Tuesday, July 16, 2013

This New Paper on How Innovations Evolved Raises More Problems Than it Solves

Evolution’s Serendipity Just Went Ballistic

It was not news this week when evolutionist Andreas Wagner explained that “we know very little about how they [evolutionary innovations] originate.” The origin of evolutionary innovations is largely unexplained and that gap is well known. No one would deny this. Even Wagner’s own press release begins with the same admission: “Exactly how new traits emerge is a question that has long puzzled evolutionary biologists.” But this admission, while uncontroversial, is not well advertised. It is not typically found in textbooks or popular books. Evolutionists do not often discuss this shortcoming in their class lectures or public talks. For this shortcoming is rather embarrassing. In order to be taken seriously evolution must be able to explain how life’s various and incredible innovations arose, and it hasn’t been able to do that. This raises two interesting tensions for evolutionists.

The most obvious tension raised by evolution’s inability to explain the origin of innovations is that it undercuts the evolutionist’s claim that evolution is a fact. The origin of innovations is one of those fundamental problems. It is not a minor side issue that can be delegated to future research or assigned to the student. If evolution cannot explain that, then it fails. So far evolution has not been able to explain this difficult problem. But how then can evolution be a fact?

The answer is that the “fact” of evolution does not derive from the scientific evidence. Evolution is assumed from the beginning. It is a given. It is the paradigm in which evolutionists work and not vulnerable to empirical science. How evolution is supposed to have worked is very much open to scientific research. But whether or not evolution actually created the entire biological world is not open to scientific research. It is not falsifiable, for it is taken to be true. Evolutionists are constantly questioning the various ideas of how evolution worked (because there are substantial problems with those ideas), but evolutionists never question the fact of evolution.

How evolution created all those innovations is largely unexplained, but evolutionists never question the fact of evolution. And they even claim it comes from science.

The second tension arises from how evolutionists have attempted to explain life’s incredible mechanisms and machines. Such machines are not likely to be created by blind natural laws--they require forward-looking thought. Assembly is required, and there is no payback until the final step. Evolution’s natural selection will not do the job because the machine does not help the organism until the machine is complete. Natural selection lacks the foresight required to construct such machines.

An unlikely way around this barrier is to have the different parts of the machine evolve independently, for their own purposes or perhaps for no purpose at all. Later, the parts come together to form a super machine. In other words, each part of the super machine evolves on its own, in a neutral fashion or to perform its own function. Then, serendipitously, the different machines just happen to fit together and perform a new function. Imagine a fuselage and a pair of wings uniting to form an aircraft.

This rather heroic explanation is called preadaptation or exaptation, and evolutionists have relied rather heavily on it to explain biology's complexities. But Wagner and coworkers are now raising this to a new level. They say these exaptations are the rule in evolution’s history of creating wonders. As Wagner explained this week, “Our work shows that exaptations exceed adaptations several-fold.”

Or as one headline succinctly put it, “Most Traits Emerge for No Crucial Reason, Scientists Find.”

When an investment goes bad sometimes it is best to take the loss and be done with it. No sense in throwing good money after bad. This exaptation explanation does not save the theory. No, Wagner and co-workers did not “find” that most traits emerge from exaptations, as the headline above states.

Not in a scientific way at least. You see they first assumed evolution is true. Only on the shoulders of that heroic assumption did they arrive at the exaptation explanation.

From a strictly scientific perspective, the exaptation explanation does not work. For it requires that evolution is constantly getting lucky as it constructs all kinds of biological subcomponents and machines which, as luck would have it, just happen to fit together to form completely new and different machines which work wonders.

So the second tension is that explanations that evolutionists do come up with to explain the origin of innovations just make matters worse. For they reveal how badly evolution fares in light of the evidence.

267 comments:

  1. aaaah Cornelius "clowning for Jesus" Hunter is at it again.

    ReplyDelete
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    1. Cornelius is just fulfilling his contractual obligation to the DI for his "lie du jour."

      It doesn't have to be believable for him to collect his paycheck. Any lie against the evolutionary sciences is a good lie.

      Delete
    2. RFOL.....LOL....HAHAHAHAHAHAH

      oh my hold on.....LOL

      HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

      okay I can breathe now.

      This headline is just the most HILARIOUS Headline I have seen in a long time. YOu have to do a double take because you SWEAR it would be a title from Answersingenesis or creation.com

      but no its science daily

      "Most Traits Emerge for No Crucial Reason, Scientists Find"

      ROFL. I don't care how the two above spin it or any of our resident Darwinist blatherers. Its just too funny from this so called proven beyond any question theory of evolution

      ROFL....HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA




      Delete
    3. "SebastianSJuly 16, 2013 at 11:02 AM

      aaaah Cornelius "clowning for Jesus" Hunter is at it again.
      Reply

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      ThortonJuly 16, 2013 at 1:05 PM

      Cornelius is just fulfilling his contractual obligation to the DI for his "lie du jour."

      It doesn't have to be believable for him to collect his paycheck. Any lie against the evolutionary sciences is a good lie."







      So, present your scientific evidence that demonstrates chemicals to living organisms and ecosystems occured via the laws of physics and chemistry without some sort of plan or guidance in order to overcome the vast array of contradictory chemical relationships and reactions that frustrate the vastly unusual progression towards living organisms and ecosystems. Please post references and list ALL the assumptions needed in order to come to the conclusions supporting the assertions.

      You pack of shithead NDE hacks.

      I do not think i am alone when stating that am truly anxiously awaiting real scientific evidence for the bullshit NDE proclomations that have become so pervasive in "society".

      Delete
    4. bpragmatic

      (snip incoherent obscenity-filled hissy fit)


      The lithium treatments for the bipolar disorder just aren't working for you I see. Pity.

      Delete
    5. Elijah2012

      "Most Traits Emerge for No Crucial Reason, Scientists Find"

      ROFL. I don't care how the two above spin it or any of our resident Darwinist blatherers. Its just too funny from this so called proven beyond any question theory of evolution


      The paper is here

      A latent capacity for evolutionary innovation through exaptation in metabolic systems
      Barve, Wagner
      Nature (2013) doi:10.1038/nature12301

      Abstract: "Some evolutionary innovations may originate non-adaptively as exaptations, or pre-adaptations, which are by-products of other adaptive traits. Examples include feathers, which originated before they were used in flight, and lens crystallins, which are light-refracting proteins that originated as enzymes. The question of how often adaptive traits have non-adaptive origins has profound implications for evolutionary biology, but is difficult to address systematically. Here we consider this issue in metabolism, one of the most ancient biological systems that is central to all life. We analyse a metabolic trait of great adaptive importance: the ability of a metabolic reaction network to synthesize all biomass from a single source of carbon and energy. We use novel computational methods to sample randomly many metabolic networks that can sustain life on any given carbon source but contain an otherwise random set of known biochemical reactions. We show that when we require such networks to be viable on one particular carbon source, they are typically also viable on multiple other carbon sources that were not targets of selection. For example, viability on glucose may entail viability on up to 44 other sole carbon sources. Any one adaptation in these metabolic systems typically entails multiple potential exaptations. Metabolic systems thus contain a latent potential for evolutionary innovations with non-adaptive origins. Our observations suggest that many more metabolic traits may have non-adaptive origins than is appreciated at present. They also challenge our ability to distinguish adaptive from non-adaptive traits"

      Why in the world do you think this is any kind of problem for evolutionary theory? Please be as specific as your almost total scientific ignorance will let you be.

      Delete
    6. Hey, Thorton. On what basis do you describe something as "obscene"? Also, why does that matter in relationship to the discussion at hand? Go ahead and "filter out" the alleged "obscene" words and "cut to the chase" of the matters being discussed. Out of "courtesy" I will restate the question proposed:


      "So, present your scientific evidence that demonstrates chemicals to living organisms and ecosystems occured via the laws of physics and chemistry without some sort of plan or guidance in order to overcome the vast array of contradictory chemical relationships and reactions that frustrate the vastly unusual progression towards living organisms and ecosystems. Please post references and list ALL the assumptions needed in order to come to the conclusions supporting the assertions."

      Am sincerely interested in any "scientifally" verified information you can refer me to.

      Thank You.






      Delete
    7. bpragmatic

      Am sincerely interested in any "scientifally" verified information you can refer me to.


      There is far far too much information on the topic from hundreds of different scientific disciplines to even scratch the surface here. People often get graduate degrees and spend their whole careers studying just a tiny portion of the overall data.

      A good summary of the evidence is here:

      29+ Evidences for Macroevolution: The Scientific Case for Common Descent

      Note that every section has dozens of references to work published in the primary scientific literature. If any one topic interests you more than others you can drill down into more research.

      When you get through that come back and I'll recommend some good books to read.

      Delete
    8. bprag,
      Hey, Thorton. On what basis do you describe something as "obscene"? Also, why does that matter in relationship to the discussion at hand


      On the basis that our host considers it " obscene ", it is his blog and one of his few rules.

      Delete
    9. "On the basis that our host considers it " obscene ", it is his blog and one of his few rules."



      Reasonable basis (unlike the conjecture NDE proponents try to guard and promote here, which is to me "obscene").

      Will try to eliminate those words in the future.

      Delete
    10. Thorton: A good summary of the evidence is here:

      29+ Evidences for Macroevolution: The Scientific Case for Common Descent



      Hahaha

      Delete
    11. lifepsy

      Thorton: A good summary of the evidence is here:

      29+ Evidences for Macroevolution: The Scientific Case for Common Descent

      Hahaha


      The laughter of another Creationist clown too lazy to read the scientific literature.

      You willing to discuss any of the data Theobald presents, or will it be just run away again?

      Delete
    12. "You willing to discuss any of the data Theobald presents, or will it be just run away again?"

      nope we don't do retrashing of material that has been trashed many times. that you are falling back to such old weak articles says it all.

      ;)

      Delete
    13. Elijah2012

      "You willing to discuss any of the data Theobald presents, or will it be just run away again?"

      nope we don't do retrashing of material that has been trashed many times. that you are falling back to such old weak articles says it all.


      LOL! Declare victory while running away with your tail between your legs. Creationists never learn any new tricks.

      Why did you go so quiet when I posted the paper on evolutionary innovation through exaptation you were laughing so hard over? Did the idea of having to read and understand what you were blindly attacking scare you that badly?

      Delete
    14. Thorton, Talkorigins is a foolish website. One of their primary arguments, often used under the "Potential Falsification" criteria, is "God Wouldn't do it this way" !

      And here, Thorton. Link traded for link.

      A Critique of Douglas Theobald’s
      “29 Evidences for Macroevolution”


      http://www.trueorigin.org/theobald1c.asp

      Delete
  2. It seems they studied the metabolism of e-coli:

    Optimal Design of Metabolism - Dr. Fazale Rana - July 2012
    Excerpt: A new study further highlights the optimality of the cell’s metabolic systems. Using the multi-dimension optimization theory, researchers evaluated the performance of the metabolic systems of several different bacteria. The data generated by monitoring the flux (movement) of compounds through metabolic pathways (like the movement of cars along the roadways) allowed researchers to assess the behavior of cellular metabolism. They determined that metabolism functions optimally for a system that seeks to accomplish multiple objectives. It looks as if the cell’s metabolism is optimized to operate under a single set of conditions. At the same time, it can perform optimally with relatively small adjustments to the metabolic operations when the cell experiences a change in condition.
    http://www.reasons.org/articles/the-optimal-design-of-metabolism

    Life Leads the Way to Invention - Feb. 2010
    Excerpt: a cell is 10,000 times more energy-efficient than a transistor. “In one second, a cell performs about 10 million energy-consuming chemical reactions, which altogether require about one picowatt (one millionth millionth of a watt) of power.” This and other amazing facts lead to an obvious conclusion: inventors ought to look to life for ideas.,,, Essentially, cells may be viewed as circuits that use molecules, ions, proteins and DNA instead of electrons and transistors. That analogy suggests that it should be possible to build electronic chips – what Sarpeshkar calls “cellular chemical computers” – that mimic chemical reactions very efficiently and on a very fast timescale.
    http://creationsafaris.com/crev201002.htm#20100226a

    This stunning energy efficiency of a cell is found to be optimal across all life domains, thus strongly suggesting that all life on earth was Intelligently Designed for maximal efficiency in mind instead of reflecting a pattern of somewhat random distribution that would be expected if evolution occurred:

    Mean mass-specific metabolic rates are strikingly similar across life's major domains: Evidence for life's metabolic optimum
    Excerpt: Here, using the largest database to date, for 3,006 species that includes most of the range of biological diversity on the planet—from bacteria to elephants, and algae to sapling trees—we show that metabolism displays a striking degree of homeostasis across all of life.
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2572558/

    Also of interest is that the integrated coding between the DNA, RNA and Proteins of the cell apparently seems to be ingeniously programmed along the very stringent guidelines laid out by Landauer’s principle, by Charles Bennett from IBM of Quantum Teleportation fame, for ‘reversible computation’ in order to achieve such amazing energy efficiency.

    Notes on Landauer’s principle, reversible computation, and Maxwell’s Demon - Charles H. Bennett
    Excerpt: Of course, in practice, almost all data processing is done on macroscopic apparatus, dissipating macroscopic amounts of energy far in excess of what would be required by Landauer’s principle. Nevertheless, some stages of biomolecular information processing, such as transcription of DNA to RNA, appear to be accomplished by chemical reactions that are reversible not only in principle but in practice.,,,,
    http://www.hep.princeton.edu/~mcdonald/examples/QM/bennett_shpmp_34_501_03.pdf

    The amazing energy efficiency possible with ‘reversible computation’ has been known about since Charles Bennett laid out the principles for such reversible programming in 1973, but as far as I know, due to the extreme level of complexity involved in achieving such ingenious ‘reversible coding’, has yet to be accomplished in any meaningful way for our computer programs even to this day:

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    1. Here is a glimpse of the staggering complexity inherent within metabolism that they are trying to explain by a 'it just happened', oops I mean by a 'exaptation', story:

      ExPASy - Biochemical Pathways - interactive schematic
      http://web.expasy.org/cgi-bin/pathways/show_thumbnails.pl

      Map Of Major Metabolic Pathways In A Cell - Diagram
      http://www.sigmaaldrich.com/img/assets/4202/MetabolicPathways_6_17_04_.pdf

      The first problem for Darwinism is that Darwinists cannot even explain how a single 'simple' novel protein arises,,

      Now Evolution Must Have Evolved Different Functions Simultaneously in the Same Protein - Cornelius Hunter - Dec. 1, 2012
      Excerpt: In one study evolutionists estimated the number of attempts that evolution could possibly have to construct a new protein. Their upper limit was 10^43. The lower limit was 10^21.

      These estimates are optimistic for several reasons, but in any case they fall short of the various estimates of how many attempts would be required to find a small protein. One study concluded that 10^63 attempts would be required for a relatively short protein.

      And a similar result (10^65 attempts required) was obtained by comparing protein sequences.

      Another study found that 10^64 to 10^77 attempts are required.

      And another study concluded that 10^70 attempts would be required. In that case the protein was only a part of a larger protein which otherwise was intact, thus making the search easier.

      These estimates are roughly in the same ballpark, and compared to the first study giving the number of attempts possible, you have a deficit ranging from 20 to 56 orders of magnitude. Of course it gets much worse for longer proteins.
      http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2012/12/now-evolution-must-have-evolved.html?showComment=1354423575480#c6691708341503051454

      As if, the probability of finding a novel protein by neo-Darwinian processes were not already overwhelmingly difficult, it is now found that amino acid positions in a protein are interdependent to other amino acid positions in a protein (context dependency), thus exponentially exasperating the 'rarity' problem for neo-Darwinists:

      (A Reply To PZ Myers) Estimating the Probability of Functional Biological Proteins? Kirk Durston , Ph.D. Biophysics - 2012
      Excerpt (Page 4): The Probabilities Get Worse
      This measure of functional information (for the RecA protein) is good as a first pass estimate, but the situation is actually far worse for an evolutionary search. In the method described above and as noted in our paper, each site in an amino acid protein sequence is assumed to be independent of all other sites in the sequence. In reality, we know that this is not the case. There are numerous sites in the sequence that are mutually interdependent with other sites somewhere else in the sequence. A more recent paper shows how these interdependencies can be located within multiple sequence alignments.[6] These interdependencies greatly reduce the number of possible functional protein sequences by many orders of magnitude which, in turn, reduce the probabilities by many orders of magnitude as well. In other words, the numbers we obtained for RecA above are exceedingly generous; the actual situation is far worse for an evolutionary search.
      http://powertochange.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Devious-Distortions-Durston-or-Myers_.pdf

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    2. Moreover many times different protein domains must be combined in order to even get a fully functional protein in the first place. What is the ease with which different protein domains are randomly recombined?

