Ask, and ye shall receive!
During recent discussions, it was suggested that Darwin’s Doubt raised unanswerable questions for the theory of evolution. Discuss.
324 thoughts on “Stephen Meyer, Darwin’s Doubt and the Cambrian Explosion”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Mockery of ideas isn’t bullying.
Exactly. Teasing, chest-thumping, mimicking, laughing at etc. All the stuff I’m often guilty of.
But as petrushka says….how can you NOT?
ETA: I was responding to petrushka above. To Dave, I’d say that mockery of somebody who disagrees with you when you’re among a batch of like-thinking buddies, seems like bullying to me.
Anyhow, I haven’t bullied any ID proponents at this site. Even at Atbc, I don’t think I’ve said anything that isn’t demonstrably true.
They (or a lot of them) think everything THEY say is demonstrably true, too. Bullying isn’t a matter of whether you’re right (even demonstrably so) or not. It’s a matter of tone, context, environment, rhetorical style, etc.
I can be both right and an asshole as easily as I can run and wear socks (which is to say not terribly easily, because I don’t like to run–but I CAN manage it!).
I don’t recognise tone or rhetorical style as potential forms of bullying. Bullying seems to have a more serious meaning to me. Intimations of undesirable consequences (eg violence) or répétition of untrue slurs.
Btw, hardly any of the UD crowd think anything they say is *demonstrably* true. Demonstration is not something they embrace.
Again, I’m pretty sure I could find almost these exact words on one of their sites directed at backers of evolutionary theory. That’s not to say they’re equally correct, only that they’re equally sure (or a lot of them, anyhow). Chest-thumping is a pretty easy gig.
And consider “repetition of an untrue slur.” Presumably, the numnutz you’ve called an anti-semite and racist on this thread considers those to be “untrue slurs.”
I’ve been called an anti-semite on this site by a regular here–and I’m Jewish (or at least my parents were) and most of my father’s family was killed in the Holocaust.
Regardless of the dictionary definition of bullying, I note that we do gang up on visitors who disagree with anything we consider fundamental.
I have used the phrase intellectual dishonesty, but in retrospect, I’m not sure I approve of it. I think it is possible to be wrong and honest at the same time. I think it is possible to be illogical and honest at the same time.
I defend the notion that mainstream science is the best and truest source of reliable knowledge, but outside the hallowed pages of refereed journals, much of what we act on from day to day is cobbled together from personal experience and anecdote. It is difficult for some people to separate anecdote from experiment and science from common sense.
No disagreement with the second two sentences, but IMHO intellectual dishonesty is the best explanation for the phenomenon that KN described, where serious and difficult questions are ignored.
Dishonesty, or just being on the wrong side of history.
I personally don’t have the knowledge or expertise to think everything out for myself — although I frequently try.
But I try not to confuse being correct with being honest.
Yes, but being “intellectually dishonest” isn’t about being wrong, it’s about approaching an issue with prejudice–without “objectivity.” As one source on the web states, “Intellectual honesty means to research and analyze a problem objectively.” I doubt many would disagree with Wikipedia’s short list of important aspects of intellectual honesty:
If we use Guenin’s meaning of “intellectual honesty,” I think it would be fair to say that ID/creationism never gets there. Of course it can get messy, as for many creationists “eschewing deception” means not caving in to (what they characterize as) anti-Bible views (or to materialist/atheist views), but as I understand it “intellectual honesty” is a term used in order not to accord any dishonest intent on such a fundamentally biased view, rather to note that, say, pseudoscience fails to deal with matters in an intellectually sound or rigorous manner. The person may be as ingenuous and sincere as anyone can be, yet it still isn’t a view that comes through sound and honest intellectual pursuit of the truth starting with the evidence and not with the desire to prop up a prior belief (or at least with sufficient suppression of that desire to give honest consideration to the evidence).
Of course UD often condemns us for not being intellectually honest, and we often condemn them for the same lack. However, we actually do argue from the evidence, and they manifestly do not–unless one counts their highly biased conflation of functional complexity with evidence of design.
Glen Davidson
davehooke said: “Btw, hardly any of the UD crowd think anything they say is *demonstrably* true. Demonstration is not something they embrace.’
What do you think of this: The UD crowd and other creationists think that what they believe in and say is self-evidently true, and should be to everyone, and therefor doesn’t have to be demonstrated.?
My sense (only from recent browsing of the UD site) is that they think that their (O, how trenchant!) criticisms of Darwinism have shifted the burden, i.e., that their position is not required to prove anything. So, as far as I can tell, they’d claim that it’s not so much a matter of ID being self-evident, but of any alternatives suggested having been conclusively shown by them to be no good.
There’s an old NYer cartoon I’ve always liked. Two guys are watching George Washington hack away at a cherry tree and one of them says to the other “Sure, HE says he never tells a lie, but what does that prove?”
