AcademicFreedomBlog

[Don]
I certainly did not recognize anything in any of your messages as evidence. Spirit Lake Coal is not evidence FOR your creator; it is merely designed to cast doubt on evolutionary theory and the age of the earth. People being rude to you and your friends is not evidence FOR your theory. I asked for your explanation of the nylonase evolution, and you have apparently abandoned that request for positive evidence.

So yes, there is a disconnect. In my view, evidence is a positive support for your position. What positive support for creationism can you provide? Negative evidence (e.g. evolution is not the answer, evolutionists are mean and rude) is not what is needed. Please recap for me any positive objective evidence that you have provided that indicates that a supernatural entity created life and continues to manipulate living organisms at the present time.

Positive evidence also should come from hypotheses that lead to predictions where the outcome of an experiment would be something that is both incompatible with evolutionary theory AND explainable from first principles by your theory (god did it). Since evolutionary theory contains a mechanism and “god did it” contains no mechanism, I have yet to hear any creationist meet this standard. The importance of a mechanism here is quite obvious to any scientist, but mysteriously un-obvious to creationists. Nevertheless, I’d love to hear your versions of a testable hypothesis that can lead to objective experimentation where the outcome is clearly NOT explainable by evolutionary theory and also logically derived from the principles and mechanisms of your theory. I’ve seen none of that (or at least recognized none of that) in your messages thus far. So please remind me.

You ask “Is it possible for a Designer to leave material evidence of its existence?” Yes, it’s possible. But that evidence has to be, as noted above, unequivocal. In order for such evidence to be unequivocal, you will have to provide (also as noted above) a mechanism that such designers would use. Let’s hear it. A mechanism is the how, when, and where of the designer’s actions. Let’s hear more about that, please.

It’s like your statement that “creationist/ID proponents” are not scientists. A professor of mathematics is not a scientist? A microbiologist is not a scientist? A highly published astronomer is not a scientist? Upon what are you basing your definition of “scientist” except belief system?
Mathematicians are not biologists, and the mathematicians (like Dembski) on the IDC side have ALL shown themselves incapable of understanding biology at even a minimal level. Dembski’s work uses simplistic and unjustifiable assumptions; ti fails to describe biological reality in even the simplest terms. One microbiologist and one biochemist might be scientists, but NONE of their work has been directed at providing positive evidence of the sort described above. It is all negative (“Evolution could not have done this”). I’m afraid that it needs to be pointed out that even if evolutionary theory is shown to be wrong, your preferred explanation is not automatically right. Positive evidence, of the sort that is lacking so far, is needed. Let’s hear about it.

Every culture has taboos, and that includes today’s orthodox science. Taboos are simply non-touchable topics. Every mainstream scientist does not have an aversion to religion or the possibility of God, but they have all bought into the taboo that no questions can be asked that will honestly consider evidence about the subject. They just don’t have a clue where the taboo comes from or even that they have one. After all they can’t ask questions about it. Whatever is taboo is not rationally considered; it’s just “WRONG.” I think you should re-read that quote by Mill.
As noted many times before, that is simply insulting. I know of no other group that is better at honestly considering evidence than the science community. This sort of conspiracy theory demeans your position. Science is a vast global community. There is no way that you can honestly believe that all biological scientists everywhere have been brainwashed. That is ludicrous and illogical. More importantly, it is unsupported by any evidence that you have presented thus far. Where is the evidence for this vast conspiracy? Why has not one rogue scientist figured out how to discern the presence and the actions of the supernatural? Is it because we are all stupid and brainwashed? Or is it because, as scientists in ALL disciplines will tell you, the supernatural hypothesis cannot be objectively tested? I don’t think that there is any doubt about the answers to these questions. But if you want to convince me, give me that hypothesis that can be objectively tested which supports your notions and cannot be explained by evolutionary theory.

About that quote from Mill – Do you think that if you had been raised as a Muslim, or a Buddhist, or a Zoroastrian, that you would have the same objection to evolution? If not, does that tell you something about the “basis for your opinion”? The basis for your opinion, it seems to me, is the accident of your birth and raising as a Christian. I was raised that way too. But I base my opinons on something else. POSITIVE EVIDENCE.

