Sunday, December 25, 2011

Evolutionist: You’re Misrepresenting Natural Selection

How could the most complex designs in the universe arise all by themselves? How could biology’s myriad wonders be fueled by random events such as mutations?

Sometimes evolutionists try to explain this by saying that mutations aren’t really random and that any such characterization is a strawman. After all, it seems that mutations do not occur at the same rate in different parts of the genome, or in different conditions, and so forth. Their point is that mutations are not at all random. Well that may be true, but this is just a canard because according to evolution the mutations are random with respect to what counts: the miraculous designs of biology.

So evolutionists are having it both ways. On the one hand they reject any teleology. The biological variation must not anticipate the miracles to come and so mutations must not be biased toward such designs. The mutations must be random, with respect to design. Any non randomness that mutations may exhibit is, therefore, inconsequential to the problem of how such mutations could work wonders.

But when their doctrine is repeated back to them, evolutionists sometimes offer this rebuttal that the mutations are not random. They are having it both ways.

Other evolutionists do not make this fallacy. They agree that concerning the problem of how evolution could come up with its many designs, the biological variation that is needed must be random. Instead, they offer up another, more subtle, fallacy.

These evolutionists say that while the mutations are random, the whole complaint that such randomness is not likely to have created all of biology’s wonders is misguided. It is misguided, they say, because evolution on the whole is not at all random. Yes the mutations are random, but there is a very non random filter imposed called natural selection. Selection effectively “takes” the winners from the pool of available mutations and “rejects” the losers. So with only the good mutations being preserved, you have very non random biological change occurring.

Any criticism of evolution that misses this crucial fact is yet another strawman. As one evolution told me:

Natural selection not only helps, it's an integral and essential part of the iterative process of evolution. "Killing off" the bad designs and letting the ones that work survive to pass on their heritable traits is critical to how the whole process works.

I know it's been pointed out a hundred times:

Random genetic variations by themselves don't produce the evolution of new traits. Selection by itself doesn't produce the evolution of new traits. But the iterative process combining both variation and selection (along with the heritable traits) can and does produce amazing new features.

I know you know it too, which is why your posting that sort of rancid garbage in the OP reflects so poorly on your character.

It is true, as this evolutionist states, that evolutionary theory holds that it is a combination of variation + selection that results in new designs. And is true that, according to evolutionary theory, the result would be non random.

But all of this misses the point. Remember, the problem at hand is that evolution says random events are the fuel for incredible designs. How could that be? The evolutionists response, that selection filters out the useless random events, doesn’t help.

Of course that is what evolution envisions. The question still stands, for no one was ever counting on the useless mutations to help out.

Evolutionists erroneously think they are resolving the problem by pointing out the role of selection. In fact, they are simply restating the problem. Of course selection weeds out the bad mutations. So what?

In fact, this simply reinforces the problem, for selection is powerless to help guide those useless mutations. It just weeds them out, and we are left with nothing.

Imagine gamblers losing at roulette. The problem is the roulette wheel has a great many numbers and so a bet is unlikely to win. With evolution, the problem is greatly compounded. Instead of the traditional two dimensional roulette wheel the casinos have, evolution’s roulette wheel is in an astronomical number of dimensions. And in multi dimensional space, those rare winning numbers become far, far less likely.

The point here is that natural selection does not help solve the ridiculous claim that the universe’s most complex designs just happen to happen. This is simply an astronomically unlikely scenario. Random events are simply not likely to create profoundly complex, intricate, detailed designs. Evolution’s natural selection does nothing to change this.

Think of it this way. Every single mutation and the like that produced the giraffe had to occur by itself. They were not coaxed by natural selection. Indeed, quite the opposite, natural selection merely weeds out the losers. Quite literally, the giraffe must have been created by a long series of random events. From a scientific perspective it would be difficult to imagine a more absurd proposition.

That is what happens when religion drives science.

758 comments:

  1. Cornelius,

    Your critique is misguided. It can be applied equally badly to a Monte Carlo process.

    Take an Ising ferromagnet with N spins. Each spin can point up and down, so there are a total of 2^N possible states of the magnet. It will take a very long time (roughly 2^N steps) to find the ground state (all spins up or all spins down) by random search. However, a Monte Carlo simulation, which relies on random moves and on positive feedback, gets to a ground state in a time of order N.

    By your logic, this is not possible. After all, it's just random walk plus some feedback. What's wrong with your logic? Here is a hint. Both a Monte Carlo process and nature use random steps, but they do not start from scratch. I'll let you figure it out. Someone with a PhD in biophysics ought to be able to figure it out.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Cornelius,

    I'll directly ask you, yet again, how do you explain our relatively recent and rapid increase in the creation of knowledge?

    Is it magic? Did God just decide we should start creating knowledge, and therefore we did? How do you explain it?

    I'm asking because the underlying explanation behind evolutionary theory is that genetic variation and natural selection is a form of conjecture and refutation, which is a variation on our explanation as to how we, as people, create knowledge.

    The key difference being that the natural mechanisms of evolutionary processes cannot create explanations as we can. As such, they cannot use explanations as a criteria for what conjectures they should test.

    What's particularly interesting is your out right refusal to even acknowledge this entire explanation, let alone present any sort of comprehensive or criticism. Rather, you merely keep repeating the same claim you present in your OP.

    Where does this break down? Where is your explanation for how we create knowledge? Surely, if this comment is irrelevant, you should have not problem pointing out why, in detail, right?

    Is the answer yet another variation of "God did it?" Are you worried it can't withstand the light of day?

    It seems you've yet again intentionally and conveniently failed to disclose assumptions that your target audience is likely to hold, as a means of shielding them from criticism.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Merry Christmas Cornelius, and thank you for the recent flurry of posts.

    And thank out for the humour generated by your critics. To hear the same mindless dribble spuing from the commenatry on every posts can only cause the deepest ironic humour. To read your critics even assume that they are in your league is laughable. I never need to turn on the comedy channel after reading a few of your critics postings.

    And have a happy new year.

    .

    ReplyDelete
  4. Cornelius,

    ...for selection is powerless to help guide those useless mutations. It just weeds them out, and we are left with nothing.

    And as all ID supporters know, there are only bad mutations.

    ReplyDelete
  5. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Cornelius Hunter said...

    Evolutionists erroneously think they are resolving the problem by pointing out the role of selection. In fact, they are simply restating the problem. Of course selection weeds out the bad mutations. So what?

    In fact, this simply reinforces the problem, for selection is powerless to help guide those useless mutations. It just weeds them out, and we are left with nothing.


    The 'so what' part is that you deliberately left out the effect of heritability. The part that acts to maintain the neutral and accumulate the favorable genetic changes for use as a baseline in each subsequent generation. That's what we are left with CH, and again you know it.

    You really should be ashamed of yourself for such a blatant misrepresentation of the actual process. But I guess your love of the DI's money is stronger than your moral principles.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Folks:

    Your critique is misguided. It can be applied equally badly to a Monte Carlo process.

    Take an Ising ferromagnet with N spins. Each spin can point up and down, so there are a total of 2^N possible states of the magnet. It will take a very long time (roughly 2^N steps) to find the ground state (all spins up or all spins down) by random search. However, a Monte Carlo simulation, which relies on random moves and on positive feedback, gets to a ground state in a time of order N.

    ---

    The 'so what' part is that you deliberately left out the effect of heritability. The part that acts to maintain the neutral and accumulate the favorable genetic changes for use as a baseline in each subsequent generation. That's what we are left with CH, and again you know it.

    You really should be ashamed of yourself for such a blatant misrepresentation of the actual process. But I guess your love of the DI's money is stronger than your moral principles.


    To any and all who have questioned the wisdom of allowing evolutionists to vent fully, I trust you now understand. Even more precious than evolution itself are the responses of evolutionists desperately trying to close the curtain. Once the pseudo scientific descriptions are parsed and the theory is exposed for what it is, for all to see, then it’s all downhill as evolutionists scurry to provide themselves cover.

    The utter failure of evolution to back up its ridiculous claims that everything just spontaneously arose all by itself, leads to even more ridiculous cover. We’re supposed to slap our foreheads and exclaim “Oh, my, Ising ferromagnets, Monte Carlo simulations with positive feedback, and heritability! How could we have missed those?! Of course the entire biological world just happened to arise via random events. It’s so obvious.”

    Please don’t miss this. The response of evolutionists (and these responses above are by no means the most absurd) are far more telling than the theory itself, if that were possible.

    But don’t think I’m reveling in any of this. I’m no smarter, better or wiser than the poor evolutionists. It’s just that in this particular case, I’m not the one pushing the rock up the hill over and over.

    ReplyDelete
  8. "but selection makes the process non random" = methinks it is like a weasel.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Even more precious than evolution itself are the responses of evolutionists desperately trying to close the curtain.

    It's easy to sneer at a critic. It's more difficult to address the argument.

    ReplyDelete
  10. ...for selection is powerless to help guide those useless mutations. It just weeds them out, and we are left with nothing.

    There are three components that are absolutely required if evolution is to work: Replication, Variation, and Selection. Creationists like CH look at each one in isolation and declare that since it can't do X then evolution can't work. Of course the fact that one of the other components is perfectly capable of doing X is immaterial to them.

    The most common example of this is the creationist canard that Natural Selection is incapable of generating new information, it can only weed out bad information. Never mind of course that mutation is in fact capable of generating new information. But, comes the retort, mutation generates both good and bad information, and since it can't weed out the bad information it would eventually lead to so much bad stuff that evolution couldn't possibly work. Never mind of course that Natural Selection is in fact capable of weeding out that bad information.

    Until now I never really knew how Replication fit into this process of misrepresentation by isolation. Now thanks to the above statement I think I see it. As far as CH is concerned Natural Selection can only weed out information, it cannot replace it. Eventually there would be nothing left meaning that evolution can't work. Never mind of course that Replication is in fact capable of replacing the lost bad information with more copies of the good (or at least neutral) information.

    Lets say we have a population of 100 creatures. In each generation 1 gets a fatal mutation, 1 gets a helpful mutation, and the rest get nothing or neutral mutations. As far as CH is concerned, after 100 generations the entire population has gone extinct because no matter how good the helpful mutation was, the population as a whole lost 1 creature every generation until nothing was left.

    I'll leave it to the reader to determine what exactly is wrong with that scenario.

    ReplyDelete
  11. We’re supposed to slap our foreheads and exclaim "Oh, my, Ising ferromagnets, Monte Carlo simulations with positive feedback, and heritability! How could we have missed those?! Of course the entire biological world just happened to arise via random events. It's so obvious."

    Translation: "I have no idea what any of that means, therefore it must be just nonsense that I can ignore."

    I don't think CH himself actually thinks that. I'm pretty sure he actually has quite a good idea of what that all means. Instead I think his response is specifically intended a way of inoculating his less educated followers against the logic of the original statement. It all sounds a bit...um...sciency and strange, so why not play off that and pretend that unfamiliar words and concepts are unfamiliar because they're actually just unrelated to the subject at hand.

    He's providing a guide post for those who wish to remain ignorant.

    ReplyDelete
  12. H'mm:

    Quite so, John.

    The differential reproductive success selection part is a culler-out, not a creator of info, which is thus left to some variety or another of blind, uncorrelated, chance based variation.

    So, we are back to hill climbing in the general sense, WITHIN an island of function in a much larger space of configurations.

    Darwinian and similar mechanisms may explain moving to niches in such an island of function, but they do not explain getting to deeply isolated islands in vast config spaces. (And, the just linked explains why complex, multipart specific function naturally leads to islands of function as the likely pattern.)

    KF

    ReplyDelete
  13. F/N: Monte Carlo. Let's roll the tape from Wiki:

    >>Monte Carlo methods vary, but tend to follow a particular pattern:

    1: Define a domain of possible inputs.
    2: Generate inputs randomly from a probability distribution over the domain.
    3: Perform a deterministic computation on the inputs.
    4: the results.

    For example, consider a circle inscribed in a unit square. Given that the circle and the square have a ratio of areas that is π/4, the value of π can be approximated using a Monte Carlo method:[4]

    1: Draw a square on the ground, then inscribe a circle within it.
    2: Uniformly scatter some objects of uniform size (grains of rice or sand) over the square.
    3: Count the number of objects inside the circle and the total number of objects.
    4: The ratio of the two counts is an estimate of the ratio of the two areas, which is π/4. Multiply the result by 4 to estimate π.

    In this procedure the domain of inputs is the square that circumscribes our circle. We generate random inputs by scattering grains over the square then perform a computation on each input (test whether it falls within the circle). Finally, we aggregate the results to obtain our final result, the approximation of π. >>

    Notice, how critically the methods depend on defining a domain of search that is feasible for accessible resources.

    The point of the issue over functionally specific complex organisation and associated info [FSCO/I for short] is that the complexity involved in getting to initial function -- landing on the beach of an island of function -- moves us beyond solar system [500 bits] or observed cosmos [1,000 bits] scope resources.

    That which may explain adaptation of an existing function is not at all the same as that which gets us to the beach to begin with.

    Just for record. KF

    ReplyDelete
  14. Good post, Dr Hunter.


    Evolutionists deny that ToE is a theory of dumb luck...because, hey, it sounds stupid....but, as you were hinting at in your post, Natural selection is just a term that essentially means survival of the luckiest: No matter what variant arises, dumb luck wins. Natural selection creates nothing; it just eliminates some of the dumb luck in a population. What's left over is whatever dumb luck NS did not filter out.......thus, everything we see today is a result of -- dumb luck.

    Evos know this -- they just feel the need to lie about it so they can get more converts.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Cornelius Hunter said...

    The utter failure of evolution to back up its ridiculous claims that everything just spontaneously arose all by itself, leads to even more ridiculous cover. We’re supposed to slap our foreheads and exclaim “Oh, my, Ising ferromagnets, Monte Carlo simulations with positive feedback, and heritability! How could we have missed those?! Of course the entire biological world just happened to arise via random events. It’s so obvious.”


    Hey CH, you were so busy blustering out the empty rhetoric to the IDiot peanut gallery that you completely forgot to address the salient points.

    Where is the heritability in your strawman model?

    ReplyDelete
  16. Hunter: We’re supposed to slap our foreheads and exclaim “Oh, my, Ising ferromagnets, Monte Carlo simulations with positive feedback, and heritability! How could we have missed those?! Of course the entire biological world just happened to arise via random events. It’s so obvious.”

    You missed the point, Cornelius. Deliberately or otherwise, but miss the point you did. Your criticism of the role of natural selection boils down to ridicule:

    The point here is that natural selection does not help solve the ridiculous claim that the universe’s most complex designs just happen to happen. This is simply an astronomically unlikely scenario. Random events are simply not likely to create profoundly complex, intricate, detailed designs. Evolution’s natural selection does nothing to change this.

    You can apply the same type of criticism to a Monte Carlo simulation, and it will look equally impressive to the nonspecialist, but it would be equally silly. A Monte Carlo algorithm also couples random steps with feedback. In the absence of feedback, the random process will take an exponentially long time to reach a state with the lowest energy. Feedback changes that time to algebraic in the number of particles. The reason of course is that the process of climbing down the energy landscape proceeds mostly downhill in the presence of feedback. The random steps are no longer blind. And most importantly, they don't start from scratch every time.

    The same ideas apply to natural selection. You are absolutely right that we don't have a complete picture of the process. However, we have seen that point mutations coupled with selection do lead the system uphill in functionality landscape (we discussed that paper here, didn't we?). You may not get all the way to the top with point mutations alone, but that bug/feature is also known in Monte Carlo simulations. Nonlocal moves and landscape changes help the system get out from local maxima. You could engage these arguments, but you don't. That is probably fine with your intended audience.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Gordon E. Mullings of Monserrat said...

    The point of the issue over functionally specific complex organisation and associated info [FSCO/I for short] is that the complexity involved in getting to initial function -- landing on the beach of an island of function -- moves us beyond solar system [500 bits] or observed cosmos [1,000 bits] scope resources.


    Gordon, where did the Intelligent Designer get all the "dFSCO/I" information to put into his biological designs in the first place?

    What's the dFSCO/I of a goldfish?

    Does the dFSCO/I of the goldfish change when it dies? If so, where does the dFSCO/I go?

    ReplyDelete
  18. CH -

    But all of this misses the point. Remember, the problem at hand is that evolution says random events are the fuel for incredible designs. How could that be? The evolutionists response, that selection filters out the useless random events, doesn’t help.

    Yes it does. It is the salient point.

    selection is powerless to help guide those useless mutations. It just weeds them out, and we are left with nothing.

    No we aren't.

    'Random' mutations can be good or bad. Natural selection weeds out the bad mutations so that what we are 'left with' are the good ones. These accumulate and the gene pool gets fitter.

    This is not a difficult concept. It's the same as 'toss a hundred coins, remove the tails, and what you have left are the heads.' I cannot understand why you are having difficulty grasping this.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Thorton:

    I happened to pass back, while doing some PC security maintenance.

    I guess I should first thank you for letting us all know beyond doubt your irresponsibility and the level of the amorality - nihilism problem faced by evolutionary materialist atheists. (That's what Plato warned against 2350 years ago, with Alcibiades as exhibit no 1; and you have confirmed that such is still all too relevant. As he put it, such are led to imagine that "the highest right is might" and resort to irresponsible faction tactics. As you just did.)

    For, I see you cannot resist trying to harm me through attempted outing tactics, KNOWING that I have pointed out why though my identity and contact are available, they are to be used responsibly, not tossed out for every spammer or would be stalker.

    You just joined the circle of those who threatened my family.

    Sadly revealing.

    You also seem to imagine that we don't know where intelligences get the ability to do intelligent things from. Just ask yourself, where you got the intelligence from that enabled you to post snide comments here, and why you did not have to struggle with random walks across vast config spaces to do it.

    If your point was "who designed the designer," that is a red herring, as we can know that your post, though full of malice, is an intelligent artifact from its dFSCI. In addition, you probably need to study up on the difference between contingent and necessary beings and why an observed credibly contingent cosmos points beyond itself to a necessary being as its causal root. In that context, our fine tuned cosmos, even through a multiverse speculation, strongly points to being an artifact of design, and also in the end to such a NB as its designer.

    As for your goldfish, it is plainly well beyond 100 mn bits of info, from its DNA. (The smallest known vertebrate genome is 385 million bases, a puffer fish.) That is of course orders of magnitude beyond the 1000 bits threshold, and indicates that the Goldfish's body plan [i.e. the Carp's body plan] is best explained as designed.

    You know as well as I that if a goldfish has descendants, its functional organisation and associated information are passed on to the next generation. Its own body, after death, obviously, becomes functionally disorganised through the normal processes of decay, which are strongly linked to entropy.

    All of that is fairly obvious.

    For record.

    Good day,

    KF

    ReplyDelete
  20. Ritchie:

    I just looked back at my comment just now and saw yours.

    Just a footnote.

    The problem is not to move around incrementally within an island of function, but to get to the shores of such islands, as manifest in major body plans.

