Warren piece

I enjoy David Warren's incisive and sardonic social critiques, even if he is sometimes too pessimistic for my taste. (When it comes to the long-term future of our society, I am no optimist, but Warren can be downright lugubrious.) Warren is an unapologetic conservative and religionist who is profoundly unimpressed by the rising tide of secularism, materialism, and narcissism. He's the sort of fearless curmudgeon who can opine that there is more empirical evidence for the miracle at Lourdes than there is for macroevolution by means of natural selection - as he did in an essay on Darwin that undoubtedly raised many hackles.

And then there's his piece on global warming which came out just the other day. Warren is a skeptic of manmade global warming, as am I. But that's not really the interesting part of his essay. What's interesting is his take on modern science itself:

The various systems of peer-review -- which emerged with a vengeance after the Second World War, and have continued to mutate into something that would have sunk almost every major scientific advance in previous history -- have themselves become deeply corrupted. What was intended at first as an administrative mechanism to reduce the amount of sheer flakery in scientific journals has become a policing system to enforce scientific orthodoxy.

And the problem with that is, there can be no such thing as scientific orthodoxy. Free empirical enquiry includes testing the premises as well as the results; and for skeptics, a perpetual open season on both.

Nor was science traditionally the monopoly of a credentialed class. Once again, it must be stressed that major advances in all the sciences have as often come from rank amateurs as from seasoned professionals.

Nor is it surprising that this should be so, for the ability to see questions whole, to apply logic and even common sense dispassionately, is hardly restricted to those who are coagulated into the specialized details of a subject.

That's good stuff.

Comments

[william]

“The hard-core Darwinist is a "religious atheist," whose faith in the non-existence of God”

Well stated. And the hard core Darwinist is as much an evangelical as the evangelical Christian. And what is of interest to me is that they don’t have a clue they are zealots.

“Darwin's contribution was the mechanism of natural (and later, sexual) selection. This mechanism was simultaneously proposed by Alfred Russel Wallace, a true genius who made many other signal observations and discoveries”

Wallace came out in favor of spiritualism, which I am sure the hard core Darwinists often fails to discuss. If my memory serves me right Wallace may have purposed natural selection before Darwin.

“But "survival of the fittest" was quickly accepted as "settled science" by the Victorian liberal establishment,”

Darwin in at least his first book on origin of the species did not state survival of the fittest someone else coined that phrase. We have reached a point in America where a person either has to be a bible thumper or a Darwinist atheist.

“That everything in this world that looks designed and purposeful will eventually be explained by random, gradual, purely "natural" (as opposed to supernatural) processes.”

Isn’t it interesting that the atheists believe that Darwinism is an absolute fact with the evidence they have? A little known fact; both examples used in the scopes monkey trial were later found to be one out and out fraud and the other not an example of natural selection.

Maybe natural is indeed supernatural processes. I suspect that natural has an underlying cause or reality and what we call that reality can have many names.

David Warren makes an excellent point with his article “those bus ads”. If the atheists have a desire to change the thoughts of those that are on the fence of a god/no god dilemma they would do better by providing a model to follow rather than put on buses there is no god. Ok “there probably is no god”. Their only model now is we atheists alone are free thinkers and the rest of you are dumber than dumb and irrational. I.e. they tend to be arrogant which tends to be no ideal model to follow.

“The poor, harassed creature may only have time to think in traffic jams. And now, thanks to the Freethought Association of Canada, he can think about God.”

Brilliant insights and humorous at least to me. Would this be an example of ironic?

[Zerdini]

An atheist is a person who has no invisible means of support. lol

He's the sort of fearless curmudgeon who can opine that there is more empirical evidence for the miracle at Lourdes than there is for macroevolution by means of natural selection - as he did in an essay on Darwin that undoubtedly raised many hackles.

What is interesting about belief in natural selection is that there are no experiments to prove it. Evidence for natural selection is said to come from observations of fossils, comparitive anatomy, and developmental anatomy. Belief in natural selection is therefore based on cognitive bias: natural selection is assumed to be true because it fits nicely with the view that evolution should be compatible with known laws of science.

Cognitive bias, and lack of controlled experiments are among the biggest criticisms of evidence for the afterlife.

Yet belief in natural selection is not based on experiments and is based on cognitive bias.

This does not mean natural selection should be rejected. It means that the afterlife should be considered.

The evidence for the afterlife is based on very strong evidence. The cross correspondences are one example. Spirits have communicated parts of messages through different mediums. When combined, these partial messages produce a complete message. The messages contained very specialized knowledge known to the spirit and were communicated spontaneously, not at the request of any living person. These messages show that the spirit lives on after the death of the body, retains knowledge from its earth life, and continues to have the ability to initiate, organize, and carry out complex activities.

[Leo]

Anyone see this youtube video by Astrophysicist Niel Degrasse Tyson he presents what he sees as " stupid design".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRXlIcKgXKg

First he mentions the universe

That most planet orbits are unstable
Less than 3 percent of a gas cloud makes a star
Most places kill life instantly -heat-radiation-cold
Galaxy orbits brings you near a supernova
Collide with Andromeda
One-way universe will wind down to oblivion

Then goes on about earth

Can't live on 2/3 of its surface
90 percent of all life that ever lived is now extinct
Inner solar system is a shooting gallery

Humans

Can't detect magnetic fields, ionizing radiation fields, Radon Co, CH4 CO2

These gases at the bottom you breathe them, smell them , taste them your dead.

