b. July 15, 1928
d. December 30, 2012
“Thus, we regard as rather regrettable the conventional concatenation of Darwin’s name with evolution, because there are other modalities that must be entertained and which we regard as mandatory during the course of evolutionary time.”
“I have concerns about scientists thinking that they’re God when it comes to biology.”
“A future biology cannot be built within the conceptual superstructures of the past. The old superstructure has to be replaced by a new one before the holistic problems of biology can emerge as biology’s new mainstream.”
“I do not like people saying that atheism is based on science, because it’s not. It’s an alien invasion of science.”
- Carl Woese
Suzan Mazur: Why do you think NAI chose to give you and your team $ 8M, since you are known as a challenger of Darwinian dogma? Is NASA finally acknowledging the Darwin approach is wrong?
Carl Woese: I would hope so because that’s very clear from our NASA Astrobiology Institute grant application.
Suzan Mazur: You’ve described the “disconnect between Darwinists, who had taken over evolution, and microbiologists, who had no use for Darwinian natural selection.” Do you have anything to say about the recent decision of Huffington Post to block publication of microbiologist James Shapiro’s response to Darwinist Jerry Coyne following Coyne’s attack on Shapiro’s thinking about a reduced role for natural selection in evolution?
Carl Woese: I think that’s immoral. Science must be free to examine what it sees. If you’re going to say everyone must follow the Darwinian line, that’s not free science.
Carl Woese, evolution skeptic.
Rumraket,
Really? Proteins required to build hearts, brains, nervous systems are all inside single celled organisms. Hox genes are there? Cell adhesion genes.? Genes that build ears, eyes, smell? All the genes that build the muscle complex? Bone structure? Cell cycle control genes?
Frankie,
I don’t think much bothers those guys because if facts don’t support them they just make stuff up. As you say, no testable claims.
I, however, think they do a remarkable job for the position they are trying to argue.
colewd,
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/
The talk origins article on common descent does not include a mechanism so it is useless to evolutionists. Not only that it assumes common descent and posits no valid tests of the concept. Heck it even says there should be a nested hierarchy when that is known to be nonsense as we would expect numerous transitional forms which would ruin any attempt to create a nested hierarchy
The fact is no one knows what we would expect to see if UCD was true. That is because no one knows what mechanism could allow for such a thing. And without that mechanism you cannot say what pattern would be left behind.
And didn’t we just have a talk about posting links with no explanation?
So true- they are good at double-talk and the shell game. And if that doesn’t work there are always personal attacks and much foot stomping.
It would help if you knew what you’re talking about. But you don’t.
Here’s Walsh:
No one can gainsay the advances in our understanding of biology ushered in by the Modern Synthesis. It is now coming up for a century of unparalleled success. But we are beginning to see intimations that, perhaps, this disorganicised evolutionary thinking may be running up against its limitations. These deficiencies, by my reckoning, occur at just the places where our understanding could be enhanced by paying attention to the contribution of organisms as organisms.
Whether or not the Modern Synthesis is reaching the end of its useful life, there is ample justification for exploring an alternative. It lies in the fact that Modern Synthesis thinking misrepresents the metaphysics of evolution.
And no-one is stopping you. Fire up your lab. All I ask is use the same completeness / explanatory criteria to judge your alternative.
Sure, I can read (not just your cherry picked parts). Do you have no shame? Or maybe I misunderstand your point. What is it exactly that you mean by that?
What about that pesky portion of the text where Walsh writes: “No one can gainsay the advances in our understanding of biology ushered in by the Modern Synthesis. It is now coming up for a century of unparalleled success”
Something tells me he’s looking to expand the theory to provide explanations at different levels, not to dispose of it altogether. Is that how an evolution skeptic sounds like?
What are these alleged understandings that the modern synthesis have given us pertaining to biology?
Yeah, why are IDist so obsessed with what evolutionary biologists have to say about evolutionary biology? Go ahead and put forth an alternative ID theory, what are you waiting for and why are you wasting your precious god given time parsing some evolutionist narrative?
It’s almost as if they’re expecting to find the answers they’re looking for in the work of those they claim are wrong.
dazz,
That’s the hilarity. Their best idea is to try and find some ‘edge to evolution’ (they haven’t) – which of course does nothing to advance a theory of ID. because there isn’t one – in the scientific sense.
They aren’t looking for:
Designers
Methods
Fabrication facilities
Instruction manuals
because that would be …. honest.
when your whole science consists of blog posts by leading thinkers like kairosfocus and bornagain and barry, I hate to break it to you….
“They aren’t looking for:
Designers
Methods
Fabrication facilities
Instruction manuals”
that’s because everybody knows if they tried to talk about that stuff it would just turn into fights between OECs and YECs.
that would kinda give away the game.
LoL! As if they represent the whole science of ID. That said your position doesn’t have any science at all.
Those don’t have anything to do with ID. Those will come after ID is accepted.
