I agree with Jeff Kent What a surprise. ;-) It is …

Comment on What does it take to be a true Seventh-day Adventist? by Sean Pitman.

I agree with Jeff Kent

What a surprise. 😉

It is commendable that you see yourself as a crusading iconoclast that has no truck with consensus or acceptance that others may have better insight and understanding than yourself.

That’s not what I said. What I said is that if something doesn’t make sense to me I’m not going to accept it just because that is the consensus view. You seem to be arguing that anyone who goes against the consensus view is insane and/or hopelessly arrogant and self absorbed. Well, my friend, that’s what many famous scientists have done throughout history – gone against the popular opinions and “wisdom” of the day when it didn’t make sense to them personally.

However I would make a couple of points

1] You can speculate as much as you want about hypotheses and science but until you do the experiment and publish the result you are not a scientist.

Oh please. Then only those whom mainstream scientists allow to publish are scientists? Really?

As I’ve mentioned before, you’re naive to believe that there is no bias in publishing against the IDist perspective. Just look what happens to those who dare to publish anything supporting ID in mainstream journals…

2] If proposing an hypothesis makes you a scientist then everyone is a scientist. There is no end of “I thinks” about the place.

Everyone can be a scientist or think scientifically – even children are able to use forms of scientific reasoning and thinking to solve problems or invent new things. Hypothesis formation and testing is innate to humanity at large – pretty much from infancy.

Truly then, as long as the hypothesis is testable in a potentially falsifiable manner, why isn’t it a valid scientific hypothesis? Because it goes against mainstream thinking? Because no one will publish it in their mainstream journals for fear of the repercussions?

3] What makes a scientist is the testing of an hypothesis by experimental comparison to reality and publishing the resulting data

The first part I agree with. The second part no. Publishing the results in mainstream journals does not make a hypothesis right or wrong or anything. The fact that a hypothesis can be and has been tested in a potentially falsifiable manner is completely unrelated to if it has or has not been published in this or that particular journal.

4] You keep saying someone else can test your hypotheses. No, a real scientist proposes his own hypothesis and tests it himself. No real scientist is interested in testing your hypothesis particularly when you are not at all engaging in the process of science.

I’m not saying that someone else can test my hypothesis. I’m saying that many people already have tested my hypothesis many times – and published the results. It’s been confirmed over and over again. There’s simply no point repeating what’s already been done. The implications should already be overwhelming to the scientific community at large – if it were not for their deep seated philosophical antagonism to the obvious implications.

5] And no, having a publication does not necessarily make you a scientist. As I have said before your publications are stamp collecting not hypothesis driven and you have not even tried to pursue the only publication you have that may be construed as hypothesis driven. Why is that?

Again, publication or no publication. It’s entirely irrelevant to the question of if a hypothesis is testable in a potentially falsifiable manner.

6] You paint yourself as a rugged individualist and iconoclast but in really the evidence suggests that you are simply a hired gun for a highly conservative agenda.

I’m not being paid for this, if that’s what you’re suggesting. Any expenses incurred have come out of my own pocket. I don’t even ask for donations.

a] You are a militarist who cannot see that there is anything beyond lethal force or the threat thereof to bring about a peaceful society. Do you really see the Kingdom of Heaven as based on the threat of lethal force? By your words you make the royal law of love nothing but a meaningless platitude and you certainly would have nothing to do with kenosis.

Note that the Kingdom of Heaven only functions without the threat of lethal force because all the bad guys are excluded – by force. All those who would wish to harm or hurt anyone for personal gain are forcefully blocked from entry into Heaven – against their wishes to harm those who live there. Consider also that when a bad guy and his angels did rebel in heaven, that there was a physical war and he and his rebellious angels were forced out.

The Royal Law of Love is not opposed to a police force in this world to uphold civil society. The Bible itself supports this concept. If you don’t believe me, try living in any state in this world that has no police force to enforce civil law and order.