Exhale most of oxygen we inhale

Narrow view of eletromagnetic spectrum

Agressive childhood lukemia, hemophila, sickle cell anemia, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, parkinsons, als.

Vision loss with age, teeth fall out, alzheimers, prostate cancer.

Practically comatose for 1/3 of our lives.

Birth defects- 150,000 per year in usa

Warm blooded must eat constantly compared with crockodiles.

Finally we humans eat, drink and breathe through the same hole in your body. Promising that some percent of us will choke to death every year.

[Michael H]

The bit on Darwin reminded me of a comment in Mohrhoff's review of The Devil's Delusion (AntiMatters):

"If Darwin’s theory of evolution has little to contribute to the content of the sciences, it has much to offer their ideology.

"It serves as the creation myth of our time, assigning properties to nature previously assigned to God. It thus demands an especially ardent form of advocacy. In this regard, Daniel Dennett, like Mexican food, does not fail to come up long after he has gone down. “Contemporary biology,” he writes, “has demonstrated beyond all reasonable doubt that natural selection — the process in which reproducing entities must compete for finite resources and thereby engage in a tournament of blind trial and error from which improvements automatically emerge — has the power to generate breathtakingly ingenious designs.”

"These remarks are typical in their self-enchanted self-confidence. Nothing in the physical sciences, it goes without saying — right? — has been demonstrated beyond all reasonable doubt. The phrase belongs to a court of law. . . .

"The greater part of the debate over Darwin’s theory is not in service to the facts. Nor to the theory. The facts are what they have always been: They are unforthcoming. And the theory is what it always was: It is unpersuasive. Among evolutionary biologists, these matters are well known. In the privacy of the Susan B. Anthony faculty lounge, they often tell one another with relief that it is a very good thing the public has no idea what the research literature really suggests. “Darwin?” a Nobel laureate in biology once re-marked to me over his bifocals. “That’s just the party line.”

"In the summer of 2007, Eugene Koonin, of the National Center for Biotechnology Information at the National Institutes of Health, published a paper entitled “The Biological Big Bang Model for the Major Transitions in Evolution.”

“Major transitions in biological evolution,” Koonin writes, “show the same pattern of sudden emergence of diverse forms at a new level of complexity”.

"Major transitions in biological evolution? These are precisely the transitions that Darwin’s theory was intended to explain. . . . “ The relationships between major groups within an emergent new class of biological entities,” Koonin goes on to say, “are hard to decipher and do not seem to fit the tree pattern that, following Darwin’s original proposal, remains the dominant description of biological evolution.” The facts that fall out-side the margins of Darwin’s theory include “the origin of complex RNA molecules and protein folds; major groups of viruses; archaea and bacteria, and the principal lineages within each of these prokaryotic domains; eukaryotic supergroups; and animal phyla.” That is, pretty much everything. . . .

“In each of these pivotal nexuses in life’s history,” he goes on to say, “the principal ‘types’ seem to appear rapidly and fully equipped with the signature features of the respective new level of biological organization. No intermediate ‘grades’ or intermediate forms between different types are detectable.” (192–193)

"Yet it has been

"by an appeal to those intermediate forms that a very considerable ideology has been created. To doubt their existence is to stand self-accused. To go further and suggest that they are, in fact, imaginary evokes a frenzy of fearful contempt so considerable as to make civilized discourse impossible. Koonin’s views do not represent the views of the Darwinian establishment. If they did, there would be no Darwinian establishment. They are not uncontested. And it may well be that they are exaggerated. Koonin is nonetheless both a serious biologist and a man not well known for a disposition to self-immolation.

"It is in this context that Daniel Dennett’s assertion that natural selection has been demonstrated “beyond all reasonable doubt” must be judged for what it is: It is the ecclesiastical bull of a most peculiar church, a cousin in kind to an ecclesiastical bluff. When Steven Pinker affirms that “natural selection is the only explanation we have of how complex life can evolve, he is very much in the inadvertent position of the apostles. Much against his will, he is bearing witness.

"In all this, it is the reaction among the faithful that provokes no surprise. Within minutes of the publication of Koonin’s paper, a call for censorship went up over the Internet. . . . Whatever the degree to which Darwin may have “misled science into a dead end,” the biologist Shi V. Liu observed in commenting on Koonin’s paper, “we may still appreciate the role of Darwin in helping scientists [win an] upper hand in fighting against the creationists.”

To go further and suggest that they are, in fact, imaginary evokes a frenzy of fearful contempt so considerable as to make civilized discourse impossible. At the same time, observe the frenzied, fearful contempt that's evoked if someone suggests, in certain circles, that a given definition of God is imaginary. Yet, this is the psychological environment in which the current evolution debate is being waged.

I'd suggest that the truth on this issue won't be forthcoming until participants on each side begin to discover some serious humility - at which point the answers will emerge from a currently unanticipated third option.

[Art]

Anyone see this youtube video by Astrophysicist Niel Degrasse Tyson he presents what he sees as " stupid design". - Leo
-------------------------------------------

There is a deeper spiritual reason why bad things happen. It teaches the soul duality and separation and/or it imprints on the soul the physical parameters of body, what it's like to live in a 3 dimensional + 1 time universee. There is no separation in heaven and time and space don't exist there so in order to learn about those things the soul has to first spend some time in the physical universe. Heaven is a place where nothing exists and everything exists, a place where thoughts are things and consciousness creates reality. But before you can "create" something you have to know what it is you are going to create. The alternative is to live in eternal nothingness for infinity.

