tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post5667831726210090944..comments2024-03-27T14:50:47.345-04:00Comments on <center>Sandwalk</center>: Is it impossible to educate Intelligent Design Creationists on evolutionary theory?Larry Moranhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05756598746605455848noreply@blogger.comBlogger84125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-20995786750887932492015-03-17T06:22:57.725-04:002015-03-17T06:22:57.725-04:00Oops, Johnny stands for Jonathan in this case. It&...Oops, Johnny stands for Jonathan in this case. It's Jonathan Bartlett, Creation Research Society.Piotr Gąsiorowskihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06339278493073512102noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-50650519341067722602015-03-17T06:05:01.567-04:002015-03-17T06:05:01.567-04:00Everybody switch off your irony meters, NOW!
Alas...Everybody switch off your irony meters, <b>NOW</b>!<br /><br />Alas, Professor Moran, you can't educate the IDiots because it turns out that you misunderstand both the tenets of Intelligent Design <b>and the principles of modern evolutionary biology</b>. Your ignorance has been revealed on UD by a certain John Bartlett, Independent Researcher, who happens to know everything about evolution and seems prepared to educate <i>you</i>.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.uncommondescent.com/evolution/id-and-evolutionary-biology/" rel="nofollow">ID and Evolutionary Biology</a><br /><br />OK, you can switch 'em on again.Piotr Gąsiorowskihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06339278493073512102noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-24363457195484465682015-03-15T16:58:12.670-04:002015-03-15T16:58:12.670-04:00Any typos in the above are the result of OCR conve...Any typos in the above are the result of OCR conversion from an image pdf.Petrushkahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02343702725399620404noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-11999193960518310632015-03-15T16:48:48.822-04:002015-03-15T16:48:48.822-04:00"SCIENTISTS are still in a state of shock aft..."SCIENTISTS are still in a state of shock after having discovered the basic blueprint of life.<br /><br />They call it DNA -- short for the almost unpronounceable word, deoxyribonucleic acid. DNA is a genetic code, like a master computer or file. It is in. the nucleus of every living cell. Its programmed instructions, for example, make a cow reproduce a calf, not some other kind of animal, or make a liver cell reproduce a liver cell and not a heart cell.<br /><br />This genetic recipe is so complex that the entire DNA system within a human contains as much information as several encyclopedia sets, or one hundred large dictionaries.<br /><br />DNA - with incredible ACCURACY - will direct the reproduction of a call from a horse. II will split any living cell into exact twins. This DNA could be likened to a master stencil grinding out endless copies of itself. <br /><br />But -- and here is the phenomenal KEY that allows mind .defying variety within<br />a set kind. When a new life is engendered -- two DNA codes or stencils are used -- one each contained in the father's and mother's chromosomes. DNA reproduces a limitless amount of variety, all molded by a similar template. This variety, though extraordinary in scope, is limited by the fact that parents are of a similar kind. <br /><br />As a result, variety within a species can reach astronomical proportions. (For example, note the number of varieties among moths and butterflies.) But, because DNA reproduces itself exactly, kind reproduces kind. Evolution cannot occur!"<br /><br />http://www.herbert-armstrong.org/Plain%20Truth%201960s/Plain%20Truth%201969%20(Prelim%20No%2005)%20May.pdf<br />Petrushkahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02343702725399620404noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-58811187338611103712015-03-15T07:00:00.518-04:002015-03-15T07:00:00.518-04:00I want to amend one of my statements above to:
Th...I want to amend one of my statements above to:<br /><br />There are many more examples of IDiots asserting that beneficial mutations (or anything else that is beneficial, useful, critical, functional, or an improvement) cannot happen by "chance". They love to erroneously and dishonestly portray evolutionary theory as though it posits nothing but chance, mistakes, errors, accidents, and randomness. The whole truthhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07219999357041824471noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-52891306205482603752015-03-15T06:37:13.484-04:002015-03-15T06:37:13.484-04:00Part two.
