[betty boop]

"....Darwinists specifically do not believe in evolution, being that they reject its very possibility (i.e., directional change into an intrinsically higher state). Rather, they believe in change, a very different thing. In this regard, they are very much like progressives, who also believe in change, but not genuine progress, since their metaphysic abolishes any absolute standard by which real progress can be measured. ..."

Gagdad Bob's insight bears repeating. Indeed, to me, with this observation he nails the "bottom line" epistemic problem of Darwinist theory.

Darwinism holds that Nature uses natural selection to (blindly as it were) produce "better" or fitter species: Species change; they "progress." But absent an absolute standard or criterion of judgment, how can we speak of progress at all? It seems all we really can speak about is directionless change in directionless Nature....

But if Nature is directionless, then where do all its observable regularities come from?

Thanks so very much for the outstanding link, dear Matchett-PI!

[Moseley]

This is a brilliant series of inisights, because evolution only makes “sense” in HINDSIGHT — not as it is (supposedly) happening.

At each point of mutation, if there is no intelligence guiding a process, the mutation does not “KNOW” which direction is “better.”

Therefore, each step is EQUALLY likely to move in ANY direction — even back from where it came.

Without any intelligence to determine that this pathway is BETTER, the process cannot work.

But that is because each step is SMALLER than people realize. Each step is a very TINY baby step, too small in and of itself to have any evolutionary advantage or disadvantage. Only MANY steps cumulatively can produce a more adaptively succesful or unsuccessful specimen.

[Alamo-Girl]

Darwinism holds that Nature uses natural selection to (blindly as it were) produce "better" or fitter species: Species change; they "progress." But absent an absolute standard or criterion of judgment, how can we speak of progress at all? It seems all we really can speak about is directionless change in directionless Nature....

But if Nature is directionless, then where do all its observable regularities come from?

SO very true, dearest sister in Christ!

Order does not arise from chaos in an unguided physical system. Period.

But as if required as Lewontin says to disallow a "Divine foot in the door" - some would have us believe that life emerged by random happenstance.

But the math does not support it. Self-organizing complexity and cellular automata have guides to the system. Even in chaos theory, there are initial conditions.

And the word "random" - a mathematical term - does not accurately apply to physical systems because the system is unknown and unknowable. Which is to say we cannot know the full number and types of dimensions or fields/particles which have no direct or indirect measurable effect.

For instance, a series of numbers extracted from the extension of pi may appear random if the observer cannot see the calculation even though those numbers are in fact, highly determined by calculating the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter.

[Matchett-PI]

You’re welcome! I agree. :)