[dmduncan]

"What is interesting about belief in natural selection is that there are no experiments to prove it."

That's false. Natural selection is easily witnessed in germ cultures, for instance, which have a prodigious and rapid mutation rate.

[Michael Prescott]

Natural selection is easily witnessed in germ cultures, for instance, which have a prodigious and rapid mutation rate.

As I understand it, germs that are subjected to unusual stress tend to mutate into new, properly adapted forms much faster than natural selection would predict. In other words, the mutations do not appear to be random, with successful mutations cropping up occasionally by the law of averages. Instead, the germs seem to mutate in a fashion consistent with an intelligently directed process, or at least with some kind of teleology.

Some people have suggested that a form of Lamarckianism is at work in such experiments. This is anathema to present-day Darwinists, although Darwin himself was not totally averse to Lamarck's ideas. Another possibility is the theory of punctuated equilibria proposed by Stephen Jay Gould, though this theory lacks a clear mechanism. One might also posit the existence of Rupert Sheldrake's morphic fields. I'm sure there are other possibilities, perhaps drawn from chaos theory.

My own guess is that intelligence or Mind is present in all living things, and that the germs evolve so rapidly toward a state of adaptation to a threatening environment because the process is not, in fact, random at all.

[william]

“What is interesting about belief in natural selection is that there are no experiments to prove it.”

The evidence is weak at best. Do we really know where souls originate? If we have a mutation and get a hen where is the rooster? And complex mutations tend not to last more then one or two generations.

Even as a child I did not buy into the Darwin idea of species but then the religious explanation did not make sense to me either. Finally did my own research and probably have more questions today then when I started this research? One can only hope the questions are better.

“Cognitive bias, and lack of controlled experiments are among the biggest criticisms of evidence for the afterlife. Yet belief in natural selection is not based on experiments and is based on cognitive bias.”
Well stated of course they will refuse to believe they have cognitive bias but those other folks do.
(Anyone see this youtube video by Astrophysicist Niel Degrasse Tyson he presents what he sees as " stupid design".)
There are many days I share his feelings. If he were god how would he design the earth? It seems he is making god in his image. It appears very harsh but then the physical is a very low dimension for a soul to exist in. maybe the lowest.
“That's false. Natural selection is easily witnessed in germ cultures, for instance, which have a prodigious and rapid mutation rate.”
They will mutate to survive which is instinctual which may suggest an underlying reality. Any of those germs starting talking yet or grown a thumb or have 20/20 vision.

[dmduncan]

"My own guess is that intelligence or Mind is present in all living things..."

I agree with you, but my agreement has more to do with the insolubility of the emergence problem in philosophy of mind, which makes panpsychist alternatives to materialism more attractive.

Regarding this however:

"...and that the germs evolve so rapidly toward a state of adaptation to a threatening environment because the process is not, in fact, random at all."

Some landmark research by by Luria and Delbruck in "Mutations of Bacteria From Virus Sensitivity To Virus Resistance" demonstrated that bacteria's ability to quickly respond to environmental changes was "...nothing more than the normal consequence of random gene mutation, followed by selection, in huge, rapidly reproducing populations."

In other words, the introduction of a macrophage into the bacterial environment killed most but not all of the bacteria. The bacteria that did not die were already resistant to the macrophage; they didn't "see" it coming and produce an adaption to defeat it. The surviving bacteria then reproduce more macrophage resistant bacteria like themselves that could tolerate the conditions that killed the intolerant bacteria. So they adapted to the selective pressure without having to appeal to a higher power.

[dmduncan]

It is, however, important to keep perspective on how things appear "random." What the Luria experiments showed was that some of the bacteria survived because of previous random mutations which made them resistant to the macrophage. It would be a hard case to argue that the bacteria intentionally evolved a defense before they were ever in contact with the macrophage, so that their adaption was not a response to macrophage introduction. It was an already existing competency to deal with it.

But imagine a microscopic creature living on a newspaper. This creature would live amongst towering dots made of ink produced by the printing press.

If philosophical discussions occurred amongst these creatures, perhaps some would wonder at the meaning of it all. Some would say they are just meaningless mountainous clumps. Others, however, might receive an insight that what appear like "random" clumps in their world, actually form a meaningful image from a perspective that these creatures could never obtain.

And the ones that thought the clumps were not random would be ridiculed by those who said they were.

[Michael Prescott]

Interesting comments, DM. Thanks.

[Zetetic_chick]

Some people have suggested that a form of Lamarckianism is at work in such experiments. This is anathema to present-day Darwinists, although Darwin himself was not totally averse to Lamarck's ideas

I think neo-lamarckism is an interesting alternative to darwinism. I friend of mine, biologist Maximo Sandin, has summarized the scientific evidence supporting neo-lamarckism and refuting neo-darwinism. Take a look at this english paper by him:

http://www.uam.es/personal_pdi/ciencias/msandin/biology.html

Sandin is leftist, and he explains the hegemony of darwinism arguing that darwinism is the application in biology of the "capitalist free market" mentality (an idea supported by other thinkers, like Bertrand Russell). According to Sandin, it isn't an accident that concepts like "competition", "struggle", "cost / profit" etc. are often used in contemporary biology to understand biololgical phenomena.

I disagree with professor Sandin about the causes of the darwinist hegemony (even thought he could be right, at least partially), because in my view the causes are essentially ideological: darwinism is a purely materialistic account of our origins, and it was used as argument against God and intelligent design. It gave atheists a "scientific" basis for their worldview, even thought Darwin wasn't an atheist but an agnostic.

