Chris Hyland
Posts: 705
Joined: Jan. 2006
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| Quote | | But as we know, the chances of repeating any sequence is very low, and yet is 100% guaranteed to unfold randomly. But the pattern to the throwing of dice is meaningless and incapable of accomplishing anything, so far as we can see. So I don't think the two are comparable at all. No matter how many times we run the lottery, there isn't any importance to who wins in what order. It doesn't build anything. |
| Quote | | I don't know about Dembski, but it is hard to see how this idea of pruning could work to create billions of highly ordered and complex systems, or IC systems in which it is very hard to see how many small steps could have each been selected as positive when it does not appear that each one could have been positive. You know the Dawkins experiment about "Methinks it is like a weasel"? There are some good arguments against it. |
I did say it wasnt a good analogy, I havent heard any decent analogy describing biological evolution. I think IC is a different argument from probability, Im not trying to argue that an entire protein or set of proteins will from form random sequences or anything like that, so I am inferring that there is some kind of path. Thinking about it perhaps the probabilistic arguments are irrelevant, if the flagellum had to evolve by entirely new proteins evolving spontaneously from hundreds of simeltaneous mutations in random sequence, that IDists would have a good argument, although I dont think any biologist is claiming that. On the other hand if it could have formed by succesive mutations, then the population size and mutation rate of E.coli mean "search space" or whatever people are calling it these days is explored fairly quickly. I will have a look through NFL again and remind myself exactly how Dembski calculates his probability.
The weasel program was meant to demonstrate cumulative selection not evolution.
| Quote | | But the more we find out about biology, the more a designer hypothesis seems the less improbable of the two. |
Why? I read several evolutionary biology papers a week and I think the exact opposite. I don't even think that biological systems have the 'appearence' of design. Just because Im a scientist doesn't mean Im right of course but I certainly haven't heard a designer hypothesis that explains the evidence better than current evolutionary theory.
| Quote | | Maybe not active interference, but it certainly ups the likelihood of the pre-existence of consciousness. |
This may be an irreconcilable philosophical difference, sufficed to say any of the laws I described would not be any more proof of this consiouness to me than if they did not exist. Having said that I am perfectly willing to accept the existence of a god, but I would still need scientific evidence of his involvement in evolution.
| Quote | | So all those are nonrandom? So the ability to intelligently and purposefully turn on mutation events evolved randomly? |
I had this problem over at UD, the best way to look at it is that random means that the organism does not know which mutations will increase fitness.
| Quote | | It cannot be retraced I guess, but there needs to be plausible ideas for how these systems could have evolved. |
Presumably you mean that we need an evolutionary path for every single system for it to be scientifically acceptable to infer that it did evolve?
| Quote | | At one point I kept a list of paleontologists who tried to find some kind of saltation theory that could somehow coincide with a belief in evolution. |
I would say that modern evolutionary theory certainly does not rule it out.
| Quote | | As to flaws. Homology. |
Why is that a flaw, have I missed something?
| Quote | | I'm pretty sure I already linked to an essay by Frank Tipler about the problems with the peer review process, how it enforces orthodoxy, and resists innovation. |
This may be true in some cases, but in many cases journals are so eager to publish innovative 'against the grain' work that big name journals can end up publishing bad papers.
EDIT: And no Im not referring to Strenberg or any other 'ID' paper.
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