Some of us have been debating Intelligent Design Creationists for many years. Some of us have even visited the creationist blogs like Uncommon Descent where we discover that no facts and no logic will ever shake their obsession with proving evolution wrong and promoting their gods. That's why it was refreshing to read the following comment by William J. Murray in his post on "The Benefit of Arguments at UD." I only had time to read the first few lines but you get the gist ...
Probably one of the most daunting aspects of carrying on debates either about proper critical thinking, theism vs atheism, or intelligent design and its implications is the seeming implacable nature of those we debate here and elsewhere. It most often seems that no amount of logic, evidence or even reasonable discourse makes one iota of difference ...
84 comments :
My irony meter just exploded.
Dave Bailey
Buy the new model. The fuse is made of creationist brains and hence cannot burn out, since that which doesn't exist cannot be damaged.
Best thing about that thread is that BatShit77 is the first to respond. From one lunatic to another...
"It most often seems that no amount of logic, evidence or even reasonable discourse makes one iota of difference ..."
Strange.
why is it, Larry et al., that i think precisely that about all of you ?
ID theory and Creationism are NOT the same.
Is Intelligent Design “Creationism in a Cheap Tuxedo” ?
http://www.uncommondescent.com/faq/#desdesnr
In fact, the two are radically different. Creationism moves forward: that is, it assumes, asserts or accepts something about God and what he has to say about origins; then interprets nature in that context. Intelligent design moves backward:that is, it observes something interesting in nature (complex, specified information) and then theorises and tests possible ways how that might have come to be. Creationism is faith-based; Intelligent Design is empirically-based.
Each approach has a pedigree that goes back over two thousand years. We notice the “forward” approach in Tertullian, Augustine, Bonaventure, and Anselm. Augustine described it best with the phrase, “faith seeking understanding.” With these thinkers, the investigation was faith-based. By contrast, we discover the “backward” orientation in Aristotle, Aquinas, and Paley. Aristotle’s argument, which begins with “motion in nature” and reasons BACK to a “prime mover” — i.e. from effect to its “best” causal explanation — is obviously empirically based.
To say then, that Tertullian, Augustine, Anselm (Creationism) is similar to Aristotle, Aquinas, Paley (ID) is equivalent to saying forward equals backward. What could be more illogical?
So ID creationists, whose entire movement was created as an attempt disguise creationism as "intelligent design" in order to circumvent American laws preventing the teaching of creationism in schools (c.f. "cdesign proponentists"), deny that intelligent design is a form of creatonism. Why should this surprise, or convince, any thinking person?
Shame to hear he (William J. Murray) supposedly persuaded his granddaughter with such faulty illogic. Fine tuning arguments were compelling to her? Hopefully she thinks about this further, and doesn't just accept grand-dads nonsense.
"why is it, Larry et al., that i think precisely that about all of you ?"
Projection, that's why. Happy to have been of help.
It is always astonishing to hear the posters and commenters at Uncommon Descent when they describe the blogs that argue against them. To hear them describe it, those blogs (Panda's Thumb, The Skeptical Zone, and Sandwalk) are populated by mindless ranters who shut down all dissent with streams of insults, while Uncommon Descent has no insults or suppression of dissent.
It is some kind of Freudian mind-warp, as they are actually describing the behavior at their own blog.
"Intelligent design" creationism is merely another manifestation of creationism. Your links not just to creationism in general, but even to young earth creationists in particular, not just historically, but right now, has been documented and demonstrated for the public record time and time and time again. (Indeed, some of the official "Fellows" of the Discovery Institute are well known young earth creationists. And then there's that whole *Of Pandas and People* fiasco.)
"anthrosciguy" is wrong. It's not projection. It's the two D's: It's either delusion or deceit.
anthrosciguy wrote:
"Projection, that's why. Happy to have been of help.
