[_ Old Earth _] Professor John Lennox Demolishes Evolution

[lordkalvan]

The context of the point Professor Dawkins was making was that the existence of Jesus is disputed by historians and scholars. To support his claim, he quotes Professor Wells as one such historian. Professor Wells is a professor of German language though, he's not an historian.

Many thanks for that clarification. I am still not clear what the point is you are trying to make, however. Dawkins cites Wells in reference to the historicity of Jesus, a subject on which Wells is recognised widely as a serious scholar:

'Co-author R. Joseph Hoffmann has called Wells "the most articulate contemporary defender of the non-historicity thesis."[4] Wells' claim of a mythical Jesus has received support from Earl Doherty, Robert M. Price and others.[5][6]'

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Albert_Wells

Unless Dawkins actually misunderstood or misrepresented Wells in the context in which he cited him, your reason for your comment seems to be obscure at best. This is Dawkins' reference to Wells in full:

'It is even possible to make a serious, though not widely supported, historical case that Jesus never lived at all, as has been done by, amongst others, Professor G.A. Wells of the University of London in a number of books, including Did Jesus Exist?'

The God Delusion, London 2006, p.97.

Dawkins goes on to say that he believes Jesus did probably exist, so it seems clear he is simply citing Wells to show that an alternative point of view has been argued, not as an authority on an historical case that is central to a point Dawkins wishes to make.

 

[Grazer]

An alternative view point by someone who is not in the field to which the viewpoint applies. When Professor Lennox brought up the issue of whether Jesus existed, Professor Dawkins reply was "you've clearly been speaking to different historians to me" But it seems Professor Dawkins hasn't been speaking to historians at all.

How can a "serious historical case" be made when you don't cite an historian studying history? Or indeed any of the evidence?

Speaking of Professor Lennox, isn't part of the debate here that a mathematician is being cited to doubt a biological matter I.e evolution? I don't believe Professor Lennox is arguing against evolution anyway.

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[lordkalvan]

An alternative view point by someone who is not in the field to which the viewpoint applies.

Certainly not his primary field, but as I pointed out Wells appears to be widely recognised as a serious and respected (if not always agreed with) scholar on the question of the historicity of Jesus, which is the context Dawkins cited him in.

When Professor Lennox brought up the issue of whether Jesus existed, Professor Dawkins reply was "you've clearly been speaking to different historians to me" But it seems Professor Dawkins hasn't been speaking to historians at all.

Wells is one citation in one particular context in one book by Dawkins. This citation does not limit the field of historians to which Dawkins has been talking (or reading).

How can a "serious historical case" be made when you don't cite an historian studying history? Or indeed any of the evidence?

Well, apparently Wells is regarded as a serious scholar of this historical phenomenon by other scholars in the field, so it seems reasonable to cite a well-known work by him when referencing a particular point of view of which he is acknowledged as 'the most articulate contemporary defender'. That you want to deny him his status as a serious scholar in this field simply because his primary field is language (he also holds degrees in philosophy and natural science, by the way) seems to be splitting hairs. Max Hastings is widely recognised as a serious military historian, but he has no degree in the subject, has never worked as an historian professionally and has a background in journalism. So if Hastings was cited in reference to a particular point of military history, would you be disinclined to accept the validity of that point because Hastings is not 'an historian studying history' and 'is not in the field to which the viewpoint applies'?

Speaking of Professor Lennox, isn't part of the debate here that a mathematician is being cited to doubt a biological matter I.e evolution? I don't believe Professor Lennox is arguing against evolution anyway.

Well, I agree with you here. Clearly he isn't arguing against evolution per se, but rather against the plausibility of natural processes bringing it about as proposed. It is these processes that he doesn't seem to understand the probabilities of, however, based as his objections appear to be (according to Asyncritus) on Dawkins' 'weasel' model - and on either a profound misunderstanding or a deliberate misrepresentation of that model.

 

[lordkalvan]

So far the Law of Probability seems to have been totally ignored here.
That Law directs the process in an indirect way, tending to procede in the ways that are most probable.

Tielhart referred to this directed evolution as headed for Omega Point.

I missed this comment first time round. You are right: Lennox (and Asyncritus) blithely ignore the obvious fact that not all outcomes are equally probable so as to be able to assign a 50:50 chance of whether an evolutionary development will be 'viable' or 'non-viable'. This is, as I have pointed out before, either a profound misunderstanding or a deliberate misrepresentation of evolutionary theory and, in particular, of Dawkins' 'weasel' model.

