It's a Dead Man's Party: Charles Darwin at 200

I recently wrote an article on evolution for junior high and high school students, which appeared in Clear Horizon magazine.  It was entitled "It's a Dead Man's Party," in reference to the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth this Thursday.   

I've attached the article as a resource for your young people.  Take it and teach it.  Or have your students read it.  I think you'll find it very accessible for young minds. 

Download It's a Dead Man's Party

Comments

[Joe]

Define "design".

I think you need to pick up a copy of Prothero's Evolution: What It Is and Why It Matters. Or if you want something quicker, then you can check out:

http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2006/09/fun-with-homini-1.html

For non-fossil evidence of macroevolution, start with Carroll's Endless Forms Most Beatiful.

[Joe]

Oh, and how many modern birds have teeth, a long bony tail, claws at the tips of the forelimbs and lack a carina?

[Jesse]

Joe, what's your point?

[Joe]

The point is that there are plenty of transitional forms, Archaeopteryx is not just a bird, and there is no scientifically useful definition of the word "design".

[Star Wyvern]

Indeed, what are you saying, joe?

[John]

Joe,

Define "science".

Thanks,
John

[Jesse]

Joe, there really is no useful scientific meaning for 'design?' I seem to recall Richard Dawkins saying

"Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose" (preface to The Blind Watchmaker).

Are you implying that Dawkins has made a scientifically useless statement?

[Joe]

I asked first. Define "design".

[Jesse]

Joe, you have a fair point: there are many transitional forms aside from Archaeopteryx we can discuss. I haven't a clue why anyone would cite Archaeopteryx as evidence of macroevolution. Studies have confirmed modern birds have not descended from this particular species.

[Jesse]

How about this?
"the creation of something in the mind"
http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=design

[Star Wyvern]

Design:

Having been designed; Created; The work of a creator; A created thing not created of itself;

The painting, "Hish, Lord of Silence" was designed by Sidney H. Slime.

[Star Wyvern]

(cont)

1. to prepare the preliminary sketch or the plans for (a work to be executed), esp. to plan the form and structure of: to design a new bridge.

2. to plan and fashion artistically or skillfully.

3. to intend for a definite purpose: a scholarship designed for foreign students.

4. to form or conceive in the mind; contrive; plan: The prisoner designed an intricate escape.

5. to assign in thought or intention; purpose: He designed to be a doctor.

6. Obsolete. to mark out, as by a sign; indicate.
–verb (used without object)

7. to make drawings, preliminary sketches, or plans.

8. to plan and fashion the form and structure of an object, work of art, decorative scheme, etc.

(Noun's Excluded, IE: "Look at the design on that rock!")

[Joe]

With respect to Archaeopteryx, I was responding specifically to the statment that this creature was nothing more than an extinct species of bird. It should be glaringly obvious to anyone who knows about bird anatomy that this creature was not "just a bird".

Of course, Archaeopteryx is not the direct ancestor of all birds. The odds of finding the specific, exact, directly ancestral "proto-bird" fossil are astronomically high against it. But what Archaeopteryx offers is evidence that "half-bird, half-dino" species could and did exist. Archeaopteryx is a cousin of modern birds, a million generations removed. By the way, if we're going to discuss "transitional forms", then we'll need a definition for that term, too. How can anyone say something isn't "transitional" or isn't evidence of macroevolution without a definition?

If there's a scientifically useful definition of design, I'm waiting to here it. I believe that almost all of the common definitions given above start with the assumption of a designer and/or refer to human activities, that is, cases where we know there is a designer because we're the designers.

Here's why the above definitions are not of much use.

Without a definition of design or a set of criteria for determining if something is designed, how do I know what is designed and what is not? I look at a hurricane. It looks complex and designed to me. Without a definition, how can you say that it isn't? I say that it is. And yet, hurricanes are the product of unintelligent processes. Why can't other natural entities also be the product of unintelligent processes, just like hurricanes?

Here's another problem. What if you point to something and say it's designed by an intelligence, But you don't actually know its history, and it turns out that in reality, it isn't designed by an intelligence after all. How can you tell if you are wrong? How you test your hypothesis? How might we disprove your conclusion if your conclusion is wrong? How can you look at an object and know its history just from its appearance?

