The Bathroom Wall

First graffito!

What? No "Creationists suck"?

Wow. The first JAD-free Bathroom Wall.

Finally, a JAD free Panda's Thumb.

Alas, poor Yorrick...

I guess I'll never get a coherent definition of semi-meiosis now.

Leave JAD alone, harmless nuts don't deserve to be picked on.

What? No "Creationists suck"?

Let's start a party.

I'd like a discussion on "Why Intelligent?"

Why not just Design?

Who are we to identify something as "intelligent?" What does that mean?

If "we" can figure out that the flagellum is like a 10 E-09 hp motor, powering that wave hopping bacterium along at a cm per year then why don't we build our own and add twin screws and a ski rope?

How do "we" know it's "intelligent" design? Suppose our designer came in last in his class. Then what? You know what they call a student who comes in last in his medical school class, don't you?

Doctor.

So, how do we spot intelligence? My cat is intelligent. Oh, sure, he can't paint the Mona Lisa, but neither can I. I spend two hours a day driving to and from work. My cat sleeps. Who's intelligent?

And, finally, anybody who refers to a freaking MOUSETRAP as "irreducibly complex" has obviously, obviously never tried to install a wireless network card with Windows 98!

Let loose the Dogs of War...

Let slip the Dogs of War . . .

Interesting review of Peter Lipton's "Testing Hypotheses: Prediction and Prejudice" at Philosophy of Biology.

Smithsonian to Screen a Movie That Makes a Case Against Evolution By JOHN SCHWARTZ Published: May 28, 2005 Fossils at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History have been used to prove the theory of evolution. Next month the museum will play host to a film intended to undercut evolution. The Discovery Institute, a group in Seattle that supports an alternative theory, "intelligent design," is announcing on its Web site that it and the director of the museum "are happy to announce the national premiere and private evening reception" on June 23 for the movie, "The Privileged Planet: The Search for Purpose in the Universe." http://nytimes.com/2005/05/28/national/28smithsonian.html

The museum, he said, offers its Baird Auditorium to many organizations and corporations in return for contributions - in the case of the Discovery Institute, $16,000. When the language of the Discovery Institute's Web site was read to him, with its suggestion of support, Mr. Kremer said, "We'll have to look into that."

Gah. Creationists Suck!

Read the article about the Smithsonian, it turns out that (surprise) they were just letting the IDers rent the room for the screening, which they will do for just about anybody. But of course the creationists can't get any traction without deception, so we have this BS about how delighted the museum is to have thier little piece of fiction.

Seriously, is there anything to their strategy except repitition? All of their arguements have been refuted again and again, but they still keep babbling on. It seems more and more likely that their strategy is to fill so much time and space with their rhetoric that no one will have time to hear the other side.

I repeat :Creationists SUCK.

June 23, 2005 Smithsonian Institution Premiere of The Privileged Planet The Director of the National Museum of Natural History and Discovery Institute are happy to announce the national premiere and private evening reception for The Privileged Planet: The Search for Purpose in the Universe, 6pm Thursday June 23, 2005. The documentary showing will be in the Baird Auditorium of the National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian Insitution, Washington D.C. The reception following will be in the Smithsonian Institution's Hall of Geology, Gems and Minerals. Attendance is by mailed invitation only.

But a museum spokesman, Randall Kremer, said the event should not be taken as support for the views expressed in the film. "It is incorrect for anyone to infer that we are somehow endorsing the video or the content of the video," he said. The museum, he said, offers its Baird Auditorium to many organizations and corporations in return for contributions - in the case of the Discovery Institute, $16,000. When the language of the Discovery Institute's Web site was read to him, with its suggestion of support, Mr. Kremer said, "We'll have to look into that."

Re "I guess I'll never get a coherent definition of semi-meiosis now."

Maybe one of the biologists around here read enough of his material to summarize that concept? I think I got the gist of it, but the technical details go over my head.

The gist of it, to the extent that I could follow from wading through half of the "manifesto", plus a handful of comments on here in which he actually talked about it, is that sometimes the female (or females?) of a species will shift into using an alternate means of reproducing, essentially inbreeding with herself, producing offspring that have identical alleles for all genes. I think the idea there is that those with a bunch of bad recessives will mostly die without descendants, and the handful that don't get the bad recessives will be genetically "clean". Those can then shift back into normal sexual reproduction with a "clean slate", so to speak.

Plus, if during that semi-meiotic reproductive phase, some chromosomes fused, or split, or acquired inversions, or otherwise got rearranged, the descendants would then be a new species.

Now how that's supposed to relate to the "new" species acquiring different anatomy or new abilities, I don't know. Also don't know how it's ever supposed to work for types that have few offspring per parent, since in that case any one female going into semi-meiotic "mode" would be unlikely to produce any of those few with all clean genes.

Anyhoo, if I got the gist wrong, or if greater detail is wanted, maybe some resident biologists can fill it in.

But, if the above is more or less what he was saying, what really baffles me is that he wouldn't simply say it in a few paragraphs.

Henry

Give a man a fish, and you'll feed him for a day.

Give him a religion, and he'll starve to death while praying for a fish.

- Timothy Jones

The natural tendency of matter and of all of energy is toward greater disorder -- not toward greater order or complexity as evolution would teach. Very few scientists have considered or pondered the implications of the law of entropy upon the theory of evolution. The theory of evolution teaches that matter tends to evolve towards greater and greater complexity and order. We are so accustomed to seeing evolution of technology all about us (new cars, boats, ships, inventions, etc.) that we assume that nature must work the same way also. Of course, we forget that all those new gadgets and technology had a human designer behind them. Nature, however, doesn't work the same way. The simple fact is that the law of entropy precludes macro-evolution from ever occurring. Entropy is the measure of increasing disorder in a system. The natural (or spontaneous) tendency of matter and of all of energy is toward greater disorder -- not toward greater order or complexity as evolution would teach. This tendency towards disorder that exists in all matter can only be temporarily overcome if there exists an energy converting and directing mechanism to develop and maintain order.

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CF/CF001_2.html

Claim CF001.2:
The entire universe is a closed system, so the second law of thermodynamics dictates that within it, things are tending to break down. The second law applies universally.
Source:
Wallace, Timothy, 2002. Five major evolutionist misconceptions about evolution. http://www.trueorigins.org/isakrbtl.asp
Response:

1. The second law of thermodynamics applies universally, but, as everyone can see, that does not mean that everything everywhere is always breaking down. The second law allows local decreases in entropy offset by increases elsewhere. The second law does not say that order from disorder is impossible; in fact, as anyone can see, order from disorder happens all the time.

2. The maximum entropy of a closed system of fixed volume is constant, but because the universe is expanding, its maximum entropy is ever increasing, giving ever more room for order to form (Stenger 1995, 228).

3. Disorder and entropy are not the same. The second law of thermodynamics deals with entropy. There are no laws about things tending to "break down."

References:

1. Stenger, Victor J., 1995. The Unconscious Quantum, Amherst, NY: Prometheus.

Intellectual Conservative is not being very Intellectual in publishing this piece by Babu G. Ranganathan entitled Entropy: Enemy of Evolution? Babu says, "The natural tendency of matter and of all of energy is toward greater disorder -- not toward greater order or complexity as evolution would teach." This is just fantastically stupid, so old and dumb that physicists groan when they hear it. A standard response can be found at http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CF/CF001_2.html . The conservative movement makes a tactical mistake by aligning with pseudoscience advocates, such as global warming deniers and evolution deniers. While I'm a liberal, I send this to you because I want the other side to have the best possible arguments, in order that we may be strengthened by strong competition.

Thanks Henry

So semi-meiosis is postulated to produce genetic variation. This is then available to the process of natural selection. Isn't this evolution?

The normal form of E.coli lives on the milk sugar lactose and possesses a set of digestive enzymes tailored to metabolize it. A defective strain can be produced that lacks the crucial first enzyme of the set, and hence cannot utilize lactose. However, it can be raised in an alternative nutrient. An interesting thing now happens when lactose is introduced into the alternative nutrient. Two independent mutations to the bacterium's genome are possible which together enable the missing first step to be performed in metabolizing lactose. Neither mutation is any use by itself, and the chances of both happening together is calculated to be vanishingly small at 10-18. For the population size in a typical experiment, this translates into the average waiting time for both mutations to happen together by chance being around a hundred thousand years. In fact, dozens of instances are found after just a few days. But only when lactose is present in the nutrient solution. In other words, what's clearly indicated in experiments of this kind---and many have been described in the literature---is that the environment itself triggers precisely the mutations that the organism needs in order to exploit what's available.

OK, so the odds of both mutations happening at once is vanishingly small. But if both of those mutations by themselves have no harmful effect on the organism's survival chances, then they won't be selected against and so you will soon establish three populations -- the originals, ones with mutant gene A and ones with mutant gene B. Then all you need is for one of the A mutants to also mutate the B gene, or vice versa, and you have your lactose-eating bug. It doesn't have to happen at the same time. Let's look at the numbers. If the odds of A&B both mutating in the same reproduction event is 10^-18 then if each mutation is equally likely the odds of just A or just B mutating is 10^-9. If odds of 10^-18 work out to once every hundred thousand years then presumably odds of 10^-9 work out to once every 0.0001 years -- and 0.0001 years is 52 minutes. So before the first hour of the experiment is up you have your first mutant version that could mutate again to give you the lactose eating one. Obviously, the mutant populations are going to be much smaller than the original population, so a few days seems about right for them to mutate again and suddenly find themselves able to eat the lactose. And of course once that happens the fact that they can eat stuff that's all around them that the others can't means they'll outcompete them. So basically it's a classic example of evolution by natural selection of random mutations.

Fossils at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History have been used to prove the theory of evolution. Next month the museum will play host to a film intended to undercut evolution. The Discovery Institute, a group in Seattle that supports an alternative theory, "intelligent design," is announcing on its Web site that it and the director of the museum "are happy to announce the national premiere and private evening reception" on June 23 for the movie, "The Privileged Planet: The Search for Purpose in the Universe." The film is a documentary based on a 2004 book by Guillermo Gonzalez, an assistant professor of astronomy at Iowa State University, and Jay W. Richards, a vice president of the Discovery Institute, that makes the case for the hand of a creator in the design of Earth and the universe. News of the Discovery Institute's announcement appeared on a blog maintained by Denyse O'Leary, a proponent of the intelligent design theory, who called it "a stunning development." But a museum spokesman, Randall Kremer, said the event should not be taken as support for the views expressed in the film. "It is incorrect for anyone to infer that we are somehow endorsing the video or the content of the video," he said. The museum, he said, offers its Baird Auditorium to many organizations and corporations in return for contributions - in the case of the Discovery Institute, $16,000.

