Blind Faith In Blind Watchmaker

[Guest Thegoodbook]

"Darwin, as usual, got it right: part of an eye is better than no eye at all and any slight modification will improve matters until we get a reasonably effective organ."

This quote illustrates the incredible amount of faith Neo-Darwinists have in random mutation and natural selection. It's like a gambler who expects to win on the roulette wheel over the long haul. While there may be an occasional win and a temporary increase of funds, the gambler's luck and money will eventually run out because the odds are against him. In regard to the Pollyanna-like quote cited, any "slight modification" of part of an eye is actually more likely to make matters worse than to improve them, until we get an even less effective organ. Insofar as the vast majority of mutations introduce randomness and disorder into whatever order may already exist, it's more likely that a large number of mutations over a long period of time will render the whole population of organisms less fit for survival, leading to eventual extinction. The few slight beneficial mutations would be insufficient to prevent a long-term slide. Consider the experiments by evolutionists on fruit flies; mutations produced a group of deformed fruit flies with less chance of survival than the original group.

 

But aren't we forgetting natural selection as a means of directing the power of random mutations? Well, the "power source" of mutations is actually quite small, since the number of usable or beneficial mutations is small. And since a slight modification confers only a tiny or negligible amount of survival benefit, the amount of direction is also tiny. Considering the adverse overall effect of random mutations, this is like trying to move a freight train with a lawn mower engine. The train never leaves the station. That's why Neo-Darwinists get so little help from statistics and probability. To build up the kind of complexity and order seen in the natural world in the apparent geological time-frame, you would need beneficial macro-mutations that confer a lot of survival benefit (Goldschmidt's "hopeful monster). However, keep in mind that if that were the case, you'd be even more likely to get harmful macro-mutations that confer a greater tendency to perish. The Darwinist's blind faith in a "blind watchmaker" is a big hurdle for many thinking people to get over, despite the occasional rare beneficial mutation in an existing population of viable organisms. Darwin was more believable when people believed in "pangenes." For many, there just has to be something more to explain what's happened

[Asimov]

This quote illustrates the incredible amount of faith Neo-Darwinists have in random mutation and natural selection.

 

Where did the quote come from? Cite your source please.

 

It's like a gambler who expects to win on the roulette wheel over the long haul. While there may be an occasional win and a temporary increase of funds, the gambler's luck and money will eventually run out because the odds are against him. In regard to the Pollyanna-like quote cited, any "slight modification" of part of an eye is actually more likely to make matters worse than to improve them, until we get an even less effective organ.

 

How so? We've done studies regarding the various stages of eye evolution, and we also see varying stages of eyes in the natural world. Where's your basis for that claim coming from?

 

Insofar as the vast majority of mutations introduce randomness and disorder into whatever order may already exist, it's more likely that a large number of mutations over a long period of time will render the whole population of organisms less fit for survival, leading to eventual extinction. The few slight beneficial mutations would be insufficient to prevent a long-term slide. Consider the experiments by evolutionists on fruit flies; mutations produced a group of deformed fruit flies with less chance of survival than the original group.

 

Again, cite your source. All you are saying is exactly the opposite of what has been shown in lab experiements and in the natural world. Most mutations are neutral and have no effect on the organism. The next is a few deleterious mutations, and the rest are beneficial mutations. Evolution rates depend on environmental pressure, population size, population growth, geographical location and the number of resources available for consumption. Then there's the OTHER mechanisms for evolution other than natural selection, which you conveniently ignore.

 

But aren't we forgetting natural selection as a means of directing the power of random mutations? Well, the "power source" of mutations is actually quite small, since the number of usable or beneficial mutations is small. And since a slight modification confers only a tiny or negligible amount of survival benefit, the amount of direction is also tiny.

 

So? We only evolve as fast as the environment changes.

 

Considering the adverse overall effect of random mutations, this is like trying to move a freight train with a lawn mower engine. The train never leaves the station.

 

Not quite.

 

That's why Neo-Darwinists get so little help from statistics and probability. To build up the kind of complexity and order seen in the natural world in the apparent geological time-frame, you would need beneficial macro-mutations that confer a lot of survival benefit (Goldschmidt's "hopeful monster).

 

Statistics and probability are bunk in the case of evolution because you are putting the cart before the horse. You look at a goal (making an eye), then calculate the probability that an eye will occur...of course it's going to be a huge fucking number.

 

Of course, you also ignore the amount of time, sample size, generations per year, and population growth.

 

Let's provide a more comprehensive refutation:

 

There are several good, logical reasons why this is untrue, but rather than bore you with the details I thought I'd present a little demonstration.