    The headlining of adaptations of body plans has led a lot of people into an unjustifiable extrapolation from a context where we have a functioning system that can vary [i.e. we are within an island of function] like circumpolar gulls, and the challenge of first getting to such a functional system [e.g. getting to birds, in light of special breathing system, flight mechanisms, etc].

    This starts with origin of life and body-plan origin events such as the Cambrian life revolution, or the origin of the human language ability, etc. (Notice, how sketchy the literature gets when we ask, just how did a body plan level change happen, in terms of a functional, generation by generation sequence of adaptations with empirical, observed evidence to back it up in details. For instance contrast the headlined whale sequence and the sort of estimated 50,000 + mods that would be required.)

    Here is a remark-cluster by Gould on the general problem, in his The Structure of Evolutionary Theory, 2002:

    >> . . . long term stasis following geologically abrupt origin of most fossil morphospecies, has always been recognized by professional paleontologists. [[p. 752.]

    . . . . The great majority of species do not show any appreciable evolutionary change at all. These species appear in the section [[first occurrence] without obvious ancestors in the underlying beds, are stable once established and disappear higher up without leaving any descendants." [[p. 753.]

    . . . . proclamations for the supposed ‘truth’ of gradualism - asserted against every working paleontologist’s knowledge of its rarity - emerged largely from such a restriction of attention to exceedingly rare cases under the false belief that they alone provided a record of evolution at all! The falsification of most ‘textbook classics’ upon restudy only accentuates the fallacy of the ‘case study’ method and its root in prior expectation rather than objective reading of the fossil record. [[p. 773.] >>

    [Onlookers, cf here for more from SJG, and the clips from the NYRB review by Tim Flannery. The above is NOT "quote mined," regardless of the sort of rebuttal attempts you will predictably see in this thread or elsewhere. Just follow the links. Note especially the quote that begins "The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology. The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils. Yet Darwin was so wedded to gradualism that he wagered his entire theory on a denial of this literal record . . . Paleontologists have paid an exorbitant price for Darwin's argument. We fancy ourselves as the only true students of life's history, yet to preserve our favored account of evolution by natural selection we view our data as so bad that we never see the very process we profess to study." [[Stephen Jay Gould 'Evolution's erratic pace'. Natural History, vol. LXXXVI95), May 1977, p.14.]]

    I hope that will at least help some to think again.

    Good day.

    GEM of TKI

    ReplyDelete
  21. Natural Selection is reducible to random, arbitrary laws produced by the latest "design-denying" fad in cosmology--the multiverse. If all of this randomness is actually how things occur, then all of the above comments are meaningless, the OP is meaningless, and my comment is meaningless. Oh the despair! I think I'm gonna go kick a cat. Merry Christmas.

    ReplyDelete
  22. GEM -

    The problem is not to move around incrementally within an island of function, but to get to the shores of such islands, as manifest in major body plans.

    And that is the effect natural selection will produce. Since only beneficial mutations persist and are passed on, the gene pool as a whole progresses towards increased fitness.

    As for all the quotes from Gould, what do you think you are showing? Gould was no evolution-skeptic. He was one of it's most iconic champions - one of the leading biologists of our time. You are quoting someone who absolutely accepted evolution. Does that not tell you that you perhaps do not fully understand what he is saying?

    ReplyDelete
  23. CH:

    To any and all who have questioned the wisdom of allowing evolutionists to vent fully, I trust you now understand.

    Well, since this is likely directed at me, let me just say that I now understand your motives; although I might now entirely agree.

    Clearly, many of the responses to your post have either missed the logic altogether, or have not thought through the implications of their thought. And this stands for all to look upon, read, and figure out for themselves. Yes, the evolutionists flail about in their logic.

    But I guess where I disagree with you on this has to do with onlookers. If they aren't well-informed enough, or don't have the intellectual habits to see bad argumentation for what it is, then they can become confused.


    For example, "oleg" says:

    "However, a Monte Carlo simulation, which relies on random moves and on positive feedback, gets to a ground state in a time of order N" not realizing that the inclusion of positive feedback almost undoubtedly violates the supposed "non-random" character of the evolutionary process. But onlookers might not catch that point.


    And then there is Thorton, always providing more heat than light, who says:

    "The 'so what' part is that you deliberately left out the effect of heritability. The part that acts to maintain the neutral and accumulate the favorable genetic changes for use as a baseline in each subsequent generation. That's what we are left with CH, and again you know it."

    Not realizing that he's completely missed the upshot of what you've posted, he simply plows ahead, convinced that Darwinism must be right, and that you, CH, must be wrong.

    But, again, someone looking on might have a question: What is Thorton talking about? Is there something to this aspect of "heritability"?

    The answer, of course, is that evolutionary processes involve a tremendously large number of individual steps, each involving very high improbabilities, that can only be countered by extremely high numbers of "random events" if the next significant step in the evolutionary development is to take place, and that within this context "heritability" does NOTHING at all to avoid the quasi-infinite number of "random events" that are needed, but only insures that the entire process doesn't have to start all over again each time.

    So, I guess this is where I disagree. I think their efforts at obfuscation can sometimes work. But, of course, this calls for a prudential judgment on your part. Perhaps as Scripture says: "A word to the wise is sufficient."

    GEM:

    Thanks for the quotes from, and the link to, Gould's SoET.

    Merry Christmas.

    ReplyDelete
  24. Lino -

    ...within this context "heritability" does NOTHING at all to avoid the quasi-infinite number of "random events" that are needed, but only insures that the entire process doesn't have to start all over again each time.

    Utter rubbish.

    For one thing, there is no 'quasi-infinite' number of events needed for anything. This is merely you calling upon fantastical numbers to make evolution sound improbable when you actually have no idea of the numbers involved at all.

    This is the metaphor of mount improbable. It's not difficult. How can you have utterly failed to grasp it? The steep face represents complex and impressive features, seemingly insurmountable by a single step. The answer to reaching the peak is to take a large number of steps on a gradual incline. Heritability (to confuse the metaphor slightly) ensures that you never step backwards, that is, your next step will never lead you onto lower ground, only onto higher (or perhaps level). With such a failsafe, ascension, even to staggering heights, is inevitable.

    ReplyDelete
  25. GEM: You also seem to imagine that we don't know where intelligences get the ability to do intelligent things from.

    Then, perhaps you'll be the ID proponent that has an answer to the following question….

    How was the knowledge of how to build each species, as found in the genome, created?

    A being that "just was", complete with the knowledge of how to build each species, already present, serves no explanatory purpose. This is because one could more simply state that organisms, "just appeared", complete with the knowledge of how to build themselves, already present in their DNA.

    All you've done is push the problem into some unexplainable mind that supposedly exists in some unexplainable realm.

    GEM: Just ask yourself, where you got the intelligence from that enabled you to post snide comments here, and why you did not have to struggle with random walks across vast config spaces to do it.

    Please note, I'm not asking where this knowledge was previously *located*, I'm asking how it was created. Again, saying it was previously located here, rather than there, doesn't explain the origin of said knowledge. You've explained nothing.

    It's as if you're merely pushed the food around on your plate, then claimed you've ate it. Yet it's still sitting there, staring you in the face.

    ReplyDelete
  26. To say that evolution by natural selection is not based on random chance is exactly the same as claiming that since a casino is guaranteed by law to pay out when certain conditions are met, why then, there is no gambling going on inside.

    To claim that natural selection is a probability multiplier is to claim that monkeys at typewriters will reach something useful much quicker provided you periodically eliminate some substantial fraction of them. Ending up dead and not passing any genes whatsoever to act as the future basis of variation can hardly help matters. Natural Selection, aka death, can only be destructive, not constructive.

    All of this should be blindingly obvious to those not obviously blind.

    ReplyDelete
  27. Onlookers:

    Having now completed the security maintenance, I decided to pass back again.

    Sadly predictable.

    1: Ritchie, the point is that until you have a viable organism, you have no possibility of effective reproduction. That's why the question of arrival at body plans -- starting from OOL, the very first cell based C-chemistry aqueous medium life -- is so important. And of course, it needs noting that after coming on 60 years of serious trying now, the tree of life icon remains stubbornly rootless. And, as SJG highlighted in almost so many words, branch-less too.

    2: Scott: First, what we do know per adequate warrant should not ever be blocked by what we do not (yet -- or even may never) know. We know enough to know that we have empirically warranted and reliable signs of design as key causal factor, so we need to face the implications when they turn up in the digital code in life forms, and in the fine tuning of the cosmos that we observe that sets it up at a finely balanced operating point for C-chemistry, aqueous medium, cell based life, as was already linked above. So, since there's more than one way to skin a catfish, we should be willing to await results of nanotech investigations now in infancy before we start shooting off prematurely about just how designs of body plans could be made. As for species, that is too often a somewhat arbitrary level, within reach of adaptation as built into base body plans. Cf here how European Red Deer and North American Elk seem to be interfertile after being introduced into New Zealand.

    3: You also seem to be confused over what the inferred design of life and life forms implies, despite the fact that consistently since the first ID technical book, TMLO in 1884/5, it has been stressed that we may infer to design, but have no empirical warrant from the evidence in life forms, to conclude on such data alone, whether or not the relevant designer was within or beyond the cosmos. That tweredun is prior to trying to find out whodunit. And, as I have said elsewhere, life on earth -- what we observe -- could in principle be sufficiently explained on a molecular nanotech lab several generations beyond where Venter et al have reached. (we will probably do much the same within the next 50 - 100 years, if we don't blow up ourselves in the meanwhile. I do confess that my own interest lies at a different level: macro level, self replicating universal assembly machines coupled to an open source, modular industrial civilisation 2.0 suitable for de-urbanisastion, small islands and onward solar system colonialisation.)

    [ . . . ]

    ReplyDelete
  28. 4: FYI, the level of ID that does point to a designer beyond the cosmos, is the evident design of our observed cosmos. And, that has been put on the table ever since Plato's The Laws Bk X, and it appears again in say Newton's General Scholium to Principia. The evidence of a finitely remote origin and fine tuning jointly point to the same, in our day, even through a multiverse speculation.

    5: I note a silly turnabout attempt, which does not reckon seriously with the sort of vicious outing tactics and threats that have been made against members of my family. You, too, have managed to show to the world the fundamental amoral irresponsibility of evolutionary materialist atheists.

    6: As for where does knowledge come from, the answer to that is the same as the answer to where reasoning and knowing minds come from. One thing is sure, such is not credibly a product of chance variation and behaviourally-driven selection forces acting on configurations of matter that happen to be located in skulls, for many reasons.

    7: If you wonder what I am getting at on this cf this link in context (which has long since been easily accessible from me at IOSE, and elsewhere), and note especially Haldane's observation:

    >> "It seems to me immensely unlikely that mind is a mere by-product of matter. For if my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true. They may be sound chemically, but that does not make them sound logically. And hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms." [["When I am dead," in Possible Worlds: And Other Essays [1927], Chatto and Windus: London, 1932, reprint, p.209.] >>

    8: Lino: welcome.

    G'day

    GEM of TKI

    ReplyDelete
  29. Matteo -

    Natural Selection, aka death, can only be destructive, not constructive.

    Nonsense! Talk to any farmer and they will tell you what can be achieved through the selection process. Every year, take the biggest pigs and allow them and only them to reproduce and, over time, the average size of a pig in your herd will increase.

    Or look at dog breeding. Look how many breeds a single species can be shaped into. Look how different they can be.

    Yes these results were achieved through artificial selection rather than natural selection, but the concept is exactly the same. Selection, be it artificial or natural, has shaped species in the wild as surely as it has shaped domesticated ones.

    ReplyDelete
  30. GEM -

    You have totally changed track. Now you are saying that until we solve abiogenesis then we cannot be sure about evolution. Which is absolute nonsense.

    Abiogenesis is a seperate, (though related) theory. The origin of the very first living thing bears no relation to the theory of evolution. The very first living thing might have been poofed into existence by a magic fairy (not totally dissimilar to the position you seem to be advocating, really) and that still would say nothing at all about whether life has developed from then on via evolution or not. Evolution only starts when the first living thing has emerged. So I'm afraid 'Where did the first living thing come from?' is no rebuttal to ToE at all.

    However, it is a sensible question. The only sensible response to which would be to try to find out. Run tests. Perform experiments. In short, do science. It would most certainly NOT be to cry 'Goddidit'. This is God of the Gaps thinking, and it is weak, illogical and frankly cowardly in the extreme.

    Now allow me to refer you back to my last question. You quoted Gould a lot. Does it bother you that he did not advocate ID? Does it bother you that he WAS an advocate for evolution? Does it bother you that what he was referring to in your quotes was punctuated equilibrium - a mechanism of evolution - NOT ID or any counter evolutionary theory? Doesn't any of this tell you you are misrepresenting him? Does any of this bother you at all?

    ReplyDelete
  31. GEM of Kariosflatus said...

    You just joined the circle of those who threatened my family.


    LOL! Your family are goldfish? Do you feed them every day, clean their tank, then it's down the loo when they croak?

    BTW Gordon, you forgot to tell us where the Intelligent Designer got his dFSCI information from. You sprayed bushels of meaningless unconnected words as you always do but you forgot to answer the question.

    ReplyDelete
  32. PaV Lino the sockpuppet said...

    The answer, of course, is that evolutionary processes involve a tremendously large number of individual steps, each involving very high improbabilities, that can only be countered by extremely high numbers of "random events" if the next significant step in the evolutionary development is to take place, and that within this context "heritability" does NOTHING at all to avoid the quasi-infinite number of "random events" that are needed, but only insures that the entire process doesn't have to start all over again each time.


    That's amazing PaV. After all this time and all the discussions you're still to stupid to grasp that having a specific outcome be improbable doesn't make having any outcome be improbable.

    You have added a new twist to your misunderstanding I see. You're also too stupid to get that heritability of traits means all the steps in the evolutionary process don't have to happen at once, they can accumulate slowly over time.

    Do you think you'll ever understand the basics of evolutionary theory even a little?

    ReplyDelete
  33. Ritchie and Thorton:

    Other than calling people names, do you have any way of buttressing your assertions with facts?


    It's hard to argue against invective. Is this the new scientific method to be employed?

    ReplyDelete
  34. PaV Lino the sockpuppet said...

    Ritchie and Thorton:

    Other than calling people names, do you have any way of buttressing your assertions with facts?

    It's hard to argue against invective. Is this the new scientific method to be employed?


    Er PaV, go look around the real world. There are literally millions of papers and articles from hundreds of different scientific disciplines supporting ToE. You've already seen some of them here. There are thousands of colleges and universities that teach the evidence for evolution at both the undergrad and graduate levels. There are thousands of natural history museums where you can see the evidence for yourself. There are thousands of medical and biotech companies that succeed in their business through use of the evolution paradigm.

    You're the guy who claims all that is somehow wrong and that you can replace ToE with a better idea. Onus is on you to support your position, not us to defend against your idiotic attacks. Why don't you try providing some positive evidence for IDC instead of just BSing and quote-mining papers that say the exact opposite of what you claim?

    ReplyDelete
  35. Ritchie said: "This is not a difficult concept. It's the same as 'toss a hundred coins, remove the tails, and what you have left are the heads.' I cannot understand why you are having difficulty grasping this."

    Your statement is just plain madness. How did the heads and tails get on the coin in the first place? And once they were there, it is a random act that determines which one faces up. Any elementary school child could grasp this. If NS then removes all the tails, the act of removing the tails comes after the random act, meaning, it is still random!!! Also, I would love for anyone posting here just to give me ONE example of an organism moving from a less complex state to a more complex state. One pathetic example I've heard is finch beaks. But a beak is a beak is a beak. And that is the long and short of that. Evolutionists love to look at simple examples of adaptation and exclaim the preposterous creative power. The micro level is where things fall apart. Why does one biological step that doesn't result and any functional difference until it reaches 50 steps persist. The point I think you are missing is how does it know to remove the undesireable trait when it doesn't yet know what it is to become??? And if the positive trait does appear, it appeared randomly before it could be selected.
    In the Ising ferromagnet example, where did the magnet come from? Why does it only point up or down? Does it land in the up or down positions randomly?

    Let's get back the issue at hand and use a more fitting example. A heard of brown moths are doing just fine in a wooded area impacted by drought for many years. Concealed on the brown plants they flourish. All of sudden, Al Gore monkeys with things and torrential rains blanket the wooded area. The plants turn green almost over night and the near sighted speckled finches now see brown moths all over the place. A moth feedy frenzy ensues and all the moths are eaten. But wait, a few moths survive!!! The moths with the "greenback" RANDOM mutation survive. Since the nearsighted finches are unable to locate them on a fly by. The god of natural selection creates!! But wait a second, where did the greenback moth come from?? Did the greenback mutation just happen? Is a greenback more complex than a brownback? Are white people more complex than black people??? Which came first? The chicken or the egg? If you can't anser those questions, please just answer this... was the moth color mutation random? I'm not sure how you return to the "miracle" of natural selection so easily or how you could ever say random forces aren't the only factor in your argument because without the randomly generated mutations, Natural Selection is simply a non-issue.

    ReplyDelete
  36. Thorton,

    If there are millions of examples of a live species moving from a less complex state to a more complex state, i.e., not a horizontal change but a vertical change, then please, instead of saying there are millions of examples, I would just be satisfied with just getting ONE example direct from YOU.

    ReplyDelete
  37. Nonsense! Talk to any farmer and they will tell you what can be achieved through the selection process. Every year, take the biggest pigs and allow them and only them to reproduce and, over time, the average size of a pig in your herd will increase.

    Or look at dog breeding. Look how many breeds a single species can be shaped into. Look how different they can be.

    Yes these results were achieved through artificial selection rather than natural selection, but the concept is exactly the same.


    Really? The intelligent intervention of a mind which selects based on an as-yet-unrealized future goal is exactly the same as that of unguided "Natural Selection"?

    How...interesting.

    ReplyDelete
  38. Ritchie said: "Nonsense! Talk to any farmer and they will tell you what can be achieved through the selection process. Every year, take the biggest pigs and allow them and only them to reproduce and, over time, the average size of a pig in your herd will increase.

    Or look at dog breeding. Look how many breeds a single species can be shaped into. Look how different they can be."

    Ritchie,

    Just how many generations of dog breeders do you think it would take to breed a German Shepherd into an elephant? I mean does an elephants trunk start out as a wart on the dogs nose? Okay, let's quit joking and say a piece of skin pops up on one of the dog's nose. Now we have to get on the internet and find some one else with a dog with a extra piece of skin on its nose. We fly the other dog in and breed them. Now we just have to wait around for a few more million years for the skin to mutate into a tube like structure. And then a few more million years for it to add some muscle so it can grasp a peanut. But wait a second!!! our dog breeder is looking for things that look like a trunk because he wants to wind up with a trunk in the end. What reason does the NS god have to keep the skin tag on the dog nose around???? Things that make you go "hmmmm".

