Discovery Institute Exposed

[T_aquaticus]

@Buzzard

That suggests you don’t really understand how evolution works.

If you don’t understand the difference between history and mechanism then that suggests you don’t understand how science works.

[glipsnort (Steve Schaffner)]

@Buzzard

So you’re saying is more likely that single-celled organisms formed colonies, which in turn formed the first multi-celled organism(s)?

Yes.

@Buzzard

If so, that’s a fascinating idea … but I bet scientists have fun trying to figure out how that could have been coordinated!

I suspect you’re being sarcastic, but as it happens, you’re right – investigation of how multicellularity could have evolved is a thriving and productive area of research, including both theoretical and experimental studies. You can find references to a number of experiments that caused simple multicellularity to evolve in the lab in this article.

You really should make the effort to learn more about evolution – it’s a fascinating subject.

[beaglelady]

@jpm

That is sort of like telling my pastor that is he is not fluent in ancient Hebrew, he has no idea what the Bible says. Certainly, it would be nice to be fluent, as there are words we still do not really know the meaning of, but we can get a pretty good idea based on context and what we do know.

Well said. One could also complain that since no original copies of the books of the Bible exist (“autographs”) we have no idea what they said.

[Dale (evolutionary providentialist)]

@glipsnort

You really should make the effort to learn more about evolution – it’s a fascinating subject.

@Buzzard

That suggests you don’t really understand how evolution works.

You have been answered by two PhDs, both professionally active in the field, and your question more than suggests that you have not been doing your homework (e.g., reading the conversation I pointed to).

[Buzzard]

@glipsnort

I suspect you’re being sarcastic

No, I wasn’t being sarcastic.

[Buzzard]

Post deleted

[Dale (evolutionary providentialist)]

Can you reproduce a replica of the Grand Canyon with an eye dropper? That is comparable to what your now deleted question was suggesting we should be able to do.

[Buzzard]

@Dale

You have been answered by two PhDs, both professionally active in the field, and your question more than suggests that you have not been doing your homework (e.g., reading the conversation I pointed to).

With all due respect to scientists, if you gave the evolutionary scientists of the world 100 years to produce (evolve) a eurkaryote from a prokaryote, they wouldn’t even know how to get to first base, let alone actually achieve such a feat … so much for knowing how evolution works!

This is why I advocate ID … when faced with God’s awesome power and creation, science and human intellect are left floundering, stumbling around in the dark.

[Buzzard]

@Dale

Can you reproduce a Grand Canyon with an eye dropper?

I don’t know.

[rsewell (RON SEWELL)]

@Buzzard

The progression from prokaryote to eukaryote is one of the most basic and primative progressions in the evolutionary story.

True, but because that progression was so primitive, and involved squishy microscopic organisms, it would be expected to leave no trace. Without fossils, you will be left with a greater degree of speculation. Is that not legitimate?

@Buzzard

If one doesn’t know even the first step of how to achieve that progression, one can hardly claim to know how evolution works

Most of what is known about how evolution works has been gained by starting in the present and working backwards. Works for troubleshooting, does it not? The principles of evolution are then based on solid evidence, and hypothesis about the very dim past is based on those principles. Again, that would seem to be a reasonable way of going about such investigation.

[Dale (evolutionary providentialist)]

Thanks. That is an indicator to us that maybe this conversation is futile since you are not really engaging in thinking.

[Buzzard]

Which of the fossils in your collection is your favourite?

[Buzzard]

@Dale

I used to be an ID proponent until I realized that ID is not science.

If I proposed that the fossil record was the result of aliens coming to earth and performing feats of genetic engineering, would that be scientific or unscientific?

(As far as I know, it is not unscientific to suggest that intelligent aliens exist somewhere in the universe.)

[Klax (The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)]

@Buzzard

What “elephant in the room”?

This one.

@Klax

@Buzzard

the scientific claim that life on earth is the result of an understood, mechanical process is no doubt interpreted by some people as “In that case, there is no need for a divine Creator.”

From there it’s only a short step to atheism, or reinforces an atheist position already held.

The science of cosmology also has the potential to erase God from the equation when it attempts to reduce the formation of the universe and celestial bodies to understood, mechanical processes.

Those some people are of course right, there is no need , no warrant whatsoever. Atheism is the dominant starting position among the WEIRD. And so it should be. Not theism. Science has absolutely nothing to be a-theistic about. God is not in the equation to start with.

But He can surround it. Encompass it. Instantiate it.

If Jesus is Him incarnate.

Jesus is the only possible loop of cognitive dissonance and even that doesn’t undo any of science whatsoever. With drivel like ID that I have drivelled. It frames it.

So, why on Earth does a good altar boy read The Philadelphia Trumpet? To see how the enemy, your former friends, think?

[T_aquaticus]

@Buzzard

If I proposed that the fossil record was the result of aliens coming to earth and performing feats of genetic engineering, would that be scientific or unscientific?

In order for your statement to be scientific you would need a testable model. That model would need to address the twin nested hierarchies of morphology and DNA sequence, at a minimum.

[LM77 (Liam Maguire)]

@Buzzard

If I proposed that the fossil record was the result of aliens coming to earth and performing feats of genetic engineering, would that be scientific or unscientific?

(As far as I know, it is not unscientific to suggest that intelligent aliens exist somewhere in the universe.)

In my eyes, suggesting on the balance of probabilities that space fungus might exist on Europa, is not the same as suggesting that UFOs built the pyramids or monkeyed with human biology…

And yet, how do proponents of ID tell the difference between divine intervention and alien engineering exactly? Couldn’t all this evidence for Intelligent Design be evidence of an extraterrestrial super intelligence? Genuine questions.

[MarkD (A Whateverist, not a Christian)]

@Buzzard

With all due respect to scientists, if you gave the evolutionary scientists of the world 100 years to produce (evolve) a eurkaryote from a prokaryote, and they wouldn’t even know how to get to first base, let alone actually achieve such a feat … so much for knowing how evolution works!

So you think understanding how evolution allowed an organism to develop a new trait implies that the understander must therefore be able to reproduce the same change under laboratory conditions? That is pretty weird. After all evolution doesn’t start with a goal and then find a way to achieve it.

[MarkD (A Whateverist, not a Christian)]

@Buzzard

As far as I know, it is not unscientific to suggest that intelligent aliens exist somewhere in the universe.)

Maybe not if you have the first clue of how to test such an idea. But it is pretty far off base to suggest that suggesting stuff is akin to doing scientific research.

[glipsnort (Steve Schaffner)]

@MarkD

So you think understanding how evolution allowed an organism to develop a new trait implies that the understander must therefore be able to reproduce the same change under laboratory conditions?

Especially since the trait in question evolved once in 3.5 billion years, starting from organisms that don’t exist anymore under conditions we don’t know.

[beaglelady]

@Buzzard

If I proposed that the fossil record was the result of aliens coming to earth and performing feats of genetic engineering, would that be scientific or unscientific?

Everyone knows it was leprechauns.