What you are promoting here is not the Law of Love, but a state of anarchy in this world.

b] You criticize science but only extremely selectively; only the science that would conflict with your preconceived religious views.

You mean I only criticize what doesn’t make sense to me? You think one has to be all or nothing? That one has to either accept everything or deny everything? Come on now. No scientist acts like this.

c] When it comes to an iconoclastic approach to religion or the supernatural you certainly do not offer any except for a critique of those who would actually think a little more deeply about their religion.

Some find my “critiques” and the evidences that are most convincing to me helpful. Others do not.

d] Like others accepting a fundamentalist view of EG White and the canonical writings as inerrant you construct a robust critique of science manifesting extreme confirmation bias that is really predicated on an unwillingness to confront the reality of the scientific data found in the canonical source for science the peer-reviewed literature.

And you are obviously free from any degree of confirmation bias – extreme or otherwise.

But no, I do not believe in the inerrant of Mrs. White or the Bible. I believe that Mrs. White and the Biblical prophets were given privileged visions of actual realities, past, present and future, which they described and tried to explain in their own words with their own limited knowledge and educational background. I just believe it is very hard to get some things wrong. For example, it doesn’t take a rocket scientists to recognize, “It got dark, then it got light, then it got dark again…”

e] There is a flip side to your certainty and your naive assumption that you can understand and evaluate all of science. You imagine that you have won an argument when your opponent no longer replies but seem to dismiss the possibility that they are simply fatigued and stunned. I would suggest anyone who wants to see the trajectory of such a discussion google Pitman and Morton, Pitman and Pharyngula, Pitman and talkorigins

Not at all. I rarely if ever think I’ve “won” a discussion with an ardent evolutionist – like you. I don’t have these discussions because I think I’m going to convince those who strongly oppose me. I have them for those who read along who have yet to make up their minds – as well as for my own benefit. I’ve learned a lot from discussions like these over the years.

Also, I find it interesting that you think you know me and my motivations so well. Why would you suggest that I would think that if someone leaves a discussion that I’ve somehow “won” it or that I “dismiss the possibility that they are simply fatigued and stunned”? Of course you’re right here. Where have I even suggested anything to the contrary? Of course most who disagree with me stop replying, not because they are convinced, not at all, but because they are, as you say, simply fatigued or tired or find further discussion with me pointless. I’m sure you feel the same way. Take hope then in the knowledge that if you stop posting to this forum that I’ll still believe you feel exactly the same way until you actually say otherwise. No victories here I’m afraid…

You guys should look at these discussions like I do. Your goal should not be to convince me – since I’m very hard headed and all and pretty much hopeless. Your goal should also be to appeal to those who read along, but rarely comment, or, perhaps, on rare occasion, learn something you didn’t already know…

Another thing, why do you think I actually post comments like yours and Jeff Kent’s on my own forum? Do you think I’d post them if I felt that my position was actually substantively threatened by you guys and your obvious “genius” and the authority of the majority you bring to the table? if I didn’t actually think that your comments would end up helping out my own position? – like any good foil?

“The defining characteristic of all arguments with creationists is how damned ignorant they are. I’m sure many scientists have been stupefied into stunned silence when they first encounter these people; these advocated of creationism are typically loud and certain and have invested much time and effort into apologetics, but when you sit down and try to have a serious discussion with them, you quickly discover that their knowledge of basic biology is nonexistent.” PZ Myers

It’s so classic for PZ and others like Richard Dawkins to paint all those who would challenge them as “ignorant, stupid, or insane… or evil.” You’ve accused me of all four of these yourself. So what? Call me what you will, but I’ve studied biology and genetics and information theories just enough, for many years now, to smell a very large rat when it comes to the creative potential of random mutations and function-based selection. It just doesn’t get the job done and no one, not PZ or any Nobel Prize winner, has been able to produce anything explaining how it possibly could be done beyond very very low levels of functional complexity. This is without even getting into the overwhelming evidence for the informational decay of all slowly-reproducing gene pools… which you simply dismiss out of hand based, not on knowledge or empirical evidence, but on blind faith that somehow some way it just can’t be true. Talk about extreme conformational bias…