 

[Grazer]

I may be being harsh on Professor Wells, he may be a fine scholar and very eloquent but he represents the extreme minority on the subject. Admittedly Professor Dawkins acknowledges this but not sure how it can be scholarly when the vast majority reject it.

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[lordkalvan]

I may be being harsh on Professor Wells, he may be a fine scholar and very eloquent but he represents the extreme minority on the subject. Admittedly Professor Dawkins acknowledges this but not sure how it can be scholarly when the vast majority reject it.

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Well, clearly we will just have to differ on the significance we attribute to this citation. I appreciate your point of view, even if I disagree with it.

 

[Grazer]

Well, clearly we will just have to differ on the significance we attribute to this citation. I appreciate your point of view, even if I disagree with it.

Fair enough

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[Asyncritus]

The first video is blocked here in the UK but it doesn't surprise me if that is what John Lennox says for the reasons I've given previously. As for the other video, I don't believe Lennox intentionally lied but if he was wrong then Dawkins has the right to defend himself. The debate they refer to is available via YouTube so people can check what was said.

I checked, and Lennox is right.

Dawkins admits that 'you could make a serious case for a deistic god'. His words. Go look. He realises his blunder, and backpedals furiously in this video, savaging both Lennox and Melanie Phillips in the process.

Unfortunately for him, Phillips is a most intelligent woman, who is unlikely to make a very serious mistake in this matter.

Lennox says more or less that he couldn't believe his ears, because here was the arch proponent of atheism admitting that there could be a 'serious case' for a deistic god.

An atheist is one who says staunchly and flatly that THERE IS NO GOD. How then can Dawkins say that a' serious case' could be made for the existence of a god? He has stepped right into his own mouth, and you people are sufficiently naive not to recognise the fact that he has.

Professor Lennox then reminds us of the case of Anthony Flew, the arch atheist of his time who was compelled by the nature of the complexity of DNA, to admit that there must have been a God. He was a deist at the end of his life, and was forced by the facts to make that admission.

When, I wonder, is Dawkins going to go down the same path? And where are you 2 going to be left, if he does?

But this is the same Richard Dawkins who cited a professor of German language as his expert ancient historian in the book The God Delusion

What does that tell you, I wonder?

 

[Asyncritus]

But to return to the original point of my carefully copied citation from Lennox.

Lennox spends pages 168-172 in God's Undertaker trashing Dawkins' nonsense.

We have now reached the heart of Dawkins' argument.

Remember what it claims to show - that natural selectyion - a blind, mindless, unguided process - has the power to produce biological information. But it shows nothing of the kind.

Dawkins [and you, barbarian!] has solved his problem, only by introducing the two very things he explicitly wishes at all costs to avoid. In his book [and you'd better listen, your high priest is talkng!] he tells us that evolution is blind, and without a goal. What,then, does he mean by introducing a target phrase? [METHINKSITISLIKEAWEASEL].

A target phrase is a precise goal which, according to Dawkins himself, is a profoundly un-Darwinian concept.

And how could blind evolution not only see the target, but also compare an attempt with it, in order to select it, if it is nearer than the previous one? Dawkins tells us that evolution is mindless. [You listening?]

What then does he mean by introducing two mechanisms, each of which bears every evidence of the input of an intelligent mind - a mechanism which compares each attempt with the target phrase, and a mechanism which preserves a successful attempt?

And strangest of all, the very information which the mechanisms are supposed to produce is already contained somewhere within the organism, whose genesis he claims to be simulating by his process. The argument is entirely circular.

The probability of of a 2000 step climb from the foot to the top of Mount Improbable remains 1 in 2^ 2000.

Let's have some maths to disprove this, and place a better alternative in its place.

 

[Asyncritus]

And in this video -

www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWsca2-BgDU

- Dawkins exposes a blatant exercise in quote mining of himself by Lennox, which should give some pause for thought.

Dawkins, backpedalling as stated above, says he was quotemined. Utter nonsense. Go look.

He said exactly what Lennox says he said, and is desperately trying to pull the boot out of his mouth.

 

[lordkalvan]

I checked, and Lennox is right.

You didn't check very closely, then.

Dawkins admits that 'you could make a serious case for a deistic god'. His words. Go look. He realises his blunder, and backpedals furiously in this video, savaging both Lennox and Melanie Phillips in the process.

