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Challenges to Darwin’s Theory of Evolution
#1
This forum among the fourth turning/generational theory forums does not mention science, and there isn't one about science, but it seems today we can't really talk about religion, spirituality and astrology without comparing it to science and what science says too. To some extent, all four are about the quest for ultimate answers to the basic questions: where did we come from, what or who are we, and where are we going?

This was a good talk about Darwinism by three authors. One of them mentions that Darwinism remains too much of a dogma held on to today as if it were a religion. All three recognize Darwin as seminal in contributing to the history and development of science, especially about that question of where did we come from. But the three of them say that the theory has failed to explain the big picture. It explained small local changes like the size of wings or the color of fur, but how life or species emerge or what consciousness is remains unanswered. The main point is made early in the video, which is called Mathematical Challenges to Darwin's Theory of Evolution. What Darwin didn't know is how complicated the cell is, and how astronomical the chances (1/10 to the 77th power) are of a mutation getting it right in the development of a new form of life. In fact, a mutation is very likely to be fatal. One author compares what science and mathematics seem to say about the Darwinian notion that life evolved from the bottom up through chance arrangements of genes, as being just like monkeys assigned to type randomly for a million years and come up with the works of Shakespeare-- the same illustration that critics of Darwin like me have been saying for decades.

The three authors differ in their overall view of the world, as in how good it is, how important consciousness is, and how much mind is a factor and a useful explanation. The implication seems clear that life has done amazingly better, astronomically better, than one would expect given the chances mentioned here for the changes in life forms to work out well. The portly, bearded author on the right seems to forget this in his pessimistic view, even granting that there's so much that doesn't work out well in the world. And today, my goodness, it's hard to be as optimistic as I was in years past.

This is from the Hoover Institution, and I trust that it's understood that if I critique a scientific theory so dearly held as Darwinism, it is not that I am aligning with Christian nationalists, fundamentalist creationists and other conservatives; still less with other science deniers in this age of covid vaccines, MAGA, climate change, conspiracy theory, etc. I am feeling much more pro-science in my anger with these harmful delusions these days. But my fundamental prejudice and orientation, about which I need to reduce my passion, remains toward an idealistic, spiritual view that recognizes soul, mind, consciousness, and even God-- in a deep and wide sense, and not in the sense of outdated myths and stories.



"I close my eyes, and I can see a better day" -- Justin Bieber

Keep the spirit alive;
Eric M
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#2
Creationists are even more... troubled in their explanations. Evolution in some way resembles card deals; any result is highly unlikely, but there will certainly be a hand. Any five-card poker hand has one chance in 2,598,960 of happening; to get the chance of any single bridge hand from happening for one is one in 635,013,559,600. But you will get one.

All sorts of things could have created a different universe and planet. If the Chixculub strike had never happened (let us say that it struck the Moon instead), then the masters of the planet might be giant, flightless parrots instead of us. (Parrots are smart!).

If they want to give credit to God for the Universe being what it is, then they would be wiser to discuss the laws of mathematics and physics, especially to the periodic law of the elements and the binding law of nuclear energy. The top row of the elements consists of only two which must be gases down to very low temperatures. If solids or liquids, then the stars would become as a rule much bigger and would go more often into supernova explosions to the detriment of life. The binding curve of energy stops stellar nucleosynthesis at 56 nucleons, which makes elements heavier than iron comparatively scarce. One of the elements that we an be delighted that is scarce is arsenic, the element that figures all too often in murder fiction of a certain time. Another is krypton, which would flood the atmospheres of planets (and prevent life by ensuring that there would be nothing to breathe) if zirconium were the end of the line for nucleosynthesis in normal stars.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist  but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.


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