All this aside, what’s really interesting to me is that none of you guys are willing to substantively address simple questions regarding certain fundamental claims of neo-Darwinism – such as how the mechanism of RM/NS really works or how natural selection deals with the high detrimental mutation rate in slowly reproducing gene pools. If these questions are so simple and easy to resolve, it should be no problem for you to find some reasonable answer in some journal somewhere – right? Where’s the science for the mechanism behind your claims? Hmmmmm?

Anyway I welcome you expression of your views and hope you will eventually appreciate that Grace and love can overcome evil and that you do not need to use evil to overcome evil.

Well, if promoting the idea that an employee should not expect a paycheck for undermining the employer, then I guess I’m evil . . . or at least promoting the use of evil tactics? Or, what about calling the police if someone with a gun was trying to break into my house and threaten the lives of my wife and children? You’d never do that now, would you? Call the police to come help you with their evil guns and all if your family were being threatened? Because that would be using evil to overcome evil? Perhaps I’ll just ask the gunman if he wants a glass of cool water or some lemonade instead of calling the police? I’m sure that would have stopped the guy who attacked and killed so many at Sandy Hook Elementary too. Why didn’t someone think of that? All he needed was a bit of love and he would have stopped in his tracks – right? Why on Earth did anyone call the police at a time like? They must have been evil to think to stop his murderous rampage with force rather than love! right? The children themselves are expendable at times like this? – how could I forget? Our love is reserved for those killing the children? Have you forgotten about the ones being killed? What about them?

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com

Sean Pitman Also Commented

What does it take to be a true Seventh-day Adventist?
Let me try to summarize here. You freely admit that no one really knows how the Darwinian mechanism of RM/NS really works beyond very low levels of functional complexity. You then go on to praise this as a strength of the Darwinian position and science at large – that, “In celebrating our ignorance we are celebrating the way science is a process for pushing forward the frontier of questions, of discovering new questions. Defining the scope of ignorance helps define the direction of science.”

I’m sorry, but after looking for an adequate mechanism for so long, and not finding one, perhaps you Darwinists should at least consider the possibility that there just isn’t one – that no mindless naturalistic mechanism exists to explain highly complex biomachines arising without the input of intelligent design. It’s like being determined to find a mindless naturalistic process that can explain the origin of a supercomputer or the space shuttle or even just a simple highly symmetrical granite cube that measures one meter no each side.

As with all sciences involved with the detection of ID (like anthropology, forensics, and even SETI), you deal with the information in hand regarding the potential and limits of naturalistic mechanisms vs. what intelligent agents are known to be able to create. It simply isn’t scientific to sit back and say, “Well, someday we’re bound to discover a mindless mechanism that could do the job.” That’s wishful thinking my man. That’s not science. It’s not testable in a potentially falsifiable manner…

We feel sympathy that you do not wish to join this endeavour but sit on the sidelines carping about things we of course recognize as not adequately addressed. Scientists do not sit there and lament we do not have answers, we do experiments and publish the results. Why else were there in 2012, 6642 papers recovered with a pubmed search on “evolution AND mutation AND mammal AND genome”
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=evolution%20AND%20mutation%20NOT%20review%20AND%20mammal%20AND%20genome

As I’ve mentioned to you before, don’t just list off a bunch of irrelevant references and links. Present one paper, just one, which deals specifically with evolution beyond very low levels of functional complexity and show me where, in that paper (a specific quote) any novel system of function, requiring more than 1000 specifically arranged residues, has been shown to either 1) evolve in real time or 2) could have evolved in a reasonable amount of time based on relevant statistical calculations and extrapolations based on a real understanding of the odds involved of moving around in the vastness of sequence space via random mutations.

