According to Joshua Swamidass Michael Behe and him have a lot in common… Swamidass has even publicly defended Behe on his blog by demanding a fair hearing.
Not only that, Swamidass agrees with Behe on many evolutionary/ID issues, such as guided evolution…
So, why would Behe and Swamidass square off at Texas A & M University in 2020?
What are they going to discuss? Not the polar bear evolution/devolution fiasco, right?
What do you think?
We should probably establish where Behe and Swamidass differ:
Behe says evolution progresses mainly be breaking things, such as genes…
Question: has a 50 ton whale evolved by mainly breaking the genes of a 5 pound land walking mammal?
Or God must’ve guided it?
Swamidass says evolution can innovate, such as in case of cancer…
Question: are mutations associated with great majority of cancers the cause or the effect? If the great majority of cancers turned out to be related, or directly caused, by metabolic disorders, would God be still responsible for guiding the evolutionary innovations of cancers?
It looks like Swamidass understands my perplexity about him and Behe squaring off against each other in a public debate, I assume…
https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/behe-vs-swamidass-why/7599
Let’s see what challenges they come up with…
Regarding cancer causing mutations, or being the effect of metabolic disorders, here is an OP at peaceful science:
Same Mutations Drive Cancer in Different Individuals
https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/same-mutations-drive-cancer-in-different-individuals/1570
BTW: the most common colorectal cancer has been correlated with 11 000 of different mutations…
In other words, almost no single mutation can be biomarker of this type of cancer….Why?
Swamidass does not appear to even have a belief he can articulate. He says things like:
while at the same time he says
.
Well, so far, in this great planet of ours, with the many millions of billions of people pondering the subject, NOT ONE person has been able to articulate a theory that says life is NOT created by random mutations and natural selection AND YET is still created by
random that has no purpose or guidance. That is an appeal to a theory that doesn’t exist.
Furthermore, Swamidasses’ theory that doesn’t exist gets even more silly. He believes in a divine relationship between God and man, but also thinks that perhaps evolution has no direction. He likes to write pages and pages of obfuscation to try to hide this impossible contradiction, but it sits there nonetheless like a giant academic abscess. It has no meaning. He believes in the bible, and God miracles, but evolution just accidentally came up with man. And God ran with it.
So in a war of ideas with Behe, Swamidass doesn’t even have one. I think Swamidass wants so much to be famous. Now if he can just think of what he should be famous for. For saying nothing? Or for saying something even more ridiculous than nothing?
He is trying to become a new voice on human origins…but he doesn’t know what that voice should stand for…
It’s not hard to reject Darwinism…finding a replacement with a reliable mechanism that would explain rapid “evolutionary changes”, such as coywolves, or brown bear evolving into “polar bears”, is a major problem…If you want to support evolution…
One simple answer: they both crave attention for their ideologies.
Both want to sell tickets for their ‘movement.’ Behe’s is called ‘Intelligent Design,’ based at the Discovery Institute, and Swamidass’ is called ‘Peaceful Science’ (rather than Peaceful Theology or Peaceful Philosophy).
Behe’s IDism + Swamidass’ postmodernist scientism
No, this just exposes the falsehood of your eclectic religionism. It is quite clear what Swamidass believes & that he can articulate his beliefs well enough so that normal people don’t misunderstand him.
Oh, it seems you realize he has beliefs he can articulate after all?
How does this sound: God created humankind through evolution? In some senses of the term, ‘evolution’ just means ‘natural history,’ as you likely are aware.
Actually, he does. He initially called it ‘Genealogical Adam.’ Later, after his ‘militant atheist’ fanboy Patrick pointed it out to him, as I and others had already been speaking about her, the notion of ‘Genealogical Eve’ was added, then the combination of ‘Genealogical Adam & Eve,’ the title of his forthcoming book. Sure, Adam’s genealogy had long been discussed before Swamidass put his twist of concept on it. So what’s really new in his approach after all that Buggs didn’t discover before he did & Gauger says more clearly & articulately than he does?
