I was somewhat bemused by Francis Beckwith’s report that ID advocates consider Forensic Science to not be a part of natural science (perhaps natural science is only that which is presented by David Attenbrough). How could reasonable people not see that Forensic science is part of natural science thought I.
Then I had one of my semiannual encounters with the public understanding of science.
My family and I recently went camping with some friends in the Grampians, a fantastic landscape of sandstone mountains in Southwestern Victoria. As with all Musgrave-O’Donohue trips, this was a complicated process that involved enough camping equipment to find the source of the Nile, much playing of tapes of “Hitchhikers in the Galaxy” (as Middle One(1) calls Douglas Adam’s opus), mathematical puzzles with Oldest One(2) and eye spy (for some reason the answer is always “tree”). As well as climbing mountains, spotlighting kangaroos, feeding parrots, swimming, toasting marshmallows and watching the children run riot (typical camping trip activities), I brought my portable telescope.
This naturally meant that the sky was cloudy for most of the trip. However, one night the clouds lurked around the horizon, and I set up the telescope so the kids could see Jupiter and Saturn. Within minutes, not only did I have the kids from our campsite at the scope, but large numbers of kids from adjacent camps. And their parents.
The kids were amazing. Enthusiastic and knowledgeable, they were all in the range of 7-12 years old, and had a good deal of knowledge about the rings of Saturn, the clouds of Jupiter, the nature and size of the Great Red Spot (unfortunately lurking on the other side of Jupiter at the time). They were excited to see these things with their own eyes. One little girl even asked where Sedna was! (Luckily I knew, even if my scope couldn’t show it). I wish there was some way to keep this enthusiasm going in later years, by the time my students reach me in second and third year Uni, their enthusiasm for things scientific has just about vanished.
The adults, in contrast, had abysmal knowledge. They didn’t know Jupiter was bigger than the Earth, where it was in relationship to the Earth and so on. One person asked why you couldn’t see Mars. It had just gone behind a hill, but he thought that you couldn’t see Mars from Earth at anytime. These weren’t stupid people, and they were just as enthusiastic as the kids to see distant worlds through the telescope. However, a world of general knowledge that was presented in their school years, and turns up fairly regularly in the news and news papers (even our local newspaper, barely suitable for wrapping fish and chips in, covers astronomy at monthly intervals), somehow passed them by. It is not as if they were not interested in this sort of stuff, their enthusiasm at the telescope and questions showed that, but evidently they missed out on background knowledge about our solar system (and the stars beyond) that should be understood by everyone. Even the Astrology enthusiast couldn’t locate any of the Zodiacal constellations in the sky.
So if ordinary, reasonably educated and aware people have such appalling knowledge of their own solar system, is it any wonder that some people think that Forensic science isn’t a part of natural science.
(1) From The Witches Children, a story our kids love, the three children in the Story are Oldest One, Middle One and Smallest One, and this got applied to our three.
(2) For some reason Oldest Ones puzzles seem to relate to Yugi-Oh card values, but that is for another introspection.
61 Comments
Ed Brayton · 21 April 2004
Ian-
A quick correction - it was Joe Carter who said that forensic science was not a part of natural science (by claiming that the "mind" is non-natural and therefore explanations that include it are "preternatural"), not Frank Beckwith.
Charles2 · 21 April 2004
Strange how some people's innate curiosity can be squelched so easily and others retain that child-like amazement at the universe throughout their lives. Lost of paper has been wasted wondering why that is and how to fix it, so I probably can't contribute anything unique to that discussion. Still, as someone who has kept as much youthful enthusiasm for science as I possibly could, it amazes, confuses and saddens me.
Likely, these same folks you ran into are the ones who rarely, if ever, read for pleasure, watch way too much TV and perhaps had a bad experience somewhere in their pasts that turned them off of learning new things. Sad really.