As John Lennox from Oxford University points out in his book God’s Undertaker: Has Science Buried God?:
“Far from science having buried God, not only do the results of science point towards his existence, but the scientific enterprise is validated by his existence. Inevitably, of course, not only those of us who do science, but all of us, have to choose the presupposition with which we start. There are not many options — essentially just two. Either human intelligence ultimately owes its origin to mindless matter; or there is a Creator. It is strange that some people claim that it is their intelligence that leads them to prefer the first to the second.”
Gee whillickers, he's from Oxford University! He must be right!
Murray's blog, though long dormant, provides some revealing insights:
The idea that some things are true whether we believe them or not, and that there are consequences to our actions whether we believe in those consequences or not, define the difference between beliefs one should believe, and whatever one wants to believe. I can choose to believe things I should not believe, but if my experience tells me this is not a good idea - that there is a reliable negative consequence to such beliefs or disbeliefs - I should adjust my beliefs accordingly.
It's strikes me as odd for him to admit that, in his view, beliefs should be held because of the consequences that result from believing them, rather than because evidence supports that they are correct.
I think that was merely a very poorly written way to say that we should believe what's true whether we want to or not. Why would you argue against that?
"Intelligent design moves backward:that is, it observes something interesting in nature (complex, specified information) and then theorises and tests possible ways how that might have come to be."
How does intelligent design theorize and test how the vestigial pelvis and hind limb bones of cetaceans were intelligently designed?
"Aristotle’s argument, which begins with “motion in nature” and reasons BACK to a “prime mover” — i.e. from effect to its “best” causal explanation — is obviously empirically based."
Why do we need a prime mover?
Dummy Lennox: "There are not many options — essentially just two. Either human intelligence ultimately owes its origin to mindless matter; or there is a Creator."
Uh, I can think of many, many, many other possiblities. But let's play along.
Here we go. There are only two possibilities: either John Lennox is always wrong, or he is a purple rutabaga. Those are the only two options. And he doesn't look purple to me.
I interpreted it to mean we can't believe things that have negative consequences to believing them. For the religious, this usually means, e.g., 1. if you believe there's no God, or no free will, then you'll go around raping and killing and generally acting like a Congressman, or 2. if you believe there's no Jesus then you get tossed in the fiery pit.
It's called projection and creationists do it all the time. The American political strategist Karl Rove used this strategy to get Bush re-elected, in the form 'accuse your opponent of your own greatest weakness.'
It goes so far that many creationists now claim evolutionary theory is "creationist" (because we believe evolution creates species) and they call us "evolutionary creationists."
Also, the new thing, universal among creationists these days, is to say that evolutionists believe in "miracles" and evolutionary theory requires "miracles" and "supernatural events", because the evolution of irreducible complexity (or whatever) could only be a "supernatural miracle."
They accuse us of these things because they know these are their greatest weaknesses.
Oh, IDers are open-minded? In fact, the Discovery Institute's version of Intelligent Design is not just creationist, but nowadays it is explicitly a defense of the inerrancy book of Genesis and the story of Adam and Eve. They have never published a single article saying that any line in the Bible is just plain proven wrong by science. Not one.
Here's a recent article by Glicksman at ENV insisting on the scientific proof of Adam and Eve:
"As for human life, whether it came about by the more plausible explanation of intelligent design or whether one believes the Darwinian narrative, it all had to start with just one male and just one female."
@ John Harshman
As to whether that is what he intended to write, I cannot say. As a psychoanalyst, I can only note that what people say inadvertently can often be more truthful and revealing than what they say intentionally.
Probably one of the most daunting aspects of carrying on debates either about proper critical thinking, theism vs atheism, or intelligent design and its implications is the seeming implacable nature of those we debate here and elsewhere. It most often seems that no amount of logic, evidence or even reasonable discourse makes one iota of difference ...
No matter what group of beliefs it applies to, can anybody explain as to WHY...no amount of logic, evidence or even reasonable discourse makes one iota of difference ...?