Uh, this says an online sock puppet to tenured professor? = P
Swamidass thinks his voice should stand for non-mainline evangelical Protestant Christians in the USA who don’t believe they need to reject evolutionary biology in order to be sincerely and devoutly religious. That’s his main audience. He’s stuck in the ‘creation wars’ in your country trying to figure out an exit strategy as best as his biology, physiology & computing trained mind may afford him.
As far as I recall, J-Mac, it is instead you who don’t know what your voice should stand for. You don’t stand for Jesus Christ like Swamidass openly does. You don’t stand for any particular religious figure or coherent worldview that can be articulated in one sentence. Yours is some kind of homeless ‘spiritual’ pyrotechnics that doesn’t appear to be seeking a home & thus ultimately seems to merely embrace distraction from “what your voice should stand for.”
What do you have to offer that is better than what Swamidass is doing at PS and where can you point us to that you are actually making a difference? Beside Swamidass you appear as a poseur, with little serious or constructive to add.
Oh bullshit Gregory, that is not an articulated belief.
It would be like me saying “I believe in a world that is a simulation, that isn’t simulated. Semi-supernatural historically pure unsimulated” That’s an articulated belief?
No its just a hodge-podge of terms, masqueraded as trying to say something. That doesn’t qualify as articulating something.
Its much like this statement of yours:
That’s is not an articulated thought Gregory, its just a sentence, that is grammatically correct. No one knows what you mean by this other than you. What do you mean by created? What do you mean by evolution? Its all up to the readers fancy to imagine.
That’s why I was perplexed why Swamidass wants to debate Behe…
No one can challenge someone of Behe’s caliber and as evidence against his views use:
“…what if God guided this unexplained phenomena in evolutionary processes…”?
Behe is an old fox who uses scientific, experimental evidence for his claims from evolutionary biologists like Lenski…(maybe with the exception of the high cholesterol diet among polar bears vs humans).
Behe doesn’t have the same level of evidence for common descent and that’s why often resorts to God guided evolution…
Right, everyone rejects Darwinism. In fact if you even try to define Darwinism on a skeptic site, they will always claim its a caricature. “No one believes in that” they will shout.
The “Theory that doesn’t exist” sure is a popular one these days.
What’s your point? Do I have to be a tenured professor to make an obvious observation that his he is confused?
Has Behe ever endorsed the term “God guided evolution” or is that just you saying that?
That’s confusing enough to me…lol
Did you read Darwin Devolves?
ETA: he also made some clear pubic statements about it…I suggested to him that quantum information could explain many rapid changes (beyond DNA) within kinds without the need to resort to God’s guidance…
Really?
How does Swamidass stand for Jesus exactly? By denying Jesus’ own words about creation?
Is that an answer to the question?
I have not read anywhere where Behe says he believes in God guided evolution.
What is it exactly?
Read ETA sorry
Swamidass believes in the Bible? As he sees it? Or as he would like it to be written? And he calls it Genealogical Adam?
Why not call Sciencefiction Adam? It’s the same thing…lol
You might be right… but he definitely endorsed guided evolution…but by whom or what?
Well, guided can mean several things. If I push a wooden cart down a hill, I guided it, but that doesn’t mean I am steering it. If I throw a rock, yes I guided it, but I don’t control what happens to it.
So I am not so sure that you saying Behe believes in God guided evolution is correct. At least not in the sense of him claiming that God intervenes in its process. I have not read him making that claim. I think he probably just means that God designed a teleological world. One that seeks life and complexity. I don’t see a problem with that.
I hear you but remember that Behe attempts to find an explanation for common descent that can’t be explained by Darwinian mechanism…
I don’t see the problem. I just explained that he believes in teleological life forms. As such, that is the explanation, life drives towards complexity and life forms, not accidental meanderings that just so happen to make life. Not chemicals just becoming sophisticated because of the simple fact that they are reckless and unstable copies.
I think in this video Behe make his point regarding embryo development related to common ancestry.: I.e. preprogrammed cell differentiation…
Let me know what you think.
