Dawkins and The Improbable Stages of Evolution

 Surprised to find myself actually listening to some Richard Dawkins stuff, his book the TBGod Delusion which is available online as an audio book, and a talk he gave to a small group titled Climbing Mount Improbable.  So far.  I'm only up to Chapter three of the oobook so far.  I guess it's good to know what arguments he used.  It's the usual stuff and I'm not up to answering much of it but I think I'll probably come back to some of it eventually that I think I can answer here.

But first it's the Climbing Mount Improbable talk I'm thinking about.  He's dealing with the creati nist argument that you can't get evolution by small steps as is the evo idea because heach step has to be functioninal aod confer some benefit to the creature in order to be selected and that isn't going to happen.  You can't see with half an eye and all that.   I myself came up with that same kind of argument yearsx ago when I was about twenty and contemplating a set of huge anglers mounted over a fireplace in a hunting lodge I happened to be visiting with friends.  I remember sitting there for a long time trying to imagine how they could have evolved step by step from a small stubby bit of bone to this huge branching crown.   I reallyh coultn' see how it was possible.\

But as I watched Dawkins contructing a path of rhte evolution of the human eye, then the wings of an eagle and the bombardier beetle's explosive technique for warding off predators, I can easily enough guess how he'd deal with this antler situation too.  Once you've got a stub the male elk or whatever ti was could use to butt heads with another male el,kk you can see how it would be an davantage for the butubby little antler to fgrow into larger and larger versions because each would be even more useful to the comtabive elk.  \\

OK so much for that.  But as I was watching I realized that there is another and even more basic problwem with his reasoning that it swseems to bme very odd he doesn't address, nor anyone else that I know of either and I can't understand whyu as it seems so obvious at the moment.  I \  That is, each step in this evolutionary path depends on a mutation to produce the logical next stage from the small stubby wing to the eagle's wing, or the barely warm chemical to the explosive beetle's mixture, or the many differnt eye qualities that each confer some benefit to the possessor of them although the benefit is minimal compare d to the final result in our sophsitcated complex eyesj.

The question is how can he by counting on mutation to produce exactly the next stage in this sequence?  Why should mutation do anything useful at all for the eye or the wing or the beetle"  Why shouldn't it make a dent three inches below the eye that has no visual capacity whatever?  Why shouldn't it put a knob on the stubby wing that makes it even less sueful for flight?  In fact I had already thought along whthese lines some hyears ago at EvC forum when I was dealing with the claim that mammals evolved from repitiles as shown in the fossil record, and particularly that tyhe mammalian ear evolved from the reptilian ear.  Well, the reptilinan ear is sort of similar but quite different from the mammalian as I recall, and I can't look it up now so I have to remember it and may not be remembering too accurately, but as I recall the repitilian ear has three parts to it and the mammalian four, a different number of chanblers and they are in different positions in relation to one another.  Now I can certainly imagine Dawkins picture the necessary stages of repositioning and growth of an extra chambler over millions of years in perfect order to bgget from the one to the other, but as I was thinking about it at the time I couldn't imagine that you could even get to stage two, or tstage one ofr that matter because there is no way to adsssume that mutation is goinmg to produce anyhthing like that necessary stage.  Why if you get a mutation shouldn't it make a chamber smaller, or put an ear part an inch beneath the actuall ear or something else that renders its hearing functioni useless?    Why shouldn't mutation do anything BUT produce a useful stage from one type of ear to another?  

Dawkins is assuming that mutation is just about omniscioent and knows what stage is needed next to get from one functing part to the next.  But mtuation doesn't behave in usch a rational way.  And in fact it doesn't behave at ll as he is imaginging it moving from trait to trait.

Mutation operates on the DNA, it changes the sequence of chemicals in a gene, changes their order in some part of the gene that is.  Sometimes this doesn't affect the proteint produce t of the gene, in fact I think that itn most cases it doesn't.  But in other cases it may produce a discease process of some sort.  There are thousands of genetic diseases brought about by mutations.  It's almos just a matter of wishful thinking that it ever produces anything beneficial to the creature at all but I suppose once ina gagreat great while it does.  But such a great graeat while it hardly seems like it could every every;   ever qualify as the engine of evolution Dawkins and others think it is.  And then again even if it's benefitical it isn't beneficial in the sense that it builds on some previous mutation or previous condition, it just produces something else tentirelyh unrelated to that previous condition that happens to be beneficial.  I'm thinking of a cse where an advanctage in proitecitng the heart in some way was produced by a mtuation but in a gene that otherwise had not produced anting along the lines of that kind of heart protection to that point.    Where is Dawkins getting his idea that mtuations can produce stage after stage of anyitng at all?  Purely wishful thinking.

