Michael J. Behe's Blog, page 451
July 25, 2019
Did land plants get started when algae moved into fungi?
/ one-celled coccolithophore /NEON ja (CC BY-SA 2.5
From ScienceDaily:
Surprisingly, when they are grown together for a long time — around a month — some algal cells enter the fungal cells. Both organisms remain active and healthy in this relationship.
This is the first time scientists have seen fungi internalize a eukaryotic, photosynthetic organism. They call it a photosynthetic mycelium.
“This is a win-win situation. Both organisms get additional benefits from being together,” Du said. “They exchange nutrients, with a likely net flow of carbon from alga to fungus, and a net flow of nitrogen in the other direction. Interestingly, the fungus needs physical contact with living algal cells to get nutrients. Algal cells don’t need physical contact or living fungus to benefit from the interaction. Fungal cells, dead or alive, release nutrients in their surroundings.”
“Even better, when nutrients are scarce, algal and fungal cells grown together fend off starvation by feeding each other. They do better than when they are grown separately,” explained Du.
Perhaps this increased hardiness explains how algae survived the trek onto land. Paper. (open access) – Zhi-Yan Du, Krzysztof Zienkiewicz, Natalie Vande Pol, Nathaniel E Ostrom, Christoph Benning, Gregory M Bonito. Algal-fungal symbiosis leads to photosynthetic mycelium. eLife, 2019; 8 DOI: 10.7554/eLife.47815 More.
This is one likely vector but did all plants really need fungi to live on land?
See also: Researchers: Plants Colonized Earth 100 Mya Earlier Than Thought
and
Flowering Plants Pushed Back By A Mere 100 Million Years?
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Michael Egnor: A materialist neuroscientist continues the argument with himself
Dr. Egnor got into an online discussion with Dr. Faizal Ali, an “anti-creationist” psychiatrist and, he says, “a materialist who believes that abstract (intellectual) thought is simply the product of material brain processes”:
Let’s recap: on June 28th, Dr. Ali wrote confidently that intellectual seizures do exist: “… Egnor is simply wrong. Intellectual seizures do occur.”
On July 20th, Dr. Ali wrote confidently that intellectual seizures do not exist: “[W]hy do ‘intellectual seizures’ not exist? Neural connectivity theory provides an answer:… Such stimulation is too crude and localized to produce a more complex response such as an abstract thought.”
Michael Egnor, “A Materialist Neuroscientist Continues the Argument with Himself” at Mind Matters News
We hope it doesn’t come to blows (self-inflicted injuries).
Also by Michael Egnor in discussion with psychiatrist Dr. Faizal Ali
What is abstract thought?, Part I: Now Dr. Ali argues with Dr. Ali
Can Buzzwords About “Neural Networks” Save Materialist Neuroscience? No. Experiments that support an immaterial consciousness often involve split or massively damaged neural networks.
Do “forced thinking” seizures show that abstract thought is a material thing? Epilepsy suppresses abstract thought, it does not evoke it.
Do Epileptic Seizures Cause Abstract Thoughts? A psychiatrist argues that “intellectual seizures” can occur.
and
Atheist Psychiatrist Misunderstands Evidence for an Immaterial Mind Patients with massive brain damage were shown to have a mental life.
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July 24, 2019
Direct experimental falsification of Darwinism?
CCO Public DomainResearchers: Body cells have a lot to say about which germ cells are allowed to divide:
Scientists… have discovered that body cells which are in direct contact with the germ cells in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans are responsible for controlling the stability of the genome in primordial germ cells (PGCs) …
For more than a hundred years, inheritance of genetic information was thought to be autonomously controlled by the germ cells, explaining why acquired traits cannot be genetically inherited. Scientists believed that mutations occurring only in germ cells were responsible for any heritable genetic changes—be it during evolution or as cause of genetic disorders. Schumacher and his team now challenge this assertion.