[Jon]

It seems to me that it's hard for the evolutionist to win the fossil record claim. Darwin told us based solely on studies of the anatomy of humans and other primates that humans and chimpanzees shared a more recent common ancestor than we do with other animals. He said we'd probably find fossils of these creatures in Africa. Subsequently those that accepted his theories would draw exactly what these fossils should be expected to look like. So what happens? We find exactly what the evolutionists drew in the exact place they said they would be if evolution is true. Genetics shows that if any animal is our closest relative the chimpanzee would have to be it. How do creationsists react? "Not a transitional form. Must be one of God's unique creatures. God must have coded us similarly."

But you can say that with every species ever discovered or any genetic piece of evidence. On youtube you can watch a clip of Carl Sagan's Cosmos where they morph simple pictures of the entire sequence of human evolution. Watch as one image is a perfect depiction of Tiktaalik, which was only discovered within the last couple of years. Evolutionists said this creature must have emerged about 375 million years ago. A section of rock of that age was exposed in Canada, so researches went to that rock to find the creature that looked exactly like Tiktaalik. And they found exactly what they were looking for without ever having seen the creature before. But that's not a transitional form say the creationists. That's just another one of God's unique creatures.

The fact is, God explains everything. No matter what we see we can say that God is responsible. If you want to believe that God did all of it nobody can stop you. But a theory that explains everything in the end explains nothing.

[Jesse]

Joe, what do you think of the "specified complexity" definition of design?

On a related note to Archaeopteryx, are there any extant organisms for which we have fossil evidence of direct ancestry? Or are all fossil transitional forms, that we're aware of, evolutionary side-branches (cousins)?

[Joe]

Jon, yes, you're right. Creationist can always say that God created whatever we find in the fossil record. In that sense, creationism is an unbeatable theory.

Still, your discussion of hominin fossils in Africa and Tiktaalik is a beautiful illustration of why evolution is so well supported. Yes, we found what we expected to find where we expected to find it. But these fossils did NOT have to exist. If evolution was false, there is literally no reason on Earth why these fossils had to be where they were. These fossils are not figments of the imagination, they are not hypothetical examples or products of the fantasies of biologists. They actually exist.

Why do these fossils exist if life did not evolve? Why did God put such perfect confirmation of evolution into the fossil record if life did not evolve? Is God really that evil?

[Star Wyvern]

Jon, I think you've misrepresented the opposing argument for Tiktaalik.

There are problems unique to the fossils themselves. I wont even mention creation in this post. For instance;

"The well-preserved remains of Tiktaalik go a long way, but not quite the whole way, toward filling the gap in the fossil record between the earliest tetrapods and the lobe-finned fish that preceded them, says [Jennifer A.] Clack [a vertebrate paleontologist at the University of Cambridge]. Even though the bones in Tiktaalik’s fin resemble those of tetrapod digits, they’re still very much part of a fin. If the digits of early tetrapods evolved from these bones, the process must have involved considerable changes in anatomical development, Clack notes (Perkins 2006: 380)."

According to... theory, later evolutionary species of Tiktaalik spent more time on land, and their fins turned into fingers and toes.

However, according to science news, "some aspects of Ichthyostega’s anatomy, including the structure of its ear, suggest that the creature spent a significant amount of time in the water"

The journal also states,

"Paleontologists have unearthed hundreds of specimens of Ichthyostega. However, all those fossils are fragmentary, and no single specimen includes a complete spinal column, says Clack. Previous reconstructions of Ichthyostega, which were typically based on just a few bones, portrayed all the creature’s vertebrae, from its neck to its tail, as being similar. However, a new analysis by Clack and her colleagues Per Ahlberg and Henning Blom of Uppsala University in Sweden indicates that those interpretations are probably wrong (Ibid.)"