Ian Musgrave · 21 April 2004
G'Day Ed
While Joe did make the startling claims that the mind was "perternatural" and that forensic science did not use "methodological naturalism", you will find in Francis Beckwiths reply to my post Are intelligent agents suprenatural he notes that Forensic science is apart from "natural sciences".
Basil Rathbone · 21 April 2004
On the other hand, if Beckwith means that certain practices which are considered "Forensic Science," e.g., traditional handwriting analysis, are bogus I'd be inclined to agree because I am not aware of any scientific study of handwriting experts which supports some of their claims (e.g., their alleged ability to reliably distinguish a forger's script from the genuine author's script on the basis of the writing alone).
Ian Musgrave · 21 April 2004
Basil:
No, Beckworth was not saying anything like that. It is not clear what he meant by "Natural Sciences" or "natural science". For most scientists, "natural sciences" covers everything in nature, including humans and human activities. From the context we can't tell if the ID people are using natural science in this meaning, or are refering to science related only to things separate from humans (generally, those sorts of environments and organisms that get filmed for "nature" shows, hence the David Attenbrough quip). Hence for them Forensic Science may not be "natural science", but zoology is (even though many of the techniques and information is directly taken form zoology (and botany etc.).
Richard Wein · 22 April 2004
wvmcl · 22 April 2004
From here in the U.S., home of Intelligent Design and so much other nonsense, your anecdote about the adults' ignorance was amusing.
But it pales by comparison with a Harris Poll I saw earlier today:
A 51% to 38% majority continues to believe that "Iraq actually had weapons of mass destruction,
A 49% to 36% plurality of all adults continues to believe that "clear evidence that Iraq was supporting Al Qaeda has been found."
Joe · 23 April 2004
Which pales in comparison to a poll conducted by Die Zeit which showed that a number of Germans believe that the WTC was destroyed by the US, not terrorists :
BERLIN, July 23 (Reuters) - Almost one in three Germans below the age of 30 believes the U.S. government may have sponsored the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington, according to a poll published on Wednesday.
And about 20 percent of Germans in all age groups hold this view, a survey of 1,000 people conducted for the weekly Die Zeit said.
It also said 68 percent of all Germans felt the media had not reported the full truth behind the attacks, in which some 3,000 people were killed when hijacked planes were crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Francis Beckwith · 23 April 2004
My understanding of "natural science" comes largely from the work of Del Ratzsch who refers to NS as that branch of study that explores the natural world and offers laws, theories, and hypotheses to account for that realm when left to its own devices. Interference in the natural realm by agents results in what Ratzsch calls contra-nomic events. How we detect and have warrant for believing these contra-nomic events as agent-caused is another topic all together. I found Ratzsch's distinction to be useful. It is not meant to be normative, but rather descriptive of what counts and doesn't count as acceptable accounts of natural phenomena in the natural sciences. We all know, for example, attributing an agent-cause to the bacterial flaggelum is much different than attibuting an agent-cause to the dead guy with an ice-pick embedded in his head on the subway tracks. The latter is uncontroversial for a variety of reasons. The former is controversial because agent-causes in the natural sciences are considered inappropriate.
Because the purpose of my work was to merely describe the legal debate and the general scientific concerns that percolate beneath it, I think that my modest presentation was fair. Am I mistaken in thinking that my panda-pals (my affectionate name for y'all) are now saying that in biology, physics, chemistry, etc., it is appropriate to offer agent-causes to account for such things as bacterial flagellum, the human genome, the mind, the beginning of the universe, the fine-tuning of the universe for life, etc.? If so, then I was wrong to say that the natural sciences--as understood in mainstream science--do not consider agent-causes. Am I missing something here?
Ian Musgrave · 23 April 2004
Seven Costanza · 23 April 2004
"My understanding of "natural science" comes largely from the work of Del Ratzsch who refers to NS as that branch of study that explores the natural world and offers laws, theories, and hypotheses to account for that realm when left to its own devices."
