Jerry Coyne on infanticide

Jerry Coyne is a leading atheist popularizer. Without religious restraint, there are no moral boundaries. It comes down to who has more power. This reveals the dark side of atheism, when you strip away the hortatory rhetoric about emancipation: 

After all, newborn babies aren’t aware of death, aren’t nearly as sentient as an older child or adult, and have no rational faculties to make judgments (and if there’s severe mental disability, would never develop such faculties).

Our pain at making such a decision is lessened knowing that dogs and cats, like newborns, don’t know about death and thus don’t fear it.) The reason we don’t allow euthanasia of newborns is because humans are seen as special, and I think this comes from religion—in particular, the view that humans, unlike animals, are endowed with a soul. It’s the same mindset that, in many places, won’t allow abortion of fetuses that have severe deformities. When religion vanishes, as it will, so will much of the opposition to both adult and newborn euthanasia.

https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2017/07/13/should-one-be-allowed-to-euthanize-severely-deformed-or-doomed-newborns/

Are faith and science at war?

https://arcdigital.media/is-there-a-war-between-science-and-religion-30089ff134dc

Outgrowing God

One atheist trope is that Christian faith is childish. We have a duty to wean ourselves from immature belief a celestial father-figure. 

To that many things could be said, but for now I'd point out that the very atheists who say this often adopt a paternalistic tone of disapproval. They themselves assume the role of father-figures. If you refuse to heed their fatherly advice, Hitchens, Harris, Dennett, Dawkins, Coyne, Stenger et al. will be disappointed in you. Don't you wish to make them proud of you?

Essentially, then, they become substitute father gods. They play on the very psychology they impute to Christian believers. 

Y-chromosome Adam

Two statements by Jerry Coyne, back-to-back:

...genes on the Y chromosome trace back to one male who lived about 60,000-90,000 years ago.  

https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2011/06/02/adam-and-eve-the-ultimate-standoff-between-science-and-faith-and-a-contest/ 

Since sequencing of human genomes became possible on a large scale, we can back-calculate from the observed genetic diversity in our species to find out roughly when different forms of human genes diverged from one another, and how many forms of a given gene existed at a given time…We can, for example, trace all the Y chromosomes of existing males back to a single man who lived between 120,000 and 340,000 years ago. This individual is often called "Y-chromosome Adam"…all the Y chromosomes of modern humans descend from this one individual… J. Coyne, Faith Versus Fact (Viking, 2015), 127.

i) I find it striking that even though he's talking about the very same thing in both cases, the upper estimate in the first quote is 30K years below the lower estimate in the second quote. In the first quote there's a 30K spread. In the second quote, there's a 220K spread. So where are these figures coming from?

ii) In addition, there were, presumably, thousands of other human males (or protohumans) contemporaneous with Y-chromosome Adam. Just as he had descendants, many or most of them had descendants. Given the extent of human interbreeding, how could all modern humans derive their Y chromosomes exclusively from a single common ancestor? Surely Coyne doesn't think all the descendants of Y-chromosome Adam's contemporaries died out. I don't see how the argument goes through even on his own assumptions. 

iii) There's the additional question of whether human males would even be male without the Y chromosome. Perhaps, though, the precise function of the Y chromosome is in dispute.

Selling evolution

Writing in Nature ("Selling Darwin"), Coyne has conceded:

[T]ruth be told, evolution hasn't yielded many practical or commercial benefits. Yes, bacteria evolve drug resistance, and yes, we must take countermeasures, but beyond that there is not much to say. Evolution cannot help us predict what new vaccines to manufacture because microbes evolve unpredictably. But hasn't evolution helped guide animal and plant breeding? Not very much. Most improvement in crop plants and animals occurred long before we knew anything about evolution, and came about by people following the genetic principle of 'like begets like'. Even now, as its practitioners admit, the field of quantitative genetics has been of little value in helping improve varieties. Future advances will almost certainly come from transgenics, which is not based on evolution at all.

http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/05/how_is_it_possi096181.html

To Coyne a phrase

http://www.mandm.org.nz/2014/10/jerry-coyne-on-deception-and-the-omission-of-facts.html#more-11645

Tricksy hobbitses

About a year ago, Jerry Coyne wrote a post titled "Human evolution: the hobbits were probably real".

However, apparently: "Flores bones show features of Down syndrome, not a new 'hobbit' human".

Of course, the guys over at EN&V have doubted this from the get-go. For example, see here.

Maybe it's still too early, but I haven't noticed any retractions from Coyne or other prominent evolutionists who thought these "hobbit" fossils were quite likely a distinct species of human beings. Let alone acknowledgement that ID theorists were closer to the truth than these evolutionists were. Well, I won't hold my breath!

Aliens among us

One popular storyline in SF involves an advanced alien civilization that makes first contact with primitive humanoids. By definition, it has to be technologically advanced to be capable of deep space travel.

In one variation on this theme, first contact is the origin of humanoid religion. To primitive humanoids, the alien technology is magical. Godlike.

