More Excuses for Cambrian Non-Evolution

My, that was a fine exercise in feigned huff.

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@Mung

Hey… how about easing up on the micro-sensitivity?

All you had to say was:

I actually see “pan-adapt.” in the book by Lassos … but do not think Lassos himself adheres to that position.

This would then have triggered an analysis of your position…which would have educated other readers!

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I don’t know what Losos believes. But if all I have to go on is what is in his book …

The larger point still remains that this is still what is being sold in popular science books on evolution. I’d rather we talk about that, since it’s more relevant to Joshua’s claim about Darwinism.

Without the selectionist/adaptationist paradigm there is no designer substitute. As far as I know if you are going to explain “the appearance of design” in living organisms that’s still the only game in town (for those who reject ID anyways).

If someone writes a book about the islands of Hawaii would you conclude from that book that the only land that exists on the face of the Earth is found on the islands of Hawaii?

Complete the sentence.

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I’d like to politely suggest that you work on your analogies.

Why would you think that a book describing positive changes is trying to claim that these are the only changes evolution can produce?

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More from DI on not an ediacaran animal. Can we have an expert comment on this?

https://evolutionnews.org/2018/09/why-dickinsonia-was-most-probably-not-an-ediacaran-animal/

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More from DI on not an ediacaran animal. Can we have an expert comment on this?

As always you have to wonder why Bechly didn’t submit his claims to any mainstream scientific journals and instead published it only for the readers of the DI’s propaganda website.

Well, you really don’t have to wonder…:slightly_smiling_face:

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He probably could too. His work is still respected in odonatology and from what im told he is still invited to meetings he just doesn’t come. This is the first thing I’ve ever seen him post where he doesn’t question other scientists integrity and honesty. Good for him. I’m going to send it to one of the paper’s authors

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Probably not. You would need a biochemist/paleontologist.

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@Mung

Christian Evolutionists do not need to reject EVERYTHING about ID; by definition, Design is appropriately retained.

But Design by itself does not eliminate the utility of Natural Selection. If we maintain that God USED natural selection to implement his designs… then the two elements are hand-and-glove.

I believe @swamidass will endorse this view.

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What does “God USED natural selection” mean? How is his using natural selection different from his not acting at all?

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You mistake the selectionist/adaptationist paradigm, and you mistake Joshua’s views. The paradigm criticized by S. J. Gould, and presumably by Joshua, is the a priori belief that every feature of every organism must be due to selection, that organisms are infinitely malleable in all directions, and that a plausible story is all you need to support a case. Of course none of that is true. However, there is still such a thing as natural selection, and it’s still clearly responsible for some adaptations, and Losos mentions those cases in his book, complete with copious experimental evidence, not fanciful scenarios.

Your attempt to start a fight between Swamidass and Losos is doomed to failure, because you have conflated two quite different views of selection.

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I would be happy to answer that in exchange for you answering a question of mine.

Why would you think that I think that when I’ve also mentioned such things as neutral evolution and random genetic drift (and in doing so got accused of thinking all evolution was 100% chance)?

Your question seems unfair as it appears to presume something about my beliefs that is not accurate.

You seem to be saying that a book describing positive adaptations is necessarily Darwinian when it isn’t. Unless you can show where in these books the authors argue for all changes either being under negative or positive selection then they aren’t Darwinian.

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@John_Harshman

It is frequently assumed that if God made a buffalo by special creation… then God exercised complete and total control over every part of the buffalo genome…

However, usually implied, is that God allows evolution to run on without any divine controls… and thus the use of terms like “intervened” and “intervention”.

However, my position is that God
made all the animals by personally selecting the sequence of mutations and the environmental factors that would act on these mutations.

Summary: God exercises the same level of care whether he creates life by special creation or by the use of mutations and natural selection.

I can see how one could carefully manage a sequence of mutations, but environmental factors might be a problem, given that they affect lots of species simultaneously. And to what end? Evolution doesn’t really look, if we take the global view, as if there’s any sort of coherent plan. It all seems bizarrely haphazard, what with gill arches turning into jaws turning into middle ears. And he would have to carefully arrange just the right mutations many times do deal with the fact that the majority even of advantageous mutations are eliminated by drift.

So it’s a possible position, I will now grant that, but I don’t see that it makes any sense.

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It appears to me that perhaps the best way forward here is for you to get the book, read the book, and then point out the cases of evolution outlined in it that are non-Darwinian. I didn’t see any. Neither, as I take if from his comments, did John.

Joshua has declared Darwinism dead. I say not so fast.

If I showed you a map of the South Pacific and it didn’t show Europe would you think the map was trying to claim that Europe doesn’t exist?

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