The Restoreation Project

Ayaan Hirsi Ali has a substack site where she pursues her vision of the restoration twe need in the West.  I'm certainly glad that's what she wants to pursue.  Also Jordan Peterson has a similar objective though I don't think he's got the accurate aim she ahas at what is needed.   And while they share important points as to what needes to be restored I think it's too fragmented to work very well as is, it needs a broader fraemwork.  

 ___Yes, the family, yes our institutins, but we can't restore these piecemeal , this wuld be autoaticlaly restored if genuine Christianity were restored, if the Bible were treated as the word of God it is and its teachings on marrige and parenting and loving your neighbor were taken to heart by the population.  Almost all the population, because tht's the way it was in the begining of the nation, sme ninety something perecent of the people were serious committed Christiants.  Even the framers of the Constitution appreciatd the need for Christian fomorality, ues even Jefferson who repudiated the supernatural aspects of the Bible.  

The American colonies had all been seriously Christian, even to naming Christ in their Constitutions.  When the federal Constitution was framed it was a betrayal of that Chrsitan spirt althoughj the spirit persisted in the people nevertheless, until of course the fallen naturue got the upper hand again and we lost it.  

If we have to sta somewhere without an actual revival of Christanity, then it should be with a massive emphasis on educating people in the principle sof the founding of the nation, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, and as many of the letters of the founders or framers as you can get people to read or hear.  RwWe need to be steeped in that mentality,t he context out of which our rfreedoms and prosperity grew.  It can't come from anything else in this fallen world.  You can't transplant our benefits to other ntarions because they don't have the cultrtue al framework that promotes them and protects them.   We thought we could do it in afghanistantn.  We couldj't.  They don't have the mental set for it.  ____

_______________

Here's an email address for responses to this blog:

faithswindow@mail.com

Explanatory note is at:  _____Faith's Window: Contact Possibility (watchpraystand.blogspot.com)_

Restoring the West, Peterson and Hirsi Ali

 Well, I was wrong about Ayaan Hirsi Ali.  She's not a Christian, \\.  She doesn't want to impose her own experience on others, she says.  She thinks others have equally valid spiritual experiences through other religions, Buddhism and so on.  

this is what she said in a discussion with Jordan Peterson recetly.  They are talking about the destruction of our culture and how to rsotr e it and tht is crucially important and I was hoping to tget some ideas from them.  Since it's my own biggest project and I don't know what to do about it.  I know what's needed but ho to bring it about, no.  And they don't either.  At least she does know tht the biggest problem has been wthe wholesale destruction of Christianity so tht it is Christianity in some form or other that needs to be resotred, and tht ids getting close but not close enough for me.

I thought maybe I culd get some spiritual strength through her thinking but now I don't think so.  too bad.

Peterson continues with his Jungian perspective and that just never goes anywhere helpful.  Silly stuff like how the sacrifice of Christ means we hve to go through sacrifice ourselves in some psychological growth project or other.  Poppycock.  

 I wants this post to be about the project of restoring the culture but now I think I have to start with ansers to them.  Neither of them has the true Christian perspective which is what is needed to restore the West, certainly America.  that's where Iknow we need to start, but almost in the same breath we need to restore the principles of the founding of America.  America above all other western nations is the jewel in the crown as it were and if we can't restore it all these gloomy prognostications we hear everywhere are going to happen.  As Trump says, if he isn't elected we are going to lose wour country, we will have no more country.  Well, we are all saying that but he kows it too.  I doubt he really knows what all is lacking either but at least he knows the political side of it.

Ayaan doesn't want to impose her own views, her own religion, on anywone else.  Well, that's fine, and nobody should do that, burt the roblem is that she is saying more than that, she is saying that you can get along without Christianity and that is not so.  You can get along up to a point in this life and nobody should ompose anything on you, yes, but Christianity is the rock bottom foundation of all the good that has come through the West and principally through America.  True Christianity, not just the trappings of Chtistianity.  

It was true Christianity that Toqueveille saw when he was here, that he credited with the benefits, the greatness of aAmerica.  While a half baked Christianity might help a little, it can't really restore what has been lost becaue thta was the producet of true belieivng faitrhtul Christian people's work and character.   

While it is is common to hear people like Dawkins say you don't hvae to be religious to be moreal, and I've gone along with that to some extent because I know human beings re born with a conscience and some moral sense, lately I've been coming to realize tht you really do need true Christianity for true Morality, for the kind of morality that could restore America, the kind of morality tht for instance means that a person's word is trustworthy and can be counted on.  That comes from fear of God which comes fro Christian belief.  You have to be able to count on your neighbor to have the moral restraint not to lie to you or steal from you, and we used to have that to a great degree even in my lifetime when you could leave your door open and your keys in your cr without fear.  In the sixties and seventies there was a sudden uptick in crime of all sorts.  My daughter's motor scotter was stolen more than onece, mycar was stolen, my camera was stolen.  Things like that happened after the Marxists liberated things as they like to think of it.  Crime is the first fruit of Marxism.

