Reply to Martin

Martin,
The difference between your two examples is that the first involved evidence of agency (and still could not deduce the correct answer), while the second was purely material, both in source and deterministic causality, and could deduce a probably correct answer. Agency operates outside the deterministic realm, and is not predictable using determinist rules. It could be said that evolution is not predictable, and thus resembles agency more than determinism. (Actually, taken under Materialism, evolution is even more random than quantum events, since there is a multiplication of randomness involved, including random mutations, carried forward randomly, matched to random environments at random times. More on that below.)

Now, when referring to evolution, the question of agency surfaces in the observation of the creation of highly complex and highly useful functionality from mere random mutations, which are necessary for the creation of functionality outside of the original genome. An example is the creation of blood systems from algae/sponges. The answer to that is not deep time, because the issue is this: how does one deduce entire blood systems arising from sponges? Time is not an answer.

The evolutionary answer is this: ”Well, it happened, right? So evolution can cause anything, everything and nothing.”

That is blind belief.

Now iirc, your position is that DNA/ERV shows common descent. In fact, there is no direct proof of common descent, so inferences must be very strong, plus they must be completely formally dedicated and devoted to Materialism, unless purely Material mechanics for the creation of useful complexity out of a non-useful non-complex initial condition can be deduced in detail and completeness.

By detail, I mean that it is not enough to say, for example, that simultaneous mutations occurred and were carried forward even while not yet useful for blood vessels and entire circulatory systems including blood pumps self-fed with blood, fan-out of arteries to all cells, return of blood via veins, oxygenation of blood via lung systems, detoxification of blood via liver/kidney type systems, blood cells created in separate systems with blood cells capable of providing both the nutrients created by other organs (necessary for the task) and the elimination of toxins, the use of coagulation processes (highly complex in themselves) to prevent death by bleeding.

It must be shown that either all of these capacities and physical artifacts developed separately due either to accidental mutations which were carried forward from sponges/algae to the complex systems which are known to have such things starting in the Cambrian, or that all the mutations occurred simultaneously in a single organism, giving it full functionality in an all new way. The probability of either of these occurrences is vanishingly small. And it is accompanied by other necessary occurrences with more vanishingly small probabilities which multiply the improbability (not even including abiogenesis – the evolution of life from minerals).

Here are few more:

Simultaneous mutations would have occurred which allowed the formation of skeletons.

Simultaneous mutations would have occurred developing multiple sensors useful for detecting the environment.

Simultaneous mutations would have occurred developing complex neural systems for controlling both the sensors and the motions of the system.

Simultaneous mutations would have occurred developing a nourishment intake/output system which provides separate sources for H+ internal emission and Cl- internal emission, which taken together form hydrochloric acid for digestion, yet in an environment which doesn’t digest itself.

Simultaneous mutations would have occurred which created muscle systems (controlled by the neural system) which were attached to the skeleton, which is actually a grouping of dozens of connected levers, joints and fulcrums which are activated by the muscle/neural/blood system, and sustained by the digestive system.

Simultaneous mutations would have occurred which created a self-replenishing system for all organic cells.

Simultaneous mutations would have occurred which created a means of limiting growth after detecting maturity.

Simultaneous mutations would have occurred which created sexual reproduction (a highly complex system in itself).

Simultaneous mutations would have occurred which created a large membrane (skin) covering the system, and having flexibility, the ability to respire and replicate, and having self-healing capabilities.

I’ll stop here, because the necessary simultaneous systems to get from sponge to fish require a blind belief in the vanishingly small probability of randomness accomplishing such complexities, and that the complexities are being carried forward before they are connected together with living utility. The mechanism (mutation/selection) is assumed, not proven; it is not even specified with any detail, because it seems to be enough to say the words, “it evolved”, and that suffices. And the declared mechanism has the uncanny, metaphysical capacity to do anything, everything and nothing, all simultaneously: it is omnipotent within its domain, yet petulant in its performance before an audience.

When it comes to ERV’s and their placement in the genome, there is an unprovable assumption that there is no other way for that to occur.

