Stephen Meyer & Darwin's Doubt on The John Ankerberg Show, pt. 6

[@ProteusX2]

Tremendous work, Dr. Meyer!

[@thadofalltrades]

One thing I really like about Stephen Meyer is that he is obviously a scientist first and a theist second. I don't agree with some of his theological stances, but as a scientist I respect him greatly for his courage in standing up to the prevailing understanding. Much like Galileo stood up to the prevailing theory of a flat earth. Meyer is also an expert in his field and his credentials being from Cambridge adds a lot of weight to what he says. This is not a theist throwing around God, this is a scientist who has genuinely become disillusioned with the prevailing theory because the evidence that is observed in nature cannot be explained by the prevailing theory and as a good scientist should do, he is seeking an alternative. That alternative has lead him to ID.

[@thadofalltrades]

Integrated biological circuits = mind blown.

[@ROZMS]

Concerning the ID legal battles, Gideon comes to mind, and how God wanted the battle to look impossible. This is where I see the ID battle, Gideon and mighty warriors winning when it looks impossible.

[@MichaelHarrisIreland]

We need to be truly mystified and amazed at ourselves and all the life around us and that we don't know how species or life came about. Then there is hope of a new hypnotises. Without that admittance we delay, if not forbid, the possibility of finding a new theory. That is the damage evolution is doing to science. People who expose the falsehood of evolution, or anything, for whatever reason, are doing us all a big favour.

[@WizzRacing]

It's a top down only solution. Just like building a computer. The system is worthless without an OS programmed to function with the hardware, the layers and bios being present or it doesn't work!

[@theHentySkeptic]

If you read his books, and watch the you-tube explanations (and debates), you can see that Meyer takes the same route to his conclusions as any Forensic Scientist (as indeed Darwin himself did) - he examines multiple competing hypotheses - he rejects those that can be demonstrated to be false (or weak) - he finds himself with an inference to the best explanation. Then he finds that there is only one explanation that fits all the facts and is the only known cause of the things he is seeking to explain - and that cause is intelligence. This line of reasoning is used to prove people guilty of murder but it seems to leave some people convinced he is wrong. The challenge is clear at the end of the video - show how to create a new animal, without using a mind. Can it be done? Meyer states elsewhere that he "thinks" it is God who did it. However, I think it might be the flying spaghetti monster for all he "knows" - I have noticed that he is very careful not to let his own views get in the way of the research - but others think this is being sneaky. I say, fair play to him... Those who have read the books will also know he believes in change over time - so he is not anti-evolutionist as such, but he is definitely of the view that this small scale evolution is something of a sideshow and not the main game - and it can't produce novel forms of animals. I really want to see a debate on the substance of his assertions and challenges, not the usual infantile ranting of trolls... but, this is you-tube - sigh!

[@jasonjudd4]

I don't believe Intelligent Design should be a scientific approach unless the approach is philosophical. Saying "God Dunnit" is just as much conjecture as the secular phrase "must have happened." Within the tree of life, once phylogenetic assumptions are removed, a genetic top-down path is observed via domestication lineages. The off-shot species has less genetic strength than its originating organism to include more diseases. It is a fact that the panthera genus has more genetic information than its lessor off-shoot genus--felis. I believe this should be studied more. Ram to lamb, wolf to Chihuahua, etc. While ancient DNA from extinct organisms can be fragmentally pieced together, they could model pathways to prove or disprove top-down or bottom up, right? Why is nobody doing this? Why did I remove the phlylogenetic assumptions? Simply to be fair. Phylogeny states: there is no way to measure whether a particular phylogenetic hypothesis is accurate or not, unless the true relationships among the taxa being examined are already known (ie. domestication pathways). So to be fair, remove the conjecture on both camps. Fighting conjecture with conjecture is a dead-end, especially if there is a way to observe/hypothesize/test/repeat/falsify/theorize/submit/retest/repeat/publish. Providing evidence of a top-down genetic model should be a better approach and should be much easier to publish than Creationist Conjecture. Why wouldn't Creation Genetic Scientists, like Jeanson or a biologist, like yourself, do this? I do acknowledge the effort though. +Stephen Meyer, your thoughts please?

[@jasonjudd4]

As a science minded individual, how should I preoccupy "no response?"

[@jasonjudd4]

Ben, I am a young earth creationist. Science studies led me to that conclusion. I was an evolutionist until I started reading journals and removed the asserted conjecture. Once the assumptions were removed, it became apparent.

[@jasonjudd4]

Ben, I was asking Stephen to take a different approach. One that wasn't subjective. One that included observed data, as in, proving a top-down model is conclusive.

[@CriticalThinker02]

+Jason Judd I'm interested in hearing more about what led you to that conclusion, if you care to share. Are you a biologist? I ask with absolute sincerity.

[@jasonjudd4]

CT02, do you want what pushed me over-the-fence, or everything that led up to it? I'm game either way.