Bruce Fenton, A Better Human Origin Story |429|

I hope that I have this argument structure correct. :)
My concern resides in this: That the epistemology we (not the 'Royal We' - LOL!! and a great point by Bruce) are employing to establish the case for this particular proto-hypothesis inside Intervention theory (NOT intelligent design and NOT creation), consists of linear inductive inference. That is, it is an extrapolation from a line drawn through a loose series of Inductive Predicates. The lone Deductive Predicate does not exclusively support the line of inductive inference reason - and this is important. It compels us to move somewhere, but that does not necessarily imply here.

We must be cautious in using linear inductive inference, as it has a high potential to be misleading. It bolsters its case off of confirmation (Anecdote being confirmed by Inductive Predicate) as opposed to prediction-under-risk and deductive consilience (what we need in the end).

This proto-hypothesis must now begin to make specific predictions at risk under the theory. It must step into the world of deductive inference and out of the world of inductive confirmation.

This is an informal critique however, and does not serve to make Bruce wrong as the sponsor of this alternative idea. A skeptic is an ally at this point in the Scientific Method. As a skeptic, I love this progression of thought, and am an ally in its hypothesis development.

Let’s make one thing perfectly clear. The time of science or scientists is not wasted through
competing nor even fringe sponsored theories or observations. The ‘time’ of science is wasted
through the dogma and intransigence of those who patrol its discourse, enforcing single answers
under a pretense of ‘science communication’.

Thank you for this detailed analysis!
 
My biggest question regarding all this (if true) is the ultimate motives of our “creators.” Is this motive a metaphysical one or a physical one? Both? If we take abduction accounts seriously, we often see all sorts of parallels between the phenomenon and what we call “spiritually transformative events”, STE’s. According to Dr John Mack, the former head of the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard, patients frequently reported being taken from their room in an out of body state during an abduction experience. There’s been lots of brilliant and credible people who have compiled data like this drawing these parallels between these phenomena, and these parallels certainly don’t stop with OBEs.

All throughout human history people have reported through their spiritual experiences that we are here to experience, grow, and learn and that our bodies are essentially avatars for consciousness to use in order to achieve a certain experience where we attempt to “increase the quality of our consciousness” as Tom Campbell puts it. This physical system offers certain constraints and challenges which, if used properly, will lead to personal growth.

If this is really the way that this physical reality works then it would seem that ET understands this better than us considering their seemingly hyper advanced understanding of consciousness. So, is their motive one in keeping with this idea of the growth of consciousness? Are they tending a garden here that consciousness may then use in order to grow? Or, are their goals more materialistic in nature? People often say during their experiences that they feel connected to everything and everyone. I’d be willing to bet that this connection transcends our Universe and that we share a connection of some sort with all consciousness, irregardless of where it comes from or “resides.”

We very briefly touched on some purported motivations but did not have time to tackle it in depth. We should keep in mind motivation can never be entirely substantiated, we can only go as far as what they claim they were doing all this for (which could be bang-on, or a truthful but limited overview, entirely misleading propoganda, or so complex that it will be misunderstood by our perceptions). Many religions offer us views on what people thought the gods wanted, but we really have to be wary of that type of faith-based system. A new creation story is one thing (or a retrieved old one) but we really don't want to create a new ET religion.
 
Bruce,

Not having read your book yet, I'd just like to clarify the sequence of events. This sequence may need correcting:

1) We begin with a planet containing some pre-human species.
2) A spacecraft lands and the spacefarers proceed to genetically modify the human species - changing the usually highly conserved region of the genome as described in the podcast. In doing this they violate some instructions.
3) The large craft arrives to correct this and is blown up in orbit.
4) The spacefarers are warned to leave Earth, but stay and are bombarded with asteroids (maybe meteorites, wouldn't asteroids be large enough to destroy the Earth?)
5) The spacefarers decide to use the modified hominids as living space-suits vie reincarnation.

After all that, I am not really sure what we are. Are we the descendants of the modified hominids, or are we the owners of the space-suits?

David
 
Thank you for your supportive and helpful comment, I have heard Behe speak a little but I have not erad his books. I would recommend Evolution 2.0 should you want something else in that line of exploration.
Well I know a bit about genetics, and Behe's argument sounds pretty decisive to me.