On the first page of the 333 pages there are at least 4 of the 20 publications that are relevant to your question. Look at this neat paper that looks at sequencing total genomic DNA from a single cell and comparing genomes between individual cancer cells.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23258894

All using a new amplification technique. Wouldnt this be neat for archaic DNA?

Tell me, how is this at all relevant to my hypothesis? It doesn’t show the evolution of anything beyond very low levels of functional complexity and it doesn’t deal with the statistical problems of evolving something new in high level sequence space.

Look at this comparison of 1092 human genomes.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23128226

It is freely available so you can read it in its entirety including the 15 supplementary figures and 15 supplementary tables. I admit I do not have time to read it all and accept the conclusions of the abstract and the scrutiny of the peer reviewers and the conclusions about the SNPs and local restricted vs more frequent and increasingly generic variations.

Again, this is all based on sequence similarities. As with all other papers in literature on this topic, none deal with the minimum required differences to reach higher levels of functional complexity via RM/NS.

Look at this paper on selection and biased gene conversion in mammals

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23024185

It suggests there is a complexity in selection and mutation not captured in your naive question on the adequacy of RM/NS

Oh really? Please do detail the particular argument listed in the paper that explains how RM/NS is statistically likely to find any qualitatively novel system of function in higher level sequence space this side of a practical eternity of time. It’s just not there… sorry.

And, as far as your arguments for Matthew 5, they’re completely misplaced. Gandhi and all of his followers would have been sent to the gas chambers if he had been dealing with someone truly evil – like Hitler or Stalin. Even you, I dare say, have or would call on the police for protection in certain scenarios (like someone threatening the lives of your wife and children, or someone trying to shoot up a grade school). And, if you actually read your Bible, there was a war in heaven and Satan and his angels were physically thrown out of heaven (Revelation 12:7-12). Jesus himself describes this war and noted that He witnessed Satan fall from heaven like lightening (Luke 10:18).

I know you don’t think that Jesus would ever use force to restrict the actions of anyone, but this isn’t a Biblical concept. The wicked will, according to the Bible, be forever barred from entrance into heaven – by force. Of course, you don’t really believe what the Bible says beyond what you want it to say…

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com


What does it take to be a true Seventh-day Adventist?

No, I do not believe in feelings versus what EGW calls “living faith”. Even the devils believe and tremble. And they have the greatest imperical evidence but it does them no good. Why, because it is not mixed with faith. And I would suggest that there are more scientists, biologists, geologists, etc. who lack living faith and are essentially non-believers. I had a teacher once who taught that “believing is seeing” not “seeing is believing”.

The difference between belief and faith is that faith includes a desire for what one knows is true. Faith includes motive – a love of the truth. That is why the devils believe but do not have faith. They know the truth, but they do not love the truth.

The problem with the notion of “believing is seeing” is that anything can be believed regardless of the presence or lack of evidence. This isn’t faith either. This is wishful thinking. A solid Biblical type of faith must be based on the weight of evidence and one’s God-given ability to think and reason based on the evidence provided.

“Those who desire to doubt will have plenty of room. God does not propose to remove all occasion for unbelief. He gives evidence, which must be carefully investigated with a humble mind and a teachable spirit, and all should decide from the weight of evidence.”—Ellen G. White, Testimonies for the Church, vol. 3, p. 255. 2

“But there are some things that are not explained.” Well, what if everything is not explained? Where is the weight of evidence? God will balance the mind if it is susceptible to the influence of the Spirit of God; if it is not, then it will decide on the other side. 1SAT 145.3

God never asks us to believe anything without giving sufficient evidence upon which to base our faith. His existence, His character, the truthfulness of His word, are all established by testimony that appeals to our reason; and this testimony is abundant. Yet God has never removed the possibility of doubt. Our faith must rest upon evidence, not demonstration. Those who wish to doubt will have opportunity; while those who really desire to know the truth will find plenty of evidence on which to rest their faith. – Ellen White, SC, p. 105

Do not seek to redefine words as some have tried to do in this forum – arguing that Mrs. White and even the Biblical authors were really just talking about belief when they used the word “faith”.

