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JerryB
Skeptic Friend

279 Posts

Posted - 12/25/2010 :  09:08:04   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send JerryB a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Originally posted by Kil


But since we know that there are more primitive cardio/respiratory systems, some not even including a heart as we see them in mammals, it's obvious that the system humans use evolved from these less complex (or different use parts) and systems. That we need all of these organs to survive begs the question. You can call it ICS if you like but you can't say that it didn't evolve naturally from less complex systems. It is incumbent upon you to demonstrate, with convincing evidence, that our current cardiovascular and respiratory systems did not evolve, in order to claim an ID.


Please see my post to R. I CAN state with certitude that complexity does not evolve from simplicity. The second law prohibits that. Does it not bother you at all that your philosophy seems to violate the most basic laws of science?

Yeah. We know there are systems that won't work if all of the parts are not there. Duh.


Then why does the thread seem to postulate there is no such thing as an ICS?

There most obviously is and represented in our lives by such systems as sewing machines, lawn mowers, fishing reels all the way to eyes and cardio/vascular systems.

That's just a fact and I am glad to see that you agree.

The question is how did they became what they are? Just saying a system won't work if parts are removed tells us nothing at all. And given the more primitive versions of these systems, how can you assume that we didn't naturally evolve the system we have because it gave us a survival advantage in the niches that we and other mammals fill?


Actually, I think it tells us a lot. You see, a system with specified parts, all of them dissimilar and doing different jobs in order that the overall system will provide a specialized function suggests design.

In fact, that is exactly what many design engineers do. They design weed eaters, coffee pots, lawn mowers, automobiles, etc. that work. Why would we muse anything but design when we examine a complex ICS such as a flagellum?

Occam's razor seems to be on my side here as well.

ID fails under its own presumptions. Bringing up our cardiovacular/respiratory system, our eyes, our ears or a bacteria's flagellum as ICS in there present form, and jumping to the conclusion that these systems couldn't have evolved, and are not continuing to evolve, is just lazy thinking. All of these systems have evolutionary explanations. Your job then is to show us how these systems couldn't have evolved in the face of plausible explanations for how they did evolve. Good luck with that. The overwhelming consensus of evolutionary biologists say you're wrong.


The laws of science say they couldn't have evolved from a simple protist. They certainly need no input from me.

However, I would agree with you that they are evolving; or better said: devolving.

That's why you are going to need reading glasses when you are 50.

And please remember that science is not accomplished via consensus. Science is advanced through experimentation. There are many cases in science where the overall consensus was just wrong, from the belief that colds are caught from a chill to the infamous notion that the sun orbits the earth.
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JerryB
Skeptic Friend

279 Posts

Posted - 12/25/2010 :  10:15:46   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send JerryB a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Originally posted by Dr. Mabuse
Then I'm afraid you didn't really understood it.


Well, I believe I did. If there are certain sections of the paper you wish to discuss in detail I'm glad to do so.

More blatant lack of understanding of the natural world on your part. Homologies are an awesome example of prediction from the theory of evolution. And bacteria do actually "interbreed" in the sense that they exchange DNA with each other. DNA for building flagella can be passed between them. What you believe to be an irreducibly complex building part of the flagella could be passed from another organism.


Can I get a reference from you on the bacteria exchanging DNA with each other? (from a scientist--not talk origin or the like, please). I believe you are thinking of viruses exchanging genetic material with their hosts. Bacteria don't interbreed at all. They reproduce asexually. And if they did, biological law would prohibit cross species interbreeding.

In your ridiculous analogy of the chain-saw, the chain could have come from a bicycle.


I'll give that one if you will openly admit that chainsaws and bicycles don't interbreed and that in order for the chain to exchange systems it would take an intelligent designer.

But you missed the point. My point was that this is an ICS. If you don't believe this, I challenge you to remove any of the parts and explain how that chainsaw can still cut down a tree.


I don't understand why you have such a hard time to accept such a possibility. Different traits in living beings doesn't change one at a time, but they all change gradually. It wasn't necessary for the giraffe to develop the spots in its fur before it could start growing tall necks. Your inability to contemplate co-evolution of functions is a character flaw of yours, not a flaw in evolutionary theory.


First, that is not evolutionary theory. There is no such thing because these "theories" were never taken through the scientific method in order to reach the theory level. Please call it what it is: hypothesis.

In fact, this is not even the science of evolution. It is Darwinism.