I have gone over it in some depth here:

http://www.skeptiko-forum.com/threads/behes-argument-in-darwin-devolved.4317/

and I think the implication is fascinating - and probably supportive of what you are saying. In a nutshell he is saying that evolution by natural selection damages an organism in the long term with short term fixes. For example, there is a mutation to the gene for haemoglobin that is helpful in fighting off malaria, but can cause sickle cell disease. Fortunately there are humans in parts of the world that are free from malaria, otherwise this gene might have spread through the whole population. The problem is that it is incredibly unlikely that aftre malaria was conquered, another mutation could come along and fix the damage. RM+NS seems to depend on mutations of this sort, that basically damage something. It also means that RM+NS can only produce minor variants - different size beaks etc - and cannot be resposible for the variety of life on Earth, however much time is available.

Clearly this means that some intelligent entity needs to tune up genomes from time to time, as well as reorganise things to create radical change.

I'm not too keen on movements like Evolution 2.0. They seem to want to escape from the constraints of RM+NS, but it isn't at all clear where the information in the genome comes from, if not from RM+NS. The radical answer - which is obviously consistent with your story - is that the information in our genomes is put there intelligently.

Of course many (but not all) ID researchers are Christians, but that is not the point. ID does not specify what sort of entity created the genomes, and indeed I find it hard to believe there is only one designer, otherwise what would that say in connection with the various predator/prey arms races!

David
 
We very briefly touched on some purported motivations but did not have time to tackle it in depth. We should keep in mind motivation can never be entirely substantiated, we can only go as far as what they claim they were doing all this for (which could be bang-on, or a truthful but limited overview, entirely misleading propoganda, or so complex that it will be misunderstood by our perceptions). Many religions offer us views on what people thought the gods wanted, but we really have to be wary of that type of faith-based system. A new creation story is one thing (or a retrieved old one) but we really don't want to create a new ET religion.
Further complicating this is that “ET” is a known deceiver and “trickster” type. The stuff that contactees are often fed by them is outlandishly absurd and frequently self-contradictory. This misdirection and obfuscation is so obvious and blatant that it seems be their intent. You can’t really be sure if you can believe anything that any of them say, or even do. Even the Abduction scenarios themselves are frequently absurd.
 
Further complicating this is that “ET” is a known deceiver and “trickster” type. The stuff that contactees are often fed by them is outlandishly absurd and frequently self-contradictory. This misdirection and obfuscation is so obvious and blatant that it seems be their intent. You can’t really be sure if you can believe anything that any of them say, or even do. Even the Abduction scenarios themselves are frequently absurd.

This is why I focussed on the claims that could be proven or disproven, and not on the entire message, we can't just assume things are true because ETI say so, I can simply say that the message/download specified three major events which I felt could leave traces until today and that later I identified traces which matched expectations. For me, that is sufficient validation that at least those parts of the story are true, which gives more credibility to the parts I can't support with evidence (though falls short of full validation).
 
I'm not too keen on movements like Evolution 2.0. They seem to want to escape from the constraints of RM+NS, but it isn't at all clear where the information in the genome comes from, if not from RM+NS. The radical answer - which is obviously consistent with your story - is that the information in our genomes is put there intelligently.

Of course many (but not all) ID researchers are Christians, but that is not the point. ID does not specify what sort of entity created the genomes, and indeed I find it hard to believe there is only one designer, otherwise what would that say in connection with the various predator/prey arms races!

David

I will look more at Behe. I can only say that Perry Marshall does a good job in Evolution 2.0 and comes at things from the perspective of an IT guy with a Christian bias (which is acknowledged and he does a decent job of remaining objective). I found it useful but it should be read in conjunction with other sources for arguments against the conventional RM + NS models.
 
I will look more at Behe. I can only say that Perry Marshall does a good job in Evolution 2.0 and comes at things from the perspective of an IT guy with a Christian bias (which is acknowledged and he does a decent job of remaining objective). I found it useful but it should be read in conjunction with other sources for arguments against the conventional RM + NS models.
The thing is, I think the ID people are right - you need a source of the code - and i mean the human genome is something of the order of 1GB of code!

There is lots of pressure on academics not to utter the phrase "Intelligent Design", and I think theirs is a compromise that satisfies that constraint!

David
 
The thing is, I think the ID people are right - you need a source of the code - and i mean the human genome is something of the order of 1GB of code!

There is lots of pressure on academics not to utter the phrase "Intelligent Design", and I think theirs is a compromise that satisfies that constraint!

David
I think that, in order for the intransigent skeptics to be disempowered, we have to change the placeholder names away from the religiously imbued ID and C terms.

