Hold your breath! How long before are forced to breathe deeply of the amazing mixture of nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide, argon and a trace amounts of a few other gasses?…that is unless you live in Mexico City where the other gasses are not so trace. Taking that air and converting the oxygen into usable metabolic portions for your cells are your lungs. Lungs are incredible organs that function as part of our remarkable respiratory systems.
Now I’ve been told that natural selection acting on random mutations has enough power to produce everything in biology…including lungs. I’ve put these claims to the test several times before each time with the same result…no evidence…just assumptions:
Here’s how this works: The quotes from the article in red italics and then just below the quote, I’ll post my analysis in the default black font. I have added bold and underline to key words from the authors throughout, so this is just a note to say that neither the bold nor underline appear in the original article.
Right from the start in the abstract we get the first caveat:
the origin and early evolution of vertebrate lungs remain highly controversial, particularly whether the ancestral state was paired or unpaired. Due to the rarity of fossil soft tissue preservation, lung evolution can only be traced based on the extant phylogenetic bracket
That’s quite a lot to overcome, but I’m sure they will try. Of note: Their admission that since there is no fossil evidence of lung evolution, they rely “only” on creatures that are alive today to extrapolate backwards in time with a collection of assumptions. Their words…not mine.
After giving the proper obeisance to the evolutionary story, the authors get right into it:
How this important organ (lungs) first evolved is a hotly debated topic. This is largely because lung tissue does not preserve well in fossils, making it difficult to trace how the lungs of vertebrates changed over the course of evolution
It will indeed be difficult to trace given the narrative of evolution, but because it is the dominant paradigm, it MUST try to provide an explanation – difficult or not
Lungs, the most important organ of the pulmonary complex, are rarely preserved in fossils, hindering direct evidence of how the earliest air-breathing vertebrates breathed air
I’ll take that as an admission that direct evidence is absent. We will proceed knowing that what follows from them is a collection of assumptions and story-telling
Yet, lung affinities for such structures remain elusive (Janvier et al., 2007) and could not be confirmed by anatomical, phylogenetic, or biological data (Goujet, 2011; Béchard et al., 2014). Here, we follow Janvier et al., 2007, Goujet, 2011 and Béchard et al., 2014, and consider that observable evidences are elusive and do not support the interpretation of these paired masses as a lung
Indeed, the evidence is elusive and cannot be confirmed. The available evidence consists of assumptions and unsupported interpretations. Got it
Our knowledge about the morphological and genetic development of the lung is, however, highly biased towards amniotes, and consequently the original form of this evolutionary novelty among osteichthyans remains largely elusive
Elusive = missing
One hypothesis, formed and supported by studies on tetrapods (particularly mammals and birds), assumes that the lung evolved through a modification of the pharyngeal pouch
Assumptions abound
Curiously, some living vertebrates display an unpaired organ, leaving the ancestral condition equivocal
The origin of lungs is a curiosity for evolutionists since they are forced to make up stories of their origin. And they use words like “equivocal” to hide the fact that they are left clueless as to the origin.
The so-called left lung of L. paradoxa is most likely a diverticulum or a modified lateral lobe, which might have evolved secondarily, an advantage for enlarging the surface area for oxygen-uptake, eventually enabling the obligatory air-breathing performance in the linage towards L. paradoxa
Most likely? Might have evolved? Are we talking about “the mountains of evidence for evolution” or a story? Most internet evolutionists are VERY good at searching through the headlines of articles on Google Scholar or Nature or Wikipedia for “evolution of _______” fill in the blank. But 9/10 have never read the contents of the article. If they had, they would see over and over phrases like: most likely, might have, could have, probably, perhaps, feasibly, presumably, conceivably…just like in this article
There are some very interesting charts and figures. Notice from the chart below
I modified the chart with the red/green boxes arrows and text. The upper part of the figure in green is science. The lower part in red is the part where they try to “prove” evolution, but it’s in the assumption category because there is no evidence for their claim
From this evolutionary point of view, our results lead to a new definition of the vertebrate lung: either an unpaired or paired respiratory organ developing ventrally from the foregut. Vestigial forms secondarily released from the respiratory function should be also designated as lungs (e.g. the lung of coelacanths). Some criteria previously used for discriminating lungs from gas bladders are no longer supported, including: paired/unpaired organization, position ventral to the alimentary tract (Marcus, 1937; Funk et al., 2020; Lambertz et al., 2015; Graham, 1997), as well as its function. The dorsal position of the majority of osteichthyans lungs described here may be related to its dual and secondary functionality of respiration and buoyancy control (Thomson, 1968). Actually, the only morphological characteristic that can be used to distinguish lungs and gas bladders is the ventral and dorsal origins from the foregut, respectively (Funk et al., 2020; Cass et al., 2013). This phenotypic differentiation into true paired lungs in tetrapods may be related to differential gene expressions (Funk et al., 2020; Bi et al., 2021). Nevertheless, at a level of developmental mechanism, the possibility of co-options of gene regulatory networks of the pharyngeal pouch morphogenesis cannot be excluded, as both the lung bud and pharyngeal pouch develop through the invagination of the foregut endoderm. Our results open the door for future molecular analyses to trace possible regulatory elements for the evolutionary transition from unpaired lungs to true paired lungs in tetrapods.
A long quote indeed, but it was interesting to note that they did not want to restrict anything from being a lung that might look like or was assumed to previously be like or might have once acted like or could be a vestigial form of – a lung. The organs that previously weren’t lungs are now being defined as lungs…possibly
Based on the extant phylogenetic bracket, we infer that the bilaterally paired nature of the lung evolved only in the lineage towards fossil and extant tetrapods, as a synapomorphy of this clade
Inference is not a bad thing to do. Just be sure that your worldview can justify inference due to the principle of induction (uniformity in nature). But again, inference is not evidence
Paired lungs may have been present also in early tetrapods and were probably essential to raise lung surface area and volume capacity during the evolution of vertebrate respiratory system and the air-breathing intensification at the water-to-land transition
I hope by this point that you’re seeing the pattern: “may have been” followed by a “probably” and the ever present ambiguous word: evolution. Not evidence. Just caveats built on assumptions believed because of the story of evolution.
Yet another article that when you read the headline: “Lung evolution in vertebrates and the water-to-land transition”, you are lead to believe it will be packed with evidence for evolution. But when you read the contents of the article, it’s the story that some hard-working scientists conjured up through extrapolation based on their faith in common ancestry. No evidence was actually presented that evolution (natural selection acting on random mutations) could produce lungs or vestigial lungs or air bladders or ventral respiratory organs or anything else.
Objections
After posting these “Can Evolution Explain…articles, I inevitably hear evolutionists respond with some form of: “get your paper peer-reviewed and only then can you get your Nobel Prize for disproving evolution. Until then STFU!”
To be clear, these “Can Evolution Explain…” articles are NOT intended to disprove evolution. They are simply meant to analyze the assertions of evolutionists to see whether the subject matter is actually evidence for evolution by their own standards or not. It’s an internal critique. What I find in all of these articles is that what’s been proclaimed as “mOuntAinS oF eVidenCe” for evolution is really just story-telling and assumptions. We’ve seen that this article is more of the same bluster devoid of actual evidence.
There will be no shortage of “papers” that the devout evolutionists will propose that I must analyze. I don’t have the time or the desire to expose EVERY single article, but I do analyze the top authors and the articles that evolutionists THINK are actually evidence as shown above. Hopefully, given the example of my analysis, other Christians will be motivated to expose how the “mOuntAinS oF eVidenCe” for evolution are really massive canyons. These articles are not intended to prove creationism or anything else. They are meant to push back against the dominant paradigm rather than just blindly accepting what is being taught. If these works of evolution can survive scrutiny, then so be it, but so far, I’m finding that their claims are impotent.
Not an actual photo of the original Astroctopus arriving on Earth. A.I. Artist’s rendition
If you’ve read my blog very long, you know that I’m highly skeptical of the claimed powers of evolution to explain biodiversity. All of the government schools for the last hundred years or so have taught that natural selection acting on random mutations has the power to create all sorts of traits and features in living organisms. None of that has ever been observed, but the theory has avoided extinction due to massive government funding, exclusion of dissenting views, and a desire to avoid the obvious moral implications of the Sovereign Creator.
To be clear, I lack faith in the powers of evolution 1) because the theory of evolution is in conflict with the Bible & 2) what’s been presented as evidence is highly suspect and flush with unwarranted assumptions, so I accept that evolution has no power to produce any of the biodiversity on earth. But when biologists admit that there’s no evidence for the gradual development for cephalopods they do not choose the obvious fact that God created these wonderful creatures. They instead propose the impossible: octopus eggs arrived on a comet about 300 million years ago.
I’ve linked the whole article above, so you can enjoy the whole peer-reviewed foolishness, but below are some of the quotes that I found particularly adept at producing the “best medicine” (Bold italics and underline are not in original)
“some genetic features from recent data in the Octopus and other Cephalopods provide challenging examples to conventional evolutionary thinking“
“Evidence of the role of extraterrestrial viruses in affecting terrestrial evolution has recently been plausibly implied in the gene and transcriptome sequencing of Cephalopods”
“Cephalopod phylogenetics is highly inconsistent and confusing“
“The transformative genes leading from the consensus ancestral Nautilus (e.g. Nautilus pompilius) to the common Cuttlefish (Sepia officinalis) to Squid (Loligo vulgaris) to the common Octopus (Octopus vulgaris, Fig. 5) are not easily to be found in any pre-existing life form – it is plausible then to suggest they seem to be borrowed from a far distant “future” in terms of terrestrial evolution, or more realistically from the cosmos at large. Such an extraterrestrial origin as an explanation of emergence of course runs counter to the prevailing dominant paradigm”
“This enormous qualitative difference in Cephalopod protein recoding A-to-I mRNA editing compared to nautilus and other invertebrate and vertebrate animals is striking“
“Yet in Squid and particularly Octopus it is the norm, with almost every protein coding gene having an evolutionary conserved A-to-I mRNA editing site isoform, resulting in a nonsynonymous amino acid change (Liscovitch-Brauer et al., 2017). This is a virtual qualitative jump in molecular genetic strategy in a supposed smooth and incremental evolutionary lineage – a type of sudden “great leap forward”.”
“Unless all the new genes expressed in the squid/octopus lineages arose from simple mutations of existing genes in either the squid or in other organisms sharing the same habitat, there is surely no way by which this large qualitative transition in A-to-I mRNA editing can be explained by conventional neo-Darwinian processes, even if horizontal gene transfer is allowed. One plausible explanation, in our view, is that the new genes are likely new extraterrestrial imports to Earth – most plausibly as an already coherent group of functioning genes within (say) cryopreserved and matrix protected fertilized Octopus eggs”
“Thus the possibility that cryopreserved Squid and/or Octopus eggs, arrived in icy bolides several hundred million years ago should not be discounted (below) as that would be a parsimonious cosmic explanation for the Octopus’ sudden emergence on Earth ca. 270 million years ago”
” Indeed this principle applies to the sudden appearance in the fossil record of pretty well all major life forms, covered in the prescient concept of “punctuated equilibrium” by Eldridge and Gould advanced in the early 1970s“
“therefore, similar living features like this “as if the genes were derived from some type of pre-existence” (Hoyle and Wickramasinghe, 1981) apply to many other biological ensembles when closely examined“
“Virion/gene exchanges thus appear to be inevitable over such short cosmic distances. The many features of biology that are not optimised to local conditions on the Earth may be readily understood in this wider perspective”
“Given that the complex sets of new genes in the Octopus may have not come solely from horizontal gene transfers or simple random mutations of existing genes or by simple duplicative expansions, it is then logical to surmise, given our current knowledge of the biology of comets and their debris, the new genes and their viral drivers most likely came from space“
“general evolutionary molecular processes, now shifts to the Cosmos and beyond our immediate solar system”
It’s sCienCe people!!!!
