There are multiple problems here, Sean. First, you are asking …

Comment on Gary Gilbert, Spectrum, and Pseudogenes by Sean Pitman.

There are multiple problems here, Sean. First, you are asking me to justify a position that I have never defended. I have never argued for “blind faith” and you know it. OF COURSE people have to have some reason for their beliefs. Not even a child who trusts what their parents tell them (about God, Santa Claus, or whatever) is exercising blind faith. The child has had ample evidence that their parents can be trusted.

You have argued that empirical evidence is not required for your faith in the credibility of the Bible. That your faith in your interpretations of the Bible can stand alone, regardless of the empirical evidence for or against it. That’s a fideistic position which you’ve never clarified before with reference to your claim that you really aren’t a fideist. You seem to want to have your cake and eat it too – and that makes no sense. You’re fine if there is supporting empirical evidence for your faith and your fine if there isn’t.

Second, I have consistently argued that SDAs prioritize God’s word ahead of what science and human reason–apart from scripture–dictate.

Exactly. That’s a fideistic position because it says nothing as to how one determines that Scripture should be accepted as credible without the need for supporting empirical evidence or rational argument.

This doesn’t mean SDAs stop using their God-given brains and act blindly, or that they never consider evidence. It simply means that when there is conflict–which always has and always will exist–they will go with what they believe scripture says.

In other words, if there is a conflict, one does stop using one’s brain and acts blindly according to what one thinks the Scripture says – without the need for the weight of supporting empirical evidence or rational argument…

This means that they DO consider the evidence and make a choice to accept what scripture says. They DO NOT reject scripture when there is conflict.

Again, this is the very definition of a fideistic position. Considering the evidence and rejecting it every time it disagrees with your pre-established faith is faithism. It is empirically blind faith because this type of faith is itself not affected by the empirical evidence at all.

Third, I could keep repeating the same reasons for my faith over and over, and you will continue to say I am not supplying you reasons for my faith.

You’re not because you keep arguing that your reasons do not affect your faith when push comes to shove – that your faith trumps all of the reasons you’ve ever presented.

You are the one who has a problem, not me. You are not paying attention, in part because you insist on hearing a position that I simply do not have.

I think I’m hearing your position just fine. You repeatedly claim that your reasons do not trump your faith – that faith trumps all human reasons and empirical evidence for believing in the claims of the Bible. That’s not a “reason” for faith that actually affects faith or has the power to change or establish faith.

Finally, there is a big difference in how we view “empirical” evidence. If you’re talking about anything we perceive with our senses, then that is fine.

I think that is the definition of empirical evidence…

But once you start talking about “potentially falsifiable empirical evidence” and synonymizing it with science, you and I simply disagree.

You have to interpret what you sense with your senses. By what mechanism do your interpret evidence? If your hypothesized interpretations for the meaning of what your senses are telling your are not falsifiable, again, your back to faithism – the position where your opinions cannot be challenged or shown to be wrong. That’s not a rational position for one trying to interpret the world in which one finds one’s self. One cannot rationally define a world which one did not create. If one finds oneself in a world which someone else created, one is always subject to the possibility of being wrong in one’s interpretations of the information received from this world that exists outside of one’s own mind. That means that if one wishes to be rational in one’s approach to this external world, one must be open to potential falsification of one’s ideas about this external world.

You can say that the child who believes the U.S. government flew a jetliner into the World Trade Center because his uncle told him so has a rational belief based on science (it’s all evidence or science, as you put it), but I don’t think it’s anything remotely close to the meaning that society applies to the word science.

Sure it is. From the child’s perspective, the best evidence with the greatest predictive value could very well be that his uncle has proven himself to be more reliable than any other source of information the child has yet encountered. The predictive value of this hypothesis is the best the child has in hand. It is therefore perfectly rational, scientifically rational, for the child to go with the best weight of evidence with the best predictive value that he knows.

The same is true of professional adult scientists. They work with limited information and do the best they can with it. Is it possible that they are just as wrong as the child when they present this or that hypothesis or theory? Sure it is. Relative to someone else with significantly more knowledge and information on the topic in question, their own knowledge could be compared to that of a child…

Your problem, as you’ve repeatedly demonstrated in this forum, is that you view science as a method of determining truth in some sort of absolute manner – as in absolute proofs or demonstrations. This isn’t science. Science has nothing to do with absolute proofs or direct demonstrations. If you had absolute proof or a direct demonstration in hand, you wouldn’t need science. Science only becomes useful when there is limited information in hand. That is why the scientist is always open to the possibility of being wrong – just as the child in your illustration.

You ask what the minimum required empirical evidence might be for me? I can’t say with certainty because there is plenty of evidence, but I believe that the impression of the Holy Spirit acting on my conscience should be adequate, and you too have agreed on that. There’s no question in my mind that the Holy Spirit influences me. If this minimum requirement makes me a fideist, then what does it make you?

