Reflectorites
On Tue, 06 Jun 2000 19:20:54 -0500, Susan Brassfield wrote:
Re: Celera ready for genome announcement
[...]
>SJ>http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_778000/778413.stm
>>BBC ... 5 June, 2000 ... Celera finished
>>mapping Drosophila melanogaster in March and believe as many as 60% of
>>the fly's genes will be found in human beings. This science, comparative
>>genomics, is expected to open many new areas of research into the way
>>genes work and the role they play in disease." [It is interesting that the
>>closer they get to sequencing the human genome, the more cautious are the
>>assessments of its immediate usefulness!]
SB>It is also extremely interesting that you ignored the main point of this
>article which is that Drosophila and humans share a majority of their "design."
How can I be said to have "ignored" it when I *posted* it (see above)?
Susan seems to have forgotten (yet again) that I am a creationist who
*accepts* common ancestry, therefore I have no problem with
"Drosophila and humans" sharing "a majority of their design. In fact I
would have a problem if they *didn't*!
Besides, I cannot post the whole article and comment on everything, so
I extract out, and comment on, what seems most interesting to *me*. I
*always* give the URL so that if anyone wants to look it up and post
what seems interesting to them, they can.
I now *expect* Susan to check up on everything I post, so if I leave
something out, I do it with the full knowledge that Susan, at least,
will probably check up on me. So any impression that Susan might give
that somehow, I am surprised, or even embarrased, by Susan's adding
back in what I left out is a false one.
>SJ>http://www.telegraph.co.uk/et?ac=000113078204876&rtmo=LlLGdNLd&atmo=ttttllSd&pg=/et/00/5/31
/nsec31.html
>>Electronic Telegraph ... 31 May 2000. Poll boost for Section 28 ... ... Mr
>>Souter said he would drop his campaign if the importance of marriage were
>>stressed in teaching and said the "moderate" demands had already been
>>conceded by Westminster. He said: "Holyrood is now looking isolated and
>>extreme." [Probably off-topic, but it does shows that adherence to
>>traditional `Christian' morality is not yet dead among ordinary people, who
>>may not have had the `value' of a materialist university education, even
>>if it may be dead among most politicians and bureaucrats who have!]
SB>Definitely off topic, not that you've ever been bothered by that.
If it is off-topic, then so is Susan's reply! But it is about the conflict
between traditional morality (which is based on Christian ethics),
vs secular morality, which is based on materialistic ethical relativism.
This has been debated at length on this Reflector, so on second thoughts
I am not so sure it was "Probably off-topic".
SB>You snipped this bit:
>
>"However, George McGregor, of the pro-repeal campaign, said: 'Brian Souter
>spent millions on this ballot. We are delighted that the people of Scotland
>have rejected such a shameful chequebook democracy and that 72 per cent of
>Scots have snubbed Souter.'"
Indeed I did. I considered leaving it in, and was well aware that Susan,
who from past comments is interested in this issue, might pounce on
my omission, but in the end I decided that the point was irrelevant, and
here's why:
1. The article also said (which Susan omitted) that the 32% response
was higher than that which elected most European governments:
"The response was 32 per cent, higher than the turnout in European
elections, local council elections and the London mayoral election.
More people opposed repeal than voted for Labour at last year's
Scottish Parliament elections."
and
2. The assumption that the majority of the 72% who didn't vote at all,
were against Souter's position is unlikely. The more likely assumption
is that they didn't care either way. Indeed, it is more likely that among
the 32% who did vote there were disproportionately more gays, since
they were the ones mostly affected.
And obviously Tony Blair thinks that the 32% voter turnout is
significant because he has just, because he has just done a backflip and
announced he "believes in traditional values":
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/et?ac=000113078204876&rtmo=V6SgqrSK&atmo=rrrrrrrq&pg=/et/00/6/7
/nblur07.html
"Electronic Telegraph. 7 June 2000 Blair's back with appeal to
tradition ... TONY BLAIR will seek today to win back the support of
Middle Britain by declaring that he believes in traditional values. ...Mr
Blair will use his first speech since returning to full-time duties after the
birth of his son Leo to launch a fightback against a newly confident
Conservative Party led by William Hague. New Labour has been forced
on to the defensive in recent weeks by defeat in the referendum in
Scotland on keeping Section 28, which bans the promotion of
homosexuality in schools..."
SB>and thanks for this peek into macromutations:
>SJ>"We conclude-unexpectedly-that there is little evidence for the neo-
>>Darwinian view: its theoretical foundations and the experimental evidence
>>supporting it are weak, and there is no doubt that mutations of large effect
>>are sometimes important in adaptation." (Orr H.A., & Coyne J.A., "The
>>Genetics of Adaptation: A Reassessment," The American Naturalist, Vol.