Mr. Beckwith, perhaps it would help if you defined what you mean by "natural" as it occurs in the term "natural science" and in the definition. I haven't had a philosophy class in fifteen years but that strikes me as a no-no.
"attibuting an agent-cause to the dead guy with an ice-pick embedded in his head on the subway tracks . . . is uncontroversial for a variety of reasons."
Reason number one, in the present context, is that presently we are not confronted by a religio-political group trying to compel a supernatural explanation for every unsolved murder in this country. While there are many people who ascribe supernatural explanations for unsolved murders, Joe Sixpack tends to dismiss those people as kooks because he has seen numerous people killed by pickaxes in the movies and on TV.
A flagellum on the other hand -- Joe might have to actually understand some molecular biology to appreciate how it's put together and how it functions. Joe's church has presented Joe with a simpler "theory" for how the flagellum came to be, which includes a conspiracy on the part of scientists to confuse him, a conspiracy on the part of scientists to "trivialize" the religious beliefs of Joe's child, and a general assertion that modern scientists routinely attach themselves to useless "dogma" for generations and refuse to consider "alternative theories."
Thus, a controversy is born. Does one really need a degree in Philosophy to figure this stuff out? I am here to tell you that the answer is no. My personal experience tells me that such a degree can be a great hindrance when it comes to teasing out the origins of controversies.
Here's an interesting puzzle for Frank and others that just occurred to me. Perhaps it's already been addressed. When I was in graduate school, I engineered several strains of E. coli with modified flagella. I started with a canonical wild-isolated strain called "strain A." The modifications I introduced were very slight, roughly forty nucleic acid changes here and there, some silent, some not. The flagella in the strains I engineered were perfectly functional and chemotaxis was only mildly increased or decreased relative to the strain I started with. Also, I left no other traces of my handiwork on the bacteria (e.g., antibiotic resistance markers).
Let's say that, in a diabolical mood, I released my strains into "the wild" and they survived for some time without accumulating any further mutations. Then one of the strains is "discovered" by someone, perhaps Behe. He sequences the strains and looks at the flagellum and notes that it is a new sequence with a slightly different structure from strain A.
Assuming Behe does not believe in evolution as it is understood by scientists today, could Behe determine the likelihood (more or less) that the strain he discovered had been engineered by a human as opposed to it being just a new variant of strain A (hundreds of which exist)?
Could a scientist who did believe in evolution as it is understood by scientists today make such a determination?
Ian Musgrave · 27 April 2004
Francis Beckwith · 29 April 2004
First, you don't get to make the rules on how this discussion is conducted. It's not a priori the case that Ian says something and Beckwith has to respond to Ian's satisfaction. :-)
Second, and more seriously, you will find no objection on my part if you are in fact saying that there is nothing in principle in rationally attributing agency to effects that have thought to have non-agent causes under a materialist paradigm (e.g., bacterial flagellum, fine-tuning of the universe). If that's your position, then you have abandoned methodological naturalism and have accepted a key epistemological position of anti-materialism (which may or not include ID, for there is a variety of anti-materialisms).
Third, I did not have Ratzsch's book in front of me when I wrote the above. I was traveling and was relying exclusively on memory. So, Ian is correct; Ratzsch does use the term "contranomic" to refer to supernatural agency. The term that I meant to use was "counterflow" rather than "contranomic." (Brain fart on my part!)