We actually do not have to embrace Intelligent Design, nor Creation - nor do we even have to reject Evolution in order to consider the Necessary Alternative possibility of Intent. I really don't care what Seth Shostak nor Richard Dawkins have to say about Intent. This is not their field of expertise - and as such they are simply noise makers and pretenders. They are clowns who distract the audience to one ring of the circus while the other two rings are set up for the show. There is no address of critical path in any of their discourse.

However, there is at least a comprehensive base of function in an evolutionary context which cannot possibly be managed by a single or even collective volition nor management skill. The mechanisms of DNA and evolution are arranged (non-intent context) such as to achieve self-regulation - we must observe and accept that fact. An entity or organization could never manage the quintillions upon quintillions of instruction sets necessary to regulate life in any form of evolutionary context. Plus, why would an all powerful God even want to? Aliens certainly could and would not.

However, as you David are leading intelligently up to, one cannot place a bound around the scope of Intent - to include a constraint of such nature as to render Intent a non-entity as well. Such a constraint would be pseudoscience. Such is the constraint we have in place today.

But if the ID and C folks continue to walk in the door selling aliens and Gods, that is gonna polarize the playing field fast, and end up harming everyone.

We must begin with a seminal hypothesis, and that is finding the right set of observations inside of which to test for Intent. I regard the HAR regions to be a good candidate for such a test.
 
I thought at first you meant ID and C-the computer language!

Don't forget that we manage to manipulate vast swathes of computer code because of the existence of compilers, editors, linkers etc. Manipulating the code of DNA might not be quite as hard as it looks if such tools exist.

Regarding evolution, it seems to me conceivable that when a radically new species is required (I an not too familiar with biological classification), the designer sets up the new genome by pulling ideas from multiple creatures he designed before rather as computer programmers often work. This would totally confuse the trees of descent, and indeed I believe there is a fair amount of confusion and inconsistency in trees derived from DNA comparisons.

I am very reluctant to call Intelligent Design by any other name and call a spade a spade. After all, I am retired, so I don't need to watch my language - and I mean the crucial thing is intelligence. Intent on its own in not enough. You might have the intent to design a plastic eating enzyme that converts its substrate into methane, but that doesn't give you the DNA code to splice into an e-coli bug!

David
 
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I am very reluctant to call Intelligent Design by any other name and call a spade a spade. After all, I am retired, so I don't need to watch my language - and I mean the crucial thing is intelligence. Intent on its own in not enough. You might have the intent to design a plastic eating enzyme that converts its substrate into methane, but that doesn't give you the DNA code to splice into an e-coli bug!

A great place to be too. Congrats on the retirement. I do have to watch my words in professional circles unfortunately still. Cronies have very particular sets of views to enforce on the population. One must keep quiet and let them ooze out from behind the brick wall of apparent silence.

But Intelligent Design is the grand conclusion, not the research hypothesis. It is like 'Climate Change!!!'

'ID' is like starting out studying climate change by saying 'Hypothesis: the Earth is heating due to the introduction of Carbon through specific activities of Western society, and conservatives and certain races/countries are to blame, so they therefore should be penalized, taxed and vilified globally." It is not a scientific hypothesis - rather a doctrine of agency. Then to our surprise, 100 years later, everything we have found has served to confirm this idea. Wow!! Amazing how that happens over and over in science.

The conclusion was introduced (as a 'question' ;) ) before the research began: sciebam (Latin for 'I knew').

The experimental observation of such a conjecture must start with the incipient question "How many temperature measures and at what locations, serve to broach a 99.7% confidence on a representative global temperature?" This would be akin to starting with the 'detection of Intent' - (which can be derived through specific algorithms), which is a scientific question, whereas ID is a doctrine - if we START with that, we will never be able to unseat it as dictatum.

To avoid us making the mistake of sciebam, Intelligent Design only comes after a series of tests for Intent. IMHO :)

And who knows, it might end up being wrong? If we start with the answer, how would we ever know that?
 
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We were talking about hominins travelling from mainland Southeast Asia to the Indonesian Islands and onwards to Australia, we are not talking about hominins emerging on Papua and then travelling to Australia. The powerful southwesterly currents moving through Wallacea have prevented virtually all flora and fauna from Asia reaching Australia since the landmass diverged (the barrier known as Wallace's Line). I am not sure where the idea emerged that this was a journey from Papua to Australia, but I certainly never suggested such a thing, this would infer hominins evolved directly from primates living in-situ on Sahul for which no evidence currently exists.