Continuing with our storyline, suppose humanoids passed down a traditional record of first contact in folklore. They recorded the appearance of the spacecraft. The appearance of the aliens. What they aliens did. 

The folklore might reflect a degree of legendary embellishment. Because the primitive humanoids lacked the scientific categories to describe first contact, they'd resort to mythopoetic categories. But it would still bear witness to a real event. 

Suppose ufologists appeal to this ancient folklore as evidence of first contact. Along come the debunkers. The counterparts to Carl Sagan, Martin Gardner, Richard Dawkins, Jerry Coyne, Michael Shermer, and PZ Myers in our SF scenario.

Now even though, in our scenario, aliens really did make first contact, the debunkers would dismiss that out-of-hand. 

Another variant on this theme involves alien/humanoid hybrids. Say they use molecular cloning to create hybrids. Then the aliens leave the hybrids behind.

Some humanoids never interbreed with hybrids. Other humanoids interbreed with hybrids, but because the humanoids outnumber the hybrids, the alien DNA is steadily diluted until only trace elements remain.

Suppose geneticists discover some humanoid specimens with residual alien DNA. The ufologists cite that as scientific confirmation that the folklore about first contact was authentic.

But the debunkers dismiss that as genetic anomalies, the same way they explain away evidence inconsistent with Darwinism–even though, in our scenario, this really is evidence of first contact. 

The same mindset which causes atheists to discount miracles, irrespective of the evidence, would cause them to discount first contact, irrespective of the evidence.

Jerry Coyne, as big as an ox and almost as smart

"The Confidence of Jerry Coyne" by Ross Douthat.

You don't have free will

According to atheist evolutionist Jerry Coyne:

...this sort of free will is ruled out, simply and decisively, by the laws of physics. Your brain and body, the vehicles that make "choices," are composed of molecules, and the arrangement of those molecules is entirely determined by your genes and your environment. Your decisions result from molecular-based electrical impulses and chemical substances transmitted from one brain cell to another. These molecules must obey the laws of physics, so the outputs of our brain—our "choices"—are dictated by those laws. (It's possible, though improbable, that the indeterminacy of quantum physics may tweak behavior a bit, but such random effects can't be part of free will.) And deliberating about your choices in advance doesn't help matters, for that deliberation also reflects brain activity that must obey physical laws.

Read the rest here.

Christianity and scientific progress

"Coyne's Twisted History of Science & Religion" by Alex Berezow and James Hannam.

"Richard Carrier on Ancient Science" by James Hannam.

Why evolution is false

At the tail end of last year, Jonathan McLatchie reviewed Why Evolution Is True by Jerry Coyne.

Jerry Coyne's wish list

Jerry Coyne said:

Some day I would love to see a list of questions that science can't answer but other methods of inquiry can - especially religion. So far, despite loud and frequent denunciations of "scientism," I've never seen anything resembling that list.

For starters:



Also:



Finally, fellow scientist and atheist Massimo Pigliucci offers Coyne some advice.

Evolved Irony

As I looked through the local used bookstore yesterday, I found a copy of Jerry A. Coyne’s book Why Evolution is True ((2009). New York: Viking). The jacket flap contained praise from Edward O. Wilson, Christopher Hitchens, Steven Pinker, and Richard Dawkins, all assuring me that this book is extremely brilliant and devastating to those who would deny evolution. If you are familiar with the boasts of Darwinists, you’ll know how empty those promises are. But I figured it was only $9.98, so I might as well look at it.

While I have only just started it, the book has thus far been underwhelming. The introduction simply asserts repeatedly that evolution is true and only fundamentalists don’t believe it. For example (all italics mine):

What [Dover trial Judge] Jones had done was imply prevent an established truth from being muddled by biased and dogmatic opponents (xiii).

But evolution is far more than a “theory,” let alone a theory in crisis. Evolution is a fact (xiii).

…this volume gives a succinct summary of why modern science recognizes evolution as true (xiv).

Evolution gives us the true account of our origins, replacing the myths that satisfied us for thousands of years (xv).

But it is more than just a good theory, or even a beautiful one. It also happens to be true (xvi).

Indeed, if ever there was a time when Darwinism was “just a theory,” or was “in crisis,” it was the latter half of the nineteenth century, when evidence for the mechanism of evolution was not clear, and the means by which it worked—genetics—was still obscure. This was all sorted out in the first few decades of the twentieth century… (xvii).

True, evolution is as solidly established as any scientific fact (it is, as we will learn, more than “just a theory”), and scientists need no more convincing (xvii).

In 2006, for example, adults in thirty-two countries were asked to respond to the assertion “Human beings, as we know them, developed from earlier species of animals,” by answering whether they considered it true, false, or were unsure. Now, this statement is flatly true… (xviii).

Why teach a discredited, religiously based theory, even one widely believed, alongside a theory so obviously true? (xix).

