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It must get quite irritating when people want to continue to discuss topics you've already debunked. I've seen you post a couple of times "We've already debunked this or that topic".
It must get very irritating when I do it, and must make be sound awfully smug. But I do get a *ping* in the head when I see an argument and compose a response and think "We did this just the other day". And we are familiar with posters getting stumped and popping up trying the same argument a week later. Heaven knows why - maybe they hoped we all died in the meantime.
Unbelievable. He simply dismisses the entire fossil record and the hard evidence of speciation, the transitional forms and the stratified progression of life.
He then dismisses the theory which accounts perfectly for the diversification of life, and makes predictions which have been verified. It is also falsifiable - just one fossil out of place. He seems either ignorant or denialist about the 'Cambrian explosion' - a 2 billion year evolution of pre -cambrian forms into sea Crustaceans, effectively. Who is this guy?
David Berlinski
Born 1942 (age 75–76)
New York City, USA
Residence Paris, France
Occupation Author, Academic
Website www.davidberlinski.org
David Berlinski (born 1942) is an American author and academic who opposes the scientific consensus on the theory of evolution. He is a senior fellow of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture.[1] (Wiki)
His expertise isin Molecular Biology and Mathematics, systems analysis, computer stuff. all very fine and good. But clearly he is not giving the evidence for evolution a fair whack and prefers to dismiss it and say there isn't any.
No. His views really do not carry any weight.
If he raised problems or alternative mechanisms, he might have a point, but dismissing the whole thing on misrepresentation and blinkered denial. That's just not good enough.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 11-05-2018 at 01:15 AM..
"Most researchers believe that the code began simply with basic proteins made from a limited alphabet of amino acids. It then grew in complexity over time, as these proteins learned to make more sophisticated molecules. Eventually, it developed into a code capable of creating all the diversity we see today. “It’s long been hypothesized that life’s ‘standard alphabet’ of 20 amino acids evolved from a simpler, earlier alphabet, much as the English alphabet has accumulated extra letters over its history,” said Stephen Freeland, a biologist at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.
The earliest amino acid letters in the code were likely the simplest in structure, those that can be made from purely chemical means, without the assistance of a protein helper. (For example, the amino acids glycine, alanine and glutamic acid have been found on meteorites, suggesting they can form spontaneously in a variety of environments.)"
Your mathematician started with a false assumption: that 20 amino acids always existed.
Quote:
A Princeton PhD is a scientist? Right? Does his opinion have any weight?
Not his.
He tries to deny the fossil record, but it exists.
He says that it is impossible to use the Theory of Evolution to make predictions. That is not true, either.
Science Is math science? Probabilistics? It's a science
For me that is like asking "Is English Literature?". English is a language. And with it you can read - write - create - or disseminate literature. But it is not itself literature.
Similarly I see maths as a language. One of the languages by which we do science. But it is not itself science.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ukrkoz
A Princeton PhD is a scientist? Right? Does his opinion have any weight?
Not by virtue of having a PhD no. Having a PhD - or not having one - should not influence the weight of someone's opinion whatsoever. Alas as a species we humans often pretend it does.
There is one thing and only one thing that lends weight to an opinion. The evidence that supports it. If any is actually offered. So forget his PhD and ask yourself two simple questions "What is his claim?" and "What is the evidence he offers for his claim?".
In this particular case the answers in order appear to be "Not much" and "None".
But I was careful to watch his spiel and Crit. it before I looked up where he did his science. I wasn't the least bit surprised.
I had a look at the other vid. arguing the debunked 'astronomical odds against'. The false premise is that the intended outcome had to be reached by chance. Now I'm no expert in this field, but I can imagine that the complexity he is talking about ignores trial and error and assumes that it was the whole thing - bang - just by chance.
I like the way he said that, if he gets challenged he claims that 'no serious scientist believes that it happened by chance' (which is true - only Creationists and evolution -skeptics use the term) and closes the discussion down. Sure. but he doesn't say that 'few serious scientists believe that Life was planned by an intelligent designer' which is also true.
On the face of it even without the implication of Intent, one can ask how a non -functioning compound assembled and then - hey presto - functioned. But that is rather liker irreducible complexity. In fact this sounds rather like I/C. But that was refuted by the formations of compounds that did other things. Sure, you need a lot of mix, constant actions, millions of years, billions in fact and trillions of biochemicals mixing all over the planet. Given that life could have happened a number of ways, well - there are still questions. But they are questions - how could the building blocks of life form without the intent for produce life? I know the thinking here even without the assumption of an intent. But they are questions, not proofs of Impossibility. Which is actually what is being argued.
I also tried to find out out who this guy was and where the talk was being given. I mean - this is clever - just as I/C was clever - but when you knew the answer - invalid.
I can say that what bothered me was the evolution of the feather. How could something evolve perfectly designed for flight if it didn't know that it would be needed for flight?
Well, that has now been answered and it was the I/C fallacy again. Feathers were not used for flight originally, but gradually evolved to give a little more flight advantage, with the dinosaur itself evolving bone structure to assist flight.
I think the answer here is going to be the same. Once you know how - it's not a puzzle, and the figures are wrong because there is no Intent and there is more than Random Chance - there are natural reasons why certain biochemical might pull together.
Of course, even if the argument was right - so what? Evidence of an intelligent designer? Interesting. Doesn't affect my view of religions at all.
Cue leap of faith to the Bible. Becha.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 11-05-2018 at 01:32 PM..
Life didn't happen by chance. But we don't have to say it was planned by an intelligent designer. We can just say it didn't happen by chance (and natural selection) but we don't know the cause.
We've suspected since this thread was started that it was just a thinly veiled excuse to try to splice evolution onto a criticism of atheists.
This is a forum about Religion and Spirituality, neither of which have anything to do with the Science of evolution. City-Data has a Science forum for the discussion of [wait for it] ... Science! Try it some time.
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It must get very irritating when I do it, and must make be sound awfully smug. But I do get a *ping* in the head when I see an argument and compose a response and think "We did this just the other day". 
And we are familiar with posters getting stumped and popping up trying the same argument a week later. Heaven knows why - maybe they hoped we all died in the meantime.