BTW where is the instruction manual for building Stonehenge? Where are the fabrication facilities? Who are the designers? What were the methods?
For Joe, who is a bit confused:
1:”Common” is an entailment of evolution, “common descent”. It is not an entailment of design.
2:”What are these alleged understandings that the modern synthesis have given us pertaining to biology?” – Well there’s a very grim lesson regarding climate change and the incidence of extinctions. What does this teach us about prescribing antibiotics?: http://www.vox.com/2016/9/8/12852924/evolution-bacteria-timelapse-video-mega-harvard
3:”LoL! As if they represent the whole science of ID” – Why don’t you tell us the top 5 ID resources?
4:”Those don’t have anything to do with ID. Those will come after ID is accepted.” Bzzzzt. Wrong. They have everything to do with ID, much as you wish they don’t. They are entailments that evolution does not have.
Yes, yes they are.
Yes, yes they are.
Pheromone receptors, at least, yes.
Most of them yes.
I don’t know.
Holy crap! Yes! What do you think Paul Nurse got his Nobel for?
So, when you “don’t think that organisms could survive without repairing their blueprint mechanism.” or that single celled organisms only have 5% of the genes that multicellular organisms need, that’s just your uninformed opinion.
Yes, saying something was the result of ID means there are other questions that naturally follow. All that proves is that saying something was designed is not a dead-end as we will attempt to answer those questions. However it is obvious that we do not have to know the who, how, when BEFORE we determine something was designed. Reality dictates that design has to be determined before we even ask those other questions.
Is that really too difficult to understand? Really?
DNA_Jock,
Unfortunately blind watchmaker evolution cannot account for any of that. But I am willing to be swayed- how can we test the claim that blind watchmaker evolution didit?
Show us the science!
And:
“Once specified complexity tells us that something is designed, there is nothing to stop us from inquiring into its production. A design inference therefore does not avoid the problem of how a designing intelligence might have produced an object. It simply makes it a separate question.”- Wm. Dembski- pg 112 of No Free Lunch
My claims are covered…
Humans start out as single celled organisms, so there’s no problem getting the genes into one cell.
And the number of genes in humans is rather modest. Certainly the genome length is unremarkable.
That is totally wrong as we do not start out as single-celled organisms. And because of alternative gene splicing the number of genes is trivial as one gene can possibly encode for multiple proteins.
Joe tried to answer but was Joe so ended up in Guano. I’ll just add here
1:Common Design is not an entailment of Design, it is special pleading. not parsimonious (Newtons 4 laws, eh?) and falsified by the vast majority of designs we see today.
2:You might want to check the the traffic rankings of the resources you proffered.
3:If you can find any of the unique entailments (funny how you only like the ones you think evolution ‘shares’ and had before) then you’ve made the case for ID. CSI is debunked. Counting letters doesn’t do anything.
You told us “design” was detected over 11 years ago, before the IDiot faceplant at Dover. Were the IDiots lying? Why hasn’t anyone from the ID side done the slightest bit of follow-on work to determine the how, where, when, and by who this “design” was done?
You can’t come up with a method to determine the how, where, when, who even if you had unlimited money and lab time. ID is as impotent as the IDiots who push it.
You’re confused Richard. IDists and Creationists accept that gene frequencies in a population fluctuate.
Whatever you’re whining about (its hard to pin down) – Fire up your lab. All I ask is use the same completeness / explanatory criteria to judge your alternative.
DNA_Jock,
I floated 5% as a question to Allan. Do you agree with Rumraket that it is 80 to 90%? A yeast has about 5600 functional genes. Thats about 25% of a mammalian genome assuming 100% duplication with 50% duplication thats 13% with 25% were about 5%
Do you really believe the genes that make up the heart lungs etc exist in single celled organisms? What percentage of genes that transcribe the heart proteins also exist in single celled organisms.
Can you support this claim?
How many generations will bacteria in an isolated environment survive with their DNA repair turned off?
wow, way to ignore what I post as if that means something
Common design is based on Linne, the father of taxonomy. No one but you cares about it being an entailment of design. It is also an observed occurrence. Common design is a special case of design and again one based on the findings of Linne
Those sites are top ID resources- it doesn’t matter what the traffic is.
CSI has not been debunked as no one has ever shown that blind watchmaker processes can produce it. IC still stands as no one has shown that blind watchmaker processes can produce it. You don’t even know how to test the claim that BWE can produce CSI or IC.
I would love to see Richie support the claim that scientists look for the who and how before determining something was designed.
Look, Richie, if you want to refute ID you have to do some actual work and demonstrate blind watchmaker processes are up to the task. Whining isn’t going to do it
This has been pointed out to you many times, but you keep “forgetting” and repeating –
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/01/photogalleries/stonehenge/
http://static.digischool.nl/en/hotpot/leesvaardigheid/3%20sterren/stonehengevillage.htm
http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/stonehenge/construction.php
http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/stonehenge/stonehenge.php
Good grief! Richie is so confused. ID doesn’t make the same claims as evolutionism so ID does not have to provide the same level of detail as evolutionism does. Darwin claimed to have a step-by-step process for producing the diversity of life. No one from ID has ever made such a claim.