Probably one of the most daunting aspects of carrying on debates either about proper critical thinking, theism vs atheism, or intelligent design and its implications is the seeming implacable nature of those we debate here and elsewhere. It most often seems that no amount of logic, evidence or even reasonable discourse makes one iota of difference to our interlocutors; however, I think this is probably because most of those who will take the time to seek our position out and criticize it on its home turf are already fully committed against such positions, and are often emotionally entrenched.
Larry, you seem to have missed the most important part of the statement highlighted by me by the bold letters.
I just hope that from now on you never accuse anyone of quote mining because this is exactly what you did.
The sycophancy of that response is....impressive.
The first quote, in which Murray proclaims the ontological priority of "mind", pretty much sums up the source of his confusion (and indeed, the basic confusion underlying much creationist apologetics).
I read that as a confused conflation of "false beliefs about the physical world will get you killed" (a position fully compatible with a naturalistic and Darwinian account of epistemology) and "beliefs that lead to bad outcomes are false" (the Consequentialist Fallacy).
?
I fail to see how the omission changes the meaning. If anything, it merely makes the irony yet deeper.
Or this may simply be more evidence that intelligence (or the lack of) is inherited.
As for human life, whether it came about by the more plausible explanation of intelligent design or whether one believes the Darwinian narrative, it all had to start with just one male and just one female.
The weirdest thing about that is that it's the apparent conclusion of an article that has absolutely nothing to say on the subject.
it all had to start with just one male and just one female
You know, a rationally-minded person could imagine life-forms being poofed into existence by a god... might not believe it but could imagine the concept. The creationist on the other hand, even when trying to think like a scientist can't help but imagine that an evolutionary process still requires one male and one female poofing into existence.
Diogenes:
"it all had to start with just one male and just one female."
That is in my view obviously true, and the two had to be adults.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23201682
We estimate that approximately 73% of all protein-coding SNVs and approximately 86% of SNVs predicted to be deleterious arose in the past 5,000-10,000 years.
Another study in Nature found that after the flood of the period there was a common ancestor to all mankind. The study argues that racial differences people have a recent origin: between 2,000 and 5,000 years ago.
Modelling the recent common ancestry of all living humans
the genealogies of all living humans overlap in remarkable ways in the recent past. In particular, the MRCA of all present-day humans lived just a few thousand years ago in these models. Moreover, among all individuals living more than just a few thousand years earlier than the MRCA, each present-day human has exactly the same set of genealogical ancestors.
Its evident proponents of evolution would not remain silent....
If you disagree, you need to give a compelling narrative how Sex evolved, but i know beforehand you don't have, and in order for childs to get to adulthood, you need adult parents. How you get a transition from unicellular to multicellular, and from " simple " multicellular life to complex vertebrates and animals that hatch , nurse and feed their little ones , is another transition and development stage that is never explained in a convincing manner by proponents of evolution. Evolution is a terrible explanation when extrapolated to infer things beyond what the evidence points to.
The Dunning-Kruger is strong in this one.
Most if not all proponents of naturalism stick to it, not because the scientific evidence points towards that direction, but because there is a emotional commitment to it.
Of course, proponents of naturalism now will turn the argument around, and acuse us to behave the same. Fact is, specially in the evolution x ID/creationism debate, and that is true for both sides, a lot of prejudice is most commonly the starting point. Someone wants x or y to be true, and tries to find evidence that confirms its views, and ignores the evidence in contrary.
Creationism explicitly starts with the presumption holy book narratives are true. ID theory however is independent of personal prejudice and wishful thinking, since it permits to test the predictions made. It delivers hard data, that can be falsified. Unless someone falsifies the predictions, the theory stands. In over twenty years, since Behe published his book Darwins black box, and Dembsky about CSI information, both main tenets of ID Theory have withstand scrutiny, and been confirmed over and over, and the body of knowledge and new examples have only grown, while proposals of naturalisms have come almost all to dead ends.
Otangelo Grasso-Goodness man, you need a new hobby... reading your screeds prove you have no background discussing the relevant topics. High school level embarrassing.