Pardon the interruption, my brother directed me to this site, and you seem the best people to ask. I homeschool my kids, and, whenever I go to the NCHE bookfair or homeschool bookstores they are all dominated by creationist science books. They are not all necessarily obvious about their creationism but the bias is almost always there. I am about to order a science education set for the middle school level(5th-8th) and I could only get a superficial look at it first. The website for the company is http://www.beginningspublishing.com/ I have looked at the site and can't detect any bias in that direction but some are very cagey about identifying themselves with this movement. Does anyone already have any experience with this company, and its products, that they can share?
Thank you in advance.
Sionan

well, judging from the about section on the site you provided, I'd say there is something odd there.

also, this line could be a bit of a concern:

.deference to the Holy Scriptures

this certainly implies that "technical accuracy" might be suspect.

However, any legitimate textbook publisher should be able to provide a sample book for perusal.

ask for a sample in the area of concern, and judge by that.

I realize I may not have been clear. I know that I can't really avoid the science books that have the bias I don't really like. Phrases like "deference to the Holy Scriptures" and euphemisms like "honest segregation of scientific knowledge and theoretical speculation with supporting evidences as well as technically sound critiques[teach the "controversy"] of those theories" are dead giveaways to the bias of this company. But for middle-schoolers, basic science ought to be basic science and even creationists shouldn't be able to screw it up. I'm hoping this set is reasonable in that regard.
Sionan

In this text we will attempt to teach the general theory of evolution because a good education in the sciences requires it. We present it as a theory---a working model into which scientific data are fitted---but which we ourselves do not accept. As new observations are made, models will be altered, radically changed or altogether discarded. After many years of study and observation in my discipline as a microbiologist, I hold that the general theory of evolution is in serious error and is entirely inadequate for explaining a great volume of scientific evidence. I also hold that the universe was created by a Supreme Being possessing design and creative capabilities far beyond our comprehension.

"I know that I can't really avoid the science books that have the bias I don't really like"

wow, if that is the case, I weep for the future of private schooling.

are you SURE this is so?

Aside from that, you really can't have a legitimate discussion of biological science while including constant biblical references.

"even creationists shouldn't be able to screw it up"

but that's my point, they can and do. even at the junior high level, basic discussion of SCIENCE should never include religion as alternative explanations for observed phenomenon. this only induces unnecessary confusion and innacuracy at best.

This is why we all here at PT are so vehemently against teaching ID as a "theory" to begin with, alternative or not. It simply ISN'T science, and it is confusing and deceitful to teach it as such.

If the best you can do is find texts that include such allusions to religion as science, perhaps you should write your own?

But for middle-schoolers, basic science ought to be basic science and even creationists shouldn't be able to screw it up.

Ms. Atkins, is there any reason you can't use the texts from a reputable publisher?

I don't know where you are -- but some states allow local schools to loan texts to homeschoolers. Some localities require it. I'm not a great fan of most biology texts, since they tend to deadly dullness (the publishers are working on that), but it would be difficult for an independent publisher to do better than the mainstream educational publishers.

Check out the websites for Holt Rinehart and Winston, and for Prentice Hall, and see what they have.

One could also assemble a pretty good curriculum in biology from PBS tapes, especially with the series "Evolution." There is a great website that accompanies that series, and Carl Zimmer has a fine companion book that I'll bet you can find at discount and in paperback.

And while they are not deep, having not been required to take biology before college, I got a great background from the Merit Badge Series from the Boy Scouts -- Nature, Soil and Water Conservation, Forestry, Wildlife Management, Animal Science, Archaeology, Bird Study, especially Environmental Science, Fish and Wildlife Management, Fishing, Gardening, Insect Study, Landscape Architecture, Mammal Study, Medicine, Oceanography, maybe Pets, Plant Science, Public Health, Pulp and Paper, Reptile and Amphibian Study, and Veterinary Medicine. That's more than you need -- you can tailor a program to your kids' interests. There is a pamphlet, or booklet, available on each one, and a set of requirements that kids must complete to get the badge, which would be great study assignments (bonus: Enroll your son in Boy Scouts, get the merit badges, earn ranks . . .). Here in Dallas the Dallas Zoo offers short courses in things like the Reptile Study badge, so kids can get the badges using the resources of the zoo. Local nature centers often help out, too, and so do local chapters of the Audubon Society.

I also recommend supplementing biology with other Scout science Merit Badge books: Astronomy, Atomic Energy, Chemistry, Weather, and Geology.

One advantage of these books is that kids tend to have more fun and do a lot more hands-on stuff. They'll come out understanding not only how biology works from books, but knowing how it affects them and their community every day.

If evolution is one of your state requirements for kids that age, you'll have to supplement -- the PBS series is great way to do it, and be sure to check out the University of California at Berkeley site on evolution (you can find it through NCSE's site).

You can find good lesson plans at the New York Times website, on some topics.

Maybe you don't need a book at all . . .

For example, here's the Harcourt site on their book for 5th grade science -- note there is also a supplemental CD-ROM, and note the teacher's guide is available for a very affordable $11.00:
https://parentstore.harcourtschool.com/jstorewebapp/catalogservlet?cmd=grade_list&cat_id=20&grade_id=6&ser_id=58

I faxed this letter to Randall Kremer at the Smithsonian:

______________________________________________________________________
Dear Mr. Kremer,

Your organization's decision to co-host in exchange for a $16,000 contribution, a screening of an "Intelligent Design" film on behalf of the Discovery Institute is both a capitulation to anti-science forces attacking real research in America and a violation of the Smithsonian's own guidelines.

Those guidelines state that the auditorium can not be used for "events of a religious or partisan political nature". In the absence of any theory able to withstand peer review, ID can't be classed as science. Given the stated aims of many ID supporters--to advance the agenda of a particular brand of evangelical Protestantism and its conservative political agenda--it can hardly be considered anything but religious AND politically partisan.

Sincerely Yours,

____________________________________________________________________

BTW,
In answer to Comment #32524, Aimee Mann's Red Vines is, like a lot of her songs, a complaint about a friend. In this case, it's a grown man who insists on testing the limits in every social setting like a rebellious adolescent. The refrain, "with cigarettes and red vines" compares the addictive oral fixations of adults (cigs) with those of children (red licorice) to make a statement about the fundamental immaturity of compulsive people.

I faxed this letter to Randall Kremer at the Smithsonian:

Dear Mr. Kremer,

Your organization's decision to co-host in exchange for a $16,000 contribution, a screening of an "Intelligent Design" film on behalf of the Discovery Institute is both a capitulation to anti-science forces attacking real research in America and a violation of the Smithsonian's own guidelines.

Those guidelines state that the auditorium can not be used for "events of a religious or partisan political nature". In the absence of any theory able to withstand peer review, ID can't be classed as science. Given the stated aims of many ID supporters--to advance the agenda of a particular brand of evangelical Protestantism and its conservative political agenda--it can hardly be considered anything but religious AND politically partisan.

Sincerely Yours,

BTW,
In answer to Comment #32524, Aimee Mann's Red Vines is, like a lot of her songs, a complaint about a friend. In this case, it's a grown man who insists on testing the limits in every social setting like a rebellious adolescent. The refrain, "with cigarettes and red vines" compares the addictive oral fixations of adults (cigs) with those of children (red licorice) to make a statement about the fundamental immaturity of compulsive people.

Re "There are no laws about things tending to "break down.""

What about Murphy's law? ;)

---

Alan,
Re "So semi-meiosis is postulated to produce genetic variation."
More like it weeds out bad recessives. My inclination would be to say that s-m still needs mutations to maintain the supply of variation and selection (and drift) to week it out. Its author though (at a guess), might attribute that to the PEH thing instead, if he were to answer the question, I don't know.

Henry

Thank you. I will try to answer all of you, but in no particular order.
For the district I am in, in NC, I have to buy my own books. I do actually have real textbooks from reputable publishers, but the mix is pretty eclectic. The English grammar book came from Bob Jones University. Why? I like it. I have the Harcourt Science book for 6th grade. It is a general book for all the sciences. I am not specifically looking for a biology book. I don't necessarily mind having the theology present, since it is homeschool I have control and can dance right past it. I was hoping for critical comments about content from anyone who might already have used this. After all, momentum is momentum and atoms are atoms, whether angels push the bowling ball down the lane or hold up the electrons outside of the nucleus.
Someone said to write my own. Not all of us are PhD trained scientists, or have the time. I am a housewife. I make time to homeschool and am really proud of what my kids have done, but there are limits. What I can't get from standard publishers is the physical hardware for the hands-on lab stuff(especially chemistry). Since 9/11 you just can't rustle up noxious and possibly dangerous chemicals(especially through the US Mail). The set from this outfit includes all of it for a not unreasonable price.
For the person who mentioned the Boy Scouts. Are they the same Boy Scouts who don't allow gay members because it conflicts with their Christian theology? Uh, right.
I remember the television show about evolution and will look for the book. Thanx.
Whoever weeps for private education.(Sir Toejam?) You do realize that, while not solely responsible, homeschooling exists almost primarily because of religious people trying to get away from secular schooling in such subjects as evolution. If you ever browse the bookstores that cater to homeschooling or attend the bookfairs this becomes blindingly obvoius. I am very middle of the road. My husband skirts dangerously close to the extremist fundamentalist positions, but does want his kids to have a solid science education. We just did not like the public schools where we live. I am not solely looking for evolution books(someone suggested that, and I know this is an evolution blog), just general science materials, most especially for lab work.
It seems as if I have drawn your sarcastic hostility. I know what you all stand for. I am not against that. I was hoping for assistance, not rhetoric. I will not bother you again.

Im Gegensatz zur herrschenden Meinung ist der Plan, Saddam Husseins Regime mit Gewalt zu stürzen, schon lange vor der Erklärung des "Kriegs gegen den Terror" nach dem 11. September, in Washington DC gefasst worden. Der erste Hinweis auf diesen Plan tauchte 1997 auf. Eine Gruppe pro-israelischer Strategen in Washington entwarf das Szenario einer Invasion des Irak, indem sie den "neo-con" think-tank, das PNAC ("Projekt für das neue amerikanische Jahrhundert"), manipulierten. Die bekanntesten Namen des PNAC waren Donald Rumsfeld und Dick Cheney, die als Verteidigungsminister und Vizepräsident zu den einflussreichsten Beratern der George W. Bush Administration aufsteigen sollten.

In contrast to the dominant opinion the plan is to fall Saddam Husseins regime by force already for a long time before the explanation of the "war against the terror" after 11 September, in Washington DC seized. The first reference to this plan emerged 1997. A group of per-Israeli strategists in Washington sketched the scenario of an invasion Iraq, by manipulating "neo con" the think tank, the PNAC ("project for the new American century"). The most well-known names of the PNAC were Donald Rumsfeld and thickly Cheney, which as Secretaries of Defense and vice-president should ascend to the most influential advisors of the George W. Bush administration.

Ms. Atkins,

I suppose I could make a defense of the Boy Scouts by pointing out that almost all of the books I recommended were written prior to the present regime at National HQ. Or I could note that the Boy Scout policy does not affect member boys (here in Texas it would be illegal to inquire of a 6-year old his sexual orientation), but only to leaders -- and that it's a burden many of us bear to keep an otherwise good organization going until we can change the bizarre policies.

