[_ Old Earth _] Professor John Lennox Demolishes Evolution

[Asyncritus]

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

Come barbarian, you're lying again. Here's the message I get.

This video contains content from Channel 4 who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds

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?

Unfortunately I can't check yours. You have probably quotemined the man.

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

I really don't know where you get this nonsense from. Wishful thinking again, or arm-waving?

But there are 3 kinds of mutation: beneficial, harmful, and neutral. Which sort are you talking about, and what kind of 'information' are you referring to? After all:

Gordon Taylor observes, "In all the thousands of fly-breeding experiments carried out all over the world for more than fifty years, a distinct new species has never been seen to emerge."
The Great Evolution Mystery, New York: Harper and Row, 1983, p. 34, 38.

You, however, are wedded to the quite foolish theory that gazillions of new species emerged in the Cambrian and subsequently, by 'OOOO_HHH__MMMM Mutation and Natural Selecti---ooo----oooonnnn'.

Get your blinkers off, willya?

So calculate away. Refute my calculation above, which shows that if 35,000 generations of E coli haven't produced a new species, then it is quite impossible that the Cambrian fossils exist. But they do.

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

You really should read up on this one, and familiarise yourself with the idiotic argument Dawkins presents. Here, go look it up for yourself before bleating unhappily about being 'not familiar'. You can read, you have access, so go buy a copy.

Before wasting your money however, you might like to consider Dawkin's own statement:

"Although the monkey/Shakespeare model is useful for explaining the distinction between single-step selection and cumulative selection, it is misleading in important ways. One of these is that, in each generation of selective 'breeding', the mutant 'progeny' phrases were judged according to the criterion of resemblance to a distant ideal target, the phrase METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL. Life isn't like that. Evolution has no long-term goal. There is no long-distance target, no final perfection to serve as a criterion for selection, although human vanity cherishes the absurd notion that our species is the final goal of evolution. In real life, the criterion for selection is always short-term, either simple survival or, more generally, reproductive success."

Lennox makes the same point very forcefully, as we have seen.

Behe doesn't believe that all this evolutionary nonsense is correct:

"Molecular evolution is not based on scientific authority. There is no publication in the scientific literature in prestigious journals, specialty journals, or books that describe how molecular evolution of any real, complex, biochemical system either did occur or even might have occurred. There are assertions that such evolution occurred, but absolutely none are supported by pertinent experiments or calculations."
Behe, Michael J. Darwin's Black Box, The Free Press, 1996.

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

Now I'm sure you don't know how to read.

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?

As I said, you plainly don't have a clue about how that works, or you wouldn't make this silly statement.

It's very simple. It begins (as evolutionary theory does) with an initial feasible solution, which is not optimal.

I thought that you'd bring up this nonsense. Pity you can't see it for what it is.

You asume, and that is exactly what Dawkins says doesn't happen, that there is a target. The engineers want to find some way of say reducing electrical resistance.

So what do they do? Rechenberg showed the way.

They set up an evolutionary strategy whereby the electrical resistance of a complex system could be minimised by the successive application of random variations.

At each step the parameters are varied arbitrarlly, and the resistance measured.

If the variation leads to increased resistance, it is reversed; if it is decreased, it is retained and used as the starting position for the next step.

But such an evolutionary strategy assumes that a measurable parameter exists, which one wishes to optimise - in the example I used above, I might wish to minimise electrical resistance.

With the objective of minimising the resistance, the model tests all possible random variants and eventually produces an optimal form.

Therefore, and this is the important point here, at the beginning of the process the solution is not known. In the Dawkins scenario, it is: METHINKSITISLIKEAWEASEL.

So it is naive to say that evolution is possible because of evolutionary algorithms in engineering or something else.

Because:

1 There is a goal - decreasing resistance, for example

2 There is a scrutineer, deciding whether or not this variant is really an advance or not, and then rejecting the 'nots'

3 The algorithm itself is intelligently constructed and designed

4 It is worked out by intelligence.

Evolution has none of these important features.

So you are being deceptive, wrong, and misleading to try and create the false impression that such strategies can possibly work in nature to produce new species/ higher taxa.

Just like it does in biology.

As shown above, nonsense.

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.