Notice too about halfway through the quotes (I underlined and bolded the whole quote), the admission that ALL life forms on Earth appear suddenly in the fossil record with no evidence of transitional species. This is EXACTLY what Christians have been saying because the global flood of Noah’s day is the explanation they are looking for. But they will reject the revelation of God at the expense of their own reason
In an online discussion I was asked to provide the answers to these questions:
How do new species appear on Earth?
Why design cancer?
Were tapeworms on the Ark?
Before elucidating the biblical answers to these questions, sometimes it helps to highlight the contrast between what those who believe in evolution teach and those who believe the Bible.
For the evolutionist, they believe that at one time LUCA did not have the genetic code necessary to form legs, wings, lungs, feathers or teeth. So, to get those traits, random mutations had to accumulate over billions of years. It’s never been observed, but all of evolutionary biology is built upon this mysterious unobserved assumption. As Dr. Michael Behe notes from the longest-running evolutionary experiment to date: “After 50,000 generations of the most detailed, definitive evolution experiment ever conducted, after so much improvement of the growth rate that descendent cells leave revived ancestors in the dust, after relentless mutation and selection, it’s very likely that all of the identified beneficial mutations worked by degrading or outright breaking the respective ancestor genes.”
Darwin Devolves – Dr. Michael Behe p179
So although never observed and is not realistically possible, evolutionists assume a “bottom-up” path from extremely limited variability within genetic code to variability-rich genetic code (humans, octopus, bats…). In this worldview, there’s no reasonable place for morals, justice, sadness, or evil. As Dawkins said of a materialistic universe: “There is at bottom no design, no purpose, no evil, no good. Nothing but blind pitiless indifference.”
Conversely, Christians, who consistently trust what God revealed about creation in the Bible, accept that God created everything “very good” with no death or suffering or thorns.
It was only after the sin of mankind that the curse of sin brought all of creation into a state of fallenness
With this foundation we can now address the questions stated from the beginning of this post:
“How do new species appear on Earth?”
From Genesis 1, we see that God created distinct kinds of creatures that reproduce only with each other. From that we can infer that all of the genetic variability for that kind was pre-loaded into the original kinds. You might be tempted to respond with the common retort “A kind is not a scientific term. What is a kind?” This is not a problem since the Bible is not intended to be a science textbook with hierarchical categories. But it’s very likely that a kind could be reasonably synonymous with the Order or Family. So, in stark contrast to the evolutionary story, which is a bottom-up view, the biblical worldview is a top-down. One of the easiest ways to see this in action is the variability that has expressed itself in canids. From wolves only a few hundred years ago, we now have hundreds of distinct breeds. This variability has been present in wolves this whole time, but it wasn’t until artificial selection that we have been able to see all of the wonderful creativity that the Creator imbued into his creation. A limited example is shown below in dog breeds with hair length
Speciation is the result of a LOSS or splintering of the genetic information that was originally programmed into the kinds by the Creator.
Another example would be the equine kind. While modern classifications identify horses, donkeys, and zebras as different species, they are clearly of the same kind because they can interbreed. There’s great variability within the kind, but the zebras have lost much of the variation of horse through both natural and artificial selection.
To summarize on question 1, evolutionists (contrary to the evidence) assume that the information stored in genetic code has been accidentally aggregated by natural selection acting on random mutations. It takes billions of years to accumulate enough variability to view the categories that we now call species. Bottom up.
Biblical creationists accept the revelation of God that He programmed the information stored in genetic code was purposefully imbued into the kinds. In a short time, information is observed to be lost and splintered into what we now designate as species. Top down.
Why design cancer?
God did not design cancer as part of the pre-fall creation. When the created order fell under the curse of sin because mankind’s rebellion, mutations and disease became part of the “creation in bondage to decay”. Like death and thorns, the suffering that comes along with cancer only entered creation because of the sin of Adam. God promised to bring an end to the curses of sin and restore order to creation. Isaiah 11 and Revelation 21-22
Were tapeworms on the Ark?
This question is similar to the question about cancer. The inference that we get from God’s declaration of an originally “very good” creation is that creatures, which now exhibit parasitic behavior, did not hurt prior to the fall. God declared that creatures changed after the flood (Genesis 9:2) and a consistent inference from the scripture is that like humans do in rebellion, many creatures rebel against their originally created order to cause sickness & disease.
“The mind is a terrible thing to waste” – Frederick Douglass Patterson
“… a mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge.” – G. Martin
“I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet.” – Gandhi
“The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.” – Plutarch
“Mind over matter” – Unknown
“I must have a prodigious amount of mind; it takes me as much as a week, sometimes, to make it up!” – Mark Twain
Minds are indeed amazing! But how did we, as humans, get our minds? From where do minds arise? Did God give us minds in order to praise Him, contemplate/discover the mysteries of his creation, and be creative…or did the natural forces of evolution cobble together particles such that these particles could comprehend the cosmos and even itself?
After posting these “Can Evolution Explain…articles, I inevitably hear evolutionists respond with some form of: “get your paper peer-reviewed and only then can you get your Nobel Prize for disproving evolution. Until then STFU!”
To be clear, these “Can Evolution Explain…” articles are NOT intended to disprove evolution. They are simply meant to analyze the assertions of evolutionists to see whether the subject matter is actually evidence for evolution by their own standards. It’s an internal critique. What I find in all of these articles is that what’s been proclaimed as “mOuntAinS oF eVidenCe” for evolution is really just story-telling and assumptions. We’ll see if Dennett’s book is more of the same bluster or actual evidence.
Another objection that I anticipate from the faithful evolutionists is “Dennett is a philosopher…not a scientist. If you want to prove creationism, you need to address the scholarly works.” I refer you to the last paragraph AND Dennett cites the latest of the scientific works that address this topic. AND Dennett’s own Wikipedia page calls him a “cognitive scientist”. There will be no shortage of “papers” that the devout evolutionists will propose that I must analyze. I don’t have the time or the desire to expose EVERY single article, but I do analyze the top authors and the articles that evolutionists THINK is actually evidence as shown above. Hopefully, given the example of my analysis, other Christians will be motivated to expose how the “mOuntAinS oF eVidenCe” for evolution are really massive canyons. These articles are not intended to prove creationism or anything else. They are meant to push back against the dominant paradigm rather than just blindly accepting what is being taught. If these works of evolution can survive scrutiny, then so be it, but so far, I’m finding that their claims are impotent.
Let’s see if the powers of evolutioncan explain the origins of mind. In objections to some of my previous articles, some skeptics have erroneously claimed that I did not review the most eminent authorities on the subjects, but what will they say of Daniel Dennett? From the Wikipedia article, Dr. Dennett “is an American philosopher, writer, and cognitive scientist whose research centers on the philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, and philosophy of biology, particularly as those fields relate to evolutionary biology and cognitive science.” In 2017 he wrote “From Bacteria to Bach and Back – The Evolution of Minds” which is his case for how evolution can produce minds. I’ll review this book below to see if the case for evolution being able to explain minds is in fact airtight
Here’s how this works: I will post the quotes from the book in red and then just below the quote, I’ll post my analysis in the default black font. I have added bold to key words from Dennett throughout, so this is just a note to say that the bold does not appear in the original work.
How come there are minds? And how is it possible for minds to ask and answer this question? The short answer is that minds evolved and created thinking tools that eventually enabled minds to know how minds evolved, and even to know how these tools enabled them to know what minds are.
It is a difficult question for naturalists to answer. If the cosmos were just a collection of particles, then by what mechanism or principle do aggregated particles perceive themselves or something outside themselves? Perhaps Dennett will explain more than just his wild assertion: “eVolUtiOn dUn iT!” as the book progresses.
p7
Then an amazing thing happened: two different prokaryotes…collided. Collisions of this sort presumably happened countless numbers of times, but on (at least) one occasion, one cell engulfed the other, and instead of destroying the other and using the parts as fuel or building materials…it let is go on living, and, by dumb luck, found itself fitter
An amazing thing as Dennett put it is a synonym for magic. God-deniers think that it’s a pejorative to attribute God’s amazing works in creation to magic, but they too require unexplainable magic/miracles for their view. I highlighted the word “presumably” above and throughout the book we see this words and its synonyms ubiquitously. The evolutionists have no evidence for their view that nature can produce life or multi-cellular life or consciousness or minds or morality but since all of these things exist now, they are FORCED to assume that nature somehow “presumably” did it. Need I even make a comment about Dennett’s use of the phrase “by dumb luck” in his comprehensive book explaining how evolution produced minds?
Also on pg7
We read almost every day of Google or Amazon or General Motors gobbling up some little start-up company…but the original exploitation of this tactic gave evolution its first great boost
There are three items in this short paragraph worth discussing because Dennett makes use of these fallacies throughout his book:
Dennett recognizes how intelligent entities (Google, Amazon, GM) make decisions based on foresight, purpose, and profit. The processes of evolution have access to NONE of these tools. Dennett’s use of applying intelligent agency and intelligent design as if evolution can do the same things, is a fallacy that persists throughout his book
Tactic: “A plan or action for achieving a goal; a maneuver.” – American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. The processes of evolution does not plan, has no goals, and has no purpose. Yet throughout his book Dennett imbues evolution with these powers. It’s a shame that a philosopher of his caliber would lazily write his book on the powers of evolution using such specious reasoning
Reification Fallacy: “a fallacy of ambiguity, when an abstraction (abstract belief or hypothetical construct) is treated as if it were a concrete real event or physical entity.” Another of Dennett’s common fallacies is his ubiquitous use of the reification fallacy. He gives the abstract concept of evolution anthropomorphous and sometimes divine powers. This fallacy appears so often in his book that during my reading & annotating, I started writing an RF with a circle around it to denote the prevailing use of the reification fallacy
If at this point, you’ve run out of time and cannot read this tome of a post, you’ve got the substance of Dennett’s book. Nowhere is Dennett able to provide evidence for or verification of Evolution’s ability to produce minds. While his book is well-written and Dennett is both well-read and a skillful writer, his book fell drastically short of his intended purpose. But there’s plenty more review if you have the stamina.
“Over time these eukaryotes grew much larger, more complex, more competent, better.”
What mechanism increases size, complexity and competence? Dennett leaves the answers to these questions to the imagination and the ambiguous nature of the word “evolve”
So, it is claimed, evolution cannot get started without a helping hand from an Intelligent Designer. This is a defective argument, a combination of misdirection and a failure of imagination as we shall see.
For Dennett to rely on imagination for evolution to create minds rather than evidence, lets us know right away that he will wish his views into existence throughout.
