More Excuses for Cambrian Non-Evolution

You don’t have to listen to @patrick. Just don’t say “blah blah” to anyone.

In what sense am I an anti-evolutionist?

I see pan-adaptationism. Pure Darwinism from decades ago. The kind Joshua seems to think no longer exists in science.

Do you affirm common descent @Mung?

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Yes, I affirm common descent as the current best explanation we have for the hierarchical distribution of characters/traits we observe among extant species.

Do you agree that it looks like humans share common ancestors with the great apes?

Do you agree that none of the ID arguments have succeeded scientifically?

If so, I apologize and retract my statement. I misunderstood you. I am not sure if I understand some of your other posts, and may ask a few more clarification questions.

I may be a critic of certain arguments but that doesn’t make me anti-evolution. I have no issues with common descent of humans either. Your question about ID arguments is unrelated to whether or not I am anti-evolution, unless you see being pro-ID as being anti-evolution. I am pro-ID but I am not always in favor of the arguments I see. I commented unfavorably on Eric’s (mis)use of “Mutual Information” over at UD.

More on point for this thread, I don’t think evolutionists should get away with claiming that evolution is true therefore we don’t need to provide the details of how it happened. Better to admit ignorance than feign understanding. I’m sure you would agree. :slight_smile:

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Okay, so you affirm common descent but are ID friendly and ID critical.

Show me the link to this? I’m curious? Have you seen the exchanges with @EricMH here on this?

I can agree with that if it really is ignorance. To often, ignorance in the ID opponent is mistaken for ignorance among evolutionary scientists. In this case, you’d have specific precisely the part we do not know. We know much more than the ENV article seems to realize.

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A historian would say Napoleon invading Russia is true. At the same time, a historian would not be able to map every single step that Napoleon took marching across Russia. Does the historian need to map every spot where Napoleon touched Russia in order to confidently state that Napoleon invaded Russia?

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No. Do you think this is at all analogous to the absence of detail by evolutionists? How do we know Napoleon invaded Russia? If historians lacked that detail then they would not be so confidant that he actually did invade Russia. Some people think that evolution is a cause. It isn’t.

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@mung, is this a helpful middle ground for you? (Would God's Guidance Be DNA-Detectable?)

Yes. ID supporters demand a mutation by mutation pathway for millions of years of evolution before they will accept the evidence for evolution.

Do you have to know the exact place where Napoleon’s feet touched Russia in order to know that he invaded Russia?

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Asked and answered. If historians lacked detail they would not believe Napeoleon invaded Russia. Enough detail must be present for them to believe it to be so.

When you ask evolutionists for details they respond like you do with false analogies and excuses and blaming the skeptic for lacking the requisite amount of imagination and blind belief. No IDist that I know of demands a mutation by mutation account. But if that’s the evolutionist claim, that it happened that way, then it’s up to them to demonstrate it and not run away from the challenge.

Some mutations took place, and then some selection took place, then more mutations, then more mutations. Believe it! Laughable, really. Storytelling, maybe. But not science.

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Historians don’t know the exact places where Napoleon’s feet touched Russia, yet they are quite confident that Napoleon did invade Russia. How do you explain this?

Then what details are you asking for?

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Behe demands a mutation by mutation account. Axe demands a mutation by mutation account.

@mung, you didn’t know? Wow.

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We don’t know where exactly Napoleon stood?

OK, that’s it! Napoleon’s invasion of Russia is a hoax! A hoax I tell you!

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@Mung

I have to agree with you. @swamidass shouldnt assume an anti-evolution stance based merely on adhering to the premise that science can detect gods activity.

However, there seems to be a good number of ID folks who “apparently” (could this really be true?!!!) held to the idea that God used serial “special creation”.

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This analogy points to part of the issue for Mung and for many opponents of evolution.

By itself, the term “evolution” could be referring to the process of change in the biosphere. Or it could be referring to the natural history of how we got here.

Evolutionists often say that there is overwhelming evidence for evolution. And they are right, as long as we are talking about evolution as the process of change. But if we are talking about natural history, then there are many gaps in the chain of evidence.

It is of the nature of history, that there is never more than a partial record. So all history depends on taking that partial record, and interpolating to fill in the gaps.

From the scientists perspective, this is easy. The process of change is well established, so we use that process in our interpolation.

The religious opponents of evolution won’t accept that, because they want to allow that there might have been miracles involved.

That’s roughly the impasse.

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What you see is frequently not what’s there, as in the present case. The book is about adaptation, which is Losos’s field. He makes no claim that everything is adaptive, but the stuff he studies definitely is. Your attempt to start a fight among biologists is poorly thought out.

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@nwrickert,

But the only real motivation for dismissing a ton of natural evidence is the fixation on Paul treating Adam and Eve as historical people.