    ReplyDelete
  39. Ultimate Reality said...

    If there are millions of examples of a live species moving from a less complex state to a more complex state, i.e., not a horizontal change but a vertical change, then please, instead of saying there are millions of examples, I would just be satisfied with just getting ONE example direct from YOU.


    Define what you mean by 'less complex state' and 'more complex state'. Define the difference between 'horizontal' and 'vertical' change. I never mentioned those terms, certainly nothing about 'millions of examples', and have no idea what you're blithering about.

    ReplyDelete
  40. Ultimate reality -

    Your statement is just plain madness.

    You think so because you do not understand it properly.

    How did the heads and tails get on the coin in the first place? And once they were there, it is a random act that determines which one faces up.

    That's why we call the mutations 'random'.

    It's really quite simple: individual creatures recombine and pass on their genes when they reproduce. Sometimes there are errors in this copying process and mutations occur. That's all mutations are - errors.

    Now ignoring that not all mutations have an effect (in fact, many don't) any effect a mutation has - that is, if it is 'expressed', will either have a beneficial or detrimental effect on the creature's ability to survive and reproduce. The ones with beneficial mutations will be more likely to survive and pass on their genes, and the ones with detrimental ones will be more likely to die off without having done so. This is natural selection - the filtering of bad mutations out of the gene pool.

    Also, I would love for anyone posting here just to give me ONE example of an organism moving from a less complex state to a more complex state.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._coli_long-term_evolution_experiment

    The point I think you are missing is how does it know to remove the undesireable trait when it doesn't yet know what it is to become?

    Natural selection doesn't 'know' anything. You might as well ask how gravity 'knows' to pull a dropped object down.

    But wait a second, where did the greenback moth come from?? Did the greenback mutation just happen?

    Well in this (I imagine fictitious) scenario, not every moth is uniformally brown, is it? Some are better camouflaged than others, which is the survival issue, after all. Those who are slightly more greeny-brown will have an advantage over others, and thus a selection pressure is born.

    was the moth color mutation random?

    All mutations are random.

    ReplyDelete
  41. Matteo -

    Really? The intelligent intervention of a mind which selects based on an as-yet-unrealized future goal is exactly the same as that of unguided "Natural Selection"?

    How...interesting.


    Cute. And yes, that is why we call it 'artificial' selection.

    Darwin's great insight was merely that nature does this too! We can consciously select for traits, but in the wild, traits which help a species survive will thrive. That's all.

    ReplyDelete
  42. UR -

    Just how many generations of dog breeders do you think it would take to breed a German Shepherd into an elephant?

    You would never get an elephant.

    Dogs and elephants parted company genetically millions of years ago, and have been on their own seperate routes ever since.

    Okay, let's quit joking and say a piece of skin pops up on one of the dog's nose. Now we have to get on the internet and find some one else with a dog with a extra piece of skin on its nose. We fly the other dog in and breed them. Now we just have to wait around for a few more million years for the skin to mutate into a tube like structure. And then a few more million years for it to add some muscle so it can grasp a peanut. But wait a second!!! our dog breeder is looking for things that look like a trunk because he wants to wind up with a trunk in the end. What reason does the NS god have to keep the skin tag on the dog nose around???? Things that make you go "hmmmm".

    It might make you go 'hmmmm'. Actually, it might make me say the same thing, but not for the reasons you think...

    In answer to your question, firstly, a creature with a mutation does not need to find a partner with an identical mutation to breed with. A man with a genetic mutation for, say, red eyes, stands a good chance of passing this on even if the mother of his children has normal eyes.

    Secondly, you seem to assume NS has foresight. It does not. Darwin explain this quite clearly in Origin of the Species. Evolution takes gradual steps, and AT EVERY STEP, a feature needs to be useful or it will be eliminated by NS. So why would evolution favour a dog's nose getting longer if it served no function until it was long enough to reach the ground? All the intermediary steps would be useless.

    In the case of the elephant, it was not the trunk that grew until it reach the ground - it was merely the elephant that got tall. The trunk reached the ground - and therefore remained useful - the whole time.

    ReplyDelete
  43. Ultimate Reality said...

    Just how many generations of dog breeders do you think it would take to breed a German Shepherd into an elephant? I mean does an elephants trunk start out as a wart on the dogs nose? Okay, let's quit joking and say a piece of skin pops up on one of the dog's nose. Now we have to get on the internet and find some one else with a dog with a extra piece of skin on its nose. We fly the other dog in and breed them. Now we just have to wait around for a few more million years for the skin to mutate into a tube like structure. And then a few more million years for it to add some muscle so it can grasp a peanut. But wait a second!!! our dog breeder is looking for things that look like a trunk because he wants to wind up with a trunk in the end. What reason does the NS god have to keep the skin tag on the dog nose around???? Things that make you go "hmmmm".


    I'll bet you didn't know there are other extant species that have 'intermediate' prehensile snouts shorter and less mobile than an elephant's trunk.

    tapir nose

    ReplyDelete
  44. Lino -

    Other than calling people names, do you have any way of buttressing your assertions with facts?

    I apologise if you think my reply to you was rude. But I was trying to make you understand NS as a process. Please read over my post to you again. The point I made was sincere.

    ReplyDelete
  45. Venture Free:

    The most common example of this is the creationist canard that Natural Selection is incapable of generating new information, it can only weed out bad information.

    I know it sounds crazy, but that is your theory. No teleology allowed, remember? So this isn’t a “creationist canard,” it is merely your own absurdity being repeated back to you. At this point you are simply in denial of your own words.

    Here’s a gentle reminder of your theory. Random events cause biological change which sometimes luckily strikes gold and new wonders arise. During this process, natural selection (through the action of differential reproduction) filters out some of the random changes. Natural selection does not induce certain random events to happen. Evolutionary theory places a firewall between the two. The existence of a need does not induce the needed change to occur. Hence natural selection works on changes that have already happened, not about to happen.

    So natural selection does not cause the sequence of incredibly unlikely mutations, which will bring about a fantastic design to occur. Every single one of those mutations had to occur via a process that knew nothing of the need, of the fitness landscape, of design principles of biology, and so forth. Every single random event was just that, a random event, which somehow led to the giraffe and a million other designs.

    ReplyDelete
  46. GEM: : First, what we do know per adequate warrant should not ever be blocked by what we do not (yet -- or even may never) know.

    Yet, "until you have a viable organism, you have no possibility of effective reproduction"? Neo-darwinism isn't abiogenesis.

    GEM: We know enough to know that we have empirically warranted and reliable signs of design as key causal factor,

    Perhaps you could elaborate on what you mean by "adequate warrant"? I'm asking because no one has actually applied ID to anything concrete, in practice, in a rigorous, comprehensive way. Of course, feel free to provide such an example. Any example, in fact.

    Until then, it would seem you must be referring to some other means of justification.

    You wouldn't happen to be referring to divine revelation? Or perhaps, you mean that every time we've observed dFSCI being created, it was by an intelligent designer. Therefore all dFSCI requires an intelligent designer? But that's naive inductivism. For example, every time we've seen intelligence and intent, it was by a being that had a complex, material nervous system. Yet I'm guessing you do not think all intelligence and intent requires a complex, material nervous system.

    So, I'm at a loss as to what you mean by adequate warrant.

    GEM: 6: As for where does knowledge come from, the answer to that is the same as the answer to where reasoning and knowing minds come from.

    Which is a "sadly predictable" equivocation to the question I asked.

    Again, I'm not asking where knowledge was previously *located* before it found it's way into the genome. I'm asking how it was created. It seems you're having difficulty differentiating between the two.

    GEM: One thing is sure, [knowledge] is not credibly a product of chance variation and behaviourally-driven selection forces acting on configurations of matter that happen to be located in skulls, for many reasons.

    Then, by all means, please enlighten us. How was the knowledge of how to build each species created? What is your specific criticism to conjecture and refutation? You find it personally objectionable? A voice a whirl wind told you otherwise?

    Quote: It seems to me immensely unlikely that mind is a mere by-product of matter. For if my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true.

    First, this is merely an appeal to a particular level of reductivism.

    Second, the history of science justifies a conclusion that reality conforms to our intuitions and incredulities, how? Please be specific.

    Third, apparently, you think bad explanations (shallow and easily varied explanations) are true. However, If this is indeed the case, how do you explain our relatively recent and rapid increase in the creation of knowledge? Given that we estimate hominids with roughly the same brain structures as ours have existed for roughly 100,000 years, what made the difference between tens of thousands of years of stagnation and our recent, open ended, rapid increase in the creation of knowledge?

    Did God just decide one day that we should start creating knowledge, therefore we magically did?

    Again, I'd suggest that the difference is that we've shifted to prefer long chains of hard to vary explanations (good explanations). And we explain our success in that the truth about reality consists of hard to vary assertions about the physical world, which is, again, a good explanation, in that it's hard to vary.

    "God did it" is a bad explanation, which we discard.

    ReplyDelete
  47. Thorton:

    Hey CH, you were so busy blustering out the empty rhetoric to the IDiot peanut gallery that you completely forgot to address the salient points.

    Where is the heritability in your strawman model?


    Evolutionists have wrapped their theory with so much flowery terminology they’ve completely lost sight of what is really underneath the disguise. Like natural selection, heritability is not a magic elixir. Heritability does not magically induce the right mutations or other random events to occur. Mutations can be passed on to later generations, but heritability does not cause the right mutations to occur.

    Sorry but those random events have to create the giraffe all on their own.

    ReplyDelete
  48. Hunter: Like natural selection, heritability is not a magic elixir.

    No one says it is a magic elixir. It is a major component of biological evolution.

    Heritability does not magically induce the right mutations or other random events to occur.

    It does not. Heritability's role is different. It preserves the results previously achieved. That is part of the reason why evolution is not a random search.

    Sorry but those random events have to create the giraffe all on their own.

    Random mutations alone would take an exponentially long time to get to a functional genom sequence. Random mutations coupled with heritability and natural selection take a much shorter, algebraic time, to do the same. The vast difference in the required times explains why it is preposterous to dismiss heritability and natural selection as irrelevant.

    ReplyDelete
  49. oleg:

    You missed the point, Cornelius. Deliberately or otherwise, but miss the point you did. Your criticism of the role of natural selection boils down to ridicule:

    No, I’m not the one who missed the point. Nothing in your reasoning changes the fact that natural selection does not induce the right mutations, and that random events—which have no idea of biological principles, the current state of the biosphere, or a giraffe—alone must construct the giraffe, from beginning to end. Sure, I can crank out a simulation with my favorite assumptions, and in short order demonstrate that the human species could evolve in a reasonable time. Aside from the fact that such simulations have little correspondence with biological reality, even they retain the firewall between the random events and the selection.

    ReplyDelete
  50. Cornelius Hunter said...

    Evolutionists have wrapped their theory with so much flowery terminology they’ve completely lost sight of what is really underneath the disguise. Like natural selection, heritability is not a magic elixir. Heritability does not magically induce the right mutations or other random events to occur. Mutations can be passed on to later generations, but heritability does not cause the right mutations to occur.


    CH still following the standard Creationist stupid strawman script I see. Demanding that each individual piece of the process do the whole job.

    "random mutations can't create giraffes!"

    "natural selection can't create giraffes!"

    "heritable traits can't produce giraffes!"

    But never being honest enough to discuss the interaction of all three working in concert.

    Sorry but those random events have to create the giraffe all on their own.

    No CH, they don't. The iterative process of genetic variation filtered by selection and carrying forward heritable traits does, and has.

    Is the DI's paltry cash stipend worth selling out your integrity CH? How much did you get for it?

    ReplyDelete
  51. oleg:

    Random mutations alone would take an exponentially long time to get to a functional genome sequence. Random mutations coupled with heritability and natural selection take a much shorter, algebraic time, to do the same. The vast difference in the required times explains why it is preposterous to dismiss heritability and natural selection as irrelevant.

    You’re addressing the different question of the fitness landscape and the evolution path from fish to giraffe. Yes, of course, without selection acting at all, then evolution never gets anywhere except by hitting on most all of the right design parameters at once. Even evolutionists don’t envision that, and nowhere did I suggest such an idea.

    ReplyDelete
  52. Hunter: Nothing in your reasoning changes the fact that natural selection does not induce the right mutations, and that random events—which have no idea of biological principles, the current state of the biosphere, or a giraffe—alone must construct the giraffe, from beginning to end.

    That's patently wrong. Random mutations acting alone (no selection and no heritability) would have to start from scratch every time. Heritability means that the work of previous random mutations (selected for fitness) is preserved. New random mutations occur in an organism with high fitness.

    ReplyDelete
  53. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  54. oleg said...

    That's patently wrong. Random mutations acting alone (no selection and no heritability) would have to start from scratch every time. Heritability means that the work of previous random mutations (selected for fitness) is preserved. New random mutations occur in an organism with high fitness.


    CH knows that all very well. He's just feeding the IDiot sycophants their nightly does of Creationist strawman stupidity to keep them happy and clicking on his link.

    Not very intellectually honest but hey - if they were honest they wouldn't be Creationists.

    ReplyDelete
  55. Oleg:

    That's patently wrong. Random mutations acting alone (no selection and no heritability) would have to start from scratch every time. Heritability means that the work of previous random mutations (selected for fitness) is preserved. New random mutations occur in an organism with high fitness.

    Yes, agreed. And irrelevant. If there was no such thing as heritable changes, and if there was no such thing as selection, then yes, things would be much, much worse. But I’m not using such an unrealistic hypothetical as the point of reference.

    Imagine if you promoted a perpetual motion machine, and you thought the lightweight metal was particularly important. I criticized the machine, pointing out that the metal isn’t going to help create a perpetual motion machine. You then criticize my criticism because, after all, the metal holds the contraption together.

    So yes, the metal does serve a purpose, and it does help the machine from being a complete failure. But it doesn’t make it a perpetual motion machine.

    The difference is you believe that given heritable changes and selection, it’s all just as easy as a Monte Carlo simulation. You think that typically the fitness space is chocked full of nice smooth, gradually increasing slopes and pathways leading to millions and millions of species, so all you need are those random events to churn away, and pretty soon your turning out all kinds of biological designs. If that were true, then sure, evolution would be far more rational.

    ReplyDelete
  56. Ritchie said: "You would never get an elephant.
    Dogs and elephants parted company genetically millions of years ago, and have been on their own seperate routes ever since."

    How do you know when they parted company? All your theories are guesses. You can't say anything happened in the distant past with 100% confidence because you weren't there. I was obviously borrowing from Provines statement in the Stanford debate that given enough time, a dog could be become an elephant (what a joke). What your theory, which is devoid of all rational thinking, states is somehow that elephant came from a single cell organism (We won't get into how the single cell organism got there because your high priest Dawkins has already admitted he has no clue.) Don't you think I was giving you the benefit of the doubt giving you a headstart with the dog?

    "In answer to your question, firstly, a creature with a mutation does not need to find a partner with an identical mutation to breed with."

    Sorry. Haven't had a chance to finish reading Genetics For Dummies.

    "In the case of the elephant, it was not the trunk that grew until it reach the ground - it was merely the elephant that got tall."

    Again, next time you fire up the time machine I would like to go for a ride. There are absolutely no transitional fossils to support your argument. Well, that is, at least no examples that your materialist priest haven't filled in the blanks on with made up information like you are doing now. I'm mot falling for your assumptive language "Jedi mind trick".

    "Evolution takes gradual steps, and AT EVERY STEP, a feature needs to be useful or it will be eliminated by NS."

    You do know that materialist don't buy into this anymore right? Punctuated Equilibrium is the new theory because there is simply no fossil evidence to support Darwin's claim.

    Thorton said: "I'll bet you didn't know there are other extant species that have 'intermediate' prehensile snouts shorter and less mobile than an elephant's trunk."

    Well, yes I did. I saw an ardvark at the same zoo I saw the elephant at. This still doesn't answer the question as to how the complex structure evolves through all the millions of intermediate micro stages without being naturally selected out.

    Time is really the great god of the Darwinian myth. But really, how much time are we talking here. If we assume an extinction event with the dinosaurs, how much time have we really had for all these random, functional mutations to pop up out of nowhere.

    ReplyDelete
  57. kairosocus (gordon elliott mullings of Montserrat) insanely and dishonestly barfed:

    "As he put it, such are led to imagine that "the highest right is might" and resort to irresponsible faction tactics. As you just did.)

    For, I see you cannot resist trying to harm me through attempted outing tactics, KNOWING that I have pointed out why though my identity and contact are available, they are to be used responsibly, not tossed out for every spammer or would be stalker.

    You just joined the circle of those who threatened my family.

    Sadly revealing."

    ----------------------------

    Hey, gordon elliott mullings of Montserrat, I don't see any threat. Where is it? Maybe you can show it? And while you're at it, let's see you show where I and others have "threatened" your "family". You've accused me many times of threatening your family "Mafioso style", so let's see those alleged "Mafioso style" threats, gordon elliott mullings of Montserrat.

    After all, I'd hate to think that you, gordon elliott mullings of Montserrat, are a blatant, WILLFUL LIAR. A 'good christian' like you, gordon elliott mullings of Montserrat, wouldn't stoop to blatantly, WILLFULLY LYING to falsely smear, insult, attack, demonize, and accuse innocent people, would you, gordon elliott mullings of Montserrat?

    Oh heck no, you, gordon elliott mullings of Montserrat, a god fearing, bible believing, evangelical, fundamentalist, creationist, 'moral' man of god wouldn't even THINK of stooping to something so amoral, vicious, malicious, dishonest, false, UN-christian-like, and LOW. After all, you, gordon elliott mullings of Montserrat, are the very image of the righteousness and morality of your perfect god, aren't you, and stooping to such things would only show that you, gordon elliott mullings of Montserrat, are a malignantly narcisstic, sanctimonious, two-faced, corrupt, amoral, malicious, vicious, phony, mentally deranged, egotistical, psychotic, UN-christian-like, LYING LOWLIFE.

    Your pathetic "I'm a persecuted victim just like my imaginary hero jesus' act is not only old, but insane, dishonest, and contrived, and as far from reality as it's possible to be. You, gordon elliott mullings of Montserrat, are a thoroughly WILLFUL LIAR, and your christian comrades are just as dishonest for not reprimanding you, gordon elliott mullings of Montserrat, for your despicable, 'evil' behavior.

    ReplyDelete
  58. Cornelius Hunter said...

    Imagine if you promoted a perpetual motion machine, and you thought the lightweight metal was particularly important. I criticized the machine, pointing out that the metal isn’t going to help create a perpetual motion machine. You then criticize my criticism because, after all, the metal holds the contraption together.


    Except no one is promoting a fantasy perpetual motion machine. We're calling you on your deliberate misrepresentation of an empirically observed multi-part process. Your continued refusal to honestly portray the process is an embarrassment to both you and your scientific credentials.

    ReplyDelete
  59. Thorton,

    You guys seem to lack prehensile brains on this topic. Random is random. What happens after doesn't change that.