In a highly influential essay, Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Lewontin (1979) coined the phrase “Panglossian paradigm” as a deliberately abusive term for the brand of biology-adaptationism-that relies on the methodological principle of assuming, until proven otherwise, that all parts of an organism are good for something.
This concept is completely at odds with one of the primary assumptions of materialism: purposelessness. How can purposelessness produce “good for something” (purpose) let alone ALL parts of an organism being good for something? It’s essentially, “assume nature did it unless proven otherwise.” This is a core doctrine of naturalism.
P31 was a particularly juicy use of fallacies, incompatible ideas, and guesses
I went into this book looking for evidence of the evolution of minds. What I found between the covers was Dennett’s temporal subjective opinion, fallacies, and imaginations of evolutionary powers. No evidence was forthcoming
The space of reasons is bound by norms, by mutual recognition of how things ought to go-the right way, not the wrong way, to play the reason-giving game.
God-deniers have a penchant for stealing moral language from Christians although their worldview cannot account for them. How do you know what is “right”? What is the “wrong way”? How do you get an “ought” from what is? “Norms”?!?!?? How did an amoral purposeless blind pitiless indifferent cosmos produce “norms”?
P43
Nature has endowed us with…
This is isn’t just the reification fallacy, this is the divination fallacy. Dennett gives nature divine powers several times throughout the book.
Some of you may think I’m making this stuff up at this point, which is why I’m sprinkling in a few screenshots of his book
On pg 48 Dennett employs the imagination-of-the-gaps in an effort to build his case for the evolution of minds, and on page 49, he invokes the phrases “dumb luck” , “just lucky” and “lucky-to-be-gifted” in place of scientific evidence for his case.
On p55 Dennett introduces his readers to the Turing machine. He talks knowledgably about Alan Turing’s computer, which deciphered the German code, developed during WW2. Turing’s machine had no comprehension of the code that was developed, so Dennett felt it reasonable to apply this concept to biology. He writes on pg 57
What Darwin and Turing did was envisage the most extreme version of this point: all the brilliance and comprehension in the world arises ultimately out of uncomprehending competences compounded over time into ever more competent-and hence comprehending-systems.
It’s an embarrassing conflation for Dennett. He’s essentially claiming that because Turing could intelligently design & engineer uncomprehending machines, then nature can too. All Dennett is doing is building up the overwhelming case for intelligent design. Unfortunately, for Dennett, he builds his case on the Turing machine and references throughout the rest of the book how nature just does whatever intelligent designers do…just without the intelligence. It’s lazy and an unjustified attribution to nature.
Another unfortunate (for evolutionists) analogy the Dennett proposes is the way that elevators can travel from the bottom floors to the top without comprehension, so nature can uncomprehendingly grow in complexity. Again, he builds his case on intelligently designed machines. This whole time, I thought he was going to describe how purposeless, unguided forces could construct reasoning minds from numerous successive slight modifications, but Dennett continually invokes intelligence as the source. And he rationalizes this writing by just adding in the disclaimer (p52) “their excellent designs are not products of an intelligent designer” as if his disclaimer carries weight.
p74 is filled with more equivocation of intelligently designed tools with natural forces. Dennett compares the programming of artificial intelligence, the accumulation of knowledge in encyclopedias, and the internet to things that he feels that nature can do although he offers no actual evidence for these assertions…just empty comparisons.
On the following page, Dennett invokes the sciency-sounding phrase: “emergent effect” rather than providing evidence of the evolution of minds. You may have heard evolutionists and naturalists employ “emergent properties” or “emergent effect” when trying to explain logic, or life, or consciousness, or minds, or morality with the dismissive quip: “Well, an aggregation of sand particles produces sand dunes, so an aggregation of stardust produces minds”. It’s a monumental and illogical leap, but they present it as if it’s factual. Don’t let their bluster distract from the fact that there is no evidence for particles producing minds. Dennett would have been more persuasive in his case had he demonstrated step-by-step how natural selection acting on random mutations (actual evolution) could have produced minds rather than relying on intelligent design analogies
Could something as intellectually sophisticated as a digital computer, for instance, ever evolve by bottom-up natural selection?
A consistent evolutionist must believe Yes as the answer to that question. They believe that humans are the result of natural selection, so the ultimate source of computers, smart phones, and all technology was ultimately brought about by natural selection.
If an evolutionist is inconsistent and like Dennett, dismisses the idea outright, that natural selection can produce something as intellectually sophisticated as a computer, they are being ignorant of the fact that the simplest biological cell is far more sophisticated than a computer.
Lastly, natural selection is a destructive force. Natural selection never produces anything. It can only thin the population of the unfit. Several times throughout the book, Dennett incorrectly describes natural selection as some sort of creative force.
It’s not just the reification fallacy – Dennett give deification powers to nature as he uses words like “gifted…bestowed…blessed.” Naturalism literally uses religious worship language when talking about nature. He capitalizes Nature several times in his book. Paul’s letter to the Roman church couldn’t be anymore prescient than when he wrote “claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling moral man and birds and animals and creeping things…they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator.”
P98-99
Next come the Skinnerian creatures, who have, in addition to their hard-wired dispositions, the key disposition to adjust their behavior in reaction to ‘reinforcements’; they more or less randomly generate new behaviors to test the in the world…The merely Darwinian creature is ‘hard-wired‘, the beneficiary of clever designs it has no need to understand…it has been designed by evolution…learns by trial-and-error…and is hard-wired to favor forays that have ‘reinforcing’ outcomes. It doesn’t have to understand why it prefers these trial-and-error behaviors when it does; it is the beneficiary of this simple design-improvement ratchet
Notice all of the ‘design’ words from above. It sounds like a computer manual. Dennett gives nature the power to design with a wave of his pen. These creatures just “have” foundationally necessary features?!?!? Where did they get them? Where did these “hard-wired dispositions” come from? He never explains, but he builds on these unjustified foundations. I expected more evidence and fewer unjustified assumptions, but Dennett’s assertion game is strong!
Interestingly, Dennett’s chapter 6 is titled “What is Information?” The absolutely weakest link in the evolutionary chain garners a whole chapter that reinforces the theory of intelligent design. Dennett refers to DNA, JPEG digital photo compression technology, exquisite paintings, Mathematical modeling, economic analysis, poker, & empiricism, but you’ll notice that the key element to all of these is intelligence…not unguided numerous successive slight modifications. If nature could produce design without a Designer, why did he use intelligent design analogies as his foundation?
But ch6 is an important chapter for Dennett as he tries to build a key concept in his theory, Memes, as abstract progenitors of information. Dennett doesn’t tie information to memes until chapter 10, but it’s important to see how he recognizes the foundational nature of information…even though he is never able to hide the fact that information always comes from minds and (even though he never says it) from the eternal Mind. Dennett defines a meme from the Oxford English Dictionary as “an element of culture that may be considered to be passed on by non-genetic means.”
As noted earlier, <reification fallacy next> evolution by natural selection is astonishingly good at finding needles in haystacks, almost invisible patterns that, when adventitiously responded to, yield a benefit to the responder. Just as the origin of life depends on getting the right “feedstock” molecules in the right place at the right time, there has to be raw material in the variation in the population that includes, by coincidence) some heretofore functionless (or underutilized or redundant or vestigial) feature that happens to be heritable and that covaries with the potentially useful information in the world.
You can see above that Dennett both reifies natural selection and then grants power to that abstract concept that it outside the scope of its supposed abilities. We’ve been told that natural selection can preserve that which assists in reproductive fitness and culls organisms without the fittest traits. But Dennett claims that natural selection can preserve “potentially useful information” as if there is somehow foresight and planning for future use of this potential information. And he does it again on the very next page: 121
Natural selection cannot preserve traits that have no effect on reproductive fitness.
This may be the most important question that Dennett asks in the whole book. Sadly, his answer is sorely lacking:
Evolution is all about turning bugs into features, turning noise into signal and the fuzzy boundaries between these categories are not optional; the opportunistic open-endedness of natural selection depends on them. This is in fact the key to Darwin’s strange inversion of reasoning: creationists ask, rhetorically, “where does all the information in the DNA come from?” and Darwin’s answer is simple: it comes from the gradual, purposeless, nonmiraculous transformation of noise into signal, over billions of years.
It makes a cool bumper sticker for someone to claim that evolution can turn bugs into features, but the knowledge claims of empiricism is a bug, not a feature. Several things to note about this paragraph:
If it were true that minds could be constructed by natural selection acting on numerous successive slight modifications (random mutations), there would be evidence and Dennett would have demonstrated this evidence. But he never does. The book is empty of demonstrable evidence. It has only just-so-stories with reification fallacies and assumptions built on intelligent design analogies
Charles Darwin did not have an answer for information or genes of DNA because he lives in a time before the discoveries of genetic information.
Perhaps Dennett intended to speak for the all Darwinists when he claimed “Darwin’s answer”. Gradual keystrokes cannot be preserved by natural selection since the accumulated code would be too slow. Purposeless keystrokes could not be preserved because they do not create functional code, and functionless code cannot be preserved. The assertion that gradual, purposeless keystrokes can create instruction code that has greater complexity than mobile phone operating systems is both undemonstrable and unreasonable.
P125-126
Even the loss of organs and their functions counts as improvement when the cost of maintaining them is factored in. The famous cave fish that have abandoned vision are engaged in cost cutting, which any company executive will tell you is design improvement.
But that’s not what we’re here for. We’re here to hear Dennett herald the powers of evolution to produce NEW traits…specifically the mind. Sure, continual losses of information, organs, and functionality can count as “improvement” in the same way that taking the doors off, stripping out the air conditioning system and removing all of the seats in a car will improve gas mileage. But you can’t get from an automobile to a starship will continual losses. You can’t get from bacteria to Bach with loss after loss after loss. Dennett is supposed to be explaining the opposite of loss. Where’s the evidence for the massive gains of information that would permit a bacteria to produce beautiful music????
Chapter 7 had some interesting figures regarding “Darwinian Spaces”. There’s no evidence presented, but it does help to see the way that evolutionists think
P149
There is much more to be explored in this evolution of cultural evolution and its role in creating our minds, but first we should look more closely at how it got started. Like the origin of life, this is an unsolved problem, and a very difficult one.
This is a stunning admission from the man who was supposed to be telling us how minds evolved. Like the origin of life problem for naturalists, the evolution of minds is an unsolved and very difficult problem. I agree, and there is a vast list of problems for which naturalism has no answers.
P151-153
An oviparous fish has not time for swimming lessons in it youth and has no parents to teach it; it has to have a swimming “instinct” built in…One way or another, brains develop competences…The glory of programming language is that once you get your design clearly written in the language of choice-Java or C++ or Python-you can count on the compiler program to take it from there, creating a file in machine language that can be executed. Computer programming is thus not so much top-down design as top-halfway-down design; the grubby details of the “bottom” of the design (the engine room if you like) is something you can ignore, unless the program you are writing is a new compiler.
Exactly. The information has to come from somewhere. Dennett never does demonstrate the origin of the built in instincts of the oviparous fish, but he knows that this information is needed, so he assumes nature must have done it sometime in the past and then preserved it.
