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Darwin's Illusion

LIIA

Well-Known Member
Material evolution - begins with the Big Bang resulting in galaxies of solar systems of heavy atoms and organic molecules
Chemical evolution - organic molecules evolve into life
Biological evolution - life evolves into the tree of life
Psychological evolution - animal life awakens and intelligence appears
Cultural evolution - language, civilization, and technology appear and begin to evolve.
Not at all. Not all changes are equal or follow the same principles. For instance, even so both abiogenesis and evolution are changes but it’s a lot different process.

You cannot equate the alleged evolution of the living to the material change of the nonliving. Material change follows the laws of physics and chemistry. You may claim abiogenesis to be material change not evolution.

The material change is a fact. It’s the change of nonliving material per the laws of physics and chemistry. The material doesn’t need to be alive to change.

(Alleged change of abiogenesis is false due to its contradiction with the laws of biochemistry that nonliving organic molecule would only disintegrate very quickly over time. It cannot persist for a long time to gradually get more complex).

The alleged evolutionary change is the diversification of life through random errors of the DNA replication/synthesis that may be kept or disposed by selection. The organism must be alive to pass evolutionary changes to offspring.

Evolution is false. DNA replication is always subject to DNA repair (replication errors are extremely low), change of traits is due to gene variants/alleles not new genes, random mutation errors cause genetic disease not favorable trait and cannot increase the genetic info. There is no route that gives rise to the alleged vast change or increase of new genetic info that is required for the evolution of new families, phyla or genera, i.e., macroevolution.
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
I suggest you go back and read it again but let me try to summarize.

a) Changes within a population occur due to change to the frequency of gene variants (alleles). “Allele frequency” of a population is not a new or an increase of information, but rather alterations to information/genes that already exist.

(NO NEW GENETIC CODE)

b) DNA replication errors of the genetic code sequence are extremely rare due to DNA repair mechanisms that maintain the integrity the genetic code.

(NO NEW GENETIC CODE)

c) But if a random mutation escapes DNA repair, the outcome is mostly genetic disease or no known effect, random mutation errors can change DNA by deleting, damaging, duplicating, or substituting already existing information but cannot create new information/genes.

(NO NEW GENETIC CODE)

d) Macroevolution changes that allegedly give rise to whole taxonomic groups requires a vast change/increase of genetic info.

There is no route that allows such massive increase of genetic info to emerge nor alleged accumulated gene changes define new phenotypic traits to begin with as previously explained. Macroevolution is a speculation that can neither be observed nor there is any mechanism that gives rise to a new taxonomic family.

Again, consider the example of dog breeding. Expedited selection of specific dog traits through artificial breading can never give rise to subspecies, new species, let alone new taxonomic family. YES, we can absolutely get variants with different phenotypic traits and YES, some variants would lose the ability of interbreeding, but they are always the same species. Yes, we may see huge differences between the variants but it’s not an evolutionary process but rather merely gene variants/alleles. Simply, the dominant alleles determine the traits.
Oh my!

By definition mutations are "NEW GENETIC CODE". You really make this too easy.
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
you know what really has no value? It’s empty denial without any justification.

It’s not that you don’t see value in arguing, you’re not aware of any justification for your empty denial. That is why you can’t argue.
Wow! That old irony meter just blew up.
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
Evolution is false. DNA replication is always subject to DNA repair (replication errors are extremely low), change of traits is due to gene variants/alleles not new genes, random mutation errors cause genetic disease not favorable trait and cannot increase the genetic info. There is no route that gives rise to the alleged vast change or increase of new genetic info that is required for the evolution of new families, phyla or genera, i.e., macroevolution.
Citation needed. Or is unjustified denial all that you have?
 

LIIA

Well-Known Member
This still doesn't address my question, which was why should I believe that consciousness is not or cannot be an epiphenomenon of physical reality. Your words say it might night be. I agree. So what? You seem to have rejected materialistic interpretations with no argument.
Wordplay such as “an epiphenomenon of physical reality” wouldn’t resolve the contradiction. You argue that consciousness is somehow an outcome of a physical process and at the same time postulate that physical processes don’t imply consciousness.
Again? Please try to understand that I do not insist that consciousness is a physical process. I just wrote that to you. Did you see it? If so, why didn't you address my reply then or at least assimilate it?
You just play with words. Per your perspective, is there a mechanism that gives rise to consciousness (as the final outcome)? What is the nature of that mechanism? Is it physical or non-physical/supernatural? Is there any other option?