Exactly. They are not correct. It really does make a difference.
The comments of Byers are easily verifiable. I have already linked to some examples.
Some of us have been posting on the same forums as Byers for years. He can protest his innocence as much as he likes. He often says he doesn’t believe in race and then days something racist. Of why Feynman was sexist he said “He’s a Jew” before explaining how Christians were morally superior, and then capping off the post with NT flavoured sexism.
If you ever want a good mixture of laughter and shock, ask Byers his interpretation of Mein Kampf. Spoiler: Hitler didn’t believe in race either.
It isn’t a slur to call out someone for opinions they have actually espoused.
To a fair degree it seems to be “anything goes” so long as evolution fails and ID wins. Sometimes it’s all about how the evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of design, sometimes it’s about how it’s simply the default and pretty much every step of evolution (or at least of major changes) has to be shown to at least be likely in order to even compete with design, sometimes it’s all just so apparent (Romans 1) that you’d be an idiot even to question design, and often it’s all of the above and perhaps more.
When the “conclusion” is what matters, process isn’t all that important.
Today someone at UD was “arguing” that kids thinking design explains life proves something, because kids are so honest, or whatever, and have to learn to think life occurs differently. The monsters under their beds are real, I take it. Dawkins’ old (and I think rather faulty) claim that life has the appearance of having been designed for a purpose is often taken as unquestionable truth (because Dawkins is reliable? No, because he “admits” something, and if even he admits it…blah blah) and is one of the “pillars” undergirding especially Meyer’s Signature in the Cell, but somewhat less his Darwin’s Doubt. Never mind that it’s his opinion (what was the purpose, Dawkins? Survival and reproduction? Strange design purpose, a lot like evolutionary function though), it’ll do for rhetoric.
Torley seems to think that design needs no evidence because intelligence is potentially limitless (is it really, practically?). Scientifically that’s very backward, since the practical issue in science is often to explain the (in the case of evolution, hereditary, and even horizontal transmission) limits that are found, not to say “this cause can produce anything, ergo it’s the default cause.” We need to know why the proposed Designer would limit itself to producing evidently evolutionary limits throughout life, rather than to “mix and match” as even limited intelligences such as our own effect.
There isn’t much, if any to speak of, intellectual discipline in ID. It can be the Logos of John’s Gospel one minute, and completely scientific the next. Murray recently informed UD that religious motives make no difference–that the arguments are what matter–even as he claimed that he was drawn to ID because of the hysterical nature of argument of the “Darwinists.” He sees no conflict there, even were we to credit his mischaracterization of “Darwinists” (many of whom wouldn’t even bother with any of this, and with a spectrum of politeness and lack thereof existing in those who do argue)? He thinks ill of evolution because there are some really over-the-top atheists and what-not, while arguing that ID arguments have to be taken seriously despite the religious apologetics driving those?
ID arguments have been treated very seriously, in fact, because there was a threat that many might be persuaded through them. So Murray’s wrong on yet another angle, namely his ill-informed belief that ID arguments have not been treated seriously.
Regardless of the ad hominem fallacy, though, I would argue that ID arguments did not on their intellectual merits ever demand serious consideration, for those “arguments” never rose to any threshold of science–such as having genuine evidence to having intellectually honest testable claims. The ad hominem fallacy only applies where reasonably intellectually honest people are involved. Witnesses are impeached in court because those who are lying, or simply quite mistaken, are not dependable witnesses, and physics never bothers to poll people on the street about their beliefs in quantum mechanics or what-not. The uninformed or badly mistaken can indeed be excluded from many discussions, so that it is where you have reasonably informed and intellectually honest people that bringing up who it is becomes inappropriate. Frauds in science generally receive no second chances.
Glen Davidson
I certainly didn’t mean to imply that it is impossible to be dishonest.
walto:
No, you haven’t, but I’m sure that won’t stop you from repeating your claim.
Even getting caught red-handed in a lie doesn’t seem to deter you.
Being called a liar by a complete nimrod is another form of obno bullying. Even the Saint Lizzie rules did allow a few of keiths’ absurd bullshit posts to be guanoed, but not nearly enough of them IMHO.
ETA: did I say “nimrod”? I meant dipshit. BTW, how are your your arnie additions coming?
And, as I’ve said before, keiths, I would welcome any impartial of YOUR choice to go through any and all of our disputes and adjudicate. I’m quite confident of the result.
Murray has also said that he doesn’t actually CARE if his arguments are any good, because arguments don’t matter to him, truth is relative to his happiness, etc., etc. He’ll say whatever he thinks is effective at that moment. Doesn’t care a whit if he’s contradicting something he’s said last week.