I couldn’t help adding Dennett’s continual use of intelligent design as an analogy for evolution. Even compilers were written by intelligent programmers. There’s just no evidence for him to draw from in his attempt to build a case for evolution producing minds, so he gives the analogy of intelligent computer programmers working hard writing thousands of lines of code, and just expects his readers to imagine evolution doing the same thing…just without intelligence. It’s dreadful science, but it’s humorous reading
P164-165
Top-down intelligent designs depend on foresight, which evolution utterly lacks…Foresightless, backward-“looking” evolution by natural selection is not intelligent design but still powerful R&D, sufficiently discerning so that the general division of labor in the brain can be laid down in the genetic recipes that have been accumulated and refined over the billion years or so of mobile life.
True, evolution lacks foresight. But he goes from something that is true, right into the reification fallacy by attributing discernment to the abstract concept of evolution. This is a common theme in Dennett’s work.
P195-200
Perhaps…Perhaps…might…might be…somehow…perhaps…perhaps…it is possible…perhaps…in any case…probably…Almost certainly…we can imagine…may be…perhaps…probably…probably…possible
You may have thought you were reading a science book where Dennett will show demonstrations of his claims, but you can see from the caveats, it’s not really very compelling. It’s just “maybe/perhaps” all the way down
Microsoft Bing AI-generated art
P239
“Genetic evolution (“instincts”) can’t operate fast enough to do the job, leaving a yawning gap to be filled by memetics”
According to Bickerton, “The cognitive gap between humans and nonhuman animals is evolution’s Achilles heel” (p.5), and it cannot be explained, in his opinion, by any account of the straightforward natural selection of increasingly powerful communication behaviors leading eventually to language…this is reminiscent of the familiar creationist arguments that until the eye, say, or the wing, or the bacterial flagellum is fully designed it is useless and hence will not be sustained over generations, a you-can’t-get-here-from-there challenge to the evolutionist. But Bickerton is no creationist…he provides his solution to the “paradox of cognition” (p.79) “If we rule out selective processes and magical versions of evolution, what’s left? The answer is just two things: words and their neural consequences. The invention-for it can only have been an invention albeit it not a conscious or even an intentional one-of symbolic units had crucial consequences for the brain.” I relish the irony of the passage, with its dichotomy between evolution and invention, and its postulation of an unconscious Promethean leap of creativity”
Both Derek Bickerton (in his book “More Than Nature Needs: Language, Mind, and Evolution”) and Dennett recognize the unfathomably massive gap in reasoning/cognition between animals and humans for which evolution must account. They strip away the things they see won’t work: natural selection, and have to propose something for which the purposeless universe is incapable: purposeful invention.
Regarding this same paragraph, notice Dennett’s use of the phrase “Promethean leap“. This is in reference to the Greek mythology of the god of fire, Prometheus, defying the Olympian gods by stealing fire from them and bestowing it to man. This provided a huge leap in technological advancement for humanity for which humanity (according to Greek mythology) could not possibly have solved on their own. Just 11 pages prior, Dennett admits that the evidence for the evolution of minds could not have been preserved in the fossil record (and I agree), so to solve the paradox, he must speculate a giant leap forward…a miracle of invention. But he cannot call it a miracle. He must just call it irony and a dichotomy…a paradox and a Promethean leap. It’s reminiscent of the problem that paleontologists encountered when searching for missing transitional fossils that would confirm evolution. Since those fossils were completely missing, they proposed a rescue device called Punctuated Equilibrium, which asserts that evolution goes through cycles of short periods of “lightning fast” change, which don’t get preserved in the fossil record – and all of the confirming fossils just didn’t get preserved, because evolution happened too fast. The evidence for evolution remains missing, but it is (they claim) really just more evidence for evolution, because it’s got a sciency-sounding moniker: punctuated equilibrium. Don’t fall for the bluster of fancy monikers.
On P264 Dennett continues this discussion with Bickerton’s book where he says “must-have…probably…must have…Somehow” leading to the hinge point of this review and the final death-knell admission for Dennett’s case on p265. I had to include a screenshot of the page, because you might not believe me if you don’t see it with your own eyes:
It is indeed a dilemma, but more than that, as Dennett admits, his foundation for the origin of humans minds (language) is still an “unsolved problem”, and the proposed solutions have been and continue to be “just-so stories”.
When I read this paragraph above, I literally laughed out loud. Did you catch what he said? “We are getting confidently more uncertain” and Dennett says of this confident uncertainty: it’s “an embarrassment of riches” for researchers to find a solution. It would be comedy at its finest if Dennett didn’t believe that knowing nothing is an embarrassment of riches. It is an embarrassment for them, but there are no riches; it’s the-emperor-has-no-clothes of evolutionary evidence. What else need be said? The case is closed. Evolution cannot solve the unsolvable.
One final screenshot to reinforce Dennett’s misuse of language and understanding of evolution. On P339, he again reifies evolution as if it has special powers:
But as we all know, natural selection is a culling force. It destroys the information of the unfit, and this descriptive ‘force” has no inherent creative powers to generate anything.
There are many more pages that could have been included in this review, but none of them solve the evolutionist’s problem. The case presented by the leading evolutionary philosopher, while entertaining & including the latest scientific searching, included grand story-telling but no evidence.
Evolution is false because it is in conflict with God’s eternal Word. And as we have seen, from even their top word-smiths, evolution cannot account for minds or anything else in reality BY THEIR OWN STANDARDS.
When My great grandfather was born, the universe was thought to be 20 million years old. During this time, the universe was aging very fast because by the time my grandfather was a young boy, the idea that the universe might be 1 billion years old was being circulated, and by the time the Boomers were being born, the universe was no longer measured by the Steady State theory but by the Cosmology known as the Big Bang. As the Big Bang steadily grew towards acceptance among the scientific community, the acceleration curve of the age of the universe began to stabilize. During my lifetime, and for the past few decades the universe has been assumed to be 13.79 billion years old give or take 62 million years. So firm have they been about the age of the universe that they’ve given error bars for their theory that the age of the universe can only be .4% on either side of 13.79 billion years. By their reckoning, only morons would question that level of precision.
Low and behold in September of 2019, some cosmologists released peer-reviewed papers saying that the universe was only 11.4 billion years. Suddenly 2 billion (assumed) years were suddenly wiped away like so much fecal matter off the streets of San Francisco. That new age is well outside the old error bars, so what’s a cosmologist to do? There’s not been NEARLY enough time to postulate the galactic evolution, stellar evolution and chemical evolution with fewer years. They need MORE years to sufficiently explain all of the stars, galaxies, and even biological evolution that nature needs to self-assemble.
As a sidebar, there are lots of stars. The latest estimate at the time of writing this post, there are about 200,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars. Given the age of the universe to be 13.8 billion years old, there must have been 459,562 stars forming every SECOND for all 13.8 billion years on average…even though no one has ever seen a single star form
But there’s hope! In December of 2021, NASA launched the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) into orbit. This unique and powerful telescope would be able to view images from the furthest edges of the universe. Surely THIS telescope would reveal the correct age. The expectation was that seeing images at the deepest edges of the universe, astronomers would be able to see infant stars (population III stars have never been observed, but they are assumed to be the 1st stars formed by the Big Bang) and infant galaxies (because the belief is that since the distances are so vast and light takes so long to reach the lens of the JWST, then they would be able to see into the “past” at the very beginning of the Big Bang). There are many assumptions involved with that view, but biblical astrophysicist, Dr. Jason Lisle, made different predictions of what the JWST would find. He predicted that when the images from the JWST were analyzed that we would find fully formed galaxies and only populate 1& 2 stars.
So, it only makes sense that those, who just last year SWORE that the age of the universe was definitively 13.79 billion years old +/- 62 million years are now proposing that the universe is REALLY about 27 billion years old. To accommodate the date from the JWST, they needed more unobserved time ****to protect the Big Bang narrative****. The evidence showed that the universe wasn’t so young as 13.79 billion years…to keep the theory in tact, more unobserved time was needed.
Would it surprise anyone that the biological evolutionists (noticing the new “bank account” of time is VERY large) began to look longingly towards extending the timescales on earth? There are all sorts of problems for biological evolution based on their aBsoLutE timescale of the age of the earth. We’ve been told that the geologic column confirms that age of the earth is
The age of Earth is estimated to be 4.54 ± 0.05 billion years (4.54 × 109 years ± 1%).
We’re assured that radiometric dating confirms this age to within 1% of the estimate. There are many questionable assumptions that go into whether the extrapolated ages given by radiometric dating are accurate. We won’t go into that here, but you can hear these assumptions explained here
Recently, Dr. Robert Carter released a podcast that exposed a big problem for the evolutionary timeline of biology
Here’s the general problem
It is assumed that humans and chimpanzees are related by a common ancestor although that common ancestor remains missing (the missing link) between 1 and 10 million years ago. The supposed age has such an enormous variance since the common ancestor remains missing and the degree of commonality of the DNA has been steadily decreasing from 99% to closer to 86% now. In the same way that the supposed effectiveness of the CV19 vaccine precipitously fell from its initial boast of 100% effective to less than 20%, the commonality of human->chimpanzee DNA similarities continues to fall
With that many differences in DNA between humans and chimpanzees, more time is needed to accumulate the difference and according to evolution establish (fixate) those genes in the populace.
But we’ve been unquestioningly assured that mammals did not evolve until after the dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago. Wait, what?!? It’s 66 million years ago now? They found a million years and added it in since I was in college…which coincidentally was shortly after the Cretaceous. According to the geologists, it is “uNdeniAbLe” that the dinosaurs died out 66 million years ago. All branches of science agree…right?!?! Unquestioningly lest ye be expelled!!!
But it takes many years to accumulate enough random mutations to transition the last common ancestor of chimpanzees and the amniotes. According to OneZoom.org, Primates didn’t begin to evolve until after the dinosaurs had died out. The timeline is now fixed. Primates **MUST** have evolved between 66 and 10 million years ago, to accommodate the split of humans from apes 10 million years ago
The evolutionists have unwittingly locked themselves into a timeline that allows no variance. The chimpanzees had to be evolved from the amniote common ancestor after 65 million years ago and prior to the 10 million years ago that the last human/chimp common ancestor is supposed to have lived.
But what if there were more time available? What if the timeline wasn’t so rigid? The cosmologists just found an extra 13 billion years!!! Surely the Biological evolutionary timeline could borrow some of that time…right?
Here’s my prediction: Within my lifetime, the genetic evidence (principally from the waiting time problem and Richard Lenski’s Long-Term Evolutionary Experiment) will lure biological, geophysical, and other earth scientists to “borrow” some of the time that the cosmologists have “discovered” (read fabricated out of the ether). The age of the earth, once thought to be rigidly defined as 4.5 billion years old will grow significantly to accommodate the newly discovered falsification to the old timeline. And everyone will quickly forget the OLD age of the earth. It will be demanded by the “ministry of truth” that everyone forget the old timeline and accept the new timeline as if Oceana has always been at war with EastAsia. If the asserted time is there for the cosmologist, why shouldn’t the biologists borrow some to fix that inconvenient problem of genetics. What’s a few billion years here or there between naturalist friends in an effort to explain the origins of the universe, stars, chemicals, galaxies, life, consciousness…without the Creator God?