The DNA of an organism constantly gets damaged. Not only environmental influences, but also by-products of the body’s energy metabolism damage the molecular structure of the genome in every cell. The scientists investigated how the genome integrity of PGCs is controlled. PGCs need to survey their genomes particularly rigorously because they give rise to all sperm or eggs of the organism. Damaged PGCs are particularly dangerous because they are hereditary and can lead to serious genetic disorders. PGCs thus need to stop dividing when their genomes are damaged until the DNA is repaired. Special niche cells are responsible for signalling to the PGCs that they need to stop dividing and repair before generating further germ cells. If they fail to do so, the PGCs might pass on dangerous mutations to the next generation.
To fulfil this important function, the niche cells are in intimate contact with the PGCs and instruct them whether to divide and generate germ cells or whether to stay inactive. “This means that the body is responsible for controlling the integrity of heritable genomes,” Schumacher remarked. “The parental body thus has somatic control over the integrity of PGC genomes, controlling the quality of the heritable genetic information.” Since studying PGCs in mammals is a complicated endeavour, Schumacher’s team used C. elegans as a simple animal model to shed new light on to how PGCs control the integrity of the genomes they will pass on to their offspring.
University of Cologne, July 24, 2019, “Genome research shows that the body controls the integrity of heritable genomes” at Phys.org
(The Selfish Gene was heard to sob uncontrollably in the background.)
Hat tip: Philip Cunningham
See also: Yet another new type of intercellular communication discovered
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Horizontal gene transfer: Parasite plants steal genes from hosts
Dodder plant/© simona, Adobe Stock From ScienceDaily:
Some parasitic plants steal genetic material from their host plants and use the stolen genes to more effectively siphon off the host’s nutrients. A new study led by researchers at Penn State and Virginia Tech reveals that the parasitic plant dodder has stolen a large amount of genetic material from its hosts, including over 100 functional genes. These stolen genes contribute to dodder’s ability to latch onto and steal nutrients from the host and even to send genetic weapons back into the host. The new study appears July 22, 2019, in the journal Nature Plants.
“Horizontal gene transfer, the movement of genetic material from one organism into the genome of another species, is very common in microbes and is a major way that bacteria can acquire antibiotic resistance,” said Claude dePamphilis, professor of biology at Penn State and senior author of the study. “We don’t see many examples of horizontal gene transfer in complex organisms like plants, and when we do see it, the transferred genetic material isn’t generally used. In this study, we present the most dramatic case known of functional horizontal gene transfer ever found in complex organisms.”
Parasitic plants like dodder cannot live on their own by generating energy through photosynthesis. Instead, they use structures called haustoria to tap into a host plant’s supply of water and nutrients. Dodder wraps itself around its host plant, growing into its vascular tissue, and often feeds on multiple plants at one time. It can parasitize many different species, wild plants as well as those of agricultural and horticultural importance.
“Parasitic plants live very intimately in connection with their host, extracting nutrients,” said dePamphilis. “But they also get genetic material in the process, and sometimes they incorporate that material into their genome. Previous studies focused on single transferred genes. Here, we used genome-scale datasets about gene expression to determine whether the large amount of genetic material coming over through horizontal gene transfer is actually being used.” …
The researchers are currently investigating how exactly genetic material is being transferred from host to parasite. They would also like to explore whether this transfer is a one-way street, or if the host can obtain genetic material from its parasite.
“We’d love to know how extensive horizontal gene transfer really is,” said dePamphilis. “We looked at just one of species of dodder, which is just one of over 4000 species of parasitic plants. Does horizontal gene transfer of functional genes happen to the same extent in other species? Is it possible in non-parasitic plants? In other complex organisms? This may be the tip of the iceberg.” Paper. (paywall) – Zhenzhen Yang, Eric K. Wafula, Gunjune Kim, Saima Shahid, Joel R. McNeal, Paula E. Ralph, Prakash R. Timilsena, Wen-bin Yu, Elizabeth A. Kelly, Huiting Zhang, Thomas Nate Person, Naomi S. Altman, Michael J. Axtell, James H. Westwood, Claude W. dePamphilis. Convergent horizontal gene transfer and cross-talk of mobile nucleic acids in parasitic plants. Nature Plants, 2019; DOI: 10.1038/s41477-019-0458-0 More.
Indeed, HGT may well be “the tip of the iceberg,” as the researcher says. Consider: Darwinism is about ancestor-descendant relationships. Take that away and the whole elaborate catechism of altruism, kin selection, costly fitness, etc. is poof! And horizontal gene transfer does indeed take that away.