Here's a quote from John D. Morris,...Part two.<br /><br />Here's a quote from John D. Morris, President of ICR: "Actually, any living thing gives such strong evidence for design by an intelligent designer that only a willful ignorance of the data (II Peter 3:5) could lead one to assign such intricacy to <b>chance</b>."<br /><br />Here are some quotes from joey g, poster boy for <b>idiotic IDiots</b>:<br /><br />"Unguided evolution has never been observed to produce anything beyond disease and deformities." (In other words, nothing 'beneficial'.)<br /><br />"But anyway there still isn’t any evidence that demonstrates random mutations can accumulate in such a way as to give rise to new, <b>useful</b> multi-protein configurations."<br /><br />"The neo-darwinian mechanism can’t even be modeled. Just how can one model differential accumulations of genetic <b>accidents, errors and mistakes</b>?"<br /><br />"If the [descent with] modification isn’t via differing accumulations of <b>genetic accidents, errors or mistakes</b>, then it isn’t Darwinism nor NDE."<br /><br />"IDE doesn’t explain all evolution. It does allow for blind watchmaker evolution to <b>break things</b>. (In this case "IDE" stands for Intelligent Design Evolution.)<br /><br />"So when we have swept clear necessity and <b>chance</b> AND we have Behe’s criteria, we infer intelligent design." (And what is "Behe's criteria"?)<br /><br />"The designer doesn’t need to intervene, however in “<b>Not By Chance</b>” and “The Evolution Revolution” Spetner discusses evolution by design- that is organisms were designed to evolve."<br /><br />"When we say “<b>chance</b> can build” we mean that blind and undirected process- accidents, errors, mistakes, not planned, haphazard- That has been spoon fed to you and you spit it up like a baby." (And of course he's asserting that "chance" can't "build" anything but diseases and deformities. He doesn't want allah-yhwh-jesus-holy-ghost to get credit for the 'bad' stuff.) <br /><br />From gil dodgen, the frilly IDiot: <br /><br />"<b>Random errors are inherently entropic</b>, and the more complex a functionally-integrated system becomes, the <b>more destructive random errors</b> become." <br /><br />From william j murray, another vociferous IDiot: <br /><br />"The idea that <b>chance</b> can be expected to produce <b>patently purposeful</b> effects, like dictionaries and battleships and computers, is nonsensical. The idea that one can throw <b>monkey wrenches</b> into highly complex, sophisticated, interdependent functional code and machinery and not expect anything to happen other than it <b>breaking down</b> is not worthy of serious debate." (He's using "dictionaries and battleships and computers" as a stand in for biological entities, and "monkey wrenches" as "chance" or "random" mutations.)<br /><br />"Since my side is the only side that claims to be making arguments by something other than <b>chance</b>, it’s the only side worth taking seriously."<br /><br />"I guess it’s okay to hypothesize that given enough time, <b>chance</b> can build a biological computer and self-replicating 3D printing machine..." (Yes, he's being snarky.)<br /><br />There are many more examples of IDiots asserting that beneficial mutations cannot happen by "chance". <br /><br />And there's much more to evolution than "chance", or so-called "random errors", "mistakes", or "accidents". The whole truthhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07219999357041824471noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-69181166430053982282015-03-15T06:24:49.928-04:002015-03-15T06:24:49.928-04:00unknown said:
"Interesting none of the quote...unknown said:<br /><br />"Interesting none of the quotes say beneficial mutations can't happen.do you have more? and from known Id scientists not unknown lawyers like Edward Sisson."<br /><br />My original statement was:<br /><br />"Creationists, especially of the IDiot variety, constantly assert that beneficial mutations cannot happen by "chance"."<br /><br />And unknown's response was: <br /><br />"You are lying. show me one quote from any IDst Meyer, Behe, Welsh, Luskin... saying beneficial mutations cannot happen."<br /><br />Notice that he left out the words "by chance" both times, and that he expects not just "one quote from any IDst" but quotes from "Id scientists", even though I didn't say anything about "Id scientists". <br /><br />Now, Mikkel and Diogenes have already responded to unknown with what should be enough to show that what I said is true, but here's some more (all bolding is mine):<br /><br />"The eye either functions as a whole or not at all. So how did it come to evolve by slow, steady infinitesimally small Darwinian improvements? Is it really plausible that thousands upon thousands of <b>lucky chance mutations happened coincidentally</b> so that the lens and the retina, which cannot work without each other, evolved in synchrony?" (Michael Behe in Darwin's Black Box) <br /><br />Behe obviously believes that eyes are beneficial but that they cannot have come about by what he refers to as "lucky <b>chance</b> mutations" that "happened coincidentally". Notice also his inaccurate exaggeration: "infinitesimally small Darwinian improvements". <br /><br />One of Behe's main assertions is that mutations must be beneficial (e.g. "functional" or "useful" or "critical" or "improvements"):<br /><br />"I emphasize that natural selection, the engine of Darwinian evolution, only works if there is something to select — something that is <b>useful right now</b>, not in the future." (Michael Behe in Darwin's Black Box)<br /><br />In Darwin's Black Box Behe also says:<br /><br />"To a person who does not feel obliged to restrict his search to unintelligent causes, the straightforward conclusion is that many biochemical systems were designed. They were designed not by the laws of nature, not by <b>chance</b> and necessity; rather, they were planned. The designer knew what the systems would look like when they were completed, then took steps to bring the systems about. Life on earth at its most fundamental level, in its most critical components, is the product of intelligent activity."