The same journal also notes that although this fish has apparently diminshed the gap, it hasnt filled it;

"Although Tiktaalik has shrunk the gap in the fossil record between tetrapods such as Ichthyostega and the lobe-finned fish that preceded them, that gap hasn’t gone away, says Clack. Another breach exists between partially aquatic species such as Ichthyostega and Acanthostega and the fully terrestrial [land-dwelling] tetrapods that arose millions of years later”

A few things to note. I am no specialist, so in that right I reserve some of my judgement, and I also am not saying you are makeing some of the claims I am challenging here. Much of this is just regurgitation. My point is that there are plenty of non-creationlist reasons to suspend accusations that this fish is indeed the 'missing link' per say or evidence of that said process. The reason its hard for evolutionists to win the fossil record claim is because there is reason to doubt the claim being made. It would be wiser to suspend judgement rather than assume the conclusion, AT the minimum. People on the other end are simply drawing a conclusion from the evidence, not resorting to the fail-safe, "Well, God just created that individually." And indeed, You could say the same for the evolutionist.

[Star Wyvern]

Oh and btw I mentioned the Ichthyostega and Acanthostega because they are regarded as the Tik's immediate evolutionary successors

[Star Wyvern]

And Joe, your right. Hurricanes do appear designed and indeed are in the sense that they are the result of fufilled variables, so to speak. In that instance you could use the Noun, "Design" (As I said earlier the design of a rock). I just dont (genuinely) understand your inability to understand a helpful term of the word design, in either of its tenses.

Maybe this might help, but I am terrible with analigies. You could program algorhytms into a screensaver to produce apparent designs "on its own" (though not really on its own because of an initial designer). If you walked up to this computer you might be led to believe that someone indeed wrote the code for it and you are seeing the result of a designer. Furthermore, if the designer left design notes, you could infer that someone did infact program this screensaver. So, you are seeing two types of design. The result OF a designer, and the process of design (that being the running algorhythm). The two are inexplicably connected. So Perhaps I gather that what you are saying that the first cause is unscientific? Perhaps, but that doesnt mean it is thus, unacceptable, un-testable and inconcieveable. Forgive my many spelling errors, and I hope i understood you correctly!

[Amy Hall]

>>I look at a hurricane. It looks complex and designed to me.

But it doesn't look complex or designed. I'm sure you've probably heard S.E.T.I. cited to death, but the fact remains that they are very confident about being able to tell the difference between natural forces and designed communication.

A designed object (i.e., one in which we can detect design) isn't determined by the natural properties of the object itself (as a hurricane is predictably determined by natural events or a crystal's simple repeating pattern is determined by chemistry). Neither is it random like a pile of rocks by the ocean.

An example of this is a book. The meaningful words on the page did not come together because of the natural properties of ink and paper. The ink and the paper are just the means to carry the information that came from the designer. The information is not the medium itself, and it can be expressed through many different mediums. Again, when we see a message written in the sand, we know it's not random because it's meaningful. We know it's not an accident of nature because it's complex--i.e., it wasn't predetermined by the physical properties of the sand.

Likewise, information like DNA is communicated using natural materials, but the arrangement of those materials is not determined by the chemistry of its elements. It's not a simple repeating pattern, nor is it random; it communicates meaningful information--information not predetermined by natural laws.

This is precisely the kind of thing S.E.T.I. is looking for because they recognize the scientific boundaries of design. They know what design is and what they're looking for.

[Jesse]

Joe and Jon,
I realize it must be frustrating for an evolutionist to try and present the evidence to creationists. From my perspective as an experimental scientist, it certainly would be more convincing if we could repeatedly observe macroevolution in the lab. But since the timescales involved are quite large, that's a practical impossibility.

Concerning fossil evidence: when about 90% of a creature's anatomy is in its soft tissues, which typically are not preserved, how can any fossil lineage be convincing evidence of evolution?

To quote Henry Gee, paleontologist and evolutionary biologist, senior editor of Nature in his book "In Search of Deep Time",

"To take a line of fossils and claim they represent a lineage not a scientific hypothesis that can be tested, but an assertion that carries the same validity of a bedtimes story-- amusing, perhaps even instructive, but not scientific."

Now I will agree that what you're describing in Tiktaalik, if I've understood you correctly, sounds like positive evidence. I'll need to look into that.

