Darwin's Doubt, Intelligent Design And Evolution.

[Khandro]

Has anyone watched this film, an interview with Stephen Meyer?

I found it rather compelling, and I thought he answered well the critics who have wished to steer him into the religious standpoint which is not what it's about at all.

[vetuste_ennemi]

My apologies to Dr. HUGH Ross for misspelling his name.

[Khandro]

jomifl; He doesn't say (obviously) that every fossil has been found just that none suitable has been found. [They may be lurking somewhere like a bdddb email in a junk folder]

[jim360]

I don't see how that contradicts what I said, Khandro. Amino acids are large molecules, but molecules nonetheless. Put something the size of a small-ish amoeba on an asteroid and show it can survive impact and I'll retract my claim.

[jomifl]

We've been here before, whilst amino acids could have and presumably still do arrive from space it is likely that non biogenic production of amino acids on Earth would have produced a far greater quantity. The distribution of amino acids species found in organisms is a closer match with those that would have been produced abiotically on Earth than those found in material originating in space.

[jomifl]

/He doesn't say (obviously) that every fossil has been found just that none suitable has been found/
Please explain the logical difference in the context of this discussion.

[Khandro]

j. //Please explain the logical difference in the context of this discussion.//
He doesn't, and cannot, say categorically that fossil evidence will never be found, simply that a lot of searching has taken place on 3 Cambrian world sites over a long time and has been unable to find any.
It seems to me a pity that Meyer isn't an atheist, then there might be less opposition to his scientific proposal.

[vetuste_ennemi]

Gob-smacked again. You do me in, Khandro. I thought we at least agreed about what Darwin's Doubt (subtitle: THE EXPLOSIVE ORIGIN OF ANIMAL LIFE AND THE CASE FOR INTELLIGENT DESIGN) was about. The thesis of Meyer's book is that unsupervised evolutionary processes CANNOT account for the sudden appearance of new phyla in the Cambrian Explosion. ID (in this book - not necessarily in others) is not about the origin of life, it is invoked as the only plausible explanation for the diversity of life.

[vetuste_ennemi]

Also from The Discovery Institute:
http://www.discoveryinstitutepress.com/science-and-human-origins/

[Khandro]

v_e; That is really unfair, go to any university or institution and you will find an wide variety of opinions on all subjects. I don't know your line, but would you like to be held accountable for all the views held by your colleagues?
It should be be apparent that I'm not particularly interested in evolution of the species, I've said, I hand over the wheel to Darwin, Wallace,Malthus et al. but I am interested in the origin of life on this planet and what Meyer has to say on that is of interest to me.
You seem to wish to not address that subject, preferring to denigrate him for having a religion, then his institution, and now views held by other people.

[vetuste_ennemi]

"v_e; That is really unfair, go to any university or institution and you will find an wide variety of opinions on all subjects. I don't know your line, but would you like to be held accountable for all the views held by your colleagues?"
Khandro, I'll have a go at explaining what my line is. Firstly, let me say that it can be very frustrating trying to argue with you. It's not that we often reach different conclusions (nothing wrong with that, is there?), but that it often turns out that we seem to have quite different ideas about what it is we're arguing about. This is yet another such case.
I am interested in both evolutionary theory, and in Intelligent Design and the Christian campaign in the States to promote it. Which is why I've lashed out over 40 quid for Darwin's Doubt (the book being plugged by Meyer in the OP, and of which I'd never heard until you brought it to my attention) and The Cambrian Explosion by two evolutionary biologists. Meyer's book is NOT about origins, it's about the development of life and the failure of neo-Darwinism to account for it adequately, and specifically to account for the "sudden" appearance of new phyla in the Cambrian explosion. You really cannot have read even the first pages of the book not to understand its theme. This is the issue I THOUGHT we were debating, not how living things arose from non-living ones. And that is why I didn't "address the latter subject". So, I'm sorry we've been talking (yet again) at cross purposes.
The book you need to read is the same author's Signature in the Cell. This presents the argument you've been trying to have: Intelligent Design versus naturalistic chemical explanations of the origin of life. I quote Meyer's comments (in Darwin's Doubt) on the earlier book (stress by Meyer unless indicated otherwise):
"My book proved controversial, but in an unexpected way. Though I clearly stated that I was writing about the origin of the FIRST life... many critics responded as if I had written another book.... most criticized the book as if it had presented a critique of the standard neo-Darwinian theories of BIOLOGICAL evolution - theories that attempted to account for .. NEW forms of life from simpler PRE-EXISTING forms.."
"All this notwithstanding, I.. have strong reasons for doubting that mutation and selection can add ENOUGH new information .. to account for the large-scale or 'macroevolutionary' innovations... that have occurred after the origin of life".
"Even though I did not write the book [my critics thought I had written], I have decided to write that book. And this is that book".
As for being unfair to Meyer, I repeat that The Discovery Institute is the creation of evangelical Christians and has a Christian agenda. Therefore it is not "any university or institution", and it follows that they are all in some form creationists in that, while ID itself is a "scientific" theory, Meyer and his colleagues do not believe the intelligent designer to be any other than their supernatural God.

