In a recent post here at TSZ, participant Alan Fox made some comments and asked some questions which might make for interesting discussion, but first I need to challenge some of his assumptions.
First, his claim that I find evolutionary theory unbelievable.
Second, his claim that I find a naturalistic explanation for the origin of life theory unbelievable.
Third, his his claim that I mock attempts at scientific hypotheses.
Fourth, I thought being skeptical is a good thing.
Alan Fox: I realise Sal, Mung, Colewd and phoodoo find evolutionary theory and a “naturalistic” explanation for the origin of life unbelievable. Let me add that I am far less optimistic than some regarding ever establishing an explanation for the origin of life on Earth (find evidence or echos of evidence of life elsewhere and everything changes). Until then, I’m content to concede we really don’t have anything approaching a complete explanation.
I am curious as to what those that mock attempts at scientific hypotheses think happened. There appears to be no hypothesis attributable to the “Intelligent Design” movement that could be stretched to any sort of explanation for the origin and subsequent diversity of life on Earth. Have our Evolution Skeptics any positive ideas of their own they’d like to share?
Sal? Mung? Colewd? phoodoo? Anyone? Is there a thread topic there?
So let’s see if we can’t first set the record straight.
I do not find evolutionary theory unbelievable.
I do not find naturalistic explanations for the origin of life unbelievable. I find them to be non-existent.
I do not mock attempts at scientific hypotheses. I mock non-scientific hypotheses and just-so storytelling.
What is an Evolution Skeptic and why would Alan think I am an Evolution Skeptic?
Aren’t you all skeptical of evolution? Am I at the wrong site for skepticism? The Skeptical (except when it comes to evolution) Zone?
In closing, if you want to foster discussion, maybe leave out all the irrelevant posturing. I don’t know if I could find a better example of poisoning the well than what we’ve just seen from Alan Fox.
What is the good supporting evidence for blind watchmaker evolution producing ATP synthase or any multi-protein machine?
What is the good supporting evidence for blind watchmaker evolution producing a human from a non-human?
What is the good supporting evidence for blind watchmaker evolution producing eukaryotes from populations of prokaryotes?
I really mean it when I say it is up to you to state your own opinions. I’ve regarded you as an ID proponent as I’ve seen you as an actve commenter at Uncommon descent for many years. Perhaps your views on evolution have changed over time – evolved, even. I’m interested.
Well, that’s clear. 😉
I’ve already explained that being skeptical means being doubtful. If you don’t doubt the central tenets of evolutionary theory – shift in allele frequency over time due to random variation being sifted by natural selection – then perhaps you are not an evolution skeptic after all. Only you can speak for yourself.
Frankie,
What is the good supporting evidence for an Intelligent Designer producing ATP synthase or any multi-protein machine?
What is the good supporting evidence for an Intelligent Designer producing a human from a non-human?
What is the good supporting evidence for an Intelligent Designer producing eukaryotes from populations of prokaryotes?
Even YECs accept that definition, Alan.
I favor rather lax definitions when it comes to labeling people.
Being skeptical could mean being doubtful, or it could mean having provisional acceptance. Regarding evolution, one could accept proposed mechanisms, but doubt the usual proposed history. Or one could accept the history, but doubt the mechanisms. Or one could accept known mechanisms, but doubt that they are sufficient.
I find it not worth reading or following people who are not clear about what it is that they are proposing.
OM:
I already posted that in the thread “How to test and falsify ID”
ID doesn’t make that claim
ID doesn’t make that claim, either.
Thank you for admitting that your position doesn’t have anything but people like you for support.
I’ll repeat that the central tenets of evolutionary theory are shift in allele frequency over time due to random variation being sifted by natural selection.
But the process of random variation and natural selection can be observed.
The problem with OoL hypotheses is that no direct evidence of the event and the surrounding circumstances remains. It’s not that we lack explanations – we lack evidence to decide which explanations are nearer being correct.
But it remains true that explanations involving Intelligent Designers currently have zero supporting evidence. They are currently not active candidates due to the lack of effort ID supports are putting into the ‘science of ID’.
Good for them. They accept the Earth is aroud 4.75 billion years old too? That modern humans have been around for maybe 80,000 – 100,000 years? That the story of Noah’s Ark is fiction?