You have a history too - of believing whatever nonsense the evolutionary establishments throw up, or regurgitate.

You have no critical faculty whatsoever, and cannot recognise evolutionary nonsense when you hear it.

You are completely unable to distinguish between the simple questions HOW and WHY.

You produce imaginary, ad hoc, just-so solutions to the major problems I have brought to the board, and fancifully imagine that you are convincing anybody of the truth of your 'explanations'.

But that's a brief summary of your failings. I could do better, but why bother?

Barbarian continues:

then he's made a major goof. As you learned,

You're lying again. I have learned no such things as you claim.

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?

Try this for size:

Gordon Taylor observes, "In all the thousands of fly-breeding experiments carried out all over the world for more than fifty years, a distinct new species has never been seen to emerge."
The Great Evolution Mystery, New York: Harper and Row, 1983, p. 34, 38.

Now, you were saying?

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?

I think you're either lying again, or quote-mining . Go right ahead.

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

Sorry Barbarian. You don't know enough maths to embarrass Lennox. If you think you do, then perhaps you should apply for the professorship at Oxford. Have fun.

Barbarian observes:
As you know,

You're lying again.

gravity is almost as certain as evolution.

and again. Give it up, willya!

It's very true. We know why evolution works.

More errors. You may THINK you do, but mutation and natural selection just don't cut it. You should know that by now. You're old enough to know better.

 

[Barbarian]

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

Come barbarian, you're lying again.

Nope. Lennox says that he accepts evolution as Darwin saw it. Plain as day.

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?

Unfortunately I can't check yours. You have probably quotemined the man.

It's a video. And there he is. Nice try.

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

(Async doesn't want to see it again)

But there are 3 kinds of mutation: beneficial, harmful, and neutral.

You're confused again. Mutations are good, bad, or neutral only in context of the environment.

Which sort are you talking about, and what kind of 'information' are you referring to?

The one scientists use. The same one that permits you to use the internet, and permits low-powered transmitters to reliably send information over millions of kilometers of space.

Gordon Taylor observes, "In all the thousands of fly-breeding experiments carried out all over the world for more than fifty years, a distinct new species has never been seen to emerge."

It's been observed in nature. Even most creationists now admit that much.

You, however, are wedded to the quite foolish theory that gazillions of new species emerged in the Cambrian

Thousands, anyway. A bit slower than insects speciate today, but still as much as thousands per million years.

But of course, none of this is relevant to the fact that your professor you claimed to have "demolished evolution" turns out to be a Darwinist.

So calculate away. Refute my calculation above, which shows that if 35,000 generations of E coli haven't produced a new species, then it is quite impossible that the Cambrian fossils exist.

In a couple decades, a species of fruitfly in South America gave rise to a new species. If modern arthropods can do it, seems a bit perverse of you to argue that Cambrian arthropods couldn't.

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

You really should read up on this one, and familiarise yourself with the idiotic argument Dawkins presents.

He's your high priest. You look after him.

Behe doesn't believe that all this evolutionary nonsense is correct:

Behe says he accepts evolution, too. He just thinks God isn't good enough to make it work without tinkering around with it from time to time.

Molecular evolution is not based on scientific authority. There is no publication in the scientific literature in prestigious journals, specialty journals, or books that describe how molecular evolution of any real, complex, biochemical system either did occur or even might have occurred.

Unfortunately for Behe, Dr. Barry Hall showed just that happening in a very short time. A new, irreducibly complex enzyme system evolved in E. coli.

Genetics. 1978 July; 89(3): 453–465.
Experimental Evolution of a New Enzymatic Function. II. Evolution of Multiple Functions for EBG Enzyme in E. COLI
Barry G. Hall

Barbarian, regarding Async's dependence on Dawkins:
You gave him the title. You keep bringing him up. He's your high priest, by your own admission.

Now I'm sure you don't know how to read.

If you don't like what he says, you probably shouldn't be citing him.

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?

As I said, you plainly don't have a clue about how that works, or you wouldn't make this silly statement.

Well, let's see if we can educate you a bit...

It's very simple. It begins (as evolutionary theory does) with an initial feasible solution, which is not optimal.

I thought that you'd bring up this nonsense. Pity you can't see it for what it is.

