Wednesday, February 4, 2015

Hemant Mehta, the Friendly Scientismist Place

Over at Mehta's place, Serah Blain is allowed to take the reins and she extolls Darwin Day and Darwin's natural selection:
"Charles Darwin’s discovery of natural selection as the mechanism by which biological evolution occurs continues to have monumental impact on countless areas of modern life. But as important as this discovery was, equally important was the strength of character displayed in the very act of asking forbidden questions that could unravel prevailing views of what was true."
Anyone actually following evolutionary turbulence and theorizing knows that natural selection has been dumped as having causal powers for driving (the presumption of) evolution. The Altenberg 16 nailed the coffin almost shut tight, leaving only scant gaps which appear to be in deference to the god of evolution, not to observation or empirical justification. In fact, variation and natural selection was replaced nearly 80 years ago by the idea that variation didn't work as causal either; so they added mutation to the mix to see if that would do the trick.

But no, mutation was not enough to justify (the presumption of) evolution, either. So at Altenberg, the 16 evolutionary gurus discussed what it would take to justify the concept of evolution. And afterward they published a book containing the new technologies and theories that might, maybe, some day, justify the concept of evolution.

But the problem is that none of the technologies or theories available even today comes close to providing any current knowledge as to how, exactly, the fossil record came to show that which it shows. Further, after 200 years of fossil digs there is still no common ancestor for the multiple phyla that came into existence during the Cambrian Explosion.

Yes, that's right. There really is a missing link. And it is the one link necessary to prove the consistency of the common descent theory, which accompanies evolution.

But back to Darwin. Darwin did science by a little induction and a lot of fabulation (story telling). He made famous the technique of showing two data points and making up stories about how one data point turned into the other data point by inventing causes to make the story seem complete. Stephen Jay Gould called this technique, "Just So Story telling". It circumvents the empirical process of experimentation used to verify hypotheses; it does that by calling the Theory of Evolution, True. And then making it legally declared True and unassailable. That is what people like Mehta and Blain are calling "science", and skeptics of such intellectual shenanigans are common called, "science deniers".

When called upon to produce empirical evidence to support their causal claims, they have nothing (except variation within a species).

When asked to deduce the existence of non-compressible, non-algorithmic, meaningful information within DNA, they have nothing.

When asked how it came to pass that the first cell was described in advance in all its complexity even before the cell existed, they have nothing.

When asked how it came to pass that the first cell came into existence in all its complexity without DNA existing first, they have nothing.

When asked to provide a disciplined, grounded deduction showing how agency, consciousness, intellect, qualia, etc. came into being based on the well known characteristics of their purely mineral source, they have nothing.

Blain (and by extension, Mehta) is not in contact with the actual issues of evolution. Here is a classic case of a Scientismist, a fan-girl who is enamored of the thought of science as being the knowledge generator for all possible questions of existence. And she attributes that to Darwin and Darwinism, blindly. She parrots untruths without trying to analyze whether there actually is any truth contained in them.

Says Blain:
"The courage to adopt scientific thinking and set aside bias is needed in the hard sciences."
I can't restrain myself from saying that this statement, in the context of Darwinism, is totally obtuse. Darwinism was never a hard science, it was an ideology (failed hypothesis) that was based in induction cum fantasy. Darwinism never, ever adopted "scientific thinking" in the standard empirical sense of objective knowledge generating science. Darwinism has always been subjective, not objective in its form and conclusions.
"Darwin Day is an opportunity for people throughout the world to participate in world-changing bravery and humility, too. Charles Darwin’s discovery of natural selection underpins everything we know about biology; my hope is that this holiday will come to underpin the character of our culture as well."
Biology in no manner whatsoever depends on Darwin or Darwinism or evolution or evolutionists for its advances. Evolutionists try to steal the respectability of actual scientific, experimental, objective biological advances and to hope that that respectability would somehow reflect on their ideology too. It's a logical fallacy, and it's downright pitiful, yet contemptible.

Mostly, it's contemptible. To sell an ideology on such irrational premises is, in fact, contemptible.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

And yet, what's sad is that people still believe it. I told a few people online about my beliefs (that evolution is shaky), and about the Science Against Evolution website.

They still hold to Evolution, though, saying that there is a lot of evidence for it. One person called the creator of that site a creationist. I said that he wasn't, and he basically said "Yeah, right".

Unknown said...

Hmm, what about Galileo Day? Newton Day? Hawking Day? Planck Day? Copernicus Day? Fara Day?

Why is it that the only scientist most atheists have ever heard of is Darwin?

Why is it that all those atheist trolls prowling the Intertubes proclaiming the scientific virtues of Darwinism, and patting themselves on the back for their intellectual superiority, don't actually know enough about it to pass a seventh-grade science test?

Is it because they're not so much believers in science as they are worshippers of Darwin? Is that because evolution, for atheists, is not nearly so much about the science as it is about propping up their rejection of God?

That's my Just So Story, at least.

Unknown said...

Ah, reminds me of a recent conversation I had with a typically ignorant atheist, who loudly insisted that science had a "perfectly good explanation" on how life emerged.

When I asked him when science had managed to explain abiogenesis, he insisted there were plenty of YouTube videos explaining it.

When I asked him a link to one video explaining abiogenesis or the nature of consciousness, he retorted, "They're working on it."

He didn't so much move the goal posts as beam them half way across the known universe.

Unknown said...

Just one more :)

I'm in mind of a coworker I had some years ago, who proclaimed himself a movie aficionado. When I asked him his opinion on Casablanca, he informed me that he was more into science fiction. So I solicited his opinion on Close Encounters, and he said he was really more of a Star Wars fan. Probing a bit further, it turned out Star Wars was the only movie he had watched in years.

Most atheists are about as interested in science as my coworker was in movies.

Russell said...

I've started reading Darwin's "Origin of the Species".

The first chapter is nothing more than his random observations, just-so stories, unsupported premises, and wild leaps of logic.

I'll read the whole thing before making up my mind, but the start is rather weak.

Stan said...

Russell,
When you get to the part where he performs experiments in order to generate objective knowledge regarding his theory, let us know.