tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6030885580613135432.post2026965265351052103..comments2023-04-12T01:25:24.384-07:00Comments on The Fantasy of Evolution: Richard Dawkins' new book: an inadequate attempt to supply the needed evidenceFaith http://www.blogger.com/profile/00064746447414555577noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6030885580613135432.post-18035389692542727302009-11-15T12:53:51.917-08:002009-11-15T12:53:51.917-08:00Hi Alfred,
Thanks for your considerate comment.
...Hi Alfred, <br />Thanks for your considerate comment.<br /><br />But please note that it isn't that the "evidence doesn't impress [me]" but that what is given as evidence isn't evidence, and the reviewer is very clear in explaining how it isn't. <br /><br />Also, I DON'T take as my "starting point" your idea that there is "a God that has the habit of interferring in the physical world on a regular basis" -- I believe nature runs according to laws God established and that his occasional interventions do not violate his laws. AND I'm not trying to convince you of Biblical Creationism in this blog, I'm simply trying to answer SCIENTIFIC problems I see in current evolution theory. If current evolution theory should be overthrown we'll consider whatever then comes down the pike when it comes.<br /><br />"I'll get back to the point. Is the evidence that Dawkins puts forward in the greatest show on earth good evidence or not?"<br /><br />According to the reviewer I quoted at length, it is NOT good evidence, Alfred, that was the whole point -- he fails to produce sufficient evidence despite his promise, offering instead analogies, speculations, hypotheses, computer models and the like, which are NOT evidence, as the reviewer explains. And truly, Alfred, so MUCH of evolutionist writing is made up of this kind of non-evidentiary thinking most of you who are convinced of it are falsely convinced and need to sharpen your skills at distinguishing valid arguments from mere speculations. Most evolutionist writing is rife with very clever, entertaining and plausible-enough (if you accept a bunch of assumptions) thinking that PASSES for science, and I wish all you sincere seekers after scientific truth would develop more logical and scientific rigor in your assessment of it.<br /><br />Natural selection (and all the other evolutionary processes that split and isolate populations) IS demonstrable for living populations. What is sometimes called "microevolution" occurs all the time on these principles and creationists do not normally dispute this. But there are many reasons why these processes will never change anything outside the genetic limits that define a "Kind" (a term I use sometimes because "Species" --which also MEANS "kind" --can be ambiguous, because in common usage there are too many levels of speciation possible).<br /><br />I'll never be a scientist, that's not my field of talent or interest in the way it is for scientists, but believe me, before I became a Christian I absorbed a lot of the thinking about evolution nevertheless and tried my best to understand it. Even then I was often frustrated that evidence trails could just about never be found or followed out to any kind of certainty and I found that I always had to give up trying to follow them and just take the conclusions of the scientists pretty much on faith. I read the Origin of Species, I read lots of stuff by Stephen Jay Gould, very entertaining stuff, I read Skeptical Inquiry regularly, and so on. I investigated science about as far as the average intelligent non-scientist can be expected to. It was only after I became a Christian that I got into studying the creationist answers and took seriously my earlier experience of frustration with the lack of evidence for evolution. I sincerely wish that those who find it convincing would rethink it a lot more carefully because the evidence is really not there to the extent you think it is.<br /><br />Thanks again for your comment and the polite way you expressed it. Much appreciated. <br /><br />I will take a look at Kenneth Miller.<br /><br />--CJA (Faith)Faith https://www.blogger.com/profile/00064746447414555577noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6030885580613135432.post-3642124000880689022009-11-15T12:12:38.420-08:002009-11-15T12:12:38.420-08:00Hello Bob,
Thank you very much for posting here. ...Hello Bob,<br />Thank you very much for posting here. I appreciate your thoughtful comment.<br /><br />First I have to say that the reviewer I quote from DOESN'T "have the same problem [I] have," that's why his review is so valuable. He USED to be a creationist but is now completely convinced of evolution. I'm impressed that he is still able to recognize the creationists' frustration with the lack of evidence we encounter in evolutionist presentations, and describe it so well. He's convinced me that this particular book is not the one for me to read -- I don't need more frustration with speculation, analogy, hypotheses and computer models offered as if they were evidence. The book by Coyne sounds like the one for me to get at this point, and I have the book by Carroll in mind as a possible follow-up. <br /><br />As for what can be seen with the naked eye, I'm looking at planet Earth, not astronomical events -- which really CAN'T be "seen with the naked eye," and all I can say about that arena of inquiry is that time is a fairly mystical concept beyond our immediate frame of reference -- space too, apparently. But this planet shows evidence at every turn that it once went through a cataclysmic global Flood -- you can see it wherever the layering is exposed, you can see the evidence on satellite maps and and I think you can see it in the general tumble-down appearance almost anywhere you look.