It's as I said before. The strategy used by many who were opposed to the theory of evolution on this thread is to keep the debate one-sided.
Yes, Prunepicker uses that more than any poster I've seen. His direction seems to be "just says no!" I find it especially curious that he wants to be seen as embracing science, yet so thoroughly dismisses the result.
He or she has and I find it disappointing in a way. You and I know what the response is going to be, so I try to find more interesting topics.
It has become painfully obvious that Prunepicker is an internet troll and enjoys the attention even when negative (which is all there is) in order to feed whatever disturbance his mind is suffering. Initially his little game did provide limited entertainment value, but it has worn off and he is little more than annoying anymore. He will even enjoy this little piece of critique because it is about him and makes him feel important, even though it is completely insulting.
No conspiracy involved here, unless it involves the materialistic manner in which to look at evolution. And of course, evolutionary science is indeed pure materialistic in its looking. Now personally, I think this is a mistake, just as it was a mistake to try to understand the quantum level using the Newtonian/Materialistic paradigm. I think before it is over with, and at the pace of tombstones, that there will be room for non materialistic things like Morphogenic Fields, as offered up by Sheldrake who drew upon another earlier biologist for the idea. Something outside of materialism which is involved in biology. I also think that since such fields involve information, that information in this and other forms are involved in the creation of the first self replicating molecule which had the innate ability to evolve...eventually into us. And the absence of this is what has kept science from manipulation of genetics in order to create a new species, and not just an adaptation to a specific change in environment. I also think there is a deep connection between environment and what life does in its evolution. That we separate the organism from the environment, as a mental construct, but in reality they are one whole and the very separation obscures. So, I have no problem with evolution, but just think something huge is missing, which takes the place of chance, gets rid of the roll of the dice in an almost infinite number of possibilities. It takes as much faith to believe in chance as it does to believe in a source of information. No, in fact, I think it requires more faith to believe in chance and happenstance, where it cannot be replicated with intelligent manipulation of matter. And that is the 800 pound gorilla that resides in the corner of current evolutionary thought, IMO. In regards to life originating elsewhere and coming here, in comets, etc, that solves little. For it was manifested somewhere, and so evolution was already happening if these were self replicating molecules with the innate ability to evolve into higher, more complex life forms. If iit happened elsewhere, it could happen here with the right environment. I can entertain the idea that in a lifeless vacuum, life will inevitably arise for the universe is metaphorically wired for that to happen. Life will fill that vacuum, in the same way, metaphorically air will fill a vacuum.
I take it "Materialistic" refers to things that can be seen, touched, examined, or in some way observed to be experimented on or explained. If so, that is indeed what science does. Any thing Non materialistic would fall into a category that does not allow for these thing and is therefore dismissed as unworkable hypothesis.
Not quite. Materialistic in the sense, that first we assume matter is fundamental, and then with that assumption, we look at the universe, evolution, as a pure materialistic process, and that this universe is analogous to a machine that man would have made. So, Materialism, the way science looks at all but the quantum level, negates, out of the gate, of the existence of a non materialistic information. For there can only be matter at the most fundamental level, and there is nothing outside of it that might act upon it. If you assume there is nothing outside of it, then there is no place for what might be outside. So, it limits inquiry, and materialism has become dogma, taken as truth, when it is no more than an assumption. Now granted, that we chose to look at reality using philosophical materialism, this way of looking has led to great discoveries and technology. For breaking down complex processes into parts, like a machine, has helped us in understanding how things work, on the materialistic level. So its value is unquestionable. But it is just a tool, a way of looking at reality, and may not at all be capable of giving us the true big picture view. For if matter is not fundamental, this will not change science any greater than the discoveries and understanding of the quantum level changed the big picture of science. But it will change how we view the big picture of reality. That information, which is non materialistic in nature, is required, instead of relying upon chance, and materialism.