I’ll have to bow to your superior knowledge. Despite requests, I’ve yet to be provided with any kind of “ID” explanation for life’s diversity on Earth.
Yes FrankenJoe, the pro-science side does have a monopoly on the scientifically educated, knowledgeable people pulling for it. The ID side has Batshit77, Kariosflatus, Phoodoo and you. We win. 😀
Your side is not the pro-science side. You can’t even say how to test the claims of your position.
No Alan. But they accept the fact that your position doesn’t have a mechanism capable of explaining life’s diversity.
OMagain,
This is partially true but is also a straw-man argument. The ID argument is about design not a designer. ID guys are doing experiments especially like flagellar gene downs to validate IR. This work is primarily from Scott Minich. The biologics institute has down experiments on bacterial adaption and developed some interesting software.
If you had some science to support your claims you wouldn’t have to worry about what ID says. And despite requests I have never been shown the actual theory of evolution nor the evidence that supports it.
OM:
Then it is strange that we have presented more evidence that supports our claims than you have to support yours.
Ah! So how can YECs accept RM and NS and deny the time-frame that makes it possible. I think you may be confused as to the YEC position.
This mantra is old and wears thin.
That’s untrue. You are like the cardinal refusing to look through Galileo’s telescope. 🙂 The theory can be summarizd briefly as the central tenets of evolutionary theory – shift in allele frequency over time due to random variation being sifted by natural selection.You’ve also been directed to some of the many resources on the web discussing evidence for common descent, and the overarching nested hierarchy.
I’m keen to look through the ID telescope at some ID theory that has explanatory power.
Alan Fox,
It can be observed but the UCD requirement is for this process producing new animal types and this has never been observed.
I agree with this but the same can be said about evolutionary transitions. How do they occur where new genetic material is required like the original observation of the spliceosome in yeast?
Is life possible without DNA, a ribosome, proteins, ATP synthase and DNA repair? Is this simple to complex idea real or did life just originate in the form we see today? If the simple to complex explanation fails, does this move us from evolution theory to simulation theory?
What I said is true and nothing Alan says will ever change that- well unless he links to the actual ToE and its supporting evidence. Now would be a good time, Alan
Frankie,
From the makers of the ‘Gish Gallop’, the ‘Chubs Waddle’ – now with added ‘Courtier’ Response’!
NS includes RM and a random mutation can happen in every generation.
But they accept the fact that your position doesn’t have a mechanism capable of explaining life’s diversity.
And it happens to be a fact. Go ahead, Alan, tell us how to test the claim that NS, drift and any other stochastic process produced the diversity of life. Show your work.
All evidence to the contrary, of course…
And Richie still has nothing to add. Life is good
Add “Courtier’s reply” to the long list of things Richie doesn’t understand
What effects would common descent leave in genomes and in the fossil record?
That’s the real test of common descent.
So you demand something else.
No demands for the IDists to discover entailed evidence for design.
Glen Davidson
LoL! Your summation is meaningless if you cannot link to the actual theory. And undirected evolution cannot produce a nested hierarchy as it expects numerous transitional forms which would ruin a nested hierarchy.
So not only does Alan double-down on his bluff he gets it wrong as evolutionism doesn’t expect a nested hierarchy
IDists have uncovered/ discovered entailed evidence for design. We have said exactly what that is. OTOH no one knows how to test the claim that NS and drift produced multi-protein machines.
Do you accept the theory of plate tectonics? If so then why? Sure we can measure plate tectonic movement using GPS at a few cm a year but have you ever seen South America touching Africa?
Do you think it’s possible to reconstruct past events with reasonable accuracy by the evidence the events leave behind?
GlenDavidson,
Can you describe this test? Certainly you can test the common descent of a child to be my grandchild. Coming in March 🙂
How would you test the common descent of how a eukaryotic cell evolved from a prokaryotic cell.
I am not sure what you mean here?
Yes. Common descent when it occurs leaves a very distinct branching nested hierarchical pattern. You observe the genetic record and look for this pattern. Then you observe the fossil record over deep time and look for this pattern.
As it turns out this test has already been done many times. Not only is the distinct pattern there, the two phylogenetic trees created by the independent genetic and fossil records match to an amazing degree of correlation.
If the patterns weren’t there or the genetic pattern was vastly different than the fossil pattern them common descent would be falsified.
Tell us what would falsify your GAWDDIDIT claim?