Sadly, because most old earth Christians hold to the modern academic paradigm to inform their interpretation of scripture, they will jump in with both feet as well in changing their timeline. Although they proclaimed loudly and often that “tHe sCienCe” confirmed the universe to be 13.8 billion years old, and that the Bible never says anything about the age of the earth/universe, people are free to accept whatever science tells them. And since the science has now changed to 27 billion years old, they will tell us that the Bible should be changed to accommodate that new & improved view too.
But I will remain faithful to what Jesus said: “At the beginning of creation, God made them male and female” rather than what the old earthers think: that God made humans 13.8…I mean 27 billion years after the beginning of creation. God’s Word can be trusted completely
Well, I got a new challenge from a Christian, who has faith in both old earthism and evolutionism. Sadly, he has joined the scoffers in rejecting the Biblical account of the worldwide flood during the days of Noah. It’s doubtful that he will even read this article, since he has a personal distaste for reading anything that hasn’t gone through the Peer-Review™️ process. He holds Peer-review as his sacred text, but I will proceed in the hopes that others will be encouraged in their faith in God’s revealed word rather than the modern academic paradigm. And although the article that we will analyze is not peer-reviewed, our Christian interlocutor will rationalize his inconsistency by saying, “Well, it contains citations to peer-reviewed articles.” Alrighty-then.
After posting these “Can Evolution Explain…articles, I inevitably hear evolutionists respond with some form of: “get your paper peer-reviewed and only then can you get your Nobel Prize for disproving evolution. Until then STFU!”
To be clear, these “Can Evolution Explain…” articles are not intended to disprove evolution. They are simply meant to analyze the assertions of evolutionists to see whether the subject matter is actually evidence for evolution. What I find in all of these articles is that what’s been proclaimed as “mOuntAinS oF eVidenCe” for evolution is really just story-telling and assumptions. We’ll see if the article below is more of the same bluster or actual evidence.
So I will be analyzing this article from Biologos written by astrobiologist, Stephen Freeland. But before I do, we must make a few notes, lest the skeptics shriek in horror. For purposes of our discussion, we will grant that the Last Universal Common Ancestor (LUCA) already has the base quantity of information necessary for life in its genetic code. This post will not address the impossibility of life emerging from non-life as this is done elsewhere. So the question at hand in THIS post is simply to address the massive amounts of information that would be necessary to have the expression of traits seen in today’s observations (eyes, wings, lungs, coherent interrelated interdependent systems…) that were not available to LUCA. We’ve been told that evolution (natural selection acting on random mutations) can explain the total amount of this information, and Dr. Freeland wrote his article to elucidate how evolution can explain its origins
Dr. Freeland’s quotes are in red italics. Any bold or underline in his quotes are not in the original but are added by me for emphasis.
Current science does not have a detailed, widely-accepted description for how a genetic information system evolved in the first place…I describe the progress that mainstream science has made towards understanding the origin of genetic information since the molecular basis of genetic information was first understood, encouraging readers to reach their own conclusions
From the opening paragraph of the article, it sounds like bad news for the prevaricators of evolution. To repeat him in my own words: There’s no demonstrable evidence that evolution can produce information, but I’m going to give you my theory of how it might have happened. In all of my previous posts in the “Can Evolution Explain…” series, it’s the same bluster: Undeniable explanation in the title of the article and caveats, assumptions, artwork and story-telling in the article below. And Freeland’s article starts out just the same
Biological evolution describes a natural process that transfers information from a local environment into the chemical known as DNA…This unusual definition of evolution seeks to clarify an ambiguity in traditional alternatives, such as “biological evolution is a natural process of change in genetic material over time.”
This is NOT the typical definition of evolution. And his definition burdens the readers with more questions than it answers. Where did the information that is stored in the local environment come from? What is the process that stores information in the local environment? Did the need or the desire or the ability or the availability to transfer information from the local environment to DNA arise first? Without the others, how could it have been preserved until the others arrived? What tools perform the transfer of information from a local environment to DNA? What is the process that transfers information from a local environment to DNA?
Regarding the last question, my profession as a database administrator will have some insight. When transferring data from one data format to another data format like from a marketing firm to a state entity for tax purposes, several parameters must be considered:
Format – the data must be in an arrangement that both the sender and the receiver understand. For instance, the credit amount from the sender must be in the same column that the receiver expects it to be.
Timing – the transfer cannot take place if the sender does not transmit at the time when the receiver is expecting it. If the receiver is not listening when the sender transmits the information, the data is lost
Protocol – transmission method, authentication, and data integrity confirmation must all be considered when passing data to a new source
Ability to send
Ability to recieve
The ability to send and receive must correspond
So while Freeland might have casually assumed that information can be transferred from a local environment to DNA, he’s left unanswered how the unguided, purposeless process of evolution can solve these monumental problems
Start by imagining a line
Imagine indeed! That’s not really the explanation I was looking for
These mutations could, in a single generation, produce large changes in an organism’s appearance
That assertion would be more compelling if it had a citation with it. As is, it looks like an extraordinary assertion without any evidence. Besides if true, the expectation would be (since the vast majority of mutations are neutral or deleterious) that the “large changes” about which Freeland alludes would be destructive and degenerative…not new information
Further evidence indicated that micro-evolution accumulates over time to account for all larger degrees of evolutionary diversification (macro-evolution)
Again Freeland does not cite or provide any evidence for this assertion. The reader is just expected to believe what he’s asserted without evidence
Unless life began in greater quantity than it now exists, evolution requires that natural processes have, over time, increased the total quantity of genetic material (DNA) present on our planet. This is one way in which science currently believesgenetic information has increased over time: a natural process has increased the number of copies of DNA molecules without any need for guidance by an intelligent agent
Does evolution have requirements? The THEORY does. Yes, the theory of evolution does require that new information must have been formed, but this is just another assertion by Freeland. Notice from the underlined section above, Freeland employs the reification fallacy as if science has its own mind and can believe something. This is common among old earthers to reify the abstract concept of science (pursuit of knowledge) as if science were a living anthropomorphic entity that has a voice and beliefs and censorship powers. We also see in Freeland’s quote the implication that duplications of information are an actual increase in information. There are at least 3 problems with this line of thinking
Duplications provide a means for more degenerative problems to arise
Due to the work of geneticist Dr. John Sanford, we know that only deleterious mutations are able to be removed/preserved by natural selection. Neutral or legendary beneficial mutations are well inside the “no-selection” zone and cannot be removed/preserved by natural selection. p104 Genetic Entropy, Dr. John Sanford
Freeland’s assertions veer unexpectedly into confirming the creation model
unless life originated containing more DNA than the most genetically complex organism alive today, then some lineages must have increased the quantity of DNA they contain through evolution
This is exactly what the creation model says. God created kinds of plants and animals with the full variability they would need to survive and thrive in different conditions as they filled the earth’s disparate environments. This is exactly what we find. As the world became subject to the effects of the fall, geographic isolation, natural selection & other factors have splintered and destroyed much of the original information, but we see incredible variability being expressed in the different kinds that God created. Freeland rejects the biblical view in favor of the naturalistic one, where he assumes that all genetic information (after LUCA) had to be constructed by natural unguided forces over time. We’re just waiting for him to provide evidence for this. Maybe we’ll find it further down in his paper
DNA has the unusual property of being aperiodic. This means that the sequence of nucleotides within a DNA molecule is not constrained to any kind of repeating pattern
This is true. The individual nucleotides also have no chemical or physical force that would cause them to be arranged in a particular order (specified complexity). The nucleotides are similar to the children’s letters with a magnet on the back for refrigerators. They are attracted to the refrigerator but this does not arrange the individual letters in an order that would spell a message “Good morning mom I luv u” (misspellings intended since all the o’s got used up). But notice what Freeland does below
The idea that some sequences of DNA cannot be produced by natural processes owing to the information they contain has no empirical support from modern genetics. In fact, quite the reverse. Genetic information is stored in sequences of nucleotides that have been chemically linked together to form a molecule of DNA. Genetics, bioinformatics, biochemistry and molecular biology all agree that natural processes can cause any nucleotide to become the neighbor of any other within a DNA sequence
Rather than showing us how the letters were arranged (as in our analogy) to say “good morning mom I luv u”, he simply says (in my own words) Well, there’s nothing that would PREVENT nature from arranging these letters in this way. Freeland has not given us the secret for how nature constructed billions of lines of genetic code…he’s just informed us that there’s nothing that would keep nature from constructing billions of lines of code that’s stored in DNA. His faith in nature’s ability to write biological code stretches credulity.
Try this for yourself by listing a series of mutations that convert the word “evolution” into “creation” with the restriction that each mutation must either change a single letter, insert or delete one or more letters, or move the position of any sub-group of letters. There are many ways to reach the outcome, and this remains true for any two words that you can choose.
This sounds an awful lot like Dawkin’s “Me thinks it is like a weasel” analogy. In his book, A Blind Watchmaker, Dawkins proposes that the phrase “Me thinks it is like a weasel” can be constructed easily by randomly changing 1 letter of a gibberish collection of letters at a time and artificially preserving any letter that appears in the right spot. He asserts that success in constructing the phrase is inevitable. The problem is that the way natural selection works, unless the phrase appears all at one, it cannot be preserved as meaningful. Without functionality or meaning, natural selection would discard any partial sentence and every iteration would have to start from the beginning. Rather than inevitable, the actual chances of constructing a sentence (or changing evolution to creation with a random switching of letters) is ZERO if analogous to natural selection removing non-meaningful phrases/words.
Indeed, evolution can be described precisely in terms of thermodynamic processes by which sources of energy bring into being particular states of information within a DNA molecule
Perhaps he’ll describe this process more later in his paper, but he’s again presenting more unanswered questions. What thermodynamic processes? What source of energy? What particular state? What are the different states of information? Bring? In what way do processes bring states of information into being? What mechanism serves to convert energy into information?
Within a population of individuals that vary from one another, those that best match their environment will, on average, leave behind the most offspring. Wherever the match is genetically programmed, the version of the genetic program associated with the best match will tend to increase in frequency over time by leaving behind more copies of itself. As these advantageous versions are copied from one generation to the next, they will mix with new variations that either increase or decrease the match. All the while, the environment keeps changing and mutations keep occurring so the matching process continues. Repeating this process over and over will create a pool of genetic programs that have accumulated variations maximizing the overall match between organism and environment
A colossal oversight from Freeland is the assumption that the information that he’s supposed to be explaining already exists in his “population of individuals”. It’s like him saying: From this Microsoft Word 10.5, I will construct Microsoft Word 10.6. Now just a minute. For purposes of our discussion, I have granted him DOS 1.0 (genetic code for LUCA), but to needs to elucidate how evolution got from DOS 1.0 -> Windows 3.1 -> Windows 10 (genetic code for humans) and MS Word 1.0 running on Windows 3.1-> MS Word 10.6 running on Windows 10 without intelligent interaction. You missed some steps Dr. Freeland.