You're mistaking evolution and ID. It's the ID Creator that according to IDists waived its magic wand which made all these incredible things to come together.
If you can't even address basic tenets of evolutionary theory, then how are we to take your arguments seriously?


Oh, I will address your tenets quite effectively. This ain't my first rodeo. I didn't learn biology from web sites. I learned it sitting in college classrooms.

And please read the paper I posted above. I don't believe that some magical being waved a wand and poofed you into existence. I believe just as do design engineers: All design is begun at the quantum level.

Quantum mechanics is the designer. If one wants to call this intelligent packet of QM God, then that is fine with me as I certainly call it that.




You're being insulting doesn't advance your side of the argument.


It's certainly not my intention to be insulting you. I challenging you, yes. But I hope not insulting you.


Wow, what an impressive argument!
Either you're an disingenuous insulting git, or you're clueless about evolution.
But it does give me some insight into how you believe that the world came about.


Or maybe just joking?



You must be thinking of Lysenkoism. While Lamarckism is discredited for multicellular organisms, some scientists maintain there are certain aspects of Lamarckism in play for bacteria.


Then those scientists must come from talk origin or something because Lamarkism was shown to be a sham experimentally many years ago. There would be little difference between Lamarkian traits in bacteria or in a dog. We are all cells are we not?

As I wrote above, bacteria do exchange DNA with each other, even though they are considered asexual. After mitosis, we have "offspring" with acquired traits.


Again, I don't believe this and request some references. They certainly didn't do this when I was a science major in college.



Like Kil said, a true ICS will be evidence of ID - good luck finding one though. The flagella obviously isn't an ICS.


The flagellum obviously IS an ICS.

But let's go with an ICS easier to understand for the average reader: the major components of the cardio/vascular system of a monkey.

Here we have blood which carries oxygen and nutrients to every cell in the monkey. The lungs oxygenate the blood, veins and arteries serve as plumbing, the heart pumps it around and the kidneys keep it clean.

This is obviously a system composed of dissimilar parts each doing it's job to achieve an overall function.

So if we can't remove one of these parts and the system still function, it is also an ICS by it's very definition.

Now Dr, I want you to take a monkey into the lab and rip out even one of the parts and show me how the monkey will still live naturally. Which will you remove?

Will you drain the blood, cut out the heart or the lungs, rip out the blood vessels or the kidneys?

Because if you cannot remove one of these parts and the system still function, you have found an ICS and I will agree with your below statement:
a true ICS will be evidence of ID
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JerryB
Skeptic Friend

279 Posts

Posted - 12/25/2010 :  10:22:54   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send JerryB a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Originally posted by Dr. Mabuse

Originally posted by JerryB
LMAO......It is IDists who are dumb?
Yes.



Especially when they bring arguments as stupid as yours.
Michael Behe brought his A-game to the Dover trial, and couldn't even convince a Christian, politically conservative judge, that ID was anything more than creationism in disguise. He even admitted that we had to lower scientific standards until we could include astrology before ID could be considered.
Are you better suited to prove Intelligent Design?





In fact, I think I am.
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Cuneiformist
The Imperfectionist

USA
4955 Posts

Posted - 12/25/2010 :  11:39:10   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send Cuneiformist a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Originally posted by JerryB

Originally posted by Dr. Mabuse
[quote]In your ridiculous analogy of the chain-saw, the chain could have come from a bicycle.


I'll give that one if you will openly admit that chainsaws and bicycles don't interbreed and that in order for the chain to exchange systems it would take an intelligent designer.
Of course they don't; they are inanimate objects and don't breed at all. It's utterly ridiculous to use a modern, inanimate object as "proof" of ICS and then, when others suggest ways that said object isn't necessarily ICS, you bring up that it's just a modern inanimate object.

In general, ICS arguments are weak because they ultimately amount to an argument of personal incredulity: Since I [or a collective group of people] can't figure out how X came about via naturalistic means, then a designer must have done it!

Millennia ago, of course, humans prescribed the supernatural to all sorts of phenomenon that, at the time, couldn't be understood. But we now know that the supernatural plays no part in things like illness, or the weather.

In any case, the flagellum argument has been refuted by trained biologists in peer-reviewed journals, so there's no need to rehash it here. Just because you have been unable to counter their arguments isn't my problem.
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R.Wreck
SFN Regular

USA
1191 Posts

Posted - 12/25/2010 :  12:12:56   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send R.Wreck a Private Message  Reply with Quote
First the Comfort-esque "tell how all these components could have the intelligence to foresee the future and KNOW that everyone else is evolving an ICS component, so they will evolve one as well", then the 2nd Law. Are you serious?