Engineers tell me it's a copy of natural selection. I think they're right.

You asume, and that is exactly what Dawkins says doesn't happen, that there is a target.

Nope. They don't set a target. As happens in nature, certain adaptations are more useful than others. Natural selection sorts them out.

They set up an evolutionary strategy whereby the electrical resistance of a complex system could be minimised by the successive application of random variations.

So far, a pretty good simulation of reality. Random variation.

At each step the parameters are varied arbitrarlly, and the resistance measured.

Natural selection.

If the variation leads to increased resistance, it is reversed; if it is decreased, it is retained and used as the starting position for the next step.

Not good. You don't back up. All natural selection does is preserve the fittest each generation.

But such an evolutionary strategy assumes that a measurable parameter exists, which one wishes to optimise

For example, that an ability to metabolize nylon would be useful for bacteria in nylon waste ponds. Turns out, it was, and natural selection preserved the mutation.

With the objective of minimising the resistance, the model tests all possible random variants and eventually produces an optimal form.

Yep. Pure Darwinism.

The point here, at the beginning of the process the solution is not known.

Right. For example, Hall did not know what evolution was going to take place. And he was surprised to find that a regulator for the system also evolved. In many cases of genetic algorithms, the engineers don't know exactly how the optimal solution works.

So it is naive to say that evolution is possible because of evolutionary algorithms in engineering or something else.

Rather, genetic algorithms work, because natural selection can optimize systems without any design.

3 The algorithm itself is intelligently constructed and designed

Of course, the original was created, not designed. But remember genetic algorithms are a relatively crude simulation of God's system

4 It is worked out by intelligence.

Nope. In many cases, the engineers aren't even fully aware why it works.

So you are being deceptive, wrong, and misleading to try and create the false impression that such strategies can possibly work in nature to produce new species/ higher taxa.

Directly observed. Surprise. Of course, none of this is relevant to the fact that you claimed Lennox "demolishes evolution" when in fact he has openly declared that he sees evolution as Darwin did.

Barbarian observes:
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.

You have a history too

Indeed. Being able to substantiate my claims is why you've repeatedly fled threads after I showed you the evidence.

You have no critical faculty whatsoever

It seems your anger and name-calling are aroused precisely because I can critically examine claims.

You are completely unable to distinguish between the simple questions HOW and WHY.

We pointed out before how you confuse final causes with efficient causes. No point in denying it.


Barbarian chuckles:
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?

Try this for size:

Gordon Taylor observes, "In all the thousands of fly-breeding experiments carried out all over the world for more than fifty years, a distinct new species has never been seen to emerge."
The Great Evolution Mystery, New York: Harper and Row, 1983, p. 34, 38.

Let's see how that one flies...

Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1966 April; 55(4): 727–733.
PMCID: PMC224220
Spontaneous origin of an incipient species in the Drosophila paulistorum complex.
T Dobzhansky and O Pavlovsky

Sorry, Gordy.

Now, you were saying?

You've been embarrassed again.

Barbarian chuckles:
Your "anti-evolution" professor turns out to be an evolutionist. Don't you get tired of people laughing at you?

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

Sorry Barbarian. You don't know enough maths to embarrass Lennox.

Don't have to. As you learned, Lennox says he's a Darwinian.

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 still aren't exactly sure why gravity works.

More errors. You may THINK you do, but mutation and natural selection just don't cut it.

It's directly observed. No point in denying it.

 

[lordkalvan]

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

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

Here you go, from Post 68, Page 5, which you chose to ignore the first time round:

And, of course, Lennox (and Asyncritus) can only make their point by misrepresenting Dawkins' analogy using the 'weasel' sentence which is not to mimic the evolutionary process, but rather to reflect the power of cumulative selection, 'in which each improvement, however slight, is used as a basis for future building' (The Blind Watchmaker, London 1986, p.49). Indeed, Dawkins makes this very point on p.50:

'Although the monkey/Shakespeare model is useful for explaining the distinction between single-step selection and cumulative selection, it is misleading in important ways. One of these is that, in each generation of selective 'breeding', the mutant 'progeny' phrases were judged according to the criterion of resemblance to a distant ideal target...Evolution has no long-term goal. There is no long-distance target, no final perfection to serve as a criterion for selection...'

