Whitecoast, I think your attitude here, culminating in the response to Gaby, is just jaw-dropping. And even the praise you give me is so condescending: "Luc at least tried to debunk me, although he of course failed, while you Gaby are just too afraid of my crushing intellect to try, muahaha". Not a nice interpretation to be sure, but this was the feeling I got from your posts. But nope, this hyper-intellectualizing, nitpicking, and combatitiveness doesn't make you smart. Your responses here are, IMO, poster-childs of Dunning-Kruger, incoherent drivel, running in circles, recourse to authority, and simplistic thinking. I will try once more to respond to your debunking efforts, although judging by your recent attitude, I'm not holding my breath. (Efforts that, by the way, have a similar flavor to those of militant atheists, pro-vaxers or pro-climate changers who love to argue you to death online with their twisting, hairsplitting and crazy-making incapability to follow your reasoning). Because obviously, there is something else going on here.
Well yeah, that IS how science works. You test falsifiable hypotheses and try and develop alternatives or elaborations if it requires improvement or needs to be discarded altogether if it explains nothing. The increase in nuance in the field of evolutionary biology is indicative of the science’s iterative process actually progressing. Of course that doesn’t mean there aren’t times when whole complexes of theories and explanations get scrapped in favor of something better, like in the Copernican Revolution.
Which goes to show that you have never, ever seriously thought about these issues. You are just buying Scientism: the orthodox ideology and worship of the "scientific method", without having the slightest clue about what that actually means. Hint: you gotta think hard, and read good philosophy, and then think harder, to find out. Start with Collingwood. And read SAO's post above, where he puts his finger on one of the many issues most scientists have no understanding of whatsoever because they refuse to think hard about their assumptions and what this magical "scientific methodology" is and isn't and can and cannot be.
I definitely think that is the case with many, while others simply may not have heard the ID arguments or studied them or their implications properly. But whatever the legitimate reasons for neodarwinism (ND) being false, it isn't for the reasons Stove brought up, as far as I can tell.
Good that you had the humility to add "as far as I can tell", because as far as I'm concerned, you can't.
Although I've done my best in talking about some aspects of it in this thread, I don't trust myself to have all the details down. I would leave that to the professionals who write textbooks on evolutionary ecology and the like. The wiki articles can provide some good sources on k/K theory, inclusive fitness, as well as a good foundation in ecology as well.
JESUS! "Ah, let's leave climate change to the experts; although it doesn't seem to make any sense whatsoever, they sure must know what they're doing. Nothing to see here." Seriously!? Every child with some common sense can see that Darwinism (or climate change) doesn't add up, even on the very surface level. But indoctrination goes a long way and runs very deep.
Natural as in non-ID. Hope that helps.
No, it doesn't help, and again shows that you have never thought deeply about these things. You must define your propositions precisely and form a coherent and comprehensive argument. Then you would notice, for example, that if "natural" means "random", the whole thing collapses. If "natural" means "non-random", then this means there is information infused somewhere, somehow. Which would render Darwinism false. If "natural" just means "materialistic", then you are not explaining anything, because you would still need to tell us how evolution is possible in a materialistic universe, the very thing your theory is supposed to explain in the first place. And so on. If you want to get your thinking straight, you need to get your propositions straight!
I wouldn’t say I’m identified with materialist ND. I believe in ID based on my research. And I have been doing my best to make an effort to understand Stove’s views. But if you’re going to suggest I have some selection-and-substitution going on, or that I have pathological thoughts, I would like to hear evidence in support of your view.
"Evidence! Evidence!", cries the atheist... What more evidence would you require? And how to get you to accept it? And what's your definition of "evidence" anyway? Us designing a lab experiment whose results falsify your theory that you cannot possibly have huge gaps in your understanding?
The mechanism of ND evolution (mutation + natural selection) works at whatever pace its inputs allow, slow or fast. If there's far less selection pressure (say, if the environment was actually agreeable and resources were plentiful and the population stayed within carrying capacity) then there simply isn't any need for evolution from an objective standpoint to even change the population. Since k-selective species support one of those requirements (not reproducing crazily) they are both theorized to, and have been observed to, evolve more slowly than r-selective.