Perhaps you would like to quote the full context of Dawkins' 'admission' rather than your (and Lennox's) carefully extracted phrase?

Unfortunately for him, Phillips is a most intelligent woman, who is unlikely to make a very serious mistake in this matter.

And you are qualified to judge Phillips' intelligence and her likeliness to make mistakes how, exactly?

Lennox says more or less that he couldn't believe his ears, because here was the arch proponent of atheism admitting that there could be a 'serious case' for a deistic god.

That would be because either Lennox wasn't paying full attention to what Dawkins said or, alternatively, has chosen to quote him out of context.

An atheist is one who says staunchly and flatly that THERE IS NO GOD. How then can Dawkins say that a' serious case' could be made for the existence of a god? He has stepped right into his own mouth, and you people are sufficiently naive not to recognise the fact that he has.

Maybe you should pay attention to what Dawkins actually said in the case in question, rather than what you and Lennox appear to wish he had said?

Professor Lennox then reminds us of the case of Anthony Flew, the arch atheist of his time who was compelled by the nature of the complexity of DNA, to admit that there must have been a God. He was a deist at the end of his life, and was forced by the facts to make that admission.

What Flew may or may not have come to believe and why he came to believe it is irrelevant to whether or not Dawkins was quoted out of context by Lennox, but nice red herring anyway.

When, I wonder, is Dawkins going to go down the same path? And where are you 2 going to be left, if he does?

Well, as Barbarian is already a Christian, I guess he'll stay where he is, as will I. If you think atheism and evolutionary theory are wholly dependent on Dawkins' opinions on these subjects, then you are mistaken.

What does that tell you, I wonder?

That it's the same ol' story in Asyncritusland?

 

[lordkalvan]

But to return to the original point of my carefully copied citation from Lennox.

The probability of of a 2000 step climb from the foot to the top of Mount Improbable remains 1 in 2^ 2000.

Let's have some maths to disprove this, and place a better alternative in its place.

No, it doesn't. You have done nothing to address the critique of Lennox's assumptions and his misunderstanding/misrepresentation of Dawkins' 'weasel' model. I think that says it all as far as your claim is concerned.

ETA And simply repeating your and Lennox's misunderstanding/misrepresentation of Dawkins' 'weasel' model does not magically make the assumptions underlying your and Lennox's mathematical 'analysis' of that model any less shoddy than they are already.

 

[lordkalvan]

Dawkins, backpedalling as stated above, says he was quotemined. Utter nonsense. Go look.

He said exactly what Lennox says he said, and is desperately trying to pull the boot out of his mouth.

Simply not true, as both you and Lennox quote carefully chosen words out of context. That is generally known as quotemining. Either you watched a different video or your selective hearing allowed you to filter out anything you didn't want to hear.

ETA This is the sentence that was quotemined by Lennox:

'The deist God would be one that I think it would be - one could make a reasonably respectable case for that, not a case that I would accept, but I think it is a serious discussion that we could have.'

And, as Dawkins points out, as Lennox believes in no such God, such a discussion would not occur between them. A concession that a reasonable debate could be had is not a concession that the subject of that debate has already been conceded.

 

[Barbarian]

Originally Posted by Barbarian View Post
Barbarian chuckles:
BTW, Async is indeed up to his usual stuff. In this video, John Lennox tells Richard Dawkins that he accepts evolution as Darwin saw it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfBMFPYuLsE

This link does not work.

It works. Anyone who wants to see it can see Lennox claim to accept evolution as Darwin did.

Barbarian chuckles:
Letting Lennox speak for himself, Async argues is "deceptive." Fact is Lennox not only didn't "demolish evolution", he agrees with Darwinian theory. Did you really think we wouldn't check your claims?

No, I thought you could read. You clearly have a problem with either reading ability or comprehension or both.

I do think that anyone who interprets "I accept evolution as Darwin did" as "demolishing evolution" does have a problem with English.

Barbarian chuckles:
What he did was tell Dawkins that he accepts evolution as Darwin saw it. Why pretend otherwise? It's right there in the video.

This fake video that won't work?

Anyone can check it and see.

Barbarian observes:
Actually, mutation by itself produces biological information. Would you like to see the numbers again?

More fakes?

So now the mathematicians are "fakes?" Your circle of deception grows.

Barbarian admits:
Not familiar with your high priest's weasel,

Sorry, that's YOUR high priest

You gave him the title. You keep bringing him up. He's your high priest, by your own admission.

