I study secular psychology and i can tell you the obvious… Evolution theory has been proven wrong a long time ago. Also, the human eye can´t “evolve”. It is recognize as one of many examples of irreducible complexity. You should read Michael Behe and Jonathan Wells, they have tons of evidence that refute your core hypothesis… Also, your moral foundation (Francis Bacon) is very weak that i am not going to bother refuting it
Mod note: I have locked this thread, and banned Miguel Cisneros.
There are parts of the internet that are the right space for this sort of conversation, but this isn’t one of them. A central point of LessWrong is that some questions can be settled so we can move on to other interesting debates.
Eh, that’s an accident, and if there turns out to be a Big Subsequent Drama Thread underneath my comment I may lock it too, but it seems fine for now to let people ask clarifying questions if they want. (I may end up moving that discussion to another Meta Post if it gets too big)
I thought that was on purpose, like “the thread in general is locked, but here is the place to go meta and complain about locking”.
What does the admin user interface look like? You lock comments one by one, instead of locking the entire thread? Maybe “lock this comment and all its replies” would be a better option. Less clicking, smaller chance of a mistake.
Oh for sure, we just haven’t coded that yet, and it doesn’t come up enough to be near the top of our priorities. (We have some tech debt around how comments work that makes it a little more annoying than it needs to be, which we’ll get around to fixing someday, after which adding a. “lock thread” feature would probably be easier)
Sure. Look, there are SEVERAL rebuttals for atheism/evolution. One of the many examples that Dr. Michael Behe uses to show the Biochemical complexity (which atheists reject), is blood clotting: If your blood does not clot in the right place, in the right amount and at the right time, you will bleed to death. It turns out that the blood clotting system involves an extremely choreographed ten-step cascade that uses about twenty different molecular compounds. To create a complex, perfectly balanced blood coagulation system, clusters of protein components have to be inserted all at once. That eliminates a Darwinian approach and fits the hypothesis of an intelligent designer. How could blood clotting develop over time, step by step, while the animal had no effective way of stopping the blood flow that would cause death every time it was injured? It doesn’t work if you only have one part of the system, you need all the components, and natural selection only works if there is something useful at that time, not in the future. Finally, no one has ever carried out experiments to show how blood clotting could have developed. It is one of the many examples of an irreducibly complex system, which needs to emerge complete to function. My response has been extracted from Behe´s response in the book “The case for the Creator” of Lee Strobel. Look, i know there are several atheists here that like to hide on this forum and erase any comment they don´t like, but i believe you can be open-minded
Irreducible complexity arguments are pretty unconvincing at this point. The Theory of Evolution has already been proven beyond any reasonable doubt, and you would know this if you had objectively looked at both sides, as I have. Because you don’t already know better, I don’t think the dispute can be resolved at this level of argument. We have to take a step back and look at our disagreement in terms of epistemology.
Was that your true rejection? Hypothetically, if science had an answer to all of your irreducible complexity objections, would you then accept evolution, or is there some deeper reason you’re not telling us? Are you going where the evidence leads you, or did you write the bottom line first and work backwards from there?
Look, i know there are several atheists here that like to hide on this forum and erase any comment they don´t like, but i believe you can be open-minded
You must be new here. Nobody is hiding. The last community survey I saw shows we’re at least 70% atheist. If you’re out to “save our souls” and aren’t just trolling for fun, then I suggest you learn how to talk to us first. Posts that make obvious mistakes in reasoning that were already covered in the Sequences are going to get downvoted very quickly. Read what we’re about and play by our rules, because that’s the only way we’re going to listen.
No one is erasing other people’s comments here unless they’re outright abusive.
As for the “irreducible complexity” argument, you may notice that it has convinced approximately zero percent of actual biologists. You may find “they’re all brainwashed atheists so completely under Satan’s thumb that they can’t form rational opinions” a more convincing explanation for that than “the argument is actually not very strong”, but I don’t agree.
(I agree with the biologists; I think Behe’s argument is bad. But I don’t think arguing about that argument is particularly on topic here.)