See also: Horizontal gene transfer: Sorry, Darwin, it’s not your evolution any more
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Researcher: Smartest engineers would be “totally stumped” by a cell
structure of an animal cell/royroydeb (CC BY-SA 4.0)From an article about Greg Johnson, a computer vision and machine learning researcher at the Allen Institute for Cell Science, on seeing inside living cells:
In short, understanding what cells look like on the inside — much less the myriad interactions among their parts — is hard even in the 21st century. “Think of a cell as a sophisticated machine like a car — except every 24 hours, you’ll have two cars in your driveway, and then four cars in your driveway,” said Greg Johnson, a computer vision and machine learning researcher at the Allen Institute for Cell Science. “If you found the smartest engineers in the world and said, ‘Make me a machine that does that,’ they would be totally stumped. That’s what I think of when I think of how little we know about how cells work.”
John Pavlus, “His Artificial Intelligence Sees Inside Living Cells” at Quanta
Hat tip: Heather Zeiger
See also: Yet another new type of intercellular communication discovered
and
Researcher asks, is the cell REALLY a machine?
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Retraction Watch wonders: How did THIS nonsense end up in a peer-reviewed journal?
What’s hot? What’s not?/Niklas Bildhauer, Wikimedia And it isn’t even social science!:
Sometimes, a paper comes along that is so revolutionary, it defies description. So rather than try to do justice to a recent paper in Parasitology Research, we’ll reproduce a few paragraphs here:
“A certain point between the center of the earth and the center of a certain outer planet is where the gravities of each interact, where their energies are exchanged, and also where numerous other gravities are working. Therefore, matter composed of elements at this point could receive FOGF energy, named “BDong-ta-ra-con-ching,” and in turn more energy will be received by rotation and revolution of the earth. In order to induce this energy into matter, we developed the material remediation installation “BPutor” (Fig. 2), which could force synchronization in MBZ, make MBZ normally receive FOGF energy, and reduce toxicity of MBZ. It consisted of the “BEup-cha” and the “BNap-cha” putor program. The Eup-cha putor program induces energy from the center of the earth, whereas the Nap-cha putor program amplifies numerous weak extraterrestrial energies using natural matter, silkworm. To treat MBZ, the Eup-cha putor program was installed under MBZ and the Nap-cha putor program was installed over MBZ.”
“Gravitational fields, silkworm excrement, and “putor” programs: How did this “pure, utter nonsense” get into in a peer-reviewed journal?” at RetractionWatch
Another question: Why are so many studies done about why laypeople don’t trust science and comparatively few done on what’s the matter with people who do “trust science” in an atmosphere where this stuff seems to flourish unchecked?
See also: Why it’s so hard to reform peer review Robert J. Marks: Reformers are battling numerical laws that govern how incentives work. Know your enemy! Measurement creates a temptation to achieve a measurable goal by less than totally honest means. As in physics, the simple act of measuring invariably disturbs what you are trying to measure.
and
Why the science spin snowball can’t stop. The bigger problem is overlooked. The basic philosophy of the people doing the science spins the story for them. We live in the age of the space detritus that was supposed to be an extraterrestrial lightsail and the conscious plants. And the talking apes. Oh yes, and the multiverse
The problem isn’t that people believe this stuff but that they consider it science.
Keep science honest. Keep up to date with Retraction Watch.
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July 23, 2019
Eggbound baby gulls warn nestmates of threats
When they hear the warning cries of adult gulls:
Yellow-legged gull embryos exposed to the warnings of adults and neighboring embryos that had not been exposed to the sounds both displayed a series of behavioral and physiological changes when newly hatched, according to a study published Monday in Nature Ecology & Evolution. By vibrating, the embryos exposed to the call appeared to transfer knowledge of the threat to the others in their nest—the first time such a behavior has resulted in observed changes to clutchmates.
Just as human babies register sounds they hear from the womb, embryos within bird, reptile, amphibian and insect eggs use sensory clues to glean information about their environment. …
“Sounds can give a lot of information to embryos, and they seem to be using it to shape their development to their particular conditions,” says behavioral ecologist Mylene Mariette of Deakin University in Australia, who was not involved in the study.