You can't get the kind of trustworthiness from a half baked Christainity that is needed to restore America.   

True spiritual revival is needed but God has to do that and it hasn't happened for decades of fervent prayer by many people.

Peterson may be right enough about how sacrifice must characterize our lives for community to function as it should and all tht, but tht isn't the sacrifice of Christianity and even if he's right as rfar as it goes ther is no way to get to the mentality that makes that sort of sacrifice acceptable to the members of the community without somethijg like a strong moral framework that they subscribe tyo.  You know, like the Ten Commandments for starters.  Otherwise you see what we see a lot of, people shirking commitments, evading responsibiltiy7.  how are you going to get the to embrace this life of sacrifice Jordan evisons?

It makes me sad to think he may actually understand what the real meaning of the Christianity sacrifice is and just blithely ignores it in favor of his psychologized version, but I feel he needs to hear it again.   Oin fact I think he needs to hear something about its miraculous framework to see how there is a real God behind it all, not some psycholgocial Big Principle.  That is, think about the passover nighntht in Egypt such t before moses leads the people out toward the Promised Land.  God orders a somewhat strange little ritual .  Kill a lamb and feed your household on it.  Paint its blood on the door posts of your house.  Be ready to leave at a moents' notice but stay inside until the call comes because the angel of death is going to come throughh and pass over your house if you obey all this while those who do not thathave the projection of this lamb's blood will lose their firstborn sons.  

They are ordered to commemorate this event every year thereafter too, by killing a lamb and d eating a meal and remembering how the angel of death passed over them and how then they could leave Egypt for the Promised Land.   they commemorate this even tot this day.

Those who have not come to know that Christ IS that passover lamb that saves them from Hell, literal Hell, and gives them eternal life in the Promised Land Can you grapple with history itself as a symbol producing "story
  Can you accept that when God told the Israelities to put the lambs' blood on their doors that He meant it to be a symbol of the death of the Messiah on the Cross that would take believers out of "egypt or this fallen world with its main highway to Hell into the Promjised Land?  Two thousand years before Christ, no, sorry more like fourteen hundred years before, the sacrifice that would save us all was written on the doorposts.  

When the limjtime came, it was a \\ the yearly commemoration of the passover event of the time of Moses,  Jesus ate with His disciples on the Preparation Day for the Sabbath, He told them that the wine they were drinking was His blood shed for them, and the breadk His body.  TGhey had no idea what He was talking about.  Then he went to the dross and died as "the lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world."  All prepared fourteen hundred years in advance.    that wasn't ridgged.  He couldj't have rigged that.  

Anyway that's what the sacrifice is really about Jordan.  he sacrificed Himself for us, it's got nothing to do with outr sacrifices, in fact othing we do can accomplish anything at all toward our salvation, scripture says this over and over nin many ways.  We are saved "without workdsks"  but you keep wanting to add wsorks, you keep wanting to make us hujan beings the author of our fate.  god says no, you can't, trust Me to do it all, rst in Me, it is nothing but pride to think you can do anything.  It is not o works"lest any man should boarst."    Becoeme as a little child, Jesus said.  Jesust trust wshat the scripture says and do it and stop trying to erect all those fantasical phyilosophical palaces for us to live ihn .

but anway.  If we want to respore aAmerica an I cetainly do, We need to elect tgrump but that woun't accomplish much unless we hve a Christian erevvial.  Trump can change a lot of thijgs but we need hearts to change.  We need liberals to recognize that they've been lied to and that they 've been conspiring unkjowingly with the death of their country which h was once the greatest and best nation erer.  That's what we need to find a way to bring about.    can't happen if we can't get the true Chrsitainity bakcki.

thPeters\is blog:

faithswindow@mail.com

Explanatory note is at:  _____Faith's Window: Contact Possibility (watchpraystand.blogspot.com)_

No, Dawkins is Not Thinking Scientifically About Evolution, Natural Selection, Or Relgion religion

 

The perplexing Dawkins I had in mind in an earlier post is perplexing because although he convincingly comes across as a genuine seeker of truth, who really wants to know what is true and doesn't want to fall into the trap of accpeting anything just becaue he likes it or it is comforting and so on, nevertheless sometimes seems to do just tht.  That is,  I find a lot more of tht kind of thinking in his remarks than I do scientific thinking at some oints anyway.  

