simplest eye requires the exact, coordinated cooperation of millions of cells of dozens of types, all of which have very specific mechanisms involving hundreds, if not thousands, of different protiens. Any one of these things would be utterly useless by itself and make an animal less attractive for mating, rooting out these mutations before the eye could ever take hold.

In fact, information such as this was put together in a book in 1996 by Michael Behe, called Darwin's Black Box. The science in it is solid and all based on facts. The evolutionists, however, are split on his research. Half of them denounce him as a kook, but can't come up with one iota of evidence against his claim (despite years of looking). The rest say that evolution needs more research, because it's true, we just have to prove it.

This must be the same kind of science that's been used to prove that a 1 degree shift in global climate, with falling temperatures at the poles, is indicative of an impending global warming apocalypse, that silicone breast implants cause cancer, and that DDT hurts more people than it helps. It's all a sham propped up by atheists who need it to be true in order for them to validate their beliefs.

 

[catatonic]

Weak! I spent over an hour typing my response, only to be told I was not logged in, and in clicking back to cut and paste the response it was deleted by active x. Hold on... I should be able to retype it a lot quicker this time.

 

[Nienna]

Weak! I spent over an hour typing my response, only to be told I was not logged in, and in clicking back to cut and paste the response it was deleted by active x. Hold on... I should be able to retype it a lot quicker this time.

Starla and I have had the same problem!

JIM!!!!!

 

[catatonic]

This post will likely reveal the limitations on my intelligence for the first time, but I'm glad to post it

Stephen R. Covey is a man who takes principles in the Book of Mormon and passes them off very successfully to the secular world who don't know that they aren't his ideas. Stephen C. Moyer's is the guy who wrote this paper and now lives at a Christian University which doesn't exactly woo scientists.

Here are the major observations I would make of the fossil record. Feel free to edit or add.
1. It is always in increasing order of complexity
2. Identical fossils exist at similar times in differing places.
3. Differences in time, space, features, and equilibrium of fossils are found in the record.
4. Progressions in microevolution are exhibited spatially.

Now we make hypotheses of at least one mind and tests it. Best to start out with the simplest hypothesis first... could our minds themselves explain this. We would still need a mechanism for how minds like ours could do it, but lets answer the question first. Increasing in complexity is just what humans do in inventing. The computers we've used to chat on message boards is the answer right in front of us. A mind could make breakthroughs in genetic engineering, just like there was a recent huge breakthrough in transistors.

Would our minds make the fossil record this way? I took the first example to mind, amphibians and reptiles. A 3-chambered heart is probably no harder to make then a 2-chambered heart, and the skin is nothing new. But the nervous system is much more advanced and could have been beyond current science beforehand. In the equilibrium of fossils there are a few missing links which could have been prototypes to ensure for a desired equilibrium (we desire equilibrium in companies). This is all testable once you allow for hypotheses from both.

How about the geological time scale? This is exactly what Meyer's starts off with - the Cambrian explosion. Our knowledge of how complete the fossil record should be, along with a sudden explosion in many species preceeded by and followed by a long lull, is what to test. I believe this is better explained by a mind, as our nature is to make sudden rapid changes sometimes, and it could be a new mind on the scene reverse engineering existing organisms, than by chance, as when we use computer code evolution there's nothing drastic ever because its not allowed for.

Microevolution vs. Macroevolution. Small changes like a foot adapting to different climate can be built into the organism. Yet for macroevolution, you need to explain the evolution of novel genes. This is clearly the most important part of the debate, as both papers I showed you go to great lengths to exaggerate. Meyer's would have the lazy person believe that any change in a sequence immediately kills the organism and the organism would have to die countless times before a desired change can have an effect on whether the organism can be more fit. The other paper's authors give the impression that all the relevant nucleotides are side by side and one change of any of them will produce a brand new species. The truth is in the middle which is exactly why I made the third link to the 180+ papers (and 600 scientists rejecting evolution at the start of this paper is more than these 180 papers) where proposals to how novel useful genes evolve are attempted. In all the papers I didn't have to pay for and hence all the papers I looked at, there was not a single mutational method with a greater probability of making a novel useful gene than the simple one nucleotide mutating at the time. No mathematical calculation has ever been done in support of evolution of new genes, except by Meyer's against it. This is where evolution breaks apart and intelligent design must be given full attention. This is where I draw the line in the sand and say, "Who's with me and who's against me (and who doesn't have a clue)?" The fact novel genes are found is eons away from accounting for it with a probability calculation on known ways genes get wrecked. You may say, hey, we haven't yet learned the mutational technique. The more randomness you rule out, the more directed it is and the more a mind was likely at play in designing how the mutation would occur. Novel genes are more easily explained by a mind just taking an organism when nobody's watching to a laboratory and tweaking it.

I've drawn the line to where I think evolution breaks down. However Meyer's won't stop there, and the counter-paper doesn't even cover any of it. He points out that no matter how simple it would be to turn one DNA strand into a very different strand, DNA itself is quite limited. DNA does not change the cellular skeleton when cells reproduce, making an interspecies explanation impossible from anything Darwin suggested. Not only can you not change cell types from DNA changes, but egg cells are rigid as well in dictating what types of organism can develop no matter what the DNA says. Moyer's goes on and on, pointing to the absurdity of changing ever higher structures like tissues, organs, and finally organism.

I still have to answer your particular questions. Common line of descent is just what we do. In our stories, philosophies, sciences, and models and versions of inventions and software, there is a common line of descent. The change in mitochondrial mutation has been used without a yardstick except the geological time scale to date these descensions. However modern species' measured mitochondrial mutation rates are totally incompatible with long term predictions. I will back this up with a paper if you challenge it. Hence this is another thing explained by intelligent design and not rigorously explained in evolution.

Germ Theory and Genetics require posts of their own.

Now to unviel the mechanism for intelligent design. Alien life is the simplest. Although the common alien encounter story can be discredited legitimately, the real question is again probability. I refer to the Drake equation and Fermi paradox. Yes, they calculate that it's too improbable for aliens to visit us out of how many planets can have alien life. But I think one of the coefficients in the product isn't write... how many planets are inhabitable. There's no refutation that aliens could have the technology to modify planets to make them inhabitable, hence a much smaller conceivable limit to how many planets could not be inhabited, and alien life on earth is completely plausible. I also think its the simplest explanation. You may say, hey, there is a difference between the sophistication to make a planet inhabitable and genetic engineering. But I could shrug this away by one group creating and allowing another group to do the genetic engineering, especially as the climate might still be more suitable to one group. The only problem I see in any of this is why did it take 3.5 billion years? That bothers me, and the best explanation I can give is that time is not constant. People extrapolated their view to say the earth was flat. Why should we extrapolate 3.5 billion years to say that time is constant? Again, this is why I say time is irrelevant to either side.

That's about the same quality as my original post.