UBB.classicTM 6.5.0
quote:My impression is that IDists persistently confuse tinkering around at the edges with throwing over the whole thing from the foundations.
Originally posted by Tyler Durden:
He also seems to suggest that lots of scientists reject the neo-Darwinian synthesis (for scientific reasons not religious?) but if so, that's news to me.
quote:The same way they explain 'microevolution', the gradual accumulation of variation with external selection pressure favouring some variants over others.
Originally posted by Tyler Durden:
how do most biologists explain 'macroevolution'?
quote:This sounds like the argument from incredulity - I can't believe that so many changes happened so quickly! Usually spoken by someone who is not equipped in any case, to assess rates of evolution, for example, in the Cambrian explosion, and who usually ignore pre-Cambrian evolution in any case. Let's call it hijacking science in the name of dogma.
Originally posted by Tyler Durden:
Need to check but having watched an online debate between him and Dawkins, he seems to be suggesting that when there's a sudden/rapid change is because God has intervened! So, sort of Divine Punctuated Equilibrium? But how do most biologists explain 'macroevolution'?
quote:That's the sort of thing I mean by tinkering round the edges. Punctuated equilibrium is a modification within the framework of of the neo-Darwinian synthesis. It's in no way an alternative to the neo-Darwinian synthesis. Punctuated equilibrium affirms hereditable random mutation, preferential reproduction of traits favoured by the environment, and of Mendelian genetics.
Originally posted by TheAlethiophile:
In stating the rejection by some of neo-Darwinian synthesis (NDS) is that in favour of punctuated equilibrium?
quote:To be precise, random mutations are always happening (although there may be environmental factors such as changes in solar radiation flux or volcanic derived mutagenic chemicals which change the rate of mutation). In any given environment some of those mutations will be detrimental to survival and rapidly disappear from the gene pool, many will have no significant effect on survival, and a few will be beneficial to survival. Punctuated evolution postulates that beneficial genes will very rapidly dominate the gene pool, so while the environment remains unchanged populations are always (very nearly) optimally adapted to that environment. A change in the environment will change the external selection pressure. At that point those accumulated genetic changes with very little survival impact may suddenly become very advantageous, or not, to survival and there will be a rapid shift in the mean genetic code for the population as a small number of genetic variants suddenly dominate. Populations lacking the necessary genetic variants to adapt to the new environment become extinct.
Originally posted by Dafyd:
(The difference between punctuated equilibrium and its rivals is simply that punctuated equilibrium believes that most species evolve to a local peak fitness for their ecosystem rapidly within geological time. So under nearly all circumstances, nearly all random mutations will fail to propagate themselves. It's only under situations where the ecosystem is changing that organisms will throw up random mutations that increase their offspring's chances of breeding and therefore that evolution will happen.)
quote:Ah, so the only truly 'unselfish' position is the atheist one, in which we are nothing more than cosmic flukes?
Originally posted by Croesos
Lennox seems upset that the Universe is not set up for his personal ego gratification...
quote:Utterly irrelevant "guilt by association" argument.
...and displays (or feigns) a shocking lack of familiarity with the history and motives of the Intelligent Design movement.
quote:It shows.
I haven't read the book...
quote:I'm not particularly concerned about selfishness or unselfishness, just the idea that the universe must be set up to focus on us. From the preface:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
quote:Ah, so the only truly 'unselfish' position is the atheist one, in which we are nothing more than cosmic flukes?
Originally posted by Croesos
Lennox seems upset that the Universe is not set up for his personal ego gratification...
quote:The universe does not owe John Lennox a special place or a spotlight, and his apparent preference that it should is not evidence that it does. It seems a fairly blatant case of appealing to consequences rather than constructing an argument.
In any case, how could we be in any sense special since we now know that we inhabit a tiny planet orbiting a fairly undistinguished star far out in an arm of a spiral galaxy containing billions of similar stars, a galaxy that is only one of billions distributed throughout the vastness of space?
quote:It's a piece of rhetoric that's there to make an assertion. Namely that we are special, and disciplines like astronomy that don't confirm this belief are therefore suspect.
Originally posted by TheAlethiophile:
Crœsos - that quote you put in looks more like a piece of rhetoric than a crux of an argument. Is it possible that he is here merely posing a question rather than attempting an answer?
![[Paranoid]](graemlins/paranoid.gif)
quote:What utter nonsense.
Originally posted by Croesos
It's a piece of rhetoric that's there to make an assertion. Namely that we are special, and disciplines like astronomy that don't confirm this belief are therefore suspect.
quote:Welcome to Dead Horses!
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
The obvious to me is that this debate is ridiculous.
Science' goal is to explain the workings of the universe.
Religion's goal is to find a meaning.
One v. the other is futile and silly.
quote:I would have thought so too, but certain philosophical types have often argued that because our placement is cosmologically unspecial it necessarily follows that we ourselves cannot be "in any sense special" (to borrow Lennox's phrasing).
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
Astronomy neither confirms nor denies the value of human life. It is simply concerned to study the cosmos. I would have thought that was obvious.
quote:What Alan said.
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
quote:The same way they explain 'microevolution', the gradual accumulation of variation with external selection pressure favouring some variants over others.
Originally posted by Tyler Durden:
how do most biologists explain 'macroevolution'?
quote:Somehow "who I have never heard of" easily takes on the shape of a guilt by association argument. It might be of interest that he's a professor of mathematics and teaches "Science and Religion" at Oxford. It doesn't prove that he's right or that his arguments are good, but I think it leaves a bit of the burden of proof that he'd be entirely scientifically unaware on those making such a statement.
Originally posted by ken:
quote:What Alan said.
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
quote:The same way they explain 'microevolution', the gradual accumulation of variation with external selection pressure favouring some variants over others.
Originally posted by Tyler Durden:
how do most biologists explain 'macroevolution'?
To go farther you'd need to describe exactly what it is you, or Lennox (who I have never heard of) think needs to be explained. Otherwise the only reply would be a restatement of the usual noddy-level presentation of evolution by natural selection, which I imagine everyone has already seen loads of times.