Just to start wsith the religious side of his thinkintg, he often seems to be saying that he rejects Christianity simply because he hates it.  The Old testament, he says, is a nasty bpiece of work, and sometimes he even goes on from there to say how could anyone believe that?  It's easy to get caught up in simply trying to point out to him that there were good rational reasons for some of the things he considers to be nasty and unworthy of beolief, , but that's to overlook the fct that he's not really being scientific when he makes such a remark, not really being wholly dedicated to the truth.  He doesn't like it.  At all.  And often sounds as if tht's his main reason for rejecting it.  Atheists often give similar reasons for rejecting it:  it's primitive, it's Stone Age, we've outgrown that sort of thing.  What does that have to do with whether it is true or not>  

Anyway.  Then there is the way he talks about natural selection as the way evolution proceeds freom oneme chagne to another, one species to another.  When Darwin came up with tht idea it was very creative and interesting.  I thought so when I read the Origin yers ago.  I thoguht Darwin was quite right about most of what he said, he was an elegant thinker and considered all the arguments against him and so on and so forth.  he makes a compelling case just be the mere logic of it, for natural selection as the driving force of evoltuionj.

But the problem is, for him and for Dawkins, that it remaisn only a logical and interesting idea.  Neither of them tries to trace out how it works in realityh.  Perhaps there is the excuse that it takes too much time and you can't spell out things over such long periods of time.  No, but surely can describe a mechanism, a way it would work if it works.  Which is what I've been trying to do when I try to imagine first what it hs to work on and how tht got there.  Has to be a gene or bunch of genes, have to gebe dgenes related to the same part of the anatomy tht is being evolved, like tht eye that evoltuionists like to imagine coming together from all the farflung parts of the taxonomic tree into one evolutionary lineage from primtiieve to complex.    How does each stage get creted in the first place in order to be seected?   

See, he really doesn't think about all that.  but that's what he has to think about, it seems to me, if he really wants to be scietnifc about this sucjbect.  Because otherwise all he's got is this assertion that it must be natural selection becaue it's such a logical idea.  Could it really work in reality just gets buried in that glow of seeming certainty.  That's not science.

So I just heard him in another interview conuecturing that the genome of every creture must show its history of previous evolutonary changes, the environments it's had to cope with and all of that.  But HOW it shows all that he doesn't even guess at.  Where in a given genome sdoes he see this for instance>  What in the genome can he point to that obviously had to have come down through the previous history of the animal's eovlution?  No, it remains a pleasant plausibiltiy.

I really would expect a true scientist to see that this is all they have for evolution.  Really.  But of course I'm expecting it  a hundred yeras later after it's been set in concrete as a fact, which it isn't.  

Do new genes get created and inserted into genomes?  At what rate?  Can that be shown or is it just a theory?  Surely you'd need new genes.  You can mutate old genes all you like and never get anyhthing outside the trait package of the species in which they occur.  variations on those traits, sure, but new traits?  Uh uh.  But they come back with assertions that ti is so and you are just stupidly not seeing how it must be so.  Just add millions of years of time and magically it will all come together for you.  We don't need to know HOW it comes together, we just know that with enough time it will.  Because natural selection is such a beautiful idea, so appropriate to thetask, etc etc etc.

actually it isn't and I have to repeat this heare too.  When Darwin was breeding pigions and thinking about domestic breeding as the model for the mechanism of evolution, meaning natural selection, he was assuming that change is change, that you coudlgogo from the poufed out chest of the pigeon to something other than a bird given enough timje, just by the continuing selection of traits as they pop up in the organism.  Buut the traits he was working with are already there, they belong to the bgenome oftha tspecies.  once they are there you can select for them.  That woujld be true in the wild too.  The traits that arleady belong to the creatioure, even new traits that turn ujp because of a new set of gene frequencies due to migration away from the orginal population, if the trait is there it is already in the genomoe itis part of the creature's geneit package  . ot os wjat ,ales tjat   it iw what makes that creature that creature, that species that species.  

Nothing ielse is going to turn up to select from than traits that are already part of the species.  Of it if does happen you have to say how it does and show how it does, you can't just assert that it does.  Because how we know that each creatuer ehas its own genome.  Its characteristics are all formed from bcobinations combint  combinations of those traits, the genes for those traits, the alleles for those traits, that are already there.;   For evolution you need something completely new and outside the creature's genome.  Don't just assume mutation can accomplish that.  Mutations works on what is alreayd there, it changes an existing gene, it doesn't have anythingelse to work on.  Where is it going to get that something else to work on?  

These are the questions the scientist, it seems to me, needs to me to be thinking about, and not just relying on a beautiful theory and calling it fact.

