Darwinists Running Scared
- Thread starter phildwyer
- Start date
Azrael23, the first thing you posted (about dating/the conference) doesn't seem to contradict the idea of evolution. Neither that nor the second section by Roger Lewin propose that there is anything outside of "the physical" nor mention the "soul".
The Roger Lewin section also makes some glaring errors, namely:
All this says is that the mechanisms and timescales first proposed may be wrong and need to be rethought to fit the evidence. This is common to all branches of science.
He also comes out with stuff like this:
He talks about the "orthodox scenario" - where else do scientists talk about 'orthodoxy'? Why not use ther term 'existing theories' or 'current hypotheses'?
"scientists regard Darwinism as the only alternative to the anathema of Creationism" - more shite. I don't understand why he is labelling scientific theories about evolution, genetics and so forth "Darwinism". isn't it far more accurate to say "scientists recognise that theories of evolution, natural selection and genetics still have lots of unanswered questions and therefore there is a continued effort to improve explanatory theories to provide a good fit with the available evidence"?
Is this person really a scientist?
The Roger Lewin section also makes some glaring errors, namely:
"The fundemental principles of Darwinism"?
All this says is that the mechanisms and timescales first proposed may be wrong and need to be rethought to fit the evidence. This is common to all branches of science.
He asks this question but doesn't seem to want to answer it. How exactly is he working out the probability of a set of randomly occuring mutations? Is this like a lottery winner saying "I could not have won the lottery (or it could not have been random) - because the odds against me winning it are so great!"?
He also comes out with stuff like this:
Where dpes he get this shite about "'nature never over-endows a species beyond the needs of everyday existence". Stupid sweeping statements that bear no relationship to modern scientific theories on evolution and genetics.
He talks about the "orthodox scenario" - where else do scientists talk about 'orthodoxy'? Why not use ther term 'existing theories' or 'current hypotheses'?
Again he simply asserts that something is "utterly implausible" without providing any calculations to show expected rates of mutation. He mentions "our understanding of evolution as a slow and gradual process" as if we must either subscribe to a static 'orthodoxy' or reject it entirely. This just sounds fuckwitted, as does the out-of-the-blue figures for how long it should take to "master such trades as mathematics, engineering and astronomy" (is he seriously suggesting that this depends on genetic mutations?).
"scientists regard Darwinism as the only alternative to the anathema of Creationism" - more shite. I don't understand why he is labelling scientific theories about evolution, genetics and so forth "Darwinism". isn't it far more accurate to say "scientists recognise that theories of evolution, natural selection and genetics still have lots of unanswered questions and therefore there is a continued effort to improve explanatory theories to provide a good fit with the available evidence"?
Is this person really a scientist?
TeeJay said:
But you so obviously need one. You're trying to understand what the soul is
using science. You'll never get there like that. You need to understand where the concept originates. Let me explain more fully. The earliest distinction seems to be between essence and appearance. The Hebrew Bible uses the word nephesh to refer to the essence of a living individual. The verb ‘to be’ is transitive: we not merely are, we are something. Nephesh is used to refer to the self, the person: it designates essential identity, whether human or animal. It is not a property of an individual, it is not something that belongs to a person, nephesh is what an individual is.
The very act of recognizing a nephesh, however, separates the knower from the known, and thus also initiates the division of the human being into subject and object. For human beings, though not for animals, the nephesh is an object of experience, as well as a subject that experiences. The phrase ‘a man is his soul’ simultaneously unifies and distinguishes between subject and object: hence Job can declare that ‘My soul is weary of my life (10:1) and Jonah can recall how ‘my soul fainted within me’ (2:7). In this sense, the Old Testament term most commonly translated as ‘soul’ refers to the totality of an individual being’s subjective power considered as an objective essence. The notion of the soul is thus produced by an act of objectification, but this act also produces the idea of the subject, so that the term nephash can also refer to the subject that experiences. This split within the soul, whereby it becomes both the knower and the known, is the seminal form of alienation, in the sense that the soul becomes other to itself.