    ReplyDelete
  60. Ultimate Reality said...

    Again, next time you fire up the time machine I would like to go for a ride. There are absolutely no transitional fossils to support your argument.


    Oh dear. Another Creationist long on rhetoric but woefully short on scientific knowledge:

    Elephant evolutionary history

    Maybe someday we'll get a creationist come by who researches before popping off. But not today.

    ReplyDelete
  61. Ultimate Reality said...

    Thorton, You guys seem to lack prehensile brains on this topic. Random is random. What happens after doesn't change that.


    OK then, let's play a game of poker. You get dealt 5 cards at random and have to keep them. I get dealt 5 cards, but I get to add selection and heritability. I get to discard and randomly redraw as many times as I want until I'm happy with my hand.

    Do you think we each have a 50-50 chance of winning? Since all our cards are random we should have the same chance, right?

    ReplyDelete
  62. Thorton,
    If you think calling me a creationists is a sensationl, original putdown that I have never heard before, well then, you would be even more ignorant than I initially thought. Last time I checked, this argument was related to intelligent design. Your assertion that all ID theorists are creationists is basically a prejudicial statement and akin to stating "all blacks live in public housing", especially since race and religion are given equal protection under federal law.

    And double wow!! You are foolish enough to think that a few chaps studied a fossil skull and determined it was similar enough to the modern day elephant that it MUST be his ancester. This is just typically of the "fill in the blank" and "it's fact because we think it is" so called science that makes up your religion.

    ReplyDelete
  63. OK then, let's play a game of poker. You get dealt 5 cards at random and have to keep them. I get dealt 5 cards, but I get to add selection and heritability. I get to discard and randomly redraw as many times as I want until I'm happy with my hand.

    Because nothing illustrates the power of NS like invoking poker-playing intelligent agents.

    ReplyDelete
  64. Thorton says: "OK then, let's play a game of poker. You get dealt 5 cards at random and have to keep them. I get dealt 5 cards, but I get to add selection and heritability. I get to discard and randomly redraw as many times as I want until I'm happy with my hand.

    Do you think we each have a 50-50 chance of winning? Since all our cards are random we should have the same chance, right?

    The probability of you winning has no bearing on this discussion. Both our hands were still random. But really, the biggest fallacy of your argument is "what is a winning hand?!?!?!" Do you only have one chance to discard? There would be no reason to hold on to a 2, 3, and 4 card unless you knew the next draw could result in the possible outcome of a straight!! Why can't you understand that??? By the way, do you know the definition of personification?

    ReplyDelete
  65. After reading several of the posts again, several have stated the fallacy that negative traits don't persist. My question for you is.. then how does "love" and homosexuality persist in homo sapien?? You see, the love neuron mutation should have been destroyed by NS millions of years ago. Think Tale of Two Cities. How could one man die and allow another man to propagate his dna in the dead man's place all for the sake of love? And surely the homosexual gene would have been done away with by natural selection millions of years ago as well since the last time I checked, the act of sodomy cannot result in reproduction of the species and therefore, dna of members of the species engaging in homosexual behaviour would not have survived.

    ReplyDelete
  66. Ultimate Reality said...

    Your assertion that all ID theorists are creationists is basically a prejudicial statement


    LOL at "ID theorists"! You have to have a theory before you can have a theorist UR. ID doesn't have a theory, it doesn't even have a testable hypothesis.

    And double wow!! You are foolish enough to think that a few chaps studied a fossil skull and determined it was similar enough to the modern day elephant that it MUST be his ancester.

    Double LOL! Sure UR, that's the way science is done. It's not thousands of scientists putting in millions of hours of peer reviewed research on morphologies and dentition and genetics. It's a couple of guys sitting around the bar having a few cold ones going "say Clyde, y'all recon that looks like an elephant?" "Yep Jim Bob, let's call it an "ancester"

    You've never been anywhere near a college level science classroom in your life, right?

    ReplyDelete
  67. Ultimate Reality said...

    The probability of you winning has no bearing on this discussion. Both our hands were still random.


    If both are hands are still random then why won't you bet me? I'll even limit myself to one discard and redraw per hand. $1000 buy in each, best of 100 hands, winner take all. Ready to put your money where your mouth is?

    Or are you now going to change your tune and agree that selection plus heritability does produce better results than just random draws alone?

    ReplyDelete
  68. Except for the science classes I had to take for my mechanical engineering degree from the Universtiy of Arizona, then no. The sad thing is that you equate universities as having cornered the market on science. I would encourage you to watch the movie Expelled so you can wake up to the reality of the "open thought" and their committment to embrace the hard questions that goes in our modern "educational" institutions(NOT!!!) of which I am guessing you are a brainwashed, biased product of. I do remember one basic thing I was taught in a lab class and that is you can't expect to perform a legitimate experiment if you think you already know what the outcome should be. When an experiment doesn't fit with your materialist religion, you just throw it out and start over right? I can just hear you right now "This data can't be right!! If this is right, then that means that someone or some thing designed this and that can't be right. We obviously made a mistake with the data."

    ReplyDelete
  69. Thorton, you seriously don't get it. Try reading this again.

    There would be no reason to hold on to a 2, 3, and 4 card unless you knew the next draw could result in the possible outcome of a straight!!

    Sure I will bet you. Then when we show our cards, I will just claim a 10, Jack, 3, 7, and Ace of different suits are a winning hand. Your irrelevant example assumes to know what the winning hand is before the selection takes place. Understand?

    ReplyDelete
  70. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  71. Ultimate Reality said...

    After reading several of the posts again, several have stated the fallacy that negative traits don't persist. My question for you is.. then how does "love" and homosexuality persist in homo sapien??


    Love and homosexuality aren't negative traits.

    And surely the homosexual gene would have been done away with by natural selection millions of years ago as well since the last time I checked, the act of sodomy cannot result in reproduction of the species

    Homosexuality does not equal sodomy. Your ignorance and bigotry are showing again.

    and therefore, dna of members of the species engaging in homosexual behaviour would not have survived.

    Go look up kin selection. You don't have to reproduce if your presence helps your kin survive and pass on the same genes you carry.

    ReplyDelete
  72. The two men in Tale of Two Cities weren't related.

    And why do you even care about any of this anyways. Your life is meaningless. Your mere existence is an accident. When you die you will be completely dead. You don't have free will so even engaging in this discussion is quite silly. If I were you, instead of wasting your time arguing with a bunch of ignoramus like us, I would be out trying to propogate my dna. For what purpose I really don't know, but at least I would be following my instinct.

    ReplyDelete
  73. Ultimate Reality said...

    There would be no reason to hold on to a 2, 3, and 4 card unless you knew the next draw could result in the possible outcome of a straight!!


    So? My knowledge is part of the natural environment that affects selection. You say selection doesn't matter, so why do you care?

    Sure I will bet you. Then when we show our cards, I will just claim a 10, Jack, 3, 7, and Ace of different suits are a winning hand.

    Nope, no cheating allowed. We both play by the identical rules except I get to draw and discard. Selection and heritability are the only parameters we are testing so they're the only parameters that get varied. You say they don't matter, I say they do. Why won't you agree to that game?

    ReplyDelete
  74. By the way, while I appreciate your ideology, I was a police officer for 10 years and worked undercover in vice for 2 years. I never met anyone who claimed to be a homosexual that it didn't always wind up boililng down to their sexual behaviour. So your assertion that it isn't about sex defies ALL logic. Call it bigotry if you want to but the fact I stated is is based on science, not the brainwashing by the PC movement you have obviously succumbed to.

    ReplyDelete
  75. Thorton, what are you? About 19 years old? I'm 45. Son, I don't have the patience to argue with someone that hasn't yet embraced rational thinking. I will say it one more time just because I really want you to get this.

    "Nope, no cheating allowed. We both play by the identical rules except I get to draw and discard"

    Okay, I agree we will play to the same rules. You can draw and discard as many times as you want, but you aren't allowed to know what constitutes a winning hand until after you've done finished drawing and discarding. Fair enough?

    ReplyDelete
  76. Thorton said: "Go look up kin selection. You don't have to reproduce if your presence helps your kin survive and pass on the same genes you carry."

    Wait a second here. Do my kin have the homosexual gene too? How are they passing on the same gene if they aren't engaging in reproductive sex? Seriously.

    ReplyDelete
  77. Ultimate Reality said...

    The two men in Tale of Two Cities weren't related.


    Sure they were. They were both humans. Go look up altruistic behavior.

    And why do you even care about any of this anyways.

    I enjoy science and correcting dumb creationist claims.

    Your life is meaningless.

    LOL! Hardly.

    Your mere existence is an accident.

    Actually no, my folks were trying for me. My youngest sister however...

    When you die you will be completely dead.

    As we all will be.

    You don't have free will so even engaging in this discussion is quite silly.

    Then maybe I was predestined to point out creationist nonsense.

    If I were you, instead of wasting your time arguing with a bunch of ignoramus like us, I would be out trying to propogate my dna.

    Who says I haven't? ;)

    ReplyDelete
  78. Ultimate Reality said...

    Okay, I agree we will play to the same rules. You can draw and discard as many times as you want, but you aren't allowed to know what constitutes a winning hand until after you've done finished drawing and discarding. Fair enough?


    Nope. We both play by the identical standard rules of poker except I get to draw and discard. That's the only variable.

    You still claim that selection and heritability give me no advantage?

    ReplyDelete
  79. Ultimate Reality said...

    Thorton said: "Go look up kin selection. You don't have to reproduce if your presence helps your kin survive and pass on the same genes you carry."

    Wait a second here. Do my kin have the homosexual gene too? How are they passing on the same gene if they aren't engaging in reproductive sex? Seriously.


    Studies have shown that are many factors which affect a person's sexual orientation - environmental factors such as hormone imbalances in the mother's womb, birth order, etc. All the evidence shows there is also a small but non-negligible heritable genetic component to same-sex attraction. The genes don't "cause" same-sex attraction per se but may make one more susceptible to the other environmental factors. Go look up recessive genes to understand how traits don't have to be expressed in every individual to be passed genetically.

    No one consciously chooses their sexual orientation any more than they choose to be right or left handed.

    ReplyDelete
  80. You still claim that selection and heritability give me no advantage?

    I guess I am failing to communicate. If a straight is the FUNCTIONAL trait, it won't be FUNCTIONAL unit it is fully developed. When we encouter one of the steps to get to the fully functional trait, the straight, such as three consecutive cards, how would you know which cards to discard???? NS can't decide to keep part of the straight because the straight hasn't fully developed yet for the NS to determine it is functional and keep it around prior to it existing as a full straight. A partial straight wins you nothing. Now do you get it?

    ReplyDelete
  81. gordon elliott mullings of Montserrat spewed:

    "Just ask yourself, where you got the intelligence from that enabled you to post snide comments here, and why you did not have to struggle with random walks across vast config spaces to do it."

    Are you, gordon elliott mullings of Montserrat, saying that Thorton (or anyone else) was born with the knowledge of how to post comments here?

    "If your point was "who designed the designer," that is a red herring, as we can know that your post, though full of malice, is an intelligent artifact from its dFSCI."

    No, gordon elliott mullings of Montserrat, you're the one tossing out red herrings, and a lot of other irrelevant nonsense, and you're evading Thorton's actual question.

    Regardless of whether there's so-called "dFSCI" in Thorton's post or not, your bald assertions about your necessary being designer god, and fine tuning, etc., are non-evidential and unsupported. There's a lot more to science than trying to sound sciency.

    "As for your goldfish, it is plainly well beyond 100 mn bits of info, from its DNA. (The smallest known vertebrate genome is 385 million bases, a puffer fish.) That is of course orders of magnitude beyond the 1000 bits threshold, and indicates that the Goldfish's body plan [i.e. the Carp's body plan] is best explained as designed."

    You, gordon elliott mullings of Montserrat, sure do try hard to make it sound as though your "1000 bits threshold" (or 500 or whatever other number you pull out of some orifice) is some sort of scientifically established and accepted standard that somehow proves that your imaginary god designed and created the universe and everything in it. Trouble is, you, gordon elliott mullings of Montserrat, haven't established any such thing.

    "You know as well as I that if a goldfish has descendants, its functional organisation and associated information are passed on to the next generation. Its own body, after death, obviously, becomes functionally disorganised through the normal processes of decay, which are strongly linked to entropy."

    So, gordon elliott mullings of Montserrat, when are you going to answer Thorton's question and actually calculate the alleged "dFSCO/I" in a goldfish, and when are you going to answer his other questions:

    "Does the dFSCO/I of the goldfish change when it dies? If so, where does the dFSCO/I go?"

    By the way, gordon elliott mullings of Montserrat, are you saying that when a goldfish mates with another goldfish and passes on its "functional organisation and associated information" ("dFSCO/I"), that it no longer has any "dFSCO/I" of its own anymore? If so, how does it function and even mate with other goldfish? And if you, gordon elliott mullings of Montserrat, are not claiming that, then why does the goldfish eventually die if it still has "functional organisation and associated information" ("dFSCO/I") as allegedly designed and installed in it by your allegedly perfect, omnipotent, omniscient, necessary being designer/creator god? After all, if your chosen designer god (YHWH) is perfect, and is endowed with all power and all knowledge, then why does anything ever die and why does anything even have to mate to pass on its "dFSCO/I"? Why can't (or doesn't) your chosen designer god just poof new organisms into existence or at least set it up so that new, perfect organisms are just poofed into existence automatically, even when your chosen designer god is busy impregnating married virgins, or is busy ruthlessly wiping out vast amounts of people, animals, plants, etc., because it is mad at its own creations?

    See part two.

    ReplyDelete
  82. Thorton: "Studies have shown that are many factors which affect a person's sexual orientation - environmental factors such as hormone imbalances in the mother's womb, birth order, etc. All the evidence shows there is also a small but non-negligible heritable genetic component to same-sex attraction. The genes don't "cause" same-sex attraction per se but may make one more susceptible to the other environmental factors. Go look up recessive genes to understand how traits don't have to be expressed in every individual to be passed genetically.

    No one consciously chooses their sexual orientation any more than they choose to be right or left handed."

    Wait a second. You are saying two different things. Which is it? Wouldn't hormonal imbalances and birth order be genetically influenced too? Or are these mistakes, i.e., negative things.

    Actually, most REAL studies show a high incidence of the child being molested by a man before he goes on to exhibit same sex attraction. You libs can't have it both ways. Either it is nature or nurture, inherited or behavioural. Choose one.

    ReplyDelete
  83. Part two.

    I see that you, gordon elliott mullings of Montserrat, brought up "entropy" as though you actually know anything about it. Tell you what, gordon elliott mullings of Montserrat, why don't you go over to Panda's Thumb and try to baffle the scientists there. Here's a thread where you can try to show how brilliant you are:

    http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2011/11/granville-sewel-1.html

    You're not afraid to face them, are you, gordon elliott mullings of Montserrat?


    Stay tuned, gordon elliott mullings of Montserrat, I'm not done with you. :)

    ReplyDelete
  84. The whole truth, the source of your rage appears to be with the Judeo-Christian belief that the God of the Old Testament and the Designer are one in the same. Let's assume that the Designer is an Alien Being who exists outside of space, matter, time and energy. Now you can put away whatever oppression you feel you have suffered at the hands of Christianity, dispose of your RAGE, HATRED, and ANGER, and start addressing some of the arguments presented in this post like a rational human being instead of just making attacks.

    ReplyDelete
  85. No UR, you are not getting it.

    In the analogy the value of the hand represents the evolutionary fitness of the population. The discards represent the traits that are removed by natural selection. The kept cards represent the beneficial heritable traits that are maintained by selection and therefore and accumulate in the population.

    If all we have are random card deals the probabilities of getting a high value hand are small. But when we add the selection and the maintaining of the beneficial cards we can over time greatly increase the value of the hand.

    If evolution was only random mutations the probability of getting a population with a genome giving it high evolutionary fitness is small. But with evolution we get to keep the beneficial variations (they're selected for) and get to use them (they're heritable) as a basis for the following generations.

    We keep harping on CH because he keeps misrepresenting how evolution works. Evolution is a process that requires variation AND selection AND the keeping of heritable traits. In that regard it works the same way as draw poker.

    Do you get it now?

    ReplyDelete
  86. Ultimate Reality said...

    Wait a second. You are saying two different things. Which is it? Wouldn't hormonal imbalances and birth order be genetically influenced too? Or are these mistakes, i.e., negative things.


    No I'm not. Environmental factors aren't necessarily negative things but occur over a wide range of variations. There is a genetic component that helps determine how the environmental factors affect your sexual orientation. If you happen to get a particular combination of genetics and environment you develop non-hetero. Neither the genetic part nor the environmental part are anything you as the affected individual can control.

    Actually, most REAL studies show a high incidence of the child being molested by a man before he goes on to exhibit same sex attraction.

    100% complete bull. Please provide these studies from a professional peer-reviewed science journal. Not the unsupported claims of a Christian gay-bashing group like NARTH. Are you going to claim gay women were molested by women, and bisexual people molested by other bisexuals too?

    You libs can't have it both ways. Either it is nature or nurture, inherited or behavioural. Choose one.

    It's not an either or situation. Reality is not a black and white binary place. It's an analog place with an infinite number of shades of gray in-between.

    ReplyDelete
  87. No, I don't. Your analogy is flawed and doesn't work. How many "traits" make up a homo sapien? How many genes make up a trait? How many T's, G's, A's and C's make up a trait. I will give you a better analogy. Let's say I have a song 0n my iPod that, for the sake of argument consists of 1mb of 0's and 1's arranged in a specific order. Forget a song, let's assume it is audible instructions on how to bake a chocolate cake. So I start with a random 0 and 1 generator to try and duplicate the specific arrangement in my iPod. My trusty friend NS will monitor the process. After 10 years, half of the 0's and 1's are in the right place. You see each time the random generator generates, it generates a complete set of new 0's and 1's. Why you ask? Because the code isn't functional at this point and my friend NS can't figure out which 1's to keep and which ones to throw out. Now that we have half of the digits right, lets say we feed it through a D/A convertor, amplifier and transducer. Out comes some garbled tones but still no clear instructions for baking our chocolate cake. Do we keep this half right model or pitch it? So you see, your model is a stupidly over simplified version that has no application to what is going on at the molecular or biological level. You are preaching Darwins stupid simplified argument because the fool knew nothing of dna or the inner workings of the human cell. You need to update your argument, oh say, by about 155 years!!! Answer my questions with a real, dna-information-based, definition of what a trait constitutes and you and I can start to have discussion. Even so, that still won't have an affect on this...

    The mutations are still random!!! Just because NS SUPPOSEDLY keeps the good stuff and gets rid of the bad does not make it a guided process!!! Geez man! Let's just put "guided" in quotes then we can move on. It is all semantics anyway because it has no basis in logic or rational thought. Last try... if I generate a thousand letters of the alphabet in random order, each filling up spaces labeled 1 to 1000. And then I throw out all the letters that don't form 3-letter words. The words that remain: dog, hat, sit, etc. were still randomly generated!!! Even though me, Mr. NS, decided to only keep the letters that made sense.

