Posted: Jun 07, 2014 9:37 am
Bob@RealScienceRadio wrote:Hi guys!
Hi Bob@RealScienceRadio (odd username but okay, and we've had odder) Welcome to the forum and all that!
Be sure to familiarize yourself with the Forum Users' Agreement. And feel free to peruse the New Members Welcome Pack at your leasuire.
So you are this Bob Enyart then I take it. Interesting. I have to wonder if you are actually interested in joining the forum as an active member, or if this is just a fly-by, time wasting, kind of thing. Because that happens a lot. Time will only tell on that of course.
Bob@RealScienceRadio wrote:Here are four questions on the origin of the human (or various other) eyes. I've been reading Evolution's Witness: How Eyes Evolved, and I debated the author's colleague, a Univ of Calif prof of ophthalmology on the topic.
That would be Evolution's Witness: How Eyes Evolved by Ivan R Schwab. (Just giving people context you understand
)And you debated his colleague? Um okay, doesn't seem terribly relevant to much of anything that you debated a colleague of someone who wrote a book, but okay. What form did this "debate" take? Is there a form of it anywhere, such as a video or something like that?
Bob@RealScienceRadio wrote:If you Google: scholars doubting darwin, you'll see, in the U.S. alone, links to lists of thousands of specific individuals, and then further research by prestigious secular pro-Darwin institutions showing that more than half a million, college graduates, most of them with PhDs and degrees in the applied biological sciences, who believe that strict materialist Darwinism cannot account for human life and that God must have been involved.
Um okay, so a bit of the old appeal to authority and popularity then. And they all believe that God (Capital G) must have been involved? Well that right there gives a big clue as to what might have led them to such conclusions. And it is not as if you have to 'believe' in "Darwinism"* to get a PhD, let alone a degree, in the applied biological sciences to begin with. You may well find a number believing in astrology, psychics etc. as well.
*Not a fan of the term "Darwinism" to be honest, especially when used by religious apologists - just seems too loaded, like we worship Charles Darwin, take his works as 'gospel' or some such nonsense
Bob@RealScienceRadio wrote:So here are the kind of questions that lead educated folks to doubt Darwinism:
Okay, do you have any actual reason, or better yet evidence, that these kinds of questions have led educated folks to doubt Darwinism. Or is it that only people who already doubt for other reasons (religious indoctrination for instance) use them in cases like this?
Bob@RealScienceRadio wrote:1. By Darwin and Dawkin's slow and gradual steps (like how you climb Mt. Improbable), would you agree that, in theory, *IF* THERE ARE NO STEPS between two very complex biological systems (like perhaps monochromatic and dichromatic vision), that neo-Darwinism is falsified.
"Darwin and Dawkins": Interesting that you single out those two. It just reeks of agenda really.
"If there are no steps": If you mean by that (and I think you do, just trying to be clear and precise) that if there is no way to get from one point to another by "neo-Darwinistic" means (by the means of known, and as of yet unknown, evolutionary biology means - mutations, natural selection etc.) Then if were true then any theory that concluded/claimed that it did happen that way would be false.
Technically the theory (a human construct) wouldn't be "falsified" until that was demonstrated and "proven beyond all reasonable doubt" by the relevant scientific examination and tests. In other words a theory isn't falsified until it has been 'proven' false, even though it would of course have been false all along.
"Neo Darwinism" as you call it would not be falsified that way though no. Because that is not as precise a theory to make such claims. The theory of evolution is a broad term encompassing a large number of 'lesser' theories. It is one of those that at best could be falsified in this hypothetical case.
What it would mean is that the particular case was caused by some other factor, outside of the current remit of the ToE. Once discovered it might well become enfolded within it (such as things like punctuated equilibrium was), or it might be concluded that the ToE explains all of these things other things, but something else was involved in this one (magic or whatever it might be.) To falsify the entire ToE you would have to falsify something more fundamental to the theory than that. Even many creationists have (unwittingly perhaps) given up any hope for that by accepting the "truth" of "microevolution". Personally I see no hope at all of falsifying the ToE, but only at best of changing it, such as 'proving' that it only occurs within certain limits, or something else is involved beyond certain points. Not that I hold any real expectation of that ever happening either.