But the irony of your endorsing books written at Bob Jones, with its racist and homophobic policies proudly defended, while turning up your nose at books used by people like Hank Aaron, Bill Bradley, Lamar Alexander, 11 of the 12 people who stepped on the Moon, and Gerald Ford, suggests such a defense is unnecessary.

I regret you took any of my comments as sarcastic. I meant none of them in that way. Your dilemma demonstrates why and when homeschooling is probably unwise: When the topics get beyond the teacher's ability to teach them. Of course, that also applies in every other school.

My recommendations of the Boy Scout Merit Badge books stand, stupid policies from National notwithstanding -- they are head and shoulders above anything from the Bob Jones curriculum. Yes, it will take some work -- but there is nothing in those books that you cannot do with a bit of preparation.

As I was checking out the Mars exploration website http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/home/ it occurred to me that creationist Flood Geology doesn't hold on Mars.

Here we have a couple of vehicles cruising around Mars collecting data on soil and rocks, and sending back pictures of geological faults, sediments, layering and so forth.

It appears that physics, as we know it, applies to Mars. However, there's not a lot of evidence for "intelligent design" creationism.

What gives? Where's Ken Ham on Mars?

mars grand canyon
Here a flood there a flood everywhere a flood flood

Ms. Atkins,

Does your state have approved textbooks? You can look to that list for chosing books. If not, look to Texas and California, which I know have approved textbooks. There has to be a list of middle school biology books in there somewhere.

You can also email Ken Miller at Brown University. He is one of the authors on the most popular high school biology textbook. I'm sure he would be able to recommed a biology textbook for middle schoolers.

"...that Cheney and Bush are so easily misled "

who says they were misled? There appears to be mounting evidence that they had planned the invasion of iraq before 2002 (check out the UK policy memo unearthed earlier this month).

No, i agree that they weren't misled at all. Rather, they made conscious decisions as to what information they would choose to promote and spin.

"What gives? Where's Ken Ham on Mars?"

I don't know, but I sure would like to send him there; permanently.

Dear Ms. Akins,

I can appreciate the challenges you face when homeschooling your children. I've met a number of families that were traveling by small boats around the world and they usually recommend the Calvert School as providing an excellent (and even fun) homeschool/distance learning experience for their children. Since I believe that learning is more than just finding good textbooks (teachers are important too) Calvert may provide some of the resources you might be looking for. As far as I know, Calvert provides a pretty secular education that you can modify/enhance with your own additions as you see fit. This, I believe, is superior to many other programs where you may need to actively downplay/ignore areas that you believe are inappropriate.

An Ayn Rand nut I know, upon looking into home schooling, dismayed to learn that home schooling is full of religious nuts.

I didn't say anything.

ARRRRG!!!! The Loom has exceeded its bandwidth!
To many people reading Carl's stuff.....I'm getting itchy with not enough stuff to read!

lol. hey wayne. long time no see.

fyi, you can turn off your JAD filter now. He screamed so loud we had to put that monkey down. I personally don't think i'll miss him much.

meigormekill,

It's refreshing to see someone make an intellectually coherent, well-thought-out defense of Dr. Davison and DIC.

How cum you treated Davison like you did?

Davison may be correct. And the world may have popped into existence last Thursday. I do not believe he was confined to his sandbox because of his hypothesis (odd and largely unsupported as it is) but because of his behavior. As JAD claimed repeatedly, he was never here to defend or discuss his work. He is here because of a pathologically large chip on his shoulder about "the establishment". And, as you can see by his consistent refusal to be engaged in discussion of his publications, he stayed true to his claim. If you peruse Davison's internet history on this and many other boards you can see that his internet persona is one of a boringly repetitive, disruptive, complete jackass. Can't his hypothesis be evaluated independently of his personal deficiencies? Of course it can, but perhaps JAD -- the internet persona -- is not really up for the task. Based on his history at the U of Vermont, perhaps his offline personality wasn't either.

But that's OK. Ideas do not need to be discussed in the presence of their original author (Sometimes, I thinks it's better that way: Promoters of "radical, new ideas" tend to get carried away in thinking that their idea applies in all cases or is mutually exclusive of other hypotheses. "It slices, it dices, it balances your checkbook!"). We don't need Darwin here to discuss the implications of natural selection and we don't need Leo Berg to discuss whether the idea of polyphyletic evolution has any merit. It's open to anyone.

"How many times was life created?"
At least once. However, it's fair to say that lineages like mammals or birds probably arose from a single branch.

"All I'm trying to do is remind people about how little we actually know for sure about evolution. That's all."

You left a word out.

"All I'm trying to do is remind people about how little we Creationists actually know for sure about evolution. That's all."

You're welcome.

Intelligent Design is not in question. It is obvious to anyone who is not genetically impaired like Glen Davidson.

This is why no one should even begin to read your moronic claims in science, since you base your "evolutionary ideas" on this species of idiocy. I don't know why anyone even humors you to go ahead and read your "science", since it is impossible to do science with such rank prejudices. I guess it shows that making an ass of yourself, like JAD, Dembski, and Wells all do, means that you get recognized. Even if reviled in the process.

By the way has he been banned? I haven't seen anything from him lately.

— meigormekill

geez, John, do we have to ban your IP too? take a hint.

suit yourself.

...the Alamo of Darwimpianism.

— jdavison@zoo.uvm.edu

meigormekill:
"By the way has he [JAD] been banned? I haven't seen anything from him lately."

Nothing of note.

So, is the allusion to killing in username seen as an actionable concern or not?

It seems that JAD still has not the courage to find a physicist to get educated about physics, as I challenged him a while back.

Professor

So evolution occurred in some fashion and has now ceased. There must be a mechanism that turned it off, presumably. Any coherent suggestions?

Semi-meiosis. Any coherent definition you could supply?

Anything coherent at all?

Who left the screaming monkey's cage open . . . .

JAD: Have you any arguments as to why you are right about Einstein and I am wrong? A recap: have you forgotten when I quoted from Profesor's Brian Greene's book "The Fabric of the Cosmos" :
"Quantum mechanics injects probability into the laws of physics in a manner that no one had predicted . . . Casinos use probability to predict the likelihood you'll throw snake eyes. But probability plays a role..because we haven't all of the information necessary to make definitive predictions..The probability introduced by quantum mechanics is of a different, more fundamental character. Regardless of improvements in data collection or in computer power, the best we can ever do .. is to predict the probability of this or that outcome".

So we have probability as a result of lack of information which is different to the non-determinism of the standard interpretation of quantum mechanics. This is what I was taught 20 years ago and nothing has changed since. You are completely clueless on this whole issue. If you have any sense you will stop opening your mouth only to change feet. And if you have any integrity as a scientist you will go learn some physics.

Eww...Someone threw feces all over the Wall again.

Thank you Professor, that was almost civil.

So where do you get biodiversity from with your model? Was it front-loaded by the Creator? In which case where does your hypothesis get us,or is that the point; that you agree with IDers in that "God did it, end of story."

It's typical Groupthinkese. You're a credit to Panda's Pathetic Pollex, also known as Esley Welsberry's last stand, the Alamo of Darwimpianism. It's hard to believe isn't it? "When all think alike, no one thinks very much" Walter Lippmann

Bejeebies, I go on vacation and all hell breaks loose. davison gets his own thread, then manages to get himself banned, and then reappears with a George Lucas reject of a name: the new jar-jar clone-meigormekill. davison, can't you exhibit even one percent of the discipline your new granddaugter fails to show when she poopies her diaper.

Paul P.
davison doesn't know or care to properly use the terminology in physics for basic stuff like Galileo's discovery of the constancy of gravitational acceleration. There is no way you will be able to get him to admit to the bovine flatulence he claims as knowledge for the finer points of Quantum Theory.

By the way davison, to answer you, in the cgs system there is a unit called the galileo(gal for short), abbreviated g, which is the unit of measure of acceleration. 1g=1cm/sec/sec.

Stephen Elliot. You didn't approve of my harshness (although I think that apology you made was directed to me for misreading my comment, thank you), but please tell me why davison deserves better? You are correct though about Galileo and Newton. They were both genuises and nobody IS disputing that. What the ignorant davison is suggesting is straight off the crackpot index. He thinks that HE is, by claiming to demolish modern evolution, comparable to Galileo in tearing down the Aristotlean framework. He also disputed comparing Darwin to Newton as the seminal figures of unification for their respective disciplines. Those were his ignorant points, and I should have been more direct about demonstrating that.

Do I get any points for showing a new crackpot index listing for davison(40 points for comparing oneself Galileo)? It's worth a toaster atleast;^)

davison, you are a third rate bungler to whom Darwin would have shown pity by giving you thruppence for blackening his boots.

And yes, this from a fourth rate bungler who would be only to happy to have had the chance to shine Einstein's shoes.

To paraphrase the immortal Yosemite Sam
"Trolls is so stupid"

By the way davison, to answer you, in the cgs system there is a unit called the galileo(gal for short), abbreviated g, which is the unit of measure of acceleration. 1g=1cm/sec/sec.

Question: If someone denies that the neo-Darwinian mechanisms are sufficient to explain the fact of evolution, can she be refuted?

As I understand it (correct me if I'm wrong), there is evidence for the fact of evolution (i.e., that all life is descended from common ancestors), and there is evidence that neo-Darwinian mechanisms effect "micro-evolution." Is there also evidence that neo-Darwinian mechanisms effect "macro-evolution"?

Well, 1g = 980gals...

from Aureola,
"Well, 1g = 980gals . . . "

LOL, thanx

I realize I still said that backwards,
"If you think this has anything to do with the g of 9.8m/s/s, whatever.

Is there also evidence that neo-Darwinian mechanisms effect "macro-evolution"?

JAD has big balls for someone who's ideas haven't been proven to hold water....which is why have can sit back and cast stones.

Of course, if he really were serious, he would test his ideas but, that would mean we would know for sure...and that's not something he wants.

He is like the playground bully...all tough and full of himself until someone tests his metal...

His entire logic is...until it's tested, it's true. Is that how real science works?

I REALLY hope we are not going to go through the whole JAD fiasco yet again.

I wrote to Reed that he had come back with a changed name. Would somebody on PT PLEASE do a Dave Scott on Davison so we don't have to have monkey feces flung about any more.

as to the question of macroevolution; assuming the questioner is talking about what creationists these days typically call "macroevolution" (note that this is not even a term used in science), then they speak of things like turning a weasel into a whale, say.

the answer is yes, check talkorigins.org for a good start on a grand list of transitional fossils supporting "macroevolution" in the fossil record.

The behavior of The JAD Monkey, and a few others, might eventuate PT having a registration-system.

The following system would be better: allow registered accounts attached to a more fixed email address. (frank@aol.com, for instance, but not DaveScat@hotmail.com) Maybe also allow anonymous comments. But, give the individual viewer an option to Hide All comments from a given commenter, including the anonymous ones.
I think that system would solve several problems. Alternately, a good /.-type system would be good. It also permits users to decide what level of comments they want to see.