I've made a horrendous number of typos in this post, I wonder if it's readable at all.  I hope so but I'll have to stop now and see if I can find out wby sitening to it.

Dawkins again, gradual change delusion and no afterlife delusion

 Some people actually think that becus e they had no existence for an eternity before their birth that they will therefore have no existence when they die.  How does that compute?  How is that logical?  Yet it seems to be what Dawkins is saying in another interview I just happened to get on my screen, the host not being known to me.  Some famous philosophers apparently had such a silly idea.    And Dawkins calls the idea of an afterlife simpley a lie, he's that confivinced.  And pparently he's that convinced becaue he is convinced by evolution.  Which is a good enough explanation.  

He thinks of course that evolution is gradual, that we are descended from fish but that the evolution is so slow and gradual you can never detect any change from species to species at any particular point in the evolutionary process.  Well, that's perfectly locial but not really possible.  I keep trying to find ways to wsay it clearly and it's hard, maybe not possible in the end.  I just know you can't evolve from one genome to another, you are stuck in your genome, your descendants all inherit that genome, that genome does not become some other genome although there mayh be some anomalies from time to time that make it look like there could be such a change.    Of course you can get away with not having to prove anything if you juist insist that it's so gradual it can never be detected.  There's no way to answer that sort of claim.

But I reall y do think that the process of evolution, specifically selection, natural selection or random selection, any kind of seleciton that isolates a new set ofgene fraquencies, from population to population tends to a reduction in genetic diversity which really means a n increse in homozygosity or a decrease in genes with two different alleles.  That's where the variety comes from.  Once you have a pure berreed or "species" ofif you are talking about nature, at a certain distance from the original population anyway, you will have too many homozygous genes for further change to be possible.  Thast's a trend that may not very often reach that drastic condition through say a series of population isolations, but is demonstrated in the cdrastic examples of the endangered species creted bgy bottlenecks.  The trend is always in that direction through series of selections but you may only really see it in the bottleneck cases.  Maybe in ring species although people have denied that when I've brought it up.  I reallyh think it must ultimately be the end result of a long series of geographic isolations from a previous population.  Each would bring out new phenotypes and do so at the cost of genetic verity, with greater homoszygosity for certain traits and oso on and so forth.  I don't think this is wrong, I think it is a real trend and it is the proof needed that evolution is impossible.  

There simply is no oopenended evolution as Dawkins imagines.

As for life after death, doesn't it just seem unlikely that such a complexz cretaure as a human being could just go out like a light?  Doesn't it?

Oh well.

Jordan Peterson and His Version of the Story of Abraham

 Lessee, according to Jordan Peterson, Abraham was just lolling around eating peeled grapes, living the soft life of luxury, when God called him to go to another country.  How Peterson got that idea about the life Abraham was living I have no idea, there's nothing in scirpture to incidate such a life, and as a matter of fact we get a glimpse of the family life he came from later when his son and grandson are looking there for wives.  And it's not a lazy life at all, it is a life of taking care of animals at least, and tat's not an esy life.  Jacob spends years tending Laban's flock.  this soft life Peterson imagines is just that, imagined.

Then he explains god's reason for calling Abraham out of his family as a great adventure that is intended to develop him as a human being, to save him from the indolence of his current life presumably and get him living with more purpose and meaning.  Something like that.  He then goes through many adventures and trials as part of this process of growing up or something like that, including the call to sacrifice his beloved son Isaac.   And when he is tring to define God later on in the interview god turns out to be kind of a sum total of all the trials and adventures and their lessons or something like that.  Sorry if I'm getting this too far wrong, I do have a memory problem and I do have a problem just processing the kind of thinking Peterson does.