_Later Forgot___mention that Dawkins said he thinks the genome as it evolves would be like a palimpsest, a writing over as it were of the former information that has become irrelevant, but of course thta raises the uestionj again, the same question,   where does the information come fro to create this brand new genome?  How does it arise?  In what incredments?  At what point in the organism itself if tht is of any importance.  You are getting somet completely new, right?  You aren't just getting repurposed genes, and how could you anyway?  Every time you mtuate a gene, you gestroy the gene's function thta preceded the mutation.  You kill the old organism bit by bit if you suplant its genes with new materioal over and over and over, and you kill it even before the new geneitc code has been selected, much of which wouldn't be selected anyway , given the probabilties invovlved.    Already I think it out to this imossiblity .  Can Dawkins come up with a way it could work?_But he doesn't go in that direction, again he is apparently content to assume that evolution is true, that natural selection works as beautifully as he imjagines it does, so therefore it must be possible for a whole genoe to be gradually overwritten as it were by a completely new one.  Far as I can see you can't even get one gene to be successful overwritten by another let alone a whole genome with all its separate chromoseomes and thousand upon thousands of tgenes, keeping those which work I suppose and acquring rprecisely the ones you need o get a brand new organism that works as well as the previous one but is a completely new creature.   Isn't this ijust a cmonumnetla pip dream Mr. D?

__________________________

Here's an email address for responses to this blog:

faithswindow@mail.com

Explanatory note is at:  _____Faith's Window: Contact Possibility (watchpraystand.blogspot.com)_

Contact Possibility

 Since I can't make use of the Comments section here, or use my email any more, I've been left without any way of hearing from anyone about my osts or antyhign selse for a long time, and it's been frustrating.  Especially now when I'm getting into the evolution issues again where it would be very helpful to get some feedback.

I'm pondered many possiblityies including putting the phone number of an old cell phohne up, but that really is not a good idea so I scrapped that one.  but then I realized maybe I could get a family member to keep an email account for me.  We discussed it and now that's what I'm going to try.  She started the account for me and is going to monitor it for me and read me any messages I get, read them over the phojne since she lives out of state.   The idea is thta if it nees a response I'll dictate a mesage for her to write back to the person, or I'll answer it on my blog.  

_______________________________

Here's an email address for responses to this blog:

faithswindow@mail.com

Explanatory note is at:  _____Faith's Window: Contact Possibility (watchpraystand.blogspot.com)_

dAWKINS iS rIGHT aBOUT iSLAM

 i WISH i COULD READ THE TITLE OF THIS INTERVIEW i'M LISTENING TO, A RATHER CHUBBY FACED GUY INTERVIEWING HIM BUT i CAN'T SEE HIS NAME OR THE TITL EOF THE INTERVIEW.

bUT dAWKINS IS ABOLUTLY RIGHT ABOUT ISALMA.  I WISH HE DIDN'T ELIDE IT WITH cHRISTIANITY BUT i HAVE TO REMEMBER THAT HE'S TALKING MOSTLY ABOUT MIDEIEVEL "cHRISTIANITY" WHICH IS OF COURSE rOMAN cATHOLICISM WHICH USURPED THE CHURCH IN THE SEVENTH CENTURY, AT THE SAME TIME, INCIDENTLY;LY THAT iSLAM WAS GETTING STARTED IN THE eASTERN PART OF THE eMPRIE.    tHE TWO RELIGIONS DO FORM THE TWO LEGS OF THE STATUE OF nEBUCHADNEZZARS DREAM DESCRIBED IN dANIEL tWO, THE TWO LEGS OF THE EMPIRE ITSELF REALLY AS THE bISHOP OF rOME REALLY DID INSINUATE HIMSELF INTO THE POSITION OF cAESAR IN SOME COCKEYEED FASHION.  aND PRESIDED OVER SOMETHING HE CALLED THE hOLY rOMNAN eMPIRE, WHICH AS vOLTAIRE CALLED IT, WAS NOT hOLY, NOR rOMAN NOR AN eMPIRE AND SO MUCH FOR THAT.  bUTG IT WAS THE REVIVAL O THAT EMPIRE IN SOME IMPORTANT SENSE, AND hITLER TRIED TO FOLLOW IT WITH HIS tHIRD REIGH.  

BUT ISALM REALLY IS THAT EVIL RELIGION dAWKINS IS TALKING ABOUT.  aND cATHOLICISM'S ATROCITIES HAVE BEEN PUT ON A BACK BURNER AS IT WERE FOR A S LONG AS pROTESTANTISM HOLDS OUT IN SOME FORM OF POWER, THOUGH UIT'S NOT LOOKING GOOD .  pERHAPS WE WILL BE RAPTURED SOON AND THEN THE pOPE WILL SHOW HIS TRUE COLORS AS THE aNTICHRIST AND THEN THE COUNTDOWN WILL BEGIN TO THE RETURN OF jESUS cHRIST.