Nonsense. The numerous transitional forms would ruin a nested hierarchy
I did. Quit with the monotonous “questions” whose answers you have ignored repeatedly.
That’s right, the evidence is unmistakable.
I think I’d look for homologies to test whether or not a eukaryotic cell evolved from a prokaryotic cell. They exist.
Yes, asking for entailed evidence for design appears not to have anything to do with your holding it as an “alternative.” Of course we’d need that sort of evidence even to begin to consider ID as an alternative, as required by science. We never get it.
Glen Davidson
Funny how FrankenJoe and colewd always disappear when those questions on their ID claims they can’t defend come up. Purely a coincidence I’m sure. 🙂
I am being moderated and I have defended ID against the likes of you
Not all similarities are homologies. And yours isn’t a scientific test of the concept
To falsify ID all one has to do is show that stochastic processes are up to the task. Newton and science 101
LoL
Presumably you have an idea about how that new genetic material comes about? How does it come about?
Only your obscenity filled rants are moderated. Your answers to ID questions never appear because you never post any.
How would you falsify the claim observed stochastic processes aren’t being directed by some behind-the-scenes SuperDesigner?
Hi everyone, merry Christmas.
I’m not sure why ID should be considered as an alternative to evolution.
I do not think that ID explains evolution, and I don’t see why it should have to. My agreement with ID is based solely on what I perceive as intelligently designed structures in nature. Shark skin, gecko’s feet`, bacterial flagella and wings are some examples of what IMO are intelligently designed.
Nor do I see in what way a nested hierarchy is evidence for unguided evolution.
All the various cells that make up our bodies form a nested hierarchy originating from the zygote. Does this mean that they came about through a process by which the future types are not already accounted for in the original? We know from observation that every one of our bodily cells is nested under the one primal cell, this does not make organ formation an accident of history.
I agree with the general sentiment of your post but I do doubt that the various cells that make up our bodies form a nested hierarchy. They probably should, but they probably don’t.
Why Glen cracks me up:
Sequence homology is the biological homology between protein or DNA sequences, defined in terms of shared ancestry in the evolutionary history of life. Two segments of DNA can have shared ancestry either because of a speciation event (orthologs), or because of a duplication event (paralogs).
Apart from symbiotic bacteria which are not actually bodily cells, which cells do you see as probably lying outside the nested hierarchy?
All of them. 🙂
So at the first cell division, do you have the beginning of two different hierarchies or is there still a linear line of descent? What about at the second cell division?
The original cell has divided twice but the second cell has divided only once. At the third you’d have one that has divided once, one that has divided three times, and two that have divided twice for a total of eight. It looks more like a distribution than a hierarchy. At what point dies the hierarchy begin to appear?
You have not given the secret handshake!
But why would that falsify ID? ID could still be true and stochastic processes could be up to the task. The designer may have designed life on earth and itself arisen stochastically. Or it did not design life on earth.
After all, unless you are proposing the designer of life of earth arose somehow in some supernatural way demonstrating a purely natural origin of life in no way falsifies Intelligent Design. It just demonstrates that life could have been designed or it could have arisen without such assistance. If you can demonstrate that life cannot arise in any way possible without supernatural assistance then ID would be taken seriously. But you can’t do that, can you?
So given that it is not possible to falsify ID it seems to me ID has to make a positive argument rather then relying on fact it “has not been refuted”.
If you can’t make that positive argument then there’s no reason at all to worry about what ID says because all ID says is that you’ve not yet refuted me. And I’ve not yet refuted the pink unicorn (invisible) theory yet either.
Occam’s Razor and Newton apply.
ID claims stochastic processes are not up to the task so that is why demonstrating they are up to the task falsifies ID. Also ID makes positive arguments. It’s just that science mandates that all stochastic processes be eliminated before the design inference can be considered. And yes I have told you what tart positive argument is/
As explained, no it does not. All that would demonstrate is that both stochastic processes and Intelligent Designers are up to the task.
What arguments does ID make that don’t reference what evolution can’t do?
I’ve spoken to the cabal and we’re relaxing that rule for now. You may now consider the design inference. They said that the only reason it’s not being considered now is the lack of positive arguments and that once you provide them they’ll give it it’s due.
Do you have a reference I can provide to the cabal? A published paper or similar?