Morphogenic fields was an idea that developed to answer questions of embryonic development, as I understand it. It could be tested by science. But, we then discovered chromosomes, which left a definition of mophogenic fields as being regions on an embryo that are starting to specialize. At any rate, it is an entirely materialistic concept as I understand it. If one abandons the use of testing it's incredibly difficult to make progress. It particular, it becomes difficult to reject just about any idea. We see that with God. One cans propose that gravity is just God, choosing to move objects in a particular pattern. There is no way to prove that false. So, if you decide to abandon materialism, perhaps the first question becomes how you plan on making ANY decision. My own impression is that what actually happens is that science gets used up to the point where the theorist decides to reject science - and I don't find that even slightly acceptable. Well, evolution depends on gigantic numbers of small changes, where there are various mechanisms for selecting which changes help and which don't. That rejection process is the key, and it's far from random. Also, it does include the environment - food, terrain, weather, other life, etc., all play a part. I agree. So, there are a few reasons that we can't limit the chance of life to the chance of life on this one planet. Life could have been transported - long odds against, I suspect. If not transported, we would be wherever life did develop - NOT where life didn't develop. Consider that there could be a large number of earths and life developed on one of them. That's the one where we would be, even though the odds would have to include all the earths. So, odds calculations have to include all the possible locations our universe has brought about over its lifetime - a LOT of "lab time". That should help at least a little bit with the concern about chance.
Yes, and the fields provided Sheldrake with the explanation for where forms come from in regards to biological life. For according to him, a biologist, there seem to be this missing from the genetics. And since Sheldrake continues to hold this view, apparently there have been no discoveries which have rendered his ideas moot. He seems to think that somehow there are memories involved, specific to each species in so far as morphology. Now, Sheldrake isn't a dummy and if you watch him, he can hold his own with materialists, and is even a learned man when it comes to the history of science, and is at home in the field of philosophy, metaphysics. And his sense of humor makes him a very good person to listen to when he is debating other scientists . Of course his critiques of materialism has insured his academic career was over. And even when still at Cambridge, his questioning of materialism, i.e. his idea of morphic fields would never get grant money, which is common in academia. Oh, I never even intimated the materialistic based science, should be abandoned. That would be crazy, given what this way of looking at reality has produced in understanding and technology. Yet I see materialism, as just a way of looking, a tool, and a very successful tool. My point is, this way of looking automatically cuts off what is not materialism. And of course anything other than materialism is never given any consideration at all. Materialism rejects the idea that information may be involved in the rise of the first self replicating molecule, with the ability to not only replicate itself, but in moving beyond that by it eventually forming into the first single cell organism, which obviously had the ability to evolve in multicell organisms and eventually to evolve in man. Not only could that first self replicating molecule live in some kind of harmony with the environment that spawned it, but it came with such huge potentiality. Within it, was the ability to evolve into such complexity and with the ability to adapt to a changing environment. One of so many coincidences coming out of rolling the dice, coming from chance. So it just seems to me that the idea of information being involved in the make up of an atom, and in the manifestation and evolution of this thing called life is a valid idea, worth considering and even tested, if we have a way to do this. But getting the grants, the funding for this path of inquiry is probably near to impossible. And that is understandable of course, given the attitude and politics of academia. No disagreement with the small changes and adaptation present and verifiable in evolution. And we can call this various names, but to me, it looks to be intelligence involved. And this ability and proclivity to adapt to a changing environment must have been present in that first self replicating molecule. So not only did some primordial soup by chance spawn that first molecule, but by mere chance it also came complete with some ability to adapt, as well as to literally change over time into another species other than it first appeared to be. Such good luck for us homo sapiens for if not for that ability that arose with the molecule itself, we would not be here today, nor any other life for that matter. Serendipity. But for me, this makes room for information from some source, which would tidy up evolution and get rid of mere chance and serendipity. That this appeals to me over mere chance must be something with my own personality. For I do admit that purpose and meaning is very attractive to me personally. Yet I am under no delusion that this thinking is anything more than just an idea, at least at this point in time. Yes I can of course see how great time and chance might yield a self replicating molecule, and by chance it just happened to have the potential of not only adapting to a changing