[Star Wyvern]

Thankyou amy! you said it much better than I could have.

[Joe]

Jesse,

Specified complexity is a muddle and a mess. I’m not a mathematician, but there must be good reasons why this hasn’t made it past peer review in math journals. The book I'd recommend on the subject why SC isn’t very useful is God, the Devil and Darwin by Shanks.

As I understand it, if you use the definitions and criteria proposed by specified complexity, then some of the objects identified as being "designed" include objects of known unintelligent origin. If some of the objects identified as being designed clearly have natural or unintelligent origins, then why can't all objects identified as designed have unintelligent origins? That is, simply identifying an object as "designed" is not enough to derive its history, and the idea does not lead to testable hypotheses. How can we know if a natural object must, must have an intelligent designer? We can’t. How can we know if ID is wrong? We can't; ID isn’t testable. What is the mechanism by which the intelligent designer creates, when did the ID create, what did the ID create and what is the product of natural processes? ID “theory” can’t answer any these questions, and so it's not of much value.

As far as directly ancestral species go, I think we get pretty close with some of the later fossil hominid species. But unfortunately, I’m not a paleontologist, so my knowledge of specific fossils is limited. And it's true that it may be impossible to say for certain that a particular set of fossils represent a specific lineage, but we can certainly test the idea that certain types of transitional forms should be found in certain locations. That's making a testable prediction, and that's "scientific".

Star,

It would be awfully helpful if you would define "transitional form" before discussing a particular fossil. By the way, paleontologists don’t use the phrase “missing link”.

I think that your discussion of Tiktaalik confirms the old joke in paleontology that you can never satisfy those who are not satisfied with the fossils we find, because every transitional form found creates two more gaps, one on each side of the latest find. Here’s the important question to ask. What is Tiktaalik and the related mixed fish-amphibian fossil species doing in the Devonian rocks in the exact place where you’d expect to find them, given that the theory predicts that amphibians are derived from fish? Why is evolutionary theory so good at making these predictions?

I believe that I understand what you are talking about with “first causes” and “algorithms”. For example, could a watchmaker god set things up in the very beginning so that, ultimately, the unintelligent process of evolution is possible? Sure, why not? But I don’t think that this is what the vast majority of people are talking about when they talk about intelligent design. I think that they usually have a much more meddling god in mind. And in any event, I’m not sure that the ultimate origin of everything is question that can be answered. Now we’re talking physics, and that’s out of my area of knowledge.

As a far as “designer notes” go, how are we to identify these notes? And the reason why the definitions of “design” are not useful when it comes to the history of life on Earth is that the term assumes the existence and active intervention of a designer. And as previously stated, we know that many allegedly designed natural objects do not require an intelligent, intervening designer after all.

[Joe]

Amy,

In the case of SETI, we're looking for evidence of language. We know that symbolic languate is the product of intelligence. DNA is not symbolic language. It's not the same thing.

Actually, in the case of DNA, the arrangement of the atoms is indeed partly determined by the properties of the elements. The "non-randomness" to which you refer is a product of the "dumb" process of selection. Selection does indeed "create information". By the way, you now need to define the term "information".

How do you know that biological organisms are NOT "predictably determined by natural events", ust like hurricanes?

[Jon]

I'm focusing on fossil evidence only because this is what Brett did in his paper. The reality is the genetic evidence is far more powerful in proving that animals today share a common ancestor.

For instance there are certain viruses that transcribe their own viral DNA into the cell they have invaded. These are called retro-viruses. What would happen if such a virus attacked the reproductive cells? Any offspring that is a product of an infected cell would carry the transcribed virus sequence natively.

Note that the location within the genome where the virus would transcribe itself is random. Two people infected independently would have the virus sequence at a different location.

An evolutionist would predict that if chimpanzees and humans share a common ancestor then we might find a virus sequence located at the corresponding location between the human and chimpanzee genome. What do we find? Exactly what evolution would predict. To date 7 virus sequences have been found that are shared between humans and chimpanzees. They are located at the corresponding locations within the genome. The animal with the next most virus sequences in common with humans is the gorilla with 5. Then certain monkeys, then orangutans, and so on down the line just exactly like evolutionary theory would predict.