      Exon Shuffling: Evaluating the Evidence - Jonathan M. - July 2013
      The Problems with Domain Shuffling as an Explanation for Protein Folds
      Excerpt: The domain shuffling hypothesis in many cases requires the formation of new binding interfaces. Since amino acids that comprise polypeptide chains are distinguished from one another by the specificity of their side-chains, however, the binding interfaces that allow units of secondary structure (i.e. α-helices and β-strands) to come together to form elements of tertiary structure is dependent upon the specific sequence of amino acids. That is to say, it is non-generic in the sense that it is strictly dependent upon the particulars of the components.
      Domains that must bind and interact with one another can't simply be pieced together like LEGO bricks.
      In his 2010 paper in the journal BIO-Complexity Douglas Axe reports on an experiment conducted using β-lactamase enzymes which illustrates this difficulty (Axe, 2010).
      http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/07/an_evaluation_o074441.html

      Design by Any Other Name - April 9, 2013
      Excerpt: One reason for Endy's team's success is the way that they have approached biological systems. Rather than in terms of modular pieces, they took a more integrated approach.,,,
      Darwinism assumes that organisms are built from the bottom-up, where complexity comes from the incorporation of additional components via chance and selection pressure. An engineering perspective assumes that biological systems are built from the top-down.
      In other words, the end function is already in mind when the biological system is constructed. Because of this, the system functions as a cohesive whole, rather than as modular components. Furthermore, and as (the success of) Endy's group in particular points out, the parts of the biological systems are not interchangeable like Lego blocks. They have specific functions.
      Evolutionary theory says that trial and error lead to the biological structures that we see today. But this same trial-and-error method does not work in the laboratory setting, so why should we assume that it worked in nature?
      http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/04/design_by_any_o070891.html

      What does the recent hard evidence say about novel protein-protein binding site generation?

      "The likelihood of developing two binding sites in a protein complex would be the square of the probability of developing one: a double CCC (chloroquine complexity cluster), 10^20 times 10^20, which is 10^40. There have likely been fewer than 10^40 cells in the entire world in the past 4 billion years, so the odds are against a single event of this variety (just 2 binding sites being generated by accident) in the history of life. It is biologically unreasonable."
      Michael J. Behe PhD. (from page 146 of his book "Edge of Evolution")

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    3. Dr. Behe's empirical research agrees with what is found if scientists try to purposely design a protein-protein binding site:

      Viral-Binding Protein Design Makes the Case for Intelligent Design Sick! (as in cool) - Fazale Rana - June 2011
      Excerpt: When considering this study, it is remarkable to note how much effort it took to design a protein that binds to a specific location on the hemagglutinin molecule. As biochemists Bryan Der and Brian Kuhlman point out while commenting on this work, the design of these proteins required:
      "...cutting-edge software developed by ~20 groups worldwide and 100,000 hours of highly parallel computing time. It also involved using a technique known as yeast display to screen candidate proteins and select those with high binding affinities, as well as x-ray crystallography to validate designs.2"
      If it takes this much work and intellectual input to create a single protein from scratch, is it really reasonable to think that undirected evolutionary processes could accomplish this task routinely?
      In other words, the researchers from the University of Washington and The Scripps Institute have unwittingly provided empirical evidence that the high-precision interactions required for PPIs requires intelligent agency to arise.
      http://www.reasons.org/viral-binding-protein-design-makes-case-intelligent-design-sick-cool

      Computer-designed proteins programmed to disarm variety of flu viruses - June 1, 2012
      Excerpt: The research efforts, akin to docking a space station but on a molecular level, are made possible by computers that can describe the landscapes of forces involved on the submicroscopic scale.,, These maps were used to reprogram the design to achieve a more precise interaction between the inhibitor protein and the virus molecule. It also enabled the scientists, they said, "to leapfrog over bottlenecks" to improve the activity of the binder.
      http://phys.org/news/2012-06-computer-designed-proteins-variety-flu-viruses.html

      Protein-Protein Interactions (PPI) Fine-Tune the Case for Intelligent Design - Article with video - April 2011
      Excerpt: The most recent work by the Harvard scientists indicates that the concentration of PPI-participating proteins in the cell is also carefully designed.
      http://www.reasons.org/protein-protein-interactions-fine-tune-case-intelligent-design

      So, how many protein-protein binding sites are found in life?

      Dr. Behe, on the important Table 7.1 on page 143 of his book 'Edge Of Evolution', finds that a typical cell might have some 10,000 protein-binding sites. Whereas a conservative estimate for protein-protein binding sites in a multicellular creature is,,,

      Largest-Ever Map of Plant Protein Interactions - July 2011
      Excerpt: The new map of 6,205 protein partnerings represents only about two percent of the full protein- protein "interactome" for Arabidopsis, since the screening test covered only a third of all Arabidopsis proteins, and wasn't sensitive enough to detect many weaker protein interactions. "There will be larger maps after this one," says Ecker.
      http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/07/110728144936.htm

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    4. So taking into account that they only covered 2%, of the full protein-protein "interactome", then that gives us a number, for different protein-protein interactions, of 310,000. Thus, from my very rough 'back of the envelope' calculations, we find that this is at least 30 times higher than Dr. Behe's estimate of 10,000 different protein-protein binding sites for a typical single cell (Page 143; Edge of Evolution; Behe). Therefore, at least at first glance from my rough calculations, it certainly seems to be a gargantuan step that evolution must somehow make, by purely unguided processes, to go from a single cell to a multi-cellular creature. To illustrate just how difficult of a step it is, the order of difficulty, of developing a single protein-protein binding site, is put at 10^20 replications of the malarial parasite by Dr. Behe. This number comes from direct empirical observation.

      Moreover, there is, 'surprisingly', found to be 'rather low' conservation of Domain-Domain Interactions occurring in Protein-Protein interactions:

      A Top-Down Approach to Infer and Compare Domain-Domain Interactions across Eight Model Organisms
      Excerpt: Knowledge of specific domain-domain interactions (DDIs) is essential to understand the functional significance of protein interaction networks. Despite the availability of an enormous amount of data on protein-protein interactions (PPIs), very little is known about specific DDIs occurring in them.,,, Our results show that only 23% of these DDIs are conserved in at least two species and only 3.8% in at least 4 species, indicating a rather low conservation across species.,,,
      http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0005096

      What Evidence Is There for the Homology of Protein-Protein Interactions? - 2012
      Excerpt: Protein-protein interactions appear to be very rarely conserved unless very high sequence similarity is observed. Consequently, inferred interactions should be used with care…
      Conclusion excerpt: Using this framework, we are able to estimate interactome sizes with a method that is different from others in the literature.
      Our estimates for the fraction of conserved interactions are very low for definitions of homology that are often associated with the transfer of functional annotations across species. We emphasise that our results will be overestimates due to the preferential investigation of homologous proteins in multiple species.,,,
      We urge extreme caution in interpreting interactions transferred across species unless the definition of homology employed is a strict one, and we believe that interactome incompleteness is not solely responsible for the lack of observed conservation of interactions.
      http://www.ploscompbiol.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pcbi.1002645

      Thus, despite whatever Darwinists may confidently say to the contrary, I can find no basis for such false bravado in the power of Darwinian processes in the empirical evidence itself.

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    5. Speaking of bravado,this might be enlightening, BA,

      Dialog from Once Upon A Time In The West

      Morton: There are many things you'll never understand.
      [Frank draws on Morton as he pulls out money to show him]
      Morton: This is one of them. You see, Frank, there are many kinds of weapons. And the only one that can stop that is this. Now, shall we get back to our little problem?
      Frank: My weapons might look simple to you, Mr. Morton, but they can still shoot holes big enough for our little problems.

      Cheyenne: Harmonica, a town built around a railroad. [laughs] You could make a fortune. Hundreds of thousands of dollars. Hey, more than that. Thousands of thousands.
      Harmonica: They call them "millions."
      Cheyenne: "Millions." Hmm.

      Harmonica: I saw three of these dusters a short time ago. They were waiting for a train. Inside the dusters there were three men.
      Cheyenne: So?
      Harmonica: Inside the men there were three bullets.
      Cheyenne: That's a crazy story, Harmonica, for two reasons. One, nobody around these part's got the guts to wear those dusters except Cheyenne's men. Two, Cheyenne's men don't get killed. That surprise you?
      Harmonica: Yeah. Well, you know music and you can count. All the way up to two.
      Cheyenne: [Turns the cylinder of his revolver] All the way up to six if I have to. [gestures to Harmonica's wound] And maybe faster than you.

      Frank: Morton once told me I could never be like him. Now I understand why. Wouldn't have bothered him, knowing you were around somewhere alive.
      Harmonica: So, you found out you're not a businessman after all.
      Frank: Just a man.
      Harmonica: An ancient race. Other Mortons will be along, and they'll kill it off.
      Frank: The future don't matter to us. Nothing matters now - not the land, not the money, not the woman. I came here to see you. 'Cause I know that now, you'll tell me what you're after.
      Harmonica: ...Only at the point of dyin'.
      Frank: I know.

      Harmonica: And Frank?
      Snaky: Frank sent us.
      Harmonica: Did you bring a horse for me?
      Snaky: [Chuckling] It looks like we're... it looks like we're shy one horse!
      Harmonica: You brought two too many. [Harmonica shoots the three henchmen dead]

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  3. Interesting points, Cornelius. I noticed some time ago that Darwinists have, wittingly or unwittingly, taken Cornelius Van Tils presuppositional apologetic and adapted it to suite their "scientific" purposes. The difference is that while Van Til attempted to prove the existence of God by attempting to demonstrate the impossibility of the contrary, Darwinists simply rule out the contrary (=intelligent causation) as a precondition for engaging in certain fields of science.

    As I attempted to show in my review of Darwin's Doubt (entitled, "The Cambrian: Explosive Evidence Against Darwinism"), this ultimately means that an appeal to the "consensus" to support Darwinism or refute ID ends up being circular.

    One unfortunate aspect of the modern age is that fewer and fewer people seem to appreciate the importance of philosophy, or how central philosophy is to some questions. It seems to me that this has resulted in an increasing number of people who seem ill equipped to appraise arguments rationally. Many can't seem to recognize a valid argument when they encounter one, and couldn't argue themselves out of a brown paper bag that's been sitting in the rain for two weeks. The rain should at least help them, but all too often it merely highlights the fact that they're all wet;-)

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    1. Alethinon61

      Darwinists simply rule out the contrary (=intelligent causation) as a precondition for engaging in certain fields of science.


      That is a complete falsehood, either maliciously or through ignorance.

      What are ruled out are hypothesized supernatural causes that do not follow the laws of nature and therefore fall outside the ability of science to investigate.

      Intelligent causation is not ruled out a priori in any investigation, including the origin of biological life. The problem is that to date no one from the ID camp has offered any positive evidence of any such Intelligent Design or Intelligent intervention.

      If you can provide such positive evidence for the Intelligent design of biological life please do so here. You'll be the very first on the entire planet.

      Delete
    2. "If you can provide such positive evidence for the Intelligent design of biological life please do so here."

      Hey T forget that.. this is more fun

      "Most Traits Emerge for No Crucial Reason, Scientists Find"

      How about you give us a reason and some positive evidence . Please do so here.

      :) :) :)

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    3. Moronton: If you can provide such positive evidence for the Intelligent design of biological life please do so here. You'll be the very first on the entire planet.

      J: Scott, here's your chance to prove you're not the bigot you seem to be. Explain to Moronton etal why there is NO positive evidence for naturalistic UCA. Or, you can continue to sit and appear to be a bigot eat up with animus against theists.

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    4. As I've pointed out several times before, Thorton and I agree on what evidence is relevant and that there is an overwhelming amount of it. Where we disagree is the specific role it plays.

      However, this isn't a problem, in practice, because most modus ponens arguments can be reformulated as modus tollens.

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    5. OK, Scott. So now you're saying there IS positive evidence for ideas/etc? Surely you realize this is a contradiction of your prior statements.

      The only way there can be POSITIVE evidence is if the existence and nature of "evidence" per se is POSITIVELY known. And that's not possible apart from foundationalism of some sort.

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    6. Scott

      As I've pointed out several times before, Thorton and I agree on what evidence is relevant and that there is an overwhelming amount of it.


      I'm pretty sure you're the only one here who reads Jeff's ignorance based blithering anymore. You can only watch him make a fool out of himself so many times (I.E. "THERE'S NO EVIDENCE FOR EVOLUTION!!!!') before it just gets boring.

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    7. Scott1: from above: "As I've pointed out several times before, Thorton and I agree on what evidence is relevant and that there is an overwhelming amount of it. Where we disagree is the specific role it plays."

      Scott2: from a couple of threads back: "03. When I clarify by pointing out there is no *positive* evidence for a theory or that probability is invalid in adopting a theory itself, but theories can be subject to and withstand significant rational criticism, ignore this distinction."

      J: Can you articulate your reconciliation of those two claims Scott? Seeing's how at face value they're totally contradictory? Never mind that without foundationalism nothing is knowable.

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    8. ... and while you're at it Scott, articulate the diverse way "evidence" plays "a role" in in your epistemological approach and Thorton's. Maybe that will finally get to the heart of what you mean by "evidence" and "plausibility" after rejecting the inductive relative plausibility criteria as the clarification of what evidence is.

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    9. Scott: However, this isn't a problem, in practice, because most modus ponens arguments can be reformulated as modus tollens.

      Jeff: OK, Scott. So now you're saying there IS positive evidence for ideas/etc? Surely you realize this is a contradiction of your prior statements.

      Is it?

      Scott: Neal, empiricism represents progress because it promoted the importance of empirical observations in science. However, like all conjectured ideas, it contained errors to some degree. Namely, it was mistaken about the specific role empirical observations actually play, in practice.

      So, while empiricism does contain truth, to some degree, it got the role of empirical observations backwards. Theories are tested by observation, not derived from them.


      Thorton and I agree that Darwinism is *the* explanation for adaptive biological complexity, just as you agree that dinosaurs are *the* explanation for fossils. Most important to your mantra, Thorton and I agree there is an overwhelming amount of empirical evidence that is relevant in our decision to adopt it.

      As I've said before, I'm not denying that we've made progress. When people think they are using induction, then are actually using conjecture and criticism. This is because the subjective experience of using induction does not withstand rational criticism.

      Not only do we lack a "principle of induction" that would be necessary for induction to provide guidance in what theory to choose, it isn't even desirable. This is because in the form of logic it's based on (modus ponens) the premise is presupposed by the premises, which begs the question.

      What we do instead is adopt the theory that has withstood the most criticism. In the case of scientific theories, this criticism includes empirical tests and observations.

      When we take the same evidence that Thorton subjectively interprets as positive (modus ponens) support and reformulate it as rational criticism (modus tollens), evolution is the theory that has withstood the most criticism. We still end up tentatively adopting Darwinism.

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    10. Jeff: Never mind that without foundationalism nothing is knowable.

      Again, this is a false dilemma.

      By dissolving justificationism itself, the critical rationalist regards knowledge and rationality, reason and science, as neither foundational nor infallible, but nevertheless does not think we must therefore all be relativists. Knowledge and truth still exist, just not in the way we thought.