I do not agree with this. I do not believe that the Holy Spirit has told you that your interpretations of the Bible are true or that the Bible is the Word of God. I do believe that the Holy Spirit guides the minds of those honestly searching for truth. However, the Holy Spirit does not replace the mind or eliminate the need for one to search out and investigate the evidence, and weigh it carefully, before coming to the conclusion that the Bible is in fact what it claims to be. The Holy Spirit does not eliminate the need for rational thought and a consideration of the empirical evidence in hand (unless you’re a prophet of course). Certainly in my own experience I cannot claim prophetic insight or directly revealed privileged information from God. The Holy Spirit has not spoken to me in this manner. And, no angel has appeared before me to tell me anything about the Bible. My faith in the Bible is based, therefore, on the weight of evidence that I believe I’ve been given to understand and rationally appreciate.

Also, the claim that everything is ultimately based on what the Holy Spirit tells you, independent of any empirical evidence that might or might not be there as well, is a very dangerous claim. It is a claim to be a type of prophet who speaks in a very privileged manner with God. I certainly wouldn’t want to make such a claim myself unless I really had spoken in such a manner with God. Such is a LDS claim, but I view it as treading on Holy Ground without realizing the seriousness of such a claim.

Beyond all of this, I have no frickin idea what you want me to say. Again, I don’t give a rat’s hairy behind whether you think I’m a fideist, atheist, realist, extortionist, empiricist, or anarchist. I find this entire conversation laughable, to be frank. The real reason you are getting dodgy is that you have an authority problem that you don’t want to address. You’ve elevated the evidence supplied by atheistic “scientists” (like Dr. Hazen and those who preceded him) ahead of inspired “scientists” (like the authors of the gospels), all of whom have described what they have detected with their senses. One can choose to believe scripture based solely on the testimony of the Bible’s authors just as rationally as one can choose to believe scripture based on what atheistic scientists have to share. Yet you have repeatedly belittled those willing to accept at face value the testimony of the “law and the prophets.”

If there were no evidence that the disciples existed, it would not be rational to believe their testimony any more than it would be rational to believe the testimony of the characters in a made up novel or a moral fable. The credibility of the disciples comes from the independent empirical evidence (outside of the Bible) that they really did exist and that they really did die for the story they told. That’s very good evidence for the credibility of the hypothesis that the disciples really did believe their story to be true. The same is true of Biblical prophecy. If the prophecies did not match historical realities, empirical evidence, they would be no more worthy of faith than some just-so story or the claims of some sidewalk palm reader.

Also, the reason I believe the published observations of someone like Hazen (and the vast majority of other scientists as well), is because there seems to be no reason why anyone would lie about such observations. Again, observations are not interpretations. It is much easier to accept the publish observations of scientists than it is to accept some of their interpretations.

In any case, I’m done with your arguments for fideistic faith. I doubt I will publish future posts on this topic from you unless, for some reason, they are substantively different and much more interesting than what I’ve read over the past several years…

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com

Sean Pitman Also Commented

Gary Gilbert, Spectrum, and Pseudogenes

I was not clear enough in my comment. There are 14 ERV’s that are intact and able to produce virus that we share with the chimps.

This is not true. According to a study published in 2005, no human ERVs capable of replication have been identified; all appear to be defective as far as producing infective viruses is concerned due to major deletions or nonsense mutations.

Belshaw R, Dawson AL, Woolven-Allen J, Redding J, Burt A, Tristem M (Oct 2005). “Genomewide Screening Reveals High Levels of Insertional Polymorphism in the Human Endogenous Retrovirus Family HERV-K(HML2): Implications for Present-Day Activity”. J Virol. 79 (19): 12507–14.

These occur at the same location in the genome of both humans and chimps. There is no question as to the function of these 14 ERV’s. Some of these are associated with disease states in humans.

This is also not true. While many ERVs are being found to be functional, most of these functions are beneficial to one degree or another, and some are even vital to life. Also, there have been no proven cases of human ERVs causing disease.

“HERVs have frequently been proposed as etiological cofactors in chronic diseases such as cancer, autoimmunity and neurological disease. Unfortunately, despite intense effort from many groups, there remains little direct evidence to support these claims, and moreover some studies have served only to muddy the waters for others.” – http://genomebiology.com/2001/2/6/reviews/1017

“Many still manage to generate proteins, but scientists have never found one that functions properly in humans or that could make us sick.” – http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/12/03/071203fa_fact_specter

It’s like arguing that regular genes cause disease. The real reason for disease is a loss of regulation of the normal function of regular genes, and perhaps ERV sequences on occasion, due to random mutations that destroy their original functionality.

If these are a product of design by God then why is reverse transcriptase part of the code in these viruses? They could have been placed directly in the genome as DNA. Did God design us to have disease? Would it not be more likely that these represent the past viral attacks on a common ancestor which were then incorporated into the germ cell and passed on the future generations of descendants? It would only require one ERV to prove common descent and we have 14. Ask yourself what is more reasonable?