Bob@RealScienceRadio wrote:2. Is it possible that there are no physical or even logical steps between monochromatic and dichromatic vision systems? (There is a non-trivial level of increased complexity going to dichromatic vision.)
I have no idea. I don't know enough about the topic to judge probabilities, or even possibilities. Hopefully someone more versed in the subject will pop in and help us there.
It might be possible though, I'll give you that.
Not sure what you mean by "logical" steps though, seems rather odd in a topic like this. "no physical steps" would cover it I would think.
Bob@RealScienceRadio wrote:3. When you consider, as in the image below (and at http://rsr.org/files/images/science/vis ... stream.jpg ), that a brain's incoming visual data stream doesn't include anything like an analog representation of the outside world, but instead, presents a symbolic encoding of that information, can you identify any of the fundamental laws of chemistry or physics that involve symbolic processing?
The address on that image doesn't appear to exist, and redirects you to your radio site. Did you just make that image up yourself?
Even I as a laymen recognize that is decidedly misleading. The whole point, to use your vernacular, is that "the brain" doesn't "see" as some might imagine, but (rather like a computer and a modem [MODulator DEModulator) translates data it receives in one form to another. Well technically there is even more 'translations' throughout the whole process of vision, but no need to bet that bogged down. So showing an image of what "the brain "sees" " doesn't really make that much sense. No more than showing a long string of zeros and ones as "what your computer "sees" of this picture." Because really the information you are alluding to is about how we see, not what we see.
I think it is accepted by most here that what we sense (see, hear...) are actually our own brains' interpretation of the data our sensory apparatus passes on. A wholly different being for example might well "see" the same things in entirely different fashions. And to a large extent that doesn't really matter at all, for most (almost all) of us all of the time, and even for the rest most of the time. Bloody interesting though.
As for your question: No, I'm not sufficiently versed in such science to do so. Can't say that I see any sort of fundamental problem there though.
Bob@RealScienceRadio wrote:4. Looking at the image below (and at http://rsr.org/images/PermTOL/TrochleaKGOVchallenge.jpg ) does all that you've learned about neo-Darwinism enable you to give a rough algorithm, no details, just a broad-stroked description, of how one of the more simple functional aspects of our vision system could evolve? PZ Myers posted this challenge, and said that, speaking for himself, he could not. Even though it's one of the simplest parts of the eye system, I think it's unanswerable from your belief system.
Not a fan of "neo-Darwinism" either. Sounds like you are trying to make modern evolutionary biology out to be some sort of 'religion', set of coded doctrines, dogmas and beliefs or something, to me at least.
An odd question: A "rough algorithm" for a rather precise little part of the development of the eye in particular. Sounds rather like Richard Dawkins (you brought him up) analogy of the 'anti-evolutionist' demanding that one explain the evolution of the elbow joint of the lesser spotted weasel frog (or something like that). And claiming some kind of (either ignorant and/or dishonest) victory against the ToE if no one does or can.
And PZ Meyers posted this challenge? In which he challenged himself to "roughly describe" how that happened?! That doesn't sound right. Even more suspect given that the wording does not sound like him at all, but rather that of a creationist apologist (after a while you tend to get a feel for the mindset/position of a questioner just by how they turn a phrase.)
My belief system?! So I was right; you are trying to imply that modern evolutionary biology is just another belief system, akin to a religion, as opposed to the science that it is.
I must say that I do not like such manipulation, not at all!
I have no idea how that particular thing evolved. Perhaps it was magic after all. Or perhaps it did evolve and I am not close enough to all-knowing to know it. For all I know it might well be something no one has figured out yet, to a large extent detailing such minutiae is not really how biological science operates most of the time; too much work with too few and too limited (in terms of value) results to be worth anyones time.
I also don't know much about how jumbo jets, particle accelerators and many other things were designed or built either (certainly not down to the same kind of level as your example is to an organism). That in no way suggests that they weren't though. The same is true for your little example. To make any headway in the direction you seem to be driving for you would have to come up with some reason to reasonably conclude that it could not have occurred by known evolutionary means, and/or offer some better explanation. And by "better" I mean supported by actual evidence, that sort of thing.
This isn't a letter, no need or point in ending a post with that sort of thing. Just leave it in your profile if you really want people to know what city you live in, or whatever.