Slowly, as in "evolution could never produce anything significant" slowly? Slowly, as in "the whole theory collapses because the numbers don't add up in any way, shape or form" slowly? Sure!
(Besides, for God's sake, have you read this thread? Darwinian evolution is completely impossible for dozens of reasons! Why are you defending something that has been shown again and again cannot possibly work, and doesn't?)
If you develop a hypothesis or theory that explains maybe 60% of the variance that is seen in nature, that’s still better than having no clue why things are the way they are. But if I were Stove I could just find an example of an object that happens to be part of the 40% and go, “See? Theory falsified”. But that is fallacious because that doesn’t nullify the 60% that was explained.
You just repeat the dogmas with no understanding. And you are contradictory: earlier you talk about "falsifiability" (in and of itself a problematic concept btw). But now you say that if a theory is falsified by an observation that contradicts it, you still accept it - only 60% perhaps. Oh my.
But more to the point, a theory that predicts complete, obvious, utter nonsense
should be questioned, to say the least. There's also the issue philosophers of science call the "scope" of a theory: the larger the scope, the more likely it is to be wrong. And Darwin's theory has an incredibly large scope. If Darwin had just said "look, in certain very limited circumstances, random variation and natural selection could produce this or that specific observable effect", no problem! But alas, he didn't; it woud be useless for the materialist devils anyway if he had framed it that way. His schizoidal mind wanted to explain the whole emergence of complex life! All of it! And that is the reason it leads to such utterly ridiculous predictions, like the ones Stove rightly calls Darwinists out on.
It just shows a lack of understanding of the field and the other behavioral forces at play. If biology doesn’t explain something currently, that doesn’t mean what CAN be understood is necessarily false. That kind of demand or standard is roughly akin to demanding all historical events be explainable in terms of sociology, ponerology, dialectics, marxism, Thule Society mysticism, etc.
Same old "if the theory doesn't make any sense, it's just because science hasn't progressed enough". No. If the very assumptions don't make any sense, the whole argument collapses, period. And no "evidence" (define, please!) could save it. And thanks for bringing up Marxism: it's a good example of how this works. You come up with a theory that in your pathological view you think should "explain everything", and then you wonder why it doesn't explain tons of things; in fact you would have to violently change the world to make it fit your theory, which you then set out to do. Or you add nonsensical "sophistication" to make it seem as if it works, producing tons of contradictions, vagueness, and "flexible redefinitions" in the process. Darwinism is the same. And if you still cannot grasp philosophical arguments, what about this: the more science progresses, the
less Darwinism can explain!
Side note: You again pulled off the old trick of substituting words to make your argument sound plausible. In this case you talk about "biology" instead of Darwinism, which is something completely different!! Biology existed long before Darwinism, and frankly, we should go back there in terms of assumptions. Biology would be much better off; progress in biology, it seems to me, is done
despite Darwinist ideology, not because of it. So: biology may very well explain tons of things; but Darwinism is still dead wrong.
It isn't contradictory to say that two different people who disagree on one point can agree on another for different reasons and for different agendas. I am referring to how some ND proponents and some ID proponents say that ND = selfishness and non-altruism in organisms. I dislike them both. As per Hume, you cannot derive prescriptive statements from descriptive ones, which is what they're doing.
Vague. You need to get your propositions straight. It's not easy to interpret your thinking (and maybe you like it that way), but let's make an attempt to formulate your argument coherently:
1. Guys like Dawkins misinterpret neo-Darwinism as implying negative ethical outcomes, such as selfishness.
2. Some IDers similarily misinterpret neo-Darwinism as implying negative ethical outcomes.
3. Both are wrong, because in reality, neo-Darwinism doesn't imply that.
4. Now IDers - wrongly - accuse neo-Darwinians of generating negative ethical consequences.
5. But even though the IDers are wrong factually, in their misunderstanding, they cannot critizise Darwinism for its (non-existing) bad ethical implications, because something being ethically wrong doesn't make it factually wrong (Hume's is-ought problem).
Okay. Problem: if neo-Darwinism doesn't have negative ethical consequences, then the is-out problem is just irrelevant to the question at hand; your bringing in of IDers is just a diversion. If, on the other hand, neo-Darwinsm DOES have negative ethical consequences, and the SOLE opposition to Darwinism comes from ethical considerations, you would be justified to bring up the is-ought problem.
