The Wedge Strategy For A Return to the Dark Ages

Discussion in 'Politics' started by 2cents, Nov 18, 2006.

  1. Sure, fair enough, but I guess I feel that those whose theories aren't informed by faith would say that it's either God or it's not. After all, 'evolution', although it has come to mean Darwinism, could just as easily have a more generic connotation; life evolved, just as situations evolve. They arise - it arose. Let's face it; life exists. If God didn't wave a magic wand to create it, it arose somehow!! It seems to me that the two choices are God and everything else, whatever it might be (it might be any number of choices on that side of the argument). In this sense it's only 'two choices' from the POV of the ID'ers or the believers in God; God or Not-God.

    The more I think about this, the more I suspect that I have read about how there is a new trend in evolutionary biology, one which rejects Darwin or some of Darwin, and suggests that gaps in the fossil record require explanation and that a new theory of mutation must be found. I guess I will have to read up...
     
    #31     Nov 23, 2006
  2. stu

    stu

    The fact is Darwin does not cover Creation period. "Darwinists" (whatever theyactually are) might promote something or other and so may ID'ers, but Darwin does not, never has had anything to do with first cause.

    ID'ers will have to propose God or creator as an addition outside of Darwin because it is not anything considered inside it.
    So people either side of the argument may extrapolate whatever for or against God/Creator/Cause, but it will in fact not be something included within Darwin/Evolution/Origin of Species.
     
    #32     Nov 23, 2006
  3. come on roberk, you are a reasonable guy... apart from a few perhaps, all these scientists have their own spiritual life etc, and in any case, they are awed at the complexity of nature that they experience day in day out and that they are trying to crack... what makes you think a second that they are going to reject evidence of sthg that clashes with the prevailing theory, be it evolution, quantum mechanics etc? when this is the very mechanism via which science has progressed so far in so little time... simply they are not going to take fairy tales for answers...

    why don't the ID guys start by proving sthg of value? instead of making empty assertions and deploying an army of hare-brained jihadists such as jem, zizzz, teleo amongst other aliases and handles...
     
    #33     Nov 23, 2006
  4. traderob

    traderob


    Hi 2cent


    A good study are John Ziman's books: very readable and he has impeccable credentials - both in hard science and philosophy:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ziman
    Ziman notes "it may be that the training necessary to make any 'valid' contribution to knowledge is so specialised that it makes people almost incapable of appreciating the larger more subtle issues that are really at stake in the world of affairs" (1980, p.104).

    ""by his education and by participation in normal science, the average research worker is heavily indoctrinated and finds great difficulty in facing the possibility that his world picture might be wrong…. The virtues of scepticism are extolled but are difficult to practise in the everyday activity of research. The expert, whom ought to know better … is often more credulous than the layman concerning the foundations of his knowledge (1978, pp.90-91).



    Ziman, J. (1978). Reliable knowledge: An exploration of the grounds for belief in science. Cambridge: Canto.
    Ziman, J. (1980) Teaching and learning about science and society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
     
    #34     Nov 23, 2006
  5. that's just a figure of speech... when it comes to proper scientific inquiry & theory, there is only 1 contender and that was darwin ages ago, and evolution now, building on the earlier work, correcting this this, filling the gap here, and now going into nonlinear new physics, computational biology etc... that's the way proper scientific theories evolve... newton wasn't wrong, simply on different scales, his modelisation breaks down and becomes irrelevant, hence general relativity and quantum mechanics filling the gaps... and now string theory and loop quantum gravity attempting to fill the remaining gaps etc etc

    an important aspect of nonlinear physics, complexity science, and nonlinear logics (paralogics, self-referential logics, neutrosophics etc) is that CAUSALITY breaks down in all systems where those models have explanatory and predictive power.

    i know it is hard to grasp for most people and fair enough, in the West particularly because of our millenary tradition of bivalent logic etc, but it means what it says... between 2 states of the "system", there is no one cause, no one (nor two etc) sequence of steps nor of identifiable causes, that drive the system from state A to state B... not that we can't find it because our analysis is insufficient etc... just because there isn't any, in a causal sense...

    how can that be? how can that make sense? well, if it could be explained in 2 lines... but if you are interested in making this paradigm shift as your kids will have to, here is a good place to start:
    http://elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=1272867&highlight=nano#post1272867
     
    #35     Nov 23, 2006
  6. of course, and it takes people with extraodinary clairvoyance and talent to rise above this natural attitude of resistance to change that we find in all areas of life, not science in particular, and challenge prevailing science. but it can only be done with proper science, scientific experiments etc... not fairy tales
     
    #36     Nov 23, 2006
  7. jem

    jem


    Your point number "2" above is the point teleolgist was attempting to get you to admit.