<br /><br />"I do not purport to understand everything about design or evolution — far from it; I just cannot ignore the evidence for design. If I insert a letter into a photocopier, for instance, and it makes a dozen good copies and one copy that has a couple of large smears on it, I would be wrong to use the smeared copy as evidence that the photocopier arose by <b>chance</b>."<br /><br />(regarding cilium): "Yet a serious Darwinian account of such an elegant machine — one that really sought to answer the question of how such a device could have evolved — would have to deal with the myriad critical details that allow the cilium to work, and show how they could each arise with reasonable probability by random mutation and natural selection, <b>with each tiny mutational step improving on the last, without causing more problems than it was worth, and without veering off into temporarily-advantageous-but- dead-end structures</b>. <br /><br />See part two.<br /><br />The whole truthhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07219999357041824471noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-12675752389901356692015-03-15T06:22:30.847-04:002015-03-15T06:22:30.847-04:00The analogy is bad because you assume there are ma...<i>The analogy is bad because you assume there are many pathways accessible to random errors to build coherent complexity. But it is the very thing you have to prove.</i><br /><br />Amongst proteins primary amino acid sequences are inordinately more diverse than are functionally relevant secondary and tertiary structural folds, demonstrating that there are many different pathways to the same structures and enzymatic activities. SRMhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07299706694667706149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-29357913862883135052015-03-15T02:58:09.112-04:002015-03-15T02:58:09.112-04:00"The analogy is bad because you assume there ...<i>"The analogy is bad because you assume there are many pathways accessible to random errors to build coherent complexity. But it is the very thing you have to prove."</i><br /><br />This has already been proven. The diversity of life itself is evidence of this (and ancestor reconstructions proves beyond rational doubt that the diversity of life is connected through an evolutionary process).<br /><br />Experimental evolution even shows there are many more solutions "out there" not realized in life. It is not uncommon to find functional protein and DNA sequences in experiments that look nothing like anything found in life as we know it. <br />And then there's the fact that life is now adapting through evolution to many man-made pollutants that have never before existed on Earth, such as plastics and countless types of waste from the chemical and petrol industry. <br /><br />Notice how nothing of this is "imagination" or "stories", they're concrete empirical facts. <br /><br />So here's where you do the same for ID: Show us the designer designing a fully functioning organism from scratch. Your imagination, your stories or excuses doesn't make up for a lack of evidence. Enough blind speculation about what your mysterious and undetectable designer working in the ancient geological past did, time to actually give an example demonstration of your designer at work. Not humans, humans weren't around to design life, no <b>your</b> designer. Where are the empirical demonstrations?Mikkel Rumraket Rasmussenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07670550711237457368noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-27846781657644548322015-03-14T19:05:41.929-04:002015-03-14T19:05:41.929-04:00"The Mississippi is excellent at carving out ..."The Mississippi is excellent at carving out a complex, random path for itself. It would be extremely bad at working toward some path that I set for it as a goal, such as a straight line. Evolution, like the river, moves along random, non-predetermined paths that can attain startling apparent complexity."<br /><br />The analogy is bad because you assume there are many pathways accessible to random errors to build coherent complexity. But it is the very thing you have to prove.<br /><br />The problem with you evolutionists is that you think your imagination, your stories or excuses make up for evidence.<br /><br />But excuses are only admittance of the lack of evidence.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15048816306720334798noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-80318991703139921352015-03-14T18:53:57.023-04:002015-03-14T18:53:57.023-04:00Interesting none of the quotes say beneficial muta...Interesting none of the quotes say beneficial mutations can't happen.<br />do you have more? and from known Id scientists not unkown lawyers like Edward Sisson.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15048816306720334798noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-81044321555637689522015-03-14T07:46:15.546-04:002015-03-14T07:46:15.546-04:00It seems to serve only one purpose, to baffle the ...