This is why most darwinists interpret any criticism against their theory as a defense of "creationism". It's a basic foundation of contemporary atheism and materialism. They defend darwinism with the fervor of a religious fundamentalist.

Any challenge to darwinism is interpreted by its followers as a challenge to the materialist/atheist worldview. (See for example Richard Dawkins' pathetic and unprofessional ad hominem attempts to discredit and censorship Richard Milton's critical article on Darwinism, labelling Milton a "cover creationist")

I strongly recommend the book "God's Undertaker" by John Lennox, for an balanced analysis of the ideological causes of the darwinist hegemony, and a solid scientific criticisim of it. Even thought Lennox is a theist (and he argues for ID too), his arguments against darwinism don't depend on the previous acceptation of theism by the reader.

Lennox has debated Dawkins twice, and has forced Dawkins to admit that "A serious case could be made for a deistic God and made him more receptive to the theory that life on earth had indeed been created by a governing intelligence, even though Dawkins prefer to believe that that intelligence, if exist, reside on another planet (an amazing concession, because it implicitly recognized the potential explanatory power of ID, in this case from aliens!). For details, see:

http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/2543431/is-richard-dawkins-still-evolving.thtml

[Roger Knights]

ZC: Good post (as usual), but there's a typo (should be "covert") in labelling Milton a "cover creationist"

[Zetetic_chick]

Thanks Roger!

My english has improved with time and practice, but it's far from perfect yet. :)

[Roger Knights]

I liked this phrase from one of Warren's other essays: "In my humble but authoritative opinion, ..."

[Steen Bundgaard]

Sorry this is out of context but an interesting study described in NewScientist today about consciousness suggests that consciousness cannot be localized to a specific centre in the brain -

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16775-consciousness-signature-discovered-spanning-the-brain.html

I wonder how the neuroscientifice community would react to such a change of mindset with all the efford they are putting into mapping specific areas of the brain to cognitive functions using fMRI just like old school Phrenology.

Even though the total reliable evidence in my opinion still points to the brain as the source of consciousness this study make a reductionism explanation less likely since you can't point to any particular brain neurons being responsible for consciousness phenomena.

[Steen Bundgaard]

I think some here would be interested in reading this article. This is very strange...

http://www.metapsychique.org/The-Kluski-Hands-Moulds.html

[Michael Prescott]

http://www.metapsychique.org/The-Kluski-Hands-Moulds.html

That's an excellent article. I discussed it a while back in this post.

[Leo MacDonald]

I wonder what Michael thinks about this mental mediumship experiment done by Richard Wiseman and O Keeffe.

Here is an source called ''A negative result not supportive of mediumship claims''
O'Keeffe, C. & Wiseman, R. (2005). Testing alleged mediumship: Methods and results. The British Journal of Psychology, 96(2), 165-179.

[Michael Prescott]

this mental mediumship experiment done by Richard Wiseman and O Keeffe.

I haven't read that particular paper, but in general I'm very skeptical of any research undertaken by Richard Wiseman. He's the fellow who claimed that his own work invalidated Rupert Sheldrake's research on "pet telepathy," but when Wiseman's results were analyzed, they were found to match the same patterns Sheldrake had identified!

He was also one of the investigators in the thoroughly botched Natasha Demkina experiment.

Here's a good takedown of Wiseman by Stephen Braude.

More articles critical of Wiseman can be found here.

Given Wiseman's track record, I simply can't regard him as a credible psi researcher.

[Michael Prescott]

By the way, in case anyone thinks I'm more or less alone in my doubts about Wiseman, here's an excerpt from an unflattering profile posted on the Skeptical Investigations site:

He has been at the centre of many controversies with researchers in parapsychology, and has often been accused of deliberately misrepresenting data....

He has been described by the President of the Parapsychology Association as motivated by "obvious self-interest", and by a desire "to support an a priori commitment to the notion that all positive psi results are spurious and all methods which seem to show the presence of psi are flawed" ...

By the autumn of 2004, after a series of other very questionable claims, widely publicized in the media, many of his peers in the parapsychology research community concluded that his behaviour was not consistent with commonly-accepted standards of scientific integrity, and he was voted off the main research forum in parapsychology by a large majority. In addition, for similar reasons, some members of the Society for Psychical Research called for him to be expelled [from] the Society. He resigned.

[sonic]

dmduncan
Regarding-
Luria and Delbruck in "Mutations of Bacteria From Virus Sensitivity To Virus Resistance"
There has been considerable discovery since their experiments.
Start with Romesberg and the “SOS response”.

[Art]

http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/2543431/is-richard-dawkins-still-evolving.thtml - Zetetic_chick
--------------------------------------------

Thank you for the link! It was a very interesting article. I sent it to our Preacher, Darryl, at Church and he really liked it too. Thanks again, Art

[dmduncan]

The SOS response is a mechanism by which mutations occur in response to DNA damage. Some of the mutations produced in this manner will generate bacteria that are, for example, resistant to antibiotics.

But that's complementary not contradictory to the Luria experiments.

The key is that some of the mutations, not all, will be resistant. And natural selection will favor the ones that are resistant.

Again, the bacteria don't "see" it coming or produce a precise antibiotic resistant mutation response.

[Michael Prescott]

I read ID proponent Michael Behe's book The Edge of Evolution some time ago. Behe (who is a microbiologist) makes a case against the idea that macroevolution can be explained by natural selection alone. His argument is rather technical. He focuses largely on the evolution of microorganisms, and argues that while Darwinian evolution does occur, it is sharply limited in the magnitude of the changes it can produce. It's worth a read, for those who are interested in this subject.