sincerely

Mark

Mark,
About your plea for evidence: When I give you evidence, your response is, “You haven’t given me any evidence.” When I present an argument, which includes something I consider to be evidence, followed by the statement, “This IS evidence,” it seems to me a disconnect for you to reply, “Show me the evidence.” I would think a more logical response would be, “This is not evidence because ___________.”
So perhaps we need to come to some common understanding for what evidence is before we can proceed. To me evidence is data logically connected to a proposition or hypothesis. Without that connection, the term has no meaning. I’m guessing that’s the problem. Several iterations back I made the assertion that an hypothesis is only an hypothesis if it predicts a certain outcome based on a model or theory. No model => no hypothesis. I didn’t get any objection; perhaps I was rash in assuming agreement. What is an hypothesis seeking but evidence? If there is no model, there can be no hypothesis; if there is no hypothesis, there is no evidence. There are only data. It is impossible for you to see evidence if you reject the possibility of the model. We will never get anywhere if you will not allow yourself to honestly ask the question, “Is it possible for a Designer to leave material evidence of its existence?” You don’t have to believe it to ask the question, but you do have to be open to being convinced by evidence in order to even see evidence.
It’s like your statement that “creationist/ID proponents” are not scientists. A professor of mathematics is not a scientist? A microbiologist is not a scientist? A highly published astronomer is not a scientist? Upon what are you basing your definition of “scientist” except belief system? Likewise, if you are not going to accept my logic that science and the existence of God must be based on the same reality, then present an argument for why they are not. Don’t just say they are not. You can’t defend your belief system if you have never viewed your belief system from the outside.
Every culture has taboos, and that includes today’s orthodox science. Taboos are simply non-touchable topics. Every mainstream scientist does not have an aversion to religion or the possibility of God, but they have all bought into the taboo that no questions can be asked that will honestly consider evidence about the subject. They just don’t have a clue where the taboo comes from or even that they have one. After all they can’t ask questions about it. Whatever is taboo is not rationally considered; it’s just “WRONG.” I think you should re-read that quote by Mill.
Don Mc

Mark,
I wrote my reply to your last emails and intended to send it the next morning. That was three days ago. My discomfort in mailing it was due to length and something else I couldn’t put my finger on. Initially we were back and forth to each other with a couple hundred words. Now we are averaging closer to a thousand. I knew that if I sent it, as satisfied as I am with all my responses, you would retort with equal logic from your perspective. This is distracting from the main issue. If you will allow me, without assuming I am ignoring difficult questions, to pair down to what I see as the essence of this debate. Within your last email I see two key thoughts that to me hit home: Your challenge of Nylonase in bacteria, and Bill’s comments about God and naturalism.
With only a couple of decades since the invention of a non-degradable substance (nylon), a previously-known organism begins digesting it, using an enzyme never before known in nature and not later found in other organisms. Any scientist who will sit back and say that this enzyme just happened by change, end of story, is not worth their salt. They are going to keep at it to find a mechanism. That’s because chance is just not good enough for such a complex molecule to occur. And so they haven’t. One idea is that stress (hunger) induces the organism to experiment with new enzyme structures. If true, this would suggest that more, possibly all, organisms have mechanisms that induce focused change experiments in the presence of environmental change. This is what Darwin was looking for when he reached back to Lamarckianism, and it could truly be the “missing link” in Darwin’s theory. So what? It still doesn’t happen by just chance. It can’t happen by chance plus natural selection. Perhaps it happens by chance plus natural selection plus some other mechanism or group of mechanisms. I wouldn’t mind if evolutionists find ways for all of evolution to be caused. I wouldn’t mind if they find ways that it could be materially explained in 6 days. Would you? Or would evolutionists put on the breaks as they do when it’s pointed out that coal is forming at the bottom of Spirit Lake since the eruption of Mt Saint Helen? The real issue is not evolution and it is not time. It is not that science would stop with “God did it,” any more than evolutionists will stop with “chance did it.”
“Frames of reference that permit supernatural action” do NOT “result in inherently non-testable hypotheses.” ID hypotheses are testable, but testability is irrelevant, if the frame of reference is irrelevant. You say this position “doesn’t render belief in God invalid – but it does render such belief *useless* in a scientific context.” This was Des Cartes’ idea, trying to make one field of study irrelevant to another. Restated by Gould as NOMA, even Dawkins doesn’t buy it. There can not be two realities. We are either trying to understand THE reality or we are pretending.
It is important to Creationists, because if “such belief” renders God useless in a scientific context, then God is useless in all contexts. If God has never intervened into the affairs of this universe in a detectable way, then prayer is useless; there is no such thing as Scripture, and God has never sent a prophet, much less come to earth in the form of a man. To them it obviously matters.
But why do many evolutionists get so hot about this? If it’s “useless,” then just ignore it. As explained above, this “useless” idea won’t stop science, and has even challenged the status quo in ways that has advanced science. But many evolutionists fight like somebody is standing on their air hose. The real issue is the same one that launched Epicurus’ search for, not just materialistic explanations, but exclusively materialist explanations: If nature cannot be completely explained without a supernatural factor, then I am not just accountable to myself and society. I have a Maker, and his opinion of me matters.
If this seems absurd to you, then explain why the strong reaction to something that isn’t there, that doesn’t matter. It is never said; it may not even be conscious. But I’ve seen it in the forceful efforts in state house chambers to stop legislation that would only protect freedom of scientific dialog, not outlaw other theories of science. They’ve stood and argued that this protection for teachers and students isn’t needed, because they already have that right. People don’t organize and drive three hours to testify that something just isn’t needed. People don’t write books and hotly debate things that don’t matter to them. They desperately don’t want it to matter.
Don Mc

Don,
Re: “God of the Gaps” [paragraph]
There are many parts of this paragraph that are just plain wrong.