@Professor Kent:
Sean Pitman: So, there you have it. According to Ellen White, the discovery of empirical evidences, outside of the Bible itself, was designed, by God, to establish the faith of those considering these evidences in the credibility of the Scriptures…

Obviously, she is referring to “belief” when she writes of faith. Again, faith has several meanings that you seem unwilling to acknowledge.

The fact is that the Bible is consistent in this regard. Biblical faith is always backed up by the weight of evidence in its favor…

Consider also that, “perfect assurance . . . is not compatible with faith. Faith rests not on certainty, but upon evidence.” – Ellen White, Letter 19d, 1892, cited in The Ellen G. White 1888 Materials, pp. 1029, 1030.

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com


What does it take to be a true Seventh-day Adventist?
@Bill Sorensen:

First off, yet again, you did not respond to my question about why animals are not morally responsible while humans are? Until you respond to this question, which I’ve asked you many times now, we have no discussion here.

As far as the rest of your argument, we are in agreement that Adam’s original sin resulted in an tendency toward sin and inherently selfish natures in all of his descendents that, without the interposition of God’s power and grace, would inevitably result in the personal guilt of sin – of deliberate rebellion against known truth.

We also agree that all are born with an inherently selfish or evil nature (as David points out in the Bible). However, being born evil isn’t quite the same thing as being born guilty of being evil or being guilty of sin itself. The inevitability of evil actions or the inherently selfish nature we all are born with outside of God’s grace isn’t the same thing as being morally responsible for “evil actions” before one is able to make a free moral choice to rebel against what is known to be right (as with a robot programmed to be evil not being personally responsible or guilty for being evil).

Without freewill choice involved, what you have are robots, not free moral agents who can be “guilty” of anything on a moral level – even if they are evil. Being evil isn’t the same thing as being guilty of being evil. In fact, this is the reason why no one, not even Satan, can completely escape or exist outside of God’s grace. It is by God’s grace that all free moral agents are given the ability to freely choose to do good or evil. This ability, in and of itself, is a gift – a gift that is even now extended to Satan and all of his rebellious angels (they are still free moral agents responsible for all of their actions).

So, again, this brings us back to the difference between humans and animals or robots when it comes to moral responsibility and/or the basis for moral culpability. We humans, unlike animals or robots, are all personally guilty of being sinners because we have deliberately chosen to do what we know is wrong (for whatever reason) – not because Adam sinned, not because we were born selfish or evil, but because we have used our God-given freedom to choose between right and wrong to deliberately sin – by our own choice (at the age of accountability).

In short, you take the concept of “original sin” too far, as does the Catholic Church. There is certainly a great deal of truth to the concept of Adam’s original sin and its devastating results on the entire world that followed – the cause of the existence of evil entering every person from the earliest moments of conscious life. However, it is not true that freewill choices are no longer The basis of the guilt of sin on an individual basis. Freedom of will is what makes it possible to be personally responsible for sin or the evil that we do from childhood. Without freedom of will, without a deliberate choice being made against known truth, there is no personal guilt for sin. There may be error or mistakes or even actions that would be classified by all as evil, but there is no personal moral responsibility without the freedom of choice (since even a robot can be programmed to be “evil”, but would not itself be morally responsible for its own evil actions). – Deuteronomy 24:16 and Jeremiah 31:30.

Again, you need to address my original question as to why humans are free moral agents while animals or robots are not? Otherwise, you’re not going to understand my main problem with the Catholic concept of “original sin”.