environment but more than that. It also came with the potential of becoming much more complex to wage a battle against entropy by adding complexity. And we are taught that these minute adaptations eventually led through great periods of time and changing environment, into not only more complex life forms, but into totally different species on top of that. Via mutations and adaptation. And this is the part that many people have a problem with. Of course, this might change the minds of some of these people, if our science understood the genetic processes well enough to forego the great periods of time and by intelligent manipulation of the genetics, create a bridge from this species to the next new species that could arise by more manipulation. I know this would do it for me, and answer important questions which need to be answered. But no doubt, this TOE is the best we have, with no alternatives on the horizon. And perhaps one day it will turn into a hard science, like physics, which has been so successful in predictions and contributing so much to technology. Of course there are area in biology that warrant to be called a hard science, but then there is still much softness in evolutionary biology, and it may turn out to be the downside of looking only through materialistic eyes which is somewhat of a limitation, when science should have no limitation. But it is understandable when the materialistic manner of looking has been so successful in understanding. This tends to insure that this is the only manner in which science will continue to look when it comes to evolutionary biology. There are a few physicists who seem to think that a key component of an atom is information to dovetail with the energy and matter. And if this turns out to be fact, at some point, this would open up even evolution for the idea of information being involved in not only the first manifestation of that self replicating molecule, but also in the process of evolution itself. And perhaps nature abhors a vacuum not only in the classic sense, but also when it comes to life and its manifestation. So that when you have the right elements, in the right soup, and there is a total absence of life on that planet or moon, and with the right environment, information which is perhaps a part of the universe itself, programmed into it, life will inevitably arise as a self replicating molecule but with the information to adapt and to become more and more complex. Just as with the big bang, where once the universe was created in that bang, contained within it was information, which was needed to create the stars, the planets as it expanded into infinity. And in that information was the needed info for the rise of life, so that nothing happened by chance but by the information and perhaps Tom Campbell is right. That the universe is a virtual reality, with one of its primary foundations being information.
Sheldrake was 50 years old 100 years ago. LOTS of stuff appeared to be magic back then. So, various individuals came up with metaphysical explanations for what they couldn't figure out. I see absolutely NO justification for falling down THAT hole when we have fully satisfactory scientific explanations that have withstood decades of testing and incredible technological advancement in tools for examining what is going on. I would point out that we do have significant numbers of people looking for non-materialistic answers. For example, those working on ID certainly count, as they specialize in attempting to find answers that are outside of science. We also have theoretical physicists working on stuff not unlike this and there is your guy Thomas and friends. And, science has explanation for complexity. In the end, I think it is important to resist the urge to replace science with explanations for which there is no method of testing or verification. We see that with string theory, for example. We end up with thousands of models and no way to test. Our environment and ability to succeed in that environment provide a decision making methodology for the many small changes that occur naturally. Surely that answer was good at the very beginning. It is not dependent on the size or complexity of the life form. You repeatedly refer to success in an environment as "mere chance". I don't see a justification for calling it that. Also, what does "tidy up" mean? The messiness is itself an important factor indicating how evolution works. Also, I'm assuming we're talking about evolution, not abiogenesis. You sound like someone who doubts evolution. I'd point to the difference between a wolf and a "pocket dog". Man did that, and didn't have to touch genes to do it. In fact, mankind used evolution - far more supportive of evolution that if man created a unique beast by directly engineering dna. Our technology has only reached the point where we have limited ability to edit genes. Expecting someone to design a new animal is far far beyond our capability at present. But, one can certainly find cases where it happened through nature. For example, we now CAN compare the genes of life forms. We can see how much we share with a banana or a bat or whatever. I don't see anything that is "best" about your guy Tom Campbell and his "Big T.O.E." ideas on the universe being a simulation. It includes no method of verification and doesn't provide new tools for investigating our universe - two major criteria for any theory. Again, there are models for our universe extending from the big bang without the need for some unidentified "information" thing. I would resist postulating something that doesn't appear to be necessary. We also have theories of consciousness that don't require the fabulous. This idea that there is something missing is difficult for me to accept.