If you say that the nature is physical, then consciousness would be an outcome of a physical process regardless of the specifics of the process or how it unfolds. Yet, you cannot postulate that physical processes don’t imply consciousness and at the same time claim that consciousness is somehow an outcome of some physical mechanisms.
One last time: no process reveals consciousness directly except our own conscious experience, which may be and seems to be an epiphenomenon of brains. I cannot look at any other matter and call it conscious with certainty, but I assume that all higher vertebrates are conscious. My dogs are. Parrots are.

It gets harder with reptiles. A lizard seems to look around and stalk insect prey, which seems to imply consciousness. Fish seem hypnotized or between sleep and wakefulness.

You imagine that your subjective opinion is the definition of what conscious is or is not. It’s meaningless. If you follow your own logic, then the only verifiable consciousness to you would be your own, you know for a fact that you are conscious but other than that you cannot verify with any level of certainty whether any other living system is conscious, every and all observed behaviors of living organisms could simply be unconscious reflex/tropism. But no, this is not how it works.

From a biological perspective, consciousnesses is a process that involves receiving signals from both outer environment and inner domain and translating those signals into appropriate responses, such process occurs in every organism, from the prokaryotic cell to the human being.

The judgment with respect to the consciousness of a living system is based on the level of appropriateness of the specific response to the specific stimulus. Statistically significant observations of responses with high level of appropriateness are evidence of consciousness.

But these are all organisms made like I was from a fertilized egg and made out of the same materials. I can't comment at all on whether human appearing robots can be or are conscious. There is no test for it. Nor does it matter.

The behavior of a robot at a fundamental level is based on a “stimulus receiver” and a “response activator”. The programming dictates the specific response to a specific stimulus. The responses are always limited due to the limitations of the programming itself. It's a programmed physical process not a conscious decision-making process.

Interestingly, the biological basis of consciousness at a fundamental level is also a “stimulus receiver” and “response activator”. The evolutionary perspective assumes that higher (human) consciousness is an evolved form of lower consciousness at the cellular level based on the same fundamental principles.

That perspective is deficient in the sense that it requires a preprogrammed appropriate response to every possible stimulus. IOW, it takes “conscious decision-making” out of the equation by assuming endless preprogrammed appropriate responses (similar to a robot) rather than conscious decision-making. That perspective cannot explain the enormous versatility in terms of observed appropriate responses of the living systems. Only conscious decision-making could explain such versatility of appropriate responses (to address endless stimuli from both outer environment and inner domain).
I would treat such a machine with the same kindness, dignity, and respect that I would any conscious soul.
You believe that physical processes don’t imply consciousness, yet you think that a robot may be conscious! Why is that? Is it because the processes controlling the robot’s behavior are non-physical?

You would treat robots with kindness, dignity, and respect; you assume it may be conscious, yet you doubt the consciousness of living systems!!

What a confusion!

You have no test for when the machine wakes up if ever, and no basis to say that silicon cannot do for computers what carbon does for brains.
Again, didn’t you say that physical processes don’t imply consciousness? Whatever happens in a computer is a physical process. All responses to received data are preprogrammed.
Not enough to call that support for a non-materialist metaphysics. It's an ignorantiam fallacy - if one can't show what is, he should assume it isn't.
I wonder if you would accept the same logic for the existence of God.

Regardless, the claim that there is no evidence that consciousness is an outcome of physical processes is totally supported by the simple fact that such evidence doesn’t exist. I guess you also agreed that physical processes don’t imply consciousness, didn’t you?
 

LIIA

Well-Known Member
You're Shapiro when you quote him if you don't disavow any of it. You might not like that responsibility, but if you brought it here, it's your idea that you learned from Shapiro. In the words of the sage, "Just because you put it in quotes doesn't absolve you of responsibility for repeating it."
a) Not at all, I'm not the author (Shapiro). Again, the source is what gives credibility to my claim not the other way around.