1) Evolution provides a mechanism based on the observed properties of matter and life – mutation + natural selection. That’s a *mechanism*, a way of getting from point A to point B. So it is just a falsehood to say, as you do above, that “evolution provides no mechanism”. Do we need to define mechanism? Do you understand that design is not a mechanism? Do you understand that a designer is not a mechanism? Is a blueprint for a house (design) the same thing as a toolbox (used in the mechanism of building the house) or the architect (designer) or the carpenter (the mechanic)? NO. You have NO mechanism, and you don’t even seem to understand the definition.

2) Random mutation + natural selection has been demonstrated both in life and in laboratory to generate novel and useful modifications (“upgrades”, in your vernacular). Nylonase in bacteria is a good example. The PCP degradation pathway is another. There are new protein-coding genes recently identified in yeast. See http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2004/06/better-living-t.html

and

http://www.nmsr.org/nylon.htm

and

http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2008/06/more-on-the-ori.html

for details. And please quit using arguments that have been rebutted so many times that they have their own website – The index to creationist claims (http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/). So no, we are not both empty-handed. Evolutionary theory cannot give you a detailed blow-by-blow account of how things actually happened, but it can give you plausible scenarios based on known processes, precisely because it has a mechanism. You can’t approach that. Sorry.

Re: “Quick dismissal of forensic science”
Forensic science works because we know a lot about the mechanisms that work in the natural world, and because we know a lot about possible perpetrators (humans). Forensic science seeks to determine who, when, where, and how. Since we know nothing about how supernatural mechanisms work, and know nothing about the possible perpetrators, it is a false analogy to compare forensic science to ID or creationism. That is not a religious argument, it is a scientific one, at least until the IDists or creationists give us a way to study who, when, where, and how. Whaddya got that fits that description?

Re: “The book you mention”
You claim to be interested in dialog, yet you won’t be bothered to read a book based on the implications of its cover…. I read lots of literature from the ID and creationist sides. To me, that’s a better path to dialog; you have to understand the arguments at multiple levels, and you don’t get there by ignoring the arguments because you don’t like the cover of a book or its implications.

And, BTW, you still haven’t bothered to address my original question, based on your original post about baraminology. So here they are again, just as a friendly reminder. Is natural variation nonexistent in your opinion? Do you have evidence for “clear and defined” boundaries between taxonomic units at the species level?

Re: “I do not feel compelled to reply to statements of others”
I wish that people would focus on the message rather that try to ignore it based on the characteristics of the message. This is, in my opinion, a disingenuous ploy to ignore the CONTENT of the message by focusing on the tone. I find it to be fairly typical of creationists/IDists. In fact, your anecdotes about “mistreatment” are exactly in character here. In science, tone is not as important as content. Apparently that is yet another thing that scientists do differently than sociologists and others.

Here it is again – I find that I cannot say it better myself, and my friend Bill says it pretty well. I have emphasized the bits that I think are most germane. Please focus on the content rather than your perceptions of the tone. Thanks
—
*Methodological naturalism is the only game in town when it comes to scientifically investigating the history of life on earth*. Not because we worship “materialism” and “randomness,” but rather because frames of reference that permit supernatural action result in inherently non-testable hypotheses. Simply put, /any/ observation may be construed as consistent with the action of a supernatural agent who is “all powerful” and capable of manipulating matter and energy through acts of will.

This doesn’t render belief in God invalid – but it does render such belief *useless *in a scientific context. You’re welcome to look on and conclude from genuine empirical research that it supports the existence of the supernatural, but that stance is inherently incapable of contributing to further research.

Given that, regardless of how many articles you read and how many questions and challenges you are able to frame thereby, your argument is and will remain *negative only*, and one of personal incredulity. That is worth exactly nothing in this context.

So the point I am asserting is central. *You have no positive, testable assertions to offer. You have no new evidence to offer.* Nor is it possible to construct such assertions from your foundational assumption. You and yours offer no researchable alternative. That renders your critique of evolutionary theory inherently /scientifically/ empty.
—-

cheers
[Mark]