So either Lennox and Asyncritus have not read Watchmaker, or they have read it and either misunderstand or misrepresent Dawkins' analogy. I leave it to the gentle reader to decide which is the more likely of these three possibilities.

 

[lordkalvan]

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

If you can show I have quotemined Lennox, feel free to demonstrate this, I will acknowledge my error and withdraw my comment (I think I also suggested Lennox may simply have been mistaken in what he recalled of the discussion).

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.

But if my quoting of Dawkins' words is correct, clearly Lennox either quotemined or misremembered what Dawkins said. Please feel free to show that Dawkins' words are quoted incorrectly and again I will revise my opinion of this incident.

 

[lordkalvan]

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

So you can't provide the requested context in the form of a full quote, then?

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

Which video are you referring to? The one where Dawkins' broadcasts a recording of the full exchange between himself and Lennox that Lennox later uses ill-remembered or misrepresented context of to make his misleading comment about Dawkins?

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.

So you have no idea of her intelligence or the likelihood that she will make mistakes? For readers in other countries, the Daily Mail is a tabloid newspaper espousing views more than somewhat to the right of the political centre.

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

Because it is clear from the recorded evidence that this is not the case.

Perhaps you should too?

I have. You have yet to show that my account is incorrect.

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.

Nope, still a red herring unless you can demonstrate how it relates to whether or not Lennox misrepresented what Dawkins said, something you have failed to do.

Dawkins hasn't the intelligence or wisdom to do that as yet.

I have yet to see any evidence that you are qualified to assess Dawkins' intelligence or wisdom.

What is your position on the matter? Still a Christian atheist?

My position remains the same and is irrelevant to this discussion.

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

In passing I will point out that I have previously referred you to the intellectual tradition of Christian Atheism, but this knowledge seems to have simply passed by you unnoticed.

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?

That the model you have presented here as espoused by Lennox is erroneous on several levels, an analysis you have quite failed to respond to in any meaningful way. Would you care to essay an effort in this direction or couldn't you care less about this either?

 

[lordkalvan]

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

Yes, unless you think his words have been quotemined. Do you?

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

Then both are being intellectually deceitful. What you propose is akin to suggesting that a devoted Marxist could not have a serious discussion with a follower of Milton Freidman on the topic of free market economics. In other words, you are spouting silliness.

Well quoted.

And well misunderstood on your part.

 

[cupid dave]

.... in each generation of selective 'breeding', the mutant 'progeny' phrases were judged according to the criterion of resemblance to a distant ideal target...Evolution has no long-term goal. There is no long-distance target, no final perfection to serve as a criterion for selection...'


.

Inherent in this assumption is the claim that a Directed Evolution is not at work.

But it seems just as feasible to understand the Cpsmos and all the networked natural laws implicit with that idea as a giant machine which by its processing is turning out a product that has not yet been qyite finished so as that we might get a glimpse of what it shall look like.

The analogy might be of a sausage company leading live pigs into one entrance of its building and stacking packages of suasage, all neatly wrapped into one pound boxes at the other.
My point is that loaves of bread do not come out in the end.

This was the genral picture that occurred to Teilhard and he named the end produce Omega.
That would make Gen 1:1 the Alpha point in this view.

The evolutionist argument does in part support the idea that at the inception of Cosmic Evolution first life was all but inevitable, merely a matter of the right conditons at the right time.

That Teilhard was a priest his view point suggests to the religious community that perhaps the Bible, when more closely examined, does see that Omega Point as the appearance of men so smart that they could challange the 225 milluion year life span of the cockroach.
I wonder often why the church people have not ceasd upon the futurism as the nature of the very promise of the book they seem to read so poorly, IMHO.

 

[lordkalvan]

Inherent in this assumption is the claim that a Directed Evolution is not at work.

But it seems just as feasible to understand the Cpsmos and all the networked natural laws implicit with that idea as a giant machine which by its processing is turning out a product that has not yet been qyite finished so as that we might get a glimpse of what it shall look like.

The analogy might be of a sausage company leading live pigs into one entrance of its building and stacking packages of suasage, all neatly wrapped into one pound boxes at the other.
My point is that loaves of bread do not come out in the end.

