Darwinists Running Scared
- Thread starter phildwyer
- Start date
kyser_soze
Hawking's Angry Eyebrow
Nickster said:
I recently read 'Science of Discworld II' by Pratchett and two scientists (which BTW I recommend to anyone not a scientist but who is interested in the subject), and they provide a handy little selection of rebuttals for standard anti-evo claims - say for example about eyes and stuff.
Can't remember any of them ATM obviously, but a good little book nonetheless.
Thanks kyzer.
It's amazing the number of times I've heard anti-evolutionists use the development of the eye as the holy grail of truth behind their arguments! As far as I'm away "saltationists" still adhere to evolutionary principles but insist on a higher incidence of genetic mutation in one generation (hence the big leaps).
However, this makes me wonder: if there's a significant genetic leap in one generation, how (if the organism is sexually reproductive) would it find a mate?
It's amazing the number of times I've heard anti-evolutionists use the development of the eye as the holy grail of truth behind their arguments! As far as I'm away "saltationists" still adhere to evolutionary principles but insist on a higher incidence of genetic mutation in one generation (hence the big leaps).
However, this makes me wonder: if there's a significant genetic leap in one generation, how (if the organism is sexually reproductive) would it find a mate?
I don't think the theory of macro-mutational leaps is either necessary to fill any gaps or plausible given what we know about genetics.Nickster said:
It's fairly easy to imagine a specific mutation to a small set of genes which is highly improbable, but when it does happen it also happens to open up a whole new path of evolution and suddenly makes a whole load of other mutations viable and advantageous, due to the fact that a new genetic path is opened up, or a new environmental niche. Hence, once a particularly unlikely set of mutations occurs once, you can have relatively rapid evolutionary change over the course of a few thousand generations - a short enough timespan to make the probability of finding an intermediate form as a fossil close to zero due to the relative rarity of fossilisation.
For example, consider the eye. It was probably an immensely unlikely mutation which caused a particular cell to be both light sensitive and wired into the nervous system, so that the light sensitivity could become a stimulus response rule. Once this mutation occurred, suddenly a whole host of other mutations became advantageous - for example a mutation to a gene used in embryonic development causing it to build 2 of these cells instead of one, or 4 instead of 2, and so on. All of these would be selected for since light sensitivity is an eminently useful thing to have and thus you can get a cascading effect where a normal, but highly improbable mutation suddenly leads to a whole load more being 'selected for'.
Jonti
what the dormouse said
Good question!Nickster said:
Part of the answer is that the genetic leap does not necessarily preclude mating with, uhh, normals or non-mutants. Also, genetic inheritiance is digital. If your mum has blue eyes and your dad has brown eyes, you can still end up with blue eyes just like your mum.
Even if the mutant breeds back into its progenitor stock, the descendants of that breeding can still display the full mutation. And the mutants are the ones that survive ...
Jonti
what the dormouse said
No, it isn't.ZWord said:
The well documented phenomena of bad design is evidence against "intelligent mutation".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_poor_design
axon said:
A fair enough question. Well, one thing that I think is quite likely is the inheritance of acquired characteristics. I did post some evidence earlier on the thread of inheritance of acquired characteristics. I'll see if I can find it amid the morass.
But that doesn't really answer the question, and doesn't explain, how.
Basically, - intelligent mutation, the idea implies that DNA somehow is intelligent, in which case, in some sense it possesses mentality, or is at least sensitive to mentality. So I guess what it means is that there is some kind of interaction between minds and DNA. My guess is that if this is actually how things are, then, there's some interaction between the mind of the individual and its DNA, and also between the universal mind
and DNA in general. How this works is anybody's guess, we don't really have any idea why there is consciousness, or how it's advantageous in an evolutionary sense. And the more you think about it, the more problematic it becomes.
Did conscious minds come into being suddenly or gradually? If gradually, then does that mean that everything possesses mentality to some degree,? If suddenly, did they provide some evolutionary advantage? How could they have provided an evolutionary advantage, unless mentality played a causal role in affecting behaviour? If mentality didn't play a causal role, then why was it evolutionarily advantageous? Personally, I'm impressed by the well-known phenomenon that sometimes you can feel when someone is looking at you. Watch animals in the wild, they know when they're being hunted. GHow? (a herd of wildebeeste will happily let a lion stroll by, when the lion isn't hunting.) Personally, I find it more plausible that mentality always existed, and was actively involved in the evolution of organisms like us, in order to provide a biological vehicle for mentality,(Why? -well maybe it's the only way God could ever have sex) - than that mentality just came into being by accident, when minds reached the right level of complexity.
Equally, I suppose it's possible that evolution is indeed random, I just don't think so, but even if this were the case, I would still think that the universe shows features of intelligent design, just in that the existence of minds like ours is possible, and because of other miraculous scientific truths, examples of which can be found on the alain aspect thread.
I think it's been interesting to observe people dropping materialism as a philosophical position, realising correctly, that it's total bollocks.
