CPF

I found this response I made to you and was wondering if you would like to continue this discussion? I hope you and your family are well this Christmas season.

Hey whistah, I have finally found time to offer you a response, thanks for your patience.

I am saying that DNA is a system containing Complex Specified Information and therefore could not have “evolved” via the mechanism given us in the ToE. The ToE in no way allows for the “guidance of a force external of the natural system” so that is completely out as an option as well.

I don’t know that the question of DNA is essentially the “essence of the argument” but it is rather difficult for the ToE to explain it’s origin, or “evolution”, if you will. I don’t think you can have this kind of argument without one’s philosophical viewpoint coming into play. In my opinion worldview drives an individuals motives far more than we would sometimes like to admit. Stalemate?…I don’t know, I think each side offers evidence to support it’s viewpoint and then each piece of evidence is reviewed and rebutted. In the end it is up to the individual to decide which “evidence” is better and therefore more likely to be accurate.

Oh no I didn’t say that, those are the words of the famous evolutionist George Gaylord Simpson, and I quote:

“Man is the result of a purposeless and natural process that did not have him in mind“ The Meaning of Evolution pp. 344-345 !967

I agree that this is basically what the theory purports, but I didn’t “coin the phrase”.

Well that statement assumes that if nature has a purpose, Man is at it’s center; isn’t that “anthropocentric”? The evidence that complex living systems were designed begs the assumption that there is purpose behind the creation. Wouldn’t you agree that everyone has assumptions that help mold their conclusions?

Well I’m not sure how sentient other ’species” have become and I’m really not too concerned about it. This is the kind of statement I receive all of the time though and , if I am reading you right, what you are saying is that we should just have “faith” that the things we cannot understand today will one day be naturally explained by science. Well I guess each of our worldviews require faith based on assumptions don’t they?

Well the whole “universe is infinite” thing has already been posited, tested, and rejected by the best the field of cosmology has to offer. The only models that currently work are based on Hawking’s “imaginary numbers” and can’t even really be tested (I must admit that the theory, and the mind behind it are brilliant though). There really isn’t much evidence to suggest that there are other life forms existing in other solar systems either and it’s not due to a lack of effort on the part of the scientific community. All the ToID is trying to do is point out that there is a plethora of evidence for design in many of the applied sciences, and that it deserves to be studied before it is simply discarded as “religion”.

I can certainly concur with that sentiment and I have the same “ immediate sense of purpose”, but I also have faith in a “purpose” apart from myself that is much bigger than me or my needs. Now you may say that myself and others like me have simply created this “purpose” in an effort to place meaning in our lives, and you may be right, but I have faith that you are not and it is not a blind faith but a reasonable one based on evidence that the account of Christ offered us in the writings of the New Testament authors is completely accurate.

Thanks again for your well thought out response to my opinions, I hope we can continue along these lines of civility, as I can see nothing gained from antagonism, only what is lost. Take care

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There is a way which seems right to a man, but the end of it is the ways of death.

CPF

bump for wistahpatsfan

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There is a way which seems right to a man, but the end of it is the ways of death.

All_Around_Brown

CPF, please refrain from misinforming readers about the Theory of Evolution.

If you'd like to make a case for ID, you should be able to do it without mischaracterizing the existing theory of evolution. ID should be able to stand on its own, without setting up a straw man argument by diminishing the importance of genetic variation in natural selection.

Give us your alternative view on how DNA has come to vary from the Intelligent Design side, but don't pretend to understand genetics. I don't pretend to understand the ins and outs of ID. I make my arguments based on my knowledge of evolution.

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All_Around_Brown

Also, it is true, evolution has no "purpose" in terms man can appreciate other than survival and reproduction. Thats the "purpose" - the continuity of life.But purpose doesn't really fit as a descriptor as it implies human "purpose".

Did animals and plants die in the distant past to give man coal and oil? Was this the purpose of mass extinctions?

See how anthropocentric that argument is?

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CPF

I was hoping Wistahpat would respond to me so that, if he wished, we could flesh out my argument more completely. If you would like to I would be glad to discuss it with you as well. I didn't realize I had set up a "straw man", all I pointed out was that DNA, being a system of Complex Specified Information, is very difficult to explain by natural means, in other words the mechanisms offered to us by the ToE. As far as I can tell I didn't say anything regarding "the importance of genetic variation in natural selection."

I wasn't talking about how DNA has come to vary, I was talking about how DNA came to be in the first place. I certainly don't pretend to be a geneticist but I do have the ability to study the issue and give a somewhat informed response. I try to read as much as I can before I form an opinion on anything and this subject is no different. I think you misunderstood the intent of my comments to Wistah, but I do apologize if I offended you in any way. Take care.

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There is a way which seems right to a man, but the end of it is the ways of death.

CPF

I simply quoted the words of famous evolutionist George Gaylord Simpson, it is up to the reader of this quote to draw conclusions of his/her own. I'm not sure "humans" can place "purpose" in a context that is anything but human, do you think Simpson meant something different?

Anthopocentric yes, but possible none the less, especially if we are dealing with an intelligent designer that has a specific interest in man. Take care

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PatsWickedPissah

ZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!

All_Around_Brown

I don't think contemporary evolutionary thought invokes or implies "purpose" anywhere, other than the basic purpose of survival and reproduction/replication.

DNA has survived, in perpetuity, for some 3 billion+ years. You don't deny that, nor do you deny that it has changed during this time - if I understand what you've written since day one.

But specifically to my question above:

You don't really believe that animals and plants died to give man coal, do you??

Also, please explain what you mean by Complex Specified Information. This sounds like a suspiciously concocted term.

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CPF

If there is in fact an intelligence behind creation (for lack of a better word), then I suppose it is possible that he/she/it had man in mind as far as coal and or any other fossil fuel is concerned. Now I am not saying that I am at all dogmatic about this but I don't think it is completely outside the realm of possibility either.

Actually I believe William Dembski coined the term "Complex Specified Information" You can read all about it here http://www.arn.org/docs/dembski/wd_idtheory.htm Take care.

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All_Around_Brown

Ok, so you are an admitted creationist, entrancing yourself in a young theory that would appear to support your creationist interpretation of how life began.

We are getting somewhere, CPF. Your worldview is providing you a view of biology that conflicts with evolution, which appears to me to be why you attack the principles of evolution, without really understanding those principles at all.

I'm open to ID as providing some understanding of the gaps of my knowledge, because if I can't disprove it, I can't prove it, it must remain a possibility. My own research fails to prove or disprove ID...but I am keeping it as a possibility. This is what we call "God of the Gaps".

But at some point if it can't show me a reasonably testable argument, then it fails the science smell test. And Dembski's mathematical models, while quite impressive, do not make it sound science. Modelling, as a construct of human design, is no substitute for studying the actual process in nature.
But what ecologists and zoologists do is study nature. What geneticists do is study nature. What molecular biologists do is study nature.

Dembski does not. He is a mathematician, not a molecular biologist or a geneticist. Therefore, his complex specified information is a concocted term that currently has no place in biology. So by using that term as you do, you are ignoring all the science that we have assembled since Watson and Crick "discovered" DNA, and saying it is something totally different.

That strategy will never work. You need to look at the assemblage of existing science, and find comfort for your own worldview in it, as Asa Gray and other christians have done before you.

Renaming the terms, as in complex specified information, fits a model but nothing in nature supports that as of yet, so we have to stay with the terminology used by the field. You wouldn't want MDs to get their education from faith healers would you?

This is similar to how you have attempted to deceive your readers in the past about how evolution attempts to explain the origin of life on earth, when it clearly and specifically does not.

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