AN opportunity for the religious to provide their evidence

[bluehillside Retd.]

Hi Wiggs,

Blue - thanks for that.   I was struggling to formulate this error, but you have done it perfectly.   AB assumes that evolution has a goal, and the goal is humans.   This in itself produces a circular argument, since goals are always intelligent, which is what AB is trying to show. 

Once he assumes that humans are the goal, then he can describe various improbabilities.

It is a bit like the deck of cards.  If I am dealt 13 spades in a bridge game,  I can marvel at the improbability, but as we know, if you deal out four hands of cards, each hand is improbable, and each hand actually occurs, but not as a goal.

Similarly, my own birth is very improbable, if you compute all the generations which led up to me, but of course, I was not the goal, but the (accidental) end-point! 

Just to add that AB conceals this idea of a goal, typical of his dishonest arguments.

Thank you. Yes, I was waiting for the circularity of, "but how do you know that there wasn't a god with a set of blueprints?" when he's using his (mis)understanding of evolution to try to demonstrate this god in the first place.

Yes too re the deck of cards analogy - any hand of 52 dealt randomly will produce a fantastically unlikely outcome ("52 factorial"), yet those outcomes happen all the time. The mistake is to think that any one sequence of 52 was an intended goal. My frustration with AB is that he seems not even to understand the argument, so keeps returning over and over again to, "yes, but how unlikely is it that it all led to me?" as if that's in some way relevant.

Ah well.

     

[bluehillside Retd.]

Wiggs,

My wife just pointed out that just as a dealt sequence of 52 playing cards is almost certainly going to be unique, since there are so many possible sequences, so humans are never identical (except twins), since the combinations are so many.   Of course, none of them are intended, unless you are dealing off the bottom of the pack.

Snap!

(Do you see what I did there?  )

[wigginhall]

There used to be an old example of driving.   If you are driving on the motorway, what are the odds that the group of cars around you have occurred together?   Well, subtract the occasions when you are out with friends in a group, but normally the odds are very large.   A miracle!

In other words, the highly improbable occurs all the time.   

I think the old example with cards was that if millions of people had started shuffling decks of cards when the big bang happened, they still wouldn't have repeated a sequence today.    Miracle!

[Walter]

do you know what would be a  miracle ?
AB AND THE LIKE CAME BACK WITH
'I've been reading and thinking about your posts , and now I get it , I've had it all wrong all this time. How arrogant of me for thinking all those scientists who work in the field don't know what they are doing .Now I understand I shall stop these futile back to front arguments and join you in celebrating the natural world with my eyes fully open. thank you, thank you so much.'

[jeremyp]

My wife just pointed out that just as a dealt sequence of 52 playing cards is almost certainly going to be unique, since there are so many possible sequences, so humans are never identical (except twins), since the combinations are so many.   Of course, none of them are intended, unless you are dealing off the bottom of the pack.

Actually, twins aren't identical. Even identical twins have different fingerprints.

Also, random mutations are extremely uncommon but there are so many base pairs in human DNA that if you sample the DNA of two identical twins, there is a good chance it will not be identical (because you are sampling cells that are a number of generations away from the original fertilised egg).

As for the playing card example, the probability of dealing thirteen spades to one player in a bridge game is low but it's four times higher than the probability that the top thirteen cards in the deck being spades. If I shuffle a deck and then examine it to see if I have 13 spades at the top and repeat until I do have 13 spades at the top, it's going to take a long time. The chance of getting it right is about 1/635,000,000,000.

Let's try a different process. I shuffle the cards and then I take another 100 decks and I arrange each one into the same order as my shuffled deck. I give the decks to Wigginhall and I say, one of these could have all the spades at the top.

Wigginhall examines all the decks and says "no, and, in fact, the decks aren't all the same so you must have made some mistakes in your arranging. However, I've measured the distance of each spade from the top of the deck for each pack and pack 53 is the best."

So I take pack 53 and I rearrange all the other packs and the original pack into the same order as pack 53.

Rinse and repeat. Gradually, the spades will migrate to the top of the best pack even though all the card position changes are completely random.

[SusanDoris]

#620 - #629 inc.