However, to get a flavor for what Ratzsch is doing, consider the distinction he makes between counterflow and design. Counterflow refers to agent directed activity that would not have occurred if nature were left to its own non-agent devices. Dams, bulldozers, park benches, and false teeth are examples of entities that result from counteflow. But they are also designed or mind-correlative, for they have a "deliberately intended or produced pattern." (p. 3 of Ratzsch, Nature, Design, and Science). On the other hand, "
omeone idly whittling on a stick may produce something which nature never would, but the person may even be unaware of what he or she is doing." But in such a case, "there may be no pattern produced (in the sense defined) and thus there need be no design involved. But the product might still be a recognizable artifact, exhibiting clear indications of counterflow." (6).Section II of Ratzsch's book focuses on the issue of supernatural design. Divided into four chapters (3 through 6), Ratzsch, with meticulous philosophical care, defines and unpacks a number of notions in order to support a conceptual framework that makes sense of the idea of supernatural design. The author is careful to point out that although supernatural design shares some characteristics with finite design, there are some aspects of supernatural design that are unique to it. For example, "[p]recosmic initial structuring (of laws, boundary conditions, etc.) could provide evidence for design were such conditions especially mind-correlative in their own right and instrumental (or essential) in the production of recognizable values (assuming the production of such values to be enormously sensitive to initial structures)." (75) The work of defenders of the anthropic principle are supporters of the sort of design Ratzsch is talking about here. Thus, unlike finite design, whose necessary conditions include counterflow (i.e., that which would have not occurred if nature were left to its own non-agent devices), and unlike a possible case of supernatural design that involves contranomicity (i.e., suspension or violation of scientific law), "the relevant activity" is "prior to the laws and structures by which counterflow and contranomicity are defined." (75),
Now, it's off to preparing my finals!
Frank
e e e cummings · 29 April 2004
Francis, just out of curiosity, have any of your students ever spontaneously combusted during one of your lectures?
Ian Musgrave · 29 April 2004
Richard Wein · 30 April 2004
Francis J. Beckwith · 30 April 2004
e.e. cummmings wrote: "Francis, just out of curiosity, have any of your students ever spontaneously combusted during one of your lectures?" Yes, it was quite sad, since his epitaph now reads:
"I now lie as a pile ashes
But not from the heat of pretty lasses
Or candles lit at midnight masses
But because of a lecture by Beckwith Francis."
Later dudes (and dudettes).
Frank
Jerry Don Bauer · 12 May 2004
*****What Ian and I are asking for is not mathematical precision but a definition which makes sense of your claim (that intelligent agency is ruled out from the natural sciences.*****
I might add that you need understand the term 'intelligence' in intelligent design. ID does not use the dictionary definition of the term 'design.'
In our field, mountains, sand dunes and cloud patterns may possess a design created by natural processes. However, the natural processes of design are not intelligently designed as are skyscrapers from intelligently conceived blueprints. Can you see that an intelligently preconceived set of blueprints may be counterflow from the thermodynamics inherrent in natural processes?
Wesley R. Elsberry · 12 May 2004
RBH · 12 May 2004
Jerry Don Bauer · 12 May 2004
*****No violations of the second law are seen in blueprint construction.*****
I didn't say that blueprints have anything to do with thermodynamics. You are missing my point. Intelligent design is antithetical to natural design. The latter might be explained via the natural processes of thermodynamics, uniformitarianism, or even catastrophism, for that matter. But the former is preconceived design by intelligence where energy in the form of intentional work is added into the design scenario. Do you understand the difference?
*****I have a challenge that I offer to such people. So far, I haven't had anyone fulfill the challenge.*****
I see why you have had no one fulfill the challenge. What does thermodynamics have to do with transitional fossils? The challenge is nonsensical.Sorry.
Thomas · 12 May 2004
Jerry Don, who did the intentional work which resulted in the design of the transitional organisms which were fossilized, and what was the nature of that work in your opinion (i.e., were DNA sequences physically tampered with? or do you envision a mutagenizing ether?)
Jerry Don Bauer · 12 May 2004
*****Jerry Don, who did the intentional work which resulted in the design of the transitional organisms which were fossilized, and what was the nature of that work in your opinion (i.e., were DNA sequences physically tampered with? or do you envision a mutagenizing ether?)*****
No, I envision nothing that cannot be verified through empirical experimentation. I'm afraid I am a student of science rather than one of mentalism or meta-physics.
Thus, I'm afraid there are no experiments I can concoct that would identify a designer. Could have been your Uncle Joe, for all I know. Its unknowable, so why muse on it?
