So You Think You Are a Darwinian?

Royal Institute of Philosophy ^ | 1994 | D. C. Stove

[Ethan Clive Osgoode]

Since the quote I pulled is dated 1989, and the one you pulled is dated 1988, one could make the point that your quote is outdated in light of new evidence.

I suppose you could make that point, but it would be a very silly one.

[Junior]

Why? Theories, unlike religion, change with new evidence. More recent material can be considered more relevant that earlier material for that reason. Honestly, even going back to 1989 may be too ancient for a science (biology) which updates itself every day. Mind you, no definition of the theory of evolution accepted nowadays mentions life coming from non-life, and none of them jibe at all with biblical creationism.

[Ethan Clive Osgoode]

Why?

You said:

Since the quote I pulled is dated 1989, and the one you pulled is dated 1988, one could make the point that your quote is outdated in light of new evidence.

So what is this "new evidence" that must have come up between 1988 and 1989 which makes Mayr "outdated"? Or are you only relating to me a fantasy of yours?

[Junior]

Whatever the evidence was, it was enough to set the 1989 definition of evolution as a change in allele frequency over time -- pretty much what it is now. That's alright, dear heart, at least you aren't dredging up stuff from decades ago as some creationists are wont to do.

[Ethan Clive Osgoode]

Whatever the evidence was, it was enough to set the 1989 definition of evolution as a change in allele frequency over time -- pretty much what it is now.

Another fine example of an evolutionist pretending to have evidence for something.

[Lurking Libertarian]

Placemarker.

[Junior]

I never said I had evidence. Obviously the biological community must have, however. Of course, since it ain't in the Bible, you can simply ignore it.

[general_re]

You could tell me that you're going to quit waffling and follow the link. But apparently you're too lazy for that. I guess a few vigorous mouse-clicks would exhaust you.

Wassamatter, the fact that I'm not running out to read the entire collected works of some deservedly obscure Aussie wanker bother you?

Lemme explain how it works, big guy - this is a discussion forum, not a book club. If you have something you wish to discuss, then feel free to post it here. If you don't, don't bring it up. And if you make idiot assertions about things like "Popperian irrationalism", and someone calls you on it, try, oh try, to present some support for it here, not by presenting one's interlocutor with a book list. After all, if you can't manage to boil it all down to a concise format for discussion, it's rather doubtful that you understand it, and are instead simply parroting catchphrases from elsewhere. Capisce?

[Ethan Clive Osgoode]

I never said I had evidence.

And I never expected you to cough up the "new evidence" you mentioned in that silly fantasy of yours.

Obviously the biological community must have, however. Of course,

Then it should be a snap for you to find the "new evidence" that you say popped up between 1988 and 1989.

since it ain't in the Bible, you can simply ignore it.

Ignore what? The "new evidence"? I haven't even seen it yet.

[Junior]

So basically, anything the biological community does is "pure fantasy" while anything the creationist community does is "real science." Interesting. When was the last time a creationist actually did any research (other than quote mining)? Creationists don't do research because then they have a tendency to become evolutionists.

[Ethan Clive Osgoode]

So basically, anything the biological community does is "pure fantasy"

No not at all. This is just another fantasy of yours.

[Junior]

And, just in case you don't follow that link, some of the relevant passages contained therein are:

A few years later, creationist biologists Carl Krekeler and William Bloom, who taught creationist biology at the Lutheran Church's Valparaiso University in Indiana, left after concluding that a literal interpretation of Genesis was not supported by any of the available scientific evidence. Krekeler concluded, "The documentation, not only of changes within a lineage such as horses, but of transitions between the classes of vertebrates-- particularly the details of the transition between reptiles and mammals--forced me to abandon thinking of evolution as occurring only within 'kinds'. " (cited in Numbers, 1992, p. 302) Krekeler also criticized the creationist movement for the "dozens of places where half-truths are spoken, where quotations supporting the authors' views are taken from the context of books representing contrary views, and where there is misrepresentation." (cited in Numbers, 1992, p. 303) The two became theistic evolutionists, and later wrote a biology textbook which accepted evolutionary theory.

Perhaps as a result of these defections, the creationist movement no longer finances or carries out any field research of any sort. Its sole method of "scientific research" consists of combing through the published works of evolutionary mechanism theorists to look for quotations which can be pulled out of context and used to bolster creationist beliefs.

If you'd like, I can put it in blue to make it easier to read...

[balrog666]

After all, if you can't manage to boil it all down to a concise format for discussion, it's rather doubtful that you understand it, and are instead simply parroting catchphrases from elsewhere. Capisce?

A statement worth bookmarking.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so much for your post!

Indeed, the patents which have derived from genetic programming are a new angle to the discussion. But as tortoise mentioned, these programs are domain operable and thus don't quite deliver on the expectation implied by the Scientific American article.

