If guidance is defined as a deviation from randomness then natural selection could be described as guiding beneficial mutations towards fixation.
I’m not sure what you are trying to ask.
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An alteration of the system from outside is not scientific evidence. Sounds to me like you are making God into a liar just like the creationists – having God alter the scientific evidence to say whatever He wants us to believe.
Right… with something outside the universe altering the evidence to lie saying whatever it wants… that wouldn’t be more like demons than aliens.
I do not think so. We can only theoretically detect physical interactions. Science dictates only probability distributions not individual results within those probability distributions. So as long as the probability distributions are obeyed, there is nothing to detect if the cause is non-physical.
If 50% of bacteria produce a specific mutation that confers antibiotic resistance when they come into contact with antibiotics wouldn’t that be detectable?
To the OP. Six sigmata.
Sounds like your persecution complex went into overdrive: how does pointing out a logical flaw in including aliens but excluding God lead to deception?
There would have to be a fossil, or intrusion, incursion, Excession that Dawkins, Dennett, Hichens would rise from the dead if necessary, to say ‘God’[, or, rather, ‘Lord!’]. Anything less, is faith. Nothing less than the Parousia I suppose. As there is no fossil.
Sounds like your accusation complex went into overdrive: how does pointing out a logical disconnect in demanding an inclusion of divine powers in scientific evidence equate to whatever you meant by this question fragment? It is a primary assumption that scientific evidence is not manufactured by supernatural powers but is a product of natural law. So why would I include such an incoherent possibility?
An alteration of the probability distributions is an alteration of natural law – it is detectable by science. Otherwise, it is at most just a statistical outlier.
There are published methods that allow testing of phylogenetic evidence for patterns deviating from the expectation of Common Descent. I’ll link a good PS post on the topic below for those interested, but it’s tangential to this topic.
The point is, we now have an enormous amount of phylogenetic data, and all of it has the potential to be evidence for Design. It’s not evidence that is lacking, but hypotheses for Design and the will to test them.
Most working scientists think the evidence for Common Desent is so strong that such tests are a waste of time, and so it can be difficult to get published, but there is nothing preventing ID proponents from doing so, they simply choose not to put their ideas to the test.
Most people on this forum are believers in God’s Design, and that’s OK. These fine people aren’t looking to put their faith to a scientific test, and are not seeking evidence to do so. Compare this to the anti-evolution claims we commonly see, which more often that not make use of Quote Mines or misrepresentation of existing science. If a person actually has evidence then there is no need for this tactic. Evidence for Design, if it exists, must exclude fallacies (ahem … Lies). If someone is truly serious about seeking evidence for Design, then the first thing they should do is set aside all the bad arguments and try to make good ones.
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You are brave to say this. I have been arguing blinkers or tunnel vision in various degrees for some time and get all sorts of indignation thrown back at me.
I guess it boils down to the fact that it is not in ToE’s interest to pursue certain thoughts or directions. ID along with IC are two directions that would apply. It would take a brave scientist to buck the trend or go looking to radically change ToE.
Richard
Consider a field that normally looks for evidence of design - archaeology. Having a background in geology, I was a reasonably useful field assistant in archaeology, as I have a pretty good idea of what rocks look like without human help versus with human involvement. But how do we actually detect design? The key clues are
- Do we have a large sample of designed and undesigned examples to compare the item in question with? If so, we can see which it matches better.
- Do we know what the putative goal of the designing is? If so, we can see whether the item in question fills that goal or not.
Most ID arguments are “ooh, this is complex, and many human-designed things are complex”. But many things without human design are complex, and many human-designed things are simpler than the undesigned equivalents. The complexity of biochemical systems tends to look more like Rube Goldberg’s designs than an intervention-style effort to maximize efficiency.
If a goal of creation is to produce a great variety of organisms, changing over time, then evolution by natural selection is a pretty good way to achieve that goal, and one that a designer might select, particularly a designer favoring working using natural laws.
Evolution is significantly non-random due to the constraints imposed by natural laws. We do not see any evidence that a specific mutation can be favored by an organism because it will be useful. Having parts of the genome more or less likely to mutate is common - we want the antigen-detecting part of an antibody to mutate lots and lots in order to stay a jump ahead of pathogens, but don’t want many mutations in critical genes controlling development, e.g. hox genes, and the mutation rates show corresponding differences. But our B cells cannot say “Mutate that T to a G so that the protein will match this new virus”. In that sense, mutation is random - humanly we cannot predict what mutation will happen, and the mutations that do happen do not turn out to be useful more frequently than random mutation would. But those mutations are subject to the very non-random selective force of seeing if they allow an organism to survive and reproduce.