Emerging from about the 6th rerun of the exact same discussion of morality with him in recent years (because, let's face it, I'm as big a moron as he is), the irony is striking.
*snort* I read Behe's silly book back around 2000. Even as a non-specialist, I could see the gaping holes in it. In particular: the notable failure to actually describe what ID *is* beyond "better than Darwinism", which it isn't anyway. Falsifiable predictions? I don't recall it making any in the first place.
Only the sixth?
He argued passionately against subjective morality but then admits that people and societies have no way of identifying his much vaunted objective morals. And goes further to state that he is not claiming that objective morality is fact.
Sorry, but all this man does is play word games and criticize grammatically and logically incorrect sentences and claim that that is proof of the accuracy of his opinion. Yet, never actually satisfactorily answering the most basic of question.
Grammatical or logical error? Not me guv!
Maybe not. But I am not immune to them. I didn't get the vaccine that WHM, Barry Arrogant and Gordon KairosFocus Mullings obviously received. Batshitcrazy77 must have natural immunity. And by "immunity", I mean "delusion".
Falsifiable predictions? I don't recall it making any in the first place.
When you take your blinkers off, and make a quick google search, you will find them.
A hint: google : Confirmation of intelligent design predictions
I don't agree that logic or evidence is at fault in persuading people on such important and great matters. Its bigger then that.If people are intelligent, should be sciency types more so, then why would it be easy to persuade when everyone comes to persuade themselves everyone else.
there is a art to persuasion, or science, from the old days. The old ones knew is was difficult.
i think people, like me, are inarticulate,don't carefully put thier words to represent thier thoughts, forget tones of voice don't come over the internet which we do use a lot, and so on.
Its possible there is a dumber curve on one side but couldn't be much.
The truth should prevail over error. So somebody is missing good points are they are not being made even if that side is on truth.
I do think evolutionism/creationism should and will soon enough have progress for one side thats front page newsworthy. i think its coming.
Yes i think its about evidence finally.
What they have in common is the possession of a couple of nails and a large hammer.
""it all had to start with just one male and just one female."
That is in my view obviously true, and the two had to be adults."
It's weird how this creationist don't even seem capable of speculating outside the confines of direct literal interpretation of scriptures. It "obviously" has to be true that humanity were started with two people, because (presumably) god could not have created a thousand people instead of just two, right?
This guy has shut his brain off completely.
Why do you feel the need to have so many logins? Awful confusing.
And the most common trope: belief in evolution is just another religion. It always struck me as strange that the greatest slight a religious person can think of is to accuse an opponent of being merely religious.
Cruglers: why are you so consistent in your misconceptions? The above is not an example of quote-mining because the unincluded part of quote supports the first part. Quote mining is when you purposefully leave out a part that actually changes the meaning of the quote.
Well, we will have to watch those front page headlines for evidence that creationism is actually true. Maybe god/jesus will have finally consented to an interview on 60 minutes.
Let's just hope another Trump boondoggle doesn't end up burying the headline on page 2.
"If you disagree, you need to give a compelling narrative how Sex evolved, but i know beforehand you don't have, and in order for childs to get to adulthood, you need adult parents. How you get a transition from unicellular to multicellular, and from " simple " multicellular life to complex vertebrates and animals that hatch , nurse and feed their little ones , is another transition and development stage that is never explained in a convincing manner by proponents of evolution."
Why on Earth would you need to show any of these to prove it all did not have to start with one male and one female?
Explain everything from OoL to now, or I say it started yesterday.
On Atbc Bob O'Hara linked to the following piece by Sabine Hossenfelder about her experience with autodidacts who think they've revolutionized physics: What I learned as a hired consultant to autodidact physicists.
Seemingly, it's the same type of people we have to deal with:
"Many of them are retired or near retirement, typically with a background in engineering or a related industry. All of them are men."
Mikkel
god could not have created a thousand people instead of just two, right?
Yes, of course. But would you consider the rest of my post, it would be evident that what you mention is not the problem that i was pointing to. When you have compelling explanations based on naturalism for the problems i pointed out , you can acuse me. Before, that irrational views are ALL on your side.
