Evolution: A Theory In Crisis?

I'm starting this thread mainly as a site where people can debate the theory of evolution--as opposed to using the Politics Forum, where it clearly doesn't belong. The title comes from Philip Johnson, the retired Berkeley lawyer and law professor who founded the Discovery Institute and the Intelligent Design movement for the express purpose of Discrediting Darwin's theory, which he sees as the intellectual foundation for atheism. My question is, is he right? Is Darwin's theory the emperor without clothes that Johnson makes it out to be?

 

Nice. Hey, maybe Mr. Johnson can discard the existence of the sun while he's at it.

 

It doesn't appear to be a point of contention at his alma mater.

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/0_0_0/evo_50


Although there might be something to his point about evolution laying an "intellectual foundation" for atheism, particularly atheism in the West.

 

The Museum of Natural History in NYC and its evolution exhibits...made a huge impact on me as a child.....

This photo is from the Smithsonian. I was trying to find a photo the exhibit that really affected me from The Natural History Museum but cannot find it right now.

 

I think the main reason most scientists support it is that it's the only scientific theory available. Like other scientific theories, it is tentative--one Pre-Cambrian rabbit away from being discredited. So far, no rabbits! The principal competitors are "Scientific Creationism" and Intelligent Design. Neither develops its own empirically testable theories. Both are exclusively concerned with criticizing evolution--which is useful but not really "science". Scientific Creationism was rightly characterized by the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Edwards v. Aguillard as religion. It is essentially warmed-over Genesis. As I've said elsewhere, I have great respect for Genesis, since reading it led to the moment of clarity that made me a Christian. But it's not a science treatise and I think taking it literally misses the point. Intelligent Design is a more sophisticated theory which allows acceptance of a good deal of evolutionary evidence, even common descent with apes, but argues that the process couldn't have happened without divine intervention. To fight the battle against evolution, Philip Johnson assembled a stable of thinkers at the Discovery Institute with respectable scientific credentials, most notably biochemist Michael Behe and mathematician/statistician William Dembski, who have offered up, respectively, the concept of irreducible complexity and specified complexity.

Irreducible complexity is the notion that certain biological features or systems couldn't have evolved by small successive steps because there would be no function for them until they reached completed form, and therefore they wouldn't be selected. What good is half a wing? Well there are a number species that glide--flying squirrels,lemurs, marsupials, lizards, snakes and flying fish. And dinosaur fossils show they had feathers, which might have served for warmth and/or mating display. What good is an eye that can't make out objects? Even rudimentary light detecting mechanisms can be useful in finding shelter and food, or avoiding predators. In a similar way, scientists have found that most of the proteins involved in the blood clotting system are genetically similar and most likely are the result of gene duplication (Fairbanks, 2007, pg. 150-156). Behe identified the bacteria flagellum as another example of irreducible complexity, but biologist (and devout Christian) Kenneth Miller was able to show that several components of the flagellum have other selectable functions. The issue came to a head dramatically at the 2005 trial in Dover, Pennsylvania, over teaching of intelligent design. Behe was a star witness and his claims of irreducible complexity were refuted by a pile of refereed journal articles that practically dwarfed him on the witness stand. Judge Jones concluded: "We therefore find that Professor Behe's claim for irreducible complexity has been refuted in peer-reviewed research papers and has been rejected by the scientific community at large."

This brings us to Dembski, who has drawn mainly on information theory, as well as statistical probabilities, to argue for Intelligent Design, which he once described as "just the Logos theology of John's Gospel restated in the form of information theory". His central concept is "specified complexity", and he uses CSI (Complex Specified Information), as an "explanatory filter" to detect patterns that can only be explained by intelligence at work. Complexity (a pattern having a low probability of occurrence) alone doesn't show design, but if it seems to fit a pattern that displays a large amount of independently specified information it does.

The major problem here is dealing with natural selection which evolutionists like Richard Dawkins argue can explain much of what appears to be intelligent design. See Dawkins The Blind Watchmaker. The result of this controversy was the celebrated Dawkins weasel program, a series of computer simulations designed to test the ability of natural selection of random words to produce an algoritim meeting the criterion of specified complexity--Shakespeare's phrase "Methinks it is like a weasel." Dembski objected that a "locking' occured at each step because the prearranged outcome was known, but this doesn't seem to have been the case. Dembski Weasels Out - The Panda's Thumb In his book No Free Lunch, Dembski tells us that: "The No Free Lunch theorems show that evolutionary algorithms, apart from careful fine-tuning by a programmer, are no better than blind search and thus no better than pure chance." But Elliott Sober demonstrated in a controlled experiment that "when the ev program is run without selection there is no information increase". Sober concludes:"we can attribute the information increases observed with selection entirely to that selection. In other words, an evolutionary algorithm does far better (almost 13 standard deviations!) than 'pure chance' which is the situation when there is no selection". So Dembski's statement about No Free Lunch Theorems seems to be refuted.