There is no scientific mechanism for shared genetic sequencing other than common ancestry. This evidence is devastating to the hypothesis that humans and chimpanzees do not share a common ancestor. Fossils are more open to interpretation. The genome really isn't. Evolution is a fact.

[Joe]

I thought I smelled a quote mine with the Henry Gee stuff.

http://stevereuland.blogspot.com/2006/04/wittlessly-quote-mining.html

[Amy Hall]

>>In the case of SETI, we're looking for evidence of language.

Actually, I don't think that's the case. They look for things like meaningful mathematical sequences--something that wouldn't happen randomly and has a meaning. Not necessarily symbolic language.

DNA is a language. It's the message of the plans--the blueprint--that directs the development of the organism. As in a book, the letters (A, C, G, T) are arranged in a way that expresses a unique message.

>>Actually, in the case of DNA, the arrangement of the atoms is indeed partly determined by the properties of the elements.

I wasn't referring to the atoms, I was reffering to the "letters"--the four bases--that form the message of the DNA. There's nothing in the chemical makeup of adenine, cytosine, guanine and thymine that draws them into particular, effective arrangements. To say that they randomly happened to come together in a perfect blueprint is even more unlikely than thousands of Scrabble tiles landing in such a way that they form the Declaration of Independence.

>>Selection does indeed "create information".

Selection chooses from among existing information, it doesn't create anything.

[Star Wyvern]

"And the reason why the definitions of “design” are not useful when it comes to the history of life on Earth is that the term assumes the existence and active intervention of a designer."

Im glad you said that, because I was going to bring that up. For example, (and maybe you've heard this before), you have a shoebox, and I place a penny inside of it and close the box. So I ask you, "How did that penny get their?" But you must limit your answer to the confines of the box, your answer may not include any activity outside of the 1x1 area inside the box. Could you come up with a theory, perhaps even a reasonable theory of how the penny wound up their? I suppose you could. Maybe the penny formed over time from matter withinn the box. Maybe it was always in the box to begin with. But the fact that you (not literally you) have allready limited your investigation strictly to whats within the box, doesnt even allow for the possibility of any other considerations, regardless of how reasonable they are.

And if all of these alleged evidences point towards un-guided macroevolution, Ide have to wonder how it is possible that that could have sprang up 'ex-nilo' in the first place? AFAIK, no primordial soup residue has been discovered in the oldest known rocks we have, and it is quite curious that in the oldest known rocks, fossils were discovered. To tie this into my point, there are some very high-end physics and perhaps abiogenesis that as you said, we will never have a natural answer for. Maybe because the first cause was not natural. But you cant even consider this option if you have allready ruled it out by nature of your investigation. Simply put, some evidences may point in a particular direction, and that direction may be outside of the box of science. Just a different interpertation of the evidences (and a well-meaning one).

[Bill]

All
It's often difficult to have a reasoned discourse with evolutionists. Not because I say so, but because the honest evolutionist would say so. Witness, directly from the lips of Professor Richard Lewontin, some brutal, yet appreciated, honesty. He is a geneticist, self-proclaimed Marxist, renowned champion of neo-Darwinism, and a leader in evolutionary biology. His comment below illuminates the implicit philosophical bias against creation—regardless of whether or not the facts support it.

‘We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.’

Thanks
Bill

[Joe]

Star,

I'm not certain, but I believe that there are rocks older than the ones with the oldest fossil cells that have nothing by organic molecules in them.

How do we know if an alternative explanation is "reasonable"? I'd be glad to consider explanations outside of the box as long as you can explain to me how I can know if my "outside of the box" explanation is wrong if happens to be it's wrong. Otherwise, we quickly degenerate into "Last Thursdayism".

http://skepticwiki.org/index.php/Last_Thursdayism

Amy,

What else would you call a meaningful mathematical message except "language"? Math itself is "symbolic".

DNA is not a language, although refering to it in that way is a useful teaching tool. There's no blueprint. There are no little A, C, G and Ts, just atoms arranged in a particular pattern in space. And these atoms affect other atoms in a cell, and that's what makes cells work.