@SRM
It was a deliberate quote mine because I implied that the post was about the implacable nature of creationists when it was actually about the implacable nature of evolution supporters. My post was meant tp emphasize the irony and the clue was saying I had only read the first few lines.
Lots of people got it but Cruglers is irony-deficient.
Please don't make it worse by pretending that I didn't quote mine when I actually did. That was part of the irony.
"Another study in Nature found that after the flood of the period there was a common ancestor to all mankind."
Yeah, I'mma call bullshot on that one.
My favourite quote mine from UD:
BTW, when you make little jabs like “I thought basic logic was one thing UDers could handle,” you come off looking especially silly when you turn out to be wrong.
(c) Barry Arrington
LOL! That's a beauty.
Here is a very simple litmus test as to whether the people at UD or DI are even doin' it right.
The best way that we humans approach The Truth about things is through the self-correcting process of science. In the field of evolution, I can go on and on about this or that past view which has been found to be wrong, amply demonstrating that in this field, as in others in science, evolution is a good science and it is asymptotically approaching The Truth.
The question I would like to ask the people at UD and the DI is this: can you describe at any real length how you folks have found that you were wrong? About anything??
It's the study I thought it was. They didn't show the common ancestor, they showed a common ancestor, and that's a very significant difference. They carefully explained what they meant: a person who is ancestral to everyone, in the sense that your paternal grandfather is also ancestral to all your first cousins, though they all have different maternal grandfathers. All that means is that there is gene flow connecting all human populations. Not Adam and Eve. And no flood.
What a maroon.
Like many creationists, Otangelo does not understand what the term "most recent common ancestor" denotes. If this will help, Otangelo: Your parents are the most recent common ancestors of you and your siblings. This does not mean that your parents were the only human beings living on earth.
god could not have created a thousand people instead of just two, right?
Blasphemy!
Heh.
Otangelo, why stop there? Why not a unique special creation for each and every one of us? I don't wanna be left out.
There's certainly as much positive scientific evidence for that as anything you've said.
Crossposted from TSZ:
The awesome immutable, transcendent, consistent wisdom of WJM:
http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/abortion-euthanasia-why-im-all-for-both/comment-page-2/
“Simply put, liberals/progressives are the ones who, IMO, are going to utilize these services the most. So, yeah, the fewer babies they get to raise, and the earlier we can stop them from voting, the better….So, as a pragmatic political matter, I say let ’em abort their young and kill themselves off to their heart’s content.”
http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/the-benefit-of-arguments-at-ud/
“A few weeks ago my family and I were sitting in my living room talking one day when my adult granddaughter (mother of my great-granddaughter), who was either agnostic or an atheist, out of the blue asked me why I believed in god. I presented evidence and argument concerning cosmological fine-tuning, bio-semiotics and cellular nano-technology, and also first-cause and moral arguments. She was really interested, but didn’t say much at the time. Some time later my daughter informed me that she overheard my granddaughter telling her boyfriend that since that talk she now totally believes in god because of the information and argument I was able to provide due to many years of participation here.
Every once in a while it’s nice to be reminded that, sometimes, reason and evidence can actually get through to a person.”
And Barry approves:
“Wonderful story WJM. And of course the phenomenon of which you speak is a two-way street. Iron sharpens iron. And as UB says, you are one of our very best steels.”
I agree, WJM is one of their sharpest steels (which isn’t just iron). But that’s more a statement on how dull the tools at UD collectively are.
Something disappeared from the comment:
From her article:
"My clients know so little about current research in physics, they aren’t even aware they’re in a foreign country."
A nice description of Dunning-Kruger.
Otangelo Grasso said:
In over twenty years, since Behe published his book Darwins black box, and Dembsky about CSI information, both main tenets of ID Theory have withstand scrutiny,...
Weighed and found wanting. ID proponentsists have more problems than the vacuity of ID theory to worry about.