      As a Foundationalist, you're the one with the problem, which you're projecting on me.

      You might need a stronger reason to believe, but that's your problem, not mine.

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    11. Jeff: OK, Scott. So now you're saying there IS positive evidence for ideas/etc?

      To answer your question directly: No - I'm not suggesting there is positive evidence for ideas. I'm suggesting the same evidence Thornton is referring to is relevant in adopting Darwinism.

      Now it's your turn.

      Why don't you start out by filling in the blanks with something other than conjecture and refutation.

      And, no, I'm not asking you to fill in the blanks with propositions. This is because a proposition would be a conjecture about how to extrapolate the raw data, which is precisely my point.

      What I'm asking for is one or more steps that can extrapolate raw data into a inductive conclusion that doesn't include conjecture and refutation.

      01. Raw data
      02. Not conjecture or refutation
      0N. Not conjecture or refutation
      [...]
      0X. Inductive conclusion

      Please be specific.

      And, as I mentioned earlier, this challenge is open to everyone, not just Jeff.

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    12. Scott: I'm suggesting the same evidence Thornton is referring to is relevant in adopting Darwinism.

      Jeff: You've explained nothing, as usual. You haven't even defined evidence. Criticism is always translatable to a deductive form. Therefore it always has premises which, by your view, are no better (because no more believable) than any others. Thus, nothing ever holds up to rational criticism, because nothing is ever found erroneous in your approach. If you give an example of how it could be, you'll be using normal deductive/inductive reasoning to do it.

      You say induction methodology (which necessarily involves deduction to even be intelligible as "rational") doesn't involve conjecture and refutation. You're the only person I've communicated with who apparently knows absolutely nothing about inductive methodology. Pick up any logic book and read the chapter on induction so you'll have a clue what you're talking about.

      I have no doubt you think you have knowledge, even though you define it to be a-plausible beliefs which, therefore, can't be demarcated from any belief whatsoever that you would call NON-knowledge. IOW, you're one big ball of contradictions and absurdities.

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    13. modus ponens, modus tollens, etc, are merely deductive forms. The conclusions have no knowable correspondence to reality if the premises don't. You act like this is a problem for induction alone. This is only true if "relevance" and "evidence" have nothing to do with any known relation to reality/truth. And that's precisely what you're saying over and over. In that sense, you're saying NOTHING similar to what Moronton is saying.

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    14. jeff: You say induction methodology (which necessarily involves deduction to even be intelligible as "rational") doesn't involve conjecture and refutation.

      I'm saying induction is impossible. As such, It's unclear how an impossible methodology involves conjecture and refutation.

      And I'm utterly confused?

      Jeff: You're the only person I've communicated with who apparently knows absolutely nothing about inductive methodology.

      Then enlighten me as to how an inductive methodology can provide guidance, in practice, by filling in the blanks with something other than conjecture and refutation. I don't think you can, but feel free to point out where I'm wrong.

      Jeff: Pick up any logic book and read the chapter on induction so you'll have a clue what you're talking about.

      If you can turn to any logic book and find "Principle of induction" that works, in practice, then what's the hold up? Why is this like putting teeth?

      Jeff: I have no doubt you think you have knowledge, even though you define it to be a-plausible beliefs which, therefore, can't be demarcated from any belief whatsoever that you would call NON-knowledge.

      What we do is guess, then expose those guesses to criticism. In the case of science, this includes empirical tests and observations.

      Fallibilism, correctly understood, implies the possibility, not the impossibility, of knowledge, because the very concept of error, if taken seriously, implies that truth exists and can be found. The inherent limitation on human reason, that it can never find solid foundations for ideas, does not constitute any sort of limit on the creation of objective knowledge nor, therefore, on progress. The absence of foundation, whether infallible or probable, is no loss to anyone except tyrants and charlatans, because what the rest of us want from ideas is their content, not their provenance: If your disease has been cured by medical science, and you then become aware that science never proves anything but only disproves theories (and then only tentatively), you do not respond “oh dear, I’ll just have to die, then.”

      On the other hand… To quote you….

      Jeff: The only way there can be POSITIVE evidence is if the existence and nature of "evidence" per se is POSITIVELY known. And that's not possible apart from foundationalism of some sort.

      How is something positively known if the foundational belief you use to justify it is not itself justified, not positively known to be true and uncritically accepted as a foundational belief?

      How is this connected to reality?

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    15. The vast majority of theories that actually solve problems are not actually foundational in the sense you're implying.

      Example? Did we need to commission an emergency program of redesigning bridges when Newton's laws were found to be false? No, we didn't. Why? Because the problem of building bridges does not actually rest on foundations in the sense you're implying.

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    16. Scott: The vast majority of theories that actually solve problems are not actually foundational in the sense you're implying.

      Example? Did we need to commission an emergency program of redesigning bridges when Newton's laws were found to be false? No, we didn't. Why? Because the problem of building bridges does not actually rest on foundations in the sense you're implying.

      J: I've explained already that foundationalism isn't justificationism. It's naturally-formed beliefs that are "criticized" inductively. Those that aren't "rejected" are used as premises for other deductions. You can't even have any meaningful thoughts about "bridges" apart from apparent memories, which are, for the most part, NATURALLY-FORMED beliefs. We don't reject them when they past the inductive test.

      But you reject even the "natural" vs. "voluntary/discursive" distinction of beliefs. This means even apparent memories, for you, are utterly a-plausible in EVERY sense. Of course that's non-sense. But you keep insisting you hold to that non-sense.

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    18. Scott: Then enlighten me as to how an inductive methodology can provide guidance, in practice, by filling in the blanks with something other than conjecture and refutation.

      J: You form a hypothesis constrained by the beliefs that your apparent memories are valid (until determined otherwise by inductive criteria) and that the future will be characterized by an inductively-interpretable regularity of causality like that you've already experienced. Then you test it against future experience (again, without rejecting apparent memories merely because you're so anal that you hate even that species of foundationalism).

      Note, here, that the naturalistic UCA hypothesis has nothing to do with either of these two facets of rational thought. Everything about my on-going experience that you could say isn't knowably inconsistent with UCA also isn't knowably inconsistent with SA. And no one has shown that the regularities of my experience rule out one (SA), but not the other (UCA), type of HISTORY. Positing naturalistic UCA explains literally nothing. It makes no risky predictions. Thus, there's nothing critiZABLE about it.

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    19. Jeff: I've explained already that foundationalism isn't justificationism. It's naturally-formed beliefs that are "criticized" inductively.

      Except you still haven't explained how "inductive criticism" works. So, apparently, you've simply decided to call C&R induction?

      Jeff: Those that aren't "rejected" are used as premises for other deductions. You can't even have any meaningful thoughts about "bridges" apart from apparent memories, which are, for the most part, NATURALLY-FORMED beliefs.

      Sure we can Jeff. The problem with induction is that we cannot extrapolate observations without first putting them into an explanatory framework.

      For example, before you could reach a false conclusion about memories about bridges, you must have put them into a false explanatory framework. For example. If you are just a brain in a vat, your entire set of "memories" of bridges could have actually been someone else's memories of experiencing an actual bridge. IOW, without some alternative framework to extrapolate those supposed experiences, they tell us nothing one way or the other. Nor is the conjecture that were your memories, rather than something else, out there somewhere for you to mechanically derive from experience.

      What explanation do we have, other than they are memories about bridges in some sense? What are they if not recalled experiences? In the absence of some other explanation, our past experience does not tell us if they should continue or not. BTW, this is why I reject Solipsism.

      Furthermore, every designer we've experienced designing something has had a material brain. Every designer we experienced designing something was complex and knowledge laden.

      And, as Cornelius likes to point out, every time we learn someone new about the biosphere, we often find it's more complex. And since every designer we've experienced is part of the biosphere itself, these are also experiences that designers are more and more complex.

      So, why doesn't all of overwhelming number of growing, pasts experiences represent guidance that we will continue to experience the same trend in the future? IE all future designers we experience will be even more complex, more knowledge laden material beings with material brains?

      Yet, you seem to think we will experience something we've never experienced in the past.

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    20. Scott: So, apparently, you've simply decided to call C&R induction?

      J: It's common knowledge. Examples are:

      1) The more parsimonious of multiple hypothetico-deductive explanations is deemed "better" unless it diminishes overall parsimony of total explanation of experience-events.

      2) A hypothetico-deductive explanation of events that implies future events with success over a significant spatial and temporal domain, while no other hypothetico-deductive explanation does, it is "better" than a non-explanatory hypothesis which can not thus far be shown to be falsifiable.

      Parsimony, analogy, breadth of explanation are all conceptually related ideas. They're INDUCTIVE criteria. There is no ONE proposition that comprehends the totality of how it works. But NONE of them render naturalistic UCA more plausible than SA or even knowably possible.

      Jeff: You can't even have any meaningful thoughts about "bridges" apart from apparent memories, which are, for the most part, NATURALLY-FORMED beliefs.

      Scott: Sure we can Jeff...

      For example, before you could reach a false conclusion about memories about bridges, you must have put them into a false explanatory framework. For example. If you are just a brain in a vat, your entire set of "memories" of bridges could have actually been someone else's memories of experiencing an actual bridge.

      J: See how skeptical you are? You don't even trust that you remember that you've ever remembered. Nothing about bridges (or much else) is knowable this way.

      Scott: IOW, without some alternative framework to extrapolate those supposed experiences, they tell us nothing one way or the other.

      J: Most people never even conceive of "Matrix" type alternatives to explaining apparent memory, Scott. What you're saying is sheer non-sense. Rather, we COME to posit illusions and false memories WHEN to do otherwise compels us (because of the law of non-contradiction) to embrace less parsimonious explanatory frameworks of our experience.

      Scott: Nor is the conjecture that were your memories, rather than something else, out there somewhere for you to mechanically derive from experience.

      J: Exactly. An apparent memory is NOT derived in the way discursive arguments derive conclusions. They just NATURALLY OCCUR!!! But most people don't question them. Because they don't contradict anything important to their explanatory framework. So there is typically no reason TO question them. And all of our explanatory framework was GENERATED by ACCEPTING most memories as telling us something about event regularities in the first place.

      Scott: What explanation do we have, other than they are memories about bridges in some sense?

      J: Scott, we couldn't even have the CONCEPT of "memory" to use in an explanation without first NATURALLY EXPERIENCING AN APPARENT MEMORY! You can't get something from NOTHING, discursively!

      Scott: What are they if not recalled experiences?

      J: It makes no difference. Because most people aren't masochists. And that's the only thing that would explain why people would waste effort criticizing naturally formed beliefs that are not seen by those very people to decrease their long-term satisfaction.

      Scott: In the absence of some other explanation, our past experience does not tell us if they should continue or not.

      J: By your view, we DON'T know whether they will continue or not--EVER.

      Scott: BTW, this is why I reject Solipsism.

      J: Solipsism is unfalsifiable once you reject foundationalism. It's also no less plausible than any other "ism" once you reject foundationalism.

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    21. J: By "Solipsism is unfalsifiable," above, I mean solipsism isn't criticizable in any non-arbitrary fashion.

      Scott: Furthermore, every designer we've experienced designing something has had a material brain. Every designer we experienced designing something was complex and knowledge laden.

      J: By your view, you have no such knowledge. Because by your view, we have to PROVE apparent memories are actual memories. No, it's worse. By your view, we have to generate FROM nothing the very concept of memory to experience an apparent memory. Your magical thinking is mind-boggling.

      Scott: IE all future designers we experience will be even more complex, more knowledge laden material beings with material brains?

      J: I don't know what sense you're meaning here. War, natural catastrophes, etc, destroy knowledge. So no trend is inevitable.

      Scott: Yet, you seem to think we will experience something we've never experienced in the past.

      J: We do every day, Scott. Every day is unique in certain senses, seemingly.

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    22. j1: Scott, we couldn't even have the CONCEPT of "memory" to use in an explanation without first NATURALLY EXPERIENCING AN APPARENT MEMORY! You can't get something from NOTHING, discursively!

      j2: I should have said we couldn't even have the concept of an "apparent memory" or a "false memory" if we didn't experience a NATURALLY-OCCURRING apparent memory. If a memory is nothing more than a posited past event that we merely choose to believe happened, then memories are evidence of nothing relevant to court proceedings, etc. Such adjudication ASSUMES that distinctions between actual/false/apparent memories are REAL. And this requires that at least SOME apparent memories occur NATURALLY.

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    23. jeff said:

      "Never mind that without foundationalism nothing is knowable."

      Define foundationalism.

      Define basic beliefs.

      Define induction.

      Define deduction.

      What happens when a person's 'basic beliefs' are very different from another person's 'basic beliefs'?

      Do you believe that believing in an imaginary sky daddy and associated fairy tales establishes an infallible foundation and infallible justification for your belief in an imaginary sky daddy and associated fairy tales?

      Do you believe that believing in an imaginary sky daddy and associated fairy tales solves (with infallible justification and an infallible foundation) any problems with infinite regress?

      Does a newborn human baby have basic beliefs? If so, what are they?

      Does a newborn chimpanzee or elephant baby have basic beliefs? If so, what are they?

      Can humans and/or animals learn and know things without believing in an imaginary sky daddy and associated fairy tales?

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    24. Scott: So, apparently, you've simply decided to call C&R induction?

      Jeff: It's common knowledge.

      What's common knowledge? That you're simply decided to call C&R induction?

      Jeff: Examples are:

      Except non of those are examples of inductivism, which is the false theory of knowledge that claims knowledge is created by

      01. Doing observations
      02. Using those observations to invent a theory
      03. Using more observations to confirm the theory or make it more probable.

      But, no one has formulated a principle of induction that actually works, in practice.

      More specifically, theories do not follow from evidence. At all. They are not out there for us to observe. And explanations say things about unobserved events, so they cannot follow from observed events.

      As such, all of our "beliefs" are what you call basic beliefs. And what you call basic or natural beliefs are conjectured theories. When we notice a problem we guess an explanatory solution to that problem. Human beings are unique in the biosphere in that we've made the leap to universal explainers. We criticize competing theories that we, and others, conjecture. And we do so continually at a subconscious level.

      We cannot extrapolate observations without first putting them into at least one explanatory framework - regardless of how shallow, poorly criticized or incomplete it happens to be at the moment.

      For example, have you ever remembered a dream? If not, do other people remember their dreams? If so, the very idea that we can identify dreams implies that we can use criticism to conclude some experiences we've recalled are manufactured assemblies that our minds use to integrate information.

      So, the idea that we have to kinds of beliefs does not withstand rational criticism. Furthermore, it's non-parsimonious.

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    25. Scott: What are they if not recalled experiences?

      Jeff: It makes no difference. Because most people aren't masochists. And that's the only thing that would explain why people would waste effort criticizing naturally formed beliefs that are not seen by those very people to decrease their long-term satisfaction.

      It make no difference to you because you've adopted the idea that there are two kinds of beliefs. And that include the idea that criticizing natural beliefs cannot result in increased long-term satisfaction by finding errors in those beliefs. IOW, it makes no difference to you because of the specific conception of human knowledge you've currently adopted. And, apparently, you think this conception is basic, so it cannot be criticized either, so you're stuck in a loop of curricular logic.

      Scott: In the absence of some other explanation, our past experience does not tell us if they should continue or not.

      J: By your view, we DON'T know whether they will continue or not--EVER.

      I'm not saying that we haven't made progress in that realism and recalled memories are *the* explanations for what we experience. Rather, I'm suggesting you're confused about we've made that progress and to what degree.

      However, even if this wasn't a misconception that I've already cleared up (which it is) you're the one objecting to evolutionary theory on inductive grounds, not me. As such, this is an example of the Tu Quoque fallacy.

      So, again, if we use induction, as you claim, every designer we've experienced designing something has had a material brain. Every designer we experienced designing something was complex and knowledge laden. And since every designer we've experienced is part of the biosphere itself, these are also experiences that designers are more and more complex.

      Why doesn't all of overwhelming number of growing, pasts experiences represent guidance that we will continue to experience the same trend in the future? IE all future designers we experience will be even complex, highly knowledge laden material beings with material brains?