 

I've constructed a random number generator which creates a string one thousand characters long, consisting of the letters "a" through "z". The number of possible combinations of 1000 such characters is 26^1000. That number is a bit long to write out (it has 1,415 digits) so I'll just put it as roughly 9.4x10^1414.

 

What this means is that the probability of this program generating any given string— let's say,

 

ppupvwxkkucxviqqilgrbtbbvyizfsyotnabvbbjrzxroonpcoqmpffbpebplyxqiisbgtttkdtwkxnebitdadoagcaclhuhytaanhpziofrakgxkdwzpovewseryivsknvtmyavvfpjtrrwiyraxivkujcnbadmcmwhlrmtdrkglxsxqcttoynpewtjiobayewdyxjtepdwrpmwklwtdvhlukmodhlfsywoxvnwimmyaxavcvqdsofashptqipvqzdcdwppwlltzahspgtheaabphxwphjtiubdrksfottlcjvnoakwaakuzvenfsektpvmozeuwqivjfwfuhfpbiqyiwqpwtiykfklvheiepjksgjlaytehamitkjdtbjwuntbxctkshqglvpeargswnrckrvwrrhvdqwxutbytlujiputaqjpsztivpmxynrrfkfuzspuxugfjfjjwwcfsioburfbwepbmahwviomkngmqpqymnomjuomcpiqpnezfftkynckrondspepzyunwekkglgzgbqkwvatamyluarmxehogincwkaewuqycimrwwhvtyjqyfwzzfpiycxlimullwyqwsppkbfxmlcbgeyiddlzoirfcituahqbhrislfaikycvkphgjythruulsexmcpgmprhqcffbdvwhxckflllwgnzdbawczbszcrsdmlrfdfnknpjxlioptjrpjxsrmdnunoyfvedgalmigtdohxncknckncvkcgofmijcdvnxzwafjyewhsdpxlnomrarhviymrnuvccqohrhgyhrudlqvdbebzkvotvvuoksztyveikhzbxglwckwxttgqebrjbkimobmgcsuplzkssisakteqaoeoepeaghonsyzoarhuisjyliaqlypwleokhumovjdueejmzhnuthdrmoolmbpxkwhivmzxuvxpxdtcvnshkfrpiiaasbyijcexcngvidvfmyxhnegba

 

is roughly one in nine septillion septillion septillion septillion septillion septillion septillion septillion septillion septillion septillion septillion septillion septillion septillion septillion septillion septillion septillion septillion septillion septillion septillion septillion septillion septillion septillion septillion septillion septillion septillion septillion septillion septillion septillion septillion septillion septillion septillion septillion septillion septillion septillion septillion septillion septillion septillion septillion septillion septillion septillion septillion septillion septillion septillion septillion septillion.

 

I don't need to tell you that I will never generate that string with this program— not at those odds. Except that (big surprise) I already have. That string was randomly generated.

 

I don't think I need to insult everyone's intelligence by drawing the conclusion for you, but just to make it clear: even astronomically, almost infinitely improbable events are not impossible. Because although the odds of any single string being generated are so insurmountable, every time I run the program the odds that one will is one in one.

 

For many, there just has to be something more to explain what's happened

 

Yes, we call those people uneducated mongoloids.

[Thurisaz]

"Darwin, as usual, got it right: part of an eye is better than no eye at all and any slight modification will improve matters until we get a reasonably effective organ."

This quote illustrates the incredible amount of faith Neo-Darwinists have...

 

You could have expressed it all much shorter, like:

 

"I don't know shit about science - for I always was too fucking lazy to move my sorry arse into a classroom - therefore ebilution is faaaaaalse!!!11!!!!1!!!!"

 

You want to criticize evolution, talk about it - and not about the standard cretinist/IDiot strawman.

[Godless Wonder]

"Darwin, as usual, got it right: part of an eye is better than no eye at all and any slight modification will improve matters until we get a reasonably effective organ." This quote illustrates the incredible amount of faith Neo-Darwinists have in random mutation and natural selection.

 

Let me ask you, were you, or anyone you know, wearing eyeglasses when you wrote this?

 

Yes? Ah, just for show, though, I suppose, because anything less than a pefect eye is worthless, and why would someone put eyeglasses over worthless eyes, or conversely, why would anyone wear eyeglasses when the variations in eyes are so small than any eye is just as good as any other? The fact that some people wear eyeglasses, and some don't contradicts your thesis. Sorry, your argument has been fucked to death, right there.