I rather think coherent folk can see where jihadists come from, and they are all adherents of the male dominator god perception of reality.
Not a single statement you made (above) is true. Evolution is taught as a fact. It isn't. Only a conspiracy would take a lie and tell everyone it's the truth. Of course. What new species in new form? Do you mean the ones that have just recently been discovered? I have proposed evidence that evolution is a hoax. You have yet to provide evidence that it's not. Can you honestly provide any evidence of a species gradually becoming another species?
In other words you can't provide hard evidence of evolution so you need to make it a religion thing to get off of the subject of science.
If it was put up and directed to me, i.e. a response to my posts, then I responded. Nobody have provided any evidence of a species gradually transitioning into another species. I'm still waiting. I guess I'll have to since you have nothing.
I have proposed evidence that evolution is a hoax. Nah, you haven't, and you clearly do not understand what evolution is, how it works over time, or even the most basic of molecular biology principles. If you wish to reject it personally? Do so, your choice, but you have proven nothing and the fact that you think you can prove a negative is preposterous, you don't even get that much.
Take up studying molecular biology, that's on you to equip yourself with the tools to understand. Or you can just keep skipping along withh your fingers in your ears shouting la la la la la la .....
You have responded to posts. But, you didn't make any serious attempt to refute the science described in the cites. You just blew it off.
No, evolution has so much evidence (and no adversaries) that it is a foundation of all modern biology. And, you have to admit, modern biology is doing pretty darn well!
I gave you links to cases where people watched it happen in a lab environment, where observational mistakes couldn't be part of it and there were no suppositions. In fact, biologists study several different kinds of change at the cellular level that has resulted in new species. If you didn't want to wait for someone to do your work for you AGAIN then you could always wind up your google and let it cruise the electric internets. (Sorry - Bill Nye keeps popping up in podcasts I listen to.)
Now you're just moaning about the quality of education today. There, I might agree with you in some cases ... BUT, NO, evolution is taught as a theory. You need to remember that scientific method can't produce a fact. It can only produce a theory. That is the VERY BEST you get. So, if science is taught even SLIGHTLY correctly, your mistake wouldn't even be POSSIBLE! ALL the species we see on earth are the result of evolutionary processes. Remember that we share a whole lot of dna with a banana. (No, that doesn't mean humans came from a banana - just like sharing dna with apes doesn't mean we came from apes.) I've posted evidence of evolution many times, including to YOU. So, I don't accept your nonsense on that. Like I've said, there are well documented cases of new species arising in a lab, with scientists studying exactly what the cellular level process was that allowed that to happen. Oh yes. You said "new form". That's not involved in the technical definition of a species. Wolves and pocket dogs are quite different in form, but apparently they aren't different species, or at least not necessarily so.
If you still feel you can answer my questions about your claims, please feel free to do so. It seems their is some other reason you oppose the theory of evolution, even if you yourself don't realize it. Do what ChemEngineer and Yguy could not. Provide proof of your claims. Note: TH, 2 Bethany, OK view N view H view R view F
There is so much evidence for evolution at this point, and it ties in so beautifully with other scientific theories and disciplines, that for anyone with any sense and education in the matter it is beyond question. An online forum full of people who lack the level of education necessary to understand modern evolutionary theory and evidence properly is probably not the venue to debate it. I mean, I guess if you enjoy wasting your time, have at it. Just don't expect to learn as much as you might by engaging with knowledgeable and competent experts in relevant fields.
