h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

There Is Scientific Dissent From Darwinism.
It deserves to be heard.


"We know intuitively that Darwinism can accomplish some things, but not others. The question is what is that boundary? Does the information content in living things exceed that boundary? Darwinists have never faced those questions. They've never asked scientifically, can random mutation and natural selection generate the information content in living things."
Dr. Michael Egnor professor of neurosurgery and pediatrics at State University of New York, Stony Brook


http://www.dissentfromdarwin.org/
[Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator]

The signatories to this list have the following view:

"We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged."

"To limit teaching to only one idea is a disservice to students because it is unnecessarily restrictive, dishonest, and intellectually myopic."

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and if you don't like what you find you can just hide behind faith and say God works in mysterious ways......

You can hide behind your belief in Darwinism, or you can consider what these scientists have to say with an open mind.

Haveing studied genetics at several universitys and done a certain degree of research genomics and bioinformatics, I really can't see waht they're getitn at, either they've grosely misunderstood modern genomics and phylogenetics and taxonomy or... I dunno, they're on another agenda entirely.

For example, Edward Peltzer says our ideas about what happened on Earth prior to the emergence of life are eminently testable in the lab. And what we have seen thus far when the reactions are left unguided as they would be in the natural world is not much. He observes that the decomposition reactions and competing reactions out distance the synthetic reactions by far. It is only when an intelligent agent (such as a scientist or graduate student) intervenes and “tweaks” the reactions conditions “just right” do we see any progress at all.

which scientists.......

you've been ed

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Their agenda is that they wish to open up discussion about Darwinism. The current attitude is very dogmatic. Scientists who dissent from Darwinism are regarded as heretics, even though the case for Darwinism is rather dubious.

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yet the bible states the earth was created only 6000 years ago

come on kzwg you cant have it both ways

you use the bible to "prove" jesus is comming back because we can detect more earthquakes.

and now you say god was "tweaking" things to create life 4 billion years ago because us mere mortals cant "exactly" reproduce the conditions on the early earth......

so if god did tweek things to start life it still means we came from monkeys, so darwin was right

you have seen the light and accept darwin as your saviour from ignorance Ha lel uuuu Ya

Dubious? how so, what evidence is there suddenly to hand that hasn't even made it into any of the scientific publications I read, to cast dispersions on the theory? I'd like to se it. As I said, useually the system is to find evidence first, supporting a new idea, or change in an existing idea, or evidence that contridicts some aspect of existing theory. I've not seen any...

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which scientists.......

you've been ed


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Yes. These scientists:
http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/filesDB-download.php?command=download&id=660
http://www.dissentfromdarwin.org/scientists/

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You can listen to this professor of microbiology's take on it:
http://www.discovery.org/v/341

He is actually trying to test the viability of evolution.
He talks about his research, and the fact that a requirement for 2 changes at once is an evolution-stopper.

Argument from (inappropriate) authority

Clearly you believe evolution is incorrect, but instead of even trying to frame your own arguments against it, and/or rational ones in favor of your implied alternative, ie Creationism, all you do is post links to websites and articles of extremely dubious merit.

I mean, wackaloons from the Discovery Institute?

I suppose next you'll be quoting Ben Stein

If you cannot explain or at least attempt to defend your position in your own words, it suggests you have, to put it charitably, incomplete understanding of the issue.

Oh, and the term 'Darwinism' is a Creationist invention. The theory of evolution by natural selection is not an 'ism'

Out of curiosity, leaving the god lot aside, what is the scientific critique of the theory of evolution? Presumably Darwin didn't get everything 100% right and there are bits that have been updated?

I'm happy to read about any new or old idea and I'm happy to discuss any theory.

however in this discussion I didn't find anything else than a bunch of names and a reference to a one (no more) unknown and dubious institute.

is there anything more than this? more than a list of names who may or may not rightfully call themselves scientists? Is this a prank? or a whining bunch that couldn't graduate and built up a grudge?

I didn't see any reason to take this serious
and that of course doesn't make it less interesting from a slightly different perspective.

if there's a theory behind this all, is it then approved by the mice?

If not evolution, then what?

Intelligent design? One of the strongest arguments against intelligent design is that humans aren't very well designed. For starters:

1. Why do we eat, drink and breathe through the same tube? A good design would have separate tubes for ingestion and respiration - that way it would be impossible to choke or drown (though suffocation would still be possible, but not through food/liquid related accidents).

2. Why is the human eye so badly designed? Why include a blind spot? Why not design something more durable and long lasting? Why do so many people need glasses when they get old? Why aren't eyes designed to last?

3. The human knee is not a good engineering solution to the role of that joint. It's very vulnerable to damage, especially from impacts from the side. It's also not good for walking upright, and limits our speed, and I'm told by an engineer that our knees should really bend the other way.

4. What is the appendix for? It's more of a hazard than a help.

5. Why is our internal wiring so messy?

And that's just my list.... I'm not an engineer, an electrician or a biologist. If we're designed, and God is all powerful and all mighty, why did he do such a poor job?

On a more personal level, why are you posting this, WG? Why is this interesting you at all?

I've got no problem with the sane varieties of Christianity. I've defended Christianity quite a lot on this site against attacks that I've felt to be ill-informed or unwarranted. In the past we've disagreed on quite a number of things, WG, but I'd always placed you in the 'sane' Christian camp, like the vast majority of British Christians.

Yet now you're posting links to end-time prophecies and doubting evolution. Why? Mainstream Christianity endorses evolution - the Catholic Church does, and so does mainstream Protestantism and Anglicanism. My reading of the Bible about the end of the world has always been that you have no way of knowing when it will be (or, by extension when you will die) so you must always be prepared.

Most Christians that I've met are rational, caring, decent people. The American-style Evangelical Christians who believe in the rapture, doubt evolution, and think that there are coded hints in the Bible about the end of the world are none of those things.

And, at a biochemical level, sneak a quick look at even the smallest aspect of the mammalian or/and human immune system, and there is no way that was 'designed', and in fact, a quite strong evidence strand supporting clear evolutionary development of aspects of the immune system's biochemical pathways and structures, which can be followed really very far back evolutionary to common ancestory of bacterial, and plant natures. Yes, we share some very common apsects of the biochemical pathways in the immune system with those found in plants, bacteria and creatures such as sharks and birds...

I listened to part of that audio/interview posted above, I couldn't listen to the whole thing as it was starting to rot my mind. But of that I listened to there wasn't a single thing obviously incorrect that he said, until he got on to making giant leaps of faith regarding A + B = Z. There wasn't anything he said that was in contridiction to evolution/natural selection theories, cept that he decided to twist the 'facts' to suit his own agenda. Of course I didn't listen to the whole thing, so he might well have gone more nutty as it went on. He also seemed to show a lack of understanding of some of which he was talking about, but it was in such an over-simplistic way he was talking that its really quite hard to figure out what the eck he was trying to say, pressuming of ocurse he knew himself.
One is not amused.