Is Evolution Gradual or Punctuated?

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101

@Ashwin_s

You can cherry pick any man or woman’s array of opinions on this or other matters. @Swamidass has frequently specified that he is focusing on the evolution of humanity being God’s primary interest, and an area that is unusually well supported by fossil and molecular biology.

Genealogy Adam Scenarios do not take a position on “chemicals to life”, which in any case is not part of the conventional range of Evolution of most any variety.

Good… all you’ve done is intentionally roil the waters, once again, on the same topics that you and him have discussed before.

102

George, i wasn’t even talking about this subject when you showed up.

I was trying to understand why @John_Harshman thought that the rate of change in evolution is connected to rate of change of environment.
i have no intention to “roil the water” as you said. You do that very well yourself.

103

@Ashwin_s,

Sure… then next time, don’t insist on renaming God-Guided Evolution with an unworkably confusing label.

104

Even in that case, Behe thinks God is the agent only in a small proportion of cases. You’re still leaving out most of the diversity.

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105

You will note that that destroys any case for there being evidence of intelligent design. So I wonder why he talks about that.

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106

Of course not. They’re creationist scenarios.

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107

The way I see it is, the main divisions are narratives where God is an agent and where he is not an agent…

There is diversity in the accounts where God is an active agent. I have already admitted that.

108

I don’t think that’s a good way to see it.

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109

I’m not expecting @Ashwin_s to change.

You cannot coerce belief. At best, you can coerce a pretense. But of what use is a pretense? Just let Ashwin be Ashwin.

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110

I got that… that’s why I said it’s a difference in perspective…

111

@nwrickert

Neil, did you really write this?: “You cannot coerce belief. At best, you can coerce a pretense.
But of what use is a pretense? Just let Ashwin be Ashwin.”

After all my commentary, jaw-boning, and downright badgering regarding my position, how is

it that smart people continue to misinterpret my goals. So let me itemize it (when my son

sees me using an itemized list, he knows he is in trouble):

1] I am not coercing belief (I’m a Unitarian Universalist, for goodness sake…)

2] I am not coercing a pretense.

3] My goal was, and still is, compliance with a consistent normative standard of cooperation.

4] Despite the irony that, no doubt, many of you would see in [3], and my continued actions
which to them would be seem as a lack of cooperation . . . I do not see any reason to cooperate
with any “quasi-imaginary” behavioral criteria in response to apathetic stances which do not
insist on an equal level of cooperation from the very people whose behavior makes my
continued reactions necessary.

5] Who would ever think “Trust Level Zero” (aka, “Time Out” time) is designed to coerce belief?
Who would ever think Time Out time is designed to coerce pretense? And for sure, it is not
about censorship. It’s about COOPERATION with a set of standards which, as of yet, do not
yet exist - - but will inevitably come to PeacefulScience.Org.

CONCLUSION?
All the Creationist discussion lists - - and it’s virtually ALL of them! - - solve this category
of problem extremely easily: they simply suspend or ban anyone who says anything that
disagrees with their position.

Now THAT is censorship. And the only time I have ever suggested anything like that was
in the early days when @S Joshua Swamidass thought it was too much of a burden to try
to moderate some recalcitrant abuser of his list.

Apparently, you and others still believe “waiting for the End of Days” is more efficient
than a quick round of one or two days of “time out”. People HATE time outs. And
with a progressive use of them, people would understand, inevitably, that there is no
shortcut to cooperation. And during the long-term timeline while we wait for each
person’s individual revelation on the matter of cooperation, the benefit to the list is
the absence of toxic defiance while the person is in time out.

In other words: it’s a win win.

Compare this to: “just let him/her continue to be him/her” - - the end result? An
uninterrupted stream of a toxic lack of cooperation. And for what? To earn the
welcoming reputation of the entire English Speaking world that this is the place to
air one’s underwear?

This turns PeacefulScience.Org into a “defiance sink” that makes everyone else
pay the price. No Creationist group does this. Most professional bloggers don’t
allow it either.

But here, it has become the expected NORM of what “good pro-Science Atheists
and Agnostics” think is Best Practice. And some people don’t believe in super-
natural outcomes that defy belief? They need to come here and see it for themselves.
On second thought… they should just stay where they are.

112

@Ashwin_s,

I somehow missed this sentence last night. This is not a correct description of Behe’s discussions… so far.

The videotaped Question-and-Answers session of Behe that has been published on these pages several times now shows Behe explicitly avoiding God engaging in Intelligent Design “at one or more points in the narrative” - - with one exception:

Behe describes a “front-loaded” scenario (to use a phrase that @Eddie uses to good effect), where God precisely configures the starting point of the Universe prior to the moment of Creation (Behe is a good Catholic!), and then there is never another moment when God (aka, “Billiards Ball Shooter”) has to perform any other super-natural “pooofs of smoke” in order to keep the unfolding of natural processes in line.

When I offer my view of this approach, I actually spend at least some of my time discussing my personal provision for God engaging in “pooooffery” here and there. But I’ve never once seen Behe do the equivalent. For Behe, all of God’s Intelligent Design work is completed before Time-and-Space ever come into existence.

113

@John_Harshman

After all this time, you would describe @swamidass’ Genealogical Adam scenarios as “creationist”?

How do you rationalize equating scenarios [where the vast majority of humanity come into existence via evolutionary processes (the people I would call “pre-adamites”)] as Creationist? - - when Joshua merely allows for the special creation of just TWO (2) humans?

Ah… that’s right: you and @Ashwin_s are in the same “Defiance R Us” club.

114

The title line says that you are a “frantic Unitarian”. You come across as a tad too frantic.

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115

@swamidass, I told you, right?

It is time to re-name my “name of the feather”.

As much as you are amused by using the term “Frantic”, it inserts a perception into my postings that I no longer find amusing.

Please arrange for another “nickname”. If you would like a list of suggestions (online or in a PM), let me know.

116

I’ve been reading a paper from 2014 that says that the common ancestor of dinosaurs had feathers.
It then says that in birds, scales are the result of restricted feather genes.
I read other papers that report on trying to produce feathers in crocodiles, with success in activating the gene. Though there was more required than just genes in order for fully fledged feathers to grow.
When bird scale/feather genes are reactivated birds grow feathers on their legs where scales were.
The author of the 2014 paper asks if maybe dinosaur scales came from feathers.z

117

Yes. De novo, ex nihilo creation is creationism. Fortunately it’s carefully controlled creationism, not extending to anything other than that one pair.

You can’t equate a single scenario, so your point is unclear. And there are many flavors of creationism.

118

@John_Harshman,

My point is plenty clear.

@swamidass is proposing that the physical evidence for justifying a belief in Evolution is ample and found all around the world.

In contrast, his religions belief in the miraculous birth of Jesus is matched by a religious belief in the miraculous creation of Adam and Eve - - not as founders of the human race, but as the key link between evolved Humanity and God the Creator.

Saying that Genealogical Adam scenarios are Creationist, rather than Evolution-based is like saying communion wafers are God’s flesh, instead of unleavened bread!

119

What, you doubt the miracle of transubstantiation?

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120

#metoo

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