It has become common to associate the soul with spirit and the body with matter, but this association is not found in the Hebrew Bible. Genesis 2:7 declares that ‘God formed man (adam) of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath (ruach) of life; and man became a living soul (nephesh).’ The nephesh is thus the product of matter mixed with ruach, or ‘breath,’ which term is used interchangeably with ‘spirit,’ as at Ecclesiastes 12:7. It is precisely the union of adam and ruach; it does not designate anything that is necessarily immaterial or immortal. The phrase ‘soul and body,’ as at Isaiah 10:18, refers to an opposition between essence and appearance, not between spirit and flesh. The body itself is thus ethically neutral in the Hebrew scriptures, but basar, the word used for the body, or ‘flesh,‘ can also carry an ethically pejorative overtone. Frequently, as at Isaiah 31:3 and Job 10:4, it is used to designate a mode of thought that is oriented towards or determined by fleshly existence. Such a ‘carnal’ mode of thought is temporal and contingent, and as such ethically inferior to thought determined by a concern with nephesh. Do you now begin to see why your scientific approach to the question is hoepless?
TeeJay said:
But there are no alternative answers if someone has entered a lottery, the appearance of homo sapiens is not the same kettle.
TeeJay said:
Organisms are all designed with optimal use of bio-energy in mind. Mankind is one of the few exceptions in that our brains are working at a level far beyond what is needed for pure survival.
TeeJay said:
If your so bothered, do the maths yourself.
Orthodoxy exists in science as well.
Why is it "fuckwitted"? The tenet of evolution is slow gradual change spurred by adaptation to succeed in a changing environment.
TeeJay said:
Not shite at all, many people do see a simple choice between evolution and creationism, scientists included. To believe this perception will not interfere with the idea of complete objectivity is naive.
If by continued effort to improve you mean invent theories with no evidence to continue paradigm then yeah. I`m sure the land bridge theory is in a constant of "improvement"
Yep he`s a scientist. Hell, technically so am I
What in the name of Greek buggery is "bio-energy" ???? I hope you aren't far into your neuroscience course.Azrael23 said:
This is pure tosh, how have you managed to quantify the amount of brain activity needed for pure survival, and how have you determined that every other animal only has exactly the right amount of brain activity to ensure survival?Azrael23 said:
nino_savatte
No pasaran!
TeeJay said:
He doesn't 'do' history...or has a rather peculiar take on it. Take your pick. Either way, he's talking out his arse.
TeeJay said:
And I think someone along the line was putting out the usual line about their being no evidence at all to favour the idea of evolution by intelligent design over random mutation and natural selection.
(repeat post- but it's relevant to both threads)
Fruitloop = independent thinker.?
24 September 1981 Nature - under the headline "A Book for Burning."
"This infuriating tract...The author, by training, a biochemist and by demonstration a knowledgeable man, is however, misguided. His book is the best candidate for burning there has been for many years...in no sense a scientific argument.... pseudo-science...preposterous...intellectual abberations.."
The book that Nature wished burned was -A New Science of Life, by Dr Rupert Sheldrake.
But of course, talk of an Inquisitorial spirit or a priesthood that will not tolerate heresy, is paranoid fruitloop nonsense.
Dr Sheldrake's heresy, surprise, was a theory of evolution different from fundamentalist Darwinism, - as I understand it, more along the lines of the Lamarckian theory, or the bergsonian theory. (Lamarck theorised the inheritance of accquired characteristics.)
For me it's interesting to note in passing, that by the theory of Darwinian evolution itself, the nature of evolution ought to change over time.
Consider two families of the same species. One, like all good biological machines, only produces descendants with random mutations, the other, by a freak mutation, produces a kind of intelligent DNA, that produces intelligent mutations, -Impossible- But if it were possible, and no-one's proved that it isn't, then the family whose members produced mutations that were somehow not random but "intelligent" would evolve faster, and eventually would out-evolve the other family, so it's almost to be expected that while evolution may have started out random, by now, it ought to be intelligent?
Sheldrake did actually have some evidence for his heretical stirrings.
His heresy is that there are non-local fields in nature, somewhat like non-local fields in modern physics, and somewhat like the heretical orgone, theorised by Dr Reich in fifties america that got his books burned, and got him banged up in Prison. Surely not... ? No, really, it happened this century, in america. Conspiralunacy? Inquisitions, priesthood. Surely only a paranoid would talk this way.
Documented in Sheldrake's book, 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 themaes 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. Well that explains it then, says the materialist with a sigh of relief, Mcdougall was incompetent, or worse fraudulent. Or is it a case in fact where everyone will choose to believe the explanation that best fits their worldview.