Also, no one is claiming that Francis Bacon is anyone’s moral foundation. I think you may not have been reading what Scott wrote very carefully.
Evolving eyes is hard: they need to evolve Eye Part 1, then Eye Part 2, then Eye Part 3, in that order. Each of these requires a separate series of rare mutations.
I can only assume you aren’t aware that there are many readily available discussions about why Behe’s irreducible complexity doesn’t hold water.
To have any chance of making any headway with the argument you seem to be attempting here, you’re going to have to seriously engage with the large quantity of work that is a retort to the irreducible complexity thesis.
Imagine you’re in a world where it’s not immediately obvious that a structure built of brick is more resistant to fire than a structure built of straw. There’s been lots of discussion back and forth for generations about the relative merits of brick vs straw.
There’s a famous expert in brick structures named Fred and everyone on both sides of the debate are aware of Fred. Fred has written a book that brick people think makes it obvious that brick buildings are the best. The straw people have many and varied reasons that they think prove Fred is wrong.
Now, you’re interested in helping the straw people see the light. You have an opportunity to talk to a room full of straw people. You want to convince them that brick structures are the best. You’re not interested in a tribal fight about brick vs straw, you want to actually persuade and convince.
Would your opening gambit be to say “Brick structures are the best because Fred says so? It’s so obvious!”. No, of course not! The most reasonable approach would be to engage with the already extensive discussion the straw people have around Fred’s ideas.
Are you a Christian? Otherwise, I don’t think anyone can trust Lee Strobel. Did he mention Behe’s evidence for common descent :
vitamin C pseudogene: “Both humans and chimps have a broken copy of a gene that in other mammals helps make vitamin C.” (71); “It’s hard to imagine how there could be stronger evidence for common ancestry of chimps and humans.” (72)
hemoglobine pseudogene: “More compelling evidence for the shared ancestry of humans and other primates comes from (...) a broken hemoglobin gene.” (71)
yeast whole-genome-duplication: “Although duplicated genes can be used to trace common ancestry” (74)
From ‘The Edge of Evolution’
I study secular psychology and i can tell you the obvious… Evolution theory has been proven wrong a long time ago. Also, the human eye can´t “evolve”. It is recognize as one of many examples of irreducible complexity. You should read Michael Behe and Jonathan Wells, they have tons of evidence that refute your core hypothesis… Also, your moral foundation (Francis Bacon) is very weak that i am not going to bother refuting it
Mod note: I have locked this thread, and banned Miguel Cisneros.
There are parts of the internet that are the right space for this sort of conversation, but this isn’t one of them. A central point of LessWrong is that some questions can be settled so we can move on to other interesting debates.
Is there a central list of settled questions?
The thread is locked, but I can still reply to your comment, is that okay?
Eh, that’s an accident, and if there turns out to be a Big Subsequent Drama Thread underneath my comment I may lock it too, but it seems fine for now to let people ask clarifying questions if they want. (I may end up moving that discussion to another Meta Post if it gets too big)
I thought that was on purpose, like “the thread in general is locked, but here is the place to go meta and complain about locking”.
What does the admin user interface look like? You lock comments one by one, instead of locking the entire thread? Maybe “lock this comment and all its replies” would be a better option. Less clicking, smaller chance of a mistake.
Oh for sure, we just haven’t coded that yet, and it doesn’t come up enough to be near the top of our priorities. (We have some tech debt around how comments work that makes it a little more annoying than it needs to be, which we’ll get around to fixing someday, after which adding a. “lock thread” feature would probably be easier)
You mention evolution being proven wrong a long time ago. Care to elaborate?