Barbarian continues:
but it sounds to me that it merely copies natural selection the way engineers do when they have a problem too difficult for design. They let evolution do it. Want to learn how?

You clearly have no idea how that works, or you wouldn't be bringing it up.

It's very simple. It begins (as evolutionary theory does) with an initial feasible solution, which is not optimal. It then simulates natural selection by favoring certain outcomes, after which the solution undergoes mutations. The favorable ones are retained, and the others removed from the gene pool. After a time, the solution converges on an optimum.

Just like it does in biology.

Barbarian observes:
If he actually wrote that (and given his statement that he supports Darwinian evolution, it seems unlikely)

Free, kindly note that this man is calling me a liar.

You have a history here. A lot of things you claimed that people said, you couldn't substantiate. After a while, people notice. Whether you were fooled by someone else, or just made it up, that's between you and God.

I shall feel free to respond in kind, and I trust you won't be bringing down the roof on me for doing so.

Feel free. I don't quote people unless I know what they said.

Barbarian continues:
then he's made a major goof. As you learned, even making very strict creationist assumptions about mutations, there's still more than enough in a population for observed variation. Would you like to see the numbers again?

Which part of the above citation - which I have here in print, black and white, and so could you if you were willing to buy a copy on eBay if you don't want to pay the full price) don't you understand/grasp/comprehend? I'll try to help you.

Doesn't matter. You've been embarrassed again. Your "anti-evolution" professor turns out to be an evolutionist. Don't you get tired of people laughing at you?

Don't you get tired of manufacturing false claims?

The video clearly shows the professor claiming to accept evolution as Darwin did.

Barbarian chuckles:
Feel free to challenge the math or the science. You'll be embarrassed yet again.

It's up to you to challenge Lennox's maths and science. Please do so without too much arm waving and deceit.

I already showed you the math involved for a population of modest size and very low mutation rates. And it works as evolution predicts.

The argument that you presented as Lennox's is that all probabilities are 50%, an old statistician's joke. I doubt if he was naive enough to take it for real.

Barbarian observes:
As you know, gravity is almost as certain as evolution.

You're lying again.

It's very true. We know why evolution works. But we don't know for sure why gravity works.

Show us a reputable physicist saying so.

Even today, gravity is still a mysterious force, if it is a force at all. We all know the effects of gravity and how difficult it is to work against it. Think about climbing a long staircase. What is it that tries to pull you down? Obviously it is the mass of Earth, but how does mass accomplish this pulling down? This article gives an overview of the mainstream development of the theory of gravity over the last few centuries.
http://burt.wrytestuff.com/swa234448.htm

More later

 

[cupid dave]

I may be misunderstanding your point but laws don't cause anything though. They are our explanations of whats we've seen. So the law may explain that it tend to proceed in ways that are most probable but the law itself does not cause that to happen. C.S Lewis put in his usual eloquence;

"They produce no events: they state the pattern to which every event - if only it can be induced to happen - must conform, just as the rules of arithmetic state the pattern to which all transactions with money must conform - if only you can get hold of any money. Thus in one sense the laws of Nature cover the whole field of space and time; in another, what they leave out is precisely the whole real universe - the incessant torrent of actual events which makes up true history. That must come from somewhere else. To think the laws can produce it is like thinking that you can create real money by simply doing sums. For every law, in the last resort, says: If you have A, then you will get B." But first catch your A: the laws won't do it for you"

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Good point!

The Natural Laws are things man has discovered which are like mathematics inside our head.
Math let's us relate to what this "other" entity is and does.

That "other entity" we call the Reality.
Reality is the thing we discover at birth is a companion to our own mind.


Remember that Rene' Descartes first proved his own existence, based solely on recognizing that his own thinking was tanigble evidence of his existence.
Then, our senses inform us that something not us, some other "thing" keeps saying "I, too, am."

This other entity we discover holds our whole life at bay.
It nurtures us and threatens us.
It is Almighty.
It is not us.
It is "out there."

As we ponder the nature of this other "Entity," we manufacture rules which "He" seems to be using, so we can benefit by understanding "Him."
Some of our ideas about these Rules seems so true we call them Laws.
We believe that this "Reality" thingee uses Laws.
We believe this "Reality" is not capricious.