      Do you accept his as truth-approximating in regards to all designers?

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    26. In case it's not clear...

      So, the idea that we have two kinds of beliefs does not withstand rational criticism. Furthermore, it's non-parsimonious.

      it's all conjecture and criticism.

      Of course, feel free to formulate a "Principle of Induction" that allows you to derive "non-basic" theories from observations, rather than forming them via conjecture.

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    27. Scott: Except non of those are examples of inductivism, which is the false theory of knowledge that claims knowledge is created by

      01. Doing observations
      02. Using those observations to invent a theory
      03. Using more observations to confirm the theory or make it more probable.

      J: Inductivism isn't a theory of "knowledge" in the sense that you are meaning. It's a set of criteria for hypothesis rejection believed to be truth-APPROXIMATING in the long run as data sets increase, etc. Your "02" misses the point. There are an infinite set of histories consistent with our remembered "observations." Parsimony, which is only valid if events are caused, is how we explain. Parsimony is an INDUCTIVE criteria. Read a logic book if you want to know something about induction.

      Scott: But, no one has formulated a principle of induction that actually works, in practice.

      J: It's used all the time. Every time a mathematical model "works" over some continually increasing domain of time and/or space, it increases human confidence, on the INDUCTIVE criteria of analogical enumeration, that it will PROBABLY continue to work over that domain. This, even though causality alone doesn't explain the "success."

      Scott: More specifically, theories do not follow from evidence. At all. They are not out there for us to observe. And explanations say things about unobserved events, so they cannot follow from observed events.

      J: True. But no logic book discussion of inductive logic says what you're saying.

      Scott: As such, all of our "beliefs" are what you call basic beliefs.

      J: No, that's the case for people like Dennett, Dawkins, Shermer, etc, who don't believe in free-will. For them, ALL belief is naturally-formed belief INdistinguishable from intuition.

      Scott: And what you call basic or natural beliefs are conjectured theories.

      J: No, I believe discursive reasoning is, until rendered habitual by repetition, VOLUNTARY.

      Scott: When we notice a problem we guess an explanatory solution to that problem.

      J: No, by your view, one can't know that one has ever noticed a problem. Because you deny that apparent memories are natural and naturally BELIEVED to be actual memories.

      Scott: For example, have you ever remembered a dream? If not, do other people remember their dreams? If so, the very idea that we can identify dreams implies ...

      J: You don't believe in foundationalism. So you don't believe that beliefs occur naturally. So you believe one has to CHOOSE to believe there is a problem, dream, memory, etc. The problem is, one can't choose all beliefs since that would imply an infinite regress. You can't consciously CHOOSE without believing you have the capacity to CHOOSE. But it's logically non-sensical to say you consciously CHOSE to believe you have the capacity to CHOOSE. There is NO way to explain how all beliefs can be non-natural other than to say that ALL beliefs are uncaused. And that's just another way of saying that there is no way to get around foundationalism other than to contend that all beliefs are UNcaused. And if all beliefs are UNcaused, there is nothing knowably better, more plausible, or more probable about beliefs PER SE. And in that case, rationality is indistinguishable from non-rationality to the extent that it has to do with beliefs.

      Scott: So, the idea that we have to kinds of beliefs does not withstand rational criticism. Furthermore, it's non-parsimonious.

      J: By two kinds of beliefs, are you meaning natural and non-natural?



      Scott: And that include the idea that criticizing natural beliefs cannot result in increased long-term satisfaction by finding errors in those beliefs.

      J: I've said just the opposite. We do believe we find errors in them--INDUCTIVELY.

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    28. Scott: In the absence of some other explanation, our past experience does not tell us if they should continue or not.

      J: We can't know what our past experience was or wasn't by your view.

      J: By your view, we DON'T know whether they will continue or not--EVER.

      Scott: However, even if this wasn't a misconception that I've already cleared up (which it is) ...

      J: No, you haven't.

      Scott: ... you're the one objecting to evolutionary theory on inductive grounds, not me.

      J: I'm only talking about the hypothesis of naturalistic UCA. And you and I agree that there is no POSITIVE evidence for that hypothesis in the sense that Moronton means. By his view, "evidence" is that wich renders a position probable, more probable, or true. You disagree with that about all hypotheses. I'm merely saying you're right about the hypothesis of naturalistic UCA.

      Scott: As such, this is an example of the Tu Quoque fallacy.

      J: No. We agree in that one instance. I just disagree with your generalization.

      Scott: So, again, if we use induction, as you claim, every designer we've experienced ...
      ... Do you accept his as truth-approximating in regards to all designers?

      J: I'm not arguing ID in a non-theistic sense. I'm arguing that benevolent/competent theism is a corrollary of the claim that the inductive method is truth-approximating. And since there are no other conceivable NATURALLY believed (by humans QUA humans) relative plausibility criteria than inductive relative plausibility criteria, any correspondence of belief to reality is purely coincidental. And the latter means that belief is NEVER warranted or distinguishably KNOWLEDGE.

      Scott: So, the idea that we have two kinds of beliefs does not withstand rational criticism. Furthermore, it's non-parsimonious.

      J: No, the idea that all beliefs are chosen is a logical impossibility. To choose is to CAUSE. The effect of any cause is SUBSEQUENT to the cause. One can't CONSCIOUSLY voluntarily CAUSE oneself to belief one is voluntary. That would mean that the cause didn't precede the effect. Your view, IOW, isn't even intelligible. It's sheer non-sense. Thus, foundationalism is the only CONCEIVABLE view unless one posits that ALL beliefs are UNcaused.

      Scott: Of course, feel free to formulate a "Principle of Induction" that allows you to derive "non-basic" theories from observations, rather than forming them via conjecture.

      J: Theories aren't basic or natural. Some BELIEFS are, though. And it's those natural beliefs that we don't reject using inductive criteria that we use as grounds in our theories.

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    29. J: Theories aren't basic or natural. Some BELIEFS are, though. And it's those natural beliefs that we don't reject using inductive criteria that we use as grounds in our theories.

      J2: By "our theories," I mean our hypothetico-deductive explanations. "Warranted" belief about non-experienced past and future events are also considered warranted or not based on inductive criteria. There an infinite set of NON-inductive histories consistent with our experience. We reject them out of hand as soon as their brought to our attention for the simple reason that they fail the inductive relative plausibility criteria. By your non-foundationalist view, Scott, they're no less plausible than any other history. And, therefore, particular "historical" beliefs have no value to theory formation. Because they can't render any theory about future events any more plausible than any other "historical" belief.

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    30. Scott:

      01. Doing observations
      02. Using those observations to invent a theory
      03. Using more observations to confirm the theory or make it more probable.

      Jeff: Inductivism isn't a theory of "knowledge" in the sense that you are meaning. It's a set of criteria for hypothesis rejection believed to be truth-APPROXIMATING in the long run as data sets increase, etc.

      If inductivism isn't a theory of knowledge, then in what sense is it relevant as to whether we should adopt any idea, such as Darwinism?

      Furthermore, as I've pointed out, no one has actually formulated a "Principle of Induction", that works, in practice. Not to mention, overwhelming criticism of induction by Popper, across several books. Yet, you keep repeating the same claim, over and over again, without refuting it.

      Are you saying that the belief that induction is truth-APPROXIMATING in the long run as data sets increase is "basic" or "natural", and therefore immune from criticism? But this is the entire problem with foundationalism. One can arbitrarily claim that idea X is "basic", "natural" or "foundational" to shield it from rational criticism. This includes the idea of foundationalism itself.

      Or are you saying repeated apparent subjective experiences that we've used induction to provide guidance in the past leads to the inductive conclusion that we use induction? But that's circular.

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    31. Scott: If inductivism isn't a theory of knowledge, then in what sense is it relevant as to whether we should adopt any idea, such as Darwinism?

      J: Inductive relative plausibility criteria are what people typically MEAN by "evidential" reasoning. By these criteria, there is NO positive evidence for the hypothesis of naturalistic UCA. But by these criteria, people come to believe, with some confidence, that Newton's formula work for over certain temporal/spatial domains. Those formulas can then be used technologically, etc.

      Scott: Furthermore, as I've pointed out, no one has actually formulated a "Principle of Induction", that works, in practice. Not to mention, overwhelming criticism of induction by Popper, across several books.

      J: I've never said there was a "principle of induction" articulable in one proposition. Nor has any logic book text that I've ever read. I don't know the specific problem Popper had with induction, but it would need to explain how we adjudicate our inference to false memories non-arbitrarily. Otherwise, he, like you, couldn't render solipsism or the 5-minute theory less plausible than any other competing explanation of that same conscious experience.

      Scott: Are you saying that the belief that induction is truth-APPROXIMATING in the long run as data sets increase is "basic" or "natural", and therefore immune from criticism?

      J: It's not subject to communal criticism, because as long as you've inferred the existence of other minds, you're already DOING inductive inferences--analogical inferences. But it's tentative in the sense that if my experience becomes incapable of being explained in terms that allow me to predict the future with sufficient success to attain any satisfaction, induction has become irrelevant as a criteria for hypothesis rejection. Satisfaction (or the diminishing of DISsatisfaction) is a necessary motive to VOLUNTARY mental activity.

      Scott: But this is the entire problem with foundationalism. One can arbitrarily claim that idea X is "basic", "natural" or "foundational" to shield it from rational criticism. This includes the idea of foundationalism itself.

      J: Foundationalism of the human kind only renders the reality of relative plausibility criteria LOGICALLY possible. It doesn't render it proveable. We use those criteria voluntarily because our nature won't allow us to disregard satisfaction. So without foundationalism, all criticism is completely arbitrary. That's why without it, you can't "discover" errors in theories. All one has to do is criticize your arbitrary view of "memory" to "prove" your criticism is irrelevant. No counter-argument is possible given your approach.

      Scott: Or are you saying repeated apparent subjective experiences that we've used induction to provide guidance in the past leads to the inductive conclusion that we use induction? But that's circular.

      J: I'm saying that we synthesize events into sequences consistent with that kind of regularity that is most conducive to our long-term satisfaction. This involves trial and error. But you have to start with natural beliefs PLUS your parsimonious nature to get anywhere. To say all beliefs are uncaused or all natural is to we don't choose anything. But to say all beliefs are chosen is incoherent. It implies an effect isn't preceded by its cause, as I explained above. If causes are future to their effects, all our explanations are wrong, meaning any correspondence between our explanations and our experience is completely coincidental. And that means that we're so lucky we don't need to act voluntarily at all.

      Delete
    32. J: I'm saying that we synthesize events into sequences consistent with that kind of regularity that is most conducive to our long-term satisfaction.

      J2: Note, this assumes we actually remember. Otherwise, we'd have no clue what is conducive to our satisfaction. But one can't prove that one remembers. So we use all those naturally-formed APPARENT memories that don't contradict those explanations that are conducive to that long-term satisfaction we BELIEVE we experience, GIVEN the assumption THAT our apparent memories are almost always actual memories.

      Delete
    33. P1. Inductivism is a theory of knowledge.

      Apparently, you disagree with this. However, repeating what you think induction is has not shed any light on where you disagree or why.

      A. Inductivism is only part of a greater theory of knowledge.
      B. Inductivism isn't conclusive, and therefore not a source of knowledge
      C. There is no such thing as a theory of knowledge.
      D. Other [fill in the blank]





      Delete
    34. J1: ... GIVEN the assumption THAT our apparent memories are almost always actual memories.

      J2: IOW, we don't reject naturally formed beliefs unless doing so can be recognized as resulting in greater long-term satisfaction. There is no way we could reject all naturally-formed beliefs and get ANYWHERE.

      Delete
    35. The only way all ideas can be subject to criticism is if all criteria are subject to criticism. But that is logically impossible since criticism IS the application of criteria to something OTHER than those criteria. The only sense in which ALL beliefs are tentative is that we can't prove that our current epistemological nature will abide. But there is no inductive warrant for believing such a state of affairs is forthcoming, so it's irrelevant to any criticism we can make in terms of our existing epistemology.

      Delete
    36. Again, I'm no closer to understanding where you disagree with this or why.

      Delete
    37. Jeff: IOW, we don't reject naturally formed beliefs unless doing so can be recognized as resulting in greater long-term satisfaction. There is no way we could reject all naturally-formed beliefs and get ANYWHERE.

      And what happens when we change our preferences? We adopt new idea about how the world work. This includes our idea about how human knowledge grows.

      From this article...

      Fallibilism has practical consequences for the methodology and administration of science, and in government, law, education, and every aspect of public life. The philosopher Karl Popper elaborated on many of these. He wrote:

      "The question about the sources of our knowledge . . . has always been asked in the spirit of: ‘What are the best sources of our knowledge—the most reliable ones, those which will not lead us into error, and those to which we can and must turn, in case of doubt, as the last court of appeal?’ I propose to assume, instead, that no such ideal sources exist—no more than ideal rulers—and that all ‘sources’ are liable to lead us into error at times. And I propose to replace, therefore, the question of the sources of our knowledge by the entirely different question: ‘How can we hope to detect and eliminate error?’

      It’s all about error. We used to think that there was a way to organize ourselves that would minimize errors. This is an infallibilist chimera that has been part of every tyranny since time immemorial, from the “divine right of kings” to centralized economic planning. And it is implemented by many patterns of thought that protect misconceptions in individual minds, making someone blind to evidence that he isn’t Napoleon, or making the scientific crank reinterpret peer review as a conspiracy to keep falsehoods in place.


      Solving problems is a goal of long term satisfaction. How to reach that goal depends on the theory of knowledge you've adopted.

      Delete
    38. Scott:

      P1. Inductivism is a theory of knowledge.

      Apparently, you disagree with this. However, repeating what you think induction is has not shed any light on where you disagree or why.

      A. Inductivism is only part of a greater theory of knowledge.
      B. Inductivism isn't conclusive, and therefore not a source of knowledge
      C. There is no such thing as a theory of knowledge.
      D. Other [fill in the blank]

      J: Knowledge is a word we use for a subset of our beliefs. It varies from one individual to the next as to which beliefs are considered merely warranted as opposed to being knowledge. But this ends up being irrelevant most of the time. Because for the most part, all we expect of one another, when we expect anything of one another, is that people believe with WARRANT and adjudicate their voluntary actions on WARRANTED beliefs. But warranted beliefs are inductively-derived and -criticized beliefs. And induction only works if we assume other beliefs that survive that criticism correspond to a real "order/reality" that exists independent of our consciousness OF it.

      So inductivism isn't a theory of knowledge in the sense that knowledge is TRUE belief. Rather, we can't but CONTINUE to believe that certain naturally-formed beliefs (like most apparent memories, categories, the law of non-contradiction, etc) are true. And these are used as grounds in inductive and deductive inferences.

      The minute we doubt these beliefs and act in accordance with that doubt (like walking out in the street without looking both ways), we experience pain, etc that we don't experience when we act off those naturally-formed beliefs and the inductive/deductive inferences we derive from them. Pain/dissatisfaction is the most efficient corroborator of "warranted" beliefs. Because "warranted" beliefs are those that are conducive to long-term satisfaction when deemed relevant to future action adjudication.

      Delete
    39. Jeff: The minute we doubt these beliefs and act in accordance with that doubt (like walking out in the street without looking both ways), we experience pain, etc that we don't experience when we act off those naturally-formed beliefs and the inductive/deductive inferences we derive from them.

      To quote Popper...

      By criticizing our theories we can let our theories die in our stead.

      IOW, you're assuming we cannot make progress by devising criticisms that allow us to test basic beliefs. This is a key aspect of science.

      For example, we do not use actual human passengers in car safely tests. We put crash test dummies that are designed to obtain a wide range of impact data specific to human beings.

      To quote Richard Feynman...

      The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.

      Delete
    40. Scott: The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.

      J: There is no such thing as a "test" if absolutely ZERO of our naturally-formed beliefs (even apparent memories, causality, etc) are to be retained as premises. That's just another way of describing ABSOLUTE skepticism.