Jennifer Leman, “Bird embryos vibrate to warn one another of danger before they hatch” at Scientific American
Well, if the embryos are shaping their development in response to warning cries, that puts a whole new spin on “evolution.”
This was the first time we had heard the expression “embryo-to-embryo communication”:
“These results suggest a degree of developmental plasticity based on prenatal social cues, which had hitherto been thought impossible,” Mariette and Buchanan report.
Although chicks tuned in to siblings’ vibrations found themselves better-equipped to respond to danger, Science Alert’s Michelle Starr notes that this advantage came at the cost of reduced energy production and growth. Still, Sheikh writes for the New York Times, the informational advantage represented by nestmates’ warnings “could mean the difference between being eaten or not.”
Meilan Solly, “Unhatched Bird Embryos Communicate With Siblings by Vibrating Their Shells” at Smithsonian Magazine
It would be hard to quantify the advantages of being eaten.
No wonder there are so many gulls in the world.
See also: Does intelligence depend on a specific type of brain?
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Francis Galton (1822-1911), Darwin’s cousin, risks getting disappeared
Over Who knew that this was how the culture would begin to turn on Darwinism?
It’s not just American universities that are seriously considering the removal of historical figures from monuments or buildings on campus, owing to their insufficient wokeness. America’s progenitor is doing it too. British academics are divided on whether to strip the names of four scientists from University College London’s campus, the subject of an investigation that started last fall. On the chopping block: Francis Galton (above), Marie Stopes, Flinders Petrie and Karl Pearson. Former UCL professors or alumni, the four had ties to eugenics theory in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Alexander Pease, “” at The College Fix
These people may well be protected by the invocation of sacred terms like Darwinism and birth control, in which case—at one time—it wouldn’t matter much what they had done. A lot depends on whether the raging Woke even care at this point. Hits are hits.
We warned the Darwinians to take the racism and eugenics in their past seriously while there was time but they assumed that if they spoke in Darwin’s name, all would be forgiven.
See also: Now Steve Pinker is getting #MeToo’d, at Inside Higher Ed over Jeffrey Epstein The rap against cognitive psychologist Pinker, who always seemed ready with a Darwinian explanation for everything, is that he offered some interpretation of language to Epstein’s lawyer, Alan Dershowitz.
and
Was Neanderthal man fully human? The role racism played in assessing the evidence
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FYI-FTR: The answer given to attempts to undermine moral government (and to those that — even worse — suggest that Christians must become/are vigilantes)
A new accusatory talking point being used by one particular frequent objector, is that I am ducking answering what he imagines I cannot answer. This arose in connexion with his drearily raising yet again an obsessive theme that would drag threads into the sewer. Having taken time to deal with such in one thread, I refused. I took time to deal with the focal topic (currently at top of UD’s recent active threads) then I took time to answer objections as above.
For corrective record, I now headline, and as the relevant thread is still open, discussion will be entertained there.
First, 419 in the atheism warrant challenge thread, July 17 2019 at 11:54 am on blog timestamp:
[KF, 419:] >>F/N (& attn BB): Now that I have worked through a sufficient initial summary giving food for thought on theism, let us pause to deal with an attempted argument in claimed warrant {!!!!!!!} of atheism, from moral dilemmas.
That is, circumstances where at least apparently, there are no morally good {!!!!!!!} choices for at least one agent x, whose inaction will also end in an evil and deep guilt {!!!!!!} either naturally or by imposition of an oppressive power acting in the situation.
This argument is already patently incoherent as it appeals to duties to truth, to warrant, to justice etc in order to try to undermine same. Where, already, if we are not actually duty-bound to truth, right reason, prudence, sound conscience, justice etc, there not only are no moral dilemmas but we have set loose the utter undermining of responsible rationality. Therefore, those who pose it are enabling utter demonic nihilism. Which is the surest way to find ourselves under evil powers who will try to lock us into corrupting, soul-tainting evil.
So, the argument condemns itself at outset: it is imprudent, evil, corrupting, manipulative, oppressive, fundamentally deceptive counsel.
