Why do people deny evolution?

Why can't intelligence be part of nature on a grander scale than human intelligence? Human intelligence is considered natural in your mind isn't it?

Look, if you want to do research to find this intelligence, noon stopping you. Why is it always the burden of science to turn around and take up the cause of religion? All your assertions are based on woulda be-shoulda been beliefs, NO evidence of the kind that we read about daily .
Besides, we dwell in th world of ignorance,(science that is). Profound ignorance is why e go to work and try to find out why.
Look at Darwin, he knew NOTHING about genetics, and besides, he was dead wrong about the sustainability of evolved traits. Yet, for the most part, his theory keeps getting upheld. Even the work that is the reason for this Nobel Prize (In Chemistry no less, what have I been saying about the role that linkages in Organic Bio- Chemistry has in evolution and the construction of genes) It seems to uphold the mechanisms that exchanging traits and adaptation play . Im sorry, I cannot see compelling evidence that ID has played any role (unless youve agreed with me that there are a limited number of chemical reactions that govern changes in gene structure and preservation and these are limiting.)

Fine. So give us a lttle more evidence than "why cant it be the case..."

So what created the materisl universe before we csme along? Sea slug cosciousness? Tell me how your cosciiousness. Creates the Andromeda Nebula.

I agree that the system was set up to provide a way for Life to Evolve both microevolution and macro evolution. And the system is fully capable of doing microevolution without any intelligent input. We witness that all the time.

But the system is not capable of Abiogenesis or macro evolution without intelligent input. We have no evidence beyond the existence of the final results in the fossil record and living organisms and wild speculation about the capabalities of a mndless natural world which, tells us nothing about how the new information was entered into the system.

When you start looking for an intelligence that did something millions or billions of years ago where you start looking?

Is archaeology considered science? Or would it be a new branch of science that looks for scientific evidence of Such an intelligence?

Intelligence is like anything else that emerges in a more concentrated form from a system and then feeds back into the system in other ways. Humans and other animals don't just run around randomly fighting and having sex to reproduce. Complex patterns of selective behavior evolve that govern when and how to fight and reproduce, among other survival activities. In short, intelligence evolves from the system because it is latent within it.

Now you want to say that the intelligence that is latent in the system prior to or outside of its concentrated manifestation in certain relatively more intelligent species is not really intelligence, but what basis do you have for denying extensive intelligence in contrast with intensive/concentrated intelligence?

Take another comparision, for example, between intensive agricultural cultivation of edible plants and the gathering of such plants as they naturally distribute themselves throughout an ecosystem. As animals forage through an area searching for food and eating it, they interact with the ecosystem in a way that spreads seeds and fertilizer throughout the area, hence cultivating the crops they eat. You can say that this is unintelligent, reflex-based agriculture as opposed to intelligent, intent-based agricultural cultivation; but in reality they are both methods of maintaining a food supply.

Further, you should acknowledge that when animals develop a sustainable foraging relationship with the ecology that feeds them, nature has evolved to support them in the same sense that they have evolved to support their food chain, e.g. by excreting dropping that sow seeds and fertilize them. So there really isn't such a difference between a naturally-evolved system of automatic food-chain management by species that utilize the ecology they are managing and an artificially-created system of agriculture where humans intentionally plant and fertilize certain varieties for harvest.

Human agriculture is just a variation on what happens naturally with foraging. However, because we humans fetishize our own ingenuity over what nature does, we fail to appreciate how a natural system for fertilizing and watering plants is intelligent and effective in the same way an artificially-cultivated one is. We think because we can concentrate certain natural functions into artificial systems and control them as such, we have transcended nature. In reality, we fail to note that, for example, our artificially irrigation system are prone to gradually running dry because they have not evolved in a way that is automatically sustainable by virtue of the fact that is has been sustaining itself for eons.

We create a new system, celebrate it while it flourishes, and then stand baffled as it degenerates and fails. This is because we never fully grasped the subtle nuances and complexities of the natural systems we imagine we have superceded with our designs. In reality, those natural systems are more complex, tried, and tested systems than ours; and the only way we can come to grips with that is by recognizing the elaborate evolutionary process that created it as a process fundamentally similar to our own creative process except more patiently and thoroughly designed, tried, and tested.

It is a reasonable hypothesis, but not a conclusion. There is not much of anything universities can do to study it with the methodology that science uses, so I think that’s a dead end. I really do not expect them to do that.