Does he know what the orthodox Christian view orf these things is?  I really don't know.  God calls Abraham because God wants to make a people for himself, a people of his very own, separated from the idolatrous life Abraham's family lived, in which he grow up.  God wants him to himself and he wants a gret people who will come from him as His own people.  this isn't the story of a man learning life's lessons, this is the unique sotry of god's calling people to His own pirposes.  god doeass the calling, God does the plannjing, god does the training, all for His own purposes.  And He promises Abrhama great rewards, the main reward being Himself"  I am thy exceeding great reward" He tells him.

And then there is supposed to be some psychological meaning to the story of the sacrifice of issaac too, which I'm afraid has escaped me entirely, but it's a life trial for the sake of Abraham's growing to manly maturity I gather.  odes Peterson know that Isaac is regarded as a type of Christ sacrified on the cross for our sins?  does he kno that the place God has Abraham build the altar of sacrifice is in fact the very place where Jesus Himself will be sacrificed on the cross almolst two thousand years later?  Mt. Moriah.  Has he run across that in his studies?  Isaac is a picture of the daeth of the Messiah, but of course since he isn't the Messiah god substitutes a ram in his place so that he is there as a picture and Abraham is spared the tragedy of his oloss.   but later in the book of Hebrws we are told that Abraham had come to the conclusion that God would raise him from the dead if he was killed, and that is abraham's own recognition of the menaing of the sacrifice as looking forward to the cross of Christ.

Almost forgot that the symbolim of this site on Mt Moriah continues in the time of King David when it belongs to Ornan the MJJebusite where it is a threshing floor, another interesting symbol in itself.  David buys the site for sacrifice.  Jerusalem is partly built by then, by the Jebusites, a thousand years before Christ.  

And surely Peterson doesn't recknon with any of this orthodoxy.

I wonder if the time will come for him when he gets it.

Later:  Continuing to listen.  Oops, he just said You don't get things you don't deserve.  Woopsie.  But Protestantism says the exafct opposite.  Did he really read the New Testament?

\\

He's talking about the devil's telling him to turn the stones into bread.  then he goes on to the devil's telling Him to throw himself aoff the temple and says So you want god to rescue you from your stuidity?  No, not happening.  HUm, but of course that's what God always does.  Not that sins can be rightly reducced to stupidity in most cases but in a way it's fair to call them that.    I've been rescued from ots of stupidity.  And go read Psalm one hundred and seven for an example of how god rescues us from all manner ot stuff we get ourselves into.

True we shouldn't pray for these things but not for the reasons he's giving.    And then he goes on mentioning his interpretation of how we see through a glass darkly as if it's just a matter of our own personal clouded vision rather than a condition of the fallen world and our fallen condition, because it goes on to say we will "then " see "face to face."  We can't see God knnow but we'l;ll see Him "then."

People give Peterson a lot of slack becaue he's so smart and says such sophisticated ethical things.  But he makes a mangled mess of the scriptures and should b ecalled out on it because he's bound to influence people to the wrong way of understanding the Bible.

NNow on to What is prayer and he says thinking is secularized prayer.  Thinking opens you up to revelation.  Prayer gets you revelation.  gut nowhere in that does he mention that we pray TO somebody.  The world means to request basiclaly.  I ask God for something.  I may ask Himt o give me revleation, that's a good thinkg to ask Him for, but I'm asking HIM, I'm not just thinking to myself.  peterson does make a good point that we do just seem to get thoughts coming into our heads that answer a dilemma we're having and what is thta but revelation as he thinks of it.  It's an interesting observation but it's not prayer.

Could go on and on and on.  Jordan, stop thinking.  "Lean not unto your own understanding, but in all your ways acknowledge HIm and He will direct your paths."  Sto ptring to understand things, address yoruself to Him, yes, as if He is there, as if He hears you , as if He has the answers you need and they may not be the same as the ones that come to you as revelations as you think of them.  try it sometime.

Funny how God is sort of real and sort of not real to Peterson at the same time.    What if at some point he suddenly realizes tht He is really really really real.  What then.  What if it suddenly hits him that God hears his every thought, that God sees him, that God knows him.  What then.  He warns against treting God as a butler to give us what we want but in a way that's how he is treating Him.  He's not quite personal to him, not quite a Person.  I would hope if it ever hits him that God is indeed a Person that at that point he'll be afraid to think any more of his thoughts about the bible, what the Bible raelly means and all that, cuz he's awful;ly kj wrong about tall that.