Second, as was long since already pointed out in 397 above, Boethius in his classic Consolation of Philosophy identifies a pivotal flaw in any antitheistic argument that appeals from evil against God: “If God exists, whence evil? But whence good, if God does not exist?”
Arguments that appeal to our innate knowledge that evil is real and to be rejected, depend inescapably on the reality of evil and so also of good, thence our inescapable duties to reason and the right, which start by governing our intellectual faculties through our known duties to truth, to right reason, to prudence, to sound conscience, to fairness, to justice etc. Thus they inadvertently highlight that we operate on both sides of the IS-OUGHT gap and that this must be bridged in the only place where such is possible, the roots of reality. For which, as noted, there is just one serious candidate: the inherently good and utterly wise creator God, a necessary and maximally great being. One, who is worthy of our loyalty and of the responsible, reasonable service of doing the good that accords with our evident nature.
Manifestly, such duties of justice include that we should not set up oppressive institutions, powers and decrees that trap people into enabling evil or into participating in it. That manifestly holds for dictatorships setting up concentration camps where a guard can trap a mother by telling her there is not enough space so you pick which of your sons will be killed now or both will be killed if you refuse to choose which lives and which dies. It also holds for cases where immoral conduct is claimed as a right under false colour of law and those who refuse to enable evil as though it were the right are subjected to crippling penalty under false colour of law — which corrupts the judiciary and law enforcement systems. Which, BTW, is exactly how we end up with Gestapos acting wickedly under false colour of law enforcement.
It holds for exposing the evils of slavery as was pointed out in 372 above on the case of Onesimus and Paul:
//A classic biblical instance is that of Paul, in Rome as an appeals prisoner having already been forced to appeal to Nero from the Jerusalem hierarchy seeking to assassinate him, and with his neck already literally on the line. He is closely guarded by soldiers (traditionally actually chained to one). Suddenly, Onesimus comes to him, having escaped as a slave and apparently having stolen money. To harbour an escapee is already another capital charge, and to directly challenge Roman law and institutions would be to confirm the accusation he was already facing.
He sends Onesimus back home, with the letter Philemon that in effect exerted influence and principles to utterly undermine such oppressions, clearly leading to manumission. Also, teaching principles of equality, dignity, brotherhood and responsible liberty. Later, we would hear of a Bishop Onesimus, and some suggest this is he, also that he may have been a key figure in collecting what is now our NT.//
Notice, what is going on here:
I pause to pick up a point that has too often been used to warp our moral judgements, to induce us to accept yet another crooked yardstick.
I see you are trying the old moral dilemma talking point on casting one value above another.
It does not demonstrate what those who pushed “values clarification” etc thought.
What it means is that in a world where evil (even demonic evil) can have power, sometimes our only realistic choice is the least of evils; which is still not a pure good. Hence, fighting a war with the Nazi state [–> the most widely acknowledged case of recent, entrenched demonic evil in control of the organs of state power and law], using realistic means and accepting that to fight will cost much. Starting with rivers of blood and a devastated continent, continuing through horrific waste of economic resources and leading to needing to race towards nukes as you know the pioneers who discovered the principles were on the other side. Also knowing that information security is absolutely vital. And much more, lessons best learned from a deep, sound understanding of lessons of history paid for with blood and tears. [–> That is, sound record of hard bought experience is the only effective guide to dealing with existential moral dilemmas]
I then drew out a conclusion:
//So now, how to answer the demonic Gestapo? By first recognising that when evil dominates we can face genuine moral dilemmas and must recognise that innocent life is a first right without which there are no rights — the exact principle why many of us look with horror on the ongoing abortion holocaust and refuse to enable it. And, extending to our own circumstances, those who vote in evil are enablers of evil, here, voting in holocaust is on the table.
A lot closer to home than imagining some new Gestapo.//
Now, let us consider another key case, St Maximilian Kolbe, at Auschwitz.
