In an earlier post I showed that ID is not anti-evolution. http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/intelligent-design-is-not-anti-evolution-2/
So is ID is not anti-evolution then what is being debated?
Evolution has several meanings. The meanings of evolution, from Darwinism, Design and Public Education:
- Change over time; history of nature; any sequence of events in nature
- Changes in the frequencies of alleles in the gene pool of a population
- Limited common descent: the idea that particular groups of organisms have descended from a common ancestor.
- The mechanisms responsible for the change required to produce limited descent with modification, chiefly natural selection acting on random variations or mutations.
- Universal common descent: the idea that all organisms have descended from a single common ancestor.
- “Blind watchmaker” thesis: the idea that all organisms have descended from common ancestors solely through an unguided, unintelligent, purposeless, material processes such as natural selection acting on random variations or mutations; that the mechanisms of natural selection, random variation and mutation, and perhaps other similarly naturalistic mechanisms, are completely sufficient to account for the appearance of design in living organisms. see Coyne- https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2011/02/21/natural-selection-and-evolution-material-blind-mindless-and-purposeless/
The debate isn’t as black & white as saying it is evo #6 against IDists, Creationists and theistic evolutionists. However it is obvious that evo #6 is what is being debated.
(Theistic evolutionists are a different breed. They don’t seem to acknowledge that evo #6 is what is being taught in our public school system. And therefore don’t appear to understand the issue. The TE’s I have debated with tell me that humans were an intended outcome of the evolutionary process, which is OK for evo #5 but defies evo #6. IOW TE’s are closet IDists.)
Creationists go with 1-4 (above), with the change in 4 being built-in responses to environmental cues or organism direction as the primary mechanism, for allele frequency change, culled by various selection processes (as well as random effects/ events/ choice of not to mate/ unable to find a mate). The secondary mechanism would be random variations or mutations culled by similar processes. IOW life’s diversity evolved from the originally Created Kind, humans included. Science should therefore be the tool/ process with which we determine what those kinds were.
With Creation vs. “Evolution #6” the 4 main debating points are clear:
1) The starting point of the evolutionary process. (What was (were) the founding population(s)?)
2) The phenotypic & morphological plasticity allowed/ extent the evolutionary process can take a population (do limits exist?).
3) The apparent direction the evolutionary process took to form the history of life. (ie from “simpler” bacteria-like organisms to complex metazoans)
4) The mechanism for the evolutionary process.
With ID vs. Evo #6 it is mainly about the mechanism- IDists go with evolution 1-5, with the Creation change to 4 plus the following caveat in 5: Life’s diversity was brought about via the intent of a design. The initial conditions, parameters, resources and goal was pre-programmed as part of an evolutionary algorithm designed to bring forth complex metazoans, as well as leave behind the more “simple” viruses, prokaryotes and single-celled eukaryotes.
IDists understand that if life didn’t arise from non-living matter via some blind watchmaker-type process, there is no reason to infer its subsequent diversity arose solely due to those type of processes (point 1 up top).
What does the data say? Well there isn’t any data that demonstrates bacteria can “evolve” into anything but bacteria. Therefore anyone who accepts evolution 5 or 6 has some splaining to do. Preferably splainations with scientific merit.
Throwing time at an issue does not splain anything:
If one desires to extrapolate small changes into large changes by simply adding time, one requires independent evidence to justify this move. The problem is that we really don’t know how evolution occurs. And when talking about the evolution of the mammalian middle ear bones, we should not forget that we are still basically in the dark in trying to explain how both a mammalian and reptilian zygote actually develops the middle ear and jaw bones, respectively. Without this knowledge, attempts to explain such a transition as a function of a series of small, incremental changes stretched across time are rooted in ignorance. That is, we don’t truly understand neither the process of development nor the process of evolution and without such knowledge, there is no reason to think we are on safe ground when employing (1).
Attempts to justify this move by appealing to the use of (1) in astronomy and geology fail because biotic complexity differs in both structure and formation.
One may assume (1) to explain evolutionary change as a working hypothesis, but we should keep in mind that large changes in evolution are basically a “black box” and a series of small incremental changes may play only a trivial, fine-tuning role in any transition (there is no evidence to think otherwise). What’s more, bacteria, as the predominant life forms on this planet, which have experience the most evolution of all life forms, tell us clearly that (1) need not apply to biological evolution.
In the end, appeals to small change + deep time are embraced merely as a matter of convenience, as it happens to be the primary way we can think about evolution at a time when we are just starting to come to grips with it. As we begin to better understand the process of evolution, I predict (1) will one day be viewed as a quaint understanding that served mostly to highlight just how much we didn’t understand evolution.- Mike Gene
However Father Time, Mother Nature and some still unknown natural process does make for an interesting trinity…
Then why do only the willfully ignorant think tree rings are a communication code? Why can’t you find an academic reference to support your claim?
Not even wikipedia lists tree rings as an example of a code.
It’s code for “making shit up.”
They are sad little people
Don’t forget to check Talk Origins. It’s got to be online somewhere. These bozos aren’t bright enough to make it up on their own.
Already checked- not even talk origins uses tree rings as a code
Poor FrankenJoe. Too stupid to research, egged on by ball-less Mung the child abuse enabler.
A method to separate temperature and precipitation signals encoded in tree-ring widths for the western Tien Shan Mountains, northwest China
Can’t have encoding without a code. 🙂
What is the code then? With every other code we know what the symbols represent. What are the symbols in your tree ring code, what do they represent and who/ what are the tree rings communicating with?