This "everybody gets everything, and banning is really hard to implement" system is for the birds.

I dunno. If the point of this blog is to educate, then restricting comment access is a bad idea. I also think a lot of good comments tend to get buried by /. style moderation (or, a lot of idiotic comments get too much publicity). I don't think the traffic here is so overwhelming that it requires that. You gotta expect a little chaff with the wheat

And I suspect JADs appearance is very temporary. He hadn't been IP banned before, but I'm betting he will be soon.

There is a world of difference between micro and macroevolution. I thought everybody knew that too. Microevelolution is the production of varieties and in some instances subspecies. Macroevolution is the production of true species, genera, families, orders, classes and phyla. Do you see the difference? I hope so. Write that down.

So, even though you have nothing to say, except to repeat your endless prejudices without a hint of proper evidence, you intend to repeat the same nonsense even to the forums that couldn't possibly believe it.

Let's put what I wrote previously another way: We have no justification whatsoever to consider the genetic, morphological, and fossil evidence for macroevolution any differently than we do in microevolution. Never has anyone come up with an epistemologically sound basis for claiming that the divergence and randomization seen in the evidence for macroevolution (genetic divergence particularly) is not due to the same and similar processes as those occurring in microevolution.

It's a question of standards, can we start treating the evidence for descent with modification in HIV lineages differently from the evidence that shows descent with modification in primate lineages? Not until we have good reason to do so, certainly. It's a question of whether or not we're even going to be doing science, or if we're going to instead decide to arbitrarily treat similar genetic evidence differently in one case than we do in another case. If science treats evidence differently without first justifying the different treatment, then science is worthless.

You don't have a damned thing worth writing, do you JAD?

What is this nonsense about "an epistemologically sound basis?" Epistomology is nothing but philosophical bull and has nothing to do with either experiment or observation.

Ok, I am going to go out on a limb here and presume that Glen did not just spend his last five comments arguing with a ghost. May I therefore also presume that the end has come for a particular troll?
Paul

JAD thinks he can simply jump from one bar of his cage to another, and people will suddenly not recognize him. He forgot that the feces he flings around still stink the same, no matter what.

I'm tired of all the bickering. Evidence wins. Evolution wins. Liars lose. These supposed "men of science" and "men of God" are neither. I'm sick of it. I know what I say here matters little, but PT has made up my mind. Let the IDers know they've lost me. One down, 6 billion to go.

Wow...how smart...he has learned to change his name...There is no end to his intelligence!

Although, he still hasn't proved or tested to prove a single thing.

JAD is to serious science and critical thinking...what Bush is to Rocket Science.

Dave,

I have watched this blog for a while now...and trust me, it has nothing whatsoever to do with his hypothesis...which has been pretty much disputed by everyone.

It has much more to do with his attitude and personality...or lack of both.

lol. dave scott's ip address itself is banned. that's not dave scott. it's the monkey with a new mask on.

it's time to ban his ip address too.

Holy freaking crap.

http://ohiorestorationproject.com/plan.php

This is how script-reciting creationists are manufactured.

It's almost too weird to be true ...

See http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/6/1/171415/3286

Charlie Wagner plans his return to his home planet!
Leaves all his worldly possessions to the Discovery Institute.

http://enigma.charliewagner.com

"This is another piece to the puzzle, and there are a lot of them," he said. "Anyone who would argue that birds and dinosaurs are not related --- frankly, I'd put them in the Flat Earth Society group."

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/8072396/

Confident prediction of the day #1:

YECs will trumpet this work as evidence of a young earth.

Confident prediction of the day #2:

YECs will ignore the dino-birds link.

Is the Thumb's J.A.D. the same person as the University of Vermont biology professor John A. Davison?

Why is the phrase "common descent" used to mean having common ancestors? I know that's just a semantic quibble, but "common descent" looks to me as less accurate than saying "common ancestry".

Henry

Confident prediction of the day #3:

Piltdown Syndrome will turn out to be another JAD pseudonym.

I resent that! 'Piltdown Syndrome' and 'meigormekill' are not even in the same neighborhood of cleverness. What's more, my prose is too coherent to be confused with JAD's, and I never end my comments with silliness about apples, etc.

I'll take your 'confident prediction' as an affirmative answer to my question.

Another post got me thinking....
In Comment # 33267Scott G. Beach talks about the possible evolution of nerves used by females to obtain orgasm. Now my question is the "multiple orgasm" a result of our ancestors when 1 woman would have multiple partners? My understanding from the mitochondrial Eve and Y-chromosomal Adam was that early humans where polygamists. So why would women develop the trait of being able to obtain multiple orgasms? My thinking is
1) Either the ancient human males often breed in a more narrow age range where they are capable of multiple orgasms.
2) The ancient men where more sexual then modern man being able to orgasm and recover more quickly through a large range of ages then modern man.
3) The female multiple orgasm predates even the ancient humans to a time when our ancestors where more like a pride of lions where the females would copulate with multiple males.

You know...I wonder which is more curious ... the fact that I thought of this whole situation or that I'm actually thinking of bringing this all up in conversations with friends that always give me a blank stare when I start talking about evolution :P

This theory, which we will call the general theory of evolution, is so widely accepted in scientific circles that a person can hardly be a scientist without understanding it. That doesn't mean that a person has to believe it is all true in order to be a scientist. I personally know many scientists who do not adhere to this theory.

People who rely strictly upon physical processes to explain the earth's existence determine that it has taken billions of years to arrive at the earth's present condition from what it is believed to have been in the past. We who believe in the Creator are not restricted to this model for the explanation of what we see. Today, most of us maintain that the age of the earth is not known with any degree of certainty. We have no doubt that the Genesis account of creation, although not intended to be "scientific" (because it was written before scientific method was developed), is the best representation of how the earth came into existence that could be devised to be understood and believed across time and nations. This account has been accepted by a great many people in every generation since it was written 3500 years ago.

We who believe in the Creator are not restricted to this model for the explanation of what we see.

One state senator, backed by a powerful conservative lobby, wants Utah public schools to teach "divine design" side by side with evolution, allowing students to decide which theory is more valid. The decades-old debate expected to erupt during the next legislative session in January will also involve decades-old arguments, but with a new twist. Some school officials believe teaching a divine design could violate the constitutionally protected separation of church and state. "We don't teach religion in school," said Brett Moulding, curriculum director for the state Board of Education. "We don't believe this law would be in the best interest of public education." But the moral-crusading group Eagle Forum, which has often flexed its muscle on Utah's Capitol Hill, argues a community has a right to teach its values to its children. Sen. Chris Buttars, R-West Jordan, plans to lead the fight for instruction of divine design in Utah public schools. He wants to defuse some of the expected controversy by avoiding the term "creationism" altogether.

Gayle Ruzicka, who has independently pushed for divine design education in the schools.
"What an insult to teach children that they have evolved from a lower life to what they are now, and then they go home and learn that they are someone special, a child of God," Ruzicka said. "This is not right."

"Insult"...how is it an insult?...How do these people think!...are they that arrogant?

Re "[...] someone special, a child of God,""

Wonder if they can explain how having ancestry prevents one from being either "special" or "child of God"? Neither of those seem to depend on lack of ancestry, as "special" is subjective, and "chile of God" is both subjective and a metaphor. I don't get where that person is coming from. (And I don't mean what state they live in.)

Henry

Let's see, on the one hand, the IDers are claiming that a single cell (for example, the bacterial cell) is so packed full of marvelous micro-miniaturized complex "machinery" that it MUST have been designed (by Guess Who, right, which means the lowly bacterium must be just as much a "child of Guess Who" as any human child) while, on the other hand, the YECs--the IDers' running buddies--are claiming that it's a gross insult for a human "child of GW" to be told that they might be descended from a bacterial "child of GW."

Guess it's just inherently difficult to keep a twisted story straight.

Dateline Utah, where a state senator along with the Eagle Forum want to get something called "divine design theory"

then they go home and learn that they are someone special, a child of God,

Re "Is the Thumb's J.A.D. the same person as the University of Vermont biology professor John A. Davison?"
Yep.

Henry

"The Old Philosopher" sends his greetings:

http://www.charliewagner.net/old.mp3

This is my first post on your web site. I would like to discuss material on the Site dealing with thermodynamic and evolution.
I am:

Eric D. Schneider
64 years old
PhD. Columbia University 1969 (classmate of S.J. Gould)

Hawkwood Institute
POB 1017
Livingston MT 59047
406-222-3666
hawkwood@ycsi.net
Web Site: http://www.intothecool.com

I am an interdisciplinary scientist who has carried out a thirty-year research program that has been a synthesis of physics and biology at a fundamental level. I have held high science positions in the federal government for 25 years. My coauthor Dorion Sagan (son of Carl Sagan) and I have spent the past 12 years writing a just released book Into the Cool: Energy Flow, Thermodynamics and Life (University of Chicago Press. Publisher Weekly said "The result is an impressive work that ranges across disciplinary boundaries and draws from disparate literatures without blinking. It's also a book that (much like Shakespeare and the Second Law of Thermodynamics) requires effort on the reader's part." Check out the Web Site: http://www.intothecool.com. This is not an ad for our book: you don't have to buy it because the web site has 8% of the book and 35% of the illustrations on line. I would like to help for those interested in evolution and thermodynamics

The intelligent design movement makes three main claims against evolution. The first is that our biological world is too complex to have been produced by biological variation and selection, and that an unidentified designer must have designed the object or process. A related argument is a hazy "God algorithm" that supposedly separates natural objects from those changes done by a designer.
The ID- creationists' third area of complaint takes refuge in thermodynamics. A group known as the Institute for Creation Research gives an example on their web page: "Evolutionists are embarrassed by the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The obvious tendency of nature from disorder to order and organization is, of course, only an assumption of evolutionists. The real tendency in the natural world, as expressed by the Second Law of Thermodynamics, is from order and organization to disorder. This very obvious problem is commonly by-passed by evolutionists."
Such statements are made in ignorance of the last 60 years of research in thermodynamics. There is absolutely no contradiction between the Second Law and the evolution of order and life. The easiest encapsulation of the Second Law is that "Nature aborrs a gradient". In ridding itself of gradients nature spins out complex structures, such as hurricanes, life and economic systems. Order and disorder are intimately connected. Life and its ecosystems, driven by energy from the sun, not only do not violate the second law but it is thermodynamic phenomena that provide the "go" for life. The cosmos is indeed highly and surprisingly organized; but the presence of life inside this organization is in perfect keeping with other spontaneously appearing systems that naturally organize to produce atomic and molecular chaos. As evolution links all organisms through heredity, thermodynamics links all complex systems through common patterns of energy flow.

Eric D. Schneider

Rev Flank

I just met someone who claimed direct descent from Jesus's twin brother Thomas Dydimus, so that must be three!

Rev Flank I just met someone who claimed direct descent from Jesus's twin brother Thomas Dydimus, so that must be three!

Re "Wow, sounds like the Old Guy had even more kids than Zeus did."