For, they overcame the wicked one by the power of their testimony and they loved not their lives unto death:
//After the outbreak of World War II, which started with the invasion of Poland by Germany, Kolbe was one of the few brothers who remained in the monastery, where he organized a temporary hospital.[5] After the town was captured by the Germans, he was briefly arrested by them on 19 September 1939 but released on 8 December.[2][5] He refused to sign the Deutsche Volksliste, which would have given him rights similar to those of German citizens, in exchange for recognizing his ethnic German ancestry.[16] Upon his release he continued work at his friary, where he and other friars provided shelter to refugees from Greater Poland, including 2,000 Jews whom he hid from German persecution in the Niepokalanów friary.[2][11][12][16][17] Kolbe received permission to continue publishing religious works, though significantly reduced in scope.[16] The monastery continued to act as a publishing house, issuing a number of anti-Nazi German publications.[2][11]
On 17 February 1941, the monastery was shut down by the German authorities.[2] That day Kolbe and four others were arrested by the German Gestapo and imprisoned in the Pawiak prison.[2] On 28 May, he was transferred to Auschwitz as prisoner 16670.[18]
Continuing to act as a priest, Kolbe was subjected to violent harassment, including beating and lashings. Once he was smuggled to a prison hospital by friendly inmates.[2][16] At the end of July 1941, one prisoner escaped from the camp, prompting SS-Hauptsturmführer Karl Fritzsch, the deputy camp commander, to pick ten men to be starved to death in an underground bunker to deter further escape attempts. When one of the selected men, Franciszek Gajowniczek, cried out, “My wife! My children!”, Kolbe volunteered to take his place.[8]
According to an eyewitness, who was an assistant janitor at that time, in his prison cell, Kolbe led the prisoners in prayer. Each time the guards checked on him, he was standing or kneeling in the middle of the cell and looking calmly at those who entered. After they had been starved and deprived of water for two weeks, only Kolbe remained alive. The guards wanted the bunker emptied, so they gave Kolbe a lethal injection of carbolic acid. Kolbe is said to have raised his left arm and calmly waited for the deadly injection.[11] He died on August 14. His remains were cremated on 15 August, the feast day of the Assumption of Mary.//
Nazism seized power in Germany by pretending to be a vehicle of deliverance, but was manifestly tainted by evil nihilistic practices. Once it gained some power, through ruthless opportunism it exploited the Reichstag fire set by a deranged Dutch boy, to hold a show trial for the communist party and to trick the legislature into an enabling act for dictatorship for seven years. Then, it introduced ever growing demonic evils and oppressions, crushing those who dared stand on principle and conscience. This was the main cause of WW2, with perhaps 85 millions needlessly dead in Europe and Asia etc. It is not for nothing that Churchill said that there never was a more easily averted war.
So, in our day, I point to the abortion holocaust and how it and things connected to it are corrupting our civilisation. And yes, I dare to echo the White Rose Martyrs and name such as demonic evil.
When it comes to pretended rights, I simply say that to justly claim a right, one must be manifestly in the right. Something that must be soundly warranted, coming full circle to the duties that govern our intellectual faculties. Duties, which are inescapably moral, are instruments of moral government.
And so, again, it comes back to the point Boethius made 1500 years ago while awaiting execution on an unjust charge: “If God exists, whence evil? But whence good, if God does not exist?” >>
You will search the relevant thread in vain for a cogent, substantial response. Of course, you will see the strawman talking point tactic I am here exposing. I believe 423 at July 18, 1:55 amJ is also relevant:
[KF, 423:] >> . . . There has been yet another attempt to drag off topic, compounded by refusal to acknowledge existence of an answer to the general claim of how moral dilemmas allegedly undermine moral government; cf. 419 above. But in fact this argument refutes itself from the outset as those who pose it appeal to our recognition of the binding nature of duties to truth, right reason, prudence, sound conscience, fairness and justice etc. If these duties are disregarded, rationality and responsibility as well as community evaporate. The whole rhetorical exercise pivots on gliding by a key contradiction and so we properly hold that moral government and its world root reality requisites are real, undeniably real.
Now, we see further posing of alleged cases pursuing the same end.
The answer to oh is it acceptable to carry out violence against an abortionist — set in the context of dismissiveness to concerns over the ongoing slaughter of our innocent posterity in the womb at about a million further victims per week (and 800+ millions in 40+ years) — is that resort to lawless conduct of vigilantism is just as wrong as any other form of lawless behaviour. The solution is to peacefully present the truth and to restore the law to sanity. That is the real problem and as you full well know, vigilantism will also only further lock in the insanity that acts under false colour of law.