      A test, by definition, ALWAYS assumes something. Those assumptions, per your approach, are ABSOLUTELY arbitrary, rendering the very concept of "test" irrelevant to the determination of the falsehood of any proposition.

      Think of any "test" you want to conceive of. Take the car safety test. Look at all the completely arbitrary assumptions involved in that "test."

      1) There is such a thing as a car.
      2) Cars remain in existence long enough to learn about them.
      3) I have the capacity to learn.
      4) dummys exist.
      5) dummys remain in existence long enough to be relevant to the test.
      6) changes of momentum of a car with respect to time will result in a force upon its passenger in the future.

      and on and on. Per your approach, EVERY one of these assumptions is no more plausible than the whole lot of contrary assumptions. IOW, you can never know whether a test is doable at all, given your absolute skepticism. YOu can't know whether a test has ever been performed in the past, even.

      In short, you wouldn't KNOW if you were fooling yourself by your approach.

      Delete
    41. This is yet another example of you failing to take Critical Rationalism seriously for the purpose of criticism.

      We start out with a specific problem to solve: how to make cars that result in fewer injuries during various ranges of impacts. And then we test those theories for errors. We do this by taking those theories seriously, as if they were true in reality, along with assuming the rest of our current, best theories are true, in reality, as well. We then specifically design tests that would reveal one or more of the explanatory solutions to the problem were currently trying to solve, wrong. That memories are actually recalled past experiences is one of our current, best explanations that we assume is true, in reality, for the purpose of criticism. This is uncontroversial background knowledge that has withstood significant criticism.

      Again, your argument assumes we can only devise tests to find errors in every solution to every problem simultaneously, rather than devise specific tests to find errors that are specific to the solutions conjectured to solve the current problem in question. But that's how science makes progress, in practice.

      This is an iterative process. New observations can create new problems when explanatory problem solving theories conflict with those observations, they cannot explain the new observations or they conflict with theories that have withstood more criticism. So, we conjecture where the problem is, then devise tests that would show one of those explanatory, problem solving theories wrong, etc.

      What action to take based on perceived past memories is just such a problem, which we can criticize in this same way by taking it in the context of just that: a problem. An example of this is waking up from a dream and determining what you recalled was a dream, not actual past experiences. However, this doesn't mean this problem is immune from new observations or better explantions.

      For example, if someone invented a machine that let us record and playback other people's experiences, we would need to take this into account as a possible criticism. However, we do not have an explanation as to how this is possible at the moment. So, we discard it, *for now*. Of course, we cannot rule out that aliens are doing just this from orbit as a means to study us.

      Delete
    42. IOW, to say that recalling perceived memories is not subject to criticism assumes we will not make progress in solving other problems, like how to record and playback other people's experiences.

      We gain knowledge when we solve problems. Solutions to problems will always contain errors, be incomplete, etc. But this does't mean we haven't make progress.

      For example, imagine you went to college, but every memory you have of every class and lecture were false in that they were not based on your own past experience. However, when you applied them, they were useful in solving problems. Now imagine we discovered this happened to a doctor. Do all of the patients that doctor cured suddenly become ill again? No, they do not. Knowledge is about solving problems.

      So, despite being incomplete and containing error, to some degree, the idea that all of your memories were you own still allows you to solve problems. You can still make progress.

      What's important is that problems are solved, not their source. If those memories were someone else's past experience that did correlate to reality, then you could still use those memories to solve problems, in reality. The same could be said if they were based on some simulation that was actually based on real world problems and solutions. If it's not based on some form of realty, then what were did they come from? Why would they allow us to solve problems?

      Solipsism does not explain why object like-facets of my internal self would obey laws of physics-like facets of my internal self. Nor does it explain why other conscious being-like facets of my internal self would disagree with me on Solipsism. So, despite being a logical possibly, we discard it because it doesn't solve any problem. It's a convoluted elaboration of realism.

      Solutions either solve problems or they do not. If you believe you've received instructions of how to build a car, but actually received instruction of how to build a truck instead, you won't end up with a car instead. Your belief one way or the other doesn't change this.

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    43. Scott: For example, if someone invented a machine that let us record and playback other people's experiences, we would need to take this into account as a possible criticism. However, we do not have an explanation as to how this is possible at the moment. So, we discard it, *for now*. Of course, we cannot rule out that aliens are doing just this from orbit as a means to study us.

      Jeff, what did I just do above, if not rationally criticize the idea that we have memories?

      I don't need to reject the idea that we have memories to criticize it.

      Delete
    44. Scott: For example, imagine you went to college, but every memory you have of every class and lecture were false in that they were not based on your own past experience. However, when you applied them, they were useful in solving problems.

      J: You couldn't know you had applied them if you don't know that ANY apparent memories are ACTUAL memories. I don't why this is so hard. It takes the BELIEF of the basic validity of memory to know (i.e., non-arbitrarily believe) ANYTHING relevant to explanation.

      Delete
    45. Scott: However, we do not have an explanation as to how this is possible at the moment. So, we discard it, *for now*.

      J: We don't have a naturalistic explanation for UCA, either. But more importantly, if apparent memories are no more likely to be actual memories than not, I couldn't know there is such a thing as an explanation. It takes a duration of time > 0 to think about an explanation of anything. That means to know your explaing IS TO REMEMBER!

      Delete
    46. How do you criticize anything when criticism takes enough time to require memory and your epistemology doesn't render the existence of memories more plausible than the not. Not only is it unknowable whether explanations have ever been conceived per your skepticism, but it is unknowable whether criticism has ever occurred.

      Delete
    47. Again, "X might be wrong" isn't a valid criticism because, in the absence of the context of a problem to solve, it's applicable to all theories.

      So, what problem are you trying to solve? What is problematic about the idea that we have memories in that context?

      For example, In the context of a theory of knowledge (epistemology) is there a problem with the idea that we really do have memories?

      Furthermore, we can take the theory that no memories are actual memories seriously in the context of this problem, as if it's true in reality, for the purpose of criticism, along with the rest of our current, best explanations, which includes every solution to every problem that we use on a regular basis.

      Go ahead. Take the theory that there are no actual memories *at all* seriously, in the light of all of these problem solutions.

      Do I have to explain it to you?

      Delete
  4. In order to be taken seriously evolution must be able to explain how life’s various and incredible innovations arose, and it hasn’t been able to do that.

    Why should anyone care whether Cornelius Hunter takes anything seriously? It's not as if he didn't have a well-known and repeatedly demonstrated anti-evolution bias.

    ReplyDelete
  5. What is Hunter's explanation of how life's various and "incredible" innovations arose? If he doesn't have one, he's not to be taken seriously.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Pedant: What is Hunter's explanation of how life's various and "incredible" innovations arose? If he doesn't have one, he's not to be taken seriously.

      J: Since you don't have an explanation, either, I guess you're not to be taken seriously, either. That's pretty much his point.

      Delete
    2. Jeff,

      Don't blame me if Hunter has no scientific explanation for how life's diversity arose.

      Without a testable rival theory, he has no point.

      Delete
    3. Pedant: Without a testable rival theory, he has no point.

      J: If, by "testable," you mean "falsifiable," you don't have one either. If you just mean "testable" in the non-falsifiable sense, to demonstrate that naturalistic UCA is logically possible is the INDUCTIVE equivalent of demonstrating that the naturalistic UCA hypothesis is more parsimonious. But you haven't done that either. So your point is moot either way. CH is saying that there is no inductive evidence for naturalistic UCA. And he's right--there isn't.

      Delete
    4. So, according to you, nobody has a point.

      Thanks for the clarification.

      Delete
  6. CH:"The second tension arises from how evolutionists have attempted to explain life’s incredible mechanisms and machines. Such machines are not likely to be created by blind natural laws--they require forward-looking thought. Assembly is required, and there is no payback until the final step. Evolution’s natural selection will not do the job because the machine does not help the organism until the machine is complete. Natural selection lacks the foresight required to construct such machines."

    This about sums it up. We can see design unambiguously. So it's time to take the next step. That is, who is the designer and does it want to be known? From the Christian perspective, the answer is yes to both questions. He did design life and yes He wants to be known.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. marcus, if "the designer" wants to be known, why doesn't "He" have 'his' own cable TV channel? Just think, "He" could be on 24 hours a day showing in real time exactly how "He" designs things.

      And why do you call your imaginary god "the designer" instead of 'the creator'? Since it's obvious that you'e a christian god pusher, why are you using the deliberately deceptive IDiotic label "the designer"? Do you actually believe that associating yourself with chronic liars-deceivers (IDiots) adds credibility to the religious fairy tales you believe in?


      Delete
    2. Twt, do you want fries with that answer?

      Delete
    3. Marcus July 17, 2013 at 10:26 AM

      [...]

      This about sums it up. We can see design unambiguously. So it's time to take the next step. That is, who is the designer and does it want to be known? From the Christian perspective, the answer is yes to both questions. He did design life and yes He wants to be known.


      You look at the human eye, for example, and see unambiguous evidence of design. I look at the same eye and see an organ which has some similarities to human artefacts like the digital camera. I can't rule out the possibility that it was designed but I believe that the evidence that it could also have evolved through natural processes is stronger than for any other explanation.

      My question is why should evolution be incompatible with the existence of some super-designer or God? Why shouldn't such a being use such a process if they chose?

      Delete
    4. Ian,
      My question is why should evolution be incompatible with the existence of some super-designer or God? Why shouldn't such a being use such a process if they chose


      It is contrary to a literal reading of the Bible probably

      Delete
    5. Ian, God could have made us any way he wanted as he is omniscient and omnipotent. I think he could use the theory of evolution if he wanted. Perhaps when scientists talk about nature they could say, how did God do this and can we copy the designs? Instead we get, nature did this and look what it accomplished. They don't credit the innovation to the proper source, God.

      Delete
    6. Marcus

      They don't credit the innovation to the proper source, God.


      Maybe it's because they don't have any confirming evidence that your particular God is the source, no matter what your religious book claims.

      Tell me again about the unicorns in the "inerrant" 1611KJV.

      Delete
    7. Vel:"It is contrary to a literal reading of the Bible probably"

      Discoveries need to be understood within a context. The Bible provides the context. Some aspects of the Bible are to be taken literally. For example: In the beginning God... Not, in the beginning gravity... or quantum foam... or any other man made god.

      Delete
    8. TH:"Maybe it's because they don't have any confirming evidence that your particular God is the source, no matter what your religious book claims.

      Tell me again about the unicorns in the "inerrant" 1611KJV."

      They had trouble translating that word into English. Here is some info on that. http://carm.org/bible-unicorn.

      It would be nice to see a fossil of one or some sort of physical evidence. Perhaps a fossil will turn up sooner or later, who knows. EVERY animal is evidence of a creator and miracle in my opinion.

      They did not have any trouble translating John 3:16 For God so loved the world he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.

      Delete
    9. marcus

      Some aspects of the Bible are to be taken literally.


      How do you tell which parts are literal and which are merely allegory?

      They had trouble translating that word into English. Here is some info on that. http://carm.org/bible-unicorn.

      So the 1611KJV isn't inerrant as you claimed before. Got it.

      What else did they get wrong, and how do you tell?

      Delete
    10. Marcus,
      Perhaps when scientists talk about nature they could say, how did God do this and can we copy the designs? Instead we get, nature did this and look what it accomplished. They don't credit the innovation to the proper source, God.


      They are only concerned with naturalistic causes,scientific method is unable to determine supernatural causes. Theistic evolutionist credit God. Second, exactly which God should they credit?

      Discoveries need to be understood within a context. The Bible provides the context

      Sorry,need to be more specific

      Some aspects of the Bible are to be taken literally

      So some aspects are not to be taken literally?

      Delete
    11. M:"Discoveries need to be understood within a context. The Bible provides the context"

      velikovskys:"Sorry,need to be more specific"

      M: I'm good with this as an template to begin with. I know you have done much in depth study about these issues so it makes sense you require greater specificity.

      Velikovskys:"So some aspects are not to be taken literally?"

      Right, here's an example. When Jesus says in John 10:9 Yes, I am the gate. Those who come in through me will be saved. They will come and go freely and will find good pastures.

      Are we to understand Jesus is a wooden gate or iron gate swinging on hinges, or perhaps an electronic device allowing current to flow?

      No, we understand He is the entry point to covenant relationship with the Father. It's so easy even I can understand that. :)

      Delete
    12. TH:"Maybe it's because they don't have any confirming evidence that your particular God is the source, no matter what your religious book claims."

      Well some scientists do credit the innovations to the ONE true God. They are the ones I listen to when searching for wisdom and deeper understanding. Why would I even consider listening to you, beings you are so combative? I do appreciate your links to various studies though.


      Delete
    13. Marcus

      Well some scientists do credit the innovations to the ONE true God.


      But not directly. Only indirectly through naturally observed processes like evolution.

      Why would I even consider listening to you, beings you are so combative?

      Not combative, just giving your claims a rigorous vetting. That's the way all science works. I take it you've never tried to get a paper through critical peer review. It can be merciless. But like a wise man said "if you can't stand the heat..."

      Also, you didn't answer my questions:

      "How do you tell which parts of the Bible are literal and which are merely allegory?

      What else did the 1611KJV get wrong (besides 'unicorns'), and how do you tell?"

      I do appreciate your links to various studies though.

      You're welcome. Hopefully you can read and learn about the science from them. I'll answer honest questions if need be.

      Delete
    14. Marcus,
      Right, here's an example. When Jesus says in John 10:9 Yes, I am the gate. Those who come in through me will be saved. They will come and go freely and will find good pastures.


      So only analogies are to be taken as non literal, for instance could the creation story also be an analogy or is it a literal account?

      Delete
    15. Marcus,
      Right, here's an example. When Jesus says in John 10:9 Yes, I am the gate. Those who come in through me will be saved. They will come and go freely and will find good pastures.

      Vel:"So only analogies are to be taken as non literal, for instance could the creation story also be an analogy or is it a literal account?"

      Why not dwell on John 10:9 for a few minutes...
      What do those words mean to you Velikovskys? Why do you think Jesus said that to the people listening?

      Delete
    16. Marcus, you avoided my questions again.

      "How do you tell which parts of the Bible are literal and which are merely allegory?

      What else did the 1611KJV get wrong (besides 'unicorns'), and how do you tell?"

      Your continued evasions are telling us a lot about you, ya know?

      Delete
    17. TH:"Your continued evasions are telling us a lot about you, ya know?"

      Oh, don't worry Thorton, I haven't forgotten about you. You're on my prayer list brau.

      There are no errors in the Bible. Making a direct literal translation using known words is not an error.

      I rely on biblical scholars to explain which parts are literal and which are merely allegory, if I can't discern for myself. Most importantly, when you ask Jesus into your heart, the Holy Spirit lives in you guiding you daily, making more knowledge available to you while reading the scriptures. You can ask Jesus into your heart too. He died for you also Thorton.

      Delete
    18. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    19. Marcus,
      I rely on biblical scholars to explain which parts are literal and which are merely allegory


      What do the scholars say about the creation story in your experience ,do they all agree?

      Delete
    20. Marcus,
      What do those words mean to you Velikovskys? Why do you think Jesus said that to the people listening


      The author probably was telling the reader that one must follow the new Christian tradition not Judaism.

      What did Jesus mean if he actually said it? Through him lies the kingdom of God. Much as Mohammed claims I expect.Or the Founder of any religion.

      Delete
    21. Marcus

      There are no errors in the Bible. Making a direct literal translation using known words is not an error.


      You just admitted above the the authors of the 1611KJV made an error in translation. The CARM link you referenced says so too. Now you say there's no error. Make up your mind.

      I rely on biblical scholars to explain which parts are literal and which are merely allegory, if I can't discern for myself.

      What do you do when the Biblical scholars disagree with each other, which they do quite frequently? If a Biblical scholar says Genesis isn't meant to be taken literally, will you accept his judgment?