<i>It seems to serve only one purpose, to baffle the minds of credulous religionists with large numbers. </i><br /><br />...or more to the point, it feeds in perfectly to the common and strong notion that things as they are, must be as they are, and therefore could have only arisen through sudden creation (via some unspecified magic) or by omnipotent direction of a very complicated mutational history.<br /><br />The above is very obvious but important because even many people who would not call themselves creationists or even particularly religious are strongly beholden to this view. It is difficult for people to appreciate that what we see today is the net result of untold numbers of contingent events and thus could be very different than it is.<br /><br />Rather than misunderstanding evolutionary theory, the main barrier to wider acceptance of evolution is the innate human tendency toward teleological thinking, though understanding evolution theory is one pathway to tampering down or banishing this innate tendency.<br /><br />Judmarc: the Mississippi river is so stupid! It didn't construct its own levies where it should have know that human cities, like New Orleans, would eventually be built. ;-)SRMhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07299706694667706149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-22286887702738746352015-03-13T15:05:53.528-04:002015-03-13T15:05:53.528-04:00Unknown, Rumraket's quotes, WHICH YOU ASKED FO...Unknown, Rumraket's quotes, WHICH YOU ASKED FOR, have not merely exposed you as a sham, but have left his boot print deep in your ass.<br /><br />Do you surrender?Diogeneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15551943619872944637noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-23330249204666727702015-03-13T14:28:07.292-04:002015-03-13T14:28:07.292-04:00I got this from Diogenes who has apparently compil...I got this from Diogenes who has apparently compiled a small list of quotes: <br /><br />Pro-ID Philosopher William Dembski: “[T]here is now mounting evidence of biological systems for which any slight modification does not merely destroy the system’s existing function but also destroys the possibility of any function of the system whatsoever.” [Dembski, The Design Revolution, p. 113]<br /><br />Pro-ID lawyer Phillip Johnson: “Biologists affiliated with the Intelligent Design movement nail down the distinction by showing that DNA mutations…make birth defects” ["Berkeley's Radical: An Interview with Phillip E. Johnson", November 2000.]<br /><br />Pro-ID lawyer Edward Sisson: “[T]he theory of unintelligent evolution, which depends entirely on the supposed occurrence in history of trillions of DNA mutations that beneficially affect body shape, has not identified any such mutations” -- [Edward Sisson, “Darwin or Lose”, Touchstone, v. 17, issue 6, July/Aug. 2004]<br /><br />Uncommon Descent: “As far as I know, the current consensus of population geneticists is that mutations do indeed have disastrously bad fitness.” [Eric Holloway. Uncommon Descent. August 28, 2011.] <br /><br />The whole premise of ID is that evolution can't happen because beneficial and useful mutations are somewhere around miraculously rare to nonexistant, so a "blind search" cannot ever be expected to find them. Or maybe it can find one or two and then that's about it. There doesn't even seem to be any agreement between various IDiots about it, they're all over the map. Sometimes we hear them say beneficial mutations can happen, it's just they can't ever "build an increase in complexity". <br /><br />The ID claim against mutations takes many forms, but common to all is that it can't do much because useful mutations are rare and the search for them is "unguided and random". Insert *baffle* with large numbers = every pro IDcreationist book ever written. Mikkel Rumraket Rasmussenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07670550711237457368noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-62413238071383079662015-03-13T10:40:47.963-04:002015-03-13T10:40:47.963-04:00Unknown quotes Dr. Behe quoting Prof. Thornton:
&...Unknown quotes Dr. Behe quoting Prof. Thornton:<br /><br />"To restore the ancestral conformation...."<br /><br />And of course that's where Thornton and Behe's entire line of reasoning is misdirected, and where you don't know enough to recognize it.<br /><br /><b>If the sole object is to arrive at one specific conformation, be it "ancestral" or otherwise, there is no such thing as a "neutral" mutation.</b><br /><br />When we speak of neutral mutations, that means with regard to the probability that the mutation will be passed along to succeeding generations, *not* with regard to whether the mutation is a step along the path to a predetermined goal. Evolution doesn't work that way; no natural process does. <br /><br />The Mississippi is excellent at carving out a complex, random path for itself. It would be extremely bad at working toward some path that I set for it as a goal, such as a straight line. Evolution, like the river, moves along random, non-predetermined paths that can attain startling apparent complexity.judmarchttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03111006189037693272noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-19794060891222061872015-03-13T10:05:21.742-04:002015-03-13T10:05:21.742-04:00"Creationists, especially of the IDiot variet..."Creationists, especially of the IDiot variety, constantly assert that beneficial mutations cannot happen by "chance".<br /><br />You are lying. show me one quote from any IDst Meyer, Behe, Welsh, Luskin... saying beneficial mutations cannot happen.<br /><br />"No, the questions are the ones I asked you and Beau and bFast. Why do you creationists NEVER provide straight answers to straight questions?"