A living human being is a natural person and the correct presumption is such that living human beings should be protected under law. The project of dehumanisation and un-person-ing under false colour of law speaks for itself given history.
The made up scenario refutes itself on many grounds, starting with that the child in a woman’s womb (half the time not the same sex) is not artificially connected as a result of kidnapping but is naturally present as the result of human biology. We are undermining the natural bond between generations through our current insanity.
As to the question of obligation to defend or protect another life — and notice how all the way such alleged dilemmas appeal to the principles they would overturn to have any persuasiveness — consider a very real case: when confronted by the rising threat of nazism, conscription was imposed under law in order to build up armed forces to fight and if needs be die.
That should be answer enough in principle to show the fallacious nature of these appeals.
We also can observe the studious continued absence of a response on merits to the main issues for the thread. That speaks, given allegations of no evidence and claims of default in favour of atheism . . . .
PS: I think there is a place to distinguish just from unjust use of force, and to confine the ambiguous word violence to the latter. >>
SA at 427 is relevant:
KF: such alleged dilemmas appeal to the principles they would overturn to have any persuasiveness
SA: That is a cogent and decisive answer to the sort of moral outrage and various dilemmas that are put forward in place of a real discussion. There is always an appeal to principles.
AS78, who has been UD’s man in attendance faithfully at the Annual March for life, with pics (and so far as I have a say, is welcome to post the march from year to year as long as it takes) is also relevant. For, he exposes the underlying agendas in the specious argument to vigilantism:
[AS78, 428:] Trying to get anywhere near an abortion doctor or patient when they are in the abortion mill to do their killing will get you violently subdued by security, likely arrested, and your life otherwise messed up. So your fruity little hypothetical comparison of apples and oranges is worthless . . .
Of course, the mere suggestion of violence, in the minds of those conditioned to be polarised against those seeking to defend the most innocent lives of all, and to seek reform of law, is deliberately tainting. This is the destructive power of Accuser.
I could go on, but this is enough to make the point, further discussion would be in the relevant thread. This record exposes an insistent false accusation rooted in the cynical tactics of how repeated big lies can take on the false aura of truth. END
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July 22, 2019
Mathematicians challenge Darwinian evolution
Or “neo-Darwinism” or the “extended synthesis” or similar dodges. The “information from nothing” evolution, whatever it is called:
Based on new evidence and knowledge that functioning proteins are extremely rare, should Darwin’s theory of evolution be dismissed, dissected, developed or replaced with a theory of intelligent design?
Has Darwinism really failed? Peter Robinson discusses it with David Berlinski, David Gelernter, and Stephen Meyer, who have raised doubts about Darwin’s theory in their two books and essay, respectively The Deniable Darwin, Darwin’s Doubt, and “Giving Up Darwin” (published in the Claremont Review of Books).
Robinson asks them to convince him that the term “species” has not been defined by the authors to Darwin’s disadvantage. Gelernter replies to this and explains, as he expressed in his essay, that he sees Darwin’s theory as beautiful (which made it difficult for him to give it up): “Beauty is often a telltale sign of truth. Beauty is our guide to the intellectual universe—walking beside us through the uncharted wilderness, pointing us in the right direction, keeping us on track—most of the time.” Gelernter notes that there’s no reason to doubt that Darwin successfully explained the small adjustments by which an organism adapts to local circumstances: changes to fur density or wing style or beak shape. Yet there are many reasons to doubt whether Darwin can answer the hard questions and explain the big picture—not the fine-tuning of existing species but the emergence of new ones. Meyer explains Darwinism as a comprehensive synthesis, which gained popularity for its appeal. Meyer also mentions that one cannot disregard that Darwin’s book was based on the facts present in the 19th century.
Peter Robinson, “Mathematical Challenges to Darwin’s Theory of Evolution with Berlinski, Meyer, and Gelernter” at Hoover Institution
When this stuff is happening, Darwinism is on the outs culturally.
See also: Darwinism Vs. Mathematics In A Post-Modern World
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