The color of leaf on which an organism feeds may become reflected in its genetic material if this type of genetic programming helps the herbivore to hide from predators; conversely, genetic material may evolve to program colorations that contrast with the background of other organisms in an environment where finding and attracting mates is the strategy that leaves behind the most copies
This is an assertion that is ripe for a citation, but Freeland leaves his readers in the dark about whether this is just his opinion or whether a peer-reviewed experiment confirmed that ONLY natural selection acting on random mutations can incorporate genetic code from plants into consumers as camouflage. Notice too how Freeland (like many other evolutionists) asserts contradictory results from the same action (evolution camouflages and evolution colorizes).
The contradictory nature of evolution
No matter how complex these rebounding, mixing reflections of the environment become, they will never create new information (any more than your image in a reflection of a reflection of a reflection contains more information than you do.) Viewed in this light, biological evolution is a natural process that distills thermodynamic information from a highly complex environment into molecules of DNA.
Somewhat correct. We would not expect nature to create new information and Freeland confirms this. But the 2nd sentence is simply a restatement of his initial assertion…NOT justification or explanation for it.
Evolution is to DNA what gravity is to a puddle of water: in both cases it is possible to isolate elements of the whole that carry impressively complex information
This is not true. Gravity is prescriptive. It’s force is physical. Evolution is descriptive. Natural selection is simply the observation that the unfit do not pass on their genetic code. Neither are random mutations prescriptive. Random mutations happen (because of the curse of sin) and have never been observed to produce NEW information.
Gravity and evolution not only permit the transfer of environmental information into a chemical medium, but inevitably and inexorably lead to this information transfer
As expected, Freeland was only able to rely on a failed analogy to make his case. No citation of the answers to any of the questions that followed from his original assertion. Since he continues only to assert rather than demonstrate, we have no choice but to dismiss his claims as simply assertions.
It is true that at present, evolutionary science does not have a clear, detailed and well-accepted explanation for how the Central Dogma of molecular biology emerged
True
The universe is replete with information capacity and syntax – from the positions of stars within our galaxy (and billions of others) to the arrangement of atoms in a single grain of sand. Within living systems, most of this information is ignored – so the question is not “where did the information come from” (unless we wish to talk cosmology – a very different subject) but rather “how does nature create systems that focus on some of this natural information?” Put another way, the challenge for understanding the origin of genetic systems is to find how natural processes can simplify a large amount of thermodynamic information into a syntax that displays only the disciplined chemical semantics of a self-replicator.
There it is: the crux of his argument: The universe has plenty of information, so he asserts that evolution just transfers this existing information into DNA. The proof is missing! We’ve yet to hear from Freeland:
How evolution originated new information (the title of his article)
The mechanism by which the universe can convert the “thermodynamic information” into biological information to be stored in DNA. An analogy: If we think of the energy stored in gasoline as the “thermodynamic information” stored in the universe, what’s missing is the internal combustion engine & drivetrain to get that energy transferred to the wheels (DNA) to make the car move. Even if we grant evolution to be the drivetrain (which I do not), conversion of the volatile energy from gasoline must be released, harnessed, and meticulously converted to the drivetrain to preserve the integrity of the energy (data)
Recent findings are also starting to make sense of why natural selection created this particular alphabet of building blocks
This is the fallacy of reification. Natural selection is a description of what happens in nature when it is observed that the diseased, least fit, and injured are removed from the gene pool. We can think of natural selection as ‘quality control’. The way quality control in a car factory works is that this department analyzes the cars coming off the factory line to make sure that it is “fit” for the environment to accomplish its purpose. If natural selection (quality control) determines it to be unfit, that car (organism) and it’s internal assembly instructions (DNA) are destroyed. So while I’m sure Freeland understands natural selection, he’s made a serious mistake by granting to natural selection the power to create. Freeland did have a citation (to his own article for a different publication) for this particular quote, and when we analyze this article, his problems are compounded with more fallacies
We found that evolution’s choice outperforms random alternative selections for some simple, predictable criteria. This in turn gives us deeper insight into the relative roles of chance versus predictability in the emergence and evolution of life on our planet
His reification fallacies continue as evolution has now been granted powers of choice by Freeland. From Freeland’s writings we begin to get the feeling that he believes the cosmos to be alive in order to select informational alphabets, store that information, and then transmit it to biological machines.
DNA is made by complex, genetically encoded protein enzymes without a ribozyme in sight. The individual building-blocks of DNA (deoxynucleotides) are made by taking and modifying a nucleotide of RNA. Again, all this is exactly what we would expect if DNA evolved from RNA
Freeland’s article is from 2013, so it’s likely that he’s not up-to-date with the refutation of the RNA world hypothesis. Maybe in his newer papers, he has been made aware and wouldn’t make that argument. This short video is highly informative for showing why the RNA evolution theory should be discarded and no longer used by evolutionists
A related suggestion is that current evolutionary theory cannot explain how natural processes could produce a genetic information system in the first place. I agree that we are far from a full understanding
Honesty is commendable, but your paper is not persuasive in telling us how evolution originated all of the information in biological life from LUCA to humans. Freeland actually overstates his case that there is even a limited understanding. His claims are not demonstrable lest he would have done it
I agree with Dawkins (and Darwin) that from a human standpoint, the suffering and death implicit to natural selection form questions for my faith
The Bible provides the answers that Freeland and other old earthers are unable to resolve. God created a “very good” universe (Genesis 1:31) with no death, suffering, predation or thorns. But because of the sin of mankind (Genesis 3), the curse of sin (corruption, death, suffering, predation & thorns) fell upon the whole universe (Romans 8:19-23). Our faith is strengthened not by trusting in the modern academic paradigm and tits lab-coat-wearing scientists. Our faith is strengthened by reading God’s word and trusting what He said. We can trust what God revealed about the past, so we can trust what He has revealed about the future. You want to know why evolution is not true? Because it is in conflict with what God has revealed in his word. But as you can also see through the analysis of this article and any other evolutionary article, the evidence is lacking
In software designer circles, a “bug” isn’t an insect; it’s a problem in the code that keeps the software from performing as expected. It’s a well-known joke amongst the programmers that when a problem is discovered during the quality control (QC) process that the problem is a “feature, not a bug”. When the software breaks unexpectedly, and QC send the code back to the coders for repairs, the laughs about the “feature” devolve quickly to groans as the coders begin tracing through the code to exterminate the “bug”. It’s a tale as old as Y2K.
God-deniers have a similar bug in their thinking, but they sometimes refer to it as a feature. What am I talking about? Knowledge! What is knowledge? Knowledge is most accurately desribed as “that which corresponds to the mind of God”, but in this article and for most people the definition of “justified true beliefs” will suffice. How do we know things? Epistemology is the theory of how something can be known. Now the article I wanted to write about epistemology has already been written by Dr. Jason Lisle. He describes below the “bug” in the thinking of God-deniers:
So we are left with three equally unsatisfying options. (1) The chain of reasoning goes on forever and can therefore never be completed – making knowledge impossible. (2) The chain of reasoning terminates in an ultimate standard that cannot be justified, meaning all other beliefs (which are based on it) are ultimately unjustified – making knowledge impossible. (3) The chain of reasoning terminates in one or more ultimate standards that rely upon themselves for justification – a circular argument, which is ultimately arbitrary and unjustified – making knowledge impossible. This perplexing problem is known as the Münchhausen trilemma.
If the Münchhausen trilemma is correct, then we can demonstrate that knowledge is impossible. But, of course, this is instantly self-refuting. If we know that knowledge is impossible, then we do know something and hence knowledge is possible.
Knowledge itself is only provisional for the God-denier, because either that knowledge is reliant upon some other element of provisional knowledge into infinity or it could be refuted based on some future discovery. The bug in the thinking of God-deniers is that they can never know anything for certain. They put on a brave face by calling it a “feature” that their thinking is self-correcting upon the discovery of new evidence. But you can see that whatever they assert to know *now* is not knowledge at all. It is only provisional. It is a serious bug. It is bluster for them to claim that their enormous epistemic deficiency is a feature. This is demonstrable as anyone familiar with the history of science knows. The dominant paradigm from these time periods has been replaced by new paradigms, but if you lived in one of the time periods shown below, the gatekeepers of the dominant paradigm would try to silence dissenters the same way that those, who have faith in today’s dominant paradigm (materialistic biological evolution) censor dissenters
Prior to the 1500s, scientists believed and modeled that the earth was the center of the solar system. – Falsified
Prior to the 1600s, scientists believed in alchemy and phlogiston– Falsified
Prior to the 1700s, scientists believed that bloodletting and leeches removed bad blood from sick patients. – Falsified
Prior to the 1900s, scientists taught that the universe eternal (steady state theory) – Falsified
In the 1970s, scientists taught impending contradictory catastrophes would destroy humanity in the subsequent decades: ice age and unstoppable heat wave. – Falsified
In the 1980s, scientists taught that eating mostly carbs was the healthiest way to live in a failed marketing campaign called the food pyramid – Falsified
In the early 2000s, scientists taught that the ice sheets at the poles would be completely melted due to global warming by the 2013 – Falsified
The problem with the unbeliever is not that he cannot justify any of his beliefs. Rather, the problem is that he cannot justify any of his beliefs within his professed worldview. If evolution were true, then knowledge would be impossible. But evolution is not true. Since the Bible is true, evolutionists are able to have knowledge. Their beliefs in sensory experience and rationality are ultimately justified because the Bible is true.
Because Christians and non-Christians have different epistemologies, Christians are not saddled with such a crushing burden. Christians have a revelational epistemology meaning that we accept God’s revelation in creation, in the Bible and through the incarnation. The omniscient God knows everything, and He has revealed some of his knowledge to us so that we can be certain of those things which God has revealed. So, a Christian has a sufficient grounding for knowledge. From this grounding, a Christian can reasonably engage in scientific research, engineering, hospitality, altruism, programming,
Because Non-Christians have rejected the One, who knows everything (the only Source of justifiable knowledge) however can never be (justifiably) certain of anything. An honest non-Christian can only hold a provisional level of understanding since some future discovery or new bit of evidence might change everything they think they know. The apostle Paul is right when he writes to Timothy:
In many of my discussions with skeptics online, I’ve had the skeptics tell me, “it’s a feature, not a bug”. This is usually after we have talked about someone’s ability to justify knowledge.
As a final elaboration upon the Christian revelational epistemology, I turn to Dr. Lisle again in a long quote from his third article. Please take the time to read each article as all three are worth the time it takes to read them :
Truth is that which corresponds to the mind of God. But unbelievers sometimes scoff at this definition and attempt to refute it by asking, “How can you possibly know what God thinks?” But, of course, this question is easy to answer: revelation. God has revealed some of His thoughts to us and He has done this in numerous ways. Most specifically, God used men to write a book that expresses His thoughts, namely, the Bible. Do you want to know what God thinks about something? Read the Bible!
But there are other ways God has revealed Himself. God has placed knowledge into the core of our being from our conception. For example, God’s moral requirements – His laws – have been placed into the minds of all people. Thus, even people who have never read the Bible have some knowledge of the law of God (Romans 2:14-15). We are able to have some knowledge of right and wrong even without reading the Bible because God has “written” His law on the hearts of all people. This is a type of revelation.
