Where did you get that idea? He believes that billions of small changes sometimes add up to big changes. Erecting and then knocking down an obvious straw man doesn’t seem like a good use of anyone’s time.
8 Likes
I have never heard anyone make that claim. I have heard the claim that simple molecules have the capacity, under certain circumstances, to form more complex molecules and other structures. You really would be better off addressing the claims that people actually make.
8 Likes
His very first sentence was a falsehood, used to construct a slander in which scientists, including regular contributors and moderators here on this Forum, are equated to alchemists. Personally, I’m a little more interested in why you want to hear more from a point of view like that.
2 Likes
Good question. Please don’t take it that I agree with you, Dr DeJong @WilliamDJ . I’m hoping that you, who apparently believe this, will be willing to listen if I listen to you first. I don’t agree with your sentence, but I’m hoping you will be open to listen if you can explain your reasoning. At least we can agree to presume good intent.
@glipsnort, @pevaquark, and @sfmatheson are scientists who know much more than I do. I agree with their statements. Thanks.
4 Likes
Perhaps he is assuming naively that every action taken by any organism requires an intention or at least a brute predilection. That might be a valid supposition regarding creatures like ourselves but seems highly unlikely for the vast majority of life forms on this planet. But of course, if you were to look at the ways populations of humans may be evolving you won’t find any deliberate intention involved there either. It is only the actions we undertake as conscious, sentient beings where it makes sense to inquire as to our intentions and/or tendencies.
Of course no such premise is required to reach the conclusion that natural selection best describes the history of life on this planet.
2 Likes
@WilliamDJ has shown up before here. We’ve even discussed his publication record. I predict he will ghost us as he did last time, leaving a trail of BioLogos people wasting our time on responses that he will ignore. His primary goal seems to be to drive traffic to his website and start 2019 on some sort of faux-triumphalist note by trolling Evangelicalism’s flagship evolutionary-creation discussion forum.
I hope I’m wrong!
4 Likes
Ah. @WilliamDJ, have you had a chance to address the valid questions made in this link for you?
I’d be interested. Thanks.
1 Like
Energy content??? Does the energy content of a snow flake depend upon the design of the snow flake or the mass of a snow flake?
Drop magnets into piles. If one pile appears to be more complex, is it a matter of energy content of the pile?
I found this book to be very informative. Good luck on your journey.
3 Likes
I’ll bet I’d take to that like a fish to water. I wonder what the target audience would be. Think I’ll put a hold on it and see what I can find out.
1 Like
I loved that book. And there is a really good film series based on that book, if you are interested. And Shubin is also a great speaker.
3 Likes
In my post nr. 30 on 2 Jan, I mentioned that in every branch of science that studies change, a distinction is made between first-order change/ variation : (a1, b1) → (a2, b2) and second order change/innovation: (a1, b1) → (a2, b2, c2). In evolutionary biology, the must be done too, after more than 150 years. Every doctor in science, including Cees Dekker, will agree with me.
You have put fossils in a family tree. But that does not prove that natural processes can produce second-order change/innovation. If they would be able to do so, energy could be harvested for free. See my post nr. 30 on 2 jan.
In factories, simple molecules can form an ever growing amount of more complex molecules. But natural processes cannot form an ever growing amount of more complex molecules. Natural processes are decay processes.
Darwin (a drop out student theology) did not know the difference between variation/first order change and innovation/ second-order change. But science has proceeded since Darwin. Natural selection of variations cannot produce expansions of the DNA and innovation (the transformation of an bacterium into a human = ‘macro evolution’).
I’ve published extensively in two different branches of science that study change, and I can report with confidence that your statement here is wrong.
Wrong again.
That’s a rule you made up, and it’s one that nature does not follow.
8 Likes
Are you from the Netherlands? Cees is a leader in Nanoscale Physics and wrote the foreward to the Dutch Language of God edition, so I’m not sure how much of what you type he’d agree with. Not to mention he actively debates people who reject evolution today.
A recounting of his journey and creationism in the Netherlands is broadly covered here:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-9744.2010.01134.x
A bonus fact is where did all the ID leaders go during the Kitzmiller vs Dover trial leaving Behe by himself as the sole ID expert? To the Netherlands to spread their message there!
All that said, and being someone who has read many of Dekker’s papers and wrote a handful in the same field myself, I’ve can’t quite place what you’re talking about. I’ve never personally made such a distinction in my papers and don’t follow.
Let’s stop there. Do you know how such trees are made? Because your words seem to indicate that you just think scientists arbitrarily arrange things on a page to make common descent look true.
Nonsense. If that were true then all organisms should never become more ‘fit’ for any environment. Predator prey relationships should not result in animals getting faster but always slower and slower until they are so weak and barely able to outrun or catch anything.
2 Likes
Organisms also wouldn’t grow and mature. We wouldn’t develop antibodies to new infections. This rule describes a universe, but it’s not the one we live in.
3 Likes
@WilliamDJ ( @pevaquark )
Even Evolutionist E. Mayr
… agreed that there was evolution that did not lead to speciation, and evolution that did lead to speciation.
The problem here is that you think genetic material in general, or chromosomes in particular, can tell when “they are going too far”.