Matt Walsh Again

 Last night he was talking about a website he had found where parents vented hatred for their children, and he had some advice for them about pretending to be in charge because the kids don't respect them when they are wishywashny and a fe other ideas he had.  I thought some of his thinking was more or less in the right ballpartk but that he was overall too hard on the parents who just seem to bme to have no way to deal with parenting since they'd never been taught anything useful about it.  reminded me of the parents in the Supernanny episodes who start out in mayhem and chaos until Supernanny gives them effective methods for turning things around.  Without being too hard on the parents, although there are some cases where the parents need her to be hard and she is.    So I was thinking Walsh might benefit from watching a few Supernany episodes.  I tdont' think everything she does is great, but then nobody is perfect, and a lot of what esje teaches is very useful if the parents can learn to be consistent and stick to the script.  I think Walsh himself could find some of her advice beneficial since he seems to be sucking up a lot of frustration of his own.  Doing OK with it but probably bettr if he had some her methods for organizing things better.  

Hyst a tJust a thought.

Dawkins, evlutin and God

 How to answer  someone like Richard Dawkins who is so absolutely certain tht evolution is a fact and religion is false.  I say evolution is not a fact, it's full of holes scientifically , and I say that Christianity is absolutely THE truth that everyone should know whether they believe it or not because it's the only hope for their immortal souls after death.   

What does he mean by saying evolution is fact?  What proves it?  The fossil record?  Oh dear, as i said below that is a joke, quite silly when you think through the physical properties of the strata in qhich the fossils are embedded.  Radiometric dating?  Well, if true it would prove an ancient earth which really isn't proof of evolution as such, and i am not able to prove it wrong but I believe there are scientiest who can show that it is unreliable and shouldn't be trusted as it is anyway.

But I think he may just mean to appropriate some things tht are facts, the obvious variations in living things from generation to generation for instance, but that's not evolution at all.  They nevertheless say it is.  It's merelyu variation built into the genome of a given species.  That species can vary in many ways, but that's not the same thing as changing from that species into another species, which I've argued in my own way is genetically impossible.  Genes have two forms which is what allows their expression in the animal to vary as they can be sexually combined in many different ways, especially if there are many genes that govern a particular single trait as I think is the case.  But that's not evolution, that's just built in variation and it can happen only within the genome, it can't go beyond the genome.

I thihnk that is all he means.  It's what Darwin thought after all.  He could get some dramatic variations on the pigeons he bred and the fact he made use of in formulating evolution by natural selection, transferring the selective power from the human decion to circumstances in nature.  But even his own experiments came to an end, would reach a point beyond which they couldn't vary further.  Surely he noticed that fact.  Surely.  You can get pigeons with a great range of differences between them but you can't get anything that even remotely begins to look like something other than a pigeon.  Same with the finches he stsudied, their great variety of beak sizes and shapes, each suited to the gathering of a particular kind of food which became the identifying characteristic of a finch with a particular beak type.  Lots of different beaks, but nothing ever even remotely suggestive of anything other than a finch.  Not remotely.  Same body plan, as I argue elsewhere.

But he goes on believing these things and imposing them on all of us and doesn't want to take seriously objections made by creationists.    And on the other hand he doesn't want religionists to impose their beliefs on anyone because we can't given him satisfactory evidence for what we believe.  

what what what what what

I'It's so not a fact and yet they've got themselves convinced.

As for proving the realiy of god to someone like Dawkins, I hiknk i's probably imjpossible.  God Himself would have to prove Himself to him, as He does with all of us, there really isn't much anyoof us can say or sdo to make the case otherwise.  Wdee can try of course.  I can only go to the bible in the end because that is where god reveals Himself in the clearest way, and that is the purpose of the bible.  It is God's self-revelation to us.   We are fallen, having lost our ability to recognize God , which is a spiritual fuhnction we lost at the Fall, and that abolity beying absent Dawkins can't recognize God hismefl either.  But the Bible ws given to persuade us.  Many read it and still are not persuaded but the evidence is there nevertheless.  

