On Tue, 6 Jun 1995 21:55:24 -0400 you wrote:
>Jim Bell Writes:
JB>...I still don't see the
>analogue. Airplanes are designed by intelligent creatures..Simulated
>conditions regarding these vehicles are ripe for computer analysis,
>contemplation and correction.
GM>Wait a minute. You stated that you failed to see " how the
>numerous assumptions inherent in any simulation program make them
>useful for determining what actually happens in the real world, "
>...you seem to be saying implying that modeling an airplane is
>somehow a different sort of activity than modeling other areas of
>nature. It is not.
>
JB>You wrote:
>This is a function of simulate and record, relating to an existing
>mechanism. But with evolution, we are looking for mechanism itself.
>
GM>Wrong. We know that morphological change occurs by means of
>mutations, which are alterations in the order of nucleotides in DNA.
>This is most obvious to those poor melanogaster flies whose DNA was
>re-arranged with the help of radioactivity. They produced strange
>morphological forms. We also know beyond a shadow of a doubt that
>the difference between me, a person of European descent and an
>African or Asian is located in very minor genetic differences between
>me and them. While we are quite similar there are very definitely
>morphological differences in hair, body size, proportions etc.
>Assuming, as I do, that these people all descended from Noah (or in the case
>of Stephen Jones, Adam), the differences between us are due to gradually
>acquired alterations in the DNA sequences. Agreed? While this change is
>minor, it proves that morphological change occurs via alterations in DNA.
No one doubts that. It doesn't need to be proved.
GM>What researchers earlier in this century did not have was a
>computer which could perform millions of mindless, iterative
>calculations with which to simulate the variation in a sequence of
>numbers. Only with the advent of computers was the intracasies
>{sic?} of iterative,genetic systems discovered. The mathematical
>processes which govern such mathematical manipulation has
>been well understood for centuries - even by Euclid. But he couldn't perform
>enough of the stupid calculations in order to study these systems. This has
>occurred only within the past 30 years.
Agreed. If these "millions of mindless, iterative calculations" are an
analogue of mutations, then the point which Walter ReMine made
in his Haldane's Dilemma, was that the rate of production of these
was far to slow. While micro-evolution no doubt has found by random
search some viable alternatives (eg. finches beaks, etc), there is no
evidence that this "mindless" process actually occurs in nature on a
grand scale.
Think of the "millions of mindless, iterative calculations" necessary
to turn a hyena into a whale. For example:
"For decades researchers have claimed that whales are descended from
an extinct hyenalike land mammal, called a mesonychid, that walked
back into the sea between 50 and 60 million years ago. (Mesonychid
and all other land mammals are themselves descended from a fish that
crawled out of the sea much earlier.) By 40 million years ago the
transition from four-legged land animal to fishlike ocean dweller was
almost complete." (Zimmer C., "Back to the Sea", Discover, January
1995, p83).
Have a look at the pictures in Discover. In a mere 15-20 million
years it is claimed that a "hyena" became by your "millions of
mindless, iterative calculations" a fully fledged whale. Let us
assume that there would need to be one million genetic changes needed
to make a hyena into a whale and that it took 20 million years = 7000
million days. That would be one beneficial genetic change every 7000
days on average. Also, each one of these would have to somehow give
the emerging whale an advantage in greater offspring. Remember that
mutations are extremely rare and beneficial mutations rarer still.
Your "mindless, iterative calculations" would have to: a) find all
the benefical changes in the right sequence; b) be selectively
advantageous in terms of increased offspring; and c) occur at an
average rate of one every 20 years.
The real issue is not that changes to the genetic "program" in DNA
produce morphological changes, but is the process purely a "mindless,
iterative" one? I for one cannot believe that and am more than ever
convinced that it requires an Intelligent Designer to artificially
select the designs He wants to further His overall plan.
>You wrote:
JB>"I take it as a given that your program runs as advertised. But I
>share Gordon's questions, and a conviction that mathematical
>possibility is not the same as biological reality. "
>
GM>I would agree. A model must be able to stand up to scrutiny. But
>I still haven't seen you make a substantive criticism to show where
>my model fails to account for all substantive phenomena (in a
>mathematical sense). Merely stating that you don't believe it is
>certainly within your perogative, but it is not very useful.
Does your model have the real-world constraints that bio-systems have,
eg. a) number of beneficial mutations extremely rare? b) reproductive
advantage the *only* means of filtering out the vastly more numerous
harmful mutations? c) beneficial mutations must occur in the right
sequence?
GM>Do you not believe it because you can point out an error (which I
>would want to know of so I can correct my model) or because the
>implications of my model violate your world view?
Your model does seem to "violate" the theistic "world view" that I
find in the Bible. Genesis 1 depicts God progressively giving
external commands, fine-tuning His creation as it develops from simple
to complex. Your model seems to be that God issue one command at the
beginning of the process and it all developed thereafter with no need
for further intervention.
As for "errors", I would like to see (in non-mathematical language)
your built-in assumptions, to see if they reflect real world
constraints.
GM>There was a time when I felt exactly as you.
>But I finally had to deal with the fact that Truth was not determined by my
>world view. I firmly believe that God created this world and am ready to
>defend a historical Genesis, but that does not mean that God created the
>world in the fashion I dictate to Him. He is the creator; I am the created.
>As such I must be willing to let Him teach me. It is not my place to tell Him
>how it is permissible for Him to have done it.