[dmduncan]

Behe seems to ignore the endosymbiosis theory proposed by Lynn Margulis and which by now has quite a deal of support. I haven't read The Edge of Evolution, but endosymbiosis theory was MIA in Darwin's Black Box when he was trying to build his case against a step-wise Darwinian process responsible for all evolution.

In any case, there are still two mysteries.

In the philosophy of mind, it's the robustness of the emergence problem and the fact that science has made no headway in explaining the first person qualities of consciousness. None. Zip. Nada. The bank is out of pesos where that customer is concerned.

Now, it's true that we don't need to know HOW something happens to know that it does: I don't need to know anything about how gravity works to know that if I let go of my hamburger, it will fall on the dirty floor.

But regarding emergence, it's worse than not knowing how it emerges, because we don't even know THAT it emerges.

Second, HOW life first emerged is a huge mystery. Evolution may describe what happens when the ball starts rolling, but it is considerably less powerful when dealing with the question of how the ball got made in the first place. There are lots of ideas with no evidence to support them.

[dmduncan]

And by the way, those interested might want to read "ORIGINS: A skeptic's guide to the creation of life on Earth" by NYU chemistry Professor Robert Shapiro.

It's a good book that takes you on a journey into the cell and takes an honest look at the problem of origins, the theories proposed, and the problems associated with them.

It would make a mind blowing documentary.

[Michael Prescott]

I've read Origins, and I agree that it's a very worthwhile book. What makes it even more compelling is that Shapiro urgently wants to find a strictly natural explanation for life's origin (abiogenesis is his field), but honesty compels him to point out that all the proffered explanations so far have been deeply flawed.

Contrast this with Richard Dawkins, who assures his readers that the origin of life is well understood by science and then proceeds to tell a brief little fairy-tale story about how it could have happened, ignoring all the problems (see River out of Eden). This is the difference between a scientist (Shapiro) and a propagandist (Dawkins).

[sonic]

Regarding mutation and evolution--
Here is another place to check out—
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a782796464~db=all~jumptype=rss

(A quote from the s paper)-
“The first is the regulation of mutagenesis in time by cellular stress responses, which promote random mutations specifically when cells are poorly adapted to their environments, i.e., when they are stressed. … Although mutagenesis induced by stresses other than direct damage to DNA was previously controversial, evidence for the existence of various stress-induced mutagenesis programs is now overwhelming and widespread.”

http://biology.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pbio.0020438&ct=1

Is an example of an experiment to determine if a bacterium (Escherichia coli) will increase mutation rates in response to changing environments. (It does)

On a different subject-
In “The Edge of Evolution” Behe is arguing that random mutation plus natural selection (RM+NS) can’t account for the life forms we see on Earth today. Certainly we know that RM+NS is not what we observe life doing. I’m not sure this is a case for ‘intelligent design’, but it is an example of how we need to consider hypothesis that have been neglected because ‘we have the answers’.

As far as “Origins” go—
Here we have science at a crossroads. Abiogenesis is testable (did it happen this way or that), but it is not falsifiable. (No matter how many things you rule out, you haven’t exhausted the possibilities)
Biogenesis is not testable (we don’t know how to produce a creation or miracle??), but it is falsifiable.
Science usually likes testable, falsifiable hypothesis.
In this case you just get one or the other, currently most biologists have opted for testable, but I don’t know why that has to be.

[william]

“Evolution may describe what happens when the ball starts rolling”

I am not sure it does that. I think it is still a mystery no matter what the evolutionists or the creationists say. There appears to be an intelligent vitality and when it does its thing with substance we get form. I.e. us.

Many call this form an illusion but it is no illusion but it is temporal. The only reality that is infinite may be this vitality that is intelligent that turns or manifests substance into form.

I also suspect that there is no such thing as space. Space is just our inability to see the reality of this space due to our unawareness. I have read that we see about 6% of reality.

[Zetetic_chick]

As far I know, a problem of natural selection is it's not creative, it only works as a secondary mechanism over previous mutations, and are these mutations that deserves explanation (given that most random mutations are deleterious and without survival value).

A common example used as evidence of natural selection in standard biology textbooks is the experiment with the Biston betularia moths, which "because of widespread pollution during the Industrial Revolution in England, many of the lichens died out, and the trees that peppered moths rested on became blackened by soot, causing most of the light-coloured moths, or typica, to die off from predation. At the same time, the dark-coloured, or melanic, moths, carbonaria, flourished because of their ability to hide on the darkened trees" (A quote of wikipedia).

However, as has asked Henry Gee (an editorialist of nature): "What created these structuresat at the first place?" (See Of Goethe, genomes an how babies are made. Nature science update. 10 Feb.2000)

In the above example of the moths, the black ones existed already when natural selection acted on them! (i.e, the initial structure, the black moths, were already existent; and they were moths, not other species)

The same applies in the cases of bacteria; natural selection only select the resistent ones (but these bacterias were already existent!). So, the empirical evidence only support the claim that natural selection acts producing change in populations of the same specie; but it doesn't support the claim that natural selection caused new species and all the variations known in the biological world. The latter is an extrapolation of the data, not a fact supported by hard empirical and reproducible evidence.

So, natural selection exists; the real question is if that mechanism is actually the origin and the only (or the best) explanation of evolution and the origin of new species. This is the issue at stake.