Well, ok, ... I get the irony part. But I also get that people on both sides of an issue often genuinely feel like the other side is dogmatic and immune to reason. The remainder of the quote doesn't come as a surprise to me. But ok, I will stop digging now.
You first? that would then be a good point.
Science is not self correcting. it is itself just people trying to figure things out.
All people get stuck in presumptions.
Its not a failure of logic or smarts.
Its something else goingon which many people have investigated everywhere.
For example.
I find that evolutionists/supporters pertsuade them,selves as to evolutionary mechanism BECAUSE they are so persuaded there waas change/evolution between this into that.
So leggy whales or apes looking like me and other people, is so settled in thier minds as to prove a biological origin or biological journey of body plan that they imagine the mechanism has been proved.
Or rather being convinced Erasumus Darwin was right about evolution they are convinced Charles dArwin was proved right.
The fact of evolutionary change proves the fact of how.
I agree marine mammals were once land lovers and later adapted to the seas. Yet not by evolutions mechanism/Darwin.
I agree we have a apes body plan but its not proof at all to common descent. We are not related.
The conclusion , so convincing, for evolutionists/supporters deceives them that the mechanism is proved.
Its not illogic but failure of higher scrutiny of thought.
Yet a frustrated ID/YEC critic would sincerly think they are illogical or unreasonable/desperate.
"Is Intelligent Design “Creationism in a Cheap Tuxedo” ?"
No, it's creationism in a very shabby cloak. Like creationism, it has rarely, if ever, put forward testable evidence. Instead it relies on the false dichotomy fallacy, the idea that if it can disprove evolution, then creationism must be correct. It's really all they've got.
Dave Bailey
Grasso: "In over twenty years, since Behe published his book Darwins black box, and Dembsky about CSI information, both main tenets of ID Theory have withstand scrutiny"
This, frankly, is absurd, and Grasso can't be excused on the basis of ignorance-- because I just debunked Dembski's CSI in the thread immediately previous to this, in comments addressed to Grasso, which he must have read, and which he did not respond to. Now he drags up the corpse of CSI again when I at least, and some others here (Joe) have debunked it over and over and over and over and over, not to mention real mathematicians like Elsberry and Shallit with their detailed refutation of Dembski, or the time a "mere" undergraduate, Richard Wein, debunked Dembski's pathetic mathematical "proofs" and Dembski responded, ultimately weeping and crying as an undergrad kicked his ass.
But the IDers just get big anime eyes, and try to look all innocent, and pretend they haven't seen the mathematical and practical refutations of Dembski and Behe-- I see nothing!-- they play innocent and say things like "both main tenets of ID Theory have withstand scrutiny".
This is just an attempt to win by repeating the same crap over and over, to win by exhausting the refuters.
You lot sound profoundly like people asking the question "Which came first : the chicken or the egg ?"
Grasso says: "Another study in Nature found that after the flood of the period there was a common ancestor to all mankind. The study argues that racial differences people have a recent origin: between 2,000 and 5,000 years ago."
I call total, absolute bullshit on that. No study published in Nature would say something like "racial differences people have a recent origin: between 2,000 and 5,000 years ago."
Most likely this was a paper discussed and misrepresented at a creo website like Ken Ham or Creation Ministries International, that got picked up by ID pushers like BornAgain77 or He Who Shall Not Be Named and twisted some more, like a game of telephone, with each re-telling becoming less and less similar to the original article.
Never mind that some people have alleles that are more similar to alleles in *chimpanzees* than they are to the alleles in their fellow human beings--showing that there are variations in the population which predate the human-chimpanzee split.
Diogenes wrote:
"This, frankly, is absurd, and Grasso can't be excused on the basis of ignorance-- because I just debunked Dembski's CSI in the thread immediately previous to this, in comments addressed to Grasso, which he must have read, and which he did not respond to."
When a topic here has reached 200 or so posts, i am suddenly unable to see further posts. I don't know why.