Jerry Don Bauer · 12 May 2004
*****Jerry Don, who did the intentional work which resulted in the design of the transitional organisms which were fossilized, and what was the nature of that work in your opinion (i.e., were DNA sequences physically tampered with? or do you envision a mutagenizing ether?)*****
No, I envision nothing that cannot be verified through empirical experimentation. I'm afraid I am a student of science rather than one of mentalism or meta-physics.
Thus, I fear there are no experiments I can concoct that would identify a designer or any one design methodolology. Could have been my Uncle Joe, for all I know. Its unknowable, so why muse on it? And I might point out that it is irrelevant to the overall classification of matter as intelligently designed or designed by natural phenomenon. The latter is the goal of my science called ID.
Wesley R. Elsberry · 12 May 2004
Thomas · 12 May 2004
Jerry Don Bauer · 12 May 2004
******This challenge is given when an antievolutionist claims that "evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics" or similar phrasing. The short form of the challenge: If the antievolutionist can't identify a specific process that is proscribed, the claim fails. If the specific process is not a necessary process for descent with modification, the claim fails. If the specific process is observed to occur in extant organisms, the claim fails.******
Hmmmm . . . . for some reason I don't understand, because I mentioned the word thermodynamics, you want to jump into the crux of it concerning naturalism verses design. But, what the heck. I'm bored this afternoon.
If we are going to do this, let's at least insure we understand our common ground: evolution is a fact of science and violates no laws of science, or it would not be a part of it.
OTOH, Macroevolution which proposes that with spontaneous events called speciation, genomes will tend to increase in complexity both quantitatively and qualitatively as man morphs from that primordial protista to homo sapien stands in direct contradiction to SLOT, which states that with any spontaneous reaction or event entropy will tend to increase. These are contradictory statements so, one must be wrong. I believe I will go with Feynman's S = log2W statistically to show which it is.
****If the specific process is observed to occur in extant organisms, the claim fails*****
I'm afraid this is incorrect as thermodynamics is statistics--tendency. In a science of tendency, things can happen once, they just won't happen most the time.
Jerry Don Bauer · 12 May 2004
*****Horse hockey. Pure baloney. If you can't propose a testable theory for how your intelligent design was imparted into a thing, then what you are proposing has nothing to do with science. It's quackery*****
LOL...Put this into a syllogism and show the forum how much sense it makes.
Thomas · 12 May 2004
Okay, Jerry, here's your syllogism:
Jerry Don's "scientific" pronouncements are pure baloney.
"Scientific" pronouncements which are pure baloney are also quackery.
Therefore Jerry Don's "scientific" pronouncements are quackery.
Jerry Don Bauer · 12 May 2004
*****Okay, Jerry, here's your syllogism:
Jerry Don's "scientific" pronouncements are pure baloney.
"Scientific" pronouncements which are pure baloney are also quackery.
Therefore Jerry Don's "scientific" pronouncements are quackery.*****
But this is not a syllogism with predicates. You've left Aristotle's A belongs to B, or all B's are A's:
If all humans (A) are mortal (B),
and all Greeks (C) are humans (A),
then all Greeks (C) are mortal (A).
Surely you are wanting to argue science logically and aren't just trolling me. At least I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt until I get to know you better.
If you are to show that principles of design must also propose imparting design to a designed object, then you must show how one logically leads to the other.
Thomas · 12 May 2004
"If you are to show that principles of design must also propose imparting design to a designed object, then you must show how one logically leads to the other."
Must I? How about you do the impossible and articulate for "the forum" the details of your "theory" that "intelligent design" is necessary to explain the diversity of organisms which have lived, and continue to live, on earth?
Maybe you could start by explaining what "intelligent design" is and propose just ONE mechanism for how this intelligence left its mark on the multitude of diverse organisms which inhabit (and have inhabited) the planet Earth.
You have only the Nobel Prize to gain, JD! And you have nothing to lose because you've no credibility in the first place. Go on: impress us.