The only question is whether or not there is a natural mechanism for rearranging these atoms in such a way that you get something new. And having generated something new, we then need to ask if there is a way to preserve that new arrangement. And the answers to the questions are mutation and selection.

My statement about selection creating information should be written "mutation creates new information and selection preserves the changes". Selection is critical to the process of creating new information, because if all new arrangement have an equal chance of survival, then nothing much will happen. (You still need to define information for me.)

By the way, your Scrabble analogy fails, because it presumes that we must have the Declaration of Independence as the specific outcome of the toss up, and it presumes that we must get the Declaration in a single throw. That's not how life works.

[Joe]

That's what we needed, Bill, more quote mining.

[Star Wyvern]

Crazy quote**
And thats a much much much more eloquently put version of what i was getting it

[Star Wyvern]

Joe, you can know if your 'outside of the box' explination is wrong by examining the evidence. But you wont get it from restricting your investigation.

If I concede on the 'reasonability' of each high-end claim, can we honestly say one of the three is more absurd than the other?;

*Life & the universe arose from nigh-impossible odds (from nothing), or perhaps from an alternate dimension, or perhaps from another alien species (who we would also have to account for where their life arose)

*Matter has always existed

*God, a supernatural being created the universe

Which is more reasonable? And could you find any answer to these within the confines of science?

And for the record whats wrong with 'quote mining'? Its not like he pulled that statement out of context.

[Joe]

How do I disprove the hypothesis that God created the Universe? How do I disprove the celestial teapot hypothesis?

And again, without some "restrictions", how do you deny the possibility that we are all created last Thursday?

When speaking of the origin of the Universe, how do we even begin to know what is "reasonable"? As far as I can tell, there's no way to even begin to figure out what reasonable means in the context of where the universe comes from. In event, this is a long away from the original post on evolution.

You don't think this is a quote mine? Read the entire article that this quote was taken from.

http://www.drjbloom.com/Public%20files/Lewontin_Review.htm

Then ask the question of WHY Lewontin is committed to "materialism". And if you can figure out how we're to do science in a "non-material" way, could you explain exactly how that would work?

[Star Wyvern]

Could you disprove that God created the universe? Thats definately possible. The Bible makes some falsifiable claims (IE, the ressurection, namely). If you could demonstrate unquestionably that Jesus did infact, not rise from the dead, you could cast serious doubt onto the entire Bible, and thus, the story of the creation of the earth. If A, then B.

And what im getting at is this, materialism by default excludes the possibility of a designer. So regardless of what methodology you empoly in examining the evidence, youve allready drawn a conclusion that *it*, is of itself. So when a creationalist makes an examination of the evidence using his presupposition of it being the result of a creator, you arent even open to considering it because you've allready made up your mind. And im not calling you wrong for doing it, but im trying to illustrate that their is nothing unscientific about examining the evidence based off of reasonable conclusions -- which could stem from things outside of science. Creationalists & Naturalists approach science in the same manner. Anything is possible, but not everyting is reasonable. So the question is then, 'is this reasonable to believe'? And draw your conclusion.

And I never suggested conducting science (a material study) in a non-material manner. Im pretty sure thats impossible.

[Star Wyvern]

And you could say the same for Christians. You cant get away from Bias, but your bias better be reasonable.

[Star Wyvern]

And to the teapot question, the answer is simple. We have not a single shred of evidence for teapots, or any fine china floating between the earth and mars, thus we can safely say there is none.

In the same vein, I could ask myself, "How do I know the trees in my backyard arent all hollow?". Ive never examined them personally, but I can infer from the evidence we have that trees generally do not grow with hollow interiors. Therefore it is reasonable to believe that indeed, they are all solid objects.

[Joe]

Please reconcile the following two statements:

"And what im getting at is this, materialism by default excludes the possibility of a designer."

"And I never suggested conducting science (a material study) in a non-material manner. Im pretty sure thats impossible."

So, science has a problem because it excludes a designer...but we can't do non-material science. So, now what?