 

Go read a science book or two. Proclaiming the "eye" as some sort of unevolvable complexity is just so 19th century. This is the 21st century. We know the eye has evolved independendently many many times, in several varieties, sometimes multiple times in the same lineage, be it the single lens "camera" style eye of mammals or the separately evolved but similar eye of squids or of fish, or the many-lensed compound insect eye of insects, or the eyes of the scallop, which are much like the Cassegrain reflecting telescope.

 

To propose the eye as some sort of challenge to evolution, you have to be the worst sort of ignorant. Go educate yourself. Your argument is nothing bot an argument from incredulity. You can't believe it, and so you say, "it's unbelievable," and that's your entire argument.

 

You haven't got any facts. Computer simulations show that with the slightest of advantages a favorable trait will spread throughout a population, and the eye can evolve relatively quickly. And it HAS evolved quickly, many many times.

 

If you're trying to find something which is difficult for evolution to explain, pick something harder than the eye. The eye is easy.

[theunraveler]

u know those shelled creatures that cling on to rocks on the beach? i dunno wat they're called but they possessed a simple photoreceptor and when ur shadow falls on them, they respond by tightening their grip on the rock.

 

in life, not all life on earth needs a complete eye. most of wat diff organisms have is enuff for their survival

[♦ ficino ♦]

"Darwin, as usual, got it right: part of an eye is better than no eye at all and any slight modification will improve matters until we get a reasonably effective organ."

 

You are not quoting Darwin. Who are you quoting?

 

Your posting this quote shows you don't understand. No organism was traveling around with "part of" anything. As the unraveler just pointed out, some organisms have more effective organs than others. A rudimentary eye is not "part of" some body part; it is a complete, fully developed body part in its organism right now.

[dibby]

." For many, there just has to be something more to explain what's happened

 

So why the creation story of an ancient tribal grouping from the middle east??!!?

[Ouroboros]

This quote illustrates the incredible amount of faith Neo-Darwinists have in random mutation and natural selection. It's like a gambler who expects to win on the roulette wheel over the long haul. While there may be an occasional win and a temporary increase of funds, the gambler's luck and money will eventually run out because the odds are against him.

It's funny that you use that analogy, because if you look at nature as the house, then you know nature will win. You only looked at the losing side, but mutations and survival is like the dealer. In black jack the dealer have to follow very strict rules when they can be hit or not, but still the odds are for the house, the house always wins. So over thousands of games, the casino can build a bigger and better hotel. Without even guessing.

 

-edit-

 

To compare evolution to any game, I'd rather use Poker for the comparison. The dealer is neutral and have no gain in the game. The cards are neutral and randomly selected. The money is neutral but the token for who wins (survives). Each player have a different strategy and skill and the one with the better strategy have the advantage and will most likely win. And in Poker, there is alwasy a winner and losers.

 

And in Black Jack, the player actually can play and win. He can use a strategy called card counting, and have the advantage against the house. But it's difficult, demands good skills, but it's not allowed in the Casino, and you usually end up with broken fingers or kneecaps and banned from the casino for life.

[chefranden]

....It's like a gambler who expects to win on the roulette wheel over the long haul. While there may be an occasional win and a temporary increase of funds, the gambler's luck and money will eventually run out because the odds are against him. In regard to the Pollyanna-like quote cited, any "slight modification" of part of an eye is actually more likely to make matters worse than to improve them, until we get an even less effective organ...

 

I guess y'all didn't see this thread then?

[narcissist]

One of the things I like about Richard Dawkins is that he is able to present creationist arguments better than the creationists themselves, then, quite easily shoot those arguments down as one shoots at a barn from the inside.

 

The post by "Goodbook" above does nothing except expose his own ignorance of how evolution works, how science works, and how to present a reasonable argument without seeming like a total dufus.

[♦ ficino ♦]

The irreducible complexity argument rests on a false picture. People who argue IC talk as though the evolutionist imagines a functioning organism without some part that evolved later. They then proudly assert that the organism couldn't stay alive without that part. So the part couldn't have evolved later. So God must have created the organism with all the parts already. The eye, for example; if it didn't have all its rods and cones, it wouldn't see.

 

The step of subtraction involved in this imagined series is its flaw. At any given time, organisms are full-fledged members of their own species. All their body parts are complete for the nature of their species. I admit that a human with a diminished prefrontal cortex in the brain probably wouldn't survive long. But that human would be retarded, therefore defective. Some other primate with a less powerful prefrontal cortex survives because it has a complete primate brain; it doesn't have part of a human brain.

[Dhampir]

Quick question: does the apparent uselessness of the human appendix falsify the irreducible complexity argument?