Yes. And this applies to your mathematical models too, Glenn! <g>
>You wrote:
JB>"Did it really happen this way? Is all this plausible in nature,
>beyond the theoretical construct? It seems to me the fossil record,
>which is available to corroborate all this, gives a stark answer."
>Let me ask you. How many fossils have you personally examined? How many
>feet of oil well core have you studied? Are you sure that what the
>apologetical books tell you about the geologic column is correct? Remember,
>they tell you that the geological column does not exist anywhere on earth.
Actually they don't, at least not in the exact sense you mean. For
example, Baker (a Creation-Scientist) says:
"In fact, the column presents a number of problems to those who wish
it to support evolutionary theory. First, contrary to popular belief,
all the levels can RARELY, if ever, be found occurring together"
(Baker S., "Bone of Contention", 1976, Evangelical Press,
Hertfordshire, p15. emphasis mine).
The issue seems to be one of semantics. What Creation-Science seem
to be claiming is that the entire idealised STANDARD geological column
model "does not exist anywhere on earth":
"The STANDARD geological column has always been assumed to exhibit the
evolution of life, from simple to complex, over the geological ages.
Creationists, on the other hand, have insisted that this standard
column is LARGELY artificial." (Morris H.M., "Scientific
Creationism", Second Edition 1985, Master Books, El Cajon CA, pxi.
emphasis mine)
"If one wishes to check out this STANDARD column..where can he go to
see it for himself? There is only one place in all the world to see
the standard geologic column. That's in the textbook!..This standard
column is supposed to be at least 100 miles thick...representing the
total sedimentary activity of all the geologic ages...The standard
column has been built up by superposition of local columns from many
different localities." (Morris H.M. & Parker G.E., "What is Creation
Science?", 1987, Master Books, El Cajon, CA, p230,232. emphasis
mine).
>I documented in excruciating detail the entire column of North Dakota and
>lightly documented about 20 some odd other places on earth where the entire
>column exists. If the apologetical books can be wrong on such a simple fact
>which has been known since the 1930's, how can you be sure that they are
>telling you the truth about the fossil record?
This is a non sequitur. The geological column and the fossil record
are two entirely different things. One can be wrong on one thing and
right in another. Besides there is a subtle shift in your argument
from intellectual error ("wrong") to moral error "tell you the truth".
Creation-Scientists may be wrong, but it does not follow they do not
endeavour to tell the truth, at least as they see it.
GM>These apologetical books tell me that the rocks were deposited
>very, very rapidly in a global flood. Last Friday, the geologist I
>work with loaned me a oil well core from his personal
collection...The core came from about 7,000 feet deep in southeastern
>Colorado. It was 1.3 inches high and showed 9 layers of grass
roots...The apologetical books won't tell you about things like this!
Well again, is this correct? I do not believe scripture requires a
global Flood, and I think Flood Geology is wrong, but there is no
doubt that Creation-Science attempts to grapple with the fact of
vegetation found at different levels. For example, Whitcomb &
Morris' "The Genesis Flood", has a section entitled "Buried Forests"
(pp418-421). I disagree with their explanation ("later stages of the
Deluge and perhaps post-Deluge events" p419), but that does not mean
they do not give an explanation.
GM>Look, it is not your fault that you believe such things. You are a
>lawyer and don't study rocks.
This is patronising to us laymen. We may not be scientists, but we
do have reasoning powers too, Glenn! <g> One could equally argue
that scientists are all trained under a materialist-naturalist model,
and this could predispose them to accept evolutionary arguments that
laymen can see flaws in?
GM>The problem I think lies in the lack of
>dealing with difficult issues in Christian Apologetics. The authors can't
>give handy-dandy answers to such difficulties so they don't mention them.
This is not quite the case, but it is natural in promoting any
theory to major on the things that positively support the theory. The
same could be said of Darwinists, who even Gould admits kept a "trade
secret" the major fact that transitional forms are extremely rare and
that evolutionary trees are only twigs and leaves :
"The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record
persists as the trade secret of paleontology. The evolutionary trees
that adorn ourtextbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their
branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence
of fossils." (Gould S.J., "The Episodic Nature of Evolutionary
Change", "The Panda's Thumb", 1980, Penguin, London, pp150-151).
GM>Worse still, when someone like me comes along to point out these
>difficulties, everyone questions immediately the commitment to Christianity.
>Two famous people on this reflector have asked me privately why I wasn't an
>atheist! I told them that I believed in the resurrection of my Lord Jesus
>Christ. It is kinda hard to be an atheist with an attitude like that. :-)
That's great! But the issue is not any particular individual's
"commitment to Christianity", but rather is his/her theory of creation
it in accordance with Biblical theism?
>You wrote :
JB>"I thought I cited a relevant article by Kurt Wise. I shall do so
>again, from "The Creation Hypothesis", @ pgs. 227-228.
>Also, the very term "whale sequence" begs the question, and leaves
>untouched various problems, e.g., the vestigializing of useful limbs, the
>development of complex underwater mechanisms, etc. This whale business
>seems quite similar to the "scale to wing" myth. "
>
GM>This quote misses the point. Evolution does not cause the
>vestigilization of useful limbs. An aquatic habitat in which the
>animal is catching fish or eating plants, is allows the occasional
>individual who is born without the limbs to survive. A cow could not
survive without his front legs; a seal very possibly could.
Yes. But how does the genes of that "occasional individual who is
born without...limbs" manage to overcome the genes of all the other
proto-whales who do have limbs? Surely it would be swamped by
breeding with the 99.9% of normal proto-whales who do have limbs?
God bless.
Stephen