Biological systems are open systems. Mass and energy cross their boundaries. You cannot apply the 2nd Law to such systems and claim that their entropy increases. It's just plain wrong.

What's next? If we are descended from monkeys, then why are there still monkeys around?

The foundation of morality is to . . . give up pretending to believe that for which there is no evidence, and repeating unintelligible propositions about things beyond the possibliities of knowledge.
T. H. Huxley

The Cattle Prod of Enlightened Compassion
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JerryB
Skeptic Friend

279 Posts

Posted - 12/25/2010 :  12:41:51   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send JerryB a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Originally posted by Cuneiformist



Of course they don't; they are inanimate objects and don't breed at all. It's utterly ridiculous to use a modern, inanimate object as "proof" of ICS and then, when others suggest ways that said object isn't necessarily ICS, you bring up that it's just a modern inanimate object.


But some were telling me there is no such thing as an ICS when they are around us everywhere in life from mechanics to electronics to organisms.

Please examine the flagellum with an electron microscope and tell me that is not a machine. Look at the stator and the rotor as is found in an electric motor, examine the bushings and the propeller. So, other than one ICS being in an organism and the other not what the heck is the difference? They are both ICSs.

Of course I know that inanimate objects don't breed. I simply stated that to show that the good Dr. was giving me an excellent example of intelligent design.

Finally, no one yet has shown me why even one of the ICSs I've discussed is not an ICS. Can one remove a part and the system still function?

No? Then it is an ICS by the very definition of the word.

In general, ICS arguments are weak because they ultimately amount to an argument of personal incredulity: Since I [or a collective group of people] can't figure out how X came about via naturalistic means, then a designer must have done it!


That's certainly not my argument. But I most certainly could use a twist on that without encroaching on logical fallacy: If I can show that an object could NOT have been produced naturally and if I can detect design, would it not be logical to conclude design at that point?

Millennia ago, of course, humans prescribed the supernatural to all sorts of phenomenon that, at the time, couldn't be understood. But we now know that the supernatural plays no part in things like illness, or the weather.


Sure, the supernatural was painted on many things regarding cause/effect. However, I certainly am not prescribing it regarding anything in this thread. Surely you do not think that math, physics experiments and quantum mechanics has anything to do with the supernatural.

In any case, the flagellum argument has been refuted by trained biologists in peer-reviewed journals, so there's no need to rehash it here. Just because you have been unable to counter their arguments isn't my problem.


I beg to differ with you. Please name those papers and reference what journals posted them. I can't imagine a reputable journal publishing something so silly. It would be impossible to show that something so complex was produced as a result of random mutations.
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JerryB
Skeptic Friend

279 Posts

Posted - 12/25/2010 :  13:09:59   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send JerryB a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Originally posted by R.Wreck

First the Comfort-esque "tell how all these components could have the intelligence to foresee the future and KNOW that everyone else is evolving an ICS component, so they will evolve one as well", then the 2nd Law. Are you serious?


Yes. Are you actually going to address it?

Biological systems are open systems. Mass and energy cross their boundaries. You cannot apply the 2nd Law to such systems and claim that their entropy increases. It's just plain wrong.


Now my turn, are you serious? When have I done this? Entropy must remain the same or rise only in isolated systems. Closed and open systems can rise, remain the same or the entropy can lower.

You have to calculate that entropy to know what it is doing at any given time in any given system or subsystem. I have calculated the entropy of the human genome and it increases every generation. Wanna see the math?

What's next? If we are descended from monkeys, then why are there still monkeys around?


Nah, I descended from my father and he is still around. Wouldn't be prudent.
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Cuneiformist
The Imperfectionist

USA
4955 Posts

Posted - 12/25/2010 :  13:10:55   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send Cuneiformist a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Originally posted by JerryB
I beg to differ with you. Please name those papers and reference what journals posted them. I can't imagine a reputable journal publishing something so silly. It would be impossible to show that something so complex was produced as a result of random mutations.