Neither you, nor anyone else has shown that CSI can be generated without intelligence, just by random chance. Simple statistical calculations show why.
The probability of building a 150 amino acids chain in which all linkages are peptide linkages would be roughly 1 chance in 10^45. Lets say there would not be just one, but trillions natural attempts to get one amino acid sequence right, like trillions of chimps randomly type on a typewriter for trillions of years, and after trillions of attempts produce a functional protein. But there is a even bigger problem than just statistics. There is much more involved, beside getting the right sequence . You need to select the 20 right hand amino acids used by life amongst 500 amino acids occuring in nature. Lets suppose nature would have climbed mount unsurmountable, and got to the top, and produced a functional protein. This protein must aggregate and be placed into the right place in the cell, in a highly complex, functional, specified, correct, spacial order. The right amino acids must be available at the same construction site, perhaps not simultaneously but certainly at the time they are needed. Coordinating and instruct the assembly of the individual proteins in just the right way: even if all of the enzymes of a system are available at the right time, it is clear that the majority of ways of assembling them will be non-functional or irrelevant. The proteins must have the right size, form and material, and must be mutually compatible, that is, ‘well-matched’ and capable of properly ‘interacting’: even if sub systems or parts are put together in the right order, they also need to interface correctly. The individual molecules will be held together and connected in the right manner through various different mechanisms, like fine tuned covalent and non-covalent bonds, electrostatic forces, etc. Furthermore, if just one of these parts is non functional or not exisisting, life cannot start.
1. The Cell membrane
2. DNA repair mechanisms
3. Plasma membrane gates
4. The Cytoplasm
5. Glycolysis
6. Left handed Amino Acids
7. Membrane-enclosed vesicles
8. Ribosomes
9. tRNA
10. right handed DNA
11. Signal-Recognition Particles (SRP)
12. Lysosomes
13. A complete transcriptional machinery
14. Protein-processing, -folding, secretion, and degradation functions and two proteases.
15. FtsZ
16. Cation, ABC transporters, a PTS for glucose transport, phosphate transporters
17. Dihydroxyacetone phosphate
18. ATP synthase
Otangelo says:
“Someone wants x or y to be true, and tries to find evidence that confirms its views, and ignores the evidence in contrary.”
Otangelo describes himself so well. He quote mines this paper:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23201682 to suggest there is scientific evidence humans, or the Earth, or the imaginary “Flood” is 5-10K years old. He cherry picks “We estimate that approximately 73% of all protein-coding SNVs and approximately 86% of SNVs predicted to be deleterious arose in the past 5,000-10,000 years” from the abstract. However, when you read the paper, you discover that these come primarily from SNVs unique to the European sequences they examined. He conveniently leaves out the fact that SNVs common to both European and African sequences they analyzed were estimated at well over 100,000 years old, over an order of magnitude greater than biblically based fantasies about the age of the Earth. This is how ID/creationists misrepresent science.
Of course, these sad efforts by Otangelo are essentially rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. The age of the Earth has been clearly established beyond any rational doubt by physics, chemistry, astronomy and geology (4.543 billion years old). And there was no worldwide flood 5-10K years ago.
"Furthermore, if just one of these parts is non functional or not exisisting, life cannot start. "
Life may require all of these elements today, but you are unable to prove the above point. Your arguments from personal incredulity do not count. If you want to argue this way, you have to show that the first self-replicating forms on Earth required all of these elements.
Which of course isn't a very difficult question to answer.
"over an order of magnitude greater than biblically based fantasies about the age of the Earth"
That's exactly the problem with creationists. They just want to validate fantasies.
Chris B
"Life may require all of these elements today, but you are unable to prove the above point. Your arguments from personal incredulity do not count. If you want to argue this way, you have to show that the first self-replicating forms on Earth required all of these elements."
Dr Craig Venters work is trying to show the minimum amount of genes that can support life. At this point the minimum number is about 470 functioning genes. What requirements of the above do you think you can remove and still have an energy converting self replicating organism?