More importantly is the necessity for the prior existence of a “universal genetic code” which came from before the “first species”, which of necessity had the code, if common descent is the case. The source of this code is never discussed, since its complexity, utility and necessity - even in the beginning - is vanishingly improbable, so is ignored so that Materialism is to be maintained.

And of course the origination subject of abiogenesis (evolution from goo to first life) is ignored by defining it out of the evolutionary process, ideologically.

The circularity of Materialism is deeply embedded in evolution:

“It looks like design, but it isn’t.” “Complexity can arise naturally” (evidence? => Evolution).

So evolution is true because complexity can arise as evidenced by: evolution.
Commonly stated thus:

“Well it evolved, didn’t it? It had to.”

And this:

“Since you have no Materialist alternative, then evolution can be presumed valid.”

I.e., because Materialism is true, then there is no other possibility than evolution, which proves that Materialism is True. Classical circularity and non-coherence.

Finally, none of the “falsifications” contained in your source negate the common design concept, which is far simpler than the evolutionary concept, and is why Crick et. al. invented Panspermia (despite its infinite regress failure).

Crick:
” Crick and Orgel wrote in their book 'Life Itself,'

"An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going. But this should not be taken to imply that there are good reasons to believe that it could not have started on the earth by a perfectly reasonable sequence of fairly ordinary chemical reactions. The plain fact is that the time available was too long, the many microenvironments on the earth's surface too diverse, the various chemical possibilities too numerous and our own knowledge and imagination too feeble to allow us to be able to unravel exactly how it might or might not have happened such a long time ago, especially as we have no experimental evidence from that era to check our ideas against."

In other words, it looks like a miracle, but it can't be, just because.

I will quote Dawkins extensively, because he is the 5 Star general who has arisen in order to weaponize Evolution and Philosophical Materialism. But take a look at the evidence which he gives and upon which he and his followers depend:

Dawkins:

”"The fact that life evolved out of nearly nothing, some 10 billion years after the universe evolved out of literally nothing, is a fact so staggering that I would be mad to attempt words to do it justice."

A strange admission from a Materialist. Yet he sells lots of words on the subject, doesn’t he?

”"The theory of evolution by cumulative natural selection is the only theory we know of that is in principle capable of explaining the existence of organized complexity."

Only if one is a devoted Philosophical Materialist.

”"The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute that it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive, many others are running for their lives, whimpering with fear, others are slowly being devoured from within by rasping parasites, thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst, and disease. It must be so. If there ever is a time of plenty, this very fact will automatically lead to an increase in the population until the natural state of starvation and misery is restored. In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference."
— Richard Dawkins (River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life)

This is the correct view of human relationships and human value, under Materialism.

”It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I'd rather not consider that). “Put Your Money on Evolution” The New York Times (April 9, 1989) section VII p.35”

It is safe to say the Dawkins pumps hate for a living.

”The illusion of purpose is so powerful that biologists themselves use the assumption of good design as a working tool. River out of Eden (1995) p.98”

And well they should.

”Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose. The Blind Watchmaker (1996) p.1”

And design works fine as an explanation, if one is not ideologically locked into Materialism.

”Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist. The Blind Watchmaker (1996) p.6”

For Dawkins, intellectual fulfillment stops easily, and at an intellectually immature state, which he acquired as a teen.

”In the Cambrian strata of rocks, vintage about 600 million years (evolutionists are now dating the beginning of the Cambrian at about 530 million years), are the oldest in which we find most of the major invertebrate groups. And we find many of them already in an advanced state of evolution, the very first time they appear. It is as though they were just planted there, without any evolutionary history. Needless to say, this appearance of sudden planting has delighted creationists. The Blind Watchmaker (1996) p.229”

So much for intellectual fulfillment.

”It is almost as if the human brain were specifically designed to misunderstand Darwinism, and to find it hard to believe. The Blind Watchmaker (1996) p.316”

Designed? Actually, it appears designed to work well on Aristotelian logic and deduction, once it is learned and put to use.

”Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection is the only workable explanation that has ever been proposed for the remarkable fact of our own existence, indeed the existence of all life wherever it may turn up in the universe. It is the only known explanation for the rich diversity of animals, pants, fungi and bacteria. Forward to The Theory of Evolution by John Maynard Smith (2000) p.xv”

No, actually it is not. It is the only Materialist explanation.

