First, I would recommend careful reading of what Father Brown says, and also take in context the widespread attitudes of his day before jumping to conclusions about GKC. But, that’s probably a whole separate topic.
Second, I can’t see the rest of your post on my android display while typing a response.
Ah, biology and evolution. Well, would you not agree that biologists cannot observe millions of years ago, and instead must extrapolate from present data? Is biology itself a fields focussed on principles of valid and invalid extrapolation, in general, or is there a different field with this area of expertise?
Absolutely. It was consistent with the attitudes of the day–as were, sadly, the biologists who made terrible moral mistakes.
Thanks for reading that part; I have an Android, too (and am now on a laptop) and find that difficult, too. I think you would do well with biology; you have shown dedication to get to your level in your field.
I’m not sure I fully understand your question. Please correct me if I’m wrong.
We can’t limit science to what is repeatable. We know that Britain was linked to Europe by a land bridge, but can’t repeat that; it takes many years. Similarly, other tectonic shifts and genetic evidences (the “ruined house” of the pseudo Vitamin C gene) demonstrate what has happened in the past. Neither is easily reproducible. To limit science to what we can do in a short period of time would be unscientific. 
Would you like a particular text to read on genetics? Thanks.
Very poor excuse. (responding to OP)
This reminds me of children doing bad things because someone called them bad, or criminals doing crime because someone called them no good. It is like they are trying to make these labels more accurate. In the same way, if people are going to justify their irrational resistance to the facts only because someone called them something uncomplimentary, then the truth is that they only succeed proving that the applied label is accurate.
But once you cannot repeat an experiment, science relies on fields such as statistics to extrapolate what cannot be directly seen. I don’t believe that is controversial.
And yes, I’ll read any book on genetics you recommend. I am almost done with a very thick textbook on functional genomics. And to tell you the truth, there is a lot of stuff in that book better explained by ID than Darwinism.
I’m interested. Which book? I’m sure you can teach me some things from this. And I’m curious–what do you mean by Darwinism here? I’m guessing evolution without a guided, irreducible intelligence supporting it, detectable at some area as an irreducible complexity?
I’ll also be interested to hear what you consider about teleology in which suffering occurs --such as parasitic Ichneumon wasps. Would we not extrapolate a sinister intelligence here? If so, would it not be preferable to think that there was not an intervention here?
Again, in intervention, I wonder how we can stop at intelligence not being evolved on its own.
I’ve enjoyed @DennisVenema’s discussion of pseudogenes in his book, “Adam and the Genome,” but I think he would likely recommend another for you, if you’d like to focus on genes. My own texts are long out of print from undergrad (Gould was the author of one)… Dr Venema, do you have a given genetics book you’d recommend?
This is the book I am going through. It is very hands on bioinformatics type book.
Couple things that stood out to me as odd from a Darwinian perspective is conservation of non-functional DNA and extreme variance in genome lengths across across the phyla and kingdoms. E.g. I’d expect the organisms descended from earliest ancestors and thus simpler to have small genomes and those descended from later ancestors to be consistently bigger. This is true to an extent, but there are some huge anomolies.
As for really messed up sorts of organisms, such as zombifying wasps, I will note that inference to design says nothing about the designer. That something is designed does not thereby imply the design is benevolent. Humans have designed many very malicious things in our day, so there is nothing about the design faculty itself that implies the design must be beneficient.
As for theological speculation, if humans can genetically engineer organisms, then if other intelligences exist they can possibly intervene in biological history through some sort of genetic engineering. And many religions posit the existence of many intelligences besides man and God, some around since the beginning of time, and not all of them benevolent. So, if we detect malicious design in the biological record, it could be the malicious intelligences at work. As a literary example, consider how Saruman bred the orcs from elves, and he is a sort of angelic being.
I’ve read most of Dr. Vennema’s BL articles on evolution, and if there are other BL articles on this topic you recommend, I will read them, along with any books.
Would you be willing to read an ID book, say Dembski’s Design Inference? He’s a clear writer with lots of examples, and doesn’t go overboard on the math. It is fine if you don’t want to or don’t have the time. I am happy to explain, clarify, answer questions, and so on. It is just easier for me to have someone else do the heavy lifting of reading the book, and truth be told I am somewhat lazy.
Astrophysicists must extrapolate from present data.
Geologists must extrapolate from present data.
Biologists must extrapolate from present data.
Peace,
Chris
That’s a good point. Taking it further, should we even accept the existence of the past as a fact? No one can ever directly observe anything but the present. We infer the past based on ‘memories’ -if that is even what they are since memories require belief in something called the 'past which no one has ever directly observed.
Exactly, and they all must rely on the mathematical fields to do so in a reliable way and avoid statistical errors and fallacies. Point being, none of these scientific fields is an island unto itself. E.g. I had to take a class on statistics and hypothesis testing while completing my CS MSc, very different field than CS, yet it was necessary to conduct research.
Well, now you are venturing past an assumption that is ouside the domain of this discourse. What I am referring to is a problem completely within the realist domain of empirical science. Without diect observation science must extrapolate, and thus must rely on disciplines concerned with demarcatin valid and invalid extrapolation.
Ah I forgot to mention the biggest 'huh!c from the book, which the extent of functionality within the genome. I thought the whole ENCODE thing might just be an ID trope, and experts disagree with good reason. But no, according to a massive well established textbook on functional genomics, it appears pretty uncontroversial that a very large portion of the genome is functional in a sense not anticipated by Darwinian evolution, but quite consistent with the ID theory. From the horse’s mouth, so to speak.
I really don’t think so. What you’re doing is challenging valid inference based on observable patterns saying it is only theory motivated by already held belief. You let that genie out of the bottle. I’m just pointing out there is more it could do.
So you are claiming evolutionary biology does not rely on disciplines such as statistcal hypothesis testing, mathematical modeling, and computer science, to name a few non biology components, to substantiate its claims? You and I are reading very different bioinformatics books! Perhaps you can point me to these resources that substantiate evolutionary theory without any recourse to mathematical content?
There are others here who could answer that better than I.
All I am saying is the fairlt uncontroversial claim that evolutionary biology relies on non-biological disciplines to substantiate its claims. Therefore, insofar as claims made rely on said fields, then said fields need to be consulted to ensure the fields’ principlew are applied appropriately.
So that physics depends on mathematics is a problem?
No one said it’s a problem. But physicists must appeal to mathematics to make their claim. And if their claim violates mathematics, it is wrong.
Sure scientists appeal to math, but not necessarily mathematicians. Being able to do the math is part of the job for scientists, as you noted earlier. It isn’t like a physicist or biologist has to farm out the work to a mathematician whenever an equation comes up.
Certainly, but once an evolutionary biologist relies upon mathematical principles it is within the purview of a mathematician to say whether they are correctly applied.
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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