This was the genral picture that occurred to Teilhard and he named the end produce Omega.
That would make Gen 1:1 the Alpha point in this view.

The evolutionist argument does in part support the idea that at the inception of Cosmic Evolution first life was all but inevitable, merely a matter of the right conditons at the right time.

That Teilhard was a priest his view point suggests to the religious community that perhaps the Bible, when more closely examined, does see that Omega Point as the appearance of men so smart that they could challange the 225 milluion year life span of the cockroach.
I wonder often why the church people have not ceasd upon the futurism as the nature of the very promise of the book they seem to read so poorly, IMHO.

Whether evolution is in some sense 'directed' or the result of naturalistic processes seems less important to the poster who initiated this thread than whether evolution exists at all. Philosophically, I have no serious issue with 'directed' evolution as such (except that I don't think it is, so we're not arguing about the process here), but I expect the OP will have.

 

[cupid dave]

Barbarian chuckles:


Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1966 April; 55(4): 727–733.
PMCID: PMC224220
Spontaneous origin of an incipient species in the Drosophila paulistorum complex.
T Dobzhansky and O Pavlovsky


.

dave chuckles:

a Spontaneous Generation is referred to by scientists, equating that terminology to the hypothesis of Abiogenesis.

 

[Asyncritus]

dave chuckles:

a Spontaneous Generation is referred to by scientists, equating that terminology to the hypothesis of Abiogenesis.

Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1966 April; 55(4): 727–733.
PMCID: PMC224220
Spontaneous origin of an incipient species in the Drosophila paulistorum complex.
T Dobzhansky and O Pavlovsky

Hey Barbarian,

Can you let us know what the word INCIPIENT means?

In case you don't know, here's a link which may help:

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/incipient

 

[cupid dave]

Whether evolution is in some sense 'directed' or the result of naturalistic processes seems less important to the poster who initiated this thread than whether evolution exists at all. Philosophically,...

... I have no serious issue with 'directed' evolution as such (except that I don't think it is,...


.... so we're not arguing about the process here), but I expect the OP will have.

But as a start, you do think that eternal life is the "Omega Point" for Evolution, right?

Based upon the essence of of Adapt to the environment or else, that would seem logically to follow as the direction evolution as taken, de facto?

 

[Asyncritus]

Yes, unless you think his words have been quotemined. Do you?

I wouldn't have thought so, but the possibility does exist, doesn't it? As Dawkins quite shamelessly claims.

Then both are being intellectually deceitful. What you propose is akin to suggesting that a devoted Marxist could not have a serious discussion with a follower of Milton Freidman on the topic of free market economics. In other words, you are spouting silliness.

Both sides would have to agree that there's something to discuss. If I were an atheist, I wouldn't waste my time.

BTW, if you've answered the question, forgive me and point me, but how can you be a CHRISTIAN atheist when the cardinal teaching of Christianity is that there is one God?

As I understand it, an atheist believes in no god whatsoever. So we have a contradiction in terms, don't we?

 

[Asyncritus]

[...]

Based upon the essence of of Adapt to the environment or else, that would seem logically to follow as the direction evolution as taken, de facto?

'Directed' implies a director.

Going in a certain direction can hardly be called being 'directed'.

Evolution is a random, purposeless process.

Many prominent scientists get it right when they say that evolution is purposeless and unguided. The same is true for plate tectonics, supernovas, radioactive decay, and the weather.
http://sandwalk.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/many-prominent-scientists-get-it-right.html

"For to the best of our knowledge evolution, like all natural processes, is purposeless and unguided. After all, scientists have no problem saying that the melting of glaciers, the movement of tectonic plates, or the decay of atoms are processes that are unguided and purposeless.

So when you hear people who accept evolution nevertheless refusing to admit that it’s unguided and purposeless, you know you’re dealing with someone who is osculating the rump of faith. For it’s only evolution that elicits these disclaimers, and it’s only evolution that requires such disclaimers to satisfy religious believers.