[Asimov]

Quick question: does the apparent uselessness of the human appendix falsify the irreducible complexity argument?

 

It's not useless, I don't think...

[Dhampir]

What is it there for?

[theunraveler]

What is it there for?

some scientist believe the appendix is used to immune response in the body..

[Asimov]

What is it there for?

 

It isn't significant or anything, but as said before, it does contain lymphatic tissue that aid in the making of antibodies.

 

It's vestigial, but not entirely useless.

[Thurisaz]

Of course, "vestigial" doesn't mean "useless" anyway, much to the chagrin of the fundie hordes... but merely "useless for its original purpose".

 

But don't tell that to the fundies - contact with facts may cause their skulls to implode from the vacuum

[Guest Thegoodbook]

Stated briefly, the question is whether the combination of random mutations plus natural selection is sufficient to produce the changes demanded by macroevolution. Mutations of sufficient frequency and extent to cause such change tend to debilitate the population of organisms, as shown by experiments mutating fruit flies. The fossil record simply does not show the continuum of slight gradations that would be expected. Fossil species appear suddenly, have long periods of stasis, and then many go extinct without much more than minor changes. For examples, compare an early shark to a modern one, or the first bat to a modern one. That's why Darwinists cannot cite much more than microevolutionary changes such as antibiotic-resistant bacteria as empirical evidence. Time is used like a magic wand. I don't need to come up with a completely different natural explanation of the origin of species just because I see the current one as weak and inadequate.

[Antlerman]

The fossil record simply does not show the continuum of slight gradations that would be expected. Fossil species appear suddenly, have long periods of stasis, and then many go extinct without much more than minor changes.

Really? Then those evil scientists have lied to us with all those fossils, and it is a fact that they have found all there is to find by now. That's pretty clear. They must be driven by an anti-god agenda, including the one's that believe in God.

 

Thanks for all your scientific research into this. Now I can become an anti-Darwinist and post the truth of science as told in Genesis 1. Man came from dirt, woman from bone. It's so simple. Just take the eye and blind it.

[Asimov]

Stated briefly, the question is whether the combination of random mutations plus natural selection is sufficient to produce the changes demanded by macroevolution. Mutations of sufficient frequency and extent to cause such change tend to debilitate the population of organisms, as shown by experiments mutating fruit flies.

 

Cite your fucking source. I'm not gonna sit here and read this shit. A population evolves only as fast as it's geography allows. There are no changes demanded by macroevolution that are higher than that of microevolution.

 

Micro and macro refer to the amount of time involved in the process of evolution, not specifically to the amount of evolution. There is no demand for the number of mutations.

 

The fossil record simply does not show the continuum of slight gradations that would be expected.

 

Yes it does. We see that in whales, humans, horses, water-to-land species, reptilian to mammal, vertebral evolution, reptilian to bird.

 

The rate of evolution depends upon geographical change, population size, number of generations, and the mutation rate itself. Who's to say that a mutation that develops in a species doesn't become beneficial if it remains within the population (exaptation) and the environment demands a change suddenly?

 

Fossil species appear suddenly, have long periods of stasis, and then many go extinct without much more than minor changes.

 

Meaningless bullshit. Of course fossils appear suddenly, you idiot. That's where they DIE. Where they are found in the geological column only indicates a general timeline, it is consistent, predictable and corroborated.

 

For examples, compare an early shark to a modern one, or the first bat to a modern one. That's why Darwinists cannot cite much more than microevolutionary changes such as antibiotic-resistant bacteria as empirical evidence. Time is used like a magic wand.

 

Jesus-fucking christ, so let's compare two species who's environment has changed the least and then say "whoops! evolution is wrong, DERP!!" Hey, let's look at whale evolution, horse evolution, evolution of birds, evolution of mammals, evolution of humans. Those DO not indicate "microevolutionary changes".

 

I don't need to come up with a completely different natural explanation of the origin of species just because I see the current one as weak and inadequate.

 

Nobody fucking requested it, you can't even demonstrate how weak it is. Your inability to even address the points brought up by others shows your lack of knowledge in this area.

 

 

Not to mention your apparent shifting of goalposts from your OP. When you're presented with a refutation of what you say, you move on and handwave.

[Thurisaz]

Mutations of sufficient frequency and extent to cause such change tend to debilitate the population of organisms...

 

Yeah fundie brat! YEAH! Keep screaming at the top of your lungs "I am an idiot and hope I'll find another idiot here who's dumb enough to swallow my shit!!!11!!!"!

 

Gee, don't you just love it when fundies do our work for us?