Do tree rings meet the following criteria:
This gives us an objective criterion for discovering organic codes and their existence is no longer a matter of speculation. It is, first and foremost, an experimental problem. More precisely, we can prove that an organic code exists, if we find three things: (1) two independents worlds of molecules, (2) a set of adaptors that create a mapping between them, and (3) the demonstration that the mapping is arbitrary because its rules can be changed, at least in principle, in countless different ways.
If “yes” then show your work.
Well this tree ring circus has pushed this thread over 700 comments. 700+ comments and no one has addressed the OP.
The record is mine
The tree rings are the symbols FrankenJoe. Their widths hold the information on past climates. They communicate that info to climatologists who decode the rings.
Sorry FrankenJoe, your ignorance is showing again.
Most scientifically illiterate IDiot online? You owned that record long ago.
I hate to call their beliefs religious beliefs, because I think they are even worse than religious beliefs. Let’s call them chemical beliefs. I think they properly belong there with drug induced hallucinations.
Or the effects of years of abuse from the indoctrination of materialism and it’s moronic offspring evolutionism.
Perhaps the tree ring code is what the Ents used during or to call the Entmoot.
FrankenJoe finally show us the source of his ID science knowledge. 😀
The site has no intentions, Joe. It is in the hands of those who provide it, administer it, contribute to it and read it. (And also in the hands of those with power to control sources of information.)
Your intentions seem pretty clear, I have to say. On the other hand with President Trump in charge, what need of ID now? Just concentrate on directly usurping science and the free exchange of information. The current US administration supports you all the way, evidently.
giggles
Mung,
And yet here you are, the #1 commenter on a site you feel is full of bozos. I guess it’s the least worst arrangement you could find…
One ring equates to one year. The thicker the ring, the more favourable the climate. Not exactly rocket science.
Astrology, numerology and faith healing also persist. You can never overestimate the gullibility of some people.
It’s supposed to be a site where there is a free exchange of ideas
Yup, exposing you and yours as the anti-science mob that you are
LoL! Nice own goal, Alan. That is exactly what you and yours are doing
I see the evos are too afraid to show their work- typical:
Do tree rings meet the following criteria:
This gives us an objective criterion for discovering organic codes and their existence is no longer a matter of speculation. It is, first and foremost, an experimental problem. More precisely, we can prove that an organic code exists, if we find three things: (1) two independents worlds of molecules, (2) a set of adaptors that create a mapping between them, and (3) the demonstration that the mapping is arbitrary because its rules can be changed, at least in principle, in countless different ways.
Obviously they do not.
tree rings:
Trees growing in California add one annual ring per year. By comparison, trees in tropical regions may have more than one growth ring per year, or may appear to grow continuously and have no rings.
Whoopsie
It’s people who suppose, not sites.
LoL! I didn’t say the site supposes, Alan.
Just in case you were thinking they did, as you apparently think they have intentions.
Good job data is collected from trees growing in temperate regions, then.
Moved a comment to guano. Moderation issues should be raised in the appropriate thread.
ETA more moved comments. Moderation issues: moderation issues thread!
Whatever. Tree rings are not a code- or do you disagree with that?
South Dakota has already started. Intelligent design creationism has always been a political movement with no science behind it. Now the costume lab coat has been dropped.
Charmingly conceded! 🙂
Tree rings, lake varves, ice-core samples – all coded information that can be deciphered.
So much for folks saying the fear was greater than the reality! 🙁
Nice projection, Patrick as evolutionism has always been a hack-job with no science behind it
Data recorders, Alan. What’s the code used by each of them? Or are you another one who doesn’t know jack about codes?
Lizzie had intentions for this blog, Alan. Perhaps you should read about those for ten first time. Just click on “about this site” and “Rules”. It’s all there and you and yours don’t follow what she had in mind
This is not a moderation comment. It is a direct response to Alan nonsensical claim that I thought this site had intentions
Patrick,
The NCSE is as anti-science and anti-common sense as one can get. They are nothing but a fear-mongering propaganda machine
Can anyone parse that for me?
When they start teaching creationism in the schools I’ll start to worry. Until then I’ll continue to believe that you’re comment is just engaging in gratuitous slander and scare-mongering. And it’s by someone who is not even a US citizen, at that.
Imagine an alternate history in which France is a Muslim country under sharia law.
National Center for Socialist Education.
I’ve already referenced the South Dakota senate bill today. If you really think that there isn’t a constant political battle with theists in this country, just keep an eye on the Freedom From Religion Foundation’s legal challenges page.
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blockquote cite=”comment-163623″>
Patrick: When they start teaching creationism in the schools I’ll start to worry. Until then I’ll continue to believe that you’re comment is just engaging in gratuitous slander and scare-mongering.
And you don’t understand what that bill says, obviously- and the freedom from religion foundation is just another clueless group of propagandists
No, you referenced another propaganda piece from an organization that is known for playing loose with the facts.
Questioning scientific hypotheses and theories is part of doing science. Only in the confused world of chemically induced beliefs does “doing science” become “anti-science.”
How otherwise rational people can be taken in by such propaganda, I can only believe that chemicals are involved somehow.
The ability to question scientific hypotheses and theories is already part of the curriculum. It doesn’t need a special bill introduced. The only purpose of this legislation is to allow non-scientific woo like ID and Biblical Creationism into public schools.
You must think everyone is as stupid as you Mung if you believe science can’t see through the ruse.
You really aren’t good at the whole “evaluating the evidence” thing.
After seeing false claim after false claim one becomes, rightly imo, skeptical.
A perfect description of how science views ID-Creationism.
And again with the projection. Why is it every time to are asked for evidence that supports evolutionism you fail to do so?