This is a discussion of the debate. It contains numerous references to publications in established peer-reviewed journals. I'm not trained in these fields of science, but you sound like you are, so you should know what's going on.
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R.Wreck
SFN Regular

USA
1191 Posts

Posted - 12/25/2010 :  13:57:36   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send R.Wreck a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Originally posted by JerryB
I have calculated the entropy of the human genome and it increases every generation.


That's a rather grandiose claim. But no matter, even if you had done such a thing, how exactly would that support the ID hypothesis or refute evolutionary theory?

The foundation of morality is to . . . give up pretending to believe that for which there is no evidence, and repeating unintelligible propositions about things beyond the possibliities of knowledge.
T. H. Huxley

The Cattle Prod of Enlightened Compassion
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Kil
Evil Skeptic

USA
13476 Posts

Posted - 12/25/2010 :  14:03:11   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Kil's Homepage  Send Kil an AOL message  Send Kil a Yahoo! Message Send Kil a Private Message  Reply with Quote
JerryB:
Please see my post to R. I CAN state with certitude that complexity does not evolve from simplicity. The second law prohibits that. Does it not bother you at all that your philosophy seems to violate the most basic laws of science?

Oh no. Not that old chestnut! You have been arguing this subject for a long enough time to grasp that evolution does not occur in a closed system. If you want to ignore the energy supplied by the sun and other sources, that's up to you. I don't see the point in sending you to sites that absolutely refute the creationists miss-interpretation of the second law of thermal dynamics to support a bad argument. Garbage in, garbage out.

But I have an idea. Find me even one working physicist who says that the second law of thermal dynamics violates evolution in any way. (And as long as you will not accept links to talk origins, (which is pretty funny) I will not accept links to any creationist who makes that claim. If what you say is true, it should be clear to any physicist worth his salt that you are correct.

JeryB:
Then why does the thread seem to postulate there is no such thing as an ICS?

Only in the way that you mean it. Obviously if I remove someone's heart and don't replace it with another, that person will die. But that says nothing about the system being intelligently designed and not the product continuing evolution.

JeryB:
Actually, I think it tells us a lot. You see, a system with specified parts, all of them dissimilar and doing different jobs in order that the overall system will provide a specialized function suggests design.

Only if you completely disregard natural selection as a cause. Anyhow, once again you have again made an argument from incredulity. I'm not sure how far you will get here if you keep using logical fallacies to make your points.
JeryB:
In fact, that is exactly what many design engineers do. They design weed eaters, coffee pots, lawn mowers, automobiles, etc. that work. Why would we muse anything but design when we examine a complex ICS such as a flagellum?

Why indeed? Why consider the science at all? Why turn to evolutionary biologists at all when we can just go to design engineers for the lowdown? And again, you have just made another appeal to incredulity. A logical fallacy. Your favorite I guess. You also threw in an appeal to authority. (You know. That's when you assign authority status to a person or people who are not qualified to offer expert opinion on matters outside of the area they are expert in. Just so you know, I would never ask an evolutionary biologist to design a bridge...
JerryB.
Occam's razor seems to be on my side here as well.

Oh yeah. Some unknown designer, which is an extraordinary claim, is more plausible than natural processes. You know something? A snowflake looks designed too. That's a busy designer you've got there.
JerryB.
That's why you are going to need reading glasses when you are 50.

At least most of us will make it to 50. That's a lot more than can be said for those born 200 years ago. Anyhow, the fact that we get old and die has nothing to do with ID or this debate.
JerryB:
And please remember that science is not accomplished via consensus. Science is advanced through experimentation. There are many cases in science where the overall consensus was just wrong, from the belief that colds are caught from a chill to the infamous notion that the sun orbits the earth.

A theory is indeed provisionally accepted via consensus. And this may come as shocking news to you, but evolution has been under attack for the last 150 years and the evidence for it just keeps getting better. It's one of the best supported theories in all of science. But who knows? Maybe you JerryB will be the person who can offer successful testable results that proves ID isn't anything more than an argument from incredulity. That Noble Prize is waiting, Jerry...












Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.

Why not question something for a change?

Genetic Literacy Project
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JerryB
Skeptic Friend

279 Posts

Posted - 12/25/2010 :  14:25:51   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send JerryB a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Originally posted by Cuneiformist

Originally posted by JerryB
I beg to differ with you. Please name those papers and reference what journals posted them. I can't imagine a reputable journal publishing something so silly. It would be impossible to show that something so complex was produced as a result of random mutations.


This is a discussion of the debate. It contains numerous references to publications in established peer-reviewed journals. I'm not trained in these fields of science, but you sound like you are, so you should know what's going on.