When does a stack of bricks become a Brick Wall? Humans have all sorts of answers to this … but at no point do we ever suggest that the bricks know their limits and would never allow something to be created that was “too different” from what the bricks used to make.
This whole theme of “energy” and first and second orders is a delusional rationalization from various areas of the amateur science Church crowd.
Cosmology and Physics has already proved what happens when a giant intergalactic cloud of hydrogen gas does when it starts to cool. Do you have orders of energy for star formation?:
-
First, without the chaotic nature of heat energy, GRAVITY begins to dominate… and the gas cloud begins to contract.
-
As gravity compresses the hydrogen molecules more and more closely together, the hydrogen begins to heat up.
-
One might think that the heat would then drive hydrogen OUTBOUND - - and the heat would decrease. But it doesn’t because the force of gravity is higher than the outgoing force that heated molecules experience.
-
At a certain threshold, the hydrogen cloud has become so condensed, so compressed, and so hot, Nuclear Fusion is triggered - - and a star is born.
So what ORDER of energy do you apply to a Star that is created from a cold cloud of hydrogen? Is that also harvesting energy for free?
2 Likes
The existence of a dissenting opinion does not undermine settled scientific consensus. But I personally am not the one to convince you. Though that hardly seems to matter when you ignore those better qualified here who are trying to help you.
3 Likes
Oh, I like that analogy!
1 Like
Anyone who has followed an elementary course in mathematics can see the difference between:
- change of a system in its parameters: (a1, b1) → (a2, b2) , called ‘variation’ or ‘fist order change’; and
- change of a system in its dimensions: (a1, b1) → (a2, b2, c2); this type of change is called ‘innovation’ or ‘second order change’.
Billions of variations of the parameters of a (biological) system during billions of years, cannot produce expansion of the dimensions of a (biological) system.
Variations (for instance the change in the form of the beaks of Darwin finches) are produced by the mechanism of recombination of gene variants and selection, and by gene regulation. This mechanism (= the variation motor) does not expand the length of the DNA, and therefore cannot produce innovation (for instance the transformation of a land animal into a whale). The presumed mechanism for the creation of innovations (= the innovation motor) consists of the accumulation of non-repairable, heritable, instantly advantageous, code-expanding mutations. Irreparable mutations of the DNA, however, cause cancer, genetic diseases and severe selective disadvantage, instead of continual improvement. The innovation motor therefore can only exist in a fantasy world, not in the real world. See further: Key and secondary problems in the theory of evolution
The rule that ‘natural processes cannot form an ever growing amount of more complex molecules’ is not made up by me, but is a fundamental characteristic of our physical reality. If natural processes could form an ever growing amount of more complex molecules, energy could be harvested for free, and chemical industry would close down. This is absurd. Therefore it is proven that natural processes cannot form an ever growing amount of more complex molecules.
Evolution exists! Living nature continuously adapts to changing circumstance by recombination of gene variants and selection and by gene regulation. But billions of variations of the DNA cannot produce innovation of the DNA. As a doctor in science I ask for distinguishing first order change from second order change in evolutionary biology, because first order change cannot produce second order change, as anyone who has followed an elementary course in mathematics can see. I am absolutely sure that Cees Dekker sees the difference between first order and second order change, and agrees that the fundamental concepts of scientific theories must be defined as accurately as possible, including the concept of evolution in evolutionary biology.
I do know how these trees are made: see my contributions to (1) Do 100 or 1000 years old fossils exist
and (2) Can the age of the earth be a litmus test for what counts as science
Indeed a cloud of hydrogen can condense and start to burn, whereby more complex molecules are formed. But the radiation from the burning stars will make these complex molecules to fall apart again, the bigger they are the sooner. In our physical reality, factories must be built to transport the complex molecules that are formed from simple molecules by the supply of energy, toward a safe environment, for the production of an ever growing amount of complex molecules, as Miller has demonstrated in 1953.
In our physical reality, brick walls turn into stacks of bricks by natural processes. Only in the fantasy world of naturalists, natural processes can transform stacks of bricks into walls.
=======================================================================
Conclusions
1. ‘Evolution’ (= slow change) is not a robust scientific concept. After more than one hundred and fifty years, the concept of evolution urgently needs to be defined more accurately by distinguishing ‘first order change/variation’ (= the change of a system in its parameters) + the motor of first order change + the empirical evidence for it, from ‘second order change/innovation’ (= the change of a system in its dimensions) + the motor of second order change + the empirical evidence for it. The consequence of this distinction will be that the empirical evidence for variation of the DNA (for instance, the change in the form of the beaks of Darwin finches, produced by the mechanism of recombination of gene variants and selection and by gene regulation), can no longer be used as evidence for innovation of the DNA (for instance the transformation of a land animal into a whale, by the supposed mechanism of accumulation of non-repairable, heritable, instantly advantageous, code-expanding mutations).
2. The claim that natural processes can transform simple molecules into an ever growing amount of complex molecules and structures of molecules, is pre-Victorian Alchemist faith.
3. ‘Macro evolution’ (= the transformation of a bacterium into a human, by natural processes) can only happen in a fantasy world, not in our physical reality.
=============================================================================