You want me to falsify the resurrection? Ok, ask yourself the following. What do you think would happen if the Romans executed a messiah of the Jewish people in the middle of Passover in the middle of Jerusalem...and then that dead, executed messiah hopped up and said "I'm not dead yet". You think maybe that Jerusalem would have exploded in revolt? Did this happen?

[Agilius]

>> Then ask the question of WHY Lewontin is committed to "materialism". And if you can figure out how we're to do science in a "non-material" way, could you explain exactly how that would work?

It's not likely that Lewontin's goal is to undermine materialism; So, I think it must be granted that he is merely making sure everyone understands what is meant by Science - that it's a study of material things per se, and regardless of any design that may, or may be known to, exist.

This happens to be a helpful distinction to make when talking about ID, god, sentience, et al, because materialists tend to assume that metaphysical things are proven using this definition of Science.

This is why Creationists say "of course ID is not Scientific" - you wouldn't expect it to be.

Now, as to whether unscientific "things" can be substantiated as fact (or "true", as I like to interchange the terms) without the use of Science, all one need do is to examine the Method of Science, itself. How did the Scientific Method come to be believed in. It turns out it required the metaphysical tools of sentience (e.g. deduction, et al).

[Star Wyvern]

Considering it was Religious men (IE Jews) Who wanted Jesus dead, and plenty of what would be todays Christian Theologian's, and not considering the plethora of other evidence, I have no problem accepting that what you think *should* have happened did not. But thats an entirely different subject in itself.

I think your misunderstanding me. Its not science that excludes the possibility of a designer. Science in itself, is science. What you make of the facts that result from science, are subject to a particular frame of mind (for lack of a better word), which may or may not be influenced by science itself. Theres nothing unscientific about evaluateing the facts. If a particular experiment leads me to conclude that this may have been the way it occured, and I need look no further than it, then so be it. But if something scientific seems to unreasonable to have been of itself -- but in light of something *else* reliable, it makes sense, then it may be reasonable to believe that something else 'illuminating' the facts, per say.

[Star Wyvern]

Whoops! Fudged my first sentence,

should read;

"Considering it was Religious men IE Jews Who wanted Jesus dead (which would to make an analigy sort of like be todays Christian Theologian's & Pastors)"

[Star Wyvern]

.. unbelieveable, i screwed it up twice. I am really tired forgive me,

The EDIT* should have read (lol)

""Considering it was Religious men IE Jews Who wanted Jesus dead (which would, to make an analigy, be sort of like be todays Christian Theologian's & Pastors)"

[Pro Life]

"A man convinced against his will (bound by sin, blindness and unbelief) is of the same opinion still."

[dewayne ward]

Jon, could you provide a link to your claim of the 7 virus sequences in chimps and man and 5 in gorilla. I have googled this every which way I can and everything I read in nature, et al says "similiar" and "kinda like", but not "same" or
"exact".

As a creationist (a young earther at that), I am always open to new evidences that might disprove my position.

Oh yea, regarding the disproving of the resurrection, isnt a revolt exactly what happened.

[Joe]

Star,

You made good use of materialism and the scientific method to draw conclusions about trees. Unfortunately, it is in the nature of the celestial teapot that it is not detectable by materialistic, scientific, evidence-based methods. So, if you restrict yourself to these methods, you won’t find a teapot. But it’s there, just trust me, it exists. (See the problem with loosing the “restrictions”?)

There’s nothing unscientific about evaluating the facts. But there is something unscientific about untestable hypotheses. Bottom line, when ID “theory” gives us something we can actually work with, it’ll have something to contribute. Until then…

I know that this is a side-show, but just to clarify, the revolt that didn’t occur would have been a revolt of the common people and not necessarily of the religious leaders. Such a revolt did, in fact, occur a few decades later. Why didn’t occur when Jesus rose from the dead? Regardless, it’s rather difficult to prove a negative (that something did not happen).

Argilius,

Yes, all Lewontin is doing is talking about the definition of science. But is that the impression that would be derived from the Bill-posted quote alone?

“This is why Creationists say "of course ID is not Scientific" - you wouldn't expect it to be.”