OK, thanks for the honesty in telling me you are not trained in this area. I totally understand.

You sent me to one of Ken Miller's pages, a scientist I am familiar with, one that I respect and one with which I agree on a lot-and disagree with on some of his points.

Here is a statement I agree with: "the bacterial flagellum is not irreducibly complex."

No, not as it stands, but let's clarify that-it isn't irreducibly complex until we get down to the ICS itself. For example, a car engine is not ICS until we break it down to the core ICS components. I can remove the air filter, nothing will happen. I can remove cowlings and heat covers and fuel filters....

But I will eventually get down to the core components that comprise the ICS. Only then will it be an ICS. Same with the flagellum.

Where I begin to disagree is when he begins to cite other species showing much simpler flagellar structures and seems to imply that THIS flagellum could have evolved from them. Nope, because they don't interbreed.

He also points out flagellar structures in other species that are missing some of the parts in Behe's particular structure. They still function.

OK, this doesn't surprise me because they are not the same design. But I've got money on the tenet that we could boil them all down into their own ICSs as well. The point is moot.

As to the papers he cites, I am familiar with all but a couple. He states, "many have pointed out the poor reasoning of recasting the classic argument from design in the modern language of biochemistry."

OK, but that is a far cry from believing that these papers debunk design and show how the flagellum evolved. They do not.

A few of the papers he cites are nothing more than computer programs with code built in them to make complexity arise out of simplicity.

So what, it's a computer and one can write a program to make it do virtually anything you want it to.

In fact, he cites Schneider's paper on one of his computer programs. I had the pleasure of debating Dr. Schneider one on one several years back on this very paper. He did not do well.....

Miller quotes Behe and I'll pass it on here:

"An irreducibly complex system cannot be produced directly by numerous, successive, slight modifications of a precursor system, because any precursor to an irreducibly complex system that is missing a part is by definition nonfunctional. .... Since natural selection can only choose systems that are already working, then if a biological system cannot be produced gradually it would have to arise as an integrated unit, in one fell swoop, for natural selection to have anything to act on." (Behe 1996b)


Yup. Behe nailed that one.
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Kil
Evil Skeptic

USA
13476 Posts

Posted - 12/25/2010 :  14:41:25   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Kil's Homepage  Send Kil an AOL message  Send Kil a Yahoo! Message Send Kil a Private Message  Reply with Quote
JerryB.
Where I begin to disagree is when he begins to cite other species showing much simpler flagellar structures and seems to imply that THIS flagellum could have evolved from them. Nope, because they don't interbreed.

Way to miss the point.

Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.

Why not question something for a change?

Genetic Literacy Project
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JerryB
Skeptic Friend

279 Posts

Posted - 12/25/2010 :  14:44:10   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send JerryB a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Originally posted by R.Wreck

Originally posted by JerryB
I have calculated the entropy of the human genome and it increases every generation.


That's a rather grandiose claim. But no matter, even if you had done such a thing, how exactly would that support the ID hypothesis or refute evolutionary theory?


No, not really. It's just math and science. And again, I have it bookmarked if you want to see it.

And no, it would not refute evolution at all. Evolution is a fact of science. It does, however, refute Darwinism wherein it is posited that
highly complex organisms sprang from a simple, common ancestor.

Genomic entropy would have had to decrease steadily over time for order to increase. Then why do studies show just the opposite? Why can we calculate entropy steadily increasing in the genome of homo sapiens over thousands of years?

Something stinks here.

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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend

Sweden
9687 Posts

Posted - 12/25/2010 :  15:24:46   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Send Dr. Mabuse an ICQ Message Send Dr. Mabuse a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Originally posted by JerryB
Genomes do not order over time, they disorder as the second law of thermodynamics dictates they will.

The second law of thermodynamics does no such thing.


In fact, they disorder to the point that the genome goes into mutational melt-down or what some term error catastrophe and the population simply dies.
Unsupported conjecture on your part.

Does it not bother you at all that your philosophy seems to violate the most basic laws of science?
Does it not bother your that you know next to nothing about science? The theory of evolution is not a philosophy, it's a large set of explanations for the diversity of life on Earth. Such as they are, they do not violate any "basic laws of science[sic]".