And by the way, no other religion than the religion founded on the bible even makes an effort to prove the reality of God.  they assume god, they don't try to prove His existence.  The Bibble offers the testimony of hundreds and miracles and a coherent story line, a coherent plan of redemption, it all hangs together, it's all there.  

Probably tyhe best I can do.

One thing I like about the bible as evidence is that it knows us so well.  "The fool hasth said in his heart, There is no God."  Yup, that's what the fool says in his heart all right.  And it knows that it is hard for us to believe.  "Lord, I believe, help mine unbelief."  And it knows that a lot of us "stand in the path of sinners": an "six in the seat of the scoffers"  and even glory in our sins.  And how about the second half of the Ten Commandments where we are commanded not to mistreat our neightbor.  love thy neighbor as thyself.  Well that turns out to mean in the simplest terms what the second hafl of the ten commandments tell isus not to do:  don't murder or harm your neighbor, don't lie to your neighbor, don't steal from your neighbor, don't commit adultery with your neighbor or his spouse, don't covet his property.   We can all recognize those violations against our neighbor.  And right now they are particular rampantly violated in the world or so it seems.

Then there is The fear of God is the beginning of widsdom.  And maybe that's a more fruitful place to start if you want to try to prove the existence of God.  beause it is possible to noti ce, ans the proverbs tells us to notice, that there are consequen es for our sins that come in the form of events that nobody in particular could orchestrate, so have to gcoe from od.  And that is a sort of proof of god.If we fear God we will avoid doing the things that would call down his wrath on us.  that's wisdom.Proves there is something in the unicverse that acts.

Olympics Woke Craziness

 I hadn't watched the Olympics for decades and wasn't expcting to watch the event in Paris either, especially after hearing about the blasphemous opening ceremonies, the mockeriy of the Last Supper painting by Da Vinci.  But then some of the performances started showing up on my You tube page and that got me into some of it, mostly the women's gynmanastics but also some ice saing and diving and very brief loks at a few others.  Of course gymnastics is still very popular, ever since Nadia Comaneche's Perfect Ten score back in nineteen seventy six, and it's my favorite too.  Today's heroine is Simone Biles and she's certainly impressive, extremely strong and does some awfully difficult moves, a lot more difficult than Comaneche did back wehn.  

She won a ton of medals, motly gold, and I tghought it was ver nice when she and a teammate took silver and bronze and decided to bow down to the Brazilian girl to got the gold.  I just thought it was a nice gesture, very sportsmanlike.  Of course Biles has so many medals such a gesture doesn't cost her anything, as it would if she were still strugglineg for her first or second, but still I thiought it was nice.  

Then Llast night I heard some of Matt Walsh's program on the radio and he has very diferent take on it.  I think he is wrong but I can't know for sure.  Because there is a controversy about the transgeneder stuff at the Olympics he sasw it in that same light, I'm referring to the incident where a biolgoically male transgender female hit a biolgoical woman and it was of course too threateneing because men are stronger than women but these days such simple realities are ignored.  I was watching the Olympics in spite of all that, figuring that most of the atheletes are innocent of what the powers that be are doing to destroy reality.Anway

Anyway, Walsh knew that Jordan Childs, the bronze medal winner on the US team was not originally in line for a medal, but then their coach put in a complaint with th judges because there was a question about how part of her performance had been scored and he thought it should be a higher score.  Everntually the judges agreed and moved Childs up into the thred place to get the bronze medal.  of course that was a great disappointment ot the Rumanian girl who had believed she had that medal up until tht point, a badly timed decision.  But I had no reason to think it was anything but a fair correction of an error they had made in scoring Jordan Childs' perofmrance.  I still have no treason to think otherwise.

Somehow Walsh got the idea that the upgrade in Childs' score was something like affirmative action, that she hadn't earned it.  I don't know how he got that idea.  She is black, as is Biles and so is the Brazilian girl who won the gold, and he thought there was some big deal being made about there being three black girls on the winers' podium.  I had heard it mentioned but I ddint' hear any big deal being wmade of it, and I can't imagine how on earth anyone could think a gynmnast's score would have been upgraded for anything but legitimate

 reasons, that she deserved the upgrade and her erlier scorre was the injustice.    