Jerry Don Bauer · 12 May 2004
*****Must I?*****
Well, my word yes. When one posits something one would be expected to offer evidence to back it up. Surely you don't just expect the forum to take your word that since ID is a science based on probability that detects design in an artifact, then therefore, it must also offer theorem on how a designer imparted a particular design to a particular artifact. Archeologists who employ design would be quite surprised to know this.
So, let's get one point at a time settled between us before we move onto others, shall we? At first glance, this seems highly illogical.
But us knowing one another, and you being a biologist who personally interacts with Michael Behe, you should have little trouble in backing up this posit logically.
Once you have, I'll be glad to move on to any area you wish. That's fair, is it not
Ian Musgrave · 12 May 2004
Thomas · 12 May 2004
Jerry Don Bauer · 12 May 2004
******roevolution is not about speciation, speciation is part of "microevolution", macroevolution is about explaining larger scale processes (eg extinction).*****
Guys, I don't want to be mean. But could we limit this discussion to preferably the PhD level, or at least a minimum of an MS in a science related field? I don't want to have to educate people what macroevolution, microevolution and chemical spontaneity is. And I don't want to have to bring a person from local decreases in entropy deltaS=Q/T to the Boltzmann S= k log W stuff we are talking about here.
I just punched in ID and counterflow into google, this site popped up. I made one simple comment to define 'intelligence,' and here you guys come. I don't think there seems to be anyone on this forum who knows what counterflow is. That's OK, I'll be glad to explain it to you. But for those of you are lost and want to learn, could you put your questions into the form of questions rather than debate? I'm not being mean, I'm really not. Just limited on time.
Jerry Don Bauer · 12 May 2004
****If you can't propose a testable theory for how your intelligent design was imparted into a thing, then what you are proposing has nothing to do with science. It's quackery******
I got this comment from your post, are people editing them without your knowledge? If not, then you either need to just admit you misspoke or that you don't know what ID is.
Besides, I can tell by some later comments that you confuse ID with biology. They are not the same sciences and have very little to do with one another.
Thomas · 12 May 2004
Jerry Don
I stand by my statement. Once again:
****If you can't propose a testable theory for how your intelligent design was imparted into a thing, then what you are proposing has nothing to do with science. It's quackery******
Enjoy.
Wesley R. Elsberry · 12 May 2004
Jerry Don Bauer · 12 May 2004
*****I stand by my statement. Once again*****
LOL..You stand by the statement that two posts above you claimed you did not make? :) Wow..You guys are got this debate stuff down. ;) Move over Hawking, that chair's in jeopardy!
Jerry Don Bauer · 12 May 2004
Guys, you are hopelessly overcomplicating words my 10th grade science students had down the first semester. Macroevolution doesn't have anything to do with extinction. Sheeze..just look the word up in a dictionary: "Large-scale evolution occurring over geologic time that results in the formation of new taxonomic groups."
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=macroevolution
Now why couldn't you do that for microevolution, speciation, spontaneity and the other basics?
Wesley R. Elsberry · 12 May 2004
Thomas · 12 May 2004
"LOL..You stand by the statement that two posts above you claimed you did not make? :)"
No, JD. I stand by the statement which I made, and reject your attempt to paraphrase my statement.
Andrea Bottaro · 12 May 2004
That's why I think the terms macro- and microevolution should be as kindly as possible trashed, and the sooner the better. They are just useless anyway. Even the most common usage, as described by Wilkins, is arbitrary: as speciation occurs, it is a change of alleles within a species, so where do you draw the line? In a ring species, which population difference is macroevolution, and which is micro?
As scientists, it is much better to define exactly what you are talking about: if it's about major morphological transitions, changes in body plan, etc, call them such. If it's speciation, there is a perfectly good word for it: "speciation". And so on.
Leave vague, ambiguous terms to Creationists, that's what they specialize in.