In an experiment sponsored by the New Scientist magazine, (Feb '84 New Age Magazine, Boston) people were given one minute to find the hidden faces in an abstract drawing. Later the solution was broadcast on BBC TV when about a million viewers were expected to be looking. Then, elsewhere in places where the Beeb was not received, immediately after the broadcast, the tests were given again. As predicted by Sheldrake's theory,those who found the hidden faces in a minute were a higher percentage -by 76 percent- (p< .01 to obtain this result by chance.)
Again, both camps can easily draw their conclusions from this, - New Age magazine- ? Well you can tell from the title that it's a fruitloop publication, and the idea that you'll find any serious science in there is ridiculous, say the materialists, and why hasn't it been replicated by any "credible" scientists? while those of us whose faith is weak, wonder if in fact it's a case of heretics being driven out of "credible" publications by the inquisition, so that the orthodox can then cast aspersions on the credibility of the source, And we wonder if perhaps, the experiment hasn't been replicated by "credible" scientists, not because it can't be, but because they don't want to replicate it, either because they don't want their idol blasphemed, or because they don't want to be driven out into the scientific wilderness like Dr Sheldrake.
It's interesting again, how closely the scientific argument matches the argument about conspiracy theories in general..
In chorus, the orthodox repeat, no evidence, no evidence, and if there is, then it's not credible. And if it looks credible, then it's merely anecdotal, and if it's not merely anecdotal, then the statistics have been cooked... Etc Etc ., or the author is mad, or a fraud, or gullible, or was hallucinating...
(Interestingly, Dr Sheldrake had a long conversation with Dr Bohm, a respected physicist, who doesn't find Sheldrake's views heretical or ridiculous, given the utterly weird views of reality that physicists now have to accept. )
Bernie Gunther
Fundamentalist Druid
Not sure if this has been picked up elsewhere but Rupert Murdoch's Times science vs culture propagandist, Bryan Appleyard (he's quite firmly on the side of "culture" daahlinks), has a piece today promoting Intelligent Design
You're completely right about the "Inquisitorial spirit" among orthodox Darwinists. We've all witnessed it many times on these boards, in the reactionary outbursts of Gurrier and others. And in real life, the Darwinists organize to keep any challenge to their creed out of the academy and its journals. Even in the mainstream press, whenever there's an article that takes Intelligent Design seriously, or even treats it with respect, they organize letter-writing campaigns, boycotts and the like. I find it quite hard to understand. Of course their reputations, and perhaps their careers, are under some degree of threat, but this goes beyond the predictable animosity of one group of theorists to another. It more nearly approaches, as you say, a religious inquisition of the middle ages. And I think this may be the best explanation: such campaigns are organized by fanatical anti-theists, people who desperately *need* there not to be a God. This psychological imperative is at least as strong as that shown by credulous religious believers. I suppose you could call it a type of "deus inversus."
Bernie Gunther said:
Bernie, he's not "promoting" it, he's *arguing* for it, in a entirely coherent and rational manner. Its a great article. When you say he's "promoting" it, you make it sound like its some kind of plot to foist an absurd theory on the public. I tell you what, just wait for the vicious, enraged letter-writing campaign that will certainly ensue, and tell me who sounds more rational, the Darwinists or the advocates of Intelligent Design.
Bernie Gunther
Fundamentalist Druid
I see how it looks from your side phil. Consider it from the scientists side though. A lot of this stuff sounds like people who don't understand science, getting scared and misunderstanding most of what they read about it. In some cases the people getting scared have other bodies of knowledge, such as theology or its 20th century child, critical theory, which supply them with rhetorical tools to express this fear.
The result is a bunch of what look like irrationalist attacks on science.
The result is a bunch of what look like irrationalist attacks on science.
Bernie Gunther
Fundamentalist Druid
My lack of respect for Bryan Appleyard (dating back to a positive review he gave to some professional holocaust denier) may be showing through above.
Bernie Gunther said:
I see that it might "look" like that, to people who have been trained to believe in the minfestly absurd notion that science is the only means to objective truth. That doesn't excuse--or even explain--the kind of furious, intolerant response that Darwinists make to their critics, and to which I've been personally subjected both on these boards and in print. On this very thread we've seen prize examples of scientists arguing that other means to truth, such as philosophy, are entirely otiose. Its this kind of attitude that prevents them from taking criticism seriously, which is a fatal mistake for any discipline. I urge anyone who hasn't clicked on the link Bernie provides to do so--as with many stories in the mainstream press, it almost makes me suspect that the author has been reading Urban75.
