Article

2019-08-23 Science & Technology

Yale Computer Scientist David Gelernter Abandons Darwinism (video)

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Posted by Besoeker 2019-08-23 00:00|| || Front Page|| [6 views ] Top

#1 @...They could not have all blown out suddenly...@

actually, the normative view is that in about a 10 million year period early in the Cambrian (about 500M years ago) there was such a 'blow up' and that's why it is called the Cambrian Explosion

there are no accepted causal theories of why this happened and for this to have happened the rate of successful mutation would have to have been at least 4 orders of magnitude greater than anything measured -- those problems make the 'explosion' a tough one to accept for many

Posted by lord garth 2019-08-23 03:50|| 2019-08-23 03:50|| Front Page Top

#2 ....what you say?

Posted by Procopius2k 2019-08-23 06:52|| 2019-08-23 06:52|| Front Page Top

#3 If these people had (just a bit less) arrogance, and just a bit more brains - they'd be talking about origin of life. Not yammering about fossils.

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2019-08-23 07:22|| 2019-08-23 07:22|| Front Page Top

#4 No bones about it g(r)om.

Posted by Besoeker 2019-08-23 07:23|| 2019-08-23 07:23|| Front Page Top

#5 :-)

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2019-08-23 07:27|| 2019-08-23 07:27|| Front Page Top

#6 He's got a point. There is no trace of Trump in Republican fossils, for example. But, sometimes there is random skip-a-step evolution, when the 'gamma ray' hits a cell harder than normal. I guess. Evolution never took Algebra I and tried to get a passing grade. It probably never will.

Posted by Beau 2019-08-23 07:42|| 2019-08-23 07:42|| Front Page Top

#7 All the f*cking "fossil history" is 99% conjecture. Evolution, on the other hand, you can see in a lab.

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2019-08-23 07:46|| 2019-08-23 07:46|| Front Page Top

#8 In the last decade the availability of cheap genetic mapping has caused a reshuffling of the Tree of Life™. Things that looked alike tended to have far different ancestors ( Evolution in Action, eh?) .... so fossil evidence? :Meh:

Posted by magpie 2019-08-23 14:28|| 2019-08-23 14:28|| Front Page Top

#9 Saying your "abandoning Darwin" makes as much sense as saying you're "abandoning Democritus" and his model of atoms -- there's been a hell of a lot of other work since then, and that phrasing just makes you sound ignorant. Frankly, coming from an over-inflated Ivy Leaguer, it's what I expect.

It's not just finches and fossils.

Posted by Rob Crawford 2019-08-23 19:43|| 2019-08-23 19:43|| Front Page Top

#10 When someone, like my elder Brother, says "I don't believe in Evolution!" then my response is "Define what you mean by that statement ... then we'll talk."

Posted by magpie 2019-08-23 20:31|| 2019-08-23 20:31|| Front Page Top

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