Why is that so difficult to understand?
You’re going to keep posting the “first life had to be as complex as extant life” stupidity no matter how many times you get corrected, right?
Richie- your links don’t answer my questions. Try again. Or try to make your case using those links- I dare you- Also what we know about Stonehenge came after many, many years of investigation- just as I have been saying. So thank you for making my point.
Are you saying they found a manual for building Stonehenge? Really? LoL!
Adapa- I know that you are upset because Cornelius cut you off but grow up already. If your position had the science to support it ID would be a non-starter. But thanks to your failures ID is thriving.
And BTW Richie, universal common descent is not an entailment of blind watchmaker evolution. Whoopsie
Any ID-Creationists out there want to address this glaring hole in ID’s position? Mung? Cole? We know FrankenJoe can’t.
Are all you guys as impotent as ID “science” is?
A good thread for TSZ would be about WHETHER likeness in morphology/genetics is evidence for drawing relationships of biology from a evolution starting from common descent(s).
Is DNA a trail and bodies looks a trail to demonstrating evolution as a fact??
Or is it a line of reasoning unrelated to scientific investigation??
Not only are there other options but is any option demonstrated beyond the “instinct” of a line of reasoning.
Are eyeballs aplenty evidence of a common descent of a first eyeballs or just a good idea for everyone who needs eyeballs and so one type fits all. No common descent evidenced at all.
WE need a , well done, thread on this.
“Frankie: BTW where is the instruction manual for building Stonehenge? Where are the fabrication facilities? Who are the designers? What were the methods?”
Good thing we don’t use ID, where those questions are Off Limits.
ID is like a sport where one team scores all the points, while the other team writes blog posts abut how they’re winning.
That is totally incorrect. Those questions are just irrelevant to ID which is only concerned with the detection and study of design in nature. ID does not prevent anyone from asking those questions and trying to answer them
Your team hasn’t scored any points. It doesn’t even make testable claims. If anyone disagrees tell us how to test the claim that blind watchmaker evolution produced vision systems.
Mung,
Replacing? That’s something of a stretch. He’s saying ‘One of the most powerful theories’ and then offering to replace it, simply because it tends to talk more of heredity?
You might be interested to read Chapter 14 of Richard Dawkins’s ‘Extended Phenotype’: Rediscovering the Organism, during which he addresses precisely Walsh’s point: the apparent contradiction between gene-centrism and organismal concerns. In 1981. I guess he’s an evolution skeptic too.
It’s not as if people cannot talk of organisms, or pretend that they don’t exist, or just ignore phenotype. But like it or not, the core of evolution remains the material of heredity. That’s where change is rooted, and that’s what fundamentally increases or decreases in the population, whatever the more visible consequences of those changes. Selection acts through phenotype, but no-one in evolutionary theory is exactly unaware of this.
colewd,
All of them, to a fair approximation. Transcription is very ancient.
Richardthughes,
What are you whining about Dick?
colewd,
You are the one who said there are 4^500000 (I forget the precise number) different ways of arranging the DNA of a multicellular organism. For that to be relevant, one must start from scratch, and randomise. Else why mention it?
The vast majority of them, yes.
Why don’t you be specific and bring up particular examples and then we can check? I don’t know how to refute an incredulous stare, nor do I know what the hell you mean by “genes that build ears, eyes, smell” for example. So instead of me just guessing, pick some examples, then we check.
Bill loves to regurgitate things like “straw-man” like he knows what it means.
“you crushed your own straw man argument”, how cute is that?
And we didn’t even evolve from yeast.
What the hell are you talking about? By “duplication” you mean homologous genes?
Get specific, pick an example of a “gene that make up the heart lungs etc” and let’s check.
You just sitting there flabbergasted is not an argument. So let’s look at the data. Pick some genes.
What is a “gene that transcribe the heart proteins”? Are you talking about transcription factors? Those exist in single-celled organisms too. How the fuck else would they transcribe their genes?
Colewd, you’re going to have to learn what the words mean first, before we can start having meaningful communication on this subject.
Since fitness doesn’t decline further after the DNA repair has been turned off, indefinitely. The fact that turning it off lowers overall fitness, does not mean fitness will further decline from that point on. And since it isn’t lethal, they’ll survive just fine.
Every time Bill came up with examples of genes he couldn’t possibly imagine existed outside of his organism in question, we found them elsewhere.
Last time it was some sort of signaling factors involved in brain development he thought were exclusive to humans. He called them “human brain development genes”.
They were in fish too. LOL.
There must be a special gene for resetting Bill’s brain so he can keep ignoring the facts