It seems to me that if you're a scientist, and you want a plausible metaphysical position for your worldview, you need to adopt the view, everything is made out of energy, which can manifest as matter, as energy, and as mentality. If you adopt this position, then to me it seems like a parochial prejudice, to insist without evidence that mentality could only exist in biological organisms like us.
Trying to maintain that there's two kinds of substance, matter and energy seems to me just like dualism in a new guise, with the usual problems of dualism, and still doesn't really include mentality in the picture. I have an even simpler view, myself, which is that the basic substance of the universe is spirit, which also means mentality, and that it manifests as energy which in turn manifests as matter. This is the only position that makes sense of my own experience of life, and also of the remarkable world and universe in which we live.
Evidence of inheritance of acquired characteristics
What's this then?
Documented in Sheldrake's book, "A new science of life" is a set of experiments in animal psychology. William MacDougall of Harvard University, did a long-range test on inheritance of intelligence in rats. -- Tested the rats for ability to solve mazes, and bred smart rats with smart rats, and slow rats with slow rats.
But the results were perplexing. .. 22 generations later, instead ofonly the smart rats getting smarter, as was predicted, all the rats were proportionally smarter, in thedimension of maze-solving.. Even those rats bred from slow learners were solving the mazes nearly ten times faster than their ancestors Is there an explanation for this in orthodox genetics? On the face of it, it looks a lot simpler to fit this data, if it's true into a Lamarckian model of evolution than a strict darwinian model. And we hear a lot about favouring the simplest explanation from the materialists, - when it suits them - . Apparently, McDougall's expeiment was later duplicated in both Scotland and Australia, with even more disconcerting results. By then even the first generation of rats was solving the maze faster than mcdougall's last-generation learners.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morphogenetic_field
And it's worth noting that several eminent physicists, find Sheldrake's ideas far from unthinkable. Biologists, remaining stuck within orthodox, out of date materialist views of the universe, have not agreed.
What's this then?
Documented in Sheldrake's book, "A new science of life" is a set of experiments in animal psychology. William MacDougall of Harvard University, did a long-range test on inheritance of intelligence in rats. -- Tested the rats for ability to solve mazes, and bred smart rats with smart rats, and slow rats with slow rats.
But the results were perplexing. .. 22 generations later, instead ofonly the smart rats getting smarter, as was predicted, all the rats were proportionally smarter, in thedimension of maze-solving.. Even those rats bred from slow learners were solving the mazes nearly ten times faster than their ancestors Is there an explanation for this in orthodox genetics? On the face of it, it looks a lot simpler to fit this data, if it's true into a Lamarckian model of evolution than a strict darwinian model. And we hear a lot about favouring the simplest explanation from the materialists, - when it suits them - . Apparently, McDougall's expeiment was later duplicated in both Scotland and Australia, with even more disconcerting results. By then even the first generation of rats was solving the maze faster than mcdougall's last-generation learners.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morphogenetic_field
And it's worth noting that several eminent physicists, find Sheldrake's ideas far from unthinkable. Biologists, remaining stuck within orthodox, out of date materialist views of the universe, have not agreed.
I can't really work out why you bothered to post that.
Yes, it's true that it's not part of any serious debate in mainstream science, probably for much the same reason that there weren't many debates about the importance of marxist thought in the cabinet of margaret thatcher.
The point is that there's something wrong with mainstream science.
http://www.co-intelligence.org/P-moreonmorphgnicflds.html
Yes, it's true that it's not part of any serious debate in mainstream science, probably for much the same reason that there weren't many debates about the importance of marxist thought in the cabinet of margaret thatcher.
The point is that there's something wrong with mainstream science.
http://www.co-intelligence.org/P-moreonmorphgnicflds.html
Bob_the_lost
Elsewhere
ZWord said:
I have no idea why you wasted our time with that bollocks.
Jonti
what the dormouse said
ZWord said:
Of course there is "something wrong" with mainstream science. Science will always be unfinished, with gaps and mysteries, I think.
But morphogenic fields are unlikely to prove helpful. One thing they would seem to predict, is that something once done becomes easier to do. That is often true in the social world. But it is not true in physics. It does not become easier to, say, boil water each time one tries.
Nope. It turns out that it takes exactly as much effort now to boil water as it ever did.
Shippou-Sensei
4:1:2.5
darwinists are running scared
they are scared by some of the people in this thread
wierdos!
they are scared by some of the people in this thread
wierdos!
Crispy said:
Like all experiments that show that reality is not as mundane as most scientists think, of course, it's seriously flawed. That's what they always say.
Not true. It hasn't been shown to be seriously flawed, it's been said to be seriously flawed. In fact without evidence, people who think they know what's possible and impossible in advance, have said, well they must have followed the scent left behind by the previous rats, there's no evidence that that's what happened at all. precious few people have tried to replicate the study, but when they have, , they've found that rats in general seem to have come on as far as learning mazes is concerned. See this link. http://www.co-intelligence.org/P-mor...hgnicflds.html, which also contains other examples of experimental evidence, and evidence from observation.
Also, it's worth noting that William Macdougall didn't set out to prove intelligent mutation, he was predicting that the smart rats would have smart offspring and the dumb rats dumb offspring.