    ReplyDelete
  88. UR said without thinking:

    "I do remember one basic thing I was taught in a lab class and that is you can't expect to perform a legitimate experiment if you think you already know what the outcome should be. When an experiment doesn't fit with your materialist religion, you just throw it out and start over right? I can just hear you right now "This data can't be right!! If this is right, then that means that someone or some thing designed this and that can't be right. We obviously made a mistake with the data.""

    That's hilarious coming from an IDC who has never conducted a scientific experiment regarding evolution but who has his delusional mind made up that he already knows what the outcome should and MUST be from legitimate scientific experiments: 'That data can't be right!! If that is right, then that means the ToE explains the diversification of life and that can't be right. It has to be illegitimate! Scientists obviously made a mistake with the experiment, the data, and/or the explanation. My chosen god-did-it and that settles it!'

    ReplyDelete
  89. "Are you going to claim gay women were molested by women, and bisexual people molested by other bisexuals too?"

    Nope. Men are almost always the molestors. Most young girls that are molested, absent of counseling, either choose lesbianism or act out sexually. But hey, why does any of this really matter anyway? Who cares if kids get molested? It is all natural, right? If the genetic urge exists in a man to have sex with a young girl then the only place that can come from is his dna. Sure, we can try and blame it on behaviour but behaviour comes from the mind right. Isn't the mind, even a twisted mind, just the result of a random unguided force? I mean, of course the molestors neurons didn't arrange like man but hey, can we fault him for what his dna did to his brain? Heck no!! So everything goes back to evolution. We are just a higher animal and since it was some cosmic accident that the first micro-organism crawled out of the slime, then it didn't matter when we came and it won't matter when we are gone. If we die in our sleep or at the hands of someone raping us, torturing us and dousing our body with gasoline, when its over either way we will cease to exist so it won't matter how we existed and it won't matter how we ceased to exist. I mean what is suffering really. Do you think a rabbit suffers when a wolf is eating it? But hey, a wolf's gotta eat right? And if I'm really hunger and I see an 80 year old women carrying a bag of groceries and I take a baseball bat and bash her skull in so I can eat, then wasn't I just thinning the heard? Natural Selection at its best. Hey, maybe Hitler was on to something. He thought he could help Natural Selection along. You know, get rid of all the genetic "debris" if you will. Weed out all the week and unattractive humans. Only the strong survive, right? Makes me think of that song... "And I think to myself, what a wonderful world. Yeah I think to myself, what a wonderful woooooo uuurld. Oh yeah."

    ReplyDelete
  90. Ultimate Reality, come back and post when you aren't drunk. You can't even write a coherent sentence right now.

    ReplyDelete
  91. Oops, don't look now whole truth, but your bias against religion is showing again. "My CHOSEN GOD-did-it and that settles it!" I distinctly don't remember referring to the Designer as god in any post above.

    You might want to work out your hate issues against Jews, Christians, Muslims or whatever it is and then come back when you can have a rational discussion without all this hate bias pushing your buttons.

    ReplyDelete
  92. What Thorton said was: "Ultimate Reality, come back and post when you aren't drunk. You can't even write a coherent sentence right now."

    What Thorton was really thinking: "Duh, which way did he go George. I don't have a response that shows I have all the answers so I'll just resort to put downs. Can we get some rabbits George? Or did those big bad wolves eat 'em all."

    ReplyDelete
  93. Hey Thorton, still waiting on your answer to the trait question. Oh and while you're at it, please let me know if you think homosexuals can't choose any more than they can choose right or left handed, does the same thing apply to murderers and molestors? Aren't we all just victims of our genetic code. No longer is it "the devil made me do it", we can just plug dna in for devil.

    ReplyDelete
  94. Thorton, do you disagree with this quote in theory. "Intelligent Selection can select functions even at very low levels. IS can recognize a function even in its raw manifestation, and then optimize it. NS requires that the function level be high enough that it can give the reproductive advantage at phenotipic level."

    ReplyDelete
  95. UR dishonestly said:

    "The whole truth, the source of your rage appears to be with the Judeo-Christian belief that the God of the Old Testament and the Designer are one in the same. Let's assume that the Designer is an Alien Being who exists outside of space, matter, time and energy. Now you can put away whatever oppression you feel you have suffered at the hands of Christianity, dispose of your RAGE, HATRED, and ANGER, and start addressing some of the arguments presented in this post like a rational human being instead of just making attacks."

    You're getting funnier by the minute, and more dishonest too. EVERYONE involved in the debate about ID knows that the alleged designer is the alleged god YHWH, the alleged abrahamic/judeo/christian god. NONE of you IDiots are fooling anyone with a clue with your dishonest "Alien Being who exists outside of space, matter, time and energy" garbage.

    Tell you what, let's see you say right here and now that you do not believe in the abrahamic/judeo/christian god and that you're not a christian, and that you don't believe that the abrahamic/judeo/christian god is the designer and creator of the universe and life and life's diversity, and that you don't believe that the bible or some other religious writings are the word of your god.

    ReplyDelete
  96. Thorton said: "Reality is not a black and white binary place. It's an analog place with an infinite number of shades of gray in-between."

    Wrong again. Ultimate Reality is actually a digital place. And it just so happens it isn't Binary, but a Quaternary place. Instead of 0 1 2 3 as digits, it uses A C G and T. There is nothing analog about it.

    ReplyDelete
  97. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  98. Angry irrationalist said: "NONE of you IDiots are fooling anyone with a clue with your dishonest "Alien Being who exists outside of space, matter, time and energy" garbage."

    I am not trying to fool anyone. If I was truly trying to "fool" you, I wouldn't have capitalized the A and the B. However, religious beliefs have no place in the PURELY SCIENTIFIC arguments of Intelligent Design. And why is that evolution is the only area of science where people are not allowed to question the data and the conclusions? I thought open dialog and dissenting opinions were healthy for science. But alas, the only ones clinging to their religion and lashing out militantly are the materialists. When their religion is attacked they go on the warpath. If you want to have discussion offline about my religious beliefs I would be more than happy to. But it really has no bearing on this discussion and the false claims made by followers of the phophet Darwin, or on the concrete scientific arguments that an intelligent source is the best explanation for the evidence we see all around us.

    ReplyDelete
  99. UR dishonestly said:

    "I am not trying to fool anyone. If I was truly trying to "fool" you, I wouldn't have capitalized the A and the B."

    What does capitalizing the A and B have to do with anything?

    I see that you're evading my challenge and won't admit that your motives are based on your religious beliefs. What a surprise. Not.

    Why don't you IDiots just be honest, and admit that you want to modify or replace science (or at least certain parts of it) with your religious agenda?

    "However, religious beliefs have no place in the PURELY SCIENTIFIC arguments of Intelligent Design."

    ID has no scientific arguments or evidence, "PURELY", "concrete" or otherwise. ID is strictly a religious, creationist agenda, dishonestly pretending to be scientific.

    "And why is that evolution is the only area of science where people are not allowed to question the data and the conclusions? I thought open dialog and dissenting opinions were healthy for science."

    Why is it that evolution/evolutionary theory is the number one area of science that you godbots "question" and vigorously oppose? It's the 'I ain't no ape, I was specially created in god's image' thing, right?

    People are welcome to question anything in science, but they shouldn't expect to be treated with respect when their questions, opposition, or attacks are dishonest, arrogant, uneducated, ignorant, and are based on fairy tale religious beliefs and a science destroying agenda.

    It's one thing to "question" or challenge scientific evidence and/or explanations, but quite another to try to sneak or force a religious 'inference' into science or to try to replace science altogether (or certain parts of it) with a totally non-scientific, non-evidential, religious and political agenda.

    A lot of scientific evidence, theories, inferences, hypotheses, methods, interpretations, explanations, etc., are questioned, challenged, and even opposed all the time, by scientists themselves. Scientists don't always agree, and some are very vocal about it, but that's okay, as long as their debates are based on reasonable interpretations and methods. The unreasonable interpretations and methods are usually apparent and are discarded (even if it takes awhile) in favor of more reasonable and substantiated evidence, interpretations, and methods.

    Science hasn't figured absolutely everything out and may never do so, but that does not mean that you IDiots can sneak in or force in your ridiculous religious beliefs. Even IF everything were wrong about the ToE, it would not mean that your religious beliefs are automatically the best explanation, and your religious fairy tales will never be the best 'scientific' explanation or a 'scientific' explanation in any way whatsoever. Religion is NOT science.

    See part two.

    ReplyDelete
  100. Part two.


    I think it's funny that you IDiots go on and on and on about how 'complex' nature is but you also expect science to have all the answers to every question RIGHT NOW, and if those answers are not available yet or if they just don't fit with your religious beliefs, you figure that you can cram your beliefs into the so-called 'gaps', even when the 'gaps' are not really there.

    If anyone is 'militant' it's you religious zealots who just won't keep your crazy beliefs to yourselves. You just won't leave science alone and will stop at nothing to destroy it (or at least certain parts of it). Of course you'd keep the parts that supply you with all the comforts and conveniences that you want and expect from science. The thing is, you'd find out that some of those things would go away if it weren't for naturalistic evolutionary theory, research, and development.

    A part of me almost wishes that you IDiots were successful with your agenda because then you'd only have each other to militantly 'conquer' to decide whose particular beliefs would prevail. You'd be killing each other in short order. You would also quickly find that 'god-did-it' isn't a good replacement for unrestricted, reality based science.

    ReplyDelete
  101. Here are some questions for any of you IDiots:

    If ID were assumed and accepted by science, EXACTLY how would it affect or change any scientific evidence, equipment, testing, experiment, research, inference, hypothesis, theory, or explanation, other than to add the words 'god-did-it' or 'the designer did it' here and there in scientific papers, books, TV shows, discussions, and lectures?

    EXACTLY what would it do to make any part of science more productive?

    EXACTLY what productive avenues of research and development would it open up that are allegedly closed now?

    EXACTLY which (or whose) version of ID should be assumed and accepted by science?

    Other than adding the useless 'god-did-it' label, EXACTLY what good would assuming and accepting ID do for science?

    ReplyDelete
  102. Onlookers:

    Enough has already been said to point out the dangerous, reckless irresponsibility of the sort of evolutionary materialist atheists we deal with.

    The above no-broughtupcy behaviour in response just underscores the point.

    Just remember, the above circle includes at least one person who threatened my wife and children, mafioso style [and is trying slanderous outing tactics to invite every spammer or stalker out there . . . ], and others who want to make light of that.

    Let that soak in, very very carefully.

    THAT is what we are dealing with.

    THAT is the level of behaviour and character we are dealing with.

    And, observe that such antics are their standard resort, whenever they think they can get away with it.

    In short, amoral nihilism.

    Precisely what Plato warned against as the consequence of such materialism.

    Beyond that, it should be obvious that I have highlighted BOTH the lack of a root to the darwinian tree of life model and its want of key branches, i.e. the actual fossil record and observations in the world today confirm a pattern of islands of function.

    The evolutionary materialists plainly have no cogent answer to the need to explain getting to islands of function but a priori imposition of evolutionary materialism, and hand waving.

    And enough has been linked that those who actually are serious minded can follow up for themselves.

    For record

    KF

    ReplyDelete
  103. The whole truth said...
    "Here are some questions for any of you IDiots:

    If ID were assumed and accepted by science, EXACTLY how would it affect or change any scientific evidence, equipment, testing, experiment, research, inference, hypothesis, theory, or explanation, other than to add the words 'god-did-it' or 'the designer did it' here and there in scientific papers, books, TV shows, discussions, and lectures?

    EXACTLY what would it do to make any part of science more productive?

    EXACTLY what productive avenues of research and development would it open up that are allegedly closed now?

    EXACTLY which (or whose) version of ID should be assumed and accepted by science?

    Other than adding the useless 'god-did-it' label, EXACTLY what good would assuming and accepting ID do for science?"

    If as the WT thinks ID beeing right do not add anything to our knoledge but "God did it" then also darwinism being right is adding only "God didn´t do it" as npthing change beeing wrong.
    As CH says "Religion drive science"

    ReplyDelete
  104. gordon elliott mullings of Montserrat drooled:

    "1: Ritchie, the point is that until you have a viable organism, you have no possibility of effective reproduction. That's why the question of arrival at body plans -- starting from OOL, the very first cell based C-chemistry aqueous medium life -- is so important. And of course, it needs noting that after coming on 60 years of serious trying now, the tree of life icon remains stubbornly rootless. And, as SJG highlighted in almost so many words, branch-less too."

    What needs noting is that you, gordon elliott mullings of Montserrat, have GOT to be joking. 60 years? Well la dee freaking da, I guess science might as well just give up. You religious zombies have had thousands of years to produce any evidence whatsoever that your chosen god exists and that it did and does all the things you claim it did or does. Do you have any actual, testable evidence to verify the alleged existence and deeds of your chosen designer god? Let's see your evidence of the 'roots', that verifies that your chosen designer god-did-it.

    And the ToE is concerned with evolution, not abiogenesis (OOL), but then you know that, don't you, gordon elliott mullings of Montserrat?

    "2: Scott: First, what we do know per adequate warrant should not ever be blocked by what we do not (yet -- or even may never) know. We know enough to know that we have empirically warranted and reliable signs of design as key causal factor, so we need to face the implications when they turn up in the digital code in life forms, and in the fine tuning of the cosmos that we observe that sets it up at a finely balanced operating point for C-chemistry, aqueous medium, cell based life, as was already linked above. So, since there's more than one way to skin a catfish, we should be willing to await results of nanotech investigations now in infancy before we start shooting off prematurely about just how designs of body plans could be made."

    You're really funny and severely two-faced too, gordon elliott mullings of Montserrat. Why aren't YOU, gordon elliott mullings of Montserrat, "willing to await results of nanotech investigations" or any other scientific investigations "now in infancy before" you "start shooting off prematurely about just how designs of body plans could be made"? You, gordon elliott mullings of Montserrat, have been "shooting off" your big fat mouth about your chosen christian god being the undeniable designer and creator of the universe, life, body plans, all of life's diversity, etc., for a very long time. And who's "we"?

    And if the the alleged "fine tuning of the cosmos that we observe that sets it up at a finely balanced operating point for C-chemistry, aqueous medium cell based life" is true, and especially if your chosen god's goal was and is to create and produce humans to worship it (as you godbots allege), then why aren't there humans and other life forms on every planet in the universe? Did your chosen god run out of supplies or something? And if the cosmos is so fine tuned and finely balanced for life, then why can't all life forms live absolutely anywhere on this planet and absolutely anywhere in the entire cosmos without any harm coming to them?

    See part two.

    ReplyDelete
  105. Part two.

    gordon elliott mullings of Montserrat continued to slobber:

    "3: You also seem to be confused over what the inferred design of life and life forms implies, despite the fact that consistently since the first ID technical book, TMLO in 1884/5, it has been stressed that we may infer to design, but have no empirical warrant from the evidence in life forms, to conclude on such data alone, whether or not the relevant designer was within or beyond the cosmos. That tweredun is prior to trying to find out whodunit. And, as I have said elsewhere, life on earth -- what we observe -- could in principle be sufficiently explained on a molecular nanotech lab several generations beyond where Venter et al have reached. (we will probably do much the same within the next 50 - 100 years, if we don't blow up ourselves in the meanwhile."

    Do you ever stop LYING, gordon elliott mullings of Montserrat? Do you really think that your extreme religious beliefs about the supernatural "beyond the cosmos" christian god aren't obvious, and splattered all over your websites and in many, many comments you've made on other websites? You, gordon elliott mullings of Montserrat, have been VIGOROUSLY pushing your chosen, supernatural, "beyond the cosmos" christian god as the one and only designer/creator for ages.

    "I do confess that my own interest lies at a different level: macro level, self replicating universal assembly machines coupled to an open source, modular industrial civilisation 2.0 suitable for de-urbanisastion, small islands and onward solar system colonialisation.)"

    Your "interest", gordon elliott mullings of Montserrat, is to force your insane beliefs into every aspect of everyone's life whether they like it or not, and to ruin science. You, gordon elliott mullings of Montserrat, obviously think that you can get away with your willful LIES and phony claims, but your own words, on your websites and many other places, clearly and abundantly show your actual intentions.

    ReplyDelete
  106. Ultimate reality: Except for the science classes I had to take for my mechanical engineering degree from the Universtiy of Arizona, then no. The sad thing is that you equate universities as having cornered the market on science.

    Pray tell who else cornered the science market? Even if you include national labs, those people learned their science as graduate students and postdocs at the same universities you hate so much.

    ReplyDelete
  107. gordon elliott mullings of Montserrat WILLFULLY LIED:

    "Just remember, the above circle includes at least one person who threatened my wife and children, mafioso style [and is trying slanderous outing tactics to invite every spammer or stalker out there . . . ], and others who want to make light of that."

    That is ABSOLUTELY FALSE, and an outrageous libel. I NEVER threatened your wife and children, "mafioso style" or in ANY other way. You have accused me of that many times and every time you were WILLFULLY LYING.

    And your additional accusation of "slanderous outing tactics" is just another LIE and is absurd, since YOU, gordon elliott mullings of Montserrat, make your name and location PUBLIC in several places on the internet.

    Instead of falsely accusing me and "evolutionary materialists" of every horrible thing under the sun, you, gordon elliott mullings of Montserrat and your fellow religious IDiots should clean up your own dishonest and despicable act.

    ReplyDelete
  108. Hunter: The difference is you believe that given heritable changes and selection, it’s all just as easy as a Monte Carlo simulation. You think that typically the fitness space is chocked full of nice smooth, gradually increasing slopes and pathways leading to millions and millions of species, so all you need are those random events to churn away, and pretty soon your turning out all kinds of biological designs. If that were true, then sure, evolution would be far more rational.

    Either you don't read my comments carefully, or you intentionally misrepresent them. I am well aware that fitness landscapes are not smooth. Here, for instance, I mention that point mutations get stuck at local optima. That's well known. We even had a discussion about that here. A similar problem exists in Monte Carlo simulations of frustrated and glassy systems. Nonlocal moves are required to get unstuck in both cases. Such nonlocal moves are known to exist in evolutionary context (e.g., frameshift).

    Do we have a complete, step-by-step picture how traits evolve? We don't but no one here says we do. Biologists are working on that, and you know it. You are making a strong assertion that natural mechanisms cannot in principle explain evolution. The burden is on you to prove the impossibility. So far your all your arguments are based on mischaracterization of evolutionary processes. Thorton and I are pointing that out.

    ReplyDelete
  109. Blas, no one has ever claimed that adding the label "darwinism" to science has made science more productive or has increased human knowledge. The terms "darwinism" or "Darwinism" are just a strawman you religious zealots made up to attack.