Huh? I’m saying that PNG and Australia were not separated by water at that time. The route to Australia may not have been as demanding as you are suggesting

1570311388026.jpeg
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...es-rhino-south-east-asia-flores-a8335241.html
"As for how humans crossed the vast expanses of ocean between the two islands, Dr van den Bergh and his team think it is unlikely they constructed rafts of any sort. Instead, he suggests an altogether more extreme mode of transport.

“They may have been caught in a tsunami and carried out to sea – those kinds of freak, random events are probably responsible for these movements of humans and animals,” he said, citing the case of people who were dragged out to sea by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.


“This region is tectonically active so tsunamis are common and there are big ones every hundred years or so.”"

Well, that article says nothing about modern humans and Australia (it’s specifically about Phillipine settlements). This makes what you were saying in the podcast very misleading. The article is also honest about the difficulties of this sort of speculation. Other than that, I’ll leave it to other readers to decide whether there’s anything more outlandish in that piece than what you are proposing (obviously we are not in a binary situation - both could be wrong).
 
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But Intelligent Design is the grand conclusion, not the research hypothesis. It is like 'Climate Change!!!'

'ID' is like starting out studying climate change by saying 'Hypothesis: the Earth is heating due to the introduction of Carbon through specific activities of Western society, and conservatives and certain races/countries are to blame, so they therefore should be penalized, taxed and vilified globally."
I like your analogy, but I don't think it is valid!

What else can you suggest once Darwin's theory is knocked out? I mean, there are endless possible complications that interest the Evolution 2.0 crowd (it used to be called The Middle Way) such as epi-genetics, but what possible proposal can create a near perfect set of code that can work a new body plan - say the first whale? I mean, just think about it as an abstract problem - can you think of any way that mass of code could come into existence?

David
 
I like your analogy, but I don't think it is valid!

What else can you suggest once Darwin's theory is knocked out? I mean, there are endless possible complications that interest the Evolution 2.0 crowd (it used to be called The Middle Way) such as epi-genetics, but what possible proposal can create a near perfect set of code that can work a new body plan - say the first whale? I mean, just think about it as an abstract problem - can you think of any way that mass of code could come into existence?

David
Well, Darwin does not address the appearance of Whippomorpha, the suborder which comprises whales. Darwin only comments on speciation in which the mutant possesses a direct competitive juxtaposition with its proto-species (Chapter VI. Difficulties on Theory). His theory does not deal with the appearance of Orders. He states in the second section within that Chapter,

I lie under a heavy disadvantage, for out of the many striking cases I have collected, I can give only one or two instances of transitional habits and structures in closely allied species of the same genus and of diversified habits, either constant or occasional, in the same species.
In other words, Darwin was reluctant to tread on Ordination, only daring to speculate a gradual pathway between speciations - and in fact being very reluctant to boast too far therein (he only has two examples) - a fact which most 'evolutionists' do not even understand, much less mention.

But what if one was to design a creature which exploited ocean and krill? Does one choose an even-toed ungulate optimized (also designed for 100 million years along a certain discipline) to live upon land (bison for instance), and fashion that into a whale (a whale is an even-toed ungulate)? Or does one simply enlarge a form of shark to do the task, modifying its teeth to become baleen? Something with billions of years design/immunity advantage in living in the ocean, with a simple design change - does the task nicely. Choosing something which must be overhauled in its entirety, creates a lot of unnecessary task management, series failure risk points, and monitoring over eons of work. It would not be very smart design-work.

A designer learns early on - streamline work content, purpose, serial risk points, function, task and overhead/follow-on activity.

Design is an act of volition, critical path and function. Intent is not these things...

Design would choose the shark, intent would not necessarily, and might 'select' the LCA-bison instead (or both, as what happened in reality).

So, we must recognize that one must establish intent before one can establish design. They are two different standards of and approaches to, proof.
 
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So, we must recognize that one must establish intent before one can establish design. They are two different standards of and approaches to, proof.

Another aspect of Design vs. Intent, is that our sol-nihilist or materialist opposition can use a falsification of Design, to stand in as a pseudo-deductive inference proof of their case (lack of intent). Their case is actually 'Assume lack of intent - but never test for it' - this is literally their null hypothesis. Design gives them a playground in which they can act like they are addressing this null hypothesis, but in reality never approach it at all.

It's a great trick - and demonstrates a Nelsonian knowledge about Intent, an intimate knowledge of exactly where they should not be looking.