Yeah. We know there are systems that won't work if all of the parts are not there. Duh.
Then why does the thread seem to postulate there is no such thing as an ICS?
Because there's a difference between a working mechanism and an ICS.
The ear is just one example where we can follow the evolution of the ear's bones through the fossil record.

Occam's razor seems to be on my side here as well.
That's because you're delusoinal. The Designer is unnessessary since nature can do this on its own. Occam's razor cuts your designer down.

However, I would agree with you that they are evolving; or better said: devolving.

That's why you are going to need reading glasses when you are 50.
The more you post here on SFN, the more you shoot yourself in the foot by displaying your complete lack of understanding of biology.

Can I get a reference from you on the bacteria exchanging DNA with each other?
Lateral gene transfer and the nature of bacterial innovation.
I put the words dna exchange bacteria in Scholar Google, and this was the first link out of ~600'000.
How about Genetic Exchange between Bacteria in the Environment
Let me quote from the abstract:
Nucleotide sequence analysis, and more recently whole genome analysis, shows that bacterial evolution has often proceeded by horizontal gene flow between different species and genera. In bacteria, gene transfer takes place by transformation, transduction, or conjugation and this review examines the roles of these gene transfer processes, between different bacteria, in a wide variety of ecological niches in the natural environment.


Originally posted by JerryB
I'll give that one if you will openly admit that chainsaws and bicycles don't interbreed and that in order for the chain to exchange systems it would take an intelligent designer.
Again disingenous. In every case you bring up, where we have positive evidence of a designer (and the ability to trace it, like chain saws and bicycles) the designer is human. The conclusion must then be that if the flagellum was designed, it must have been a human who did it. It's the only designer known to man.

If you don't believe this, I challenge you to remove any of the parts and explain how that chainsaw can still cut down a tree.
The chainsaw is a mechanism designed by a human. I can have a beaver cut down your tree without your broken chainsaw. Hell, if I put my mind and energy into it, I can probably cut down that tree with the chainsaw even if you remove the sparkplug first. I'd just jam the chain stuck and use it like an ordinary saw. It's take 100 times longer, but it would still get the job done. Eventually.
Your piss-poor analogies don't do anything to prove your point, other than show how little you know and understand about biology.

I didn't learn biology from web sites. I learned it sitting in college classrooms.
I don't believe you.

And please read the paper I posted above. I don't believe that some magical being waved a wand and poofed you into existence.
Of course you do. If the Omega Point that Tipler dreamed up is real, then neither you nor I would know if this is the real life, or if this is the simulation of our lives. If this is only the simulation, then whoever activated it metaphorically waved his/her/its magic want and poofed us into existance. In fact, we wouldn't even be able to tell if the simulation ran from Big Bang, or started yesterday from a pre-set state. As such, we've moved from science into fantacy-land. Tipler should have been a science fiction writer like Asimov. His inability to tell fantacy from reality makes it hard for me to take him seriously. And that was even before I knew that people like George Ellis and Michael Shermer shot down Tipler's thesis.

Or maybe just joking?
You say that now... I still think you're being disingenuous, clueless, but now most probably both.

Then those scientists must come from talk origin or something
What do you have against Talk Origins? It's a collection of information regarding questions about our origins. They reference real scientific work.

There would be little difference between Lamarkian traits in bacteria or in a dog. We are all cells are we not?
More cluelessness about basic biology. Now I'm sure that your claims about biology classes in collage is just bullshit.
There's a world of differences between bacteria and multicellular organisms that reproduce sexually.

Again, I don't believe this and request some references. They certainly didn't do this when I was a science major in college.
Bacteria didn't started doing these things yesterday. They've been doing it since the dawn of life of earth. Your "biology teachers" must have been unaware of it, or you maybe went to collage at the same time as Ian Flemming... Which would explain your old-skool (outdated) refutations of evolutionary theory.

Because if you cannot remove one of these parts and the system still function, you have found an ICS and I will agree with your below statement:
Your analogy is disingenuous, because we both know that our current circulatory system requires them. The human foetus however, does have a circulatory system without a heart, or kidneys, before they develope. Fish does not have lungs, yet they breathe. Take away the gills, and the Australian lungfish uses its swimbladder as a lung.

Finally, no one yet has shown me why even one of the ICSs I've discussed is not an ICS.
I have seen an excellent video of a lecture by Kenneth Miller where he shows how and why the flagellum isn't irreducibly complex. He also adresses the human blood-clotting in that lecture. Then there's his demonstration that the classic mouse trap isn't an ICS either. Quite entertaining really. I would spend the extra energy hunting that flagellum-lecture down if I had been convinced you'd give a rat's ass about the demonstration.