As I’ve mentioned before, I think ad hominem is sometimes a perfectly appropriate method of argumentation. There was a philosopher at Penn State named Johnstone who wrote a book according to which ALL philosophical argumentation is, in a sense, ad hom. I’m not sure that’s right, but I do think there are times when it is quite sensible, just as it sometimes makes sense to discuss causes for beliefs as well as reasons.
walto:
Being called a liar by a complete nimrod is another form of obno bullying.Even the Saint Lizzie rules did allow a few of keiths’ absurd bullshit posts to be guanoed, but not nearly enough of them IMHO.
ETA: did I say “nimrod”?I meant dipshit.BTW, how are your your arnie additions coming?
ETA2: As if on cue, keiths here gives Dave an example of a repeated false slur.
Oops, above is another example of a post I would delete because it’s already there and I was only trying to edit an earlier post. Of course if I were to do that, keiths would accuse me being like Barry Arrington again. So fuck it–let it stay here twice.
Sorry, I haven’t followed your disagreements with Keith. Anyhow, that is not an example of me, you, or anyone else bullying an ID proponent at this site.
walto,
Adjudicate what? The evidence is there for anyone who cares to look, and it’s unambiguous.
I’m quite happy for them to invoke all the metaphysics they like. When they admit that creationism is theology that’s a good thing.
Exactly. And since you and I disagree about what it unambiguously shows–the sensible thing would be to call in a third party. As I said, I’m confident enough to let you pick anybody you want. That seems fairer to me, but as Neil has already opined (on my behalf) in a couple of places and is a moderator here, we can just take his judgements on these issues. That way nobody will have to bother rummaging through all your bullshit again.
Oh wait–you think he’s wrong about everything too–and nobody but you has ever suggested that you have been right. So never mind–you’ll have to find somebody new. You go ahead and pick.
Allan miller
Bored? Yes i get it! Simply saying deposition of sediment loeads can be explained by big deposition power events. so all segregated strata below the k-t line CAN be explained from a single year of segregated flows greatly collecting and depositing sediment loads. including biology caught up within.
All can be fit in this equation. its just as it looks in the field. Collected in a heap by a giant. Different areas equals different heaps and inhabitants.
This k-t line is famous because the fossils above it SUDDENLY are entirely mammal etc and no dino etc.
They must invoke a space rock to explain the sudden change including the total extinction of dinos etc.
In reality its simply the biblical flood line. The creatures were killed by the very thing that entombs. Water deposited sediment. No dinos died of old age.
Above the line is secondary deposition events. From episode some centuries after the flood.
The bigger point is that geology should not be used to make a biology case.
So the cambrian explosion , in reality a minor spot covered by the sediment of the flood, is not evidence for or against evolution. because its all reliant on geology constraints.
Still id makes a good case using evolutionists own geology/biology concepts.
That’s true.
Isn’t it true that your reason for believing this story, your only reason, is that it is in the Bible?
If it turned out that there had been misprints passed down through the ages and that the whole flood biz wasn’t actually in any authentic Scriptures, that all the Biblical scholars now agreed that that was just thrown in there by some heretical whacko in the 9th Century, would you still push the Flood theory? Or put it another way: is there now or has there ever been a single person in the universe who believed this flood theory who did so for reasons entirely independent of your Book? And if not–why not?
walto,
Anyone who cares to look can see the evidence for him or herself.
Which is unfortunate for you.
keiths,
Could you start another thread? This, too, is getting boring.
Allan Miller,
I agree. It would allow anyone interested to comment without disrupting other threads.
Robert Byers,
No, it can’t.
It cannot explain why each species always has a specific location in the sediment, extending from a few centimetres to a few metres at best. This ‘big deposition power event’ has been awful gentle!
It cannot explain why they lie there in succession, such that those below rarely have a more ‘advanced’ form of a characteristic found above, and upper-layer creatures resemble modern ones more than lower – even among those with a deep-water habit.
It cannot explain why modern-type mammals are never found below the K-T (where are the corpses of the animals who missed the Ark? Had God simply had enough of ammonites and dinosaurs?).
It cannot explain why dinosaurs are found above the K-T.
It cannot explain why the strata above the K-T appear to have been produced by very similar mechanisms to those below it.
It cannot explain why radioactive isotopes near the top of the sedimentary column have undergone less decay than those below.
It cannot explain why one can find corals (made by shallow-water creatures, and anchored to the sea bed) in bedded layer after overlaying layer of limestone, forming columns sometimes hundreds of metres in depth, always facing up.
It cannot explain why those coral species, and the shells found among them, change as one ascends the column.
It cannot explain where the sheer volume of minerals in limestone came from. It cannot explain how the sheer volume of creatures in limestone managed to live in such a crowded sea. It cannot explain how the sheer volume of sediment in (say) the Rockies was produced, nor how it returned to rock in so short a time, with clear bedding planes traversing the range. It cannot explain where the rest of the Rockies has gone.