      Delete
    22. TH:"You just admitted above the the authors of the 1611KJV made an error in translation. The CARM link you referenced says so too. Now you say there's no error. Make up your mind."

      There is no error. They were trying to connect a known animal to the one described in the ancient texts. If we use the Noah Websters dictionary from 1828 we can see the definition of unicorn is different than current understanding. http://1828.mshaffer.com/d/search/word,unicorn
      Here is another link to an article about unicorns in the Bible. http://www.creationtoday.org/why-does-the-bible-mention-unicorns/

      I admit I may be wrong in my interpretation of the Bible and I have a lot to learn. In fact I will be learning until my last breath.

      Thorton:"What do you do when the Biblical scholars disagree with each other, which they do quite frequently?"

      I contemplate what they say. I pray to the Holy Spirit for understanding and discernment. I am dogmatic on the core Christian doctrine. So, any "christian" that says 'Jesus did not die on the cross and rise from the dead on the third day' is not a Christian. Any "christian" who says 'Jesus was a created being' is not a Christian. Any "christian" who says 'Jesus is not God', is not a Christian.

      Thorton:" If a Biblical scholar says Genesis isn't meant to be taken literally, will you accept his judgment?"

      Sure.
      I tend to believe the literal interpretation though. For me, it's enough to know there is a God and he did begin the universe and he did create living organisms including us and he wants to have a personal relationship with all of us.



      Delete
    23. Vel:"What do the scholars say about the creation story in your experience ,do they all agree?"

      I think they agree on one account, that God is the first cause.

      Delete
    24. Vel:"What did Jesus mean if he actually said it? Through him lies the kingdom of God. Much as Mohammed claims I expect.Or the Founder of any religion."

      So how do we determine what is the truth? Both Jesus and Mohammed can't be correct? If we think about it, we are forced to make a decision. Is Jesus who he said he is or not? Each of us can decide. If you don't care, why talk about it?

      Delete
    25. Vel:"So only analogies are to be taken as non literal, for instance could the creation story also be an analogy or is it a literal account?"

      I don't KNOW infallibly if it's literal or analogy. I do believe God is the first cause. I tend to believe the literal interpretation.

      Do you think God is a personal being or impersonal?

      Delete
    26. Marcus,
      Vel:"What do the scholars say about the creation story in your experience ,do they all agree?"

      I think they agree on one account, that God is the first cause.


      So it is inerrant with God as being the first cause.Could have saved a lot of paper and ink

      Delete
    27. Marcus,
      So how do we determine what is the truth? Both Jesus and Mohammed can't be correct? If we think about it, we are forced to make a decision. Is Jesus who he said he is or not? Each of us can decide. If you don't care, why talk about it?


      You asked what I thought. And I never said I didn't care,just I don't accept it simply because it is in the Bible. On the other hand I respect your beliefs as being important to you.

      Delete
    28. Marcus

      There is no error. They were trying to connect a known animal to the one described in the ancient texts.


      They got the translation wrong. That's an error, no matter how you spin it.

      If we use the Noah Websters dictionary from 1828 we can see the definition of unicorn is different than current understanding. http://1828.mshaffer.com/d/search/word,unicorn

      Even if they though it was a rhino they still got it wrong. That means the 1611KJV isn't inerrant.

      What's so hard to understand is why you think the fallible men who wrote this language back in the 1600's were actually infallible.

      Delete
  7. CH: How evolution created all those innovations is largely unexplained, but evolutionists never question the fact of evolution. And they even claim it comes from science.

    Except, an explanation has already been provided. The "innovations" you're referring to represent the creation of non-explanatory knowledge.

    Adaptive complexity emerges from variation that is random *in respect to any specific problem to solve* and natural selection. It's an error correcting process. Darwinism falls under our current, best explanation for the universal growth of knowledge.

    Why don't you start out by explaining how the knowledge in the genome was created, then point out how darwinism doesn't fit that explanation.

    Please be specific.

    Oh that's right, you have a theological commitment to the idea that knowledge in specific spheres comes from supernatural, authoritative sources. Darwinism, being a natural process, isn't a supernatural authoritative source. As such, Darwinism couldn't possibility have genially created it.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Boy, asking for some positive evidence for the claimed Intelligent Design of biological life sure scattered the IDiots out of here in a hurry.

    Not unlike cockroaches when the kitchen light is turned on.

    ReplyDelete
  9. We can see design unambiguously.

    Optical illusion?

    ReplyDelete
  10. Thorton: What are ruled out are hypothesized supernatural causes that do not follow the laws of nature and therefore fall outside the ability of science to investigate.



    1. Abiogenesis of a functioning living cell falls outside the known laws of nature.

    2. Blind, undirected, naturalistic construction of animal body plans fall outside the known laws of nature.

    Both of the above statements are unequivocally true and backed by the total of human discovery in the life sciences.

    You have nothing to say in defense except that you believe it could have happened.

    You attack alternative hypothesis as a smokescreen for your own blatant lack of evidence. Your response to my comment will make that quite clear.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. lifepsy

      1. Abiogenesis of a functioning living cell falls outside the known laws of nature.

      2. Blind, undirected, naturalistic construction of animal body plans fall outside the known laws of nature.

      Both of the above statements are unequivocally true and backed by the total of human discovery in the life sciences.


      100% Bullcrap. Both are completely unsupported assertions by you and both have quite a bit of science to contradict them.

      The entire science of abiogenesis is investigating #1 and there has been found NO evidence to suggest abiogenesis through natural means is impossible. Many potential steps in the process have been identified and verified. Yes, there is still much work to do but to claim we require supernatural intervention is a streaming crock.

      The science of Evolutionary Development (EvoDevo) is investigating #2. They have already identified things like Hox genes that are responsible for animal body plans. All are completely within genetics, completely within natural laws.

      You IDiots can make up all the "alternative hypotheses" you want but until you actually test them and provide some supporting positive evidence you're just sideshow clowns.

      Delete
    2. "The entire science of abiogenesis is investigating #1 and there has been found NO evidence to suggest abiogenesis through natural means is impossible. "

      ROFL......LOL.....HAHAHAHAHAHA

      These Darwin Botherer Charles worshippers are a bunch of clowns

      (Hey T remind you of anyone yet?)

      "The Science of abiogenesis"

      LOL....two scoops of imagination, sprinkles on top of maybes, four pounds of conjecture and wishful thinking mixed with a healthy gallon of ooops that theory did not work - does not a science make.

      "there has been found NO evidence to suggest abiogenesis through natural means is impossible."

      HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA LOL.....

      Multiple failures over DECADES now is cited as evidence. Ya just got to love the Darwin tea sipper worshippers of the Everything out of nothing Blue fairy twisting the definition of science like a rubber band.

      "You IDiots can make up all the "alternative hypotheses"


      LOOOOOOOOL Stop....let me breath. HAHAHAHA . How many alternate hypotheses have we had for abiogenesis from you Darnuts? whats that old saying?

      the pot calling the kettle black. lol

      (MY new writing style still doesn't remind you of anyone yet?)

      Delete
    3. Thorton: there has been found NO evidence to suggest abiogenesis through natural means is impossible.

      There are no known natural processes that produce life from non-life. It is literally all in your imagination. It is Atheist-Creationism, simple as that.

      Thorton: Yes, there is still much work to do but to claim we require supernatural intervention is a streaming crock.

      Naturalistic Abiogenesis is essentially the same thing as me claiming on a particularly stormy day, long ago, the wind and the waves constructed a perfect replica of a victorian-era mansion out of sand.

      Hey, I didn't invoke "supernatural causes", but it is still a ridiculous and false claim of what we know natural processes could never accomplish.

      It is beyond nature's capability, and thus it actually could be rightfully labeled 'Supernatural'


      Thorton: The science of Evolutionary Development (EvoDevo) is investigating #2.

      Saying something is "being investigated" is not an argument, Thorton. So sorry.

      Thorton: They have already identified things like Hox genes that are responsible for animal body plans. All are completely within genetics, completely within natural laws.

      So Hox Genes created body plans, Thorton?

      Let's see, do you have a ***shred of evidence*** that naturalistic processes can produce a functional assembly of hox genes, that is to say, a fit, healthy organism with fully functional homeobox domains?

      No, I didn't think so. And I'm sure you're aware that there has been extensive research on hox gene manipulation and it never ends up well for the subject... a simple fact that you can be seen dodging and obfuscating in the comments below with your literature bluffs. Quite amusing actually. :)

      So we are left with Thorton waving his hands and saying 'nature dunnit!' without any evidence of said natural capabilities.

      Delete
    4. lifepsy

      There are no known natural processes that produce life from non-life.


      None that we know of yet, but we've only been looking for 50 years or so. Nature had billions of years. Not knowing doesn't make it impossible or outside the laws of nature.

      Hey, I didn't invoke "supernatural causes"

      Yes you did, when you made the claim abiogenesis is outside the known laws of nature.

      Let's see, do you have a ***shred of evidence*** that naturalistic processes can produce a functional assembly of hox genes

      Yes, I do have some evidence for the origin of Hox genes.

      The NK Homeobox Gene Cluster Predates the Origin of Hox Genes

      You ignorant Godbotherers are too funny when you scream THERE'S NO EVIDENCE!!! before bothering to check.

      Delete
    5. Thorton: None that we know of yet

      Blind faith. You are doing exactly what you accused others of, that is, inferring to "causes that do not follow the laws of nature and therefore fall outside the ability of science to investigate."

      You made my argument for me, Thorton.


      Thorton: Yes, I do have some evidence for the origin of Hox genes.

      The NK Homeobox Gene Cluster Predates the Origin of Hox Genes


      Literature bluff every time with you Thorton. There is no evidence in that paper that hox genes arose via naturalistic processes.

      Delete
    6. lifepsy

      Literature bluff every time with you Thorton.


      LOL! That weak sauce excuse seems to be all the rage with IDiot Creationists these days. Whenever someone posts a scientific paper with data that directly refutes your asinine Fundy claims, just scream LITERATURE BLUFF!! while ignoring the data and and running the other way.

      You clowns should form your own Creationist Clown Union, if you haven't already.

      Delete
    7. elijah said:

      "Naturalistic Abiogenesis is essentially the same thing as me claiming on a particularly stormy day, long ago, the wind and the waves constructed a perfect replica of a victorian-era mansion out of sand."

      Actually, it is nothing like that. A mansion is an artificial thing, designed and built by humans. Mansions are not living things.

      lifepsy said:

      " LOL....two scoops of imagination, sprinkles on top of maybes, four pounds of conjecture and wishful thinking mixed with a healthy gallon of ooops that theory did not work - does not a science make."

      And:

      "Multiple failures over DECADES now is cited as evidence. Ya just got to love the Darwin tea sipper worshippers of the Everything out of nothing Blue fairy twisting the definition of science like a rubber band."

      elijah and lifepsy, are your religious beliefs derived from scientific investigation and evidence? The pushers of your chosen religion have had HUNDREDS of DECADES to come up with some scientific evidence to support their claims and have utterly failed.

      lifepsy said:

      "There are no known natural processes that produce life from non-life. It is literally all in your imagination. It is Atheist-Creationism, simple as that."

      There are no known sky daddies or mommies and no evidence has ever been found (or ever will be) that shows that a sky daddy or mommy produced life from non-life. All religious beliefs are literally in religious peoples' imaginations. Believing in imaginary sky daddies/mommies and associated fairy tales is ridiculous, simple as that.

      Delete
    8. Thorton: Whenever someone posts a scientific paper with data that directly refutes your asinine Fundy claims, just scream LITERATURE BLUFF!!

      Well, what can I say? 9 times out of 10, it is in fact a 'literature bluff'. I like that phrase... it is simple and accurate.

      Thorton, you weren't even able to take two minutes to summarize the "evidence" from the link you posted. Of course you were bluffing, it's obvious.

      I read the abstract. You obviously didn't.

      It is simply an observation of NK body-plan structuring genes in certain taxa. The researchers make speculations that NK must have been a common ancestor to HOX, but there's no evidence that is what happened. It's certainly not testable in any way.

      You might have known this and that's why you dropped the link and ran... (literature bluff)

      However, Thorton, I'm almost positive you are simply doing Google Scholar searchers on relevant keywords and copy pasting the paper titles that sound the most convincing. I don't think I've ever seen you discussing the literature in your own words.

      Delete
    9. lifepsy

      I read the abstract. You obviously didn't.


      I read the paper. You obviously didn't.

      That's why you IDiots crack me up. You only skim the abstracts of papers looking for phrases to quote-mine instead of reading and trying to understand the actual work.

      It's laziness and willful ignorance on your part, writ large.

      What's your explanation for the ANTP genetic data? The Magic Designer just happened to put all those NK genes in exactly the right place in all the Eumetazoans to make it look like evolution occurred?

      I'm almost positive you are simply doing Google Scholar searchers on relevant keywords and copy pasting the paper titles that sound the most convincing.

      BZZZT! Wrong answer! I do do literature searches when an IDiot like you makes a ridiculous claim, but I read everything I post here before posting to make sure I understand it and to make sure it's relevant. You're the guy you craps his pants and runs the other way when the details get discussed.

      Seems to me you're also the guy who just made a complete fool of himself by not understanding how BLAST queries are done. That was really smooth.

      Delete
  11. Don't changing HOX genes usually result in a defective or dead organism, not a new organism?

    ReplyDelete
  12. natschuster the lying homophobic bigot

    Don't changing HOX genes usually result in a defective or dead organism, not a new organism?


    No.

    We have lots of evidence that animal body plans did evolve through changes in Hox genes.

    Hox Genes in Development: The Hox Code

    You have any evidence that what geneticists have discovered is wrong?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The article says that knocking out HOX genes in fruit flies results in things like growing legs where antennae should be. That has got to be a defect. It also says that the mice develop abnormalities if Hox are knocked out. It doesn't say if the mice survived or not. But it doesn't look like a new species.

      Delete
    2. natschuster the homophic bigot and liar

      The article says that knocking out HOX genes in fruit flies results in things like growing legs where antennae should be.


      Well done bigot! Quote-mine out of context snippets while ignoring the main thrust of the article.

      Another example of why you've proven to be such a disingenuous lying scumbag.

      Delete
  13. I did a quick scan of the literature. Every thing I read said that mutations in the Hox gene cause defects.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. natschuster the homophobic bigot

      I did a quick scan of the literature.


      That's one of your biggest problems bigot. You always "quick scan" looking for anything to twist to prop up your preconceived ignorance instead of reading the whole papers and trying to understand.

      That's why you'll stay a willfully ignorant ass your whole life.

      Delete
  14. Then could you be so kind as to show me evidence that changing the Hox gene can cause beneficial changes? I couldn't find any. Or is it more conjecture?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. natschuster the lying homophobic bigot

      Then could you be so kind as to show me evidence that changing the Hox gene can cause beneficial changes?


      Show me evidence that you're not a lying trolling willfully ignorant bigoted Creationist ass and I'll consider it.

      Delete
  15. Okay, we are back to childish games instead of a discussion.

    Your mama's so ugly, when she goes to the zoo, the monkeys feed her peanuts.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You can always count on natschuster the homophobic bigot putting on the big red clown nose after getting caught in another lie.

      I wonder if it's permanently attached to his face?

      Delete
  16. Okay we're back to natschuster the lying homophobic bigot getting caught in another lie, claiming he read the scientific literature and could find nothing about Hox gene mutations leading to beneficial changes.

    A 30 second literature search turned up hundreds of papers, like this one.

    Hox protein mutation and macroevolution of the insect body plan

    Abstract: A fascinating question in biology is how molecular changes in developmental pathways lead to macroevolutionary changes in morphology. Mutations in homeotic (Hox) genes have long been suggested as potential causes of morphological evolution, and there is abundant evidence that some changes in Hox expression patterns correlate with transitions in animal axial pattern. A major morphological transition in metazoans occurred about 400 million years ago, when six-legged insects diverged from crustacean-like arthropod ancestors with multiple limbs. In Drosophila melanogaster and other insects, the Ultrabithorax (Ubx) and abdominal A (AbdA, also abd-A) Hox proteins are expressed largely in the abdominal segments, where they can suppress thoracic leg development during embryogenesis. In a branchiopod crustacean, Ubx/AbdA proteins are expressed in both thorax and abdomen, including the limb primordia, but do not repress limbs. Previous studies led us to propose that gain and loss of transcriptional activation and repression functions in Hox proteins was a plausible mechanism to diversify morphology during animal evolution. Here we show that naturally selected alteration of the Ubx protein is linked to the evolutionary transition to hexapod limb pattern.