>>140, No. 5, November 1992, p.726)
That's OK, but:
1. It shows that Neo-Darwinism as taught in the schools and universities
has for the last 60 years been based on "little evidence".
2. As Julian Huxley long ago stated, one can believe maybe in *one*
"macromutation" (even that is a major problem), but not in a string of them
(see my tagline).
3. There have been Darwinists since T.H. Huxley's day who have been
proposing "macromutations" (or saltations). Perhaps the greatest of these
was Richard B. Goldschmidt, Professor of Genetics at Berkeley, in the
1940s, who was the discoverer of the chromosomal theory of inheritance,
which finally explained why Mendelian genetics works. A less great but
more recent exponent of macromutation was Gould. But as they found out,
macromutational theories never catch on, because they have their own
formidable difficulties:
a. For starters, how could there ever be a *science* of "macromutation"
that could be taught in biology classes? It would mean that most of the
`evolution' that one is studying in the labs would be irrelevant. A science
that is a whole string of unique events is really just history.
and
b. Having just finished my first unit in Biology I realised why Biology
professors are not keen on macromutation. When one does Biology one is
led through all the fantastic cellular machinery and biological systems and
sub-systems. There is no way that a lecturer could then say, "this all must
have arisen by "macromutation" because "there is little evidence for the
neo-Darwinian" step-by-tiny-step "view: its theoretical foundations and the
experimental evidence supporting it are weak". A large percentage of the
class would probably think that a "macromutation" which could craft
complex biological systems would be a *miracle*:
"If Goldschmidt really meant that all the complex interrelated parts of an
animal could be reformed together in a single generation by a systemic
macromutation, he was postulating a virtual miracle that had no basis either
in genetic theory or in experimental evidence. Mutations are thought to
stem from random errors in copying the commands of the DNA's genetic
code. To suppose that such a random event could reconstruct even a single
complex organ like a liver or kidney is about as reasonable as to suppose
that an improved watch can be designed by throwing an old one against a
wall. Adaptive macromutations are impossible, say the Darwinists,
especially if required in any quantity, and so all those complex organs must
have evolved-many times independently-by the selective accumulation of
micromutations over a long period of time." (Johnson P.E., "Darwin on
Trial," 1993, p.37)
Re: Scientists changing their philosophy to fit the data.
On Fri, 9 Jun 2000 09:38:57 +0100, Richard Wein wrote:
[...]
>RW>Another problem is that many non-naturalistic theories provide no basis
>>whatever for empirically testable implications. Given the ID hypothesis,
>>for example, *absolutely* nothing can be predicted, because the alleged
>>designer is defined in such a way that there is no *conceivable* empirical
>>fact that could contradict it.
Maybe Richard could give us some "*conceivable* empirical
fact that could contradict Darwinism's claim that *every* mutation
in the 3.8 billion year history of life was random with respect to
adaptive improvement.
>RW>It implies no empirical facts whatever, and
>>therefore is incapable of empirical testing.
Maybe Richard can tell us all then what exactly are the tests that have
been applied to Mike Behe's "irreducible complexity" ID theory?
>RW>Put bluntly: ID theory is not
>>even nominally a scientific theory, and it won't be until some
>>more-specific *claims* about the designer are made that have empirical
>>significance.
Why? If SETI receives a signal from outer space, they will not
need to know anything about the designer, apart from the fact
that he/she/it was intelligent.
>RW>Until then, it is as the examples of Steve Jones and Phillip
>>Johnson so blatantly show, nothing more than propaganda, hot air, and
>>*religion*.
Maybe Richard can have a go at explaining then, if ID's claims are
"religion", how come an *agnostic* philosophy professor can
be a member of the ID movement?
Steve
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"In any case, if we repudiate creationism, divine or vitalistic guidance, and
the extremer forms of orthogenesis, as originators of adaptation, we must
(unless we confess total ignorance and abandon for the time any attempts
at explanation) invoke natural selection-or at any rate must do so whenever
an adaptive structure obviously involves a number of separate characters,
and therefore demands a number of separate steps for its origin. A
onecharacter, single-step adaptation might clearly be the result of mutation;
once the mutation had taken place, it would be preserved by natural
selection, but selection would have played no part in its origin. But when
two or more steps are necessary, it becomes inconceivable that they shall
have originated simultaneously. The first mutation must have been spread
through the population-by selection before the second could be combined
with it, the combination of the first two in turn selected before the third
could be added, and so on with each successive step. The improbability of
an origin in which selection has not played a part becomes larger with each
new step. (Huxley J., "Evolution: The Modern Synthesis," [1942], George
Allen & Unwin: London, 1945, Fourth Impression, pp.473-474)
Stephen E. Jones | sejones@iinet.net.au | http://www.iinet.net.au/~sejones
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