Here are some quotes from the article:

“The format of the paper will be first to discuss in detail a few of the many well-documented cognitive abilities in bacteria (discrimination between nutrients, chemotactic searching for nutrients, intercellular signalling, coordinated and directed multicellular activities, communication in establishing root nodule symbioses, recognition and repair of genome damage and self/nonself discrimination in DNA incorporation)”

“For those who believe that cognition only operates in animals, it is helpful to point out that there are extensive literatures on cognitive behaviors in both single-celled eukaryotes, starting at the beginning of the 20th Century and also in plants”

b) Regardless, the biological basis of consciousness is a stimulus-response mechanism (stimulus receiver/response activator). The cognitive capacity as a basic feature of life per the article is about perceiving changing features of both internal and external environments and undertake the appropriate responses directed to survival and growth.

The only way to rule out actual cognitive capacity of a living system is to provide evidence that the enormous range of appropriate response mechanisms to various outer and inner stimuli are all pre-programmed.

A single appropriate response to a stimulus is analogous to the right answer to a very complex question (out of wide range of answers). Even for the sake of argument, if you could somehow prove that all these endless right answers are previously programmed, then such programming is indicative of nothing but extreme intelligence.

The fact is that the extreme complexity of the observed specific behavior of the living systems is clearly indicative that such behavior is not subject to the limitations of preprogramed responses but rather an outcome of a conscious decision-making process.
 

LIIA

Well-Known Member
the original point was ... Pastuer was a skeptic of Charles Darwin and was a creationist! Pastuer did not believe at all in the idea that life could come spontaneously and he directly challenged that idea from the outset. Creation ministries research of his studies found that... "microbes were not spontaneously generated from the broth itself. Microbes would only appear in the broth if they were allowed in with the air. He clearly showed that even for microbes, life came only from life—‘Microscopic beings must come into the world from parents similar to themselves."’2
No, @ Neuropteron said, “based on his expectation that organic life was exceedingly simple. He lived in a time when people believed a brood of mice could suddenly appear in a basket of dirty clothes. In other words Darwin was under the illusion that life could appear spontaneously under the right conditions.”

Again, the point is valid. At the time Darwin worked on his theory till he published it in 1859, spontaneous generation was still an accepted scientific theory till Pastuer debunked it in the same year 1859.

But forget about @Neuropteron original point. What is your point? You got me confused, is Pasteur a good or a bad guy now?

And I agree, “even for microbes, life came only from life—‘Microscopic beings must come into the world from parents similar to themselves.”
 

LIIA

Well-Known Member
I not only studied the ToE but also taught it, and I came from a position similar to yours when I was in my teens, which propelled me away from the fundamentalist church I grew up in.

IOW, I've done the work on this for many decades now, and I can categorically say you don't have much of a clue and are too arrogant to eat some humble pie and actually do real research from real scientific sources instead of picking & choosing and nit-picking statements out of context.

IOW, you have literally nothing to add to serious discourse on this, so I'm no longer going to waste my time. All material things change over time, and that is what "evolution" is in simple language.

You told me before that you studied/taught the ToE for decades and I totally believe you, but that is irrelevant. Please don’t get me wrong, but my argument is neither about your level of knowledge or your job.

Science is ever changing. Science of decades ago is not science today. The question is not whether a change would emerge; the change did emerge and will continue further. The question is when the change would become mainstream.

The argument about the “Modern Synthesis” being disproved is not a personal claim, I provided the sources and after about 8000 posts on this thread, none of you ever provided a credible scientific source to refute or criticize these sources. All what I got is meaningless denial and empty assertions claiming that all is well.

I provide the sources and I always get irrelevant responses such as yours that you studied for decades, you know and I don’t, accusations of fundamentalism, etc. but never a rational attempt to address the argument, yet I’m the one who is too arrogant. I came for a discussion based on reason and evidence but instead the responses that I got were mostly hostile denial. If evolutionists such as yourself refuse this type of discussion, why are you here on this forum?

What is happening here in this thread exactly mimics the dogmatic hostility and denial within the scientific community claiming that all is well with the ToE. Again, this is also not a personal claim; it’s what Müller said in the royal society conference (See #7742). Anyways, you’re entitled to your view.

Thanks for your input.
 

LIIA

Well-Known Member
modern day microbes have at least a three and a half billion year history of evolution.
These modern-day microbes are really behind. Some other single-celled organisms managed to be elephants already! Oh well, maybe they would catch up someday. Wish them luck. :(
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
Really? when it comes to the basic facts, there is no need for citation. you might as well ask me to provide citation for "1+1=2"
More running away. Basic facts are very easy to support. By running away you just admit that you are wrong again.