Another factor is one’s point of view. There are variable aspects of evolution and constrained aspects. What do you emphasize? Gould emphasized the “random” - look at how late Paleozoic to modern arthropods fall into only five general categories of how many appendages they have where and how many body regions there are, but the Cambrian has all sorts of other variations. Conway Morris emphasizes the constraints - arthropods would probably end up pretty similar even if insects had two pairs of antennae and two main body regions instead of one pair and three regions.
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Evolutionary science isn’t a trend. (High rise jeans are a trend. Drinking raw milk is a trend) Science involves evidence, and it’s not courageous to be ignorant of facts. The reason you can’t “radically change ToE” is not because there is some global cabal of die-hard science trend-setters running the show and demanding compliance with their fashion taste, it’s because you’d have to propose something that makes better sense of mountains of facts and evidence without conveniently ignoring the problems with their new model and calling legit peer review censorship.
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You have defended the honour of scientists.
It is a shame that you felt it necessary to do so.
Richard
I will note that a Designer holding an intent to show that He is faithful and dependable will opt for a universe run by natural laws since a mere ad hoc set does not communicate that the guy in charge has his act together.
Besides which, I find that a biosphere that comes from a ‘tree of life’ is far more fitting to “I am the vine and you are the branches” than one where all the pieces are devised individually. Indeed the same goes back to the Trinity: God is not three different things patched together, He is One that nevertheless is Three, tied together by begetting, proceeding, sending – a set of linked relationships. So a ‘tree of life’ seems to be the reasonable outcome of a deity Who is Three in One.
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Yes, it is amazing what a diverse perspective will make of things.
I see a rigid controlled system as being manipulative and uncaring. Nature has such freedom and diversity, nestled within a an ordered framework. If you take out the element of chance altogether you will miss so much, just as taking out choice and freedom. It is that unknown factor that makes all the difference.
It is a clear case of what works for meteorology and inanimate systems does not function as well once you introduce independent life and thought and action. The skill is to make the framework flexible enough to accommodate without being restrictive or controlling.
Evolution has to be more than figures, numbers and sequences. Suggesting that there might be a formulae or pattern just misses the point altogether.
Richard
Another possible theological argument in favor of evolutionary connections between humans and other organisms is that it fits well with the idea of Christ’s incarnation and sacrifice effecting the redemption of all of creation.
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At what point was it decided that Theistic evolution does not mean that all creatures are not connected?
At what point was it decided that “Common Ancestry” means that ToE made those lineages and not God’s guidance?
It does seem that half the time we are "“arguing” at cross-purposes because the “Implied” meaning is not the same as the actual one.
Richard
I think one of the reasons that we can distinguish between whether something is engineered or “natural“ is that we know what the results of human technology look like and what “nature” looks like. If nature is God’s technology, however, the way God does things may look different than the way humans do it. A problem I have come to see with typical ID arguments is not just that they rely on god-of-the-gaps theology but that they are overly anthropomorphic. We imagine God creating using the tools of a human engineer, or perhaps a human magician when maybe God just doesn’t do things that way. I do find more promise in positive cases for design in the universe that do not rely on gaps in our scientific knowledge. An example of this would be the simulation hypothesis or Frank Tipler’s Omega Point Theory. I am not saying I agree with either of these positions, but the fact that they make predictions that can in theory be tested rather than just pointing out gaps in existing theories makes them more interesting to me scientifically than most of what comes out of the ID movement.
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For those willing to read my posts . . .
At no point has anyone claimed that common ancestry means the mechanisms of evolution are responsible for the differences we see. The evidence for evolutionary mechanisms lies mainly in genetics, such as found here:
Another example is the difference in sequence conservation between exons and introns.
So we have evidence for both the mechanisms of mutation and natural selection in the genetic data. I have yet to see ID/creationism even make a good attempt at explaining these lines of evidence.
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Tell me.
How many times have you repeated this assertion and linked that article?
Do you think that people have got the gist of what you think by now?
Repeating the same dogma over and over does not make it right.
Whether you like it or not, The evolutionary process is manifested in the macro world not the micro one.
You are no closer to understanding why or how the deviation (Mutations) occur than they were before Genetics was a thing.
Some of us get tired of repeats.
Because it is not considered relevant or as decisive as you (et al) claim. You can’t be bothered to address their arguments, why should they bother with yours?
Taking the 5th is not a sign of guilt. Silence is not a sign of agreement or lack of dispute. It gets to the stage where we just give up trying. (and put you on ignore)
Richard
It is manifested in both.
It is well understood. Here is a good review article:
It is considered relevant and decisive within the scientific community. The reason ID/creationism is not accepted by the scientific community is because it tries to ignore the evidence, just as you are doing here. The ID community appears to have blinkers on because they refuse to even address the evidence.
If you want to put an argument forward for ID then do so in a new topic. Let’s see if it stands up to scrutiny.
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