Of DmDuncan's two "big mysteries" of science, I'd add a third one: The origin of rationality and epistemological justification of our beliefs.

According to the Darwin's own words "With me, the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?" (See Darwin's letter letter to William Graham, July 3rd, in 1881)

Theist philosopher Alvin Plantinga has developed that argument (and used effectively to refute naturalism) in a contemporary form, see this paper:

http://anti-matters.org/ojs/index.php/antimatters/article/view/92/85

The philosophical discussion about Plantinga's argument is very interesting, and I suspect he can be right. The book "Narualism Defeated?" is a collection of essays by many philosophers critizing Plantinga's argument, with Plantinga replies. It's philosophically dense, but it's worth reading.

Given that natural selection favours survival structures, not necessarily true beliefs (because false beliefs can have survival value too), we wouldn't expect abstract rationality to be originated by natural selection mechanism (in fact, natural selection only would act on already existent rational beings, but what created them at the first place?)

Another problem is that, if we accept natural selection as the cause of rationality, then we should to reject the materialist conception that consciousness is "only" an epiphenomenaçon (with not causal efficacy), because if natural selection favoured individuals with a rational mind, it was probably because conceptual rationality had a causative effect in the survival of individuals (e.g. enabling them to escape or respond in a better way in their enviroment) and that implies that a rational mind isn't a inefficacious epiphenomenon.

Another problem of the natural selection theory is its falsability. What natural fact would count as a counterexample that would falsify it?

[Joe]

"There is a deeper spiritual reason why bad things happen. It teaches the soul duality and separation and/or it imprints on the soul the physical parameters of body, what it's like to live in a 3 dimensional + 1 time universee."

-I just saw a show on the sex trade in Europe. Namely, the kidnapping and selling of young women, the drugs and killing without a moment's hesitation that takes place and the extent of corruption that can't even be imagined. Are these victims of this awful situation experiencing duality and separation? They chose that? Will they pat their tormentors and abusers on the back for a job well done in "heaven"? That statement is absolutely ridiculous and it's amazing how some people can believe something so foolish. If your daughter was kidnapped, raped, warped on heroin, and sold to the highest bidder for a lifetime of some rich guy's bizarre and heinous appetites would you simply say that she is just experiencing duality and separation? If so, you should probably shake the hand of her tormentors not?

"Heaven is a place where nothing exists and everything exists, a place where thoughts are things and consciousness creates reality. But before you can "create" something you have to know what it is you are going to create."

-And exactly where are the facts that this is grounded in? NDEs? I can show you NDEs where Christians are going to hell for not forgiving one person, Jesus says he's returning before the person who is having an NDE dies for good, and then he never does, and NDEs that are pushing reincarnation. So who is right? Hmm. Everyone is! We create our own reality! It all makes sense, just don't ask for anything to back this statement up because there isn't anything.

-I read in another topic thread on this blog where a lady named Sandy had a link posted to some of the things that have been happening to her, I went there and read what she wrote. Now either she is nuts, lying or is telling the truth. In my opinion, I think I have a pretty good BS meter, and I'm willing to bet that she is telling the truth. Did anyone else read the story of the ghost and the cat? The parapsychologist and the ghost? About her playing I-spy with a child ghost? Do you realize what an absolute contradiction it is to what you have written, if she is telling the truth? Why haven't these ghosts been "enlightened" in the light as you claim everyone is? Why hasn't the "higher" self (which only exists in new age circles) come to enlighten these ghosts? Why aren't they all experiencing ultimate oneness? Why haven't they dissolved into consciousness?

-The nonsense that you have written is another example of people looking for evidence of what they already believe and discarding anything else contrary to it.

[Joe]

By the way, if that same "Sandy" reads my post, sorry for the "nuts" term. I think you are sincere in what you have written, I only used that word for the sake of drama.

It would seem that what you have written is a big contradiction to all the self proclaimed new age gurus. I honestly don't understand why people who report the happenings similar to what you write, in other words ADCs, in particular those where the deceased is seen by more than one person at the same time, are largely ignored by practically everyone!

I read one website that the author proclaims "wisdom based on the near death experience", to which I ask: Wisdom? Whose wisdom? Wisdom from which NDE because they're all different. The ones about going to hell for not forgiving your wife for an argument? The ones about past lives? Which ones? Of course, I'm expecting an answer like "all of them" because "you create your own reality!"

[william]

“So, the empirical evidence only support the claim that natural selection acts producing change in populations of the same specie; but it doesn't support the claim that natural selection caused new species and all the variations known in the biological world”

Amen.

The Darwinists may state that it is random mutation that would cause the species change. So we have a mutation of a chicken egg and a hen is born than that hen has to look for a mutated rooster.

Matter creates intelligence. I think the day will come that this statement that matter creates intelligence will be right up there with the flat earth fact and the earth as the center of the universe fact or that heavier than air flight is impossible or that the earth is only six thousand years old or that God has chosen people.

[Steen Bundgaard]

I also suspect that there is no such thing as space. Space is just our inability to see the reality of this space due to our unawareness. I have read that we see about 6% of reality.

Is 6% just a 'magic' number or are there actually a theory behind this claim? Why not 7%?

[Steen Bundgaard]

Here is an interesting article about the mounting evidence for materialism and non-materialist inability to provide alternative explanations. I still miss a meaningful response to the success of conventional neuroscience:

http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Non-materialist_neuroscience

[dmduncan]

"Unsurprisingly, the movement is spear-headed by intelligent design lackeys from the Discovery Institute and related affiliates."