We have faith that our reasoning is a facility capable of modelling an image of what this other entity beyond our own thinking actual is like.
We have faith in believing our logic, and our mathematics, and our reasoning can predict how "it" will behave because we have postulated that this Entity is "reasonable."

 

[cupid dave]

Posted by cupid dave
So far the Law of Probability seems to have been totally ignored here.
That Law directs the process in an indirect way, tending to procede in the ways that are most probable.

Tielhart referred to this directed evolution as headed for Omega Point.



///.


I missed this comment first time round. You are right: Lennox (and Asyncritus) blithely ignore the obvious fact that not all outcomes are equally probable so as to be able to assign a 50:50 chance of whether an evolutionary development will be 'viable' or 'non-viable'. This is, as I have pointed out before, either a profound misunderstanding or a deliberate misrepresentation of evolutionary theory and, in particular, of Dawkins' 'weasel' model.

It seems to me that a strong probability exists, for instance, that if life does not have a mechanism by which it inherently can and will adjust to environmental changes (which can get as extreme as Ice Age and Water World), it will become extinct.

My point being, that the mathematics used to question whether changes are 50:50 ignores the factual reality that, in most cases, the odds are really 100:0, in regard to Extinction or Survival.

When we casually refer to the Instinct for Survival we ignore the meaning inherent in this, which is: change, or else.

 

[Asyncritus]

Perhaps you can address the fact that you and Lennox appear to either misunderstand or misrepresent Dawkins' 'weasel' model?

You need to establish that we do so misunderstand or misrepresent.

Easy enough to say that, but proof is what we need here.

 

[Asyncritus]

It's not a fake, I have watched the video and, in conversation with Dawkins, Lennox says what Barbarian says he does. I quote from the video:

Lennox in reply to Dawkins asking him whether he believes in evolution:

'I do believe in evolution, as far as Darwin saw it....'

(Emphasis detected in original.)

Talking of fakes, have you watched the video where Dawkins exposes Lennox quote mining Dawkins from a public debate they had between them? Here's the link again:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWsca2-BgDU

So I'm not sure you should be throwing around unsupported accusations of fakery in this context.

You may have quotemined Lennox. As you accuse Lennox of doing.

I say he didn't quotemine Dawkins, and I listened to him selecting the relevant bits. So it's my word against yours. I know which I prefer.

 

[Asyncritus]

You didn't check very closely, then.

Perhaps you would like to quote the full context of Dawkins' 'admission' rather than your (and Lennox's) carefully extracted phrase?

Just a point that I am referring to Dawkins' extract of his own speech.

You clearly haven't looked at the video with any attention. Not surprising.

And you are qualified to judge Phillips' intelligence and her likeliness to make mistakes how, exactly?

She is a highly respected correspondent for the Daily Mail, and I've seen her on various TV interviews and been impressed with her acuteness. If you mean, have I done an IQ test on her, then no, I haven't.

That would be because either Lennox wasn't paying full attention to what Dawkins said or, alternatively, has chosen to quote him out of context.

Or Dawkins is furiously backpedalling. Why don't you admit the possibility at least?

Maybe you should pay attention to what Dawkins actually said in the case in question, rather than what you and Lennox appear to wish he had said?

Perhaps you should too?

What Flew may or may not have come to believe and why he came to believe it is irrelevant to whether or not Dawkins was quoted out of context by Lennox, but nice red herring anyway.

Hardly a red herring when the most notorious atheist of them all admitted that he has changed his mind and that he thought that God exists. Dawkins hasn't the intelligence or wisdom to do that as yet. What is your position on the matter? Still a Christian atheist?

I really didn't think you could be serious, but maybe you were?

Well, as Barbarian is already a Christian, I guess he'll stay where he is, as will I. If you think atheism and evolutionary theory are wholly dependent on Dawkins' opinions on these subjects, then you are mistaken.

I couldn't care less whose opinion your respective positions rest upon. Fact is what we want here, and fact is what you two have come to grief on with quite unhappy regularity. Metronomic is probably a good description.

You were saying, Alice?

 

[Asyncritus]

ETA This is the sentence that was quotemined by Lennox:

'The deist God would be one that I think it would be - one could make a reasonably respectable case for that, not a case that I would accept, but I think it is a serious discussion that we could have.'

So here is Dawkins thinking they could have a 'serious discussion' on the deist God.

An atheist could not say this - because there's no God of any description to discuss - hence Lennox's surprise, and Phillips' comment.

Well quoted.