God has designed sensory organs, such as eyes and ears, that allow us to have knowledge of the external world. Furthermore, God has placed knowledge within us that our senses are basically reliable; so, we can have confidence that what we see and hear is a good map of reality. By our senses, we can learn true things about the world, such as “the sun is very bright.” Consider the contrary. If God had not designed our senses to be basically reliable, or if God had not given us knowledge that our senses are basically reliable, then we could never learn anything about the external world. Sure, we might see that the sun is bright. But we would have no reason to trust that what we see corresponds to the real universe.
God has also placed some knowledge of logic within us. Logic is the principles of correct reasoning – a reflection of the way God thinks. God created mankind after His image/likeness. And this includes the ability to think – to some extent – in a way that is consistent with God’s character. Thus, we are born with some degree of rationality. (It is possible to prove that some laws of logic are known without ever being learned; hence God has “hardwired” them into our being.)[3] Furthermore, God has given us the ability to improve our reasoning skills through careful contemplation using our mind and from education using our sensory organs.
In addition, God has placed some knowledge of Himself inside all people such that when we look at the natural world, we instantly recognize it as the work of God. Romans 1:19-20 states, “because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.” Thus, all people have knowledge of God.
This fact should have a profound impact on the way we do apologetics. If indeed all people have knowledge of God, then they do not require additional evidence for God. Many Christians proceed as if the unbeliever is genuinely ignorant of God. Under this mistaken belief, the Christian urges the unbeliever to trust in God by presenting new evidence for God. But according to Romans 1:18-20, all unbelievers already know God but they “suppress the truth in unrighteousness.” The presuppositional apologist therefore aims to expose the unbelievers suppressed knowledge of God.
Since all knowledge is ultimately from God, it follows that anything we know has been revealed to us by God in some way. We can know things by sensory experience, but only because God designed our senses to be basically reliable. We can know things through rational reasoning, but only because God designed our minds and has given us access to His laws of logic. Hence, the biblical God is the ultimate justification for all truth claims.
Of course, even people who have never read the Bible do have knowledge. But this is because the Bible is true. Unbelievers learn things through sensory experience and rational reasoning just like believers. But in order for their beliefs to be justified, they would require some reason to trust their sensory organs, and their thinking process. If the Bible were not true, there would be no reason to trust in such things.[4] Hence, all beliefs based on those assumptions would lack justification.
We can have knowledge only because God exists and has revealed Himself in exactly the way the Bible teaches. God, as revealed in the Bible, is the ultimate foundation for all human knowledge. If the Bible were not true, we could know nothing. We might have beliefs, and some of them might even be true, but they could never be justified apart from the biblical worldview.
Well, I got a new challenge from a God-denier, who made the claim that evolution can even explain the origin of human brains. This particular God-denier didn’t just say that evolution can explain human brains, she claimed “There is incontrovertible evidence for evolution of the brain“. “iNconTroVerTible”. I’m reminded of The Princess Bide when Inigo Montoya says to the Sicilian “You keep using that word. I don’t think it means what you think it means.”
She provided a link to Wikipedia as the source of this “incontrovertible” evidence. I pushed back asking if she wanted to use a crowd-sourced blog as her “incontrovertible evidence”, but she assured me that it’s impossible to refute. Thinking she could bluster her way through a conversation without me being skeptical of her source, she left it out there as though the matter was settled that evolution can explain human brains. But I don’t surrender to bluster so easily. Let’s analyze her claim to see if Wikipedia, is relying on evidence or assumptions
Here’s how this works: I will post the quotes from the article in red and then just below the quote, I’ll post my analysis in the default black font. I have bolded key words throughout, so the bold does not appear in the original work. Throughout, you’ll notice that instead of actual evidence, the author(s) of the article relies on assumptions. Let’s get started:
This approach (endocasts), however, is limited in regard to what information can be gathered
It looks like the gaps in available information that can be gathered has been filled with assumptions of evolution’s power.
While endocasts are extremely helpful in revealing superficial brain anatomy, they cannot reveal brain structure, particularly of deeper brain areas.
Since the only thing these endocasts can show is size, we must again reject this quote as incontrovertible evidence. It is simply an assumption. Since their endocast model can only determine skull capacity, are we now to conclude that they believe that larger adults are smarter than smaller adults?
The evolutionary history of the human brain shows primarily a gradually bigger brain relative to body size during the evolutionary path from early primates to hominins and finally to Homo sapiens
Also assumed (but not proven) is the mantra that early primates evolved into humans. I do not grant this assumption upon which they rely for their story to be true. How can it be incontrovertible evidence if their premises are packed full of unproven assumptions?
This can be visualized
They mean imagined. Next they try to escape the problem imposed by the assumption that brain size related to increased intelligence due to the politically incorrect nature of the assumption
Consequently, the authors argue that the notion of an increase in brain size being related to advances in cogntion (sp) needs to be re-thought in light of global variation in brain size, as the brains of many modern humans with normal cogntive (sp) capacities are only 400g/ml larger than chimpanzees
Notice how since the actual evidence of the brains themselves were not preserved in fossils. Those who assume that evolution can “incontrovertibly” produce human brains are (like the empty skulls of the fossils) devoid of actual evidence.
It is also important to note that the measure of brain mass or volume, seen as cranial capacity, or even relative brain size, which is brain mass that is expressed as a percentage of body mass, are not a measure of intelligence, use, or function of regions of the brain.Total neurons, however, also do not indicate a higher ranking in cognitive abilities. Elephants have a higher number of total neurons (257 billion) compared to humans (100 billion). Relative brain size, overall mass, and total number of neurons are only a few metrics that help scientists follow the evolutionary trend of increased brain to body ratio through the hominin phylogeny
They consider it important to note that neither higher capacity of brain size nor total number of neurons increase cognitive abilities. So why do they assume that the fossil skulls contained brains with less intelligence/cognition than current brains? The evidence is missing…all that’s left is assumptions
Their findings imply…It also suggests…What is the least controversial is
The last paragraph in that section includes the 3 phrases from above. None of those sound like “incontrovertible” evidence to me. It sounds like they are having to assume some things, infer some things and suggest some things…but where’s the evidence itself?
The more convoluted the surface of the brain is, the greater the surface area of the cortex which allows for an expansion of cortex. It is the most evolutionarily advanced part of the brain. Greater surface area of the brain is linked to higher intelligence as is the thicker cortex but there is an inverse relationship—the thicker the cortex, the more difficult it is for it to fold. In adult humans, thicker cerebral cortex has been linked to higher intelligence
Again, those paying attention will see that the very substance that they need to verify their claim of evolution creating the brain: brain surface, cortex, thicker cortex ARE ALL COMPLETELY MISSING. From the start Wikipedia authors admit that the brain is not preserved in the fossils, so the very evidence in question is missing! It’s not just that this Wikipedia article is NOT incontrovertible, it’s laughably impotent to explain the evolution of human brains at all
If they actually wanted to show how evolution was able to produce human brains, they would have to have brains of creatures that they can PROVE are indeed ancestors of humans and show that natural selection acting on random mutations produced human brains. This Wikipedia article did not do any of that. It was empty speculation
If anyone would like to read an account of the fossils without the Darwinian infection, read Sanford’s Contested Bones and Lubenow’s Bones of Contention
God created mankind in his image. God’s Word is clear and we can trust that revelation, so evolution is false. When Adam sinned, his descendants and all of creation fell under the curse of sin: death, suffering, and thorns. As was promised in Genesis 3:15, God the Son (Jesus) became incarnate as a descendant of Adam and (where Adam failed) Jesus perfectly kept the law. Jesus gave his life to pay for the sins (by taking upon Himself all the curses of sin: death, suffering, thorns) of all those who would turn from their sin and humbly submit to the authority of Jesus.
In yesterday’s post, I discussed several ways to expose the fallacies that God-deniers sometimes use to keep from being exposed when they claim:
“being an atheist simply means that there’s not sufficient evidence for your sky daddy“
It’s not uncommon for them to try to bluster their way to an online argument victory. So listen to their claims and hold them to account for their assertions. When they have to “show their cards”, it’s unsuited 3, 5, 6, 9 and an Uno card. Now sometimes, the God-denier will off an assertion something a little more outrageous like:
“There’s absolutely no evidence for your sky daddy” – AggregateOfInternetAtheists
Let’s look at the serious problems with this incomprehensively lazy assertion:
God-deniers have no slot in their epistemology for absolutes. For God-deniers, in a cosmos made only of matter, there are no absolutes – there’s only particles and aggregations of particles
Is this atheist aware of ALL evidence in the cosmos such that she could assert that “there’s no evidence for God”? The honest atheist would have to admit that they are not privy to all evidence in the cosmos. Conversely, God IS privy to all knowledge/evidence in the universe and He has revealed some of that evidence so that Christians can be certain of those things
Now here’s the really important point: What does evidence for God look like? For someone to say “There’s no evidence for a cobra” – they would have to know what a cobra is like. How would you describe a cobra so that you could definitively say “There’s no evidence for a cobra.” In the same way, for someone to declare “There’s no evidence for God” they would have to know what evidence for God looks like. Press the atheist on this because they are bluffing. As soon as they realize that they cannot sufficiently formulate what evidence for God is like, their bluff is blown.
Don’t be afraid to call the God-denier’s bluff. They are not holding any good cards, and by God’s amazing grace Christians most definitely are. Call their bluff, but do so with gentleness and respect
Be sure to check out the links (blue text) that are saturated throughout this post as most of the “leg-work” was completed by people much smarter than me…for whose work I am very grateful!
Well, I got a new challenge from a God-denier, who made the claim that evolution can even explain the origin of morality. They provided a link to a “scientific” paper , which has been cited 6 times, thinking they could bluster their way through a conversation without being skeptical. But I don’t surrender to bluster so easily. Let’s analyze her claim to see if the professor, who wrote the article, is relying on evidence or assumptions
Here’s how this works: I will post the quotes from the article in red and then just below the quote, I’ll post my analysis in the default black font. I have bolded key words throughout, so the bold does not appear in the original work. Throughout, you’ll notice that instead of actual evidence, the author of the article relies on assumptions. Let’s get started:
The author of this article, Professor Douglas Allchin, begins at a good place, with definitions. First we must start with “What is Morality?” Merriam Webster defines morality as ‘Conformity to ideals of right human conduct’.
How did this peer-reviewed paper define morality?
The first challenge for biologists is characterizing morality in terms amenable to science. Abstract concepts of “right” and “wrong” or virtuous motives and good intentions must be expressed in terms of what can be observed or measured. First, then, biologists address morality concretely as a form of behavior. As such, it fits in a context of other behaviors: foraging, mating and nesting, securing territory, play, grooming, and other social interactions
Bold text is not in the original. Notice how they immediately change the definition from “ideals of right conduct” to a “form of behavior that fits a context”. What context? EVOLUTION. While the actual word is not used, the context of evolution (foraging, mating, nesting, grooming…) is exactly the concepts that evolution is supposed to have solved. Right from the start, they’ve smuggled evolution into the definition. So right from the start, rather than actually showing that evolution can explain the origins of “ideals of right conduct”, professor Allchin imbeds the solution right into the definition.
Conceptualizing morality as a form of behavior opens the possibility of observing it in other species. Indeed, if complex features evolve gradually, one might well expect to find stages of protomorality, incipient morality, or various precursors in organisms besides humans.