I can't see what I'm typing and this page soedoesn't look right now but I have to keep going because I have no idea what I would need to do to set it right if it is wrong somehow  Oh well.

Anywya Walsh just has to be wrong about why Jordan's score was changed.  To strange to think it was because ehshe's black.  

And then there was what I thought was a nice gesture as the two American medalists bowed down to the brazilian girl.  Biles said only that it was to recognize her achievement because "they work just as hard as we do."  And I have no reason to think anything other than that.  But Walsh seems to think the gesture had to do with the racial situation somehow.  I guess because the Brazialian girl is also black and if she had been white they wouldn't have made that gesture.  Well, I don't know but my guess is they might well have, I don't see why they wouldn't have if the whole point was just to demonstrate sportsmanship in a hard won battle for the gigols.  

Oh well.  there's weenough of this woke craziness going on without adding to it where it's not warranted.    

But maybe he's right.  I doubtg it, but if h e is I sup[ose I'll eventualy find out.

Dawkins blindness to godand Piers Morgan

 Richard Dawkins interviewed by Piers Morgan says nobody knows what existed at the very beginning but that it's rong to postulate a god to explain it.  But we don't postulate god, who says we postulate God?  Only Dawkins and other atheists I suppose.  The God of Christianity, and Judaism, reveals Himself in the Bible which is the history of His doings on this planet and in relation to His favorite creation, us.  Ham beings.  Nobody is merely postulateing God.  We are convinced of the reality of God as He has revealed Himself to us in His Word and it holds together very well so we keep[ confirming His reality the more we read it and understand it.  Dawkins has no clue to any of thta.  And even if you are talkinga bout the other gods known to humanity none of them was postulated, they were experienced.  Nobody merely postulates gods.  Or angels or demons.  There is alays some kind of evidence, some of it erhaps rather questionable bvut  nevertrheless it's evidence.  Novodsy merely poyustulates these things.  

So Dawkins claims we have no evidence.  Axctgually we have a lot of evidence, he just doesn't klike our evidence, it doesn't convince him.  Nevertheless there is a lot of it in tghe history of humanity as described int the Bible.  If you let your own unbelief reject it all as some kind of fiction then of course it becomes useless for evidence, but if you take it at its word, on its own terms, then there's a ton of evidenece in it.  

And as I keep saying here, Dawkins can't appreciate evidence of this sort.  He's like doubting Thomsas you hwas to see it to believe it.  Jesus chidend Thomsas for his rejectionjof what he'd been told by his ffriends about the reality of Christ's having bee raised from the dead, and so we can chide Dawkins but of course he will go on believing in his own unblibef because he needs a kind of evidencde tthat is simply tnot avilable for the kinds of things he wants eivdnece for.  You have to trust the testimony of others abut of course those others are just stupid in his eyeseveryone int eh Bible itself and all the millions of us who believe it, all stupid.  

I couldn't believe either, until I was in my mid forties.  Then I just believed what I was reading in books written by Christians.  They were convfincing.  But I was also having supernatural experiences \, of a demonic sort as I came to understand later, but supernatural for sure and that has its own compelling power.  

Now I think it wvery strange tht people don't recognize God in a million ways in nature and reality, but I myself didn't recognize Him so I know it doesn't happen even if it should.  I also think it's obvious that evolution can't possibly have happened, simply by contemplating the nature of living things, without even bothering with any of the arguments I spent so much time thinking out, but again apparently it's easy for all of us to ignore tall that too.

I don't like how Piers Morgan deals with the quetion either thought, or how he deals with Dawkins.  He's not the right person to bge interviewing him, he makes it all more confusing and actually rather unpleasant than it needs to be.  And he seems to be relying mostly on some sort of reasoning instead of on revelation.  Well hisr source is Catholicisim I gather and he really dones't know what he belives just that there is  God and there is an eternity we're all going to live in and it's all bliss or something like that.  Based on nothing.  In this case I'm with Dawkins, where's the evidence for any of that?    Piers isn't saved, judging by what he's saying, so if anyone is boing to be surprised upon death it's going to be Piers, and not happily surprised.  Now I have to pray for him too not just dawkins.