But: For one thing, we KNOW that neo-Darwinism is dead-wrong, see this thread and the recommended books. This means that those who advance the theory, against all evidence, could be said to have a neferious agenda, IF there are negative ethical implications. In that case, the criticism of the IDers seems somewhat justified - even though that alone wouldn't show that neo-Darwinism is wrong. Now, the question is: does Darwinism have bad ethical consequences? I think the answer is crystal-clear: yes, a lot, a whole, whole lot. We have talked about some of it here, so I won't repeat it.
Heck, here's another way to circumvent the Is-ought problem, Hume be damned:
(a) As per Political Ponerology, schizoidal theories always over-generalize certain narrow principles.
(b) As per PP, schizoidal theories always are, as a whole, wrong.
(c) As per PP, these theories always lead to bad moral consequences.
--
(d) Darwinism is a theory that over-generalizes certain narrow principles.
(e) Darwinism leads to bad moral consequences.
Conclusion: Darwinism is schizoidal and wrong.
(Just put this here from the top of my head; you can check the logic if you are so inclined, and report possible errors.)
You can say that, but you do imply the opposite a lot by saying that ND would destroy an adaptive tendency toward cooperation in an organism (and there’s no logical reason to even think such, as I explained earlier). You demonstrate it here: “some ridiculous argument that 'altruistic behavior' was a good thing for the tribe and therefore we have it” (implying that altruism is not selected for and therefore is not a good strategy). And here: “In the [materialist] view, why would you not cheat and act selfish and lie and scheme whenever you can get away with it? It will pay off, after all!” (Sometimes it can, but often it doesn’t, as JBP or Samenow stress in their books about crime and cheating not paying off long-term.) For what it's worth.
Where to begin? First, if you have a society of non-altruists, a new arriving altruist will always lose. It cannot be selected for in the Darwinian way. Of course, if you bring in consciousness, the picture completely changes. But that is NOT what materialist Darwinian dogma is all about. You make the error of referring to the macro world, a world obviously shaped by consciousness. Of course altruism works here. But you'll have a hard time explaining how this came about in the Darwinian framework of "surviving and reproducing". Evidence for that is that sociobiologists really DO wonder why people don't "maim and kill" their competition, always and everywhere, if they can get away with it. Or how it is even possible that a society formed that makes it so that they can't get away with it. Talk about a psychopathic world view!
Put another way: in the Darwinian world, there are no altruists. Only individual organisms trying to survive and reproduce as much as possible. They don't care at all about their species! So how could a "natural variation" that is altruistic survive in that environment? So: either you assume that altruism was there all along, which renders Darwinism false. Or you assume that it came into being by some other means than the Darwinian mechanism, perhaps consciousness, perhaps an intelligence putting it there etc., which again, renders Darwinism false.
The only way out for the Darwinian would be to say that a whole bunch of altruists came into being via mutation at once, at the same time and place; then they formed a group of altruists and were better able to survive. To call that scenario "unlikely" is giving it too much credit; "impossible" might fit better. So the burden of proof is on you: what, exactly, precisely, was the evolutionary pathway here? What genes were altered, exactly? How did that produce altruism? What are the odds? What were the different stages? How could the first stage - a mild altruism, let's say - be of any benefit? If it was full-blown altruism all at once, how is this possible? How did the organisms profit from it, like, precisely? Etc.
As for JBP, that doesn't fly either. JBP sometimes refers to evolutionary arguments - and more power to him, because he frames important questions in ways people can relate to without shutting down because of their indoctriniation. But his thinking as a whole is decisively non-Darwinian. His argument about a "repeated set of games", "stacking of things that are good for you, your family and your community" and such are a way to tell people why a GOOD life is worth living. Good life as the ancients understood it: a virtuous life in accordance with natural, even God-given laws. THAT's why people resonate with his message. It is not some utilitaristic argument about how you will make more money or have more friends if you don't lie and cheat. It's a spiritual argument.
Besides, even if you cynically and wrongly see JBP's arguments as purely utilitaristic, one thing he certainly doesn't say: that following his rules will just maximize your chances of survival and maximize your healthy offspring.