”Natural selection is the only workable explanation for the beautiful and compelling illusion of 'design' that pervades every living body and every organ. Knowledge of evolution may not be strictly useful in everyday commerce. You can live some sort of life and die without ever hearing the name of Darwin. But if, before you die, you want to understand why you lived in the first place, Darwinism is the one subject that you must study. Forward to The Theory of Evolution by John Maynard Smith (2000) p.xvi”

Yes, Darwinism should be studied, and studied critically. There is little critical analysis in Dawkins’ approach to it, though.

”As an academic scientist I am a passionate Darwinian, believing that natural selection is, if not the only driving force in evolution, certainly the only known force capable of producing the illusion of purpose which so strikes all who contemplate nature. A Devil's Chaplain (2003) p.10”

His acknowledgement of “belief” and “passion” is nice to hear, as is his acknowledgement of purpose even if he is deluded by his concept of illusion.

”The world is divided into things that look designed (like birds and airliners) and things that don't (rocks and mountains). Things that look designed are divided into those that really are designed (submarines and tin openers) and those that aren't (sharks and hedgehogs). The diagnostic of things that look (or are) designed is that their parts are assembled in ways that are statistically improbable in a functional direction. They do something well: for instance, fly.

Darwinian natural selection can produce an uncanny illusion of design. An engineer would be hard put to decide whether a bird or a plane was the more aerodynamically elegant.

So powerful is the illusion of design, it took humanity until the mid-19th century to realise that it is an illusion. NewScientist September 17 2005 p.33”

Actually, it is only that recently that the delusion of Philosophical Materialism infested the academics to the point of their intellectual block beyond mass/energy. Their ensuing presumption of Atheist elitism locked in that intellectual block, and locked out thought beyond the physical, to the point that their own thoughts would be necessary physical and thus determinate and without value.

”I should have been talking about the combined probability of life's originating on a planet and leading, eventually, to the evolution of intelligent beings capable of anthropic reflection. It could be that the chemical origin of a self-replicating molecule (the necessary trigger for the origin of natural selection) was a relatively probable event but later steps in the evolution of intelligent life were highly improbable. Intelligent Thought (2006) p. 95-6”

So the subsequent evolutionary events were even less probable than jumping from minerals to life?

”Now if you take your science as narrowly evidential, you'll say something like, "Since you've never seen life on another planet other than this one, how can you possibly say anything about the way life might be universally, on other planets.?" On the face of it that sounds like a reasonable complaint, but on the other hand there surely must be some things that theory tells us must be so. And it can't be right to rule out of bounds everything that we can't see with our own eyes. The Selfish Gene: Thirty Years On March 16 2006”

He’s right at least once in that comment: it truly cannot be right to rule out of bounds everything that we can’t see with our own eyes. But he doesn’t realize the implications of this directive for his own worldview.

It is not necessary to endorse “creationism” in order to see the flaws in evolution as “the only game in town” (Dawkins); in order to understand its circularity, its non-predictive lack of utility, and the necessity of being “deluded” by the appearance of design.

Not to mention, of course, the lack of actual explanatory power of evolution for the simultaneous creation of parallel complexities, all of which are necessary for advanced life.

And not to mention the total silence on the origin of DNA, the rational code for all life which pre-existed first life.

And not to mention that life is far different from non-life, and cannot be deduced from non-life, certainly not under evolution or Darwinism.

And finally: to comprehend that both Materialism and Evolution are circular and self-enabling internal non-coherences, so they cannot be “the only game in town” if rationality is presupposed.

It is not necessary to endorse miracles in order to see that the argument against them has no Material basis for its claims, which again, are circular:

Materialism is True, therefore miracles are false, because Materialism is True.

The evidence against miracles is not in empirical proof or material methodology, it is purely in the ideology of Materialism.

For these basic reasons – and there are others – Evolution is seen to be a blind belief, an ideology and non-empirical at best. At worst, it has shown itself to be a basis for cruelty and human eliminationism.

I have more reasons to resist evolution, but that's for a future post when I'm done with my reading.