But evolution is, as far as we can tell, purposeless and unguided. There seems to be no direction, mutations are random, and we haven’t detected a teleological force or agent that pushes it in one direction. And it’s important to realize this: the great importance of Darwin’s theory of natural selection is that an unguided, purposeless process can nevertheless produce animals and plants that are exquisitely adapted to their environment. [And, of course, if you can believe that, you can believe anything! Asyn] That’s why it’s called natural selection, not supernatural selection or simply selection."
http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2012/07/17/whats-the-problem-with-unguided-evolution/

"Osculating the rump of faith." Hmmm.

A bit more from the same article in wordpress:

On the agenda for the board of the National Association of Biology Teachers (NABT) was a vote about its 1995 “Statement on the Teaching of Evolution.” The statement had become infamous in creationist circles because it said that evolution is “an unsupervised, impersonal, unpredictable and natural process”—which to some implied atheism.

Now isn't that strange?

What's at the bottom of the biologically significant strata? Simple forms of life.

What's at the top? Very, very complicated forms of life.

Therefore, there has been undeniable progress. In an upward direction. The process has not been random, otherwise an equilibrium of some sort, far lower down, would have been reached.

The facts say otherwise.

Random evolution has not occurred. Creation has. Purposeful creation at that.

Which makes a nonsense of undirected evolution.

 

[lordkalvan]

I wouldn't have thought so, but the possibility does exist, doesn't it?

Well, it's possible purple unicorns frolic on Kepler-51 b, but in order to support either possibility it would be helpful if some argument from evidence was forthcoming so, absent this evidence, we can dismiss both possibilities.

As Dawkins quite shamelessly claims.

Um, where does Dawkins claim, 'shamelessly' or otherwise, that a serious discussion on deism would not be possible (except insofar as Lennox would perhaps be unlikely to participate as deism does not correspond with his vision of God)?

Both sides would have to agree that there's something to discuss. If I were an atheist, I wouldn't waste my time.

And your position as an hypothetical atheist is relevant to the point at hand how, exactly?

BTW, if you've answered the question, forgive me and point me, but how can you be a CHRISTIAN atheist when the cardinal teaching of Christianity is that there is one God?

Try here again -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_atheism

- it's a starting point only, but provides you with links and references to pursue further understanding.

As I understand it, an atheist believes in no god whatsoever. So we have a contradiction in terms, don't we?

Not relevant to this thread, as Free has pointed out already. Perhaps you would be better served directing your efforts to considering the critique of your presentation of Lennox's misunderstanding/misrepresentation of Dawkins' 'weasel' model that you complained hadn't been provided? Or maybe you would prefer to continue ignoring it?

 

[lordkalvan]

But as a start, you do think that eternal life is the "Omega Point" for Evolution, right?

I doubt it, as evolution depends on the mechanism of imperfect reproduction. Something that passes for eternal life in human terms (lifetimes of hundreds of maybe up to a thousand years) is within the grasp of science according to some scientists -

http://interviews.slashdot.org/story/08/07/09/1845200/ask-aubrey-de-grey-about-longevity-research

- but this extension requires human intervention, rather than awaiting evolutionary developments (boosterspice, anyone?). Again, I see no impetus in evolution to select for greater age once reproductive capability has been passed.

Based upon the essence of of Adapt to the environment or else, that would seem logically to follow as the direction evolution as taken, de facto?

I don't think so, for the reasons given.

 

[cupid dave]

'Directed' implies a director.

Going in a certain direction can hardly be called being 'directed'.

Evolution is a random, purposeless process.

Many prominent scientists get it right when they say that evolution is purposeless and unguided. The same is true for plate tectonics, supernovas, radioactive decay, and the weather.
http://sandwalk.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/many-prominent-scientists-get-it-right.html

"For to the best of our knowledge evolution, like all natural processes, is purposeless and unguided. After all, scientists have no problem saying that the melting of glaciers, the movement of tectonic plates, or the decay of atoms are processes that are unguided and purposeless.

So when you hear people who accept evolution nevertheless refusing to admit that it’s unguided and purposeless, you know you’re dealing with someone who is osculating the rump of faith. For it’s only evolution that elicits these disclaimers, and it’s only evolution that requires such disclaimers to satisfy religious believers.