It cannot explain cyclothems – alternating deposits of coal and limestone.
It cannot explain why some deep sediments appear to have been produced in deserts, ice sheets or river deltas.
In short, it cannot explain a damned thing, save by endless, tedious repetition of vague supposition – “segregated flows greatly collecting and depositing sediment loads”. It’s a story for children.
Allan,
I see no need for another thread or for this discussion to continue. I do reserve the right to reply to false accusations on the threads in which they occur, however.
Please yourself, but I think it’s been done to death. It’s like Peter Griffin and the giant chicken, scrapping their way from thread to thread!
Be careful what you wish for walto. I’ve been lurking here and have seen you in action for some time. Keiths certainly isn’t guiltless but of the two you are the one who much more often twists words and is “economical with the truth”.
There’s virtue in giving it up, or at least taking it outside.
We have a sandbox and guano, either of which are suitable for gentlemanly or ungentlemanly duels.
I’m a big fan of keiths.
Keep up the excellent work holding their feet to their own fire!
Normal service may now resume.
No, these questions are not off thread because I am asking you to be more clear on answers YOU ALREADY GAVE ON THIS THREAD. So, my questions are as off thread as your answers must have been. You mentioned design. You meantioned creation. You made conclussion on the fossil record as if it was complete. You mentioned that living organisms “suddenly appeared”. Now, stop evading uncomfortable questions and give more details about your own questions so thta we can know what you are talking about:
Can you describe what exactly you mean by design? What is a “design” that can produce biodiversity exactly? Can you also describe what “god” is? Can you describe what “creation” is exactly, how it happens? How do you know you are not missing fossils? How do living organisms “suddenly appear”?
You’re hired! I encourage you to read all the threads in which keith and I have argued and make your report. Please also indicate where I have twisted words and been economical with the truth and I will gladly make my apologies.
Please join adapa on this “reviewing board” I have requested. I like the idea of having keiths fans making the determinations–especially big ones!
And I agree with petrushka, Alan and Allan that this thread isn’t an appropriate place. Make a new thread or use the sandbox or whatever you like. I will submit to binding arbitration.
No doubt keiths will do the same!
ETA: As I’ve said keiths gets to do the picking, I shouldn’t be saying stuff like “OK, you’re hired!”–even if the (possible) candidates are fans of his. I only meant that if y’all are OK with him, you’re OK with me. But he gets to decide.
As indicated earlier, I think the creationist response to questions like those are likely to be “the burden shift.” That is, design is whatever can’t be managed by randomness and natural selection.
FWIW, “God” has traditionally been defined as a being that is “worthy of worship.” And that has been defined as something having the qualities of omniscience, omnipotence, and perfect benevolence.
There are no reasonable arguments in favor of the existence any such being, but that has never stopped theists. Those pushing “design” generally start arguing in a circle at this point.
I don’t think so. I am just asking what “design” is for examples – in biological terms. I am not asking anyonwe to prove anything. I am just asking for the definition. I wonder if he is honest enough to admit he has no clue about it. Then there would come to obviuos point of how you can have no clue about what a process is and yet have evidence it happened.
But that’s not a good description of god. Of course, one should ask how does anyone know that god is omniscient, omnipotent, and perfectly benevolent. So, we are pretty much in the same place.
That’s the point, walto. I am not trying to find arguments in favor or against ID, god, sudden-living-organism-appearance, etc. But if someone is writing arguments and writes those terms I think it’s fair that this person explains clearly what they mean so that we can understand his/her arguments.
You can start with the lie you told about being “called an anti-semite on this site by a regular here.”
If your finally talking creationism and not other jazz then okay lets deal.
human competence in figuring things out is not very good.
the flood story is so well known there would be few who could figure it out in the old days without this already reference.
Further the flood is about unseen but great mechanisms and so people are too slow to figure it out.
the bible is true. the evidence of nature backs it up or doesn’t contradict it.
its the smart conclusion its true. why don’t you think its true.
Okay, new thread.
Allan Miller,
there is so much to answer. yet its easily all answered.
you are showing a strange need to explain away details.
What is the great evidence of nature here!!
Heaps of sediment with dead creatures within.
Just as if some great event collected and deposited and had a goal to destroy biology.
Just as one would expect if one saw the biblical flood as true.
The fossils also fit in a biblical story.
you have below the k-t line dinos or rather a very unique world before the flood. A unclean world.
after the flood a new fauna/flora based on a clean dominance. the ark had a 6:1 clean/unclean dominance to resupply the earth.
So the type of fossils verify’s a logical deduction from genesis.
It all works.
It’s amusing that you blew off questions about isotope ratios earlier, but now you’re arguing based on clean/unclean ratios.
Byers, did the flood also kill all the marine creatures?