Thank you all for a sensible, satisfactory start to the week!*  It is so much more fulfilling not to be inhibited by and trapped in a belief in any God/god/s  because one has an understanding of hwhat reality is. I'm not going to add 'in my opinion', because I know what it is like to believe that a God is out there somewhere.

 &*(I couldn't read them yesterday because IE kept saying, 'This page can't be displayed.)

[Walter]

we have now reached #630

and still no evidence, I expected it to be easy for you. c'mom you can do better than that, surely?

[Alan Burns]

AB,

You fundamentally misunderstand how evolution works, and for that matter how the reference point error works too.

Imagine a single cell organism that copies its DNA as it self-replicates. Every now and then the copying will be imperfect, and mutations will occur. Often those mutations will be harmful or will have no effect, but sometimes they will be beneficial for subsequent generations. There's no-one there though with a set of blueprints hoping that one day the organism will evolve into albatrosses or sharks or people. Over time complexity builds and speciation occurs until we arrive at the flora and fauna we happen to observe today, but there's no reason to suppose that different organisms entirely wouldn't have emerged had the mutations and the environmental pressures been different.

This is where you keep going wrong. It's not that "every step" has to be just right for the end result to be little old you at all; rather it's that every step happened to produce you (and albatrosses and sharks) but could just as easily have produced different organisms entirely. Your problem is solipsism - you assume that all along you were the intended end product, then marvel at the unlikelihood of all the necessary intermediary steps happening by chance to get there.

This is the lottery winner's fallacy, or the reference point error. Until and unless you grasp that though, you'll continue to have it all ass-backwards.       

 

Just to clarify with you how evolution driven by natural selection is supposed to work.

Every component (bones, joints, muscles, organs)  in our bodies and the bodies of other creatures has been built up by many discrete mutations in the DNA blueprint.  The problem with natural selection is that every incremental discrete mutation involved in the process not only has to give benefit in its own right, it has to give sufficient benefit such that every other creature in the species without that mutation will become extinct, otherwise the beneficial mutation does not get passed on.  Can you not see the enormity of this requirement for each incremental mutation?  It goes far beyond any comparisons with decks of cards.  This is why I describe the process as crude, because it is just a fine tuning process, not a creative process.

Natural selection can explain why frogs with green skin survive better in the jungle than frogs with white skin, but it does not explain how the skin came into being, or the frog itself for that matter.

[Sebastian Toe]

Just to clarify with you how evolution driven by natural selection is supposed to work.

Every component (bones, joints, muscles, organs)  in our bodies and the bodies of other creatures has been built up by many discrete mutations in the DNA blueprint.  The problem with natural selection is that every incremental discrete mutation involved in the process not only has to give benefit in its own right, it has to give sufficient benefit such that every other creature in the species without that mutation will become extinct, otherwise the beneficial mutation does not get passed on.  Can you not see the enormity of this requirement for each incremental mutation?  It goes far beyond any comparisons with decks of cards.  This is why I describe the process as crude, because it is just a fine tuning process, not a creative process.

Natural selection can explain why frogs with green skin survive better in the jungle than frogs with white skin, but it does not explain how the skin came into being, or the frog itself for that matter.

Is your god still 'guiding' mutations in humans do you think or did he stop at some point in the past?
And when did he drop 'souls' into the mix?

[Maeght]

Just to clarify with you how evolution driven by natural selection is supposed to work.

Every component (bones, joints, muscles, organs)  in our bodies and the bodies of other creatures has been built up by many discrete mutations in the DNA blueprint.  The problem with natural selection is that every incremental discrete mutation involved in the process not only has to give benefit in its own right, it has to give sufficient benefit such that every other creature in the species without that mutation will become extinct, otherwise the beneficial mutation does not get passed on.  Can you not see the enormity of this requirement for each incremental mutation?  It goes far beyond any comparisons with decks of cards.  This is why I describe the process as crude, because it is just a fine tuning process, not a creative process.

Natural selection can explain why frogs with green skin survive better in the jungle than frogs with white skin, but it does not explain how the skin came into being, or the frog itself for that matter.