<br /><br />I was the one asking questions to professor Moran and instead of providing straight answers you asked a bunch of irrelevant questions.<br />Whole truth is lying againUnknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15048816306720334798noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-13687739787025398562015-03-13T09:46:45.521-04:002015-03-13T09:46:45.521-04:00Actually, since Behe and Denton have a better unde...Actually, since Behe and Denton have a better understanding of the relevant science than, say, Luskin, O'Leary, Arrington, Egnor and the rest, when Behe or Denton says something that is blatantly contradicted by scientific evidence, I think they are <i>more</i> likely to be lying than the others. Faizal Alihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00937075798809265805noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-27426981537707240572015-03-13T09:03:49.553-04:002015-03-13T09:03:49.553-04:00Just because all cars brake doesn't mean they ...<i>Just because all cars brake doesn't mean they werent intelligently designed.</i><br /><br />Sometimes the equivalent of a "car that breaks" will mutate into the equivalent of a "car that <i>brakes</i>" (i.e., does something useful), and so, to paraphrase Allan Miller, that happy accident with survival value will be preserved.judmarchttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03111006189037693272noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-86579810090501270522015-03-13T08:56:50.557-04:002015-03-13T08:56:50.557-04:00But again, any 'happy accident' with survi...<i>But again, any 'happy accident' with survival value is preferentially preserved, like those seeds that didn't fall on stony ground.</i><br /><br />Many accidents that are neither particularly happy nor particularly unhappy are preserved as well. :-)judmarchttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03111006189037693272noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-15851251840135341192015-03-13T08:26:40.738-04:002015-03-13T08:26:40.738-04:00Tell creationdom what percentage , today, is evolu...<i>Tell creationdom what percentage , today, is evolutionism covered by the old equation of S on M + T.</i><br /><br />Enough of this evolutionism mumbo-jumbo. If we simply assume that god is 100% in charge, then we can turn our attentions to more important matters like how best to seek his enduring love, and how best to seek mercy from the effects of that love.SRMhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07299706694667706149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-24955694526111552382015-03-13T08:08:32.054-04:002015-03-13T08:08:32.054-04:00Cue gif with Jon Stewart eating popcorn 0.0Cue gif with Jon Stewart eating popcorn 0.0Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-28401334730306434272015-03-13T05:22:55.926-04:002015-03-13T05:22:55.926-04:00RB: I like percentages.
The whole thing looks lik...RB: <i>I like percentages.</i><br /><br />The whole thing looks like it was written by someone who is habitually under the influence of ~40% abv.Piotr Gąsiorowskihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06339278493073512102noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-76286840422281855952015-03-13T05:03:38.972-04:002015-03-13T05:03:38.972-04:00The question is can random errors build anything f...<i>The question is can random errors build anything from a single cell?</i><br /><br />Ah, that's an easy one. Yes. What's the problem? You need surface adhesion, which is a binding issue. Proteins on the exterior of cells can be tuned by selection just as readily as proteins on the interior. If 'accidental' adhesion proves beneficial, suddenly it stops looking like an accident. <br /><br />Of course, you probably mean people. It certainly takes a bit of genetic control when you start to differentiate somatic cells into specialisms. But again, any 'happy accident' with survival value is preferentially preserved, like those seeds that <i>didn't</i> fall on stony ground.AllanMillerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05955231828424156641noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-11997415038192851732015-03-13T02:57:43.909-04:002015-03-13T02:57:43.909-04:00Good point. Most of these people probably have a s...Good point. Most of these people probably have a strong Morton's Demon sitting in their mind filtering incoming information. Mikkel Rumraket Rasmussenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07670550711237457368noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-87158576368148465642015-03-13T02:37:59.474-04:002015-03-13T02:37:59.474-04:00Unknown said:
"Nobody said benefficial muta...Unknown said: <br /><br />"Nobody said benefficial mutations cant happen by chance."<br /><br />That is NOT true. Creationists, especially of the IDiot variety, constantly assert that beneficial mutations cannot happen by "chance". Besides, I didn't ask you anything about "chance". <br /><br />"The question is can random errors build anything from a single cell?"<br /><br />No, the questions are the ones I asked you and Beau and bFast. Why do you creationists NEVER provide straight answers to straight questions? <br /><br />Do <b>you</b> really think that you're going to get anywhere with educated, rational, scientific people when you play your stupid games by trying to define all evolutionary processes/events as "random errors" and "chance"? <br /><br />And speaking of evidence, let's see your evidence for your imaginary sky daddy. The whole truthhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07219999357041824471noreply@blogger.com