I've just discovered that David Gelernter has expressed serious reservations concerning Neo/Darwinian's explanatory power regarding macro-evolutionary charnged. For those interested: https://www.claremont.org/crb/article/giving-up-darwin/ I've been meaning to read Meyer's book, so that's showing up tomorrow and will be my next read.
I don't know who he is, although the name seems familiar. He seems to bascially restating the what the folks over at Discovery Institute are saying. It was bit weird how he started in on worldview and then got into the science. There was nothing new in his objections.
Looked around a bit and he is somewhat criticized as his area of expertise is computer science, not biology. As I said, he is simply parroting the ID stuff. ETA; something fairly recent over at Panda's Thumb. https://pandasthumb.org/archives/2019/08/the-bandwagon-accelerates-first-things-jumps-on.html
Nothing new, though, just another case of 'support in the direction of...' And it's always interesting that people with laugh away the ID argument (which I do agree is quite strong), only to turn around and start talking about aliens seeding life, as if they didn't just laugh away that very thing because they can't get their head out of the thought of religious concepts ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I don't see why not. The claim rests essentially on two foundations: (1) the mathematical probability of macro-evolutionary changes is so low as to be practically zero, and (2) there is no substantial evidence for anything like macro-evolution, as distinct from the adaptations we observe every day. A biologist might reply with 'sure' to (1) and decide in the opposite direction: yes it's true that the odds are immensely improbable, and the human mind is of such a finite nature that it can't comprehend these numbers, so what's a risk in the other direction? To (2) the biologist would have to appeal to physical evidence, which, as pointed out, seems to largely be lacking. Regardless of where the challenge comes from, it's still one that needs a reply if it's sufficiently compelling. I suppose there is a third claim as well, which is that science has moved beyond Darwin's 'bolder' claims regarding the origin of species. I think this is a fair enough claim given that biology has significantly developed since Darwin's time. So, we end up in a scenario where on the one hand that numbers say that macro-evolutionary changes are virtually impossible, while on the other, it's insisted that it is possible and must have had happened. I just don't see the biology fitting the math, unless there's a fundamental issue with the calculations.
I recently read somewhere that the mathematucal ovjection is not valid. But I'll need to source that.
I also have an objections to the Cambrian Explosion problem the IDers have, based on geological processes.
Or it might be dismissed as a kind of Zenoistic sleight of hand (motion is possible despite 'infinite' divisibles, for instance). It'd be interesting to read what the objections are.
Neo-Darwinism is the modern Darwinism, that adjusts for the shortcomings of Darwin's original theory (regarding genetics and the passing-on of traits, for example). It would be odd to find someone who rejected Neo-Darwinism for the original theory, but not odd to find someone who rejected Neo-Darwinism for some other modern alternative, although I'm not sure what that would be.
Having trouble finding anything really solid on the first one so far. Certainly various bloggers and scientists stating that it's not correct. It's been really busy so I have not been able to find much time on that yet. As for the second matter, the preservation of such locations is complicated in that we have a rather dynamic earth such that many sedimentary sequences have simply been eroded away again, thus eliminating many potential fossil hosting packages. It's not an issue I've really seen brought up in these matters, so maybe it's not overly relevant to the discussion. Certainly instances of preservation of the fossils of the Cambrian explosion and the Ediacara (and equivalents) are still pretty rare in the world. I also found this which discusses complex organisms existing prior to the Cambrian explosion, dated to very early Cambrian. https://www.palaeontologyonline.com...ly-fossils-cambrian-explosion-origin-animals/
I read the linked article and found it interesting although did wonder about the numbers involved. Where single-cell organisms are concerned there isn't a lot of scope to experiment with genetic structure because if an organism only has one cell the cell either works or it doesn't. As soon as more complex organisms are involved things potentially shift a little in that every single time a cell divides there is the chance for a mutation or other change to occur and, if the modified cell doesn't work, that cell fails while the rest of the organism survives without it. An appeal to probability can highlight that something is vanishingly unlikely but it seems like the sort of thing that doesn't quite make the step from "vanishingly unlikely" to "absolutely not possible". Personally the issues I have with the notion of the "blind watchmaker" are that it requires stringing together a number of theories, all of which require heavy assumption and all of which end up passing the buck to another theory. Unguided evolution, even if accepted, ends up passing the buck to another theory of abiogenesis while glossing over the requirements for the step between the two to be viable. The gap between the theories of evolution and abiogenesis require not only that something not-living came to life thanks to some external stimulus but also that the newly living thing was able to actually stay alive. With no knowledge of its surroundings it would need to figure out a source of food, to avoid anything dangerous to it, and how to reproduce, all before it died.
I I wiil begin Meyer's book - keep my little brain occupied. Almost finished "Foresight," by Marcos Eberlin, a chemist, which elegently focuses on irreducible complexity and compelling biological evidence for intelligent design.