iSLAM WAS THE WORLD OF THE DEVIL THORUGH THE DEMON THAT CALLED ITSELF gABRIEL WHO TALKED TO mOHAMMED IN THE CAVE, BUT cATHOLICISM WAS THE WORK OF THE DEVIL IN OTHER WAYS, GRADUALLY INSINUATING THE PAGAN RELIGION OF GABYLON THROUGH rOME INTO cHRISTIANITY.  THERE IS NO JSTIFICATION FOR MURDERING APOSTATES IN cHRISTAINTIY, BUT THERE IS IN cATHOLICISM.\\\\

iT'S TINE INTERVIEWER, HOWEVER HE IS, WHO IS THE SILLY ONE, THE WRONG ONE, IN THE PART OF THE DISCUSSION ABOUT iSLAM.  HE ISN'T GETTING IT AT ALL.  DAWKINS IS VERY VERY RIGHT IN THIS ONE PART.

hOW VERY NICE IT WOULD BE IF HIS GOOD FRIEND aYAAN hIRSI aLI COULD INFLUENCE HIM OUT OF SOEME OF HIS SILLY IDEAS ABOUT RELIGION.

i'VE LOST TRACK OF THIS POST UNFORTNATELY.  i THINK IT WS ABOUT iSLAM AN dAWKINS BEING RIGH TABOUT IT?

wELL i'M GOING TO TAKE IT SOMEWHERE ELSE ANYWAY.

HE GOES ON IN THT DISCUSCION TO SAY HE DOESN'T WANT TO INDOCTRINATE ANYOE INTO ATHEISM, SAY IN THE SCHOOLS.  gREAT.  HE WANT SOT TEACH CRIMTICAL THINKING, HOW TO THINK THROUGH EVIDENCDE AND THAT SORT OF THING.  wONDERFUL.  eXACTLY WHAT i THINKI WE SHOULD BE TREACHING.  aND i THINK HE HIMJSELF FAILS AT IT MONUJENTALLY AS I;VE BEEN TRYING TO POINT OUT.  

TGHEN HE GOES INTO HOW RELIGIOUS aMERICA IS AND WHAT A BAD THING THAT IS AS IT SUPPOSEDLY PRODUCES PVERTY AND SO ON.  BUT HE'S ABSOLUTELY OFF TRACK ON THIS ONE.  aMERICA BECAME THE MOST PROSPEROURS NATION ON EARTH beca*se WE WERE cHREIRTIAN, AS tOQUEVILLE SAID.  aMERICA IS GREAT BECAUSE SHE IS GOOD IS ATRIRBUTED TO toquevill, and I know it may not hvae been from him originally but it does express the point he ws making in his book Democracy in Ameri a.  Chrtsitianity is THE engine that created America and I'm glad to thini we still ahve enough of it still left that there might be hope that we could revocvoer from the onslilaught of all the forces Dawkins would like to bring back against us.   No.  Christianity is the reason we prospered and the reason we are able to have such a free socieyt.  As John Adams said our governemtn was made for a moral and religious people and is wholly inadequate for thte governing of ay other.  yes yes yes.  But we've been losing that religious charcter and that's a tragediy.  becaue that could dump us right into the totalitarian grinder.   As it looks like could happy with this coming election.

Dawkins needs to hera from his friend Ayaan Hirsi Ali about how America was founded on Christianity and all our benefits come from it, and that the cause of our success can't be attributed to anything else and can't be trans[lantedywhere else because it is built on Christian culture.    Europe has some of th

\\ut unforutnately it has centuries of catholic totalitarianism behind it.

and is now getting overrun by Islam too, which could happen to us as well if we are unsuccessful at doing what needs to be done in this next electionj.  

tHE sIMPLE bDEOLOGICA\\\\\\\tHE sIMJPLE gEOLOGICAL eVIDENCE aGAINST tIME pERIODS AND THE fDOSSIL REOCRD AND THEREFORE AGAINST EVOLUTION

tHE SEDIMENTARY ROCK STRATA THAT ARE FOUND STACKED DEEP IN THE gRAND cANYON AND PRESUMABLY ONCE WERE ALSO THAT DEEP EVERYWHERE ELSE, CA'T POSSIBLY BE TIME PERIODS BECAUSE  THEY ARE NOTHIJG BUT ROCK, HUGE SLABS OF ROCK, ALL OF ONE SEDIMENTARY COMPOSITION IN MANY CASES, SUCH AS LIMESTONE OR SHALE OR SANDSTONE.  nOTHING EVER HAPPENED TO DISTURB THEM EITHER AS WE SEE IN THE gRAND cANYON, THEY ARE ALL LYING THERE ONE ON TOP OF ANOTHER IN NEAT PARALLEL FROM TOP TO TOBBTTOM OF THE STACK WITH NO SIGNS OF ANY OF THE USUAL ACTIVITY TO BE FOUND ON THE SURFACE OF THE EARTH , AS WE SLIVE ON IT NOW FOR INSTANCE.  iTG'S NOTHING BUT HOMOGENEOUS ROCK.  eACH LAYER.   nOTHING COULD LIVE ON IT OR IN IT AND YET IT'S ALL THERE IS FOR MANY THOUSANDS OF SQUARE MILES AND SAID TO PRESPRENREPRESENT A VERY LONG PERIOD OF TIME ON THE PLANET.  HUNDREDS OF MILLIONJS OF YEARS IN OMSE CASES.   