    It wouldn't matter if the name Smith were applied to science or evolutionary theory because it wouldn't change a thing. It's not a name or label that matters, it's the evidence and the pursuit of real science that matters.

    By the way, are you a jesus-ist and would you feel better if science or evolutionary theory were called jesusism or godism? Would those names/labels make science or evolutionary theory better?

    ReplyDelete
  110. Cornelius,

    This is a strange thread. The whole truth is lunatic, unstable freak. I know you can tolerate a lot but maybe it's time to use your rare ban hammer.

    ReplyDelete
  111. The whole truth said...
    "Blas, no one has ever claimed that adding the label "darwinism" to science has made science more productive or has increased human knowledge."

    Ok, but your question was:

    "If ID were assumed and accepted by science..."

    Then any label it is Ok with science. THen why all the discussion in this blog?

    ReplyDelete
  112. gordon elliott mullings of Montserrat said:

    "As for your goldfish, it is plainly well beyond 100 mn bits of info, from its DNA. (The smallest known vertebrate genome is 385 million bases, a puffer fish.) That is of course orders of magnitude beyond the 1000 bits threshold, and indicates that the Goldfish's body plan [i.e. the Carp's body plan] is best explained as designed."

    Hmm, since lifeless rocks don't contain DNA or have a genome, how would it be determined whether they're designed or not by 'bits of info'? And how about the empty space (empty of land) in the Grand Canyon, which is what actually makes it a canyon? Can DNA or a genome be extracted and measured from that empty space, and the 'bits of info' measured?

    How about fossilized, completely mineralized bones or plants? What's your standard and test for determining designed things in nature that don't have DNA or a genome?

    The easiest answer for you, gordon elliott mullings of Montserrat or any other IDiot to provide would be to say that everything everywhere is designed but that would make your 1000 bits (or 500 or whatever) DNA/genome claim useless. Ya see, a claimed standard like that (if it were valid) could only be claimed to be useful for differentiating designed things and non-designed things.

    You, gordon elliott mullings of Montserrat, obviously haven't thought out and realized that when you claim a certain standard for determining design, that claimed standard applies to determining design in everything. So, how many 'bits of info' ("dFSCO/I") are in the moon? After all, you do believe that the moon was designed by your fine tuning finely balancing chosen god, don't you?

    ReplyDelete
  113. Ultimate Reality said...

    Hey Thorton, still waiting on your answer to the trait question.


    What do you want to know? Individual traits like eye color can be affected by dozens of different genes, and changes to an individual gene can affect more than one trait. The "one gene = one trait" idea was discarded decades ago.

    Oh and while you're at it, please let me know if you think homosexuals can't choose any more than they can choose right or left handed,

    Your ignorance of human sexuality is on par with your ignorance of evolutionary biology. Sexual orientation and sexual behavior are two different things. Behavior can be modified by the application of external pressures but not orientation. You can punish a left handed child and force him to use his right hand, but that doesn't stop him from being left handed. The big issue is - since there is no demonstrable harm to society from non-hetero behavior, why force someone to change?

    You might want to work out your hate issues against non-hetero human beings and then come back when you can have a rational discussion without all this hate bias pushing your buttons.

    does the same thing apply to murderers and molestors? Aren't we all just victims of our genetic code. No longer is it "the devil made me do it", we can just plug dna in for devil.

    Humans are social creatures who have evolved cooperative social behavior. Demonstrating conscious behavior that harms society for your individual benefit (like stealing, rape, murder) can and will get you ostracized or punished.

    ReplyDelete
  114. eugen said:

    "This is a strange thread. The whole truth is lunatic, unstable freak. I know you can tolerate a lot but maybe it's time to use your rare ban hammer."

    Yeah, pointing out gordo's LIES and bogus assertions is a real bad thing for me to do. I feel terrible. Not.

    Apparently you don't have any problem with willful LIES and bogus assertions coming from your fellow christian IDCs. Birds of a feather.

    ReplyDelete
  115. Ultimate Reality said...

    Thorton said: "Reality is not a black and white binary place. It's an analog place with an infinite number of shades of gray in-between."

    Wrong again. Ultimate Reality is actually a digital place. And it just so happens it isn't Binary, but a Quaternary place. Instead of 0 1 2 3 as digits, it uses A C G and T. There is nothing analog about it


    Except we were talking about human sexuality, not DNA.

    What color is a rainbow UR? Is it black or white? One of the hallmarks of uneducated people with poor critical thinking skills is to divide everything in the world into binary choices. Everyone is either a 'liberal' or a 'conservative.' Everyone is either straight or gay. They don't have the mental horsepower to understand the variations and nuances in between.

    ReplyDelete
  116. Ultimate Reality said...

    However, religious beliefs have no place in the PURELY SCIENTIFIC arguments of Intelligent Design.


    The problem is that no one has made a positive scientific argument for Intelligent Design Creationism. Every argument to date has been a negative one in the form of "Current ToE can't explain every detail of this phenomenon so IDC wins by default". That's not science.

    And why is that evolution is the only area of science where people are not allowed to question the data and the conclusions?

    That's simply not true. Anyone is free to question the data and conclusions. Anyone is free to do a technical write-up of critiques and apply to have it published. Anyone is free to produce a paper with positive evidence for ID and submit it to a recognized scientific journal. But no IDCer has done so to date.

    The only thing that is required is that you use the same accepted scientific processes employed by all scientific investigations. You need to come up with testable hypotheses. You need to do the work and gather your evidence. You need to submit the work for peer review, and the results need to be objective and repeatable by others.

    IDC does none of that. IDC bypasses all standard scientific practices and instead tries to win its case through publishing baseless claims and propaganda in the popular press. That's not science.

    Why don't you list for me some of the scientific papers with positive evidence for IDC that were submitted to mainstream journals yet rejected solely due to the IDC content. With the open access internet surely some pro-ID organization like the Discovery Institute would keep such a list and publish the results online anyway. Where is all the IDC scientific research and results?

    ReplyDelete
  117. The truth

    "eugen said:

    "This is a strange thread. The whole truth is lunatic, unstable freak. I know you can tolerate a lot but maybe it's time to use your rare ban hammer."


    If not ban hammer maybe just hammer to put you out of your misery.

    ReplyDelete
  118. Bljat Ievgenii, you miss the (don't forget the THE) hammer so much, go back to UD, tovarish.

    ReplyDelete
  119. The whole Angry truth said: "What does capitalizing the A and B have to do with anything?"

    It is widely accepted throughout the Bible that any word referring to God is capitalized. I would have thought a hater like you would have gotten this. You see I am not hiding anything.

    I guess it bears stating as well that my rant about murder, molestation and Hitler was sarcasm. Of course, that little rant did deviate from pure science as it moved the discussion into the utter hopeless and horrific consequences of denying the Designer (capital D) and embracing the philosophical constraints that necessarily flow from the Darwinian religion.

    ReplyDelete
  120. The whole truth said: "A part of me almost wishes that you IDiots were successful with your agenda because then you'd only have each other to militantly 'conquer' to decide whose particular beliefs would prevail."

    Sir, while I can be quite sarcastic in the written word, I am a very jovial and likeable person to all who know me. None of this discussion enflames me or angers me, but I definitely sense a deep seated hatred in you that cannot be purely attributed to your scientific position.

    Please do me one favor though. Go pick up a history book. Prior to 1856, a VERY HIGH percentage of science was done in the name of better understading the creator. A famous quote from Sir Isaac Newton: "This most beautiful system [The Universe] could only proceed from the dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being." Would you really claim that Newton's science was not valid because he believed in God? Would you want to pitch 3000 years of scientific discovery just because it doesn't fit with your world view?

    ReplyDelete
  121. Thorton:

    That's amazing PaV. After all this time and all the discussions you're still to stupid to grasp that having a specific outcome be improbable doesn't make having any outcome be improbable.

    The only thing that is remarkable here is that you continue to believe that because something happens, this somehow obviates all applicable rules of probability.

    I asked you before---and you continue to refuse to address the issue---if only one person buys a lottery ticket before the numbers are randomly selected, what is the probability of someone winning the lottery. It's one in 150 million or so (depending how its arranged)

    If 150 million people buy tickets, then someone will likely win. It's as if you've never heard that "no one won this week's lottery". Well, why was that? Because not enough sequences of numbers had yet been selected.

    This is a basic fact which you simply refuse to grasp. I don't think you're not smart enough to know this; I think you are wedded to Darwinism, and are scared of ID, and would lose the argument to ID if you were to admit this simple fact of probability. So you deny it. I think it borders on intellectual dishonesty.

    ReplyDelete
  122. Oleg said: "the same universities you hate so much."

    Just like your theory takes an awful lot of liberties, you too are making a great many assumptions about me. I guess then level of "thinking you know" is a natural consequence of the "scientific" thinking that goes on materialist circles.

    This discussion has moved way beyond the topic at hand. Don't look now, but everyone's agenda's are showing. Yikes!

    ReplyDelete
  123. Oleg: You missed the point, Cornelius. Deliberately or otherwise, but miss the point you did. Your criticism of the role of natural selection boils down to ridicule:

    Given what Cornelius has explicitly disclosed, I agree that his criticism can be distilled down to ridicule.

    However, I'd suggest that there is more to it. Cornelius simply isn't willing to disclose the underlying assumption behind his criticism. Nor does he feel he needs to as he knows his target audience holds the same underlying assumption.

    Specifically, i'm suggesting that Cornelius' objection is based on a theistic presupposition that all knowledge, or some specific subset which includes the biosphere, was not created, but has always existed. Therefore, it's ridiculous to think that anything, let alone the natural processes of evolution, could have created it. Natural selection cannot help, etc.

    This would also explain Cornelius infatuation for Lamarckism, which could be interpreted as the knowledge of how to build adaptations has always existed. In fact, when Cornelius claims to "not know" what the answer is any more than evolutionists, or that he's open to alternative theories, I'd suggest that what he really means is that he's open as long as knowledge, or key subsets, are not created.

    Of course, if this isn't the case, I'd be curious as to what sort of knowledge creation-based explanations he wouldn't consider ridiculous, if any.

    ReplyDelete
  124. While I doubt it will make a difference, I'll ask directly in case it's not perfectly clear.

    Cornelius, what sort of knowledge creation-based explanations would you *not* consider ridiculous, if any?

    ReplyDelete
  125. Thorton speak with forked tongue: "Humans are social creatures who have evolved cooperative social behavior. Demonstrating conscious behavior that harms society for your individual benefit (like stealing, rape, murder) can and will get you ostracized or punished."

    You are talking out of both sides of your mouth. Homosexuals should be excused because they don't have a choice but murderers and rapist don't get the same excuse? How can homosexuality not be detrimental to society under the NS model? When the survival of the species and propagation of "fit" dna is the goal, all else must be eradicated. Have an extra chromosome, you should be eradicated.

    Again, the materialist line of thought is to make UNTRUE assumptions. All I have done is ask you questions about homosexuality and somehow you have inferred hate for them from that. This again shows me your lack of ability to grasp complicated concepts. It is the materialist view of NS that would destroy homosexuals!!! Once again you totally missed it!!!

    ReplyDelete
  126. Thorton: "Except we were talking about human sexuality, not DNA."

    Oh my! And these are somehow separate?!? Pure ignorance. Seriously, I was a police officer for 10-years and I know better to argue with a drunk.... or anyone that is devoid of basic logic and reasoning skills. Done and done.

    ReplyDelete
  127. Ultimate Reality
    I guess it bears stating as well that my rant about murder, molestation and Hitler was sarcasm. Of course, that little rant did deviate from pure science as it moved the discussion into the utter hopeless and horrific consequences of denying the Designer (capital D) and embracing the philosophical constraints that necessarily flow from the Darwinian religion.

    It was an impressive rant, give yourself some credit. I'm not sure what you mean by "deviate from pure science" though, but whatever. What I want to know is are you implying that the "hopeless and horrific" consequence of Darwinism is grounds to dismiss it? Because you should know, thats dumb.

    ReplyDelete
  128. No Truth: "The only thing that is required is that you use the same accepted scientific processes employed by all scientific investigations. You need to come up with testable hypotheses. You need to do the work and gather your evidence. You need to submit the work for peer review, and the results need to be objective and repeatable by others."

    This has been done already numerous times. Of course when faced with this evidence, you will probably resort to name calling.

    http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/12/how_bright_is_t054521.html

    Dr. Stephen Meyer has proposed an excellent scientific argument for ID based on the presence of functional information. His argument uses the exact same method Darwin used, which sprung from Darwin's mentor, Charles Lyell, and states "the present is the key to the past". You can read more about it here..

    http://stephencmeyer.org/

    If you REALLY won't the whole truth, you need to really explore the oppossing arguments instead of going on endless crusade of personal attacks and putdowns.

    ReplyDelete
  129. Ultimate Reality said...

    Thorton: "The only thing that is required is that you use the same accepted scientific processes employed by all scientific investigations. You need to come up with testable hypotheses. You need to do the work and gather your evidence. You need to submit the work for peer review, and the results need to be objective and repeatable by others."

    This has been done already numerous times. Of course when faced with this evidence, you will probably resort to name calling.


    First off that was my statement, not TWT's.

    Second off, it has not been done. It has not even been attempted. Meyer's sole published pro-ID paper was snuck into a science journal without proper peer review by an unscrupulous editor who is also a Creationist. The journal in question, Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, later retracted the paper after the chicanery was made public.

    Dr. Stephen Meyer has proposed an excellent scientific argument for ID based on the presence of functional information. His argument uses the exact same method Darwin used, which sprung from Darwin's mentor, Charles Lyell, and states "the present is the key to the past". You can read more about it here..

    I don't see any testable hypotheses, or any research, or any submissions to peer reviewed mainstream scientific journals of Meyer's work. All I see is self-published unverified claims and propaganda.

    Like I keep telling you - if the IDC community wants to be considered science they have to play by the same rules all other sciences use. IDC refuses because it doesn't have the goods. That's why it's not science.

    ReplyDelete
  130. Venture Free you say in referring to creationists, "The most common example of this is the creationist canard that Natural Selection is incapable of generating new information, it can only weed out bad information. Never mind of course that mutation is in fact capable of generating new information."

    Let's take the fruit fly experiment for an example, shall we? It's better than just claiming it can happen, right?

    The fruit fly experiment that was published last year in Nature, consisted of 600 generations of fruit flies. They were looking for a “signature” of beneficial mutations becoming fixed in the population. What they discovered was, the fruit flies became more resisted to change. In fact, the fruit flies started in a direction to what evolutionists would refer to as "reverse-evolution". This falsifies evolutionary expectations but it does confirm creationist expectations on how mutations work.

    So if mutations are causing organisms like fruit flies to "de-evolve" then all those other components in your argument about how evolutionary predictions are being met would not matter.

    ReplyDelete
  131. Thorton: First off that was my statement, not TWT's.

    You all sound the same. Sorry. And FYI, the only drug I use is caffeine.

    Since I confused your dribble with his dribble, I will make an exception and respond to you one more time. There were two links in my post. You obviously didn't actually read either of them.

    Now here is your test for the hypothesis in Meyer's theory: find some functional information in our modern world that does not have an intelligent source. Obviously, any biological information is off limits because that is the basis of the argument.

    ReplyDelete
  132. Ultimate Reality said... .

    Thorton: First off that was my statement, not TWT's.

    You all sound the same. Sorry.


    No worries, honest mistake.

    Now here is your test for the hypothesis in Meyer's theory: find some functional information in our modern world that does not have an intelligent source.

    Please define functional information.

    ReplyDelete
  133. Thorton:

    Lino: I asked you before---and you continue to refuse to address the issue---if only one person buys a lottery ticket before the numbers are randomly selected, what is the probability of someone winning the lottery. It's one in 150 million or so (depending how its arranged)

    Thorton:

    PaV Lino caught lying again.

    I already addressed your idiot demands a week ago, here.


    From the link Thorton provides:

    Lino:I asked you before about the lottery. I said if only one person buys a lottery ticket, then what are the odds that someone will win the lottery. To this date, you still haven't answered that question. And it's because you have a stilted understanding of all of this.

    Thorton: No PaV, it's because that's a completely stupid and irrelevant analogy. In the real world all the reproducing animals in a population are "buying a ticket", not just one.


    So, when I ask you to answer my question, you refused. I ask it again, and you say you've answered it. So who is being disengenious here.

    I still wait for the answer: what is the probability of winning a lottery (with the odds of winning at around 1 in 150 million) if only ONE ticket is purchased.

    All you have to do, Thorton, is answer the question. So why don't you answer the question.

    My question wasn't "addressed", it was avoided by you in your usual hand-waving fashion, calling it "stupid and irrelevant". I didn't ask you whether you liked the question, or whether you thought it applied or not; I asked you to answer the question.

    Well, ANSWER the question. Then we can begin deciding whether it is "stupid and irrelevant". If you don't answer it, then I will simply assume that it is because you don't want to answer it, likely because for you to answer it would begin to lead to the downfall of your fallacious way of thinking about these matters.

    Once again for PaV the liar, your analogy is both stupid and irrelevant to biological evolution because the real world all the reproducing animals in a population are "buying a ticket", not just one.

    Why don't you just answer the question, Thorton? We're all waiting. In fact, in eight time zones, IIRC.

    Not my problem that you're too much of an ignoramus to understand basic probability, and too much of an egotistical jerk to stop running your mouth.

    Again, Thorton, this is pure projection on your part. You simply are describing yourself here.

    Just answer the question.

    ReplyDelete
  134. Thorton:

    Please define functional information.

    The great liberal fallback position, used when they've been cornered.

    Here's an answer for you: "It all depends on what the definition of definition is."

    ReplyDelete
  135. PaV Lino the liar said...

    ME!! ME!! IT'S ALL ABOUT ME!!


    Gee PaV, are we going to see another toddler temper tantrum meltdown by you? Your last one was a classic.

    I'm sure the board will appreciate another PaV mouthy ego-fest where you attempt to disrupt discussions with with your repeated lies.

    Why don't you take your latest hissy fit back to the original thread and stop being such an ass in this one?

    ReplyDelete
  136. PaV Lino the liar said...

    Thorton: "Please define functional information."

    The great liberal fallback position, used when they've been cornered.


    The great IDiot ruse - use vague, undefined terms so you have plenty of weasel room to cover any situation.

    We already know you can't define the term because you're a moron PaV. I'm giving UR a chance to provide his definition so we can agree we're talking about the same thing.

    ReplyDelete
  137. Thorton:

    Gee PaV, are we going to see another toddler temper tantrum meltdown by you? Your last one was a classic.

    Again, you describe yourself.

    Three times I've asked you a question. Three times you've refused to answer it. Quit the bombast, and just answer the question. It's not even a hard question. In fact, I've already provided you with an answer. All you have to do is give the answer. This isn't too much is it?

    And if I keep asking you the question, will you ask CH to ban me? Is that the next step?

    I await your answer.