Ah, so you agree that Swamidass “stands for Jesus.” That’s more than what you are standing for, J-Mac, since you don’t take on the role of “standing for Jesus,” do you? It sure doesn’t seem like it with your accusations against someone who obviously knows a considerable amount more about the science involved than you do, based on years of professional training & study.
Steve Fuller coined the term ProtScience for people like J-Mac. They will continue to stand in judgment of others who are professionally trained, unable to comprehend why their sciency ‘truths’ are merely a mask for their own ideology.
“Give me where to stand & I will move the world.”
J-Mac seems to be promoting a ‘religious soup’ of esoteric buffet-style ‘spiritualism,’ without a Rock to stand on. Apparently that’s a positive contribution here among skeptics & non-believers. Or wait, what happens when skepticism meets spiritualism? Lizzie’s penguins? = )
J-Mac,
Right, he is saying there is a pre-programmed system in a fertilized egg, that determines how it will develop.
Hardcore evolutionists have no problem accepting this, they just somehow think the program got there accidentally.
The more attention that is brought to origin issues the more the attrition, by intellectual means, of truth wil the good guys prevail over the bad guys.
These guys do disagree on the basic point of whether the fingerprints of a creature are self evident in creation. It works especially well when both believe in a creator. So hopefully, get beyond entry level, and a audience really will get the best killer good points
I welcome debates with evolutionists but theyb always do a inferior job.
like in the Ham/whatshisname//(really) . its great to reach audiences but the evolutionists dumbed it down and was hopeless.
why can’t these matters be resolved in intellectual cagematches?? why not? why can’t error be corrected quickly and better ideas made self evidently true??
is it reall, really, that one side is intellectually inferior and its all thier fault??
i think this is a factor but not the most of it. YES truth can prevail over error in free arenas.
Huh?
J-Mac,
I think this should perhaps be Behe’s first question for Swamidass, is the pre-programming for cell development in an embryo accidental? Happenstance?
Of course, we know that the right answer is that “it got there because of the supernatural”.
Best thread ever by the way. Finally, a meeting of the best and brightest minds that ID has to offer.
Pre-programmed but NOT in DNA…
So the guidance, or the information for embryo development, reaches beyond materialism… That’s why some assume God guided cell differentiation processes or evolution…
Isn’t that the pot calling the kettle black? 😉
Sure, but what would be Behe’s claim? Where is the information for embryo development coming from?
The answer is obvious: No, it’s natural selection.
From what, exactly, do you gather that this is “a positive contribution” here?
I’d go so far as to say that I don’t think J-man has written even a single post on this forum, ever, that is worth even a cursory glance. It’s all blather and nonsense.
Natural selection needs the accidental poofs first. I guess you weren’t aware of that.
A lot of them.
I don’t see why that would be a hard question for Behe at all. We have already established that he believes life is designed. So part of that design is a program in the cells.
Of course not. Also in the physical chemical properties of everything in the cell, their relative positions and dynamics.
Nope. Physical and chemical properties are material.
You’re the first one I read claiming that if it’s not DNA it must be “immaterial.”
All by accident.
Ha!
A Poof? Just like the universe poofed itself into existence out of nothing?
“…the universe was spontaneously created out of nothing, … The universe itself, in all its mind-boggling vastness and complexity…” Steven Hawking
A story like that has gotta be true…;-)
Why would you bother to comment then???
Oh, I see…you chose the truth…as you see it or you would like it to be…
Makes sense…that is even nonsense has to make sense… 😉
J-Mac,
Every new piece of the code had to be a poof. A very fortunate poof!
Is information material?
For the sake of argument, if embryo development information is quantum information, is quantum information material?
Well, the only argument he can make is that the embryo development information is not found in DNA… So, if nobody knows where the info is, what should we assume? That ID intervenes in each step of cell differentiation process?
I don’t see why that follows. Not knowing the details is not the same as assuming it is constantly tinkered.
Heck, does James Shapiro know what the details of natural genetic engineering are? I don’t think so.
So, it all boils down to what one means by “guided evolution”, no?
What if “tinkering” leads to cancer?
Who are you claiming believes in tinkering?
I also don’t put much stock in arguments which boil down to, why isn’t everything that happens only good.