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com


Recent Comments by Sean Pitman

Science and Methodological Naturalism
Very interesting passage. After all, if scientists are honest with themselves, scientific methodologies are well-able to detect the existence of intelligent design behind various artifacts found in nature. It’s just the personal philosophy of scientists that makes them put living things and the origin of the fine-tuned universe “out of bounds” when it comes to the detection of intelligent design. This conclusion simply isn’t dictated by science itself, but by a philosophical position, a type of religion actually, that strives to block the Divine Foot from getting into the door…


Revisiting God, Sky & Land by Fritz Guy and Brian Bull
@Ron:

Why is it that creationists are afraid to acknowledge the validity of Darwinism in these settings? I don’t see that these threaten a belief in God in any way whatsoever.

The threat is when you see no limitations to natural mindless mechanisms – where you attribute everything to the creative power of nature instead of to the God of nature.

God has created natural laws that can do some pretty amazing things. However, these natural laws are not infinite in creative potential. Their abilities are finite while only God is truly infinite.

The detection of these limitations allows us to recognize the need for the input of higher-level intelligence and creative power that goes well beyond what nature alone can achieve. It is here that the Signature of God is detectable.

For those who only hold a naturalistic view of the universe, everything is attributed to the mindless laws of nature… so that the Signature of God is obscured. Nothing is left that tells them, “Only God or some God-like intelligent mind could have done this.”

That’s the problem when you do not recognize any specific limitations to the tools that God has created – when you do not recognize the limits of nature and what natural laws can achieve all by themselves.

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com


Revisiting God, Sky & Land by Fritz Guy and Brian Bull
@Bill Sorensen:

Since the fall of Adam, Sean, all babies are born in sin and they are sinners. God created them. Even if it was by way of cooperation of natural law as human beings also participated in the creation process.

God did not create the broken condition of any human baby – neither the physical or moral brokenness of any human being. God is responsible for every good thing, to include the spark or breath of life within each one of us. However, He did not and does not create those things within us that are broken or bad.

“The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’ ‘An enemy did this,’ he replied. “The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?'” Matthew 13:27-28

Of course, all humans are indeed born broken and are in a natural state of rebellion against God. However, God is not the one who created this condition nor is God responsible for any baby being born with any kind of defect in character, personality, moral tendency, or physical or genetic abnormality. God did not create anyone with such brokenness. Such were the natural result of rebellion against God and heading the temptations of the “enemy”… the natural result of a separation from God with the inevitable decay in physical, mental, and moral strength.

Of course, the ones who are born broken are not responsible for their broken condition either. However, all of us are morally responsible for choosing to reject the gift of Divine Grace once it is appreciated… and for choosing to go against what we all have been given to know, internally, of moral truth. In other words, we are responsible for rebelling against the Royal Law written on the hearts of all mankind.

This is because God has maintained in us the power to be truly free moral agents in that we maintain the Power to choose, as a gift of God (Genesis 3:15). We can choose to accept or reject the call of the Royal Law, as the Holy Spirit speaks to all of our hearts…

Remember the statement by Mrs. White that God is in no wise responsible for sin in anyone at any time. God is working to fix our broken condition. He did not and does not create our broken condition. Just as He does not cause Babies to be born with painful and lethal genetic defects, such as those that result in childhood leukemia, He does not cause Babies to be born with defects of moral character either. God is only directly responsible for the good, never the evil, of this life.

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com


Revisiting God, Sky & Land by Fritz Guy and Brian Bull
@Ron:

Again, your all-or-nothing approach to the claims of scientists isn’t very scientific. Even the best and most famous of scientists has had numerous hair-brained ideas that were completely off base. This fact does not undermine the good discoveries and inventions that were produced.

Scientific credibility isn’t based on the person making the argument, but upon the merits of the argument itself – the ability of the hypothesis to gain predictive value when tested. That’s it.

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com


Gary Gilbert, Spectrum, and Pseudogenes
Don’t be so obtuse here. We’re not talking about publishing just anything in mainstream journals. I’ve published several articles myself. We’re talking about publishing the conclusion that intelligent design was clearly involved with the origin of various artifactual features of living things on this planet. Try getting a paper that mentions such a conclusion published…

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com