Steen, that link you posted, they are full of crap, to be honest. To couch this centuries old debate as a new war on science propelled by the Discovery Institute is about as false as you can get, and quite an ignorant thing to say.

Clearly, some scientists have a great deal of trouble dealing with complexity. They want the entire world to be divided between science and Creationism, and it's no wonder, since they've had a great time bashing Creationists, they hope they can keep that winning streak alive by bashing dualists as if dualism and creationism were the same thing.

In fact, they won't even HEAR any argument to the contrary.

I was reminded last night by some things that happened in my house that it's a battle they will never win. They are just wrong, and it doesn't matter one bit if they are satisfied with evidence to the contrary, or if they claim such evidence doesn't exist. What is real is real whether they know it or have the very particular and exclusive kind of evidence they demand to have. Reality doesn't give a damn what they want. It's going to keep existing anyway.

As I've repeatedly said before, a functional connection between mind and brain is not in dispute by anybody that I know at least.

The mistake they are making, which they zealously fail to grasp, is the mistake of holding evidence of a functional connection as the ONLY way consciousness can function.

The word ONLY is of crucial importance, and in their simplistic approach they are completely ignoring it.

Absolutely NO evidence has been produced by any neuroscientist who ever lived that a functional dependence between mind and brain is the only way consciousness functions.

But there IS evidence, which none of them will either seriously look at or accept, that consciousness does NOT ONLY function through a brain.

[Steen Bundgaard]

A shame the fMRI equipment isn't something you buy in the local supermarket - I would love to do my own research. I'm quite skeptical about the claims from these scans like "the same area of the brain is activated whenever the subjects think of the same word" etc. I mean how many other words would highlight exactly the same area of the brain etc. I think they are make coarse generalizations and how many of these studies are reproduced to exactly the same result elsewhere etc. etc.

But these guys owns the tabloids nowadays.

[Art]

"I just saw a show on the sex trade in Europe. Namely, the kidnapping and selling of young women, the drugs and killing without a moment's hesitation that takes place and the extent of corruption that can't even be imagined. Are these victims of this awful situation experiencing duality and separation? They chose that? Will they pat their tormentors and abusers on the back for a job well done in "heaven"? That statement is absolutely ridiculous and it's amazing how some people can believe something so foolish." - Joe
--------------------------------------------

We are spiritual beings having a physical experience. After we cross over this life will seem little more real to us than a DVD of a movie we just watched.

Excerpt from Michelle M's NDE:
"I felt an understanding about life, what it was, is. As if it was a dream in itself. It's so very hard to explain this part. I'll try, but my words limit the fullness of it. I don't have the words here, but I understood that it really didn't matter what happened in the life experience, I knew/understood that it was intense, brief, but when we were in it, it seemed like forever. I understood that whatever happened in life, I was really ok, and so were the others here."
http://nderf.org/michelle_m%27s_nde.htm

Excerpt from The Holographic Universe:
"For if the concreteness of the world is but a secondary reality and what is "there" is actually a holographic blur of frequencies, and if the brain is also a hologram and only selects some of the frequencies out of this blur and mathematically transforms them into sensory perceptions, what becomes of objective reality? Put quite simply, it ceases to exist. As the religions of the East have long upheld, the material world is Maya, an illusion, and although we may think we are physical beings moving through a physical world, this too is an illusion."
http://www.earthportals.com/hologram.html#zine

[Art]

From an online article about Emmanuel Swedenborg:

"Dole who holds degrees from Yale, Oxford, and Harvard, notes that one of the most basic tenets of Swedenborg's thinking is that our universe is constantly created and sustained by two wavelike flows, one from heaven and one coming from our own soul or spirit. "If we put these images together, the resemblance to the hologram is striking" says Dole."

"We are constituted by the intersection of two flows—one direct, from the divine, and one indirect, from the divine via our environment. We can view ourselves as interference patterns, because the inflow is a wave phenomenon, and we are where the waves meet."

http://www.soultravel.se/2004/040907-swedenborg/index.shtml

[Michael Prescott]

Art, I was thinking about your views last night. The trouble I have with your perspective is this: In your worldview, what is the motivation for anyone to be virtuous? If duality and separation are the be-all and end-all of life, then everyone will experience them. In fact, I might be able to experience more duality and separation by becoming a criminal. I would guess that the average criminal experiences more of a sense of separation than the average law-abiding citizen. Certainly a criminal would experience more separation than a Buddhist monk, whose meditations are aimed at experiencing nonduality. So are the criminals getting it right, and the monks getting it wrong?

I'm not trying to be sarcastic. It seems to me that the meaning of life has to have a moral dimension, or else we might as well just start marauding and killing. Yet separation and duality have no moral dimension as far as I can see.

Is there any moral purpose to life, in your view? If not, how do you reconcile this with the often-reported Life Review experienced by NDErs, in which they learn what they did right and what they did wrong? If morality doesn't matter, then how could they ever do anything wrong, and what is the purpose of the Life Review?

[Michael Prescott]

I still miss a meaningful response to the success of conventional neuroscience

Steen, I think several people have offered meaningful responses. Here's the simplest one I know of: Correlation is not causality. In other words, the fact the brain states are correlated with consciousness does not prove that brain states cause consciousness.

There's a definite correlation between the internal activity of my TV set and the show that I'm watching on the screen. But the TV set does not produce that show. The show originates elsewhere, and is merely received and decoded by the TV set.