As a Christian, I've been heartened to know that fellow Christians of good standing in the scientific community, Dr. Kenneth Miller, the evolutionary biologist and devout Catholic who sparred with his co-religionist Michael Behe during the Dover trial, and Dr. Francis Collins, geneticist and devout Evangelical Christian, formerly head of the human genome project and current director of NIH, also support the theory. But with all this said, the theory of evolution may be bunk. It's the best scientific theory we can come up with, but humans are notorious for lacking omniscience. If and when that rabbit turns up in the pre-Cambrian, I'll print of my words and eat them. Until then, all I can say is it's a damned good theory.

 

There is no evidence for God or Darwin.
Most scientists believe in Darwin because they couldn't get employment if they believed in God.

Same for global warming, dissent and you're unemployed.

 

http://youtu.be/lIEoO5KdPvg

 

Or if you meant Evidence for Charles Darwin Himself

 

if there is any 'crysis' it is the popularity of ignorance. because simple truths are seldom 'epoc' enough to be entertaining.
rocks have no reason to decieve, humans sometimes do.
i will trust a fossilized bone, and how old a chemical reaction tells me it has to be, before i will trust a human who tells me a god told him to lie about its age.

 

The conclusions drawn from fossils looking a bit similar to modern day animals are not evidence of evolution.

If they were, I could conclude all cars evolved from a model T Ford, after digging through a junk pile.

PS
If you want to pick out sillyness about the Bible. First, how would you prove it was the word of God, second the original Hebrew text talks about the earth being made in 7 eons. It was mistranslated as 7 days

Arguing about whose fantasy pile of dog poop is more realistic........ I think not.

 

That junk pile analogy doesn't work because there is further evidence that demonstrates this is simply not the case.

 

I'm not going to attempt to debate evolutionary theory...I'm not a biologist and won't pretend to know every nuance. I am a science enthusiast though. An excellent book on the subject is The Greatest Show On Earth by Richard Dawkins...I'd recommend it for anyone who wants to better understand why biologists accept evolution as fact instead of as 'just a theory'.

 

To a scientist the theory of evolution is good. To a creationist the theory of intelligent design is good. Are not both simply the bringing of order to chaos? Has not humanity endeavored to bring reason to the universe as the reality of the universe is observed? Is what is right for one right for all or is what is wrong for one wrong for all?

 

There is a crap-load of evidence for Darwin's theory. It's one of those things that if you were to take a look at all of the evidence, you'd have an extremely hard time thinking it could be anything but with a straight face on.

 

So what do you believe?

 

no, evolution is very well proven - also more importantly the future of the world depends not upon evolution of humans which is not a possibility except over thousands of years but the paradigm shift - there is a paradigm shift right now between xenophobia and globalistic diverse loving humanists

this intelligent design is a canard and before you get in a tizzy ask who benefits most from the concept - follow the money

 

That's just not true. The theory of evolution is one of the best-supported theory in science, with impressive amounts of evidence from a variety of different fields including paleontology, comparative anatomy, comparative embryology, genetics, biochemistry, molecular biology, genetics, and biogeography. We can even see it in action today in the development of germs that are resistant to our antibiotics. The theory still might not be true, but it seems to offer the most convincing explanation of the evidence. To say that there is no evidence for it is absurd, as is your dismissal of science--fully worthy of the "missing link". Some folks still believe that the moon landings were staged in the back lot of universal studios, and Flat Earth Societies are still holding on in the U.S. and Canada. Your views seem to border on those.

As for God and the Bible, that's truth of a different kind: mythos, as opposed to logos. The Bible, like the scriptures of other world religions, conveys truths in the form of metaphors and allegories. They are largely intuitive but provide meaning for believers.

 

Nothing at all, and I am all for individual rights to believe in what anyone wants to....but I do have issue when religion enters politics and wants to dictate laws for everyone. Protestors were chanting "My body not yours!"....at NYC protest, anyway. I think that is why that thread went onto the topic....but politics and religion clearly do not mix.....for everyone....
Also, school prayer and things like that in public schools...What are the non relgious children supposed to do?...fake it?
It should be a private matter.

 

In conceptualization is science not simply inherent to understanding? Perhaps it only lacks the quality of inheritance when it is spoken. Within it is inherent without it is merely acceptable. Perhaps the division of the concept into acceptable or unacceptable is like the creation of life? In being determined by acceptance.

Pertaining to the overarching questions of this thread as well now if evolution is no longer just a conceptualization but accepted speech as science is perhaps it too is merely acceptable or unacceptable.

 

LOL!
This thread,
LOL!