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JerryB
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279 Posts

Posted - 12/25/2010 :  15:43:54   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send JerryB a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Originally posted by Kil


Oh no. Not that old chestnut! You have been arguing this subject for a long enough time to grasp that evolution does not occur in a closed system. If you want to ignore the energy supplied by the sun and other sources, that's up to you. I don't see the point in sending you to sites that absolutely refute the creationists miss-interpretation of the second law of thermal dynamics to support a bad argument. Garbage in, garbage out.


I don't know anything about creationism because I am not one. And evolution DOES occur in a closed system. A greenhouse is a closed system. You don't think evolution could occur in one if given enough time? It also occurs to me that I may not be following you here.

Nah, don't send me to any sites. Please put your argument in your own words and use them as references??

But I have an idea. Find me even one working physicist who says that the second law of thermal dynamics violates evolution in any way. (And as long as you will not accept links to talk origins, (which is pretty funny) I will not accept links to any creationist who makes that claim. If what you say is true, it should be clear to any physicist worth his salt that you are correct.


Again, I'm not a creationist and don't read their sites. I wouldn't know where to send you if you wanted me to. But I have rode that horse as well. Any physicist I could send you to you would be immediately branded a creationist.

I have found a few over the years (not refuting evolution...please remember I am an evolutionist), but the above seems to always occur.


Only in the way that you mean it. Obviously if I remove someone's heart and don't replace it with another, that person will die. But that says nothing about the system being intelligently designed and not the product continuing evolution.


Fine. You seem to be coming around that there ARE such things as ICSs. Now let's move on as to what this says about one evolving.

If we agree that an ICS cannot function without all of it's parts in existence so that the system IS functioning; how then would--and how then could, natural selection select for those parts?

It isn't functioning to begin with! Nothing not working would be selected here. Are you with me on this?


Only if you completely disregard natural selection as a cause. Anyhow, once again you have again made an argument from incredulity. I'm not sure how far you will get here if you keep using logical fallacies to make your points.


You don't point out what the fallacy is. I don't see one in that. And I address selection directly in this very post above.



Why indeed? Why consider the science at all? Why turn to evolutionary biologists at all when we can just go to design engineers for the lowdown? And again, you have just made another appeal to incredulity. A logical fallacy. Your favorite I guess. You also threw in an appeal to authority. (You know. That's when you assign authority status to a person or people who are not qualified to offer expert opinion on matters outside of the area they are expert in. Just so you know, I would never ask an evolutionary biologist to design a bridge...


Yes, I have had logic and understand logical fallacies. That is exactly what you were doing when you asked me to quote other physicists on the second law; the argument from authority. I wouldn't go there would I?

I also don't think you fully understand the appeal to incredulity because I have not breached it to my knowledge thus far.






Oh yeah. Some unknown designer, which is an extraordinary claim, is more plausible than natural processes. You know something? A snowflake looks designed too. That's a busy designer you've got there.


What is unknown about the designer? I tell you exactly what it is in the paper I linked to in my first post. And snowflakes are designed? Didn't know that.


At least most of us will make it to 50. That's a lot more than can be said for those born 200 years ago. Anyhow, the fact that we get old and die has nothing to do with ID or this debate.


Very true.


A theory is indeed provisionally accepted via consensus. And this may come as shocking news to you, but evolution has been under attack for the last 150 years and the evidence for it just keeps getting better. It's one of the best supported theories in all of science. But who knows? Maybe you JerryB will be the person who can offer successful testable results that proves ID isn't anything more than an argument from incredulity. That Noble Prize is waiting, Jerry...


Nope, you don't understand the appeal to incredulity. But that is OK, we will get past that. Nor do you seem to understand the scientific method.

You have no theories in your philosophy. To get to the theory level, one starts at the observation level, does lab testing and forms a hypothesis. A paper is published and other scientists do testing. Once the testing is peer-reviewed and agreed on by consensus; only then you have a theory.

You guys just seem to think that when one observes that birds may have morphed from dinosaurs, and when other scientists say cool, sounds reasonable to me, it is a theory of science.

No, far from it. And this will never be a theory because how would you ever go in time to do the testing?

So consensus in science isn't science. Now in all fairness to you, if it is consensus on lab testing, that's a different critter.














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