In like manner, there's a definite correlation between brain states and consciousness, but (I would argue) the brain does not produce consciousness. Consciousness originates elsewhere, and is merely received and decoded (into electrochemical impulses) by the brain.

If there were no evidence of paranormal phenomena, then there would be no need to posit this "transmission theory" of the brain. But for those of us who think there is good evidence for the paranormal, the transmission theory or something similar appears to be the only explanation that makes sense.

[Art]

Art, I was thinking about your views last night. The trouble I have with your perspective is this: In your worldview, what is the motivation for anyone to be virtuous? - Michael Prescott
--------------------------------------------

I am deeply suspicious of "free will" and lean heavily towards fate and predestination. Have you ever tried not being yourself? It's very difficult to break out from being who you are. People have said to me, "what's to stop me from raping and murdering someone?" Are they going to do it? No, I doubt it. Why? Because that isn't who they are. Jeffrey Dahmler was raised in a normal middle class household with normal parents and turned out to be a psychopath. It wasn't his upbringing it was just who he was. I could post a whole bunch of links about experiments that have been done but have found that this board will kick them out if I post too many links. But, suffice it to say, precognitive dreams, the Aberfan Coal disaster, the Black Box that can see the Future, the holographic universe theory, etc. all lead me in the direction that we may be little more than actors in a play. The education of the soul may be too important to leave it up to chance. The soul's lessons are embedded in our everyday lives and it is holistically imprinted with what it needs to learn whether we want it to be or not. It's not like grade school where you can not pay attention and fail to learn what you need to learn. Everyone will experience duality and separation, time and space, and make memories of what it was like to live in a 3 dimensional + 1 time universe - whether you want to or not.

[Art]

I think free will may be just a trick our brains play on us.

[Zetetic_chick]

If there were no evidence of paranormal phenomena, then there would be no need to posit this "transmission theory" of the brain. But for those of us who think there is good evidence for the paranormal, the transmission theory or something similar appears to be the only explanation that makes sense

I think that Michael's commentary is a good summary of the position of whom defend the transmission theory.

If paranormal and afterlife evidence were absolutely non-existent, then the "trasmission theory" would be unnecessary, and any version of materialism would be probably the best position (even though there are arguments against materialism that don't depend of the paranormal/afterlife evidence)

Most people who has examined the evidence for psi without a materialist bias, would accept it as a good one. Only materialists would try to refute it, because they know that evidence is incompatible with their worldview. (This is the core motivation of "organized skepticism")

I am deeply suspicious of "free will" and lean heavily towards fate and predestination

Art, the problem with that idea (and I'm not saying that's false, even though I don't share it) is that it demolishes any concept of moral responsability. It implies fatalism and determinism, with its possibly dangerous practical implications.

How do you teach your sons to take decisions? Do you say them "free will doens't exist; therefore, any behaviour of yours is inevitable, and you and anybody else can't take responsability for that". The latter is the only logically consistent "suggestion" that you could give to your sons regarding moral responsability.

Only an opinion.

[Michael Prescott]

Then what is the purpose of the Life Review?

[Bryan.A]

"The soul's lessons are embedded in our everyday lives and it is holistically imprinted with what it needs to learn whether we want it to be or not"

And on what moral system are the soul's lessons based in your opinion?

I could only think of reincarnation and cause and effect as an explanation evolving the character one step at a time.Without cause and effect and reincarnation this chaotic world does not even make half sense,with that theory it requires a perfect system of "making it right" which sometimes I doubt its reality because the dualism I experience.Then im reminded by the evidence for the paranormal and it slaps me awake.

Whats your take on that with Dualism Art?

[Michael H]

It seems to me that the meaning of life has to have a moral dimension

It seems that way to me as well, MP. I also think that the moral dimension is inherent to humans. We call it conscience.

I wish I could recall the source, but I came across a series of interviews with prisoners some time ago, in which a recurring theme were comments to the effect that immediately prior to or during the commission of the act that ultimately landed them in prison, they were aware of a powerful intuition that kept telling them that they didn't have to do this, that there were other options available to them. They obviously didn't heed those intuitions, thus becoming available for prison interviews - but it did strike me as interesting that so many reported a similar experience.

I interpreted this information as supportive of what I’ve come to accept anyway, but if there is in fact an inherent sense of morality that is common to all, it would have far reaching implications. Rather than approaching morality as something that needed to be taught, we could instead encourage one another to learn to identify and develop that which is already there.

Just a thought. Still, even if it were to be accepted that a sense of morality is an inherent quality of existence for a human being, I’ve little doubt that the materialists would get busy searching for the appropriate neural correlates to "explain" it.

[william]

“I could only think of reincarnation and cause and effect as an explanation evolving the character one step at a time”

It appears to me that we are the expression and manifestation of that that is or what many call God. This whole process of this infinite Oneness expressing itself appears to be a process of involution and evolution of consciousness. Because we are a manifestation (involution) of this infinite Oneness we have a longing for this oneness of mind. This longing causes us to seek knowledge and understanding (evolution). Some souls advance in knowledge and understanding faster than others of course as every soul is unique as every snowflake is unique.

My impression is that we could not learn everything we need to know to move into these higher (astral) dimensions without several trips to earth. Even George Wright the medium in the book the open door who did not know if reincarnation existed but after he crossed over told his wife Nellie through automatic writing by his son that Nellie had lived many lives but never to an old age. He stated that in this life she would live to be very old. She lived to 96.

My research suggests that reincarnation exists but some spirits seem to know nothing about it. This appears to be a mystery (to me at least), which I have several theories about.