    You seem to be confusing the mechanism you describe in "1" one with he point scientists and some id advocates have been making.

    Lets do a quick review. Your "1" could be correct and "2" could be correct. But 2 is a big change for science.

    It used to be said that we are here because of random chance. Teleogist provided you with many quotes showing that until recently evolution happend because of random undirected trial and error.

    IDers and and smart scientists said that is impossible - we did not have enough for us to have come about through random trial and error.

    Your point number 2 if correct would prove the IDers and the smart sceintists correct. it was not random trial and error.

    Regarding coming clean.

    First of all I use firefox and it conflicts with spell checker and makes it difficult to edit my posts. the lack of clean editing does make for some very bad grammer.

    Secondly, I do not type accurately and do not enjoy the time I waste on many of these threads so sometimes you just get exposed to very quick typing and responses.

    I would never let zzz we clash on many subjects on this board. I have called him a troll more than once.
     
    #37     Nov 28, 2006
  8. Environment is always a factor in evolutionary change -- probably the primary factor.

    The mutations are random because they are the product of quantum physical atomic interactions which are subject to Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, and so cannot be predicted with certainty in advance.

    Whether the host organism survives and passes a beneficial mutation to a future generation is the product of the interaction between the benefit of the mutation conferred, and the environment existing at the time. This may or may not be a random effect, because the environment may be subject to modification by an intelligent influence.

    If a mutation were to provide a species with webbed feet and the environment were devoid of water, then webbed feet is likely a deleterious mutation. If the environment is a lake, then webbed feet is probably beneficial.

    If the lake was placed into the environment for the purpose of benefiting webbed footed species, then the environment is non-random, and so could be described as intelligently designed. So, if you have evidence of an alien or terrestrial intelligence terraforming the African savanna before the time that humans started domestic livestock breeding, then that would be proof of intelligent design.

    If the changes to the environment are the product of natural chaotic turbulence, then the environment is random, and so is the mutation, so the confluence of the two is also random. However, during a time of environmental stasis, the environment may channel the direction of evolution by permitting a particular set of mutations to survive in the progeny of the host organism.

    This effect is neither intelligent nor designed -- it's just an effect of the environment existing during the time that the mutations occurred. However, as Teleologist's cited article points out, such environmental conditions may contribute to a faster evolutionary process, because certain mutations may be more quickly advanced where an environmental state is far more beneficial to the mutated host than to the non-mutated host.

    This effect was demonstrated as recently as this month in an article in "Science" concerning lizard populations with shortened legs, which appeared in an unusually "short" period of time, due to an environmental change. See http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/314/5802/1111

    But this article doesn't suggest that an unseen intelligence has altered the environment to shorten the lizards' legs. Similarly, Teleologist's cited article does nothing to alter the current theory of evolution, and it does nothing to support intelligent design.

    As for your spell checker issue, I don't believe you. You're free to try to prove otherwise. Likewise, I think that Teleologist is also Z or that you are all sharing ids in order to maintain your positions.

    Call me paranoid.
     
    #38     Nov 28, 2006
  9. jem

    jem

    you are paranoid and you paranoia is preventing you from processing the information properly.

    you keep trying to insist we are arguing that the authors were arguing for design. We never said that. And that is not why he brought this paper to your attention.


    Neither Teleogiist - who is obviously well versed in this subject and pointed out the flaws in your argumentation nor I were saying the authors of the article wre arguing for design. I thougt teleologist went out of his way to disabuse of this notion.

    You just refused to comprehend what teleologist wrote or what I wrote.

    P.s. your new argument about to random systemes working together are still considered random is interesting. If you had not been so blinded in your prejudice you might have brought that point up with teleologist.

    However, while I do not claim to have any expertise in the area, I think you new argument still falls short.

    By allowing that the envoirnment may channel evolutionary forces, I think you have deviated from the from the previous orthodoxy on evolution.

    I would like to see telelogist's take on this.
     
    #39     Nov 28, 2006
  10. If the logic and tone of your comments were any more "Z" like, I'd say you were both wearing the same shoes at the same time.

    Arguing with you will be futile, because both of us view each other as willfully ignorant. So, let's not, ok?
     
    #40     Nov 28, 2006