Another Professor Renounces Darwinism (page 3)

TD

Another (And IMO more correct than the OP's) perspective:

https://quillette.com/2019/09/09/david-gelernter-is-wrong-about-ditching-darwin/

Apparently Donald D. Hoffman, a human being who is the result of an evolutionary process that has provided him with a series of illusions rather than an accurate take on reality (which does not actually exist), is using these illusions to make claims about the nature of reality (which he has previously claimed does not exist). - Steve Oberski (the comments section of Coyne's blog...)

Half banana

SBF, Donald Hoffman's angle on perception and consciousness is to me absolutely fascinating since I am in dialogue with a local writer on the very subject. But really we don't need the tentative arguments of high level neuroscience to answer the matter in hand namely a computer scientist ruling on a subject for which he is not qualified.

In discussing any matter on the internet -- obviously without the benefit of reading body language-- I find there is always the problem for me replying at the right level. Science theory and philosophy is usually fifty years or so ahead of the average punter. However it may take fifty years to eliminate the faulty hypotheses in circulation at present.

We are still fumbling in the dark with a theory of brain and a clear perception of consciousness but it is necessary to posit ideas within the science community to test the weaknesses and strengths to eventually arrive at a coherent picture. Which is far more satisfying than religious belief which is un-testable and therefore has no utility--- except to comfort the holder of belief.

Nothing new--no progress can come from belief.

cofty

Thank you for linking to Coyne's article on Quillette article TD. I actually read that when it was first published last month and forgot about it.

slimboyfat

Newtonian physics for example “worked” but was apparently not “true”.

Yes it is. It just isn't the complete picture but for macro objects it is true. No scare quotes required.

This is not correct. Newtonian physics was ultimately rejected because it couldn’t explain large scale phenomena such as the orbit of Mercury, whereas Einstein’s theory of relativity could. So Newtonian physics is wrong with regard to large objects not just small ones. But it “worked” for all intents and purposes for centuries, and still does, in most circumstances, even though it is not “true”.

Sea Breeze

The professor in the OP stops short of saying he believes in intellignet design, but offers a point of view that he believes points out one of the deficiencies in neo-darwinism .

While we expect such criticism from YECs, and ID proponents, what is surprising is that voices are starting to emerge within the secular community of non-believers.

This article claims that one third of biologists, many from the secular scientific community question Darwinism. It states that they are not trying to de-throne Darwin "but to retire him to make way for more coherent comprehensive theories" that accommodate data not available to Darwin.

It states that current Neo-Darwinism is far from the untouchable theory it is lauded to be.

Article

cofty

Sea Breeze - Either you don't understand the 2014 article in Nature or you are deliberately misrepresenting it.

There is not a single word in the article that even hints at the need for an external force or intelligence to account for complexity or design. The dissenting scientists could not possibly be more opposed to creationists and proponents of ID.

The debate is about the mechanisms that account for unguided evolution. Did you even read the article?

Here is the key paragraph...

In our view, this ‘gene-centric’ focus fails to capture the full gamut of processes that direct evolution. Missing pieces include how physical development influences the generation of variation (developmental bias); how the environment directly shapes organisms’ traits (plasticity); how organisms modify environments (niche construction); and how organisms transmit more than genes across generations (extra-genetic inheritance). For SET, these phenomena are just outcomes of evolution. For the EES, they are also causes.

Please don't be so crass as to reference articles in The Federalist as if it was serious journalism, let alone science.

shepherdless

Actually SBF, the problem with classical physics was not that it could not explain the orbit of Mercury (being a slowly rotating elipse instead of a stationary elipse). That was a relatively minor issue. A far bigger mystery in the 19th century was where the sun got its energy. But it was only the result of the Michaelson-Morley experiment (proving there was no “ether” or stationary point in the universe) that brought an end to classical physics.

As to whether Newtonian physics is “true”, I would say for all practical purposes it still is. It will give you an extremely accurate approximation so long as you are not dealing with relative velocities close to the speed of light, extremely high gravitational fields, or objects (particles) so small that quantum mechanics comes into play.

Anyway, don’t mind me. Please carry on.

Vidiot

Half banana - "...Creationism is merely a belief based on a literal take of ancient manuscripts..."

Pretty much, yeah.

It was a bit of a revelation (sorry) when I realized that the only real obstacle to accepting evolution was the insistence that Genesis - and particularly the Eden narrative - be entirely literal. Other than that (and especially once I filtered out what I'd come to recognize as bias and misinformation*), I found it entirely scientific, plausible, and sensible.

In the case of Watchtower cosmology, however, that literalness has become a dependence... if they were drop it, they'd have to virtually rewrite huge swaths of "The Truth" from scratch.

As a result, they can never budge on it.

...

* Once again, for the newbies, lurkers, and trolls...

...if you have to cheat to defend your beliefs, your beliefs don't deserve to be defended.

Crazyguy2

I watched a YouTube interview with about 4 so called math geniuses that Also say it mathematically impossible to go from one species to another. Yet science has shown that it has happened . Look at the chicken that when scientist turned on a dormant gene it grew a tooth in side it’s beak. How is that possible if not for a species jump?

Another Professor Renounces Darwinism

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