That is Darwinism. Again, Darwinism is not about "thriving", about the "good life" or anything like that. Just survival and maximizing offspring. JBP's message completely flies in the face of this; his recommending the path of the hero is just the most obvious example, as is his emphasis on meaning.
Side note: one thing you cannot do here is redefining Darwinism to mean something altogether different. Unfourtunately, those possessed by this ideology do it all the time. For example, in the context of JBP, someone might say "we have evolved to have meaning and strive towards the higher". But this is just another way of saying "we are what we are". Might as well be God who put this in us. Because this use of the word "evolve" has nothing to do with Darwinism whatsoever. Same if someone says "if you act that way, you fulfil your potential, as evolution has intended it" or anything like that. It's all nonsense, substituting words and playing mind tricks.
Let me put this question to you. Say the universe really was just all materialism. Would you actually start going out and preoccupying yourself with burglary and murder? Whether you are a product of ID or ND, you are still you, with your biological imperatives, culturally acquired behaviors and beliefs, and your personal decisions.
No, if I have culturally acquired beliefs and Free Will, then Darwinism, insofar as it is used to support materialist dogma, is false. Because you sneak in the world of consciousness here. And if the world of consciousness and Free Will are real now, then why wasn't it real throughout evolution, which would completely unhinge the Darwinian assumptions? Ah yes, it must just be an "emergence" of matter, just "selfish genes manipulating us" etc.
Whether the DNA inside of you was put there through design, or all of it accrued through random mutation, you’re still you and cannot defy your own nature and the potentiality of that nature. You still are the person who (let’s hope) exudes love and fairness and loyalty and respect and responsibility, and who feels on some level an impulse to fulfill those things.
But alas, I don't. Look: either I have free will, or I do not. If I have, then I'm not 100% controlled by my "own nature", whether selfish or altruistic. That means in every situation I can decide which path to take, no matter my "own nature". But the belief that I just came into existence by "random mutation", and the whole package that is usually sold with it (God doesn't exist, there is nothing higher, there is only matter and no mind, etc.), then I just revert to my default mode of behavior. Perhaps this default mode is "altruistic" in some way, so that's good. But it would still completely halt my spiritual development. I wouldn't change - just acting in accordance with my "own nature". Even worse: we know that in this world we are "programmed" to be on the wrong track, so our default mode is actually detrimental.
This also jives with my own experience - I guess I speak for many formerly atheist-materialist members when I say that the very idea that there is something higher going on, something more than pure materialism and purposeless evolution, completely changed my life and blasted my heart open. This was when I first stumbled upon the material here. Perhaps your path was different though.
On the other hand you may not be predisposed to all those lofty sentiments. In this universe of ID, there are also psychopaths designed by STS. By bringing that into the loop you’re forced to consider the possibility that even the psychopaths sending millions to mass graves in the 20th century were just carrying out a “higher purpose” if ID is true.
What's your point? Those 20th century massacres were committed by militant atheists who didn't believe in anything higher (and if they sometimes said they did, they certainly didn't act as if they did). Which strengthens my argument.
According to a few cursory internet searches there are a lot more theistic biologists (percentage-wise) than theistic philosophers. Do with that information what you will.
Which is: nothing. Because you talk about theism, however you define that and whoever was questioned here (remember, get your propositions straight!), whereas I talked about Scientism's hatred for philosophy. Just let me point out that if you have never heard a stubborn and indoctrinated scientist say something like "oh, those philosophers, that's just lofty nonsense. What do they know! We are doing real science here, we don't need these fools", then you really haven't paid attention. Or more likely, you have always bought their worldview anyway and never confronted them with philosophical arguments.
I do have trust in the process, and am able to change my mind. And I do feel that that runs both ways here successfully, which is why I feel like I can share long posts here which may not exactly "fit" the consensus of some here. Worst case scenario is I learn something,
correct some beliefs, and maybe feel a bit silly for a bit, but so what?
Interesting you put it that way. Maybe you should reverse it: "Maybe my beliefs are corrected, and people learn something"...
) I don't get a chance to go in discussion and have opportunity to see how much I don't know. To get feedback from people who KNOW is blessing. Also, I don't see any reason why someone wants to keep his false convictions, that's just simply it's not very clever.