    ReplyDelete
  138. Thorton:

    The great IDiot ruse - use vague, undefined terms so you have plenty of weasel room to cover any situation.

    And, I presume you ask the question so that you can use the great Darwinist ruse: that definition is too vague.

    If you're a man of your word, then we'll see dialogue, and not evasion, in your conversation with UR.

    ReplyDelete
  139. PaV Lino the liar said...

    And if I keep asking you the question, will you ask CH to ban me? Is that the next step?


    No PaV, unlike you I'm an adult. You're the childish moron demanding that people who oppose your views be banned.

    ReplyDelete
  140. PaV Lino the liar said...

    Thorton: "The great IDiot ruse - use vague, undefined terms so you have plenty of weasel room to cover any situation."

    And, I presume you ask the question so that you can use the great Darwinist ruse: that definition is too vague.


    No one knows since you IDCers have never provided any precise definitions for your fabricated gobbledygook buzzterms in the first place. Maybe UR will be the first.

    ReplyDelete
  141. Well this shouldn't be too hard. From Webster, (and I am actually quite impressed by Webster's definition for information!!!):

    Definition of FUNCTIONAL:
    1 a: of, connected with, or being a function b: affecting physiological or psychological functions but not organic structure

    2: used to contribute to the development or maintenance of a larger whole ; also: designed or developed chiefly from the point of view of use

    3: performing or able to perform a regular function

    Definition of INFORMATION:
    1: the communication or reception of knowledge or intelligence

    2: a (1): knowledge obtained from investigation, study, or instruction (2): intelligence, news (3): facts, data
    b: the attribute inherent in and communicated by one of two or more alternative sequences or arrangements of something (as nucleotides in DNA or binary digits in a computer program) that produce specific effects
    c (1): a signal or character (as in a communication system or computer) representing data (2): something (as a message, experimental data, or a picture) which justifies change in a construct (as a plan or theory) that represents physical or mental experience or another construct d: a quantitative measure of the content of information; specifically: a numerical quantity that measures the uncertainty in the outcome of an experiment to be performed

    ReplyDelete
  142. So there is your challenge. The hypothesis is: All functional information has an intelligent source. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to find functional information anywhere on the planet that does not have an intelligent source. The information has to be from the present, per Lyell's and Darwin's method, since we can't agree on the source of information that came from the distant past. If you are successful, I will renounce ID and my religion. Some examples you might look for: 1)a tree with limbs in the shape of the words "Thorton, go take out the trash". 2) Rocks that have been eroded into the shape of 1 + 1=2. 3) Sand that has been struck by lighting and melted into the shape of a circuit board.

    ReplyDelete
  143. Ultimate Reality said...

    Well this shouldn't be too hard. From Webster, (and I am actually quite impressed by Webster's definition for information!!!):


    OK then, for functional information not arising from an intelligence I'll offer starlight.

    Starlight contains spectral absorption lines which communicate knowledge of a star's chemical composition, so it qualifies as information.

    The information in starlight is used in astrophysics to contribute to the development and modeling of stellar formation, so it's functional.

    What's the next thing IDC claims is impossible? :)

    So there is your challenge. The hypothesis is: All functional information has an intelligent source. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to find functional information anywhere on the planet that does not have an intelligent source. The information has to be from the present, per Lyell's and Darwin's method, since we can't agree on the source of information that came from the distant past. If you are successful, I will renounce ID and my religion.

    Start renouncing.

    But I predict instead you'll start up the rocket powered goal posts; waving your arms and adding new caveats / restrictions to the definition.

    ReplyDelete
  144. Ultimate Reality said...

    If you are successful, I will renounce ID and my religion. Some examples you might look for: 1)a tree with limbs in the shape of the words "Thorton, go take out the trash". 2) Rocks that have been eroded into the shape of 1 + 1=2. 3) Sand that has been struck by lighting and melted into the shape of a circuit board.


    How about butterflies that have the alphabet A-Z and digits 0-9 on their wings?

    Butterfly Alphabet

    Now you have to renounce ID twice! I'll let you slide on the religion part since you seem like a decent (although quite confused) guy.

    ReplyDelete
  145. Thorton:

    Lino: And if I keep asking you the question, will you ask CH to ban me? Is that the next step?

    Thorton:

    No PaV, unlike you I'm an adult. You're the childish moron demanding that people who oppose your views be banned.


    Throton wrote:I bet it will take you weeks to clean up all the flying spittle stains from you screaming at your monitor and pounding your keyboard. Just count yourself lucky all those bodily fluids you sprayed didn't short them out.

    Is this the example of just how much of an adult you are?

    And, as to banning you, you well deserve to be banned for making remarks like the above, which are completely uncalled for, and the doings of a very sick individual.


    And, to remind you for the fourth time: Just answer the question!

    You seem interested in an intelligent discussion---so you say---but then you refuse to answer simple questions. Is it intellectual dishonesty?

    ReplyDelete
  146. eugen said:

    "If not ban hammer maybe just hammer to put you out of your misery."

    If I had said that, it would have been called a 'threat' by at least some of you IDiots, and especially by gordon elliott mullings of Montserrat.

    ReplyDelete
  147. PaV Lino the liar said...

    IF YOU DON'T PAY ATTENTION TO ME I'LL CRY!!


    Go get someone to change your Pampers PaV and leave the adults alone.

    ReplyDelete
  148. Thorton:

    I'm sure the board will appreciate another PaV mouthy ego-fest where you attempt to disrupt discussions with with your repeated lies.

    Oh, but Thorton, do you remember saying this? It was your very first post to me on the last thread we had a conversation (?) on.

    Here's what you said then:

    Just curious - how long do you plan to stay in this thread before your dumb claims get exposed and you bail out again?

    Aren't you being just a tad inconsistent?

    (But always consistently snide and rude and uncivil)

    And what about lies?

    Aren't you the one who makes up statements, then puts quote-marks around them, and when confronted tells people that, oh this is just a way of adding emphasis? Isn't that about what you said? Should we go through it again.

    And, since when are you concerned about this board, or the people who post here? You're abrasive, arrogant, and disbelievingly rude. Where's your concern about any of that?

    Why are you afraid of answering my question? (I know why; and you know why. And in just a little bit, I'll let everyone here know why you won't answer the question. And then we can revisit the Durrett and Schmidt paper.)

    ReplyDelete
  149. pavlino childishly demanded:

    "And, to remind you for the fourth time: Just answer the question!"

    Your demanding question is stupid and irrelevant. What's your point?

    And it's hilarious to watch you try to project your crybaby BAN HIM! tantrum onto Thorton. You're the one who calls for the banning of your opponents, not Thorton.

    ReplyDelete
  150. Thorton:

    Go get someone to change your Pampers PaV and leave the adults alone.

    Having a meltdown, are we?

    ReplyDelete
  151. PaV Lino the liar said..

    I'M A LIAR!! I'M A POSEUR!! LOOK AT ME!! ME!! ME!!


    It's really creepy you obsessing over me and stalking me around the board PaV. Really creepy. Were you molested as a child as UR suggests? Sorry PaV but I'm just not into guys.

    ReplyDelete
  152. the whole truth:

    And it's hilarious to watch you try to project your crybaby BAN HIM! tantrum onto Thorton. You're the one who calls for the banning of your opponents, not Thorton.

    Thorton's behavior is more than childish and boorish. He doesn't have the right to insult people at will. Those are reasons for him being banned, not because he views things differently. Civility should be a sine qua non. He doesn't have it.

    Now, the whole truth, why isn't Thorton answering my question? Is it because he doesn't know the answer? I doubt it. It's because he knows exactly where I will go with it, and he knows his entire argument, one which I'm sure he trumpets over and over here, will fall apart.

    So, Thorton is "studiously" avoiding answering the question.

    Aren't you, Thorton?

    ReplyDelete
  153. The whole truth said...

    pavlino childishly demanded:

    "And, to remind you for the fourth time: Just answer the question!"

    Your demanding question is stupid and irrelevant. What's your point?

    And it's hilarious to watch you try to project your crybaby BAN HIM! tantrum onto Thorton. You're the one who calls for the banning of your opponents, not Thorton.


    PaV's a proven liar for Jesus and a self-important moron, so what else did you expect?

    Let the baby bawl. He'll eventually cry himself to sleep.

    ReplyDelete
  154. Thorton:

    It's really creepy you obsessing over me and stalking me around the board PaV. Really creepy. Were you molested as a child as UR suggests? Sorry PaV but I'm just not into guys.

    But, Thorton, you've even taken delight in driving people from boards. How did you do it? Did you "stalk" them? I bet you did. And now you're whining about it? Isn't that a bit inconsistent?

    Just answer the question.

    Or maybe you can get CH to ban me. Is that what you want?

    ReplyDelete
  155. Thorton:

    I'M A LIAR!! I'M A POSEUR!! LOOK AT ME!! ME!! ME!!

    At least you didn't put in in quotes. You're getting better, Thorton.

    ReplyDelete
  156. Thorton:

    Here PaV, this may help.

    I see you had the reference ready at hand. I wonder why?

    ReplyDelete
  157. Blas said...

    The whole truth said...
    "Blas, no one has ever claimed that adding the label "darwinism" to science has made science more productive or has increased human knowledge."

    Ok, but your question was:

    "If ID were assumed and accepted by science..."

    Then any label it is Ok with science. THen why all the discussion in this blog?

    ---------------------------------

    If by "discussion" you mean scientists and science supporters trying to keep religious names/labels out of science, well, it's because it's not just the religious labels that you godbots want to sneak in or force into science. You want to sneak in or force in the religious dogma and agenda associated with those labels.

    Of course you IDiots think and claim that that is what is happening with the "Darwinism" label, that "Darwinian" dogma has been snuck in or forced into science. But, what you don't ever realize or accept is that it's not Darwin's name that matters, it's the evidence and science that matters. The ToE is not religious dogma, no matter whose name is associated with it.

    Darwin gets credit for some ideas and evidence because he was the first to successfully popularize those ideas and evidence, and at least some of those ideas and evidence have held up to legitimate scrutiny since he made them public.

    However, he was not a god and no scientist or science supporter would ever promote him as one, or worship him. His ideas and evidence, and any subsequent ideas and evidence presented by any other evolutionary scientists are always open to legitimate questions and challenges. What they are not open to is being tossed out just because they don't fit with someone's religious beliefs.

    Forget about Darwin's name, and come up with positive evidence and a testable hypothesis for your 'position', and then science will consider it.

    ReplyDelete
  158. Thorninmysideton said: But I predict instead you'll start up the rocket powered goal posts; waving your arms and adding new caveats / restrictions to the definition.

    No arm waving needed. Your example isn't even close to what is described by Webster. Better luck with the next one.

    ReplyDelete
  159. thorny: How about butterflies that have the alphabet A-Z and digits 0-9 on their wings?

    Butterfly Alphabet

    Now you have to renounce ID twice! I'll let you slide on the religion part since you seem like a decent (although quite confused) guy.

    Seriously??? Please go back and read Webster's definition of functional. If you found this in nature, yhdicekcglow, that could be considered information but it is not functional.

    ReplyDelete
  160. Lino said: "Now, the whole truth, why isn't Thorton answering my question? Is it because he doesn't know the answer? I doubt it. It's because he knows exactly where I will go with it, and he knows his entire argument, one which I'm sure he trumpets over and over here, will fall apart."

    Lino, please don't let someone else exert that type of control over you. One thing I have learned is not to have expectations for fools. The best way to end this argument is not to respond.

    There are a great many number of people that are good at regurgitating information they read on the web, but they lack the ability to think rationally. For me personally, I do research and quote things from other sources but I also attempt to understand the arguments, including the opposing ones. I am not saying this as a put down but Thorton's writing style is one of a young man, late teens or early twenties. He is searching for truth or he wouldn't be on here trying to prove himself right. One thing that I have noticed though is although he is good at quoting others, and puking out the standard party lines, when called to respond to a task like I've given him above, he lacks the coherent and rational thought to marry the two concepts and come up with a valid example. We all know there isn't a valid example because others alot smarter than Thorton have tried. Had he have known that, he wouldn't have exposed his ignorance by citing the examples he did. So my point is, why get so excited to argue with someone who hasn't developed the skills necessary to logically and rationally put forth a valid and thoughtful argument? Sure, we know if he answered your question about the lottery, he would be backed into a corner from wich he could not get out. By his silence, any rational observer can see this. So why get so worked up? Have the personal confidence to know his silence is him admitting he doesn't want to go down that road.

    ReplyDelete
  161. UR -

    How do you know when they parted company?

    From a timeline constructed by scientists in diverse fields whose job it is to figure out such things.

    All your theories are guesses.

    No, they are theories. A theory with no evidence is a hypothesis. The very fact that the Theory of Evolution is a THEORY tells you it is supported by evidence.

    You can't say anything happened in the distant past with 100% confidence because you weren't there.

    I wasn't around during the Roman Empire either. Should I doubt that too? Am I to live my life in perpetual doubt of everything I have not personally experienced? Is personal experience the only trustworthy method of gaining knowledge?

    Science works through looking at the evidence and figuring out the most likely explanation. And pretty productive it has proved to be so far.

    I was obviously borrowing from Provines statement in the Stanford debate that given enough time, a dog could be become an elephant (what a joke).

    It wouldn't.

    What your theory, which is devoid of all rational thinking, states is somehow that elephant came from a single cell organism (We won't get into how the single cell organism got there because your high priest Dawkins has already admitted he has no clue.) Don't you think I was giving you the benefit of the doubt giving you a headstart with the dog?

    No. I think you were demonstrating that you have no solid grasp on how evolution actually works.

    Sorry. Haven't had a chance to finish reading Genetics For Dummies.

    Many a true word was spoken in jest.

    Seriously, perhaps you SHOULD try reading such a book.

    Again, next time you fire up the time machine I would like to go for a ride. There are absolutely no transitional fossils to support your argument.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moeritherium

    You do know that materialist don't buy into this anymore right? Punctuated Equilibrium is the new theory because there is simply no fossil evidence to support Darwin's claim.

    *facepalm*

    You do know Punctuated Equilibrium IS a theory of evolution, don't you? It was proposed by Stephen Jay Gould, who was absolutely a Darwinist. It is not an alternative theory to evolution.

    And nor, for that matter, does Punctuated Equilibrium counter the assertion that features need to be functional at every step of their development, lest they be weeded out by NS.

    ReplyDelete
  162. Ultimate Reality said...

    Thorninmysideton said: But I predict instead you'll start up the rocket powered goal posts; waving your arms and adding new caveats / restrictions to the definition.

    No arm waving needed. Your example isn't even close to what is described by Webster. Better luck with the next one.


    LOL! It's exactly what's described in the Webster definitions you provided. I even included the pertinent Webster language in my explanation. Maybe I should highlight it:

    Definition of INFORMATION:
    1: the communication or reception of knowledge or intelligence

    Starlight contains spectral absorption lines which communicate knowledge of a star's chemical composition, so it qualifies as information.

    Definition of FUNCTIONAL:
    2: used to contribute to the development or maintenance of a larger whole

    The information in starlight is used in astrophysics to contribute to the development and modeling of stellar formation, so it's functional.

    I specifically asked for your accepted definitions so you wouldn't weasel out, and here you go trying to weasel out anyway. You disappoint me UR.

    ReplyDelete
  163. holes in truth said: "well, it's because it's not just the religious labels that you godbots want to sneak in or force into science. You want to sneak in or force in the religious dogma and agenda associated with those labels."

    I like how you never responded to my comment on Sir Isaac Newton and 3000 years of scientific discoveries for the glory of God. You are a foolish man and need to read a little more history.

    In fact, I feel this is becoming a major waste of time. Thorton and half truth aren't interested in civil dialog. They are interested in name calling, put downs, bigotry, and much flailing about. They don't have the background or knowledge to come up with any thoughtful arguments to the ORIGINAL POST, only cut and pasting works they really don't quite understand fully. I am willing to admit I don't understand a great many things. Ton of Thorns and Half Truth are only interested in chest puffing and lat spreading so that they can go to bed at night with the confidence, "I sure got the best of a bunch of strangers I will never meet in person. Boy do I feel good". I guarantee if they met me IN PERSON they would be much more polite.

    My recommendation is from this point on, just ignore their posts and attacks. They really are powerless if you don't respond. If they want to behave like school children, well I can meet them there as well. "Na, Na, Na, I'm not listening." You're a stupid creationist. "I know you are but what am I?

    ReplyDelete
  164. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  165. Ritchie said: A bunch of my statements to my responses that aren't based in any facts.

    I WASN'T joking about genetics for Dummies. I am in the process of reading it.

    To the rest of your post I say, Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah.

    ReplyDelete
  166. UR -

    I like how you never responded to my comment on Sir Isaac Newton and 3000 years of scientific discoveries for the glory of God.

    Have those 3000 years actually provided any evidence at all for God?

    ReplyDelete
  167. Ultimate Reality said...

    thorny: How about butterflies that have the alphabet A-Z and digits 0-9 on their wings?

    Butterfly Alphabet

    Now you have to renounce ID twice! I'll let you slide on the religion part since you seem like a decent (although quite confused) guy.

    Seriously??? Please go back and read Webster's definition of functional. If you found this in nature, yhdicekcglow, that could be considered information but it is not functional.


    How do you know it's not functional? It could very well mean something in a language you don't understand.

    You told me tree branches and rocks with letters and numbers on them met your criteria, remember?

    UR: "Some examples you might look for: 1)a tree with limbs in the shape of the words "Thorton, go take out the trash". 2) Rocks that have been eroded into the shape of 1 + 1=2."

    Now you change the rules and say butterfly wings with letters and numbers on them don't qualify.

    I met the exact criteria you put down and now you're reneging. I knew the weaseling and denial was coming, but it's entertaining to see it anyway.

    Be sure not to sprain your back pushing those goalposts up and down the street.

    ReplyDelete
  168. You be the judge. One thing is for sure, we wouldn't be any where near as close to where we are today in science without them. You guys act like materialist have the market cornered on science. How foolish you all really are.

    ReplyDelete
  169. Thorton said while ENTIRELY missing the point that the information contained in the make believe branch example contained an instruction: "How do you know it's not functional? It could very well mean something in a language you don't understand.

    You told me tree branches and rocks with letters and numbers on them met your criteria, remember?"


    BLAH, BLAH, BLAH, BLAH, BLAH

    ReplyDelete
  170. UR -

    To the rest of your post I say, Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah.

    So your decrying of immature and vapid words in place of civil discourse is just so much hot air then? Disappointing.

    You be the judge.

    By which I assume you mean 'Feel free to add in your own personal belief that God is behind every discovery'. Which is a long-winded version of saying 'No'.

    You guys act like materialist have the market cornered on science.

    Yes. That's exactly right. We do. You cannot perform science without assuming materialism.

    ReplyDelete
  171. Ultimate Reality said...

    T: "You told me tree branches and rocks with letters and numbers on them met your criteria, remember?"

