Correcting the Biology Popularizers

@Ashwin_s and @Michael_Callen, you’ve both brought up important questions that are closely related. Broadly speaking your questions arise from the wide gap between how biology is explained by the “popularizers” and what current knowledge shows us.

@Ashwin_s to your credit you want to know what is really going on here. Let me help you out.

@Michael_Callen you are hitting a key confusion that can only be blamed on people misrepresenting manistream science to you. Darwinian evolution was falsified in the 1960s. We now know that nom Darwinian processes are more important for explaining DNA. This is well know in biology. This has nothing to do, also, with statements on God. Science is silent on God, the scientific understanding of Darwinism was falsified a long time ago regardless.

Both these themes come up in this article I wrote a a while back. How about read this and ask someone questions?

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Joshua: Thanks very much for your comment and the link. I read everything that you send my way and will continue to do so. I very much appreciate your definition of “non-Darwinian Evolution” and I continue to believe that understanding the terms people are using is vital to comprehending one another.

That said, you misunderstood the context. Charles had used the phrase in his post and twice George had asked him what he meant when he used the term “Evolution Non Darwinism”… which we assumed to mean “non-Darwinian Evolution.”

Because Charles described it this way… :

God does not use Darwinian Evolution; on the contrary, he uses creative evolution. Creative Evolution is not mindless because it is directed by Adonay Elohim himself…

… I attempted to intervene, clarifying that George was not being antagonistic, but rather merely asking what he had meant. Contextually, based upon what Charles had said, I replied to Charles stating what I assumed he meant. This is what you responded to above.

This was the reason I followed through on the point, and why you clarified here, as well. People are using the same words (or similar ones) in different manners. As I said above, I greatly appreciate the clarification, but there is a more-widespread issue than merely my understanding. As such, I would, with your blessing, continue to ask (as George did) whenever there may be confusion.

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@swamidass, thanks for the article. Though I don’t understand what it has to with RNA/DNA being present in life and our ignorance of an alternative.

I appreciate your efforts here to represent science accurately and that does increase my trust towards you.

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@Michael_Callen you are doing exactly what you are supposed to do. This is a multilingual conversation, and you are doing really well. I’ve been too busy to reply but I’ve read several of of your posts. You have a knack for navigating this thicket, and I really appreciate your contributions.

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So, in the article, we find that there are several ways for cancer to solve the same problem. Did you see that?

Again, thank you! I really appreciate your work here! It is a great environment and valuable conversations!!

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Yes I see that. And that has never been my objection. However there are constraints placed by the eco system (in this case the human body) which define what solutions are possible. Many of these constraints are applicable to both common descent models as well special creation.
Convergences occur because the selection space is finite… for example if we look at the birthday paradox, it happens because the selection space is limited (in case of birthdays it is 365 days).
In addition to that we don’t know what kind of additional constraints might apply to the work of a designer… there are too many subjective possibilities.
Hence the intuition that Design has more options than common descent need not be true.
One good example that we see in real life is how solutions like nuts, bolts, diodes etc are repeatedly used in different designs. Even when we have other options, designers home into common parts due to other considerations.
In short we can’t say what a selection space for a designer would look like in comparison to common descent until we define a model of creation.

@Ashwin_s

Wouldn’t that be like a defense attorney claiming that finding blood at the crime scene that matches his client was just as likely due to the REAL perpetrator having exactly the same blood type?

In the real world… allele differentiation is WAYYY more diverse than the components of any electronic merchandise by a given manufacturer.