yOU CAN'T ANSWER THIS.  yOU REALLY CAN'T.  iT KILLS THE IDEA OF TIME PERIODS.

aND WITH THAT IDEA DEAD IT ALSO KILLS THE IDEA OF THE FOSSIL RECORD.  tHERE ARE INDEED FOSSILS INSIDE THESE LAYERS OF ROCK, AND THEY DO SORT OF LOOKS LIKE THEY MAKE A PROGRESSIONFROM SIMPLE TO COMPLEX.  rAELLY THE SHOW MORE OF A

THEY SEEM TO PROGRESS FROM SIMPLE TO COMPLEX AND FROM SMALL TO LARGER BUT THIS HAS TO BE SOME KIND OF ILLUSION BECAUSE THE ROCKS THEAT REPRESENT THE TIME PERIODS IN WHICH THEY ARE FOUND CAN'T POSSIBLY REALLY HAVE OCCURRED IN THOSE TIME PERIODS.  tHEY DO NOT REPRESENT TIME PERIODS.  sO THE FOSSILS DO NOT REPRESENT AN EVOLUTIONARY HISTORY.

WATER LAYS DOWN SEDIMENTS SEPAREATELY IN RIVER DELTAS AND ON SHORELINES.  THAT'S THE BEST WAY TO UNDERSTAND THE STRATA   .  THERE ARE ALSO STUDIES DONE IN LABORABTORIES. FLUME STUIDES i THINK THEY ARE CALLED, IN WHICH MOVING WATER IS SHOWN TO DO THE SAME THING, LAY DOEWN SEDIMENTS SEPARATELY FROM ONE ANOTHER.   

sO THE FOSSILS HAD TO HAVE BEEN LIVING THINGS THAT WERE CAUGHT UP IN THE STREAM OF A PARTICULAR SEDIMENT, A LAYER OF WATER, A CHANNEL, A N UNDERGROUND RIVER, i'M LOOKING FOR THE WORD FOR THAT STREAM IN THE COEAN THAT RUND GREAT DISTANCES, CAN'T THINK OF IT, BUT WATVEST THEMSELVES SEEM TO SORT SEDIMENTS JUGING BY THE FACT THAT THEY ACCUMULATE T SHORELINES IN SEPARATED LAYERS.  

sOMETHING cURRENT.

sO DESPITE THE SEEMING PROGRESSION OF THE LIVING THINGS REPRESENTED BY THE FOSSILS, THEY ARE MOST CERTAINLY THE CORPOSES OF ALL THE LIVING THINGS THAT ERE KILLED IN THE WORLDWIDE fLOOD, WHICH OF COURSE gOD BROUGHT THE fLOOD ON THE EARTH IN ORDER TO BRING ABOUTR.  tHE DEATH OF ALL LAND LIVFE.  sOME SEA LIFE REMAINED BUT EVEN THAT WAS KILLED OFF IN THE BAZILLIONS.

nOTHING HAPPENED TO DISSBTURB THE PARTICULAR LAYER, IT LIES THERE QUIETLY WITHOUT A TREE ROOT OR A VOLCANO TO DISTURB IT.  tHE VOLCANOES DISTURBED THE WHOLE STACK ALL AT ONCE, FROM BOTTOM TO TOP, THE STACK BEING ALREADY IN PLACE, THE VOLCANIC ERUPTION FOLLOWING THEIR LAYING DOWN.  \\

tHAT IS EVIDENT ON THAT CROSS SECTION.L  tHAT IS THE EVIDENCE THAT THE TIME PERIODS DID NOT HAPPEN AND THE FOSSILS ARE NOT A RECORD OF EVOLUTIONARY STAGES.

qed

oR SOMJETHING LIKE THAT

FcOULD nATURAL sELECTION REALLY pRODUCE THE cOMPLEX eYE WE hAVE?

tHINKING ABOUT NATURAL SELECTION AS dAWKINS PRESENTS IT IN THE EXAMPLE OF THE EYE, IF i'M REACLLING THT ARGUMENT CORRECTLY.  tHE FACT THAT THERE ARE ALL THE PARTS OF A VERY COMPLEX EYE OF THE SORT WE POSSESS SCATTEROUED AROND THE TEAXONIMC TRE, AVARIOUS FUNCTIONS OF IT SHOWING UP IN DIRRFERENT CREATURES, NTHOUGH NOT IN ANY LINEAGE FROM ONE TO ANNOTHER OR TO OUR OWN EYE./.  tHE ARGUMENT IS THAT IF ALL THE PARTS ARE THERE IN NATURE, ALTHOUGH SCATTERED AS THEY ARE, THIS IN ITSELF IS SOME IIND OF EVIDENCE THAT THE EYE EVOLVED THROUGH ALL THOSE FUNCTIONS TO THE CURRENT COMPLEX EYE WE POSSESS.  wHILE IT IS AN INTERESTING PLAUSIBILITY, IF YOU TRY TO APPLY NATURAL SLEECTION TO EACH PHASE IT RAISES FAR MORE QUESTIONS THAN IT ANSWERS.