I agree that one can program for self-organizing complexity (e.g. Stephen Wolfram) --- the trick is autonomy, symbolization and, of course, how to bootstrap the algorithm at inception.

There are several branches of research which appear to be related to a casual reader, but on closer inspection - the differences are readily seen.

For lurkers wanting to explore this in more detail, I suggest The Genetic Algorithm Archive. (The NCARAI Web Pages have been approved by Dr. Alan Meyrowitz, Director, Navy Center for Applied Research In Artificial Intelligence.)

[gore3000]

What's Darwin's definition got to do with the modern theory of evolution?

First of all you called my posting of Darwin's definition of evolution and the definition of evolution given by the prime site for evolutionists - TalkOrigins in post# 164 "(even positing your own, strawman, version)" So you have no credibility at all. You and your friends have often given the cowardly definition from TalkOrigins as the new definition of evolution - which it is not. Evolutionists still claim that man descended from lower species - as Darwin does and that definition does not even talk about descent. Now let's see you instead of saying what evolution is not give a true, clear and concise definition of what you call 'the modern theory of evolution'. I bet you will chicken out like you and the rest of your friends have been doing (and indeed all evolutioists) have been doing for the last 150 years. As the great sage of the FR threads said - "evolution is whatever lie you want it to be". That is why you ask 10 evolutionists what the theory of evolution and you get 20 different definitions - depending on the discussion, the person being asked and the phase of the moon on that particular day. So let's see, the true definition of evolution, bet it does not cut the mustard - if you do not make a thousand excuses and hurl a thousand insults instead of answering the question.

The mechanics of evolution are still debated, but the fact of evolution is not.

Wonderful rhetoric and absolute garbage. You cannot say what the theory is, you cannot say how it works - but nevertheless the nonexistent theory with nonexistent mechanisms is a 'fact'. Of course when I ask you for the incontrovertible facts proving evolution you will say that there is no proof in science. You have already shown your total dishonesty so I am sure you will shamelessly continue in the same mode.

[gore3000]

The issue is whether the process of selection can build new things without specifying their structure.

...and after 150 years of saying that that claim is a scientific 'fact' evolutionists still cannot back it up. Just because some evolutionist says that matter can intelligently design itself - something that no one has ever seen - does not mean it is true, that it is a fact, or that it is science. It is just the evolutionist concession that you need intelligence to organize organisms in the intricate, complex way that science has shown them to have been made. Just because evolution has been FORCED to admit that there is intelligence and design in the universe, it does not mean that such intelligence and design was due to evolution. In fact nowhere do we see intelligence in matter or design coming about at random. We do see everywhere examples of design and order being the result of intelligent human beings.

[gore3000]

Secondly, evolution does not deal with the "process which has produced life from non-life."

The guy that said it is an evolutionist. You already disinherited Darwin, now you are going to disinherit every other evolutionist?????????????

[gore3000]

[Mayr, Toward a New Philosophy of Biology, 1988]

This is one of the biggest names in evolution, quoted by numerous other evolutionists. I am sure that because he does not like the definition, Junior will write him off also as he has already written off Darwin and Dozhansky.

[gore3000]

Working Theory of Evolution (contributed by Physicist)

At some finite time in the past, life began somehow. (How it began is beyond the scope of the theory, but the observational evidence strongly suggests that only one such beginning on Earth has left descendants to the present day.) As life reproduces and multiplies, mutations occur with small but finite probabilities, causing new genes to be added, and creating new alleles of existing genes. The different alleles confer different traits upon their owners, rendering them more or less successful in coping with their environments. The organisms that are more successful in coping with their environments consequently have a slightly greater probability of passing their genes to the next generation of organisms than do the less successful organisms. This causes allele frequencies to change over time.

Because mutations are random according to their probabilities, there is essentially a zero probability that two non-interbreeding populations will get the same set of mutations. (Even if they somehow do, there is essentially a zero probability that the frequencies of the alleles will end up the same in both populations.) The alleles and new genes available in each population will therefore diverge, with the result that the populations become genetically more distant from each other over time. Eventually, the two populations will become genetically so distant that they lose the ability to produce viable hybrids between them. This is the cause of the origin of species.

There are many problems with the above. The biggest though is at the end. Speciation is not evolution. To have evolution one needs greater complexity, new functions, new genes, new abilities. One cannot deny that a human is far more complex, has far more genes, functions and abilities than a bacterium. The above in no way explains that, speciation is no proof of that. There is also strong proof that selection cannot create speciation - dogs which have been selected for thousands of years from wolves, can still mate and produce offspring with wolves. This is a far more selective process than they would have undergone in millions of years of 'natural selection' and they are still one species with wolves.

[gore3000]

Theories, unlike religion, change with new evidence.

False. When theories are disproven by new evidence they are thrown out and the discoverer of the replacement usually has his name put on the new theory. Evolution is not a theory, it is a materialist ideology.