Alan, if a modification in DNA gives a benefit in terms of the survival of an individual organism in a particular environment  do you think this increases, decreases or has no effect on the likely hood of that modification being passed on?

[bluehillside Retd.]

Walter,

we have now reached #630

and still no evidence, I expected it to be easy for you. c'mom you can do better than that, surely?

I think the problem here isn't one of evidence (which, as NS reminds us, is a naturalistic concept in any case) but rather it's a problem of consistency. Several of the religious here will say something like, "there's plenty of evidence only you won't accept it". That only works though if you stretch the term "evidence" so thinly that you cannot deny the claims of anyone else about anything else when they use the same definitions of it. "I really think I experienced God" for example applies just as well for, "I really think I experienced (add name of supernatural something here)", yet those who think they do experience a "true for you too" God deny that others have experienced their different "true for you too" entities when they use the same approach.

That for me is the paradox of those who think they have evidence for God. Having set the evidence bar so low, how then would they deny qualitatively the same types of evidence for those who believe in different gods, or for that matter in leprechauns?

And that leaves them with two options: accept as equally true any other claim that uses the same definition of "evidence"; or apply a double standard of, "OK, it's evidence for my god but not for anything else". Neither seems sustainable to me.

 

     

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

First, why have you just ignored the rebuttal of your basic mistake of thinking that evolution is directed toward pre-determined goals, and thus that arriving there by chance over-stretches your personal credulity?

Just to clarify with you how evolution driven by natural selection is supposed to work.

Every component (bones, joints, muscles, organs)  in our bodies and the bodies of other creatures has been built up by many discrete mutations in the DNA blueprint.  The problem with natural selection is that every incremental discrete mutation involved in the process not only has to give benefit in its own right, it has to give sufficient benefit such that every other creature in the species without that mutation will become extinct, otherwise the beneficial mutation does not get passed on.  Can you not see the enormity of this requirement for each incremental mutation?  It goes far beyond any comparisons with decks of cards.

Second, you need to understand the concepts of inheritance, and of dominant and recessive genes. Advantageous mutations will tend to be inherited and thus become embedded in the phenotype, and when interbreeding occurs between those with and without the mutation dominance and recession will occur such that the dominant characteristic (brown eyes for example) will tend to eliminate the recessive one (blue eyes for example). 

This has been known and observed since Mendel’s experiments with pea plants in the 1860s, and you have no excuse for not understanding it now.   

This is why I describe the process as crude, because it is just a fine tuning process, not a creative process.

And the arguments you’ve just ignored tell you why you’re wrong about that.

Natural selection can explain why frogs with green skin survive better in the jungle than frogs with white skin, but it does not explain how the skin came into being,…

Yes it does: mutation.

…or the frog itself for that matter.

Yes it does: by placing frogs in their correct position in the history of life.

[Walter]

Blue
it strikes me from what I've read on here and people I've met, that there is something more fundamental going on.
I used to have similar conversations with a born again Christian who id known for 45 years.  His level of understanding how ANYTHING worked was  frightening. We were at grammar school together and when the time came to choose ARTS or SCIENCE
he went with arts , you can guess what I chose.

Two different ways of thinking were evident and I think that's what's going on here . Some people will never have the capacity for critical thinking no matter how much evidence there is against what they believe to be true because they simply cant see where they are going wrong.

[SusanDoris]

Two different ways of thinking were evident and I think that's what's going on here . Some people will never have the capacity for critical thinking no matter how much evidence there is against what they believe to be true because they simply cant see where they are going wrong.

For individuals, yes, but I think there is hope! The achievements of scientists in medicine and technology are being used and accepted as something we can more or less take for granted everywhere, so that some day there will be an awareness  by a majority that Science is more reliable than god beliefs. 

[Walter]

For individuals, yes, but I think there is hope! The achievements of scientists in medicine and technology are being used and accepted as something we can more or less take for granted everywhere, so that some day there will be an awareness  by a majority that Science is more reliable than god beliefs.

You could liken it to colour blindness . them that can't see red can't see red no matter how many times I tell em.

[Alan Burns]

AB,

First, why have you just ignored the rebuttal of your basic mistake of thinking that evolution is directed toward pre-determined goals, and thus that arriving there by chance over-stretches your personal credulity?