fIRST OF ALL, TO BE SELECTED, A TRAIT MUST BE PRESENT.  iN A CREATURE POSSESSING A PARTICULAR FUNCTION IT'S BEEN WELL ESTABLISHED ALREAYD , LAREADY SELECTED AS IT WERE AND PUT INTO ITS USEFUL PLACE IN THE ORGANIZSM.  aSSUMING THE EVOLUTIONARY EXPLANATION OF COURSE.    bUT TO GET TO THE NEXT PHASE OR STAGE TOWARD THE COMPLEX SYSEYE AS dAWKINS PUTS THE PICTURE TOGETHER REQUIRES THAT THAT NEXT PHASE COME UP PRESENT IN THAT ORGANISM.   bUT HOW IS IT GOING TO COME UP.  tHROUGH MUTATION?  mUTATION OF WHAT?  mUTATION IS AN AERROR IN REPLICATION OF THE dna, RIGHT?  wHICH GENE IS GOING TO BE MISREPLICATED AS IT WERE TO PRODUCE THIS NEW FUNCTION?  tHE ONE THAT CODES OF RTHE TRAIT THAT PREDCEDES IT IN THIS SUPPOSED PROGRESSION THROUGH THE SGTAGES TO MODERN COMPLEXITY?  bUT THAT WOULD DESTROY THAT TRAIT.  sO IT HAS TO OCCUR IN A DIFFERENT GENE.  tHE GENE HAS TO BE THERE ARE ALREADY WHATEVER IT IS.  wHAT ELSE IS THERE FOR MUTATION TO WORK ON?   iT WOULD HAVE TO CODE FOR SOMETHING ALREADY ATTACHED TO THE EYE TOO.  iT ISN'T GOING TO DO ANY GOOD TIF A GENE FOR SAY THE EAR PARTS GOT MUTATED INTO THIS NEW PHASE IN THE EYE EVOLUTION, WOULD IT?  sAY THE NEW SEQUENCE OF CHEMICALS THAT MUTATIONJ PRODUCED REALLY DID GIVE A BETTER LENS OR WHATEVER THE NEW PHASE OF THE EYE SHOUILD BE, IT WOUDLN'T HELP UNLESS IT WAS A GENE THAT ALREAYD JOINED WITH THE OTHER GENES THAT BULD THE EYE.  bUT WHAT GENE COULD BE SPARED FOR THAT PURPOSE?   hOWE OFTEN DOES dna COME UP WITH A GRANAD NEW GENE?  i THINK IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE POSSIBLE ALTHOUGH HARD TO IMAGINE THAT A WHOLE NEW SEQUENCE OF THOUSANDS OF CHEMICALS WOULD JUST INSERT ITSELF BETWEEN A COUPLE OTHE GENES WHERE IT HAPPENS TO BE NEEDED , OR MIGHT TURN OUT TO BE USEFUL,AND HOW DOES THAT HAPPEN ANYWAY?

sO THEN LET'S SAY YOU GET THIS NEW FUNCTION IN THE RIGHT PLACE AND SO ON,  IT WOULD HAVE TO BE IN SOMETHING LIKE A HUMAN BRING OR SOMETHING CLEARLY PRECURSOSR TO THE HUMAN BEING AND NONE OF TEH XAMPLES IN THE SCATTERED COLLECTION OF EYE FUNCTIONS IS IN THAT LINEEAGE.  iT ISN'T GOING TO HELP IF IT SHOWS UP IN SAMY THE OCTUPOUS CLAN SINCE  ALTHOUGH THE OCTOPUS MIGHT BENEFIT FROM A BETTER EYE IT ISN'T GOING TO GET US TO THE EYE dAWKINS HAS IN MIND.

i USUPPOSE i'M GEING NAIVE OR SILLY IN SOME WAY BUT i'M REALLY SERIOUSLY TRYING TO FIGURE OUT HOW SELECTION WOULD DO THE JOB dAWKINS SAYS IT DOES.  

aS i WAS ARGUING RECENTLY, VARIATION OCCURRS IN THE GENOME ITSELF AS ALREADY CONSTITUTED, IT DOESN'T WLRK ON SOMETHING NEW BECAUSE THERE'S NO WAY FOR SOMETHING RULY NEW TO OCCUR, UNLESS YOU MEAN THE OCCASIONAL SUPPOSELY GENEFICIAL MUTATIONJ.  aGAIN IT WOULD HAVE TO BE A KTUATION IN   aGAIN IT WOULD HAVE TO BE MUTATION IN A GENE ALREADY PART OF THE EYE, SO LET'S GET THAT SAID.  