Yeah, but all of Zues' kids drowned in de Flood, along with that Methuselah guy.

Henry

In ridding itself of gradients nature spins out complex structures, such as hurricanes, life and economic systems.

Some creationist: "Evolutionists are embarrassed by the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The obvious tendency of nature from disorder to order and organization is, of course, only an assumption of evolutionists. The real tendency in the natural world, as expressed by the Second Law of Thermodynamics, is from order and organization to disorder. This very obvious problem is commonly by-passed by evolutionists."

These guys wouldn't know S=k ln W if it bit them in the ass.

I have to say, of all the arguments against evolution, it might be that the thermo one is the dumbest.

I thought there was only one child of God

In the above quote, the url ends in "son" hyphen "of" hyphen "man" dot "hmtl", without the double quotes of course

For some reason the posting software does not like this typed.

I'm never really surprised at the level of stupidity in todays governments and teens about sexual education. I was most dismayed to read this morning that teens in New Zealand didn't know how to properly use contraceptives properly, and to cap it all off, it seems the fundies are up to their usual tricks trying to get the US to reduce spending on AIDs. Why do these people always make fools of themselves?

:/

Covered more at my blog: http://immunoblogging.blogspot.com/

Nelson's Law prohibits evolution without intelligent guidance. Look here for my paper on this subject:

[ If this information has been helpful, please prayerfully consider a donation to help pay the expenses for making this faith-building service available to you and your family! Donations are tax-deductible. ]

Air Bear:

I don't think the christiananswers page is engaged in justifying anything, it sounds like what they call "exegesis" to me (that's posh talk for an explanation or critical interpretation of a text).

Your post has provoked a mischievious thought: sometimes evolutionary biology is accused of inventing "just so" stories to explain the evolution of individual life forms. It strikes me now that most of Christian theology
is a lot of "just so" stuff

Even though Charlie refuses to admit it, Horatio's Hypothesis trumps Nelson's Law. All biological organisms were designed by humans.

Anyone else think it's weird fundamentalists think they are being persecuted because other people don't want them to be able to force their religious beliefs down everyone else's throats?

Re "sometimes evolutionary biology is accused of inventing "just so" stories to explain the evolution of individual life forms. "

I thought the point of "just so" stories was to show that the result is consistent with theory, i.e., that it doesn't have to violate the basic principles to get there.

Henry

For all PT'ers,
Courtesy my best friend (who gets to listen to NPR much more than I have the chance to, thanks Joanna) here is a poem you may all enjoy. It is truly wonderful in its combination of the artful and the appropriate.*
http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/docs/2005/05/30/
Scroll down to Wednesday, 1 June, 2005
The Enigma We Answer by Living
The little blurb after the poem is not related to it, just a FYI used in the radio show.
Sincerely,
Paul

*Whatever the hell that means:)

STUFF THAT REALLY MATTERS

"Most of my friends they were losing it out there. They would do anything to get out of there, do anything. I had one of my guys, he used to tell me -- my wife just had my son, I can't wait to get home and see him. And, you know, he died out there. He sure did and I have to think about that everyday.

Well, uh, shrapnel down the back, shrapnel that came in and hit my head, punctured my lungs. I broke both of my arms. I lost a kidney. My intestines was messed up. They took an artery out of my left leg and put it into this right arm. They pretty much took my life. Pretty much.

I got a bonus in the National Guards for joining the Army. Now I've got to pay the bonus back and it's $2999. If I would have continued and finished my contract I wouldn't have to pay it back. The Guard wants it back. It's on my credit that I owe them that. I'm burning on the inside. I'm burning."

My high school buddies, well two of them just got found in a ditch around there, dead, dead. And the rest of them in jail, cracked out. For real. That's why after high school, I left. I was gone because I knew where my life was headed. Joined the Army. And here I am back here. I would love to go away. I would love to go away. I think that would be better. Because I'm driving in my car, I'm doing nothing. I don't know where it's going to end up. "

Cpl Tyson Johnson III, 22, from Prichard, Alabama, a mechanic with 205 Military Intelligence brigade, was injured in a mortar attack on the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad on September 20, 2003. He suffered massive internal injuries and is 100 percent disabled.

Cries in Darkness

I wish I had written this, but I didn't.
Compliments to Pissed_Off_Patricia at Blondesense

"I wonder if he ever hears them. When the president of the United States is alone in his bedroom at the end of the day and he turns off the light, I wonder if he hears them. Does he ever hear somewhere in his head the cries of a soldier as he lays dying? Many say that a wounded and dying soldier will cry out for his mother. I imagine that's right. I imagine that's exactly what goes through a dying soldier's mind, his mother. As he feels his life slipping away, why wouldn't he want to cling to the woman who gave him that life. She was his source. I wonder if the president ever hears that cry and if he doesn't, how does he avoid it?

Perhaps he might hear the cries and screams of the tiny children who lay dying in a land far away from the presidential bedroom. Or maybe it's the sound of mothers and fathers caressing the bodies of their lifeless children. What must those sounds be like? Do they curse the man whose soldiers dropped the bomb or fired the shot? Do they wail at the top of their lungs or do they suffer the deep and retching sobs as only a mother or father can? Do you think those sounds ever make their way to the president's pillow? How can he avoid hearing this sad concert of sadness?

Maybe there are reasons the president doesn't hear the mournful cry of the dead and dying, the living and hurting. Maybe he's praying. Maybe he prays out loud. Maybe he prays as loud as he can to drown out the voices and the sobbing.. Maybe he prays himself to sleep each night and maybe he thinks if he prays loud enough and long enough the cries will fall silent. If he prays, what is he praying for? He's probably praying that the voices will stop and leave him alone. Will his prayers be answered? They won't.

Another morning will come, another day will begin. He will have managed to make it through another night. The sun will rise and he may escape the darkness and the voices for one more day. But with the new day will come more voices, more deaths, more pain, more suffering and those new voices will await him on his pillow tonight. Tonight there will be more voices and they will be louder. He will need to pray louder and longer than he did last night. Will he be able to avoid the voices forever? Cries from the darkness never go away. No matter how loud or long he prays, the voices will be patient and they will linger until one day he will be unable to pray any longer or any louder and then he will hear them. He'll hear them and he may go mad, because once he listens to the sounds of their pain, he will hear it forever. The next cry in the darkness may be his own."

So I had to get out my recording of "Sam Stone" by John Prine. It was written in 1972, just after the end of the Vietnam war. The sad part is, it's as true today as it was 33 years ago.

Listen to "Sam Stone" HERE
http://www.charliewagner.com/sstone.mp3

I didn't go to Vietnam, although I was drafted in June 1965.
I avoided it by getting married and having a child. But I would not have gone under any circumstances. War is about the stupidest thing human beings can do. Sometimes you're forced into it as a last resort. But the most painful war is the war in which tens of thousands are killed and countless others are maimed or psychologically damaged for life for no good reason. Such a war was Vietnam.

Such a war is Iraq. It's Vietnam all over again in spades. A war for nothing, in which thousands die and tens of thousands are wounded, physically and psychologically.

Did we learn nothing from Vietnam?

From the New York Times:

"The nation's hard-pressed health care system for veterans is facing a potential deluge of tens of thousands of soldiers returning from Iraq with serious mental health problems brought on by the stress and carnage of war, veterans' advocates and military doctors say.

An Army study shows that about one in six soldiers in Iraq report symptoms of major depression, serious anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder, a proportion that some experts believe could eventually climb to one in three, the rate ultimately found in Vietnam veterans. Because about one million American troops have served so far in the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to Pentagon figures, some experts predict that the number eventually requiring mental health treatment could exceed 100,000."

This on top of the thousands who have lost their lives and the tens of thousands who have lost limbs or gone insane. And the families at home. In Vietnam there were wives and girl friends back home. Now there are children who will lose their fathers and even their mothers.

They tell these soldiers that they're fighting to protect America and to destroy the "terrorists" before they can attack us here. They tell them they are "protecting America from the evil-doers". I'm actually glad that a lot of them believe that. It might help reduce the greater pain of knowing, as many Vietnam veterans do, that this was a horrible and pathetic waste of decent people's lives.

No, I didn't go to Vietnam. And I'm glad of it. I just wish those poor folks who went to Iraq had made the same decision.

http://bobdylan.com/songs/johnbrown.html

Hope you all have seen this:
http://www.landoverbaptist.org/news0605/flyingdinos.html

Jesus cares WAY more about you than your parents EVER will! They will never love you as much as Jesus loves you! Always remember that. If you hate your parents because they didn't get you a PlayStation 2 for Christmas, He completely understands! He is totally down with that! In fact, lucky for you, in order to follow Him, you are actually required to hate your parents! "If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother...he cannot be my disciple." - The Lord Jesus Christ (Luke 14:26) Pretty cool, huh? So, if you hate your parents, you are already halfway to becoming a True Christian™! Congratulations! Here is what you need to do to get your free Play Station 2: 1. Tell Jesus that you hate your parents, and that you'd rather have Him for your Daddy. Ask Him to forgive your sins, and cover you with His blood (you'll see plenty of that splattered across your TV when you play your complimentary Grand Theft Auto 3 game!). 2. Find one of your Mom or Dad's credit cards (a blank check is even better!) 3. Call our church office and we will provide you with simple instructions on how to use your parents' credit card to charge a love offering over the phone. Don't worry if you can't find a credit card. We can teach you how to use one of your daddy's checks to do an automatic draft withdrawal (which will get you free shipping and an extra game disk!) Please note: If your parents ask you where you got your new PlayStation 2, just tell them that your Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, delivered it to you via the U.S. Postal Service in exchange for your soul.

READ THIS BEFORE YOU TROLL/FLAME, I'm not kidding. So you've just discovered this site and you're about to type up a flame accusing us of being "fringe" or "extremist", or asking if we're serious about what we say. Fine. but read this first: We are just another group of republicans, with just another republican website with just another republican forum. The difference is that we say exactly what we mean. Other conservative groups try to look "centrist" and "politically correct". A lot of republicans say "I was just joking" when someone gets all politically correct on them. (They weren't, they just know how to make PC morons shut up.) There is no self-censorship in Landover Baptist. The moderators in this forum believe in freedom of speech (for republicans), and when they do edit something they at least let people know that they did. This is different from other forums. And that is where the differences between us and other republicans END. The number of Americans who are evangelical, charismatic or conservative Christians now exceeds 100 million. That's 100,000,000. Conservative Christian fundamentalists have total dominance of both houses of Congress, the Senate, White House, and most governorships. We're a heartbeat away from dominating the Supreme Court. In November 2006 we'll gain so much power in Congress and the Senate that we will be able to rewrite the constitution to say whatever we want (instead of just ignoring it as we do currently.) We are supported by the majority of the army, police officers, and other people who have guns and know how to use them. And we did not gain all this power by "just kidding". The president of the United States of America (that's the country with all the nuclear bombs) hears the voice of God on a regular basis:

errr.... the Landover Baptist website is a joke.....

um...you're kidding right? I realized that when I saw the bumper sticker link, but I KNOW people who really FRIG'GIN believe this way. I can't see something like this anymore and not take it seriously at first blush. I will show this to my brother-in-law and he will be ecstatic that he has such possible friends in this church. This really is a parody? How can anyone tell anymore? That is truly sad.
Sincerely,
Paul

Dear Lenny: I notice that there are a number of posts missing. Isn't that what always happens on this board? When some thoughtful arguments are made, they just simply disappear to be replaced by invective. Is that you dropping the posts?