Two things with this paragraph:
Remember they defined morality as forging, mating, nesting, grooming & social interacting behaviors. So OF COURSE other species forage, mate, nest, groom and interact. When they define their terms in such a way as it’s just living, then they can claim victory that evolution can explain eating but say “tHat’s mOraLity”
Secondly, humans did not evolve from any modern species. So, you cannot test any modern species for “protomorality” or “incipient morality” at least in relation to human morality. If you want to test other species for human morality, why not celebrate the morality of male lions cleaning house: the new head of the pride, methodically killing the offspring of other males in the pride. Should the evolutionists want to involve other species as tests for morality, they have no objective reason not the start there. Why don’t the atheists want to uphold the thieving, raping, bullying, and exclusion of both intra and inter species interactions in their assertions of evolution’s great power to produce morality? Why would God-deniers NOT consider male lions killing the offspring of other lions as moral?
But which behaviors are “moral”? Here, biologists must proceed cautiously. One cannot even identify the relevant behaviors without a working concept of “right” and “wrong” or of “morality.” Invoking a value judgment threatens to prejudice the whole endeavor. The biologist’s proper approach is thereby indifferent and fluid, contingent on definitions of ethics identified by others. Biologists may encounter multiple conceptions of what is to be explained. Different benchmark definitions may yield separate complementary explanations. Of course, biologists are accustomed to addressing the “same” phenomenon on multiple levels of organization: molecular and cellular, physiological, populational, ecological, and evolutionary. Biologists have, thus, developed a suite of explanations which apply to different aspects of moral behavior.
Indeed. How can they identity behaviors as right or wrong? Notice in the closing sentence, professor Allchin talks about tools: “a suite of explanations” which they will apply preferentially and arbitrarily to different behaviors. We’ll watch this as more and more of the paper is analyzed.
For guidance, then, a biologist turns to moral philosophers. Yet, even after centuries of reflection and debate, philosophers themselves do not agree on core ethical principles for defining “good.” They generally recognize, however, three basic approaches. One approach, consequentialism, focuses on the outcomes themselves. For example, morality is assessed as the greatest good for the greatest number. Good may be defined variously as benefit, happiness, or pleasure.
Didn’t these “moral philosophers” also evolve from ancestral simians with supposedly less-evolved morality. Why trust what evolved apes have to say about morality? Charles Darwin recognized this philosophical problem in the 19th century when in his autobiography, he wrote “But then arises the doubt-can the mind of man, which has, as I fully believe, been developed from a mind as low as that possessed by the lowest animals, be trusted when it draws such grand conclusions?” Why should we trust the foundations of their philosophy?
Notice also how the consequentialists define good: Good is whatever is the greatest good for the greatest number. You’ll notice the clear obfuscation of their claim about “good”. How do they know what is truly good? Based on what metric? Over which time period? I wrote about the irrationality of claiming goodness without an objective standard in my article, Empathy is Arbitrary, Inconsistent, and Irrational for Atheists. It applies equally as well for these lab-coats, who want to talk about pragmatism.
Evolution itself does not express or yield values
Nature may seem to exhibit its own values. For example, natural selection may seem to “favor” adaptive traits. Survival and reproduction may seem inherent values because they lead to continuity of the lineage. However, historical facts are distinct from values. Effects do not indicate intentions
This is a good paragraph and I agree with it – because it definitively declares that evolution cannot explain the origins of morality – ideals of right conduct. The title of their article is misleading, but they rationalize their deception with remarkable openness about the inability of evolution to explain ideals/values like that paragraph above. After all, since morality is not objective to them, why should they be honest about their hopelessness from the beginning?
Biological analysis may enrich our understanding of morality, but it is also limited. Science is not able to discover ethical principles in nature, nor to justify them, nor to evaluate them, say, based on evolutionary history, nor even to develop them based on some presumed universal or “objective” principle of “human nature.” Many have tried. All have failed
EXACTLY! Case closed. I appreciate everyone for reading this article which exposes this admission by professor Allchin that evolution is unable to explain ethical principles, justifications, or objective ideals of morality. Should I even continue to evaluate the remaining 7000 words of their article when it is clear up to this point that they have admitted defeat? They do try as this next sentence declares:
Having introduced these caveats, then, let us consider what biologists have discovered about morality as an evolved form of behavior
Caveats indeed. Caveats of the corpse of their case
They continue anyway, although their case is beyond hope:
Behavior that benefits other organisms may sometimes also benefit the individual
Like symbiosis? Symbiosis is a definite falsification of evolution. It’s a strange tact indeed for professor Allchin to highlight one of the most damning observations to evolutionary theory. Perhaps though he meant that cooperation within your own species could help with the evolutionary fitness of the overall species. It stretches credulity that selflessness could be explained by natural selection acting on unguided mutations, but that is the claim they are making. They tried to suggest the kin selection could account for morality in the subsequent paragraphs, but I covered this failed hypothesis in my article, Can Evolution Explain Altruism? When evaluating the “scientific” articles for that post, they proposed a mysterious force called “strong reciprocity”, which had no origin or mechanism. Another failure for the theory of evolution. Professor Allchin tries later in his article to postulate strong reciprocity as a solution. Too bad.
But notice too that he’s done something sneaky here. He just assumed that cooperation (or mutually beneficial behavior) just appeared. He provided no mechanism or origin story for this behavior. Without explanation, he just assumed it was there. In an article that supposedly explains the origin, professor Allchin is short on actual explanations and long on assumptions
In describing the evolution of humans in Descent of Man, Darwin (1871) prominently addressed mental and moral abilities. Following cultural discourse at the time, he focused on what he called the moral sense, or conscience, notably reflected in the emotion of remorse. “Why do we feel moral duty?” Darwin wondered. First, Darwin observed that animals could evolve societies, structured (he assumed) by a social instinct. Second, with multiple instincts, behavior might not always accord with social benefit. But memory, Darwin thought, would help resolve such conflicts as the organism learned to regulate its instincts, making the social instinct primary. Third, the use of language would allow organisms to communicate their needs clearly to one another. Fourth, repetition would lead to habit and a spontaneous sense of what one “ought” to do.
Notice the saturated assumptions in the paragraph. Everything proposed by Darwin was an assumption. None of what he observed was an origin of the creatures, their behavior, or their “structured society”. All of those things were already in existence – so like the modern lab coats, Darwin simply assumed that they evolved. I’ve been told that “extraordinary claims (like evolution can explain morality) requires extraordinary evidence”. There’s no evidence – let alone extraordinary evidence in that paragraph. It (like the rest of the paper) can be summarily dismissed.
In the next 5 paragraphs professor Allchin describes stories of various mammals caring for others of their species as if that is an explanation of evolution’s great power to produce moral behavior. Two things he failed to realize:
Humans did not evolve from any creatures that are currently alive. The best he could assume is that humans and any other mammals share a common ancestor. Professor Allchin, rather than demonstrating common ancestry, simply assumed common ancestry. The very best that professor Allchin could speculate is that both apes and humans experienced an even more impossible assertion: convergent evolution since the hypothetical common ancestor cannot be evaluated for the presence of moral behavior.
The caring/moral behavior already exists in the creatures being described. There’s no step-by-step explanation of the caring/moral behavior being produced by some evolutionary mechanism. Saying that something (moral behavior) exists does NOT explain HOW evolution produced it. It is very common among internet pop apologists for evolution to assert: “x trait exists and evolution did it.” We see from this article where they get it. They are taught to think that way by their deluded lab-coat-wearing priests.
One way to assess foundational human motivation is to observe behavior before possible learning or training. Human infants (age 18 months), for example, frequently help adults in simple problematic tasks in a lab setting—without being asked and without reward…The question remains how such feelings evolved and whether the social environment was relevant historically
The question remains indeed. Everything that professor Allchin has speculated about already exists. Not one word has been dedicated to explaining how evolution was able to produce moral behavior where moral behavior did not exist before. Those reading Allchin’s article with a skeptical mind could just as easily be convinced that since this behavior already exists in “human infants” that these young humans were created in God’s image as moral agents from the beginning. The authors have done NOTHING to persuade a skeptical reader of their stated motive (evolution can explain morality). They just assume it
Neuroimaging studies show significantly that actual moral reasoning involves both emotion and logic
The naturalist author of this paper has complicated his task. Not only has he convinced me that that evolution cannot explain morality, evolution definitely cannot explain reasoning or logic. Rather than trying to just come up with an evolutionary mechanism that can produce moral behavior, now professor Allchin has inadvertently jumped into a philosophical canyon from which he could never hope to explain. Rather the unchanging, abstract, absolute laws of logic and its correct application (reasoning) is explained only in a Christian worldview.
The flexibility afforded by learned behavior allows organisms to respond to local environments, which may change during an organism’s lifetime or vary from organism to organism within the same species. Evolution may thus favor the brain’s potential for behavioral plasticity and for placing “values” on certain responses
Again – no explanation or evolutionary mechanism…but “evolution may…” as if evolution is a concrete entity that actually DOES something. That’s the reification fallacy by professor Allchin. No-no professor!
In addition, learning has the potential to modify, or regulate, innate behavior or dispositions. The psychological level thereby becomes emergent, exhibiting new interactions and properties relatively independent of lower level functions (genetic and physiological) and able in part to influence them
Emergent? This is a common assertion by naturalists when they are unable to actually explain origins. Following is a conglomeration of real/hypothetical conversations with God-deniers:
Christian: “From where did the laws of logic arise in a cosmos made only of particles?”
God-denier: “They are emergent properties“
Christian: “From where did the laws of gravity and physics and chemistry arise?”
God-denier: “They are emergent properties“
Christian: “Can you explain how evolution produced moral behavior?”
God-denier: “They are emergent properties“
Emergent properties offer no explanatory power. It’s just a sciency-sounding moniker for the naturalist, who recognizes that from within his framework, the topic is unexplainable.
Professor Allchin goes on to complain about “cheaters” as obstacles to “sharing behavior” and common good, but in all of the complaining, he never explains how evolution produced moral behavior. Why’s that Professor Allchin?
Organisms may cooperate selectively with reciprocators
I’ve already answered the proposal of reciprocity above and in my article on, Can Evolution Explain Altruism? Giving only to get back (reciprocity) is selfish – not moral or altruistic.
Getting to the end of his rope, Professor Allchin jumps from moral behavior to Might-Makes-Right:
Social organisms may enforce cooperation through rewards and punishment
And AGAIN, professor Allchin simply observes EXISTING behavior – not how evolutionary mechanisms produced it. This article was supposed to explain how evolution could explain morality rather than just pointing to it as he does throughout. It would be like asking: “How did Honda produce that Odyssey minivan?” and having a professor respond: “There’s one over there!!!” All the while, the professor thinks he’s answered the question. Lazy and smug.
Organisms may benefit from social information
May?!?! Isn’t this supposed to be a scientific article? Something that explains the origins of morality by means of evolution?? May indeed!!! And “benefit” – how does one determine what is truly beneficial? By what metric?
I’m not the only one or even the first one or even the best at analyzing the outlandish claims of the Darwinists that evolution can explain morality. Here are some articles from crev.info that show the impotent claims that “eVoLutioN cAn expLaiN moRaLity” to be nothing more than empty bluster:
ApoloJedi 