Sure. Look, there are SEVERAL rebuttals for atheism/evolution. One of the many examples that Dr. Michael Behe uses to show the Biochemical complexity (which atheists reject), is blood clotting: If your blood does not clot in the right place, in the right amount and at the right time, you will bleed to death. It turns out that the blood clotting system involves an extremely choreographed ten-step cascade that uses about twenty different molecular compounds. To create a complex, perfectly balanced blood coagulation system, clusters of protein components have to be inserted all at once. That eliminates a Darwinian approach and fits the hypothesis of an intelligent designer. How could blood clotting develop over time, step by step, while the animal had no effective way of stopping the blood flow that would cause death every time it was injured? It doesn’t work if you only have one part of the system, you need all the components, and natural selection only works if there is something useful at that time, not in the future. Finally, no one has ever carried out experiments to show how blood clotting could have developed. It is one of the many examples of an irreducibly complex system, which needs to emerge complete to function. My response has been extracted from Behe´s response in the book “The case for the Creator” of Lee Strobel. Look, i know there are several atheists here that like to hide on this forum and erase any comment they don´t like, but i believe you can be open-minded
Step-by-Step Evolution of Vertebrate Blood Coagulation.
Irreducible complexity arguments are pretty unconvincing at this point. The Theory of Evolution has already been proven beyond any reasonable doubt, and you would know this if you had objectively looked at both sides, as I have. Because you don’t already know better, I don’t think the dispute can be resolved at this level of argument. We have to take a step back and look at our disagreement in terms of epistemology.
Was that your true rejection? Hypothetically, if science had an answer to all of your irreducible complexity objections, would you then accept evolution, or is there some deeper reason you’re not telling us? Are you going where the evidence leads you, or did you write the bottom line first and work backwards from there?
You must be new here. Nobody is hiding. The last community survey I saw shows we’re at least 70% atheist. If you’re out to “save our souls” and aren’t just trolling for fun, then I suggest you learn how to talk to us first. Posts that make obvious mistakes in reasoning that were already covered in the Sequences are going to get downvoted very quickly. Read what we’re about and play by our rules, because that’s the only way we’re going to listen.
No one is erasing other people’s comments here unless they’re outright abusive.
As for the “irreducible complexity” argument, you may notice that it has convinced approximately zero percent of actual biologists. You may find “they’re all brainwashed atheists so completely under Satan’s thumb that they can’t form rational opinions” a more convincing explanation for that than “the argument is actually not very strong”, but I don’t agree.
(I agree with the biologists; I think Behe’s argument is bad. But I don’t think arguing about that argument is particularly on topic here.)
Also, no one is claiming that Francis Bacon is anyone’s moral foundation. I think you may not have been reading what Scott wrote very carefully.
Evolving eyes is hard: they need to evolve Eye Part 1, then Eye Part 2, then Eye Part 3, in that order. Each of these requires a separate series of rare mutations.
I can only assume you aren’t aware that there are many readily available discussions about why Behe’s irreducible complexity doesn’t hold water.
To have any chance of making any headway with the argument you seem to be attempting here, you’re going to have to seriously engage with the large quantity of work that is a retort to the irreducible complexity thesis.
Imagine you’re in a world where it’s not immediately obvious that a structure built of brick is more resistant to fire than a structure built of straw. There’s been lots of discussion back and forth for generations about the relative merits of brick vs straw.
There’s a famous expert in brick structures named Fred and everyone on both sides of the debate are aware of Fred. Fred has written a book that brick people think makes it obvious that brick buildings are the best. The straw people have many and varied reasons that they think prove Fred is wrong.
Now, you’re interested in helping the straw people see the light. You have an opportunity to talk to a room full of straw people. You want to convince them that brick structures are the best. You’re not interested in a tribal fight about brick vs straw, you want to actually persuade and convince.
Would your opening gambit be to say “Brick structures are the best because Fred says so? It’s so obvious!”. No, of course not! The most reasonable approach would be to engage with the already extensive discussion the straw people have around Fred’s ideas.
Are you a Christian? Otherwise, I don’t think anyone can trust Lee Strobel. Did he mention Behe’s evidence for common descent :
vitamin C pseudogene: “Both humans and chimps have a broken copy of a gene that in other mammals helps make vitamin C.” (71); “It’s hard to imagine how there could be stronger evidence for common ancestry of chimps and humans.” (72)
hemoglobine pseudogene: “More compelling evidence for the shared ancestry of humans and other primates comes from (...) a broken hemoglobin gene.” (71)
yeast whole-genome-duplication: “Although duplicated genes can be used to trace common ancestry” (74) From ‘The Edge of Evolution’