ok, i GIVE UP.  iT SORTA COUNDS GOOD AS THEORY BUT IN PRACTICAL REALITY IT JUST CAN'T HAPPEN.  aND i DON'T THIJK dAWKINS EVENCAME CLOSE TO SUGGESTING HOW IT COULD, HE JUST KEEPS MARVELING OVER THE SEEMING UTILITY OF NATURAL SELECTION FOR THE PURPOSE.

wELL, GO BACK TO dARWINS DOMESTING BREEDING FOR A MOEMTN.  hE GOT SOME DRAMATIC CHANGES IN HIS PIGEONS BY SELECTING THEM FOR PARTICULAR TRAITS.  THE TRAITS WERE ALREAYD THERE, HE SIMPLY PICKED THEM AND MATED THEM WITH OTHERS WITH THE SAME TRAIT.     iS THIS EYE FUNCTION THAT FOLOLOWS WHATEVER STAGE OF EYE A PARTICULAR CREATURE HAS ALREADY PRESENT?  HOW COULD IT BE?  

i GUESS i HAVE TO GIV P AGAIN.  i'M SURE dAWKINS CAN MANIPULATE ALL THIS TO MAKE IT SEEM PLAUSIBLE FOR HIS CASE BUT i THINK THAT'S THE BEST HE CAN DO.  i DON'T THINK IT'S POSSIBLE IN REALITY AT ALL.

hERE'S HOW VARIATION REALLY WORKS IN REALITY.  tHE VARIATION IS A VARIATION ON SOMETHING THAT IS ALREADY PRESENT, A DIFFERENT EYE COLOR ON THE EYE COLOR GENE, A DIFFERENT FUR TEXTURE ON THE FUR GTEXTURE GENE AND SO ON.  IT'S A FUNCTION THAT IS ALREADY THER EIN THE GENOME AND DOESN'T HAVE TO BE MADE NEW.  THAT IS OF CORUSE THEY THINK INSIST ON MUTATION SINCE IT DOES COMPLETELY CHANGE AHTE SEQUENCE OF THE GENE CODE, USUALLY FOR THE WORSE WHICH THEY DON'T  BOTHER TO MENTION, OR TO NO PURPOSE AT ALL SINCE NOTHIHJG CHANGES IN THE PHENPOTYPE, BUT IF SOMETHING NEW REALY WERE TO HAPPEN THAT'S THE ONLY WAY IT COULD BECAUE NORMAL VARIATION VARIATION IS JUST AN ALTERNATIVE EXPRESSION OF SOMETHING AHT IS ALREAYD PRESENT IN THE ANIMAL'S COLLECTION OF CHARACTERISTICS.  

wE HEAR A LOT OF THEORY ABOUT HOW MUTATION COULD HAPPEN AND GET SELECTED AND SO ON BUT IT REMAINS THEORY.  YES IT DOES, IT NEVER BECOMES FACT.

Later  Don't think I got it said vey clearly, not sure I can do better now, but 

Domestic breeding, Darwin's pigeons etc., just works on traits that rae already pret in the animal, whih can be greatly enlarged by repeated breeding of the same trait.  this is what happened with the pod mrcaru lizards.  and wht happened with Darwin's exaggerated chests in pigeons.  

And from there the idea of natural selection took off.  

The problem is that evolution requires new traits, not the preexisting traits that Darwin and other breeders work with.  Something tht does not occr in the genome of the species,  brand new gene etc.

Mutation changes an existing gene.  Some traits are apparently coded for by may genes working together.  How is that oging to happen?  It's rare enough to get one useful mutation, but many in a number of different genes and the right kind and so on, no.

besides how is theis really something new?  Changing the sequence in a n existing gene doesn't change what that gene normally produces, it just varies how it produces it, or tomething fairly superficial in its appearance.  You mgith get a new color on the fur color gene but surely it would be a change in the fur color and onot some other function, just fur color.    How do you get a new function from a mutation of a preexisting gene?  

I haven't run awcross an answer to these quetsions anywwhere.  maybe it's out thre somewhere but I doubt it.  Dawkins seems content to point out tht natural selection seems to be a viable mechanism for change in an organis without addressing these questions, change yes but Darwin didn't get any changes outside the given trait already present in the organism, but evolution requries that.   You can't select a gtrait that isn't in the genome, nd there doesn't seem to be any way to bring abour a really new trait in an organism.  Mutation isn't going to accomp,.luish that, it's jut going to vary an existing trait at lbest.

Etc Etc Etc.