Your knowledge about ERVs is very inaccurate. There are many rational reason for ERV-type sequences to be included, by design, in our genome. As already mentioned, many ERV sequences are being discovered to produced beneficial effects – some are even vital to life. Some ERVs have even been shown to fight against infection by exogenous retriviruses:

“The HERV-W env gene product has also been shown to block infection by an exogenous retrovirus, suggesting that the expressed HERV-W env gene could have a beneficial function to the host (Ponferrada et al., 2003).” – http://vir.sgmjournals.org/cgi/content/full/85/5/1203

“However, in the case of both Fv4 and Rmcf, the mode of defense is by the domesticated env gene blocking the receptor required for retrovirus entry.” – http://genetics.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=
10.1371%2Fjournal.pgen.0010044

Beyond this, the theory that the ERV sequences within the human gene pool were derived from external viral infections is untenable given the population bottlenecks that would have been required to achieve this effect within the germline of humans or any other animal. Even modern retroviral infections never insert themselves within the germline cells of their host. Such a theory is based on something that is so extraordinarily unlikely that it hasn’t even been observed.

“No current transposition activity of HERVs or endogenization of human exogenous retroviruses has been documented so far.” – http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/101/suppl_2/14572

“Most of these elements represent ancient retroviral infections, as evidenced by their wide distribution in primate species, and no infectious counterparts of human endogenous retroviruses (HERVs) are known to exist today.” – http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/101/6/1668

In any case, for further details along these lines, please refer to these detailed discussions of ERVs:

http://www.detectingdesign.com/pseudogenes.html#Endogenous
http://www.whoisyourcreator.com/endogenous_retroviruses.html

Sean Pitman


Gary Gilbert, Spectrum, and Pseudogenes
We share far more than 14 ERVs with chimps.

Not too long ago it was thought that around 30,000 ERVs existed within the human/ape genomes, comprising between 1-8% of each. As of the 2005 Chimpanzee Sequencing and Analysis Consortium, where the entire chimpanzee genome was compared to the human genome, it is now thought that approximately 200,000 ERVs, or portions of ERVs, exist within the genomes of both humans and apes – totaling around 127 million base pairs (around 4% of the total genomic real estate). Some authors suggests a 45% ERV origin for the human genome at large (Mindell and Meyer 2001) and 50% for mammalian species in general, if all small fragments of ERV sequences are included in the estimate. In any case, of these hundreds of thousands of recognizable portions of ERVs, the vast majority of them seem to match up, at the very same loci, between humans and chimps. Less than 1% of the ERVs are lineage specific for either humans or apes. In other words, the vast majority of ERVs are shared or “orthologous” between humans and chimps (a significant increase from the seven or so that were once thought to infect both humans and chimps at identical locations).

So, doesn’t this make the case all that much stronger than humans and apes share a common ancestor? After all, what kind of intelligent designer would have put so much shared “junk” in both of our genomes?

Well, recent research is turning out some surprising discoveries on what was once thought to be junk-DNA. Much of what was thought to be junk is turning out to be functional to one degree or another – to include ERVs.

For more information on this most interesting topic, please visit:

http://www.detectingdesign.com/pseudogenes.html

Sean Pitman


Gary Gilbert, Spectrum, and Pseudogenes
Now you’re just projecting. How about putting your own ideas to the test and see where they stand? Isn’t it a bit strange that I’m willing to respond to questions and challenges regarding my position, but you are not? Are you willing to even consider that you might be wrong? What kind of evidence or demonstration would that take? – short of a conversion of most scientists?

I’ve spelled out quite clearly that my position is easily falsifiable and that I’d be more than willing to leave Adventism and even Christianity behind as convincingly falsified if reasonable evidence supporting the creative power of the Darwinian mechanism, or any other mindless naturalistic mechanism, could be produced… or that life has actually existed and evolved on this planet over hundreds of millions of years. I have no desire to believe in any falsehood – not matter how attractive it may seem to me. I really do desire to know the truth and follow where it leads as I am able to discover it.

What about you? What would make you leave agnosticism behind and consider that a personal God who thinks about you and cares for you and died for you actually exists?

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com

P.S. By the way, science is also required to make leaps of faith. Science isn’t about absolute proof or demonstration. Science is about taking what little is known and using it to make educated leaps of faith into that which is not and cannot be known with absolute confidence.


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I fail to see where you have convincingly supported your claim that the GC leadership contributed to the harm of anyone’s personal religious liberties? – given that the GC leadership does not and could not override personal religious liberties in this country, nor substantively change the outcome of those who lost their jobs over various vaccine mandates. That’s just not how it works here in this country. Religious liberties are personally derived. Again, they simply are not based on a corporate or church position, but rely solely upon individual convictions – regardless of what the church may or may not say or do.

Yet, you say, “Who cares if it is written into law”? You should care. Everyone should care. It’s a very important law in this country. The idea that the organized church could have changed vaccine mandates simply isn’t true – particularly given the nature of certain types of jobs dealing with the most vulnerable in society (such as health care workers for example).

Beyond this, the GC Leadership did, in fact, write in support of personal religious convictions on this topic – and there are GC lawyers who have and continue to write personal letters in support of personal religious convictions (even if these personal convictions are at odds with the position of the church on a given topic). Just because the GC leadership also supports the advances of modern medicine doesn’t mean that the GC leadership cannot support individual convictions at the same time. Both are possible. This is not an inconsistency.