Go ahead, religionists, have your god if you wish. But as has been said many times. all you have done is move the 'first cause' one step back. Intellectual honesty now requires you to investigate the origin of your god. And don't give us this 'It was always here' argument, and expect us to roll over, because you'll also need to prove that.
Knock yourselves out.
Dave Bailey
I agree marine mammals were once land lovers and later adapted to the seas. Yet not by evolutions mechanism/Darwin.
Robert, you mention that you think marine mammals (e.g. whales) indeed were once terrestial and presumably would have had different morphological features, and you mention the word adaptation. Can you clearly outline a mechanism for changes in morphology that is not akin to standard evolution ideas? I know you are a YEC, but did god first create terrestial whales, then at some later point re-model them into aquatic organisms?
heh heh. And I bet that granddaughter then enrolled in university, where she used the same arguments to shame an atheistic professor into angry tears.
If the egg is essentially a cell that divides, and sub-divides and cellular colonies became cellular organisms and cellular organisms became what we call a species ( a specialised colony of highly organised cells)... Does that not answer the chicken and egg quandary? It was the EGG¬! http:diggingupthefuture.com
Ventner's work is investigating the minimum number of genes necessary for modern life. Nobody is suggesting that the first life was DNA based. Please keep up.
" What requirements of the above do you think you can remove and still have an energy converting self replicating organism?"
Bill, this question is irrelevant to my point. It is the argument Otangelo wants to have, but it is not the question of origins he thinks he is having. As William Spearshake told you, Venter is working on a minimum number of genes necessary for life more or less as we know it. That's a different question.
First comes the insight that marine mammals were first land creatures who after the flood adapted to empty seas.
Then mechanism must be figured out. Evolutionism is a impossible mechanism, as I see it , and eventually everyone.
In fact people seeing the results does indeed persuade them evolution is true. A careless analysis.
Whether people or critters biological change came from quick triggering mechanisms after thresholds were crossed that triggered the dna. Thats what it must be.
Well, I don't know what "triggering the DNA" means and I doubt you do either.
But, rather than being opposed to the idea of evolution, it appears you recognize that a young earth scenario would not provide enough time for currently described mechanisms to effect the morphological changes observed.
You know, many people have become famous for revolutionary new ideas not because of their own experimental efforts necessarily, but because they recognized that existing data could not be explained by a currently accepted idea or model.
Amongst your YEC crowd, it sounds like you have an opportunity to be the first to propose that the evidence does not support the commonly held young earth scenario. This, most likely because of the not-implaubible possibility that humans have misinterpreted either the importance of, or substance of, scripture.
Since you already accept evolution of a sort (and I imagine many YECs do not), you could well be on the way to being a revolutionary thinker at least in your YEC sphere.
Or, like the rest, you could continue to claim that the data must conform to a young earth scenario.
We need to meme it.
No evidence in the whole world will convince one to believe otherwise if he/she has already made up his or her mind.
In real world one can't argue with YEC's like Robert Bobbies who has not idea what he believes in but his beliefs put him too much apart form Darwin Lions. When I read Robert's arguments and the Darwinian Police they seem to sound the same. No logic.
OK. I'm going to give away some money. Not my own money but some money.
I don't have any money. I'm renewing my mortgage and the bank made my cry.
Here is the interesting thing. Some retired wealthy people may be willing to sponsor experiments that could lead to the revelations of the origins of life. I don't know these people personally but some of them had sponsored $2 million projects so, they may be in for real...I don't know.
Actually I have a retiring colleague who inherited some money and he might like to put it into a good cause. He loves animals though, so it maybe difficult to convince him to sponsor experiments without any hope. Maybe someone can convince that it is worth it? I can't. I'm sorry.
It's only a quote mine if there is a larger context where the above has a different interpretation.
I suspect that no such context exists.
And speaking of quote mines ...
Math is just a language of reality. Its a waste of time to know it. - Robert Byers
And that granddaughter was Albert Einstein.
Post a Comment