It's an indictment of Darwinists that they have sunk to such low levels. You can't handle criticism, so you resort to maliciousness and slander.

I live in my home town of Dublin Ireland. Last night on BBC Northern Ireland I watched a program about a split in a small evangelical church in Belfast. The main pastor was effectively locked out of the chapel by an interesting clique, after a row about the distribution inside the chapel of a periodical called "Rome Watch", which most people think incites hatred of Catholics. Not that the clique thinks like that, no sirree. They hate Romanism but not Romanists. How could you think such terrible things of the deacon, who was sentenced to 35 years in prison for his part in the murder of 3 Catholics from a pop band. The lead singer was shot 22 times in the face. The deacon's brother was killed by the bomb he was carrying. But hey! He's been born again so his heart must be pure now.
Or how about the new main pastor? He may have spent some time in prison for possession of hand grenades obtained from a Protestant terrorist organization. He's been born again too. And how dare you have bad thoughts about him, just because the person who ordained him (in prison) was serving time for murdering a Catholic.

Believe me when I say that you guys in the US have it relatively easy.

the About Us, from the Landover Baptist site:

About Us

We are a Bible believing, Fundamentalist, Independent Baptist Church. We are 157,000 members strong. Our Church Campus is located in Freehold, Iowa and rests on 35 acres of some of the most beautiful country you'd ever care to set your eyes upon. Our church holds 28 paid pastors, 131 paid deacons, 412 full time staff members, LCA (Landover Christian Academy), LCU (Landover Christian University), 11 fully equipped chapels, Four 2,000 seat sanctuaries, Three 5,000 seat main sanctuaries, the world's largest Christian Mall, a Christian Amusement Park (Landover Bible Theme Park and Red Sea World), A PGA 18 Hole Golf Course, 3 Fitness Centers, 4 Olympic sized swimming pools, Landover Village, Landover Towers, Landover Retirement Community, Center For 2 Churches On Every City Block Foundation, Leviticus Landing (An Exclusive Gated Executive Christian Community for Platinum Tithers™), Exodus Acres (Gold Tithers' Gated Community), *27 Developments, Landover All Purpose Multi-Temple, Spa and Resort Center, Fire Department, 100,000 seat amphitheater, 12 Television studios, 2 radio stations, A Christian Circus Camp, Retreat Center for Republican Candidates, 3 Corporate Christian Office Parks, hot springs, 8 cemeteries, and 243 fully certified Christian police officers.

lol

For the landover baptist church....

Join the forums and have fun on there, I think it is a parody site but the people on there play along like its the real thing. It really is odd...

They talk about the 'evil' liberals and stuff, convince them about evolution, tell them the bible is wrong. THey'll say you've been corrupted by the devil and stuff.

Its really funny, but like someone else said-- People really believe in that for real.

Land Over Baptists *is* a parody site, chaps, made by the same folks that created WhiteHouse.org. :)

Another site was set up after LOB and Whitehouse.org became too obvious/well known in their satire.

I have to admit something when I say that, though. I read an actual Bush press release at the legitimate White House site convinced I was at .org because of the sheer contradiction between the proposed legislation and the usage of the words 'freedom', 'liberty' etc.

Still not sure whether I should be horrendously amused or terrified by that.

Charlie,

Your #34190 was on the mark - thanks. The bastards lied to us about Vietnam, and they lied to us about Iraq. Halliburton rakes in the loot and 18 and 19 year old kids come home in pieces. It sucks.

Bob

Charlie, Your #34190 was on the mark - thanks. The bastards lied to us about Vietnam, and they lied to us about Iraq. Halliburton rakes in the loot and 18 and 19 year old kids come home in pieces. It sucks.

Don't know why enlistment's falling. half the country said bush was fit to be president.

Hey, Charlie,

Unfortunately, living in Cherokee County in Georgia, our representatives are Republicans. They don't have to listen to me 'cause they know they'll never have my vote. Midterms coming, that's got to be the short term focus. If the numbers mean anything, it should be interesting.

My big concern is the Supreme Court. They can't be voted out.

Re "This really is a parody? How can anyone tell anymore?"

I think the "we will be able to rewrite the constitution to say whatever we want (instead of just ignoring it as we do currently.)" was a clue. ;)

Henry

or..."Three 5,000 seat main sanctuaries, the world's largest Christian Mall, a Christian Amusement Park (Landover Bible Theme Park and Red Sea World), A PGA 18 Hole Golf Course, 3 Fitness Centers, 4 Olympic sized swimming pools, Landover Village, Landover Towers, Landover Retirement Community, Center For 2 Churches On Every City Block Foundation, Leviticus Landing (An Exclusive Gated Executive Christian Community for Platinum Tithers™), Exodus Acres (Gold Tithers' Gated Community), *27 Developments, Landover All Purpose Multi-Temple, Spa and Resort Center, Fire Department, 100,000 seat amphitheater, 12 Television studios, 2 radio stations, A Christian Circus Camp, Retreat Center for Republican Candidates, 3 Corporate Christian Office Parks, hot springs, 8 cemeteries, and 243 fully certified Christian police officers.
"

I think this editorial cartoon from today's Globe and Mail sums it up. This is reference to a killer who crossed the border in to the U.S. from Canada the other day with a home made sword, chainsaw that was used to decapitate a person etc.

No, no, no! They confiscated his bloodied chainsaw... much more intelligent, you have to admit.

Things have sure quieted down here since you banned that wacko Davison. He was at least amusing. I recommend you ask him back. I need a good laugh. You guys are boring..

Go read Blastfromthepast's posts. Eeerily similar in content (minus a bit of the vitriol), and now he's complaining about having his posts deleted...

You got me Davison. i didn't check the email before replying to you.

New Evidence Suggests Noah's Sons Rode Flying Dinosaurs For years, Creation Scientists have disputed how Noah was able to quickly collect millions of indigenous animals from remote, inaccessible regions of the world for a 40-day ride in his ark. New evidence from an archeological find in China supports the long held Christian belief that Noah's sons rode giant flying dinosaurs to transport duck billed platypuses from Australia, and penguins and polar bears from the Antarctic, to name a few. "Those must have been some mighty big flying dinosaurs," says Pastor Deacon Fred. "Imagine the look on Noah's face when his sons flew in for a landing with a pair of Hippos strapped to the back of one of them things! Glory to God!"

Of all the fundamentalist groups at large in the world today, the Darwinians seem to me the most objectionable. They are just as strident and closed to argument as Christian or Muslim fundamentalists, but unlike those two groups the Darwinians enjoy intellectual respectability. Darwinians and their allies dominate the scientific establishments of the West. They rule the campus. Their militant brand of atheism makes them natural allies of the philosophical atheists who control most college philosophy faculties. They dominate the leading scientific magazines and prevent their critics and opponents from getting a hearing, and they secure the best slots on TV. Yet the Darwinian brand of evolution is becoming increasingly vulnerable as the progress of science reveals its weaknesses. One day, perhaps soon, it will collapse in ruins.

One day, perhaps soon, it will collapse in ruins.

"The toppling of the Berlin Wall will seem small in comparison with the impending demolition of scientific naturalism. Most of us have heard but a rumor of this event with our ears; Dembski is one of those making it happen." --Budziszewski

Sooner rather than later, the doyens of contemporary science and religion dialogue will no longer be able to ignore the position Dembski represents, for his work is simply too good for his challenge to stand unanswered." --William Craig

"Intelligent design is moving quickly to replace Darwinian evolution as the central guiding principle of biological science." --Jonathan Wells

"dogmatic opponents of design who demanded that the Center be shut down have met their Waterloo" --Dembski

"Dembski is the Isaac Newton of information theory, and since this is the Age of Information, that makes Dembski one of the most important thinkers of our time. His 'law of conservation of information' represents a revolutionary breakthrough. In Intelligent Design Dembski explains the meaning and significance of his discoveries with such clarity that the general public can readily grasp them. He convincingly diagnoses our present confusions about the relationship between science and theology and offers a promising alternative." Rob Koons, associate professor of philosophy, University of Texas

The reason that the public is unaware of the significance and seriousness of the HIV dissenters is because they have been prevented from publishing. For instance, the editors of the leading scientific journals have refused to print even the brief statement by the Group for the Scientific Reappraisal of the HIV/AIDS Hypothesis which now has over 400 members (including the present authors). This four-sentence statement notes simply that "many biomedical scientists now question (the HIV causes AIDS) hypothesis" and calls for "a thorough reappraisal of existing evidence for and against this hypothesis."

They seem to be creating their own bible of predictions which, apart from the actions they themselves take in cheating and lying, aren't coming true. It is rather like all the JW end of the world predictions which failed to come true and the ones from biblical times which kept/keep not coming true so people had/have to make excuses for why some other time was meant instead.

Voles, genes, behavior:

http://nytimes.com/2005/06/10/science/10behave.html

I guess I'm living on the dark side of the moon. Why does Phil Johnson (and his cadre of 400 members) question the "HIV/AIDS Hypothesis"?

Because they would prefer that AIDS is a disease caused by sexual "immorality" (homosexuality, promiscuity). That this doesn't explain why it affects people who have had blood transfusions or haemophiliacs doesn't seem to worry them.

Why does Phil Johnson (and his cadre of 400 members) question the "HIV/AIDS Hypothesis"?

Because they would prefer that AIDS is a disease caused by sexual "immorality" (homosexuality, promiscuity).

Johnson, who's a lawyer, probably believes what we hear so often on PT. Some variant of "Since I'm not a biologist, but instead a _________, I am far more capable of understanding this evolution issue than you dim biologists..."

BTW, I just love that these creationists are glomming onto a cosmology-oriented book cowritten by Jay Richards, author of that column about how his layman's thought experiment disproves Einstein. That's some Sound Science™ right there.

Hell hath no fury like a scammer foiled. The card shark caught stacking the deck, the used-car salesman seen fiddling with the car's odometer. They lash out at their intended victims, crying hypocrisy.

Hell hath no fury like a scammer foiled. The card shark caught stacking the deck, the used-car salesman seen fiddling with the car's odometer. They lash out at their intended victims, crying hypocrisy.

