Jiro comments on Open Thread Feb 22 - Feb 28, 2016 - Less Wrong

5 Post author: Elo 21 February 2016 09:14PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (228)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: Jiro 24 February 2016 09:57:10PM 1 point [-]

I'm not sure Eric is denying common descent

Well, he says:

Many present all evolution as similar to how wolves changed to sheepdogs, or the way in which bacteria develop resistance to penicillin, but such change will not create radically new protein complexes or new species.

If he doesn't believe that species can become other species, he can't believe in common descent (unless he believes that the changes in species happen when scientists say they happen, but he attributes this to God).

Comment author: gjm 25 February 2016 12:11:53AM 0 points [-]

unless he believes that the changes in species happen when scientists say they happen, but he attributes this to God

This is approximately what many Christians believe. (The idea being that the broad contours of the history of life on earth are the way the scientific consensus says, but that various genetic novelties were introduced as a result of divine guidance of some kind.)

I'm not sure whether this is Eric's position. He denies being a young-earth creationist, but he does also make at least one argument against "universal common descent". Eric, if you're reading this, would you care to say a bit more about what you think did happen in the history of life on earth? What did the scientists get more or less right and what did they get terribly wrong?