    BLAH, BLAH, BLAH, BLAH, BLAH


    That's one way of admitting defeat. Not quite as colorful as PaVLino's spittle flying meltdowns, but an admission that your argument lost nonetheless.

    ReplyDelete
  172. Thorton: "I met the exact criteria you put down and now you're reneging. I knew the weaseling and denial was coming, but it's entertaining to see it anyway."

    This statement makes me sad for you. And I do have compassion for you. I will admit you had me fooled about your knowledge base at the beginning because I am new here. But I am not wasting any more of your or my time.

    ReplyDelete
  173. Ultimate Reality said...

    You be the judge. One thing is for sure, we wouldn't be any where near as close to where we are today in science without them. You guys act like materialist have the market cornered on science. How foolish you all really are.


    You really need to read a history book UR. Every last one of those famous early religious scientists made their discoveries by relying 100% on materialism. Not a single invention or discovery was the result of Divine intervention or supernatural powers. Not one.

    ReplyDelete
  174. Ritchie said: "Yes. That's exactly right. We do. You cannot perform science without assuming materialism."

    The ignorance of this statement is alarming. And also very sad how our dumbed down educational system in America has utterly failed our youth. I can't believe I've devoted the hours to this discussion I have with people so isolated, mis-informed and entirely devoid of any rational thought.

    ReplyDelete
  175. Ultimate Reality said...

    Thorton: "I met the exact criteria you put down and now you're reneging. I knew the weaseling and denial was coming, but it's entertaining to see it anyway."

    This statement makes me sad for you. And I do have compassion for you. I will admit you had me fooled about your knowledge base at the beginning because I am new here. But I am not wasting any more of your or my time.


    Exactly as expected, you can't explain to me or the lurkers *why* my examples fail to meet your criteria. You just wave your hands, declare they don't and scuttle off.

    The person you really need to feel sad about is yourself. You have a golden opportunity to learn from intelligent folks who know a lot more about evolutionary biology than you and you're blowing it big time.

    ReplyDelete
  176. Ultimate Reality said...

    Ritchie said: "Yes. That's exactly right. We do. You cannot perform science without assuming materialism."

    The ignorance of this statement is alarming.


    Then it should be easy for you to provide some examples of how to do science without assuming materialism, right?

    We'll wait...

    ReplyDelete
  177. UR -

    It is you who are mistaken.

    Imagine I see an apple falling to the ground. How interesting. I wonder what causes the apple to fall down and not, say, fly up, or remain suspended in mid air. I might suppose there is a force acting on the apple to pull it down. What is this force? What can I learn about it?

    Well to find out, being a good little scientist, I can perform experiments. I can drop apples in controlled laboratory conditions. I can see if apples ALWAYS fall down. I can see if other objects do the same. Do big objects fall faster than small ones? Do light objects fall faster than heavy ones? Do red objects fall faster than blue ones?

    But notice, in performing these experiments I am assuming materialism. If I accept miracles happen, then the result of any experiment might have been a miracle.

    In my experiments, heavy objects fall faster than light ones. So as a materialist I can say this force acts more strongly on heavier objects. But if I allow for miracles, then I have no reason to suppose this is true. Perhaps this force actually acts more strongly on light objects and it was actually a miracle that brought about the result I witnessed.

    In short, if I allow for miracles, then any experiment I perform is useless because I cannot discount a miracle happening to interfere with them. And without data that I can rely on, I am utterly powerless to perform science.

    ReplyDelete
  178. Looks like UR is just another creationist who came in guns blazing, quickly realized he was in *way* over his head, so declared victory as he was backing for the exit. Pity. I thought he had the potential to be at least interesting.

    At least we didn't get the usual "YOU EVIL EVO ATHEISTS WILL BURN IN HEll!!" flounce out speech. Hopefully he won't turn out to be a creepy stalker like PaVLino.

    ReplyDelete
  179. ultimate irrationality said:

    "I like how you never responded to my comment on Sir Isaac Newton and 3000 years of scientific discoveries for the glory of God."

    I do have other things to do besides immediately responding to you.

    As Thorton said:

    "You really need to read a history book UR. Every last one of those famous early religious scientists made their discoveries by relying 100% on materialism. Not a single invention or discovery was the result of Divine intervention or supernatural powers. Not one."

    Whatever scientific discoveries Newton or anyone else made were based on material things, not on supernatural stuff like imaginary gods. Newton (and/or others) may have hoped or intended to find evidence of their chosen god, and/or to give their chosen god credit for the things they discovered but that doesn't affect or change what they discovered, AND Newton was wrong about some things.

    Hmm, I wonder how a religious person could ever be wrong about anything, and especially a religious scientist like Newton. I would think that their chosen god would direct their research or even just tell them all the correct answers without bothering with any research. Oh wait, you godbots often do say that your chosen god tells you all the correct answers and that you don't need to bother with actual scientific research. Trouble is, you don't have the correct answers. You usually don't even ask the right questions.

    Many religious people, including people like Newton, have tried to give their chosen god credit for all kinds of things but it's no different than giving credit to the FSM. Giving credit to an imaginary god doesn't change the actual evidence and facts. Supernatural stuff doesn't have evidence or facts.

    The "glory of God"? See, that goes to what I'm saying. You want to give your imaginary god credit for some things, but adding "the glory of God" to scientific discoveries doesn't affect or change actual "scientific discoveries" one bit, so it's a useless label to apply.

    By the way, are disease, disabilities, disfigurement, parasites, death, pain, fear, starvation, wars, genocide, disasters, and all the other destructive things on Earth and throughout the universe also "the glory of God"?

    ReplyDelete
  180. Eugen:

    This is a strange thread. The whole truth is lunatic, unstable freak. I know you can tolerate a lot but maybe it's time to use your rare ban hammer.

    Thank you for the alert. No foul language at least ...

    ReplyDelete
  181. oleg said:

    "You are making a strong assertion that natural mechanisms cannot in principle explain evolution. The burden is on you to prove the impossibility."

    To which Cornelius responded:

    "Now that most definitely is a misrepresentation. I never made any such assertion, that’s absurd. It’s funny how evolutionists make ridiculous claims and then blame skeptics for the same."

    Cornelius, then why do you constantly attack evolution and its "natural mechanisms"? And why do you constantly attack "evolutionists" who accept "natural mechanisms" as the causes and explanation of evolution?

    It's obvious by your own words that you believe that your chosen god was and/or is directly involved in the diversity of life (aka evolution), so how can you honestly deny that you aren't asserting that "natural mechanisms" cannot explain evolution?

    Cornelius also said:

    "You can’t say this is an obvious, no-brainer fact, and oh by the way we don’t really know how it could have happened. The devil is in the details my friend. If you’re going to make the high claims, then you need to back them up with some beef, not unfounded speculation coupled with unanswered questions."

    And ID proponents can't honestly say that the existence of your alleged god and its alleged involvement in the design, creation, and diversity of life is an obvious, no-brainer fact, and oh by the way we don’t really know how, when, and where god-did-it.

    ID proponents also can't honestly say that the existence of your alleged designer/creator and its alleged involvement in the design, creation, and diversity of life is an obvious, no-brainer fact, and oh by the way we don't know who the designer/creator is (or won't say) or how it designed/created anything or everything, or what, when, how, and why it designed/created anything or everything, and questions about said designer are premature and off limits because we first have to study the design and eliminate the ToE.

    The devil is in the details. If you’re going to make the high claims, then you need to back them up with testable evidence and a testable hypothesis or theory, not unfounded speculation coupled with unanswered questions and religious beliefs.

    I'm sure that everyone here would be interested in seeing your "details" regarding your hypothesis or theory as to what you think is the correct explanation for the diversity of life, and the evidence you have to support your hypothesis or theory.

    ReplyDelete
  182. Did the hypothesis thing in this thread already and got some un-informed and extremely un-educated responses in addition to a total lack and inability on Thorton's part to grasp a two word definition.

    The responses about the history of science are so preposterous and jaded it blows my mind. You guys are so thick with hate you can't even respond to a simple statement on history. All I said was the scientists that made all the great discoveries for the past 3000 years were for the most part THEIST. (remember, your pathetic materialistic religion has only been the flavor of the week for about 150 years.)

    I made no comment about the great Theists' scientific methods. Which sent several of you on a lengthy diatribe to discount something that, for the most elementary observer, was NEVER stated or inferred.

    As for me running off, I am still reading the thread but I'm not interested in playing at amateur hour. I'm waiting and hoping that you three children go back to your video games and we can resume a rational discussion. All we have now is rhetoric without reality from you.

    ReplyDelete
  183. I'm sure that everyone here would be interested in seeing your "details" regarding your hypothesis or theory as to what you think is the correct explanation for the diversity of life, and the evidence you have to support your hypothesis or theory.

    I for one would like to see a peer-reviewed paper or, failing that, a manuscript that might be critiqued. But if I remember rightly, the purity of Dr Hunter's empiricism is too exquisite to countenance hypotheses.

    For him, good science is akin to stamp collecting.

    ReplyDelete
  184. Ultimate Reality:

    All I said was the scientists that made all the great discoveries for the past 3000 years were for the most part THEIST.

    They were also for the most part white, well-off, educated European males.

    ReplyDelete
  185. UR -

    The responses about the history of science are so preposterous and jaded it blows my mind.

    Empty rhetoric, I'm afraid. I've given you a fairly simple example of how the assumption of materialism is essential for performing science and all you are doing is declaring me wrong.

    HOW am I wrong? Explain to me how, as a scientist, I can trust my own results if I allow for the supernatural. If I accept miracles happen, how can I be sure one hasn't occurred to skew the results of any experiment I am performing? You need to directly address this question.

    All I said was the scientists that made all the great discoveries for the past 3000 years were for the most part THEIST.

    Which is, of course, true. But so what? Plenty of scientists today are theists. But they do not, and cannot, use God or the supernatural as part of their explanations. As the saying goes, 'God is not permitted inside the lab'. From the moment they start performing science they must take materialism as a given.

    Besides, most PEOPLE in the past 3000 years have been theist. Atheism might not be a modern phenomenom, but it has never before been such a popular (or perhaps I should say 'visible') one.

    No scientific discovery EVER has been made by divine revelation or leading logically from the assumed truth of theism. Theism provides no demonstrable insight into the world, and actively hinders science, not helps it. Scientists in the past have made discoveries DESPITE being religious, not BECAUSE of it.

    I made no comment about the great Theists' scientific methods. Which sent several of you on a lengthy diatribe to discount something that, for the most elementary observer, was NEVER stated or inferred.

    Not true. I said:

    You cannot perform science without assuming materialism.

    To which you replied:

    The ignorance of this statement is alarming... I can't believe I've devoted the hours to this discussion I have with people so isolated, mis-informed and entirely devoid of any rational thought.

    You are making no distinction between what a person believes in private and what they must take as a matter of fact when performing science. It seems pretty clear you think scientists would be behaving perfectly scientifically if they invoked Gods and magic and fairies as part of their scientific explanations - a position you probably now realise is ridiculous and are trying to backpedal out of.

    No matter what a person believes in private, a scientist must, must, MUST assume materialism from the moment they step inside the lab. The scientific method does not allow for magic or miracles as part of its explanations. Science, essentially, is materialistic.

    ReplyDelete
  186. You are delusional. Now you are reading my mind. I think that would qualify as supernatural. There are at least 3 paragraphs above that proport to something I stated or I'm thinking which is nowhere in this thread. You could have a blast in front of a mirror for hours making up constructs in your mind on what your imaginary opponent reflecting back believes. I think you must have confused me with someone else.

    Here is a great debate where the Darwinian professor just gets owned. He wastes most of his repsonse time talking about irrelevant things and never really answers any questions. He is full of rhetoric but no meat.

    Move the cursor to 8 minutes in for where the debate starts. This debate sounds a lot like this thread. The ID Theorist Stephen Meyer is completely polite and rational. The Evolutionist professor sounds like a drunk D bag...

    http://www.tvw.org/index.php?option=com_tvwplayer&eventID=2006040103

    ReplyDelete
  187. Ritchie said: "No matter what a person believes in private, a scientist must, must, MUST assume materialism from the moment they step inside the lab."

    This is complete hogwash. With this line of thinking, we would not be searching for the Higgs Boson or considering non-materialist things like dark matter and dark energy. Just because we can't see it, taste it, or measure it right now, we don't assume it doesn't exist. Since we can't make planetary or galaxial theory work without dark energy, we assume it exists even if we can't prove it exists this moment. Sound familiar.

    ReplyDelete
  188. By the way, this should not be confused with the Higgs Bison...

    http://www.art.com/products/p14376771-sa-i2910745/donald-higgs-american-bison-calf.htm?sorig=cat&sorigid=7047&dimvals=7047&ui=3487eb21b1e04530a635af5b5463b8ab

    ReplyDelete
  189. UR:

    "This is complete hogwash. With this line of thinking, we would not be searching for the Higgs Boson or considering non-materialist things like dark matter and dark energy."

    What makes you think dark matter/energy are "non-materialist things"? Their existence is inferred from their gravitational effects on non-dark matter, assuming the current theory of gravity to be accurate.

    Or do you think materialism is the belief that all matter consists of tiny solid billiard balls bouncing around in space?

    ReplyDelete
  190. UR -

    You are delusional. Now you are reading my mind. I think that would qualify as supernatural. There are at least 3 paragraphs above that proport to something I stated or I'm thinking which is nowhere in this thread. You could have a blast in front of a mirror for hours making up constructs in your mind on what your imaginary opponent reflecting back believes. I think you must have confused me with someone else.

    Oh dear. I am completely misrepresenting you, am I? I am fighting a strawman? Very bad form for me.

    Right then, just so we're clear (I'm obviously being a bit dim. Humour me) I'd like you to state quite clearly that science does indeed necessitate the assumption of materialism. If that is indeed a truth that you accept, I'd like to hear you state it quite plainly. If, however, you do NOT accept it, then all my above arguments apply.

    This is complete hogwash. With this line of thinking, we would not be searching for the Higgs Boson or considering non-materialist things like dark matter and dark energy.

    Nonsense. We can infer that these things do exist. And if we fail to do so then we are to assume that they don't.

    Take God for example. Can we even infer the existence of such a being? No. Then we may not simply take his existence as a given. We are to assume He does not exist until shown evidence that He does. Simple.

    ReplyDelete
  191. ultimate unreality said:

    "All I said was the scientists that made all the great discoveries for the past 3000 years were for the most part THEIST."

    As Ritchie said, so what?

    "I made no comment about the great Theists' scientific methods. Which sent several of you on a lengthy diatribe to discount something that, for the most elementary observer, was NEVER stated or inferred."

    What a load of dishonest garbage. It's abundantly clear what point you were making, and that point is hogwash. Re-read Ritchie's post above several times and try to get it through your religiously brainwashed head that science is about material reality.

    You also barfed:

    "(remember, your pathetic materialistic religion has only been the flavor of the week for about 150 years)"

    And in that 150 years, more has been learned about biology and evolution (and lots of other things) than in all the years that preceded them, and it's due to science, not your "pathetic" religion.

    ReplyDelete
  192. UR,

    Just because humans can't see or taste dark matter or dark energy doesn't mean that they're supernatural (outside the universe). There are LOTS of things we humans can't see or taste but they're still there and are NATURAL. 'Material' doesn't always mean something that you can hold in your hand. It essentially means something that is a part of nature and is detectable, or at least potentially so.

    Of course if you have a god detecting device lying around, and especially one that verifies the alleged existence and deeds of your supernatural chosen god, I'd like to hear about it and see the blueprint/schematics.

    ReplyDelete
  193. Ultimate Reality said...

    Did the hypothesis thing in this thread already and got some un-informed and extremely un-educated responses in addition to a total lack and inability on Thorton's part to grasp a two word definition.


    You still haven't told us why my example of 'functional information' fails to meet the definition. The whole point of discussion is to back up your claims, not just make them and then run away.

    The responses about the history of science are so preposterous and jaded it blows my mind. You guys are so thick with hate you can't even respond to a simple statement on history.

    You claimed that "one cannot perform science without assuming materialism." was ignorant. Yet when we ask you for examples of how to do science assuming non-materialism you run away.

    In the short time you've been here UR you established a very unproductive M.O. You repeat a claim you read on an IDC site, the claim gets challenged, you declare victory while running from the unanswered challenge. Sadly, it's a tactic used by virtually every IDCer who comes through here.

    If you want to understand science then you're going to have to change your approach. You come from a religious background where argument from authority is everything. If the Big Guy said it in the Bible it must be true. You try using the same logic here with your IDC sources as the authority and can't understand /accept how your authorities can be challenged. Better get used to it, because in science everything gets challenged. Every idea is poked, pried, tested, and ruthlessly vetted. That's how science weeds out the crap pseudoscience and assures itself that it has the correct explanations. The theory of evolution has gone through the fire for 150 years and emerged unscathed with only minor modifications as new evidence became available. The IDC claims you've presented here collapse like a house of cards under the first bit of critical scrutiny.

    To paraphrase what a wise man once said: If you can't stand the heat of having your ideas challenged, stay out of the science kitchen.

    ReplyDelete
  194. Ultimate Reality said...

    This debate sounds a lot like this thread. The ID Theorist Stephen Meyer is completely polite and rational. The Evolutionist professor sounds like a drunk D bag...


    That's one big difference in scientists vs. Creationists.

    Scientists don't mind getting down and dirty and confrontational when it leads to an honest answer being found.

    Creationists have no problem being blatantly dishonest, lying their butts off as long as they do it politely.

    ReplyDelete
  195. UR,

    You never refuted Thorton's starlight example. Please explain why it "isn't even close to what is described by Webster." Thorton gave you a straightforward and reasoned answer along with the exact same phrasing used in Webster. If he is wrong tell us why.

    ReplyDelete
  196. In order for the starlight to function as functional information as per the dscription above, don't you need a scientist with a brain to analyze it? So you still need a mind.

    ReplyDelete
  197. " You never refuted Thorton's starlight example."

    Thorton

    Starlight was a good example Thorton but we have to remember that our minds are framing the context to extract meaning.

    Is pile of rock a functional information? Maybe not to me but it could be orientation point for an animal looking for home.

    OTOH, pile of rock is sometimes just a pile of rock (to paraphrase Freud)

    ReplyDelete
  198. natschuster said...

    In order for the starlight to function as functional information as per the dscription above, don't you need a scientist with a brain to analyze it? So you still need a mind.


    I suppose to you a functional bicycle is no longer functional if there's no one around to ride it either.

    ReplyDelete
  199. Eugen said...

    " You never refuted Thorton's starlight example."

    Starlight was a good example Thorton but we have to remember that our minds are framing the context to extract meaning.


    There was no requirement in UR's challenge to demonstrate or extract meaning from the information.

    In fact, it's a classic IDC tactic to equivocate the terms 'information' and 'meaning'. The two are not the same. That's pretty much the crux of UR's 'gotcha' challenge, although I serious doubt he understands the problem.

    ReplyDelete