DaveScot Says: June 13th, 2005 at 11:58 pm HIV - does it or does it not cause AIDS. It probably causes AIDS in the same manner that burning jet fuel caused the World Trade Center to collapse. Technically, quite likely IMO although I don't care enough about AIDS to dig into the merits of any controversy over what causes it. That said, in another sense, inanimate objects aren't the cause of anything! Hammers aren't the cause of nails holding boards together. Burning jet fuel wasn't the cause of the WTC collapse - terrorists were the cause. HIV isn't the cause of AIDS - homosexuals, prostitutes, and intravenous drug users cause AIDS. Any other victims are irrelevant as the disease would never have spread to them without the three major risk groups above. You may now return to your regular beliefs that inanimate objects are causes. One of my favorite loony left beliefs is it isn't people that kill people but guns that kill people. Oooooooooooookay . . . and HIV causes AIDS. Right. Got it. Message received and duly noted.

Egads.

In the early nineties I became---I was---had an undergraduate degree in biology and had really come along probably believing that evolution was more or less true. But in the early nineties I started doing some independent study, reading some things, and by the time that I had given this talk, I was pretty well convinced that there were a lot of significant criticisms of evolution. And I just thought that I would like to present them to the students.

Thanks, GCT. It looks like he at least accepts the link, just tries to use an erroneous definition of 'cause' to mean only things intentionally caused.

One of the great things about these ID dingbats is their dingbattiness extends far beyond evolution denial, to HIV denial, medical science denial, moonyism, etc etc.

Is there such a thing as an atheistic IDer?

— chris

"Is there such a thing as an atheistic IDer? Has anyone ever heard or read someone say something along the lines of, "I think there was an intelligent designer, I don't know what it was, but I know it couldn't have been a supernatural deity because there is no such thing"?"

Hoyle came close. Raelians?

I'm starting to feel a little bit like Lenny here. We can assign SWAG estimates of the probability of correctness of our theories, based on a gut sense of how strong the evidence is, compared with how strong we think it ought to be. And thus, we might say something like "theory X (for example, string theory) explains a good deal, but it also implies a good deal that ought to be observed but is not." And so we might be unsurprised if theory X is supplanted as more evidence comes in.

But what's important is that theory X is not rejected in favor of, well, nothing. I think there's a qualitative difference between recognizing that a theory is weakly supported but the best we can do right now, and thinking it is wrong without some preferred replacement.

And so I think the notion of an atheistic IDer is an oxymoron. ID implies a designer, and the implied designer is ultimately supernatural. Hoyle and the Raelians (as I recall, maybe incorrectly?) have simply moved the Designer somewhere else.

In any case, the IDers have rejected evolution not because the evidence is inadequate, but because the evidence is irrelevant. Their position is that our origin is a matter of faith, and there can be only one right faith. So the fundamental basis of ID is "We claim goddidit, and you can't prove otherwise."

"Perhaps I was influenced by my materialist world-view, so I'm wondering if any committed materialists have ever been swayed to ID, or if ID is inherently theistic."

ID may not be inherently theistic but it certainly is inherently anti-materialist.

If there were evidence for some form of "ID", wouldn't the nature of that evidence indicate whether it implied theism or not?

Without evidence, it's just speculation.

Henry

Comment #35151 Posted by chris on June 14, 2005 10:36 AM (e) (s) I know this is moving off AIDS, but I have a question and I wanted to get it out before forgetting. Is there such a thing as an atheistic IDer? Has anyone ever heard or read someone say something along the lines of, "I think there was an intelligent designer, I don't know what it was, but I know it couldn't have been a supernatural deity because there is no such thing"?...

— chris

Charlie Wagner believes that natural alians that have been around forever and never evolved themselvses made us.

I was under the impression that Hoyle simply used the weak anthropic principle at times in order to figure things out. So, he decided that we are here, and in order for us to be here certain things must be true, so how do those things happen. That's quite a bit different from ID.

Wasn't Hoyle big on panspermia?
I seem to recall that he believed that aliens "seeded" the earth with DNA-using proto-life, but evolution did the rest, or some such.

"Natural" designer theories (not Calvin Klein, silly) would seem to beg the question "so, who seeded the aliens' planet? Or did they evolve?"

It was not aliens per se but a superintelligent "life cloud". This life cloud was able to develop naturally because the universe is infinitely old (Hoyle deemed infinity a sufficiently long enough period for evolution to happen). The life cloud continually seeds the rest of the steady-state universe with viruses to further the development of additional life (panspermia: latin for "sperm everywhere"). I'm unclear about whether the life cloud does this intentionally or whether this is just something any extremely old, superintelligent life cloud would do subconsciously. Ask Brig Klyce.

Evolution debate gets personal in kansas:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8235272/

my favorite part is how one of the creationists says, if you'd attended the hearings, you'd be an informed person, and wouldn't call us dupes.

heh

Look at the poll in the same article:

Should public schools teach students about counterarguments to the theory of evolution? * 72252 responses
Yes; many Americans doubt evolution, and education should reflect widespread beliefs.
42%
No; evolution is a well-established scientific principle.
58%

Well, To say that anti-evolution is a fringe belief would be wrong. This is a nationwide problem. Keep fighting ignorance.

Re "Should public schools teach students about counterarguments to the theory of evolution?"

Only if they include a link to that master index on the talkorigins website. ;)

Henry

WingNutDaily's Kelly Hollowell gets an anonymous email and asks Mechanism behind intelligent design uncovered?

I didn't see a mechanism for ID though, perhaps someone here might have better luck. ;-)

Jason, I guess we need to buy the book "The Final Theory" to find out. Seems to be something to do with ElectroMotive Force (EMF) and "Let there be light" from, I suppose, Genesis.

A question for those more educated than I. Why is it that Humans and all the other "Higher Life Forms." Are bilaterally symmetrical and quadrupedal (BSQs)? I've heard in passing that this is due to the "Permian Extinction." Was this extinction event so large as to kill off all the larger radially symmetrical or non-quadrupedal critters? As I understand it, even snakes are actually a form of quadruped (having once had limbs, ya know). Is this based on the death of so many other body plans or the vast success of very early BSQs?

I'm kinda scribbling some fiction, and this, I think, counts as "research." I want the work to have the Ring Of Truth about it.

Symmetry is a form of repeating various structures (fractals being another) which is easier than having to make different things everywhere. Starting off with the spherical symmetry of an undifferentiated cell other constraints reduce symmetry. Having a front and back for feeding and/or moving imposes an axis around which one might still be cylindrically or spirally symmetric. Gravity does the same for sufficiently large sizes of life. Having more than one such axis and having them non-aligned, constrains a form to being only bilaterally symmetric. After that, all descendants of that lineage will have the same constraint. It isn't a matter of a particular extinction event.

Trees etc are big and under the influence of gravity. They don't walk around and their feeding orientation is roughly inline with the gravity axis (ground/roots down, air/sunlight/leaves up). That leaves them with rotational symmetry.

Vertebrates usually move around and have either their feeding axis aligned with either their motion (fish) or with gravity (humans). This leaves bilateral symmetry as the only handy cheat left for evolution/development of the body.

Everyone needs to read the WingNutDaily link provided above by Spaceman. It's out of this world.

"evolution's bogus explanation of diversity through macro-mutation"

"This theory comes from a critical analysis of the Big Bang theory, Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity and quantum physics. The concepts behind this scientific knowledge can be understood by any person with a modern education and should be known to all."

sounds promising, doesn't it ;-) ?

If I had a 10-year-old as gullible as Hollowell, I'd be ashamed.

By LAURI LEBO Daily Record/Sunday News Sunday, June 19, 2005 Seemingly, they're would-be allies. But a disagreement last week over legal representation means three experts with connections to the pro-intelligent design Discovery Institute will not be testifying in a federal court case on behalf of the Dover Area School Board. The three experts --- William Dembski, Stephen Meyer and John Campbell --- were slated for testimony on the debate over intelligent design. But last week, their names were removed from the list before they could give depositions in the case. Eric Rothschild, plaintiffs' attorney with Pepper Hamilton, said he was baffled by the decision. Meyer is the director of Discovery Institute's Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture, which funds research projects related to intelligent design. Dembski and Campbell are senior fellows there. Dembski, a mathematician and scientific philosopher, said the Thomas More Law Center, which is defending the school board, basically fired him because he wanted to have his own attorney present during the depositions. He said he's puzzled and frustrated by Thomas More's refusal to let him participate. "I felt like I was in the crossfire," Dembski said.

Well... Does this count as Creationist Bullshit or what?

http://space.com/news/050617_ap_observatory.html

After the US built 24 (that's Twenty Four!) telescopes on Kitt Peak, the tribe of that area (related to the Papago) suddenly says we can't build a new one (VERITAS) because their Creator diety lives there. (Get that... HE LIVES THERE... or slightly south of there... ...probably in a trailer with a satelite dish and a beat up chevy out front.

Now, I acknowledge that the policies of the US Government wiped out most of these people, and we should respect the ones who are left... but wasn't the time to fight this back in the 50s when Kitt Peak was first being developed?

Sounds like someone just wants to make some noise... first Kenniwick Man, now this...

The three experts --- William Dembski, Stephen Meyer and John Campbell --- were slated for testimony on the debate over intelligent design.

"I felt like I was in the crossfire," Dembski said.

But Richard Thompson, Thomas More president, said the decision to not use the three experts had nothing to do with their positions on intelligent design and whether it should be mandated in a classroom. Rather, he said he objected to the experts bringing along their own lawyers, calling it a "conflict of interest." "The case involves the school board and the parents," he said. "Now, if you have attorneys coming in and representing the experts and their attorneys are saying, 'Don't answer that question,' then you have a conflict with the aims of the school board."

Is Mr. Branch around? Or does anybody else know what the facts are behind this situation?

CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES SETTLES LIBEL CLAIM
OVER EVOLUTION ARTICLE

Parent's Claim Sparked by False Article by Leading Darwin Advocate

Contact: Larry Caldwell
June 20, 2005
Phone: 916-774-4667
lcaldwell@qsea.org

ROSEVILLE, CA -- The California Academy of Sciences has settled with a California parent, Larry Caldwell, who raised a potential libel claim against the organization over its publication of a false and defamatory article authored by Eugenie C. Scott, Executive Director of the National Center for Science Education, Inc. (NCSE) Scott's article, entitled "In My Backyard: Creationists in California," appeared in the Spring print and online editions of the Academy's California Wild magazine. The article had also been accessible through a link on the NCSE's website.

In a lawsuit filed against Scott and the NCSE in April, Caldwell claimed that the Scott article contained numerous factual misstatements and libeled him in an effort by Scott and the NCSE to discredit his efforts to promote his "Quality Science Education" policy, which is designed to include some of the scientific weaknesses of the Darwin's theory of evolution in biology classes. Caldwell's lawsuit did not formally name the California Academy of Sciences as a defendant, although, as the publisher of the Scott article, it was a potential defendant in the suit.

In a settlement agreement finalized recently, the California Academy of Sciences has agreed to permanently remove all on-line access to the Scott article. The Academy has also agreed to publish a lengthy letter by Caldwell and a retraction letter by Scott in the upcoming Summer 2005 Edition of Calfornia Wild, which will be available in print and on the internet in early July.

Caldwell's letter will correct a number of factual misstatements in the Scott article.