Jerry Don Bauer · 12 May 2004
*****No, JD. I stand by the statement which I made, and reject your attempt to paraphrase my statement.*****
Very well, perhaps I've misunderstood you. I thought you had confused ID with the science of biology.
You certainly have not made yourself clear. I thought you said, "that "intelligent design" is necessary to explain the diversity of organisms which have lived, and continue to live, on earth"
Have you not had bios logos 101 where it would be very clear to you that biology is the science that explains this? Why would you feel that biology cannot deal with this?
And from what literature (with some references, please) did you get all these strange definitions and tenets of ID that don't exist? I have been in the science since its revamping 10 or so short years ago, and this is the first I've heard of any of this stuff. Man, you need to write a book. It would outsell Dembski if any of this is true and you can back it up with facts, math and science.
Jerry Don Bauer · 12 May 2004
*****That's why I think the terms macro- and microevolution should be as kindly as possible trashed, and the sooner the better. They are just useless anyway. Even the most common usage, as described by Wilkins, is arbitrary: as speciation occurs, it is a change of alleles within a species, so where do you draw the line? In a ring species, which population difference is macroevolution, and which is micro?*****
Hmmm . . . Am I detecting intelligence? Scary with what I've been hit with so far. I do believe that Macro and Micro still have their places in sexual reproduction. But the terms are overly technical in that if speciation did not occur then it was all micro and if it did then suddenly micro becomes macro and did not exist. So, I do see your point.
****As scientists, it is much better to define exactly what you are talking about: if it's about major morphological transitions, changes in body plan, etc, call them such. If it's speciation, there is a perfectly good word for it: "speciation". And so on.*****
OK, why not. But we do need terms that differentiate between subtle changes over time in the gene pool of a population as opposed to the magical pixie dustical morphation of reptile to mammal in some ethereal Darwinian process.
****Leave vague, ambiguous terms to Creationists, that's what they specialize in.****
Wouldn't know. I'm an Idist, not a creationist. Don't know the first thing about any creations, creators, gods, spirits, fairies or leprechauns, I'm afraid.
Ian Musgrave · 12 May 2004
Jerry Don Bauer · 12 May 2004
*****Macroevolution proposes nothing of the sort. Formation of new taxonomic groups is not the same thing "genomes will tend to increase in complexity". Indeed what we expect and what we see is that most taxonomic groups stay about the same complexity.*****
Well good, then. All you had to tell me is that you do not buy the naturalist posit of common descent in that life began as an ameboid and all life including my granddaddy magically morphed from this critter. Of course, had you believed this, then it would be necessary for you to believe that man grew more complex in these speciations as the human genome, is quite obviously much more complex than the genome of protista. If you do not believe this, then we have no argument.
******Again, the increases in "complexity" that we do see are due to gene and genome duplication (followed by natural selection and/or drift),*****
There can be no gene flow between populations that cannot breed together. And may I remind you that Modern Synthesis seems to be drifting away from natural selection? (what were we ever thinking??)
*****none of this violates the SLOT. Indeed we have seen species come about via polyploidy,*****
You have 'imagined' species coming about by polyploidy. And if you think there is anyway polyploidy can explain an evolutionary walk from ameboid to homo sapien, I would love to hear it.
Thomas · 12 May 2004
Thomas · 12 May 2004
"There can be no gene flow between populations that cannot breed together."
False. Go back to school and come back later.
http://www.biotech-info.net/HGT_happens.html
http://www.psrast.org/whtr&hor.htm
Ian Musgrave · 12 May 2004
Jerry Don Bauer · 12 May 2004
*****Nope. I would never confuse intelligent design with biology, at least not the intelligent design which is discussed routinely on this blog. Perhaps you should read more of this thread so that you understand what we mean here when say "intelligent design." You might make fewer silly mistakes.*****
I could care less what you mean when you say intelligent design. Why don't you ask someone who actually practices the science rather than the 'wannabe' detractors who set up strawmen fallacies and then attack them as I've seen in here. Betcha that's fun, absolutely no arguments from anyone, is there? So far, you come across as a bunch of idiots that don't know even the subjects to which you refer. Go ahead and redefine psychology as phrenology if you care to. Ain't nobody here to argue it but you. You know what they say about those public educations, now a days, don't you?