<br /><br />Am I "looking for problems?" I don't think so. I was merely excited to see that Coyne discusses some FACTS -- not "problems" but phenomena that can probably be interpreted just as plausibly another way.<br /><br />There IS a debate, Bob, even if most scientists ignore it. <br /><br />I dispute, of course, that we share a common ancestor with chimps, and I dispute it on scientific grounds. The commonalities and similarities found in the DNA are not hard-and- fast evidence for genetic relatedness. That is merely a plausible conjecture IF evolution is ASSUMED. And these similarities are just as plausibly interpreted as reflecting design factors, not descent -- we have similar body structure so the DNA for such similar structure will of course also be similar. AND I've written out the reasoning on there being a natural barrier to evolution (or speciation or variation) that natural selection and other allele-reducing forces that split populations inevitably run into, which if true means the evolutionist interpretation of DNA needs to be rethought along with all the other plausible but erroneous conjectures that support evolution theory. I've learned a fair amount about science, though certainly I'm an amateur at it.<br /><br />Thanks again for your comment.<br />---CJA (Faith)Faith https://www.blogger.com/profile/00064746447414555577noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6030885580613135432.post-11002922217133523542009-11-15T05:10:32.690-08:002009-11-15T05:10:32.690-08:00I am really enjoyed the greatest show on earth, ju...I am really enjoyed the greatest show on earth, just like I enjoyed others of Dawkins books. But I have to admit that The Agnostic Apatheist makes a few good points about how the evidence is put forward.<br /><br />If you think about evolution and creation as two opposing views, and especially if you also are religious, I am not surprised that the evidence doesn't impress you. That is becuase most forces in the world will seem petty and small compared to an all-knowing all-powerful God. So if your starting point is that there is such a God that has the habit of interferring in the physical world on a regular basis, evolution has a huge disadvantage. I will suggest that you try and keep your physics and metapysics stricktly separeted before picking up a book on evolution. Kenneth Miller makes good sense when it comes to God and Evolution.<br /><br />From a non-believers point of view, the creation story simply isn't an alternative, because it will not be considered an explaination, but something that needs a further explaination. If evidence came in against evolution, like rabbit fossils in the cambrian strata or something that completely and profoundly overthrew the central thesis of natural selection, not me nor anyone else who thinks evolution is true, would therefor assume that creationism must be true. We would think that Darwin got it wrong after all and start looking for another natural explaination. Even if God spoke to me in a dream or in my kitchen, the chances are good that I would call my psychiatrist before a call a priest. <br /><br />Note also that even if Darwinian natural selection was thrown out. That would not necessarily mean the end for evolution. There were other theories of evolution before Charles Darwin. Most famously Lamarkian evolution and Charles Darwins grandfather also believed in a sort of unspecified evolution.<br /><br />I'll get back to the point. Is the evidence that Dawkins puts forward in the greatest show on earth good evidence or not? If you start by completely separating, in your mind, the things that are physically real, from the things that are not. And allow yourself, just for the length of book to only accept an explaination that does not include anything metaphysical you might find it very convincing. Consider it a thought experiment.<br /><br />If you manage to do this you will probably see why so many people find Darwinism so convincing. It really can account for pretty much anything, and it is not as if there are any alternative scientific explaination at the moment. The mere fact that the essentials of natural selection has not been disproven (but confirmed in great detail) by all the spectacular new technological advances since Darwins time, is in my opinion very great evidence indeed. Because it is so slow, it is hard to prove, but as an model of explaination it is extremly powerful.<br /><br />I really hope you get around to giving science a real chance. Consider that people alive today have an opportunity that most people who ever lived and died never had. We CAN actually know the secret of life, in fantastic detail. You can still keep God, but you must keep the physical strictly seperated from metaphysics. Again, check out Kenneth Miller.<br /><br />Good luck to you.Alfred Tubblehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12813879645409806211noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6030885580613135432.post-39946925734732831112009-11-15T01:53:02.665-08:002009-11-15T01:53:02.665-08:00Sorry, just one more thing.