But evolution is, as far as we can tell, purposeless and unguided. There seems to be no direction, mutations are random, and we haven’t detected a teleological force or agent that pushes it in one direction. And it’s important to realize this: the great importance of Darwin’s theory of natural selection is that an unguided, purposeless process can nevertheless produce animals and plants that are exquisitely adapted to their environment. [And, of course, if you can believe that, you can believe anything! Asyn] That’s why it’s called natural selection, not supernatural selection or simply selection."
http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2012/07/17/whats-the-problem-with-unguided-evolution/

"Osculating the rump of faith." Hmmm.

A bit more from the same article in wordpress:

On the agenda for the board of the National Association of Biology Teachers (NABT) was a vote about its 1995 “Statement on the Teaching of Evolution.” The statement had become infamous in creationist circles because it said that evolution is “an unsupervised, impersonal, unpredictable and natural process”—which to some implied atheism.

Now isn't that strange?

What's at the bottom of the biologically significant strata? Simple forms of life.

What's at the top? Very, very complicated forms of life.

Therefore, there has been undeniable progress. In an upward direction. The process has not been random, otherwise an equilibrium of some sort, far lower down, would have been reached.

The facts say otherwise.

Random evolution has not occurred. Creation has. Purposeful creation at that.

Which makes a nonsense of undirected evolution.

I agree with you...

Evolution is Directed.

The Director is the force of Change that forevermore unfolds the next frame of Reality.
As this Change progresses like the hand of God, life evolves as if a glove to fit perfectly upon it, headed for the eternal life of both this diretor and the garment that fits upon his hand.

Teilhard saw this too:

 

[Barbarian]

Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1966 April; 55(4): 727–733.
PMCID: PMC224220
Spontaneous origin of an incipient species in the Drosophila paulistorum complex.
T Dobzhansky and O Pavlovsky

Hey Barbarian,

Can you let us know what the word INCIPIENT means?

World English Dictionary
incipient (ɪnˈsɪpɪənt)

— adj
just starting to be or happen; beginning

It means Dobzhansky was lucky enough to be watching precisely when the new species emerged. That doesn't happen very often.

 

[cupid dave]

...evolution depends on the mechanism of imperfect reproduction.

Something that passes for eternal life in human terms (lifetimes of hundreds of maybe up to a thousand years) is within the grasp of science according to some scientists -

http://interviews.slashdot.org/story/08/07/09/1845200/ask-aubrey-de-grey-about-longevity-research

- but this extension requires human intervention, rather than awaiting evolutionary developments (boosterspice, anyone?). Again, I see no impetus in evolution to select for greater age once reproductive capability has been passed.

I don't think so, for the reasons given.

Hmmm...

Why do you discard "human intervention" separate from other "evolutionary developments?"

The evolution of Consciousness was that :"evolutionary development" which interjected "human intervention" into the previous "mechanism of imperfect reproduction."

With cloning, we have witnessed the marriage between human intervention and the ever unfolding force of Change which creates each new day, eternally.

 

[lordkalvan]

Hmmm...

Why do you discard "human intervention" separate from other "evolutionary developments?"

Because these are not consequences of biological evolution, i.e. they do not depend on genetic variation, but simply on human ingenuity.

The evolution of Consciousness was that :"evolutionary development" which interjected "human intervention" into the previous "mechanism of imperfect reproduction."

I think you will find that consciousness is not exclusive to humanity. That we can intervene in reproductive processes does not make those interventions evolutionary in nature.

With cloning, we have witnessed the marriage between human intervention and the ever unfolding force of Change which creates each new day, eternally.

But this does not make such intervention of the same quality as biological evolution, which is the only point I was making.

 

[Barbarian]

Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1966 April; 55(4): 727–733.
PMCID: PMC224220
Spontaneous origin of an incipient species in the Drosophila paulistorum complex.
T Dobzhansky and O Pavlovsky
.

dave chuckles:

a Spontaneous Generation is referred to by scientists, equating that terminology to the hypothesis of Abiogenesis.

Speciation is not spontaneous generation. Learn about it here:

Spontaneous generation is an obsolete body of thought on the ordinary formation of living organisms without descent from similar organisms. Typically, the idea was that certain forms such as fleas could arise from inanimate matter such as dust, or that maggots could arise from dead flesh.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_generation