Because I see every component of the human body, animal body, plants, flowers, trees etc as pre determined goals needed to achieve the wonderful abundance of life as we know it.

Second, you need to understand the concepts of inheritance, and of dominant and recessive genes. Advantageous mutations will tend to be inherited and thus become embedded in the phenotype, and when interbreeding occurs between those with and without the mutation dominance and recession will occur such that the dominant characteristic (brown eyes for example) will tend to eliminate the recessive one (blue eyes for example). 

This has been known and observed since Mendel’s experiments with pea plants in the 1860s, and you have no excuse for not understanding it now.   

But these facts do not alter the requirement for each incremental mutation needed for all the components of our bodies to be passed on by natural selection, requiring the extinction of creatures without the incremental mutation.  Your phrase "Advantageous mutations will tend to be inherited" can only be true if each advantageous mutation can give sufficient benefit to avoid extinction.

[Sebastian Toe]

Because I see every component of the human body, animal body, plants, flowers, trees etc as pre determined goals needed to achieve the wonderful abundance of life as we know it.But these facts do not alter the requirement for each incremental mutation needed for all the components of our bodies to be passed on by natural selection, requiring the extinction of creatures without the incremental mutation.  Your phrase "Advantageous mutations will tend to be inherited" can only be true if each advantageous mutation can give sufficient benefit to avoid extinction.

How do you think that God ' guided' evolution then?

[Alan Burns]

Is your god still 'guiding' mutations in humans do you think or did he stop at some point in the past?

I do not presume to know what God has in store for future generations.

And when did he drop 'souls' into the mix?

When people started to have the ability to believe in Him.

[Alan Burns]

Alan, if a modification in DNA gives a benefit in terms of the survival of an individual organism in a particular environment  do you think this increases, decreases or has no effect on the likely hood of that modification being passed on?

The key word is "survival".  For beneficial mutations to be passed on, each one needs to increase the chance of survival against those creatures without the mutation.

[Alan Burns]

How do you think that God ' guided' evolution then?

By the same power that humans have to use their gift of free will to guide natural forces, thus interacting with the otherwise deterministic nature of our universe.

[Nearly Sane]

By the same power that humans have to use their gift of free will to guide natural forces, thus interacting with the otherwise deterministic nature of our universe.

so that would be another outing for the Bulgarian striker, Fuctivanov

[Walter]

so that would be another outing for the Bulgarian stricker, Fuctivanov

and his team mate Fuctifyno

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Because I see every component of the human body, animal body, plants, flowers, trees etc as pre determined goals needed to achieve the wonderful abundance of life as we know it.

No doubt you do “see” that, but it completely destroys your argument. On the one hand you attempt you use your incredulity about the unlikelihood of evolution achieving the diversity of observable life in order to imply “God”, while at the same time on the other hand you posit a god to have intended there to be a “wonderful abundance of life” in the first place.

That’s called circular reasoning – each premise depends on the other for its validity – and it’s a basic logical fallacy. 
   

But these facts do not alter the requirement for each incremental mutation needed for all the components of our bodies to be passed on by natural selection, requiring the extinction of creatures without the incremental mutation.

It doesn’t require their extinction at all. Sometimes species become extinct for a variety of reasons, one of which can be that a daughter species is better adapted to compete for limited resources. There are though countless examples of species that have evolved from predecessor species without the parent species becoming extinct at all.
 

Your phrase "Advantageous mutations will tend to be inherited" can only be true if each advantageous mutation can give sufficient benefit to avoid extinction.

No, there are lots of reasons for avoiding extinction just as there have been lots of advantageous adaptations in species that have nonetheless become extinct.

Your ignorance of basic logic and of the subject you presume to critique is doing you no favours here.

[ekim]

You could liken it to colour blindness . them that can't see red can't see red no matter how many times I tell em.

Alan could say the same thing though .... You could liken it to colour blindness . them that can't see God can't see God no matter how many times I tell em.

[Owlswing]

Alan could say the same thing though .... You could liken it to colour blindness . them that can't see God can't see God no matter how many times I tell em.

Of course they can't see him - immortal invisible - isn't that what the hymn says?