I don't know whether you just don't get it, or whether you just argue for the sake of it.
When scientists produce research to support non-orthodox views of reality, their research gets derided, and they are accused of being frauds and fruitloops by the scientific establishment.
That is why, if you want to get on in science, you don't say things that break the materialist consensus except in very subtle coded language, and you don't try and replicate findings that have been declared heresy.
http://cura.free.fr/xv/14starbb.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Reich
http://www.planetos.info/marchron.html
When scientists produce research to support non-orthodox views of reality, their research gets derided, and they are accused of being frauds and fruitloops by the scientific establishment.
That is why, if you want to get on in science, you don't say things that break the materialist consensus except in very subtle coded language, and you don't try and replicate findings that have been declared heresy.
http://cura.free.fr/xv/14starbb.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Reich
http://www.planetos.info/marchron.html
With physics, it's not so much what you discover, as what you say what you discover means.
Physicists have generally covered their unacceptable results about the nature of reality with the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics, which says that they're not talking about reality, they're talking about what they can say about reality, thus not dealing with the real problem.
Do you mean to say, you think these things you're referring to support a non-materialist account of reality?
What account of reality do you think should go in its place? There's loads of options.
The odd thing is though, that the way things are is that David Maddox called Sheldrake's book a book for burning, but David Bohm, (the guy featured on the alain aspect thread who talks about the holographic universe,) thinks Sheldrake's ideas are perfectly plausible. But as far as the mainstream science establishment is concerned, Sheldrake's a fruitloop. Still Sheldrake's fairly lucky -- his morphogenetic field is quite similar in concept to Reich's orgone, which got Reich's books burned, and the man himself put in prison, where he died.
David Bohm would almost certainly be called a fruitloop as well, if he wasn't so clever, and so respectable, and so measured in what he says.
Physicists have generally covered their unacceptable results about the nature of reality with the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics, which says that they're not talking about reality, they're talking about what they can say about reality, thus not dealing with the real problem.
Do you mean to say, you think these things you're referring to support a non-materialist account of reality?
What account of reality do you think should go in its place? There's loads of options.
The odd thing is though, that the way things are is that David Maddox called Sheldrake's book a book for burning, but David Bohm, (the guy featured on the alain aspect thread who talks about the holographic universe,) thinks Sheldrake's ideas are perfectly plausible. But as far as the mainstream science establishment is concerned, Sheldrake's a fruitloop. Still Sheldrake's fairly lucky -- his morphogenetic field is quite similar in concept to Reich's orgone, which got Reich's books burned, and the man himself put in prison, where he died.
David Bohm would almost certainly be called a fruitloop as well, if he wasn't so clever, and so respectable, and so measured in what he says.
Another argument for everyone to ignore:
Suppose for the sake of argument that Dawkins and the mainstream science consensus is correct. Their theory that DNA came together through random chance in what is known as the "primordial soup" is in fact true. (though as it happens it's neither falsifiable or verifiable, and only justified on account of the bias of science to naturalistic explanations)
And it's also true that life on this planet evolved as a result of random mutation and natural selection.
Now, it has to be admitted that as a result of this random process, some remarkably unlikely and intelligent organisms have developed, including us.
So, what if at some point, as a result of random mutation, a new kind of DNA developed that was able receive information from the organism that possessed it, in such a way that it would stand a higher chance of mutating in a useful way, when propagated.
Remember that by the principles of random mutation and natural selection, all possible advantages in the race for survival, should have some chance of evolving.
Now, suppose there were these two types of DNA, one that just mutated randomly, and the other that kind of understood its own programming, and mutated to some extent in response to its changing environment, which kind of DNA do you think would outcompete the other?
--yeah but that's impossible, that's way too unlikely, how can DNA be intelligent?
--How can we be intelligent? We're also way too unlikely. But we're here.
Some people -strain at a gnat, but will swallow a camel.
Suppose for the sake of argument that Dawkins and the mainstream science consensus is correct. Their theory that DNA came together through random chance in what is known as the "primordial soup" is in fact true. (though as it happens it's neither falsifiable or verifiable, and only justified on account of the bias of science to naturalistic explanations)
And it's also true that life on this planet evolved as a result of random mutation and natural selection.
Now, it has to be admitted that as a result of this random process, some remarkably unlikely and intelligent organisms have developed, including us.
So, what if at some point, as a result of random mutation, a new kind of DNA developed that was able receive information from the organism that possessed it, in such a way that it would stand a higher chance of mutating in a useful way, when propagated.
Remember that by the principles of random mutation and natural selection, all possible advantages in the race for survival, should have some chance of evolving.
Now, suppose there were these two types of DNA, one that just mutated randomly, and the other that kind of understood its own programming, and mutated to some extent in response to its changing environment, which kind of DNA do you think would outcompete the other?
--yeah but that's impossible, that's way too unlikely, how can DNA be intelligent?
--How can we be intelligent? We're also way too unlikely. But we're here.
Some people -strain at a gnat, but will swallow a camel.