    Nathan Schuster is a despicable liar and troll as well as being one of the dumbest Creationists on the planet.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Thank you. Did the shrimp in the study with the altered Hox gene survive? I didn't see any mention of that in the paper. If they just became freaky, mutant shrimp, then it just supports my point. I know that changing Hox genes changes morphology. the question is whether that is a good thing.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. and we all know shrimp were designed to be shrimp, so anything that
      deviates from that isn't a good thing.

      Delete
    2. natschuster the lying homophobic bigot

      Did the shrimp in the study with the altered Hox gene survive?


      There weren't any shrimp with altered Hox genes in the study. Embryos of Drosophila melanogaster were tested with Ubx proteins from the Artemia to see the effects on limb reppression.

      I didn't see any mention of that in the paper.

      You never read the paper you lying sack.

      Once again natschuster the homophobic bigot was too lazy to actually read the paper and again chooses to lie and try to bluff his way through instead. That's after lying about there not being any papers on the subject at all.

      What a surprise.

      That big red nose looks really natural on you Schuster. No wonder you never take it off.

      Delete
    3. Sorry. Sometimes have trouble understanding technical papers. Did the baby fruit flies survive? It looks like they were missing that KO organ. Is that a good thing?

      Delete
    4. See, it's like this. You said that the answer to the evolution of animal morphology is changes in the Hox gene. But it seems like the majority of changes that we see result in missing or misplaced body parts, resulting in a defective organism. Even if once in a while a good mutation pops up, the majority appear to be bad. That means that evolution depends on that rare, lucky event.

      Delete
    5. Oh, and by the way, I mentioned that I couldn't find any papers on beneficial Hox mutations. Did the paper you linked address that?

      Delete
    6. I mean, I just have to believe that repressing thoracic limb development in fruit flies is bad for the fruit flies.

      Delete
    7. natschuster the lying homophobic bigot

      Sometimes have trouble understanding technical papers.


      You never read the paper. Like always you lied and tried to bluff your way through.

      Does that work for you in real life bigot? Bare-faced lying when you get yourself in a mess?

      Does your religion teach you it's OK to lie as blatantly as you do here? Or were you just Designed that way?

      Delete
    8. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    9. SO you aren't going to address the point that the paper shows that changing the Hox gene just results in a defective fruit fly, just like I said. Got it. And are we going back to childish word games? Those are more fun.

      Delete
    10. natschuster the lying homophobic bigot

      SO you aren't going to address the point that the paper shows that changing the Hox gene just results in a defective fruit fly


      LOL! No bigot, the paper shows the evolutionary pathway from arthropods to six-legged insects via mutations to the expression of Hox proteins. The evolution of a new body plan, exactly the thing you claimed there's no evidence for. BTW bigot, insects have been around for some 400 million years which makes the mutations pretty damn beneficial.

      But you're still too lazy and still haven't read the paper, which is why your attempts to bluff you way through are so funny!

      Go ahead bigot. Put the big red nose on and tell some more Mama jokes ho hide your dishonesty and ignorance.

      Delete
    11. I don't recall saying there is no evidence that Hox genes change body plans. The problem is that it looks like every time we see an actual Hox mutation it changes the body plan into a way that results in either a defective fruit fly, or a dead fruit fly.

      Are you sure you read my posts?

      Delete
    12. And I only resort to childish word games when you resort to name calling and insult instead of having a discussion. I'm assuming that that is what you want.

      Delete
    13. Okay you can't address my points or adit you were wrong, so you want to play. Got it. It's more fun, anyway.

      Your mama's so fat and nasty, when she wears a white dress, people think she's a sanitation truck.

      Delete
    14. natschuster the lying homophobic bigot

      My religion teaches me it's OK to lie


      What's that bigot? Did you say something? That big red clown nose you're wearing muffles your voice.

      Delete
    15. Your mama's so fat, last time she wore a flowered dress, people thought she was the Botanical Gardens.

      Delete
    16. natschuster the lying homophobic bigot

      I've got the maturity level of a 3rd grader


      Still can't hear you bigot. Your big red clown nose is still in the way.

      Delete
    17. Your mama's so ugly, when she goes to the zoo, the monkeys feed her peanuts.

      Delete
    18. natschuster the lying homophobic bigot

      My religion teaches me to hate minorities


      Still mumbling bigot. Shouldn't you be out scanning science paper abstracts for snippets to dishonestly quote mine and lie about?

      Delete
    19. natschuster the lying homophobic bigot

      I make a box of rocks look smart.


      What's the matter bigot? No new lies about science to share with us? OK, keep playing the Creationist clown. Looks like you've found your true calling.

      Delete
    20. Thorton:

      You decided you wanted to play childish games instead of a discussion. I'm just accommodating you.

      Delete
    21. natschuster the lying homophobic bigot

      You decided you wanted to play childish games instead of a discussion.


      Can't have a discussion with a willfully ignorant bigot who won't read the literature and doesn't understand the topic, no matter how much you lie about it. Stick to the big red clown nose, it looks good on you.

      Delete
    22. I understand that you said that changing Hox genes is the source of changes in morphology. I said that to the best of my knowledge changing Hox genes results in a dead or deformed organism, so it can't be a good mechanism for evolution. You linked a study that showed exactly what I said. Then you started with the name calling, insults and accusations.

      Delete
    23. natschuster the lying homophobic bigot

      You linked a study that showed exactly what I said.


      No bigot, the study didn't show "exactly what you said". The study provided empirical evidence for the origin of the six-legged insect body plan through mutations to Hox proteins.

      Since you never read the paper I wouldn't expect you to know or understand what the paper was actually about. Didn't stop you from lying about it though.

      You seem to be getting caught in more and more lies these days. Maybe it's time to rethink your troll strategy,

      Delete
    24. Teh baby fruit flies in the study did not develop that KO organ. That's a defect, just like I said.

      Delete
    25. natschuster the lying homophobic bigot

      Teh baby fruit flies in the study did not develop that KO organ. That's a defect, just like I said.


      You didn't read the paper and have no clue what it's about. Still lying and trying to bluff your way through just like * I * said.

      Delete
    26. Are you sayng that the paper doesn't say that the embryos had repressed KO development?

      Delete
    27. natschuster the lying homophobic bigot

      Are you sayng that the paper doesn't say that the embryos had repressed KO development?


      I'm saying you're a lying moron when you claim to have read the whole paper instead of just skimming for phrases to quote mine. I'm saying you still don't have the faintest clue what the paper is about or what the findings represent.

      But that's to be expected. Lying about evidence you can't hand-wave away is what you do.

      Delete
    28. So you aren't going to anser my question. It's a simple yes or no. Got it. I wonder why.

      Delete
    29. natschuster the lying homophobic bigot

      It's a simple yes or no.


      Yes you're a lying disingenuous Creationist bigot who didn't read the paper.

      There's the correct answer.

      Delete
    30. So it's back to name calling since you can't answer the question. Got it.

      Your mama's so stupid she called 411 to get the number for 911.

      Delete
    31. Aah, that's better bigot! Put that big red nose on again to hide your ignorance and dishonesty.

      Psssst...hint time...it's not working. At all.

      Delete
  18. "Children, I know that you eagerly await my second coming.

    And just as soon as I finish popping Rihanna's sweet asshole with my Son Of Man cock, I'll be on my way.

    This time, I promise.

    Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaah!!!!!!!"

    ---Jesus

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Poor frightened kilo, need a hug? Does Jesus scare you that much?

      Delete
    2. Ah,poor demented kilo, if it isn't scatological he got nothing

      Delete
  19. Returning to the OP for a moment, the main thrust of the piece is this:

    The origin of evolutionary innovations is largely unexplained and that gap is well known.

    Leaving aside the wriggle-room offered by the qualifier "largely" which suggests that some innovations can, be explained by evolution, it reminded me of the following from Wikipedia:

    In 1975 a team of Japanese scientists discovered a strain of Flavobacterium, living in ponds containing waste water from a nylon factory, that was capable of digesting certain byproducts of nylon 6 manufacture, such as the linear dimer of 6-aminohexanoate. These substances are not known to have existed before the invention of nylon in 1935. Further study revealed that the three enzymes the bacteria were using to digest the byproducts were significantly different from any other enzymes produced by other Flavobacterium strains (or, for that matter, any other bacteria), and not effective on any material other than the manmade nylon byproducts.[

    [...]

    This discovery led geneticist Susumu Ohno to speculate that the gene for one of the enzymes, 6-aminohexanoic acid hydrolase, had come about from the combination of a gene duplication event with a frameshift mutation.[2] Ohno suggested that many unique new genes have evolved this way.

    A 2007 paper that described a series of studies by a team led by Seiji Negoro of the University of Hyogo, Japan, suggested that in fact no frameshift mutation was involved in the evolution of the 6-aminohexanoic acid hydrolase.[3] However, many other genes have been discovered which did evolve by gene duplication followed by a frameshift mutation affecting at least part of the gene. A 2006 study found 470 examples in humans alone.[4]

    Scientists have also been able to induce another species of bacteria, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, to evolve the capability to break down the same nylon byproducts in a laboratory by forcing them to live in an environment with no other source of nutrients. The P. aeruginosa strain did not seem to use the same enzymes that had been utilized by the original Flavobacterium strain.[5] Other scientists were able to get the ability to generate the enzymes to transfer from the Flavobacterium strain to a strain of E. coli bacteria via a plasmid transfer.[6]


    Looks like innovation to me.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ah, the nylonase.. that just reminded me how rabbidly evolutionists were defending the "nylonase by frameshift mutation".. something that was only every speculated on by Ohno decades ago.

      Negoro comes along in 2007 and demonstrates that the bacteria's nylon degradation occurs by two point mutations in an existing enzyme, slightly altering the specificity in its existing function.

      Evo's really wanted to hold onto the dream that massively random events like frameshift mutations could produce truely novel and beneficial traits. They are still swearing this happened with nylonase all over the net, like a holy apparition that was once witnessed and has now faded.

      I like that Evo-pedia admits that it didn't happen with flavobacterium, but goes on to claim that it has happened 470 times in other cases.

      I didn't even have to check their reference to know that claim was more Evo-BS. But I did anyways.

      http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0888754306001807

      Major novelties can potentially be introduced by frameshift mutations and this idea can explain the creation of novel proteins. Here, we employ a strategy using simulated protein sequences and identify 470 human and 108 mouse frameshift events that originate new gene segments.


      Evo's and their literature bluffs.. it never ends.

      Delete
    2. lifepsy

      I didn't even have to check their reference to know that claim was more Evo-BS. But I did anyways.

      http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0888754306001807

      Major novelties can potentially be introduced by frameshift mutations and this idea can explain the creation of novel proteins. Here, we employ a strategy using simulated protein sequences and identify 470 human and 108 mouse frameshift events that originate new gene segments.


      Evo's and their literature bluffs.. it never ends.


      LOL! You don't have the faintest clue in the world what BLAST is or how it works, do you?

      You IDiots do give me some belly laughs!

      Delete
    3. CH: But whether or not evolution actually created the entire biological world is not open to scientific research. It is not falsifiable, for it is taken to be true.

      J: It's worse than that. No one can even conceive of a way to "falsify" a posited UCA tree. Rather, one can only reject abstract assumptions used in tree-generation using some subjective criteria not known to have anything to do with mutations and their effects over the relevant time-frames.

      But you're right that WHETHER a UCA tree or SA best fits the data has not yet even been considered rationally by most scientists.

      Delete
    4. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    5. CH: The origin of evolutionary innovations is largely unexplained and that gap is well known.

      Ian: Leaving aside the wriggle-room offered by the qualifier "largely" which suggests that some innovations can, be explained by evolution, ...

      J: Again, the LARGE GAP in explanation is "well known." Nothing we know comes CLOSE to ruling out SA. The argument on this site is not about WHETHER evolution occurs. It occurs all the time before our very eyes. But it's already know that some evolution is reversible. Other evolution may end in extinction due to radical shifts in environmental conditions. And no one has a clue whether the degree of plasticity could arise in the posited time-frame even IF it's not impossible with unlimited time. Never mind all the unknown taphonomic, geological, and ecological variables, together with variables of human discovery bias and access to fossils, that need to be known to plausibly correlate existential ranges to CURRENTLY-KNOWN stratigraphic ranges, in the first place.

      The only thing CH is contending, and correctly, is that the claim that naturalistic UCA is supported by overwhelming evidence is utterly false.

      Delete
    6. As I've said before, naturalistic explanation is hypothetico-deductive explanation that takes a specific form, or it is an extrapolation of an abstract model using high-level propositions.

      The first has the form of positing initial conditions, including the specific causal capacities inherent in the entities posited, and then deducing the subsequent effects of those initial conditions, given those causal capacities. This is impossible to do for UCA or even ape-to-human evolution.

      The 2nd can't be done based on observations, because unlike SA, UCA requires that NO morphological extrapolation be possible since this would preclude the RADICAL branching patterns entailed in the tree-view of ancestry.

      But the 2nd can't be done cladistically either, because this implies that mutations are "end-oriented" in the sense that the high-level, abstract rules of tree-generation are ENDS of blind, a-teleological mutations.

      Naturalistic UCA is NOT yet a scientific hypothesis. And it's not remotely plausible that any of us debating here will live to see the above problems overcome in our life-time. After all, precisely ZERO progress has been made since Darwin towards finding a way to falsify the naturalistic UCA hypothesis. All that's been accomplished is that a lot of "how" (not whether) hypotheses have BEEN falsified. Or to use what I think is the more accurate word, "REJECTED." Naive falsificationism is impossible.

      Delete
    7. Jeff July 20, 2013 at 6:22 AM

      CH: But whether or not evolution actually created the entire biological world is not open to scientific research. It is not falsifiable, for it is taken to be true.

      J: It's worse than that. No one can even conceive of a way to "falsify" a posited UCA tree. Rather, one can only reject abstract assumptions used in tree-generation using some subjective criteria not known to have anything to do with mutations and their effects over the relevant time-frames.

      But you're right that WHETHER a UCA tree or SA best fits the data has not yet even been considered rationally by most scientists.


      That's hard to say. I'm sure some scientists have considered it when it's been raised by creationists or EID proponents although probably not for very long since they haven't been given any good reasons to do so. Yes, the theory of evolution has gaps but, if the alternatives are even worse, what's the point?

      Delete
    8. Ian: Yes, the theory of evolution has gaps but, if the alternatives are even worse, what's the point?

      J: If SA is worse by some objective, human criteria, then how moronic are scientists for not articulating it by now?

      You hit the real issue on the head when you say: " I'm sure some scientists have considered it when it's been raised by creationists or EID proponents although probably not for very long since they haven't been given any good reasons to do so." If you're a naturalist or a non-naturalistic theist who more than anything doesn't want to be ridiculed, you don't have a motivation to even consider anything else.

      But then your stuck with the bankrupt epistemology of people like Scott who freely admit that if naturalism is true, no beliefs are knowably more plausible than any others. Induction REQUIRES that you consider competing hypotheses before pontificating about "overwhelming evidence." Evidence by definition is RELATIVE to the competition. Otherwise, you're just meaning "self-evident."

      I'll take the ridicule and hold on to an epistemology I can actually live consistently (and, therefore, rationally) with.

      Delete
    9. Jeff July 20, 2013 at 7:01 AM

      CH: The origin of evolutionary innovations is largely unexplained and that gap is well known.

      Ian: Leaving aside the wriggle-room offered by the qualifier "largely" which suggests that some innovations can, be explained by evolution, ...

