Reply #93: Yes, I've read it, it is basically empty propaganda.

[mcg]

Some of that book is interesting, but all in all, I was
expecting much more from him. My conclusion: Is that all
he's got? Him selecting some extremely simple 'biomorphs'
that have no moving parts? Vague, simple imagined scenarios?

Yes, what I presented comes from my ID point of view, which
doesn't place such incredible restrictions on how evolution
happens. It asks 'What does the actual evidence show?'
instead of imagining evidence.

Yes, there is evidence that consciousness is not local.
You see more than one of these letters at the same time.
Get a grip.

No, flying is a great example. What good would 'kind of
gliding' do for a fly? I'm not talking about squirrels
or fish. Do they fly? No. Gliding is not the same thing
as flying, and the mechanism is quite different.
Are you proposing that proto-flies glided? What do you
think they did, climb up trees and glide to the food source?

And consider Dawkins ridiculous scenario of the benefit of
proto-birds having a partial ability to fly. He claims it
would have helped them not break their necks when they fell
from ???. It is a stupid idea and not backed up by evidence.
Were they climbing up large plants and falling off? Falling
off of cliffs? Just what is he talking about?

Design in nature is instead readily observable. We
actually see specified complexity, we see many parts
without another function working together for a function.
Got evidence?

What exactly do you mean 'Gradual is subjective'?
It sounds like you are parroting Squawkins. He wrote
something like 'we have to be sophisticated
about what we mean by gradual', and then never does
say what he means. It's easy to see the mind games
being played here. What I think he was hinting at is that
he'll claim that no matter what the evidence, no matter
how sudden a genetic change is, he'll claim it is 'gradual'
(code for 'it wasn't guided by anything beyond our
understanding'). As if he understands enough to be able to
claim that. He goes so far is to say that even if a statue
of Mary waved to him (something far-fetched like that), he
would not think it was a miracle.

First you say mutations are not gradual, then you say
adaptations are not a sudden change. Hmmmm.

Actually, the evidence suggests that some adaptations were
quite sudden. For example, color vision. It has be suggested
that some parts of photochemicals were duplicated from
chemicals that had/have other functions. Perhaps so, but that
is not what Darwin had in mind at all. It in no way fits into
the Darwinian viewpoint. Sorry, but more than one step does not
equate to the ultra-gradualism Darwin imagined.

"to assert that something sprang into existence"

I was asserting no such thing. What I am NOT asserting is
that evolution has to be ultra-gradual, i.e. gradual
enough to be a crutch for the 'by Chance' assertion,
i.e. extremely gradual. I see no evidence that suggests that
evolution must proceed in such a gradual manner. The
insistance that it be so is merely based on unfounded assumptions
and is not science. Science starts with a neutral position and
goes where the evidence leads, contrary to Dawkins' perversion of
the meaning of science. This simple/random extremist viewpoint has
gotten in the way of science, it is anti-scienfic. For example,
in the study of cell structure. People assumed that the insides of
cells were simple and random. There is a lot of resistance to the
observable evidence that they had an extremely complex and ordered
internal structure. Eventually the resistance was overcome, but
the process of science was slowed down.

"there are gaps in the fossil record"

Yes, there are. And the ID point of view has no problem
with them, Darwinism's insistance of ultra-gradualism does.