What universities could do is stop filling students heads with the fallacy that we understand things that we clearly do not. The winner of the Nobel I mentioned was at least honest enough to do that.

The other thing they could do but probably won’t is admit what science actually has revealed but is too religious about ‘ the supernatural' to admit - that biological organisms are obviously artificial software defined Lifeforms. They’ve done a good job of proving that, they just need to take credit for it.

Yes.

I stand corrected.




How did they do a good job of proving it if there is no scientific methodology to do it? Aren't you contradicting yourself here?

It appears to me that all you're saying is they need to allow more than one religion to guide their hypothesies in science. Am I wrong in concluding that?

What does concentrated intelligence look like? What is it measured in, grams per cubic centimeter?

I explained it in terms of foraging vs. intentional agriculture. The post was maybe too long and complex for you to read thoroughly and/or understand.

If you think intelligence can be measured in physical density, you have some thinking to do regarding what intelligence is.

Agriculture arose in areas in which humans continued to forage. The majority of palaeontologists in fact believe that the rise of agriculture was accidental. People foraged for emmer and einkorn and rye grass, for example, with the result that those seeds were more rapidly and widely distributed than other grasses. The intelligence was in recognizing that process and promoting it. People who foraged were not less intelligence than people who farmed; indeed, had they not been as intelligent, they would never have begun farming. Even when agriculture was well-established, people continued to forage. Humans do that to this day. As a child, I went along with the family as we gathered hickory and walnuts, and picked blueberries and blackberries. We even picked wild strawberries because of the strong strawberry flavor, and we added them to the strawberries we grew in the garden.

LL always shoots from the hip, and all she comes here for is the argument. She's a wonderful demonstration of the dictum that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

Well, a lot of wrong knowledge (evil-lo) is even more dangerous.

I don't know how I came up with that other word, but in my last post the term should have been paleoanthropologists.

I'm not sure where else you could expect Science to go other than just press on in the direction they are already on. My only complaint is about those who inject religious dogma into science which results in corrosive 'Scientism'.

Scientism is doing this strange inversion on what should be the obvious conclusions from what Science has revealed. Science has uncovered the basic mechanisms of biology that clearly show evidence of design. I've discussed them at length before.
Scientism first does the slight of hand trick of saying "it only gives the appearance of design" but then later in the speil there are several unproven and so far unsuccesfully demonstrated theories of how it happened. The story quickly morphs into some version of "how could anyone be so stupid as to question my particular interpretation of the evidence', which is the question implied in the OP.

Someone will no doubt complain that evolution is a different subject than abiogenesis, but I would counter that if you lie about the origin of life, I'm going to question what you tell me about how and why it changed over time.

Science is doing a fine job of what it is doing, some just need to quit telling others they are stupid for not agreeing with them on what conclusions we should draw from it.

Sorry to ask, but in exactly what is 'science' 'doing a fine job'? I mean I don't see that AT ALL. 'science' creates some employment for some people, so they don't have to live on the streets, that's it.

No practitioner of naturalistic methodological research has ever claimed to explain "abiogenesis." As I have pointed out again and again, the term is meaningless. When life arises were there had been no life, no matter what cause one ascribes to the event, that is abiogenesis--life arising where there had been no life beforehand. The word was coined by Thomas Huxley just to piss off the holy rollers. No one has been lying to you, because no one gives a rat's ass what you believe about the origins of life. The topic is evolution, not the origin of life.

If you could not peddle distortions, you'd have nothing to post.

wow! Beautifull nonsense, but nonsense none the less!
And please explain to me why the origin of life is then still in the biology books at school??????


And , as I always say, first they teach the origins o f life, but then there are 'problems'' so they then started to say that the 'origins of life' has nothing to do with it all. So, of course then there has to come a time that they have to say the evolution has nothing to do with evolution!
It is so pathetic what they are doing. No one can call that non-sense 'science'.

Are you saying that if we were to conclude that life had to have had an intelligent 'creator' that it would have no influence on your thoughts about evolution?

Yeah, I get the outrage at the waste. Just the fact that I personally know a handful of people whose primary jobs were to write grant requests tells me something. Then there are the equally large number of people involved in giving government money out! True, there is a big 'Jobs' factor there.

But be real man, I love my ******* toys. Go Science.