I*****f, in fact, your "ID" has nothing to do with biology (including evolutionary biology), you may want to consider referring to yourself as something other than an "IDist."*****
Er, I never said ID did. It was you who made that statement. Sheeze.. You obviously are so lost in the subject that you cannot discuss it intelligently, much less refute it. Its hard to refute something when you don't even know what it is.
******Because if you want to have any credibility as a scientist or mathematician, you really don't want to link yourself to intelligent design as biologists and many other scientists know it.*****
Uh huh . . . .but let me guess. You are all reduced to ad homonym fallacy when you have to defend that idiocy? I ain't scared and am glad go as deep into math and science as anyone in here would care to go. Betca I don't get even one chance to get that deep.
Jerry Don Bauer · 12 May 2004
******"There can be no gene flow between populations that cannot breed together."
False. Go back to school and come back later.*****
The very definition of a sexual species is two organisms that can interbreed and produce viable, fertile offspring and do so in the wild.
But you think there can be gene flow between populations of different species that cannot even interbreed by definition? How does this happen, by osmosis?
Thomas · 12 May 2004
Jerry Don Bauer · 12 May 2004
*****That statement is false, as I showed you. The papers referred to are but a fraction of the papers which show gene flow between populations that cannot breed together.*****
Well, LOL...How does this happen. Do little fairy surgeons do gene transplants between species who cannot breed? Are there genetic IV suckers that magically suck genes from one organism into another? sheeze...You people seem to have another religion going here. There certainly is no science I've seen presented yet.
****Well, Jerry, I'm surprised that you don't know this already, but when scientists genetically engineer tomatoes they don't do it by ejaculating on Grandma's garden.*****
So you think there were scientists around to genetically engineer Darwinism?
*****Have you ever heard of viruses, Jerry? Have you ever read any reports describing the fusion of two cell membranes, Jerry? Have you ever read any reports of a cell's membrane being injured and subsequently repaired?*****
Well, yes, I've heard about all of this and I have taught elementary biology. So, your point is??????
Andrea Bottaro · 12 May 2004
Thomas · 12 May 2004
Jerry Don Bauer · 12 May 2004
*****No, you obviously don't. There is no individual point during a speciation event in which speciation can be said to have occured. There is no individual point during any taxonomic transition in which the transition can be said to have occured. *****
Really? So you don't understand the definition of sexual species? Speciation has occurred when the new species can no longer interbreed with the previous species. Of course, you will not find me one reputable scientist that will state this has ever happened, just the talk-origin crowd. And this ring species deally whacker is smoke and mirrors you guys came up with and has nothing at all to do with real-life speciation'
******There is no pixie dust, no "morphation" (whatever that is). All there is is a continuum, in which individual morphological steps can be more or less pronounced, but still represent a genetic continuum of accumulating mutations. No micro, no macro.*****
Sure there is. Darwin waved his magic wand and 'poof' ethereal fairies formed therapsid.
Jerry Don Bauer · 12 May 2004
*****Jerry if you are unwilling to take the time to read even the small number of scientific articles I alerted you to, then we needn't continue. Bye now.*****
If at anytime you care to get off the ad homs, learn what ID really is and discuss it intelligently, let me know.
I'm sorry, I don't address web sites. They are not here to debate me when I disagree with them. I will be gald to address any argument you care to place in your own words. Thanks for the conversation, Jerry
Andrea Bottaro · 12 May 2004
Jerry Don Bauer · 12 May 2004
I don't know anything about creationists. But I know it doesn't seem anyone has posted on that board you listed for about 6 months, it would appear.
Wesley R. Elsberry · 13 May 2004