My first through reading all that was: “The gentleman doth protest too much.” But the above isn’t why I wrote this post. Instead, I want to move on to one of Coyne’s analogies. Coyne writes:

Starting with the Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus in 1635, biologists began classifying animals and plants, discovering that they consistently fell into what was called a “natural” classification. Strikingly, different biologists came up with nearly identical groupings. This means that these groupings are not subjective artifacts of a human need to classify, but tell us something real and fundamental about nature. But nobody knew what that something was until Darwin came along and showed that the nested arrangement of life is precisely what evolution predicts. Creatures with recent common ancestors share many traits, while those whose common ancestors lay in the distant past are more dissimilar. The “natural” classification is itself strong evidence for evolution.

Why? Because we don’t see such a nested arrangement if we’re trying to arrange objects that haven’t arisen by an evolutionary process of splitting and descent. Take cardboard books of matches, which I used to collect. They don’t fall into a natural classification in the same way as living species. You could, for example, sort matchbooks hierarchically beginning with size, and then by country within size, color within country, and so on. Or you could start with the type of product advertised, sorting thereafter by color and then by date. There are many ways to order them, and everyone will do it differently. There is no sorting system that all collectors agree on. This is because rather than evolving, so that each matchbook gives rise to another that is only slightly different, each design was created from scratch by human whim.

Matchbooks resemble the kinds of creatures expected under a creationist explanation of life. In such a case, organisms would not have common ancestry, but would simply result from an instantaneous creation of forms designed de novo to fit their environments. Under this scenario, we wouldn’t expect to see species falling into a nested hierarchy of forms that is recognized by all biologists (pp. 9-10).

Of course, Coyne’s entire premise is false. First off, it is not at all surprising that biologists tend to classify animals similarly when you realize that they are classifying animals for similar reasons. After all, Coyne makes a big deal about how you can sort matchbooks by “size” or “color” seeming to forget that there’s nothing stopping biologists from arranging animals by size or color too. But biologists don’t do that. Why? Because when they begin their classification, they start with the assumption that the animals are related, and then sort based on those assumptions. They are not looking to classify by size; they are looking to classify by how organisms are related.

I daresay that if you hand several matchbooks to various random collectors and tell them, “These are all related to each other and we want to see if you can find out how” they will come up with many arrangements that are similar to each other. Similarity in organization does not, as Coyne claims, prove these classifications “are not subjective artifacts of a human need to classify.” That would only be true if each person came to classification without any prior concept of how they should be classified and still classified everything the same way. Furthermore, there are lots of dissimilarities in various classification schemes that are simply glossed over here by Coyne.

Coyne is also in error when he says “we don’t see such a nested arrangement if we’re trying to arrange objects that haven’t arisen by an evolutionary process of splitting and descent.” Has Coyne never seen a fractal, used a computer, or examined the management of a corporation? We see hierarchical sorting and nested arrangement all the time in intelligently created processes and objects.

Consider computer programs in more detail. With the advent of object oriented programming, the structure of all but the simplest of programs must be hierarchical. It is the most efficient means of writing complex programs across multiple platforms by hundreds of different programmers.

Furthermore, computer programs will often use the exact same libraries. Not because one program evolved from another, but because someone designed a bit of code that performed a specific function useful in many different applications, so the code snippet gets put in a library for other programmers to use. Entire modules can be created in the same way, and various different programs assembled from these modules. If someone was not aware that the programs were designed that way, it would be quite facile for someone to imagine the programs came about by descent with modification instead of being tailor made from bits of previously designed code. The evidence would seem compelling, but only because one starts off with the assumption that intelligence is not involved.

Coyne also has the following endnote that damages his matchbook analogy:

Unlike matchbooks, human languages do fall into a nested hierarchy, with some (like English and German) resembling each other far more than they do others (e.g., Chinese). You can, in fact, construct an evolutionary tree of languages based on the similarity of words and grammar. The reason languages can be so arranged is because they underwent their own form of evolution, changing gradually through time and diverging as people moved to new regions and lost contact with one another. Like species, languages have speciation and common ancestry. It was Darwin who first noticed this analogy (endnote 2, p. 235).

That’s right, after telling us that the nested arrangement proves that species were not created, Coyne shows a nested hierarchy of language. Yes, language. One of the indicators of intelligence. Talk about evolved irony!

Even if we agree with Coyne that language shows a “form of evolution” that form of evolution is most certainly NOT Darwinist. There are no random mutations followed by survival of the fittest; there is instead intelligent agents tinkering with their language. To the extent that language is an analogy of evolution, it is an analogy of theistic evolution, not Darwinism.

Thus far, Coyne’s arguments are far from persuasive. Indeed, Coyne seems to operate from a very simplistic viewpoint. He seems to believe that anything that indicates evolution must be proof of Darwinism, when in fact Darwinism is not the only theory of evolution (indeed, no one believes in Darwin’s Darwinism these days). Furthermore, Coyne seems to think that anything that looks like evolution cannot be equally explained by intelligent design either. Both of these flaws render his arguments considerably less than sound.

Perhaps he will improve as I get further in the book. But given past experience reading all the other “definitive” books on Darwinism, I won’t be holding my breath.