It is such a pity that you do not even understand the basics of science. It makes it all but impossible for you to debate.
 

LIIA

Well-Known Member
I do not see how old views of Darwin and Pasteur are relevant to the sciences of evolution and consciousness today. The problem with 'arguing from ignorance' as to what scientific knowledge demonstrates today it does not get anywhere constructive. I would like to deal with where science is today and where we are going with new advances. As far as Darwin and Pasteur go they based their knowledge on what was available to them at the time.

The existing knowledge of science is sufficient to explain the relationship between the physical brain, intelligence and consciousness. At present there is no other explanation available that addresses the current state of scientific knowledge.
As usual, you don't know what the context was and based on your understanding or rather misunderstanding of the context, you start making some irrelevant comments or accusations that are actually nonsensical regardless of what the context was. Please make some effort to understand the context before you comment.

The specific point in question was not about what scientific knowledge demonstrates today, not about physical brain, not about intelligence and not about consciousness? The point was simply about whether a specific claim about Darwin, (which was initially made by @Neuropterons) is true or false. That’s it. Nothing else.

But regardless of any claims about Darwin, if your concern is what new scientific advances demonstrates today, then latest scientific advances (Modern Genomics/ Molecular Biology) disproved the central assumptions of the “Modern Synthesis” as explained many times and supported by multiple sources.

Please understand that empty subjective assertions have no value, if you disagree with the conclusions of these sources, you must provide credible sources that refute it.
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
As usual, you don't know what the context was and based on your understanding or rather misunderstanding of the context, you start making some irrelevant comments or accusations that are actually nonsensical regardless of what the context was. Please make some effort to understand the context before you comment.

The specific point in question was not about what scientific knowledge demonstrates today, not about physical brain, not about intelligence and not about consciousness? The point was simply about whether a specific claim about Darwin, (which was initially made by @Neuropterons) is true or false. That’s it. Nothing else.

But regardless of any claims about Darwin, if your concern is what new scientific advances demonstrates today, then latest scientific advances (Modern Genomics/ Molecular Biology) disproved the central assumptions of the “Modern Synthesis” as explained many times and supported by multiple sources.

Please understand that empty subjective assertions have no value, if you disagree with the conclusions of these sources, you must provide credible sources that refute it.
You still have no idea what the burden of proof is. You never once demonstrated that the modern synthesis was disproved. You only demonstrated your own lack of understanding. And it is now obvious why. You do not understand even the basics of science and are afraid to learn.
 

LIIA

Well-Known Member
And there is another gross error. Assuming that evolution has a goal.
Who said anything about goals? It’s about an opportunity, give modern-day microbes some time, random mutations, natural selection, and they would have a chance to be elephants or possibly humans with the ability to think and have goals (not all humans can). Wish them luck.
 

LIIA

Well-Known Member
By definition mutations are "NEW GENETIC CODE". You really make this too easy.
No, that is oversimplification. Change in DNA sequence is not equal to new genes. Mutation creates slightly different versions of the same genes, called alleles. Not new genes. New information (that is required for the evolution of new families, phyla or genera, i.e. macroevolution) is necessarily new genes not merely gene variants/alleles (of the same genes). Mutations are mostly rare duplication errors that cause genetic disease not favorable trait.

What is Mutation? (utah.edu)

Mutation (genome.gov)
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
No, that is oversimplification. Change in DNA sequence is not equal to new genes. Mutation creates slightly different versions of the same genes, called alleles. Not new genes. New information (that is required for the evolution of new families, phyla or genera, i.e. macroevolution) is necessarily new genes not merely gene variants/alleles (of the same genes). Mutations are mostly rare duplication errors that cause genetic disease not favorable trait.

What is Mutation? (utah.edu)

Mutation (genome.gov)
You did not say "new genes". You said " new genetic information ". And of course like all creationists you cannot deal with natural selection and variation running at the same time. So you had to deny all new information. Once we have new information (which is the product of variation) then natural selection picks out what works best in the current environment. That is how new genes arise. Just small steps of improvement. The changes that don't work as well do not reproduce as well and are buried by the positive changes. That is probably obvious even to you, which is why you probably made the false claim of " no new information ".
 
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