"He touches on i...Sorry, just one more thing.<br /><br />"He touches on issues that aren't usually part of the debate"<br /><br />What debate? There is no debate in the scientific community about the established truth of evolution, which is a basic scientific fact.<br /><br />Evolutionary biology has many basic facts. They are called facts because they have massive and powerful evidence, evidence that you prefer to complain about instead of trying to understand. Evidence that you don't even know about because you would rather read book reviews than read books.<br /><br />My favorite basic fact of evolution is the idea that people and chimps share an ancestor. Actually we are distant cousins of every species on earth, but we are most closely related to the chimpanzee apes, and the ancestor species we share with them lived about six million years ago.<br /><br />The ancestry with share with the other modern ape species (humans are one of the modern ape species which is another basic scientific fact) is not an opinion. It's a basic scientific fact because molecular biologists can see this evolutionary relationship with their own eyes when they compare DNA sequences of the human ape and chimpanzee ape species.<br /><br />Now if you want to claim you know more about molecular biology than all the molecular biologists in the world, that's fine with me if you don't mind being laughed at.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04583284124472613645noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6030885580613135432.post-59170824193291240462009-11-15T00:25:07.507-08:002009-11-15T00:25:07.507-08:00From About This Blog: "There's the geolog...From About This Blog: "There's the geological argument which is basically that you can see with your naked eyes that this world once went through a global Flood, as the Bible reports. That takes care all by itself of the whole Old Earth theorizing that evolution depends on."<br /><br />I was just looking at a news website and I think you should see this reader's comment:<br /><br />Ben wrote "If we just look at things logically for 30 seconds we can easily discount creationism. If we go with the creationist claim that the universe is only 6,000 years old, we should only be able to see astronomical events within 6,000 light years of earth. A few months ago GRB 090423 was observed at 13 billion light years away from Earth."<br /><br />Faith, you are fighting the entire scientific community and more than a century of scientific progress. What's your point? Do you expect thousands of brilliant scientists to throw out everything they know to accommodate your childish religious beliefs?Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04583284124472613645noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6030885580613135432.post-49565700647938351502009-11-15T00:16:50.781-08:002009-11-15T00:16:50.781-08:00Faith, instead of reading book reviews written by ...Faith, instead of reading book reviews written by people who have the same problem you have, why don't you just read the book?<br /><br />I agree that "Why Evolution is True" and "Making of the Fittest" are better books to read, because Dawkins sometimes goes into such extreme detail that it is sometimes a bit tiresome to get thru it all. Still, the book Dawkins wrote is a masterpiece that every educated person should own and read.<br /><br />I have read all three of these books. They're all excellent but Coyne's book is the easiest to read, easiest to understand, and it was very enjoyable because even though I have been studying evolutionary biology for several years I still learned quite a bit.<br /><br />1. "Why Evolution is True" by Jerry Coyne, published in 2009.<br /><br />2. "The Making of the Fittest: DNA and the Ultimate Forensic Record of Evolution" by Sean B. Carroll, published in 2006.<br /><br />3. "The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution" by Richard Dawkins, published in 2009.<br /><br />"He touches on issues that aren't usually part of the debate that I think I may have some good creationist answers to ..."<br /><br />This is your problem. You are not interested in understanding anything. You just want to look for imaginary problems to defend your Dark Ages anti-science ideas.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04583284124472613645noreply@blogger.com