Actually, creationists have tried very, very hard to say that ID is, in fact, science. That’s why they run into conflict with scientists. If ID is just another form of religious thought, then scientists don’t really care. But ID has been promoted as “scientific”, and that’s been a problem.

[dewayne ward]

I guess I like sideshows :-)

Can you cite some sources that prove your claim? And with that, the common people did revolt unless I am missing something. Maybe your sources will clarify that for me.

The teapot statement is also interesting. Is the teapot analogous to the Christian God OR are you using it to explain how ID, which doesnt make a God claim, does not have materialistic explainatory power?

When I usually hear the celectial teapot, it is meant as more of an insult to folks like myself, so without presuming or judging, I wanted to make sure I understood where you were coming from.

I also noticed a claim of the palentogolists joke about how non-macro evolutionists say that every fossil causes a new missing link for before and after.

Getting past the skeptic wiki nonsense that I had been reading, how non-evolutionist thinks that, it, I guess, is a misunderstanding on how we are defining a missing link. Everything that "y'all" have produced is a fully formed being. What we (or at least me) want to see as a transitional form is half a leg (and a bunch of them, not one) and then part of a fin.

For example, there are about 50,000 differences, as I understand it, of decent changes that need to change from a whale to a cow. Instead of showing me full formed differences, show some evidence of partial changes as I described earlier.

From a lot of what I read from the evolutionist camp is insulting to a creationist (if you dont believe it, think about the example of the celestial teapot), however, it appears that in a number of the articles there is a severe misrepresentation of the creationist's actual position. For example, if I hear one more time that creationists actually think that Satan put fossils around the earth to test our faith, I will barf.

And for the record, I dont think that atheists are tools of Satan and no atheists are moral :-)

[Jesse]

"How do I disprove the hypothesis that God created the Universe?"
Simple. Show the universe is eternal, without a beginning. That which has no beginning requires no beginner.

"How do I disprove the celestial teapot hypothesis?"
As for the teapot, well, I suppose that's a fantastic illustration of why strict atheism is a philosophically untenable position.

Joe, thanks for the link about the Gee quote. This is why I acknowledged earlier that Tiktaalik is certainly an interesting case, as is the bit about retrovirus DNA sequences. I'll need some more time to digest those.

[Jesse]

Joe, forgive me if you posted this already. Do you have an example of a clearly not-created object that fits the criteria of specified complexity?

[dewayneward]

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/238852_chimp01.html
"Waterston acknowledges that scientists are a long way off from answering such questions. But we're getting closer, he says. He noted one gene, known as FOXP2, that may help explain why we talk and chimps don't. An earlier study of a British family with an inherited, severe deficit in speech discovered the cause of the disorder -- an altered form of FOXP2.

"It turns out chimps have the same (genetic) sequence as that family with the speech deficit," Waterston said. Comparing the human and chimp genomes, he said, shows that the speech-friendly form of FOXP2 really took hold in humans some 150,000 years ago.

"That gene went through a selective sweep," said Evan Eichler, a co-author and top genome scientist who recently joined Waterston at the UW. That's genome-speak, Eichler explained, for saying that those humans who got the chatty form of FOXP2 went on a reproductive binge and overwhelmed those who remained genetically at a loss for words."

Ethics aside for a moment...from my understanding of the evolutionists position, if we were to monkey (pardon the pun) with this FOXP2 thing and either transplant a human one or changed it a the time of conception in a chimp, then would we get our first talking chimp?

I guess from my position, God created humans and chimps different and humans have this and chimps dont. It would be hard to imagine an upward mutation like this as opposed to what we see today, which are all downward mutations that take info away.

[Jesse]

Joe,
"You think maybe that Jerusalem would have exploded in revolt? Did this happen?"

Pilate had Jesus crucified because he claimed to be God Almighty, blasphemy of the highest form in the eyes of the Jewish authorities. Pilate feared revolt from this unruly crowd.

But it's funny you should mention this. Around 70 A.D. Jerusalem did explode in revolt, the Romans came in and leveled the city. You can read all about it here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Jewish-Roman_War