Scott's letter will retract several false allegations about Caldwell and his-year long effort to improve science education in the Roseville high school district. For example, Scott had falsely accused Caldwell of purportedly proposing two young earth creation science books to the Roseville Joint Union High School District for potential adoption and use in biology classes--one of which is authored and published by the Jehovah's Witnesses. In her letter to be published in California Wild, Scott now concedes that Caldwell did not submit these books to the school district.

Contrary to her article, Scott also now admits that school officials in the Roseville high school district never actually considered those books for adoption anyway.

Scott also concedes that her allegation that a science expert had purportedly expressed his opinion that Caldwell had a "gross misunderstanding of science" was false; and Scott will also retract her claim that the Roseville high school board had purportedly passed a resolution "recommending" that "creationist" materials be used in science classes.

Said Caldwell, "I am pleased that the California Academy of Sciences and California Wild have shown the professional integrity to remove this libelous article from internet access, and to give me an opportunity to set the record straight on my Quality Science Education Policy"

Caldwell added, "It's a shame it took a lawsuit to get Scott, the author of the article, to retract some of the more outrageous factual misstatements in her article.

"Unfortunately, Scott and the NCSE have a long history of libeling people in the debate over how evolution should be taught in our public schools; my case is only the most recent example. Hopefully, it won't take any more libel lawsuits to teach them how to stick to the truth."

"Other critics of Darwin's theory have been personally attacked on the basis of misrepresentations in similar cases where the Darwinists claim that the critics' professional statements or qualifications are false," said Caldwell. "The difference between them and me is that I decided to take legal action. Darwinists need to get the message: engage in civil discourse without defamation or prepare to answer in court."

According to Caldwell, there’s also an important lesson for journalists and publishers: “Claims by Darwinists should by carefully investigated before being reported as ‘facts.’”

Meanwhile, Caldwell’s libel lawsuit against Scott and the National Center for Science Education, Inc. continues.

Caldwell is the founder of Quality Science Education for All, a non-profit organization dedicated to securing and defending the right of all students to receive a quality science education that exposes them to the scientific strengths and weaknesses of evolution. Quality Science Education for All is on the web at “www.qsea.org.”

http://qsea.org/_wsn/page3.html

"A civil rights lawsuit we are prosecuting, along with Pacific Justice Institute, against a local California school district in the United States District Court for the Easten District of California, in Sacramento, California.

The goal of this lawsuit is to secure the right of Christian citizens to seek improvement of evolution education in their publc schools, without religious discrimination and viewpoint discrimination, so that citizen proposals to implement "Quality Science Education" in their local public school will be considered on their scientific and educational merits, rather than on the basis of pre-existing prejudices and bias."

What the . . . ? "the right of Christian citizens to seek improvement of evolution education in their public schools"?!?! Is it time to recommend the ego-wounded anti-evolutionists to therapists? Seriously. Their religion does not fit the facts of evolution. Sorry. Get over it and leave it to private worship. Leave the fairy tales outside the public school (science) system.

http://qsea.org/_wsn/page3.html

"A civil rights lawsuit we are prosecuting, along with Pacific Justice Institute, against a local California school district in the United States District Court for the Easten District of California, in Sacramento, California.

The goal of this lawsuit is to secure the right of Christian citizens to seek improvement of evolution education in their publc schools, without religious discrimination and viewpoint discrimination, so that citizen proposals to implement "Quality Science Education" in their local public school will be considered on their scientific and educational merits, rather than on the basis of pre-existing prejudices and bias."

What the . . . ? "the right of Christian citizens to seek improvement of evolution education in their public schools"?!?! Is it time to recommend the ego-wounded anti-evolutionists to therapists? Seriously. Their religion does not fit the facts of evolution. Sorry. Get over it and leave it to private worship. Leave the fairy tales outside the public school (science) system.

I apologize if this is double-posted.

News Release For Immediate Release CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES SETTLES LIBEL CLAIM OVER EVOLUTION ARTICLE Parent's Claim Sparked by False Article by Leading Darwin Advocate Contact: Larry Caldwell June 20, 2005 Phone: 916-774-4667 lcaldwell@qsea.org ROSEVILLE, CA -- The California Academy of Sciences has settled with a California parent, Larry Caldwell, who raised a potential libel claim against the organization over its publication of a false and defamatory article authored by Eugenie C. Scott, Executive Director of the National Center for Science Education, Inc. (NCSE) Scott's article, entitled "In My Backyard: Creationists in California," appeared in the Spring print and online editions of the Academy's California Wild magazine. The article had also been accessible through a link on the NCSE's website. In a lawsuit filed against Scott and the NCSE in April, Caldwell claimed that the Scott article contained numerous factual misstatements and libeled him in an effort by Scott and the NCSE to discredit his efforts to promote his "Quality Science Education" policy, which is designed to include some of the scientific weaknesses of the Darwin's theory of evolution in biology classes. Caldwell's lawsuit did not formally name the California Academy of Sciences as a defendant, although, as the publisher of the Scott article, it was a potential defendant in the suit. In a settlement agreement finalized recently, the California Academy of Sciences has agreed to permanently remove all on-line access to the Scott article. The Academy has also agreed to publish a lengthy letter by Caldwell and a retraction letter by Scott in the upcoming Summer 2005 Edition of Calfornia Wild, which will be available in print and on the internet in early July. Caldwell's letter will correct a number of factual misstatements in the Scott article. Scott's letter will retract several false allegations about Caldwell and his-year long effort to improve science education in the Roseville high school district. For example, Scott had falsely accused Caldwell of purportedly proposing two young earth creation science books to the Roseville Joint Union High School District for potential adoption and use in biology classes--one of which is authored and published by the Jehovah's Witnesses. In her letter to be published in California Wild, Scott now concedes that Caldwell did not submit these books to the school district. Contrary to her article, Scott also now admits that school officials in the Roseville high school district never actually considered those books for adoption anyway. Scott also concedes that her allegation that a science expert had purportedly expressed his opinion that Caldwell had a "gross misunderstanding of science" was false; and Scott will also retract her claim that the Roseville high school board had purportedly passed a resolution "recommending" that "creationist" materials be used in science classes. Said Caldwell, "I am pleased that the California Academy of Sciences and California Wild have shown the professional integrity to remove this libelous article from internet access, and to give me an opportunity to set the record straight on my Quality Science Education Policy" Caldwell added, "It's a shame it took a lawsuit to get Scott, the author of the article, to retract some of the more outrageous factual misstatements in her article. "Unfortunately, Scott and the NCSE have a long history of libeling people in the debate over how evolution should be taught in our public schools; my case is only the most recent example. Hopefully, it won't take any more libel lawsuits to teach them how to stick to the truth." "Other critics of Darwin's theory have been personally attacked on the basis of misrepresentations in similar cases where the Darwinists claim that the critics' professional statements or qualifications are false," said Caldwell. "The difference between them and me is that I decided to take legal action. Darwinists need to get the message: engage in civil discourse without defamation or prepare to answer in court." According to Caldwell, there’s also an important lesson for journalists and publishers: “Claims by Darwinists should by carefully investigated before being reported as ‘facts.’” Meanwhile, Caldwell’s libel lawsuit against Scott and the National Center for Science Education, Inc. continues. Caldwell is the founder of Quality Science Education for All, a non-profit organization dedicated to securing and defending the right of all students to receive a quality science education that exposes them to the scientific strengths and weaknesses of evolution. Quality Science Education for All is on the web at “www.qsea.org.”

"A civil rights lawsuit we are prosecuting, along with Pacific Justice Institute, against a local California school district in the United States District Court for the Easten District of California, in Sacramento, California. The goal of this lawsuit is to secure the right of Christian citizens to seek improvement of evolution education in their publc schools, without religious discrimination and viewpoint discrimination, so that citizen proposals to implement "Quality Science Education" in their local public school will be considered on their scientific and educational merits, rather than on the basis of pre-existing prejudices and bias."

Rev',

Its two comments up. Posted originally on the DI website.

Apparently Mr. Caldwell has moved forward with an idea that he'll somehow be a national figure, a force to reckoned with, in at least the 'teach the controversy' war(s). He vehemently denies promoting ID but relies on Cornelius Hunter as "an expert" on evolution (at least as it regards education) and speaks with some of the definite movers & shakers of the ID world.

In 2004 he spoke along with Calvert, West, Beckwith, and Cooper at Biola on the "Practical and Legal concerns on Teaching ID in Public Schools." During that discussion he referred to his website but things didn't go well for him in Roseville and his website was nowhere to be found. Apparently he saw fit to launch it in Sept. of 2004. Judging from the site it's hard tell if his interests lay in ". . . the right of all students in America to receive . . ." or only in ". . . the right of Christian citizens to seek. . ."

Here's something that has I've noticed lately, and I present it here to see if anyone thinks it has merit:

There's much commentary about the lack of "real science" in ID, and this is variously expressed as "ID is scientifically vacuous", "ID is NOT science", "IDers want recognition as science but won't do the hard work" and so forth.

There's an implicit assumption here that the IDers in question are "bad" or "dishonest" because of this, and I admit that I've shared that opinion.

But it occurs to me that there is a crime called "impersonating a doctor". There's another crime called "impersonating an officer". In my city there was recently a news story about a newly elected pastor who turned out to not have the credentials he said he did, or indeed, any credentials at all. He was beloved and respected by the congregation, but he was essentially "impersonating a clergyman".

Certainly it's true that some people really, really want to do a certain job, but simply cannot master the technical details. They simply lack the ability. But as they look at the public face of the profession in question, it sure LOOKS easy enough. Perhaps it might even be that the individual doesn't want to "do a certain job", but just "be" that professional, i.e., doesn't want to heal people, just wants to "be a doctor" -- doesn't want to catch bad guys, just wants to "be a policeman".

The fact that impersonating doctors and policemen happens frequently enough to be made a crime makes me wonder: Could this be a specific psychological disorder? Some subset of "delusional disorder", perhaps? I suspect that if one looked, one could find lots of "impersonators"; it's just that not all impersonations are illegal.

Could your average ID proponent be said to be "impersonating a scientist"? After all, he has some books, and some polysyllabic phrases, and possibly a white coat as well. He sure LOOKS like a scientist to those who only just look.

Mind you, I'm not looking to excuse ID proponents, but I've had a lot of trouble lately trying to imagine "What the heck are they THINKING?"

Could your average ID proponent be said to be "impersonating a scientist"? After all, he has some books, and some polysyllabic phrases, and possibly a white coat as well. He sure LOOKS like a scientist to those who only just look.

17) The argument against fancy words.
1. Intelligent Design Theorists use really big words.
2. If they are using big words, then they are just trying to sound smart.
3. But if they are trying to sound smart, they really aren't smart.
4. Therefore evolution is true.

1 Overton gave a decent list of requirements to be a science.
2 ID meets 0 of the 5 requirements
3 ID isn't science

1 If Charlie Wagner is a leader of the field, the field's not science
2 Charlie Wagner is a leader of ID
3 ID isn't a scientific field

1 When religion and science disagree, science wins
2 ID is religion
3 evolution wins

1 Scientific theories