Bernie Gunther
Fundamentalist Druid
You're suggesting then, that only someone who had been brainwashed could have such a perception?phildwyer said:
Bernie Gunther
Fundamentalist Druid
This is where I start feeling a bit of a disconnect. I don't believe science makes such a claim.phildwyer said:
Bernie Gunther said:
The Baconian methodology which defines modern science was not widely practiced until the establishment of the Royal Society at the Restoration. So if one believes that methodology is the only means to objective truth, one has dismissed all previous knowledge de facto.
Bernie Gunther
Fundamentalist Druid
Yes, but I don't believe that. Nor do many practicing scientists I know.
Bernie Gunther said:
Glad to hear it, but many scientists do. I give you.... Gurrier! He believes, or at least claims to believe, that all philosophy is idle word-games and that it should be abolished. Not is he the only one on this thread. Laptop is a more slippery customer but he appears to believe much the same, Brainaddict may or may not be a scientist, but he said the same thing, and so on and so forth. Personally, I think its a disgrace that such people are allowed to teach science, because if they think its the only means to truth then, as you imply, they haven't understood it.
axon said:
The sum total of chemical energy available to an organisms metabolism, any adaptations are likely to result in an increased use of energy which will have to be deducted or obtained from somewhere. i.e. if brain mass increases by 20% food intake will have to increase, cardiac strain will increase etc.
Therefore organisms must evolve to be as energy efficient as possible.
axon said:
Your right we can`t quantify it completely but how many intelligent cockroaches have you met? Not that it matters, if some animals have brains in excesss of environmental requirements then it would simply be another example of life evolving beyond the quest for pure survival (*cough look in the mirror *cough)
So your saying that the human brain is the minimum needed for survival? If that was the case then why do we only use a fraction of our brainpower?
Bernie Gunther
Fundamentalist Druid
Well, I think the problem here is that we aren't talking about innocent debate, aimed purely at the pursuit truth are we? We're talking about issues that are the active subject of cultural warfare, funded by extremely sinister right-wing loonies in some cases and by cynical and lethal corporate interests in others.phildwyer said:
The same people who are funding PR operations to promote intelligent design are also funding PR operations to attack other inconvenient science such as that surrounding climate change and environmental issues generally. This means that people who appreciate the value of science are on the defensive.
FridgeMagnet
Administrator
Regardless of the civilised (*snort*) arguments about science on this and other threads, the teaching of science *is* under definite and organised political attack in the US. It's nothing to do with broadening debate, examining the philosophical underpinnings of current paradigms or anything like that. It's an explicitly anti-intellectual medievalist movement, and you, phil, are as much its enemy as any of your "Darwinists" - only I suspect that they'd be able to simply dismiss you as an "east-coast liberal intellectual" out of hand.phildwyer said:
Bernie Gunther
Fundamentalist Druid
Here's how I see it. Humanity is going to be facing several severe and largely self-induced challenges over the next century. Several of those challenges are things we only know are coming due to science, which is why climate science for example, is extremely inconvenient for path dependent organisations which profit from fossil fuel consumption. Those challenges are also ones which we have no hope of mitigating or at worst adapting to without the help of science.
I think organised PR attacks on science are to be resisted as something more likely than not to inhibit any effective global response to these challenges.
I think organised PR attacks on science are to be resisted as something more likely than not to inhibit any effective global response to these challenges.
Bernie Gunther
Fundamentalist Druid
FridgeMagnet said:
And that is exactly why scientists should participate in a debate with philsophers, which would include atheist evolutionists entering into discussion with Intelligent Designers, and allowing Intelligent Design to be taught in schools. If the debate is to be between Biblical Fundamentalists and Darwinian Fundamentalists--the two are mirror-images and dialectical opposites--we are in big trouble. We'll get nowhere with the scornful, dismissive attitude either of Jerry Falwell, on the one hand, or Gurrier, on the other. Both sides recite the litany attributed to Benjamin Jowett: "I am the Dean of Balliol College/ And what I don't know isn't knowledge." It is an attitude we can no longer afford.
Bernie Gunther
Fundamentalist Druid
Intelligent design isn't a scientific theory. It's dressed up as science, but it's actually some sort of philosophical argument and should be treated as such.
The only reason for insisting it be introduced into science classes that I can see is as part of the well-documented Wedge Strategy and its stated objectives
The only reason for insisting it be introduced into science classes that I can see is as part of the well-documented Wedge Strategy and its stated objectives
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
FridgeMagnet said:
You forgot "effete" and "foppish".