[Khandro]

v_e; Thank you for the clarification and your correction that we are addressing, or at least placing emphasis, on different concerns. My knowledge of Meyer comes from the interview pointed to in my OP and a few other bits subsequently discovered. Though the interview was ostensibly at a book fair (?) and centred on 'Darwin's Doubt' I think he spoke within a wider context of his views in general and brought to my (and maybe your) attention the real doubts of Darwin and the Cambrian explosion and lack of preceding evidence for it occurence.
This is what is of interest to me, and as I have said, beyond which is not the issue (for me). You seem to denigrate him because his paymaster is a Christian institution you have an aversion to, which seems like saying that 'anything written in The Times must be wrong because I don't like Richard Murdoch'. He is a clever scientist and would not jeopardise his career by writing to appease his university, and you have not been able to fault him on what he has said on the above subject.
Regarding your; //while ID itself is a "scientific" theory, Meyer and his colleagues do not believe the intelligent designer to be any other than their supernatural God.//
Well as a Theist, he would say that wouldn't he? and given my Webster's definition of 'supernatural' as "Existing or occurring outside the normal experience or knowledge of man; caused by other than the known forces of nature" plus the proviso that 'God' is something unknowable, but within human experience, then I have to say I wholeheartedly agree with him.

[vetuste_ennemi]

I don't denigrate Meyer for his scientific beliefs, or because he's a Christian, Khandro; he is as entitled to his opinions as I am mine. I denigrate Meyer (a philosopher of science, by the way, not a scientist) and many of those on his side because of their dishonest tactics. The example I gave was Meyer's accusing Eugenie Scott of lying ("I know - unequivocally - that she was misrepresenting the [scientific consensus]" when giving expert testimony.

[Khandro]

v_e; A couple of points; // Meyer a philosopher of science, by the way, not a scientist// according to Wikipedia: "Meyer graduated with a B.S. degree in physics and earth science in 1981 from the Christian Whitworth College". (ranked as the 9th best regional university on the West coast).

Regarding your claim that Scott misrepresented the scientific consensus, - whose? and who is to say what constitutes a consensus? I don't know which context this was said in, perhaps you can indicate.

I may appear to be becoming a Meyer-champion but I'm not really, I have now read quite a lot about not only him, but also other scientists who advocate ID, also their detractors, and still feel (maybe too intuitively for you) that they are on the right path. I can see how they must be a thorn in the flesh of materialists.

[jomifl]

/I can see how they must be a thorn in the flesh of materialists./ hardly, but then I would help a blind man if I saw him walking towards a cliff edge.

[jomifl]

Any theory that reguires the existance oof a deity isn't scientific, since there is no proof of the existance of a deity. Unless ID is proof of a deity, so pull on your bootstraps and FLY!

[Khandro]

jomifl; Please explain why you think, in this context, intelligence = deity.
I understand things my dog doesn't, and he might think I'm a deity but I'm not, I simply know how to obtain food, and place it before him. Without me he'd probably starve.

[naomi24]

Khandro, do you think a god created other life forms subsequent to 'the creation'? That's what this man is really claiming, isn't it?

[Khandro]

n. No I don't think that, and I don't think ID necessarily supports that either. I do think though, that certain characteristics in the first life, exist in all life.

[naomi24]

Well, that’s curious because if he’s claiming that this apparent gap in the evidence for evolution is proof of Intelligent Design, it follows that new life must have been created subsequent to the original creation - hence the unexplained changes. No?

[Khandro]

Err, I think that's when Darwin kicks in.