      J: Again, the LARGE GAP in explanation is "well known."


      Yes, but my point is still that the processes which can lead to "innovations" - the nylon-eating bacteria, bacterial resistance to antibiotics, the finches beaks and industrial melanism in the Peppered Moth - have all been observed. Without them evolution would be even more difficult, if not impossible, as I'm sure you would be only too quick to point out.

      Nothing we know comes CLOSE to ruling out SA.

      Jeff, you've got this burden of proof thing the wrong way round. It rests with the claimant not the audience. If you want to persuade me or anyone else that SA is worthy of consideration then you have to provide the evidence otherwise we can just shrug and say you got nothing.

      The evidence also has to consist of a lot more than just poking holes in a rival theory. For example, I would want to know:

      a) Granted that SA has occured, what can you infer about the nature of the designer?

      b) Was there just one, or are there many designers?

      c) Was there just one main separate creation event (SCE) on Earth or have there been many, perhaps billions, throughout the planet's existence?

      d) What can we infer, if anything, about how the designer(s) accomplished their designs? Did they just 'poof' them into existence with a Jedi-like wave of the hand or was it done in vast laboratories?

      e) If we assume the designer(s) did not originate on Earth - and there is nothing to suggest they did - then did they carry out SCEs on other suitable planets throughout or galaxy - or even the observable universe?

      f) Given any or all of the above, what would we expect to observe as evidence or how could we test them?

      g) And, of course, there is always the good ol' "So who designed the designers?"

      The argument on this site is not about WHETHER evolution occurs. It occurs all the time before our very eyes. But it's already know that some evolution is reversible. Other evolution may end in extinction due to radical shifts in environmental conditions. And no one has a clue whether the degree of plasticity could arise in the posited time-frame even IF it's not impossible with unlimited time. Never mind all the unknown taphonomic, geological, and ecological variables, together with variables of human discovery bias and access to fossils, that need to be known to plausibly correlate existential ranges to CURRENTLY-KNOWN stratigraphic ranges, in the first place.

      Yes, there are a still a whole lot of unknowns about exactly what happened way back in deep time. But unknown is not the same as impossible and we observe processes happening today which allow possibilities.

      The only thing CH is contending, and correctly, is that the claim that naturalistic UCA is supported by overwhelming evidence is utterly false.

      If this is just a quibble about the adjective "overwhelming" then I'm happy to agree that it isn't. It's just better than for any alternative.

      Delete
    10. Jeff July 20, 2013 at 7:55 AM

      [...]

      Naturalistic UCA is NOT yet a scientific hypothesis. And it's not remotely plausible that any of us debating here will live to see the above problems overcome in our life-time. After all, precisely ZERO progress has been made since Darwin towards finding a way to falsify the naturalistic UCA hypothesis. All that's been accomplished is that a lot of "how" (not whether) hypotheses have BEEN falsified. Or to use what I think is the more accurate word, "REJECTED." Naive falsificationism is impossible.


      Does anyone still believe in naive falsificationism?

      Look, we can quibble all we like about whether naturalistic UCA qualifies as a scientific hypothesis under the hypothetico-deductive or any other model. The fact is, biologists go along with it because it is consistent with the available evidence - as Theobald shows in the Talk Origins paper - and there is nothing better around. If you or anyone else think you have something that is better then, by all means, put it on the table. Show us what you got and let us decide for ourselves.

      Delete
    11. Ian: The fact is, biologists go along with it because it is consistent with the available evidence

      Jeff: We don't know that the data is consistent with the hypothesis. We only know that we DON'T know whether the data is INconsistent with UCA. But the same is true for SA.

      Ian: If you or anyone else think you have something that is better then, by all means, put it on the table.

      J: I'm not sure what you even mean by "better." What criteria would a hypothesis have to satisfy for you to consider it "better" than the naturalistic UCA hypothesis?

      Delete
  20. Thorton: LOL! You don't have the faintest clue in the world what BLAST is or how it works, do you?

    You IDiots do give me some belly laughs!



    Oops, Thorton. You forgot to make an argument or any point at all, yet again.

    Don't be shy. Give it a try once and awhile.

    ReplyDelete
  21. lifepsy

    Oops, Thorton. You forgot to make an argument or any point at all, yet again.


    Double LOL!

    My point is you are squawking about the BLAST results yet you have no idea what BLAST even is, let alone how it works.

    You IDiots do crack me up!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Come on Thorton, be a big boy now.

      My claim is simply that the "470 human genes resulting from a frameshift mutation" (as wikipedia claimed) were only simulated frameshifts and were never observed to have actually occurred in the genome.

      It's not complicated. Are you just going to whine or actually formulate a rebuttal? Why do I always feel like I'm trying to teach you how to add content to your posts?

      And actually I've used the Ensembl/BLAST genome browsers many times, not that it matters.

      Delete
    2. lifepsy

      My claim is simply that the "470 human genes resulting from a frameshift mutation" (as wikipedia claimed) were only simulated frameshifts and were never observed to have actually occurred in the genome.


      (facepalm)

      Damn but you're a dumb one. Did you even bother to read the paper? The simulated sequences were only used to set up the BLAST query. The researchers started with 23,000 real world known mRNA sequences. The hypothesis was that frame shifts had occurred. To test the idea, the researchers instructed BLAST to look for the original real world sequences modified by potential open reading frame shifts, giving 6 x 23,000 potential sequences. These were the 'simulated' targets. Sure enough, BLAST returned 470 real world sequences actually observed in the genome that matched the hypothesized frame shift events. That confirmed the hypothesis.

      And actually I've used the Ensembl/BLAST genome browsers many times, not that it matters.

      i find that almost impossible to believe given your completely screwed up misunderstanding of what the experiment actually did and what the results actually were.

      Delete
    3. Come on lifepsy, be a big boy now.

      I see you've been back posting today but for some reason have nothing to say here.

      Pretty hilarious and ironic that you were giving me crap claiming I don't read the papers I post, then it's you who end up looking like a Class A moron with a bone-headed and 100% wrong claim about a paper you didn't read.

      You blustering ignorant IDiots will always crack me up.

      Delete
    4. Thorton, I don't know how to explain to you that something observed to be potentially caused by a frameshift mutation, is not the same as showing that it actually WAS produced by a frameshift mutation.

      The wikipedia claim is that "X evolved by frameshift mutation"

      This was never observed. It is a false claim. Do you understand or is that too complicated?

      Just because a hypothesis makes successful predictions, does not mean it is true. I don't expect you to understand that, either.

      Also, interestingly the claim actually has the fact-free assumption of evolution built into it, in that all gene sequences MUST be the result of unguided mutations or errors. This, of course, is false.

      Delete
  22. Lifespy: It's not complicated. Are you just going to whine or actually formulate a rebuttal?

    J: Do we even have to ask that question at this point? Moronton knows nothing relevant to CH's point of contention.

    ReplyDelete
  23. elijah said:

    "Naturalistic Abiogenesis is essentially the same thing as me claiming on a particularly stormy day, long ago, the wind and the waves constructed a perfect replica of a victorian-era mansion out of sand."

    Actually, it is nothing like that. A mansion is an artificial thing, designed and built by humans. Mansions are not living things.

    lifepsy said:

    " LOL....two scoops of imagination, sprinkles on top of maybes, four pounds of conjecture and wishful thinking mixed with a healthy gallon of ooops that theory did not work - does not a science make."

    And:

    "Multiple failures over DECADES now is cited as evidence. Ya just got to love the Darwin tea sipper worshippers of the Everything out of nothing Blue fairy twisting the definition of science like a rubber band."

    elijah and lifepsy, are your religious beliefs derived from scientific investigation and evidence? The pushers of your chosen religion have had HUNDREDS of DECADES to come up with some scientific evidence to support their claims and have utterly failed.

    lifepsy said:

    "There are no known natural processes that produce life from non-life. It is literally all in your imagination. It is Atheist-Creationism, simple as that."

    There are no known sky daddies or mommies and no evidence has ever been found (or ever will be) that shows that a sky daddy or mommy produced life from non-life. All religious beliefs are literally in religious peoples' imaginations. Believing in imaginary sky daddies/mommies and associated fairy tales is ridiculous, simple as that.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. LOL one of the few times I notice my name and actually begin to read him and he has the first two quotes mixed up.

      Obviously had to stop.


      Delete
    2. Yep, I got the names mixed up on the first two quotes.

      Delete
  24. Along with a ton of other gibberish, jeff said:

    "The only thing CH is contending, and correctly, is that the claim that naturalistic UCA is supported by overwhelming evidence is utterly false."

    Bullshit. cornelius is at war with ANYTHING that has to do with evolution and evolutionary theory (even though he doesn't know the difference between them). It's obvious that to him the word 'evolution' and anything that pertains to it is evil.

    Like you though, he is totally against any relationship between humans and what he sees as 'lower life forms'.

    It's pretty funny that you god pushers spend so much time asserting that you're special and exceptional as though your assertions are actually going to make you special and exceptional. And it's especially funny when considering the fact that you're all just a flock of mindless sheeple who are in no way special and exceptional. You might as well be mass produced androids, all from the same limited blueprint and programming.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. TWT: cornelius is at war with ANYTHING that has to do with evolution and evolutionary theory (even though he doesn't know the difference between them).

      J: Quote him to that effect, pontificator.

      Delete
    2. I don't have to "quote him to that effect" to see that what I said is true.

      Do you remember when I asked cornelius if there's any aspect of evolution that he accepts? What was his answer?

      Delete
    3. CH knows that there is descent with modification. So he accepts THAT aspect of evolution, just like everyone does.

      Delete
    4. Jeff

      CH knows that there is descent with modification. So he accepts THAT aspect of evolution


      Citation please. Provide the quote with CH accepting descent with modification.

      just like everyone does.

      natschuster doesn't. lifepsy doesn't. batspit77 doesn't. elijah2012 doesn't. Just to name a few right here.

      Delete
    5. Yeah, I too want to see where cornelius has said that he accepts descent with modification.

      Tell you what, jeff, I'll make it easy for cornelius to state what he accepts:

      cornelius, are there any aspects of evolution that you accept as occurring and/or as having occurred?

      cornelius, are there any aspects of evolutionary theory that you accept?

      Do you accept descent with modification?

      Do you accept that humans descended with modification from an ape like ancestor?

      Do you accept that humans and other extant apes descended with modification from an ape like common ancestor?

      Please state what you accept, if anything, and include any details that clarify what you accept.

      Delete
  25. TWT: It's pretty funny that you god pushers spend so much time asserting that you're special and exceptional as though your assertions are actually going to make you special and exceptional.

    J: How moronic you are. We don't think we're AS special as YOU think YOU are. Because you think you can wishfully think the past into being what you have no rational warrant for believing it was. Now THAT'S thinking you're pretty SPECIAL. I don't even think God can do that.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You god pushers are the ones who have "no rational warrant" for your fairy tale beliefs and assertions, and you're the ones who claim to be exceptional and 'specially created in God's image'.

      Hey jeff, is 'man' the pinnacle of 'God's creation'?

      Delete
  26. jeff pontificated:

    "No one can even conceive of a way to "falsify" a posited UCA tree."

    Actually, I can conceive of ways and so can a lot of other people but leaving that aside for now, you're admitting that religious beliefs are worthless for falsifying UCA.

    In a way I'm surprised that you god zombies aren't strongly rooting for UCA, and asserting that your chosen god(s) are the common ancestor of everything everywhere, but then I think of your incredibly arrogant claim of only 'man' being 'specially created in God's image'.

    Apparently, to you thumpers, all of 'God's creation', except 'man', is just ordinary, inferior, assembly-line stuff, but 'man' is special, exceptional, and superior. 'God' used special, exceptional, superior dirt to create 'man' in 'his image' and there's no 'common' relationship between 'man' and all of the 'lower' stuff, eh?

    ReplyDelete
  27. jeff said to cornelius:

    "But you're right that WHETHER a UCA tree or SA best fits the data has not yet even been considered rationally by most scientists."

    You have an extremely low opinion of scientists and an extremely high opinion of yourself and your fellow god pusher cornelius.

    For you to assert that most scientists haven't (and don't) rationally considered separate ancestry (or trees) just goes to show that you don't know squat about most scientists.

    And if you or anyone else has some evidence of separate ancestry I'm sure that most scientists would like to see it and rationally consider it. Got any?

    ReplyDelete
  28. TWT: You have an extremely low opinion of scientists and an extremely high opinion of yourself

    J: I don't know the percentage of scientists who either mean by "evidence" what Scott does or else lie about it, while meaning inductive evidence. But I know there are some non-ID'ist scientists that realize, as Scott, that there is NO inductive evidence (evidence that has to do with plausibility, like that in a court) for naturalistic UCA. But like Scott, they're not gonna admit it on an interview to the public. It doesn't help scientists get funding.

    TWT: And if you or anyone else has some evidence of separate ancestry I'm sure that most scientists would like to see it and rationally consider it. Got any?

    J: There is evidence that organisms are designed. But there is no compelling evidence that the libertarian causality occurred since the first ancestor(s). But there's no evidence for naturalistic UCA, either. The contingencies of natural history render both views void of compelling evidence in that sense.

    If we can ever demonstrate empirically that Axe's studies are correct, that would be as good of a disconfirmation of naturalistic UCA as one could wish for, though. For now, they only strengthen the claim that there is ZERO reason to believe that current DNA sequences could have had any realistic probability of arising by successive mutations in the posited time-frame if they had much to do with "natural selection."

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. In fact, what Axe's studies do is remind sane people that the burden of proof is and always has been on those positing naturalistic UCA. Because teleological inductivism simply IS the natural epistemology of most humans. Most people admit that we irresistably infer analogically that organismal function is an instance of intelligently designed function, true or not. There is NO natural human tendency to infer naturalistic UCA. As CH has said, most people arive at that conclusion for theological/metaphysical reasons, NOT empirical ones.

      The high-level empirical assumptions that are made to try to determine a single tree are made for THAT very reason, not because they are self-evident or demonstrable. But even if they do, by some such methodology of tree-generation, finally generate a single tree, it will not be evidence for naturalistic UCA. Because it takes MILLIONS of ad-hoc assumptions about mutations to render those high-level assumptions LOGICALLY POSSIBLE. Because no one actually believes that abstract, high-level cladistic rules are the CAUSE of biological variation. MUTATIONS, etc are!

      Delete
    2. Jeff,

      Most people admit that we irresistably infer analogically that organismal function is an instance of intelligently designed function, true or not.

      How could you possibly know that? The world's population is seven billion and growing. Have most of them been asked?

      There is NO natural human tendency to infer naturalistic UCA.

      How could you possibly know that? How many people have ever thought about the question? Please provide a reference to that survey.

      As CH has said, most people arive at that conclusion for theological/metaphysical reasons, NOT empirical ones.

      How could either he or you know that? Please show your work.

      Delete
    3. Pedant: How could you possibly know that? The world's population is seven billion and growing. Have most of them been asked?

      J: By that view, we know nothing at all about humans qua humans. Most people, if language is conventional, articulate beliefs about reality that are expressly teleological. Even atheists frequently talk about evolution in teleological terms.

      P: How could you possibly know that? How many people have ever thought about the question? Please provide a reference to that survey.

      J: Let's say I'm wrong. Here's what we do know. People use teleological language about biological function all the time. Even Darwin talked about eyes "for seeing," etc. So if most people have been UCA'ists, what is your evidence for that?

      P: How could either he or you know that? Please show your work.

      J: That one's easy. No one has ever articulated all the ad-hoc hypotheses required to deduce the conclusion. And no analogical extrapolation is possible, given the radical branching patterns entailed in the hypothesis. And since the only kinds of logical conclusions are those (deductive and inductive), no one is concluding that naturalistic UCA is true or plausible except in terms of metaphysical constraints they personally prefer.

      Delete
    4. LOL! If brainless philosophical blithering was an Olympic sport Liar For Jesus Jeff woulds take gold, silver, and bronze!

      Delete