One can show lack of Design inductively - and suggest that it affords one the right to falsify design (and a fortiori, intent). In fact, this has been what has been pushed upon us as science to date.

Intent presents a problem for the sol-nihilist and materialist, in that - it cannot be ruled out in the same way in which design can be.

Design can be ruled out Inductively (relatively easy). And one think that the task is done (it is not).

Intent must be ruled out deductively (a much higher standard of evidence and inference)...
 
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Huh? I’m saying that PNG and Australia were not separated by water at that time. The route to Australia may not have been as demanding as you are suggesting

Well, that article says nothing about modern humans and Australia (it’s specifically about Phillipine settlements). This makes what you were saying in the podcast very misleading. The article is also honest about the difficulties of this sort of speculation. Other than that, I’ll leave it to other readers to decide whether there’s anything more outlandish in that piece than what you are proposing (obviously we are not in a binary situation - both could be wrong).

What I say in the podcast is entirely accurate and based on the current academic models, it requires several ocean journeys of over 100 miles at sea to reach Australia from Southeast Asia. Are you saying you think people can easily swim these hundreds of miles through powerful ocean currents and sharks etc despite the fact Wallace's Line was long considered an impenetrable barrier for Asiatic flora and fauna?

I think you are looking at a map and seeing a few cm gaps but forgetting we are being suggested that people were maybe swimming hundreds of miles in the open ocean against the prevailing currents. The article provided is about the scientific argument that humans were washed along through Island Southeast Asia by tsunami, exactly as I stated in the podcast.

Where is the confusion? Where is there anything misleading?

Please find any scholar who agrees with you that this was not an astonishingly difficult journey.
 
This map is from about 15,000 years ago, not from the time discussed on the show which was a million years ago. This is not accurate for the sea levels at that time.
Can you back this up with a link. I'm very weak on archaeology and paleontology, and I am sure some others are the same.

David
 
But what if one was to design a creature which exploited ocean and krill? Does one choose an even-toed ungulate optimized (also designed for 100 million years along a certain discipline) to live upon land (bison for instance), and fashion that into a whale (a whale is an even-toed ungulate)? Or does one simply enlarge a form of shark to do the task, modifying its teeth to become baleen? Something with billions of years design/immunity advantage in living in the ocean, with a simple design change - does the task nicely. Choosing something which must be overhauled in its entirety, creates a lot of unnecessary task management, series failure risk points, and monitoring over eons of work. It would not be very smart design-work.
Perhaps I should always refer to Neo Darwinism - the modern' understanding' of the origin and evolution of life, which most certainly does claim that there was a tree of life where each node represents a speciation event.

I don't think it is terribly useful to try to figure out why the Designer(s) chose particular routes - particularly since it is easy to invent counter-narratives. For example, perhaps the Designer found her land-based species more promising because they had access to more oxygen, but then decided that it might be good to have the best of both worlds - a creature that breathed air, but could inhabit the oceans - which are bigger, and (I imagine) less prone to natural disasters. Remember a while back that I argued that it makes little sense to posit a Designer with infinite intelligence. A being with finite intelligence can still reconsider in the light of experience - she can't figure it out in one shot.

Another possibility might be that the whales and porpoises are the work of one designer, and the mammals are the work of another. This duo took over the life project part way through!

I'd like to get back to our discussion earlier about just how hard it might be for an intelligent entity to design life. The job certainly seems pretty daunting, however imagine you told Alan Turing what we would be doing with computers now. He might have replied that the human brain could never write code of such complexity (or maybe he already envisioned how things would develop). The earliest computers had to be hand coded in machine instructions. That was an immensely laborious task which in some ways resembles the task of devising the components of life, and then the DNA required to achieve those components. However, rather like what happened with computers, computers and software were both designed and evolved, with big jumps at certain points. So one of the first leaps was that someone hard coded a program (the old way) to read a text file full of textual representations of instructions and convert the stuff into a real binary program - of course, the text itself still had to be punched onto tape or cards and edited by splicing the tape or replacing cards as needed. I actually prepared programs using tape and cards myself for a short while!

Also that original program (now called an assembler) did an amazing thing - it worked out the addresses of everything on behalf of the programmer! That single step must have accelerated the development of computer programs 10 or maybe 100 times. It was followed by many more amazing inovations, and yet it was all designed by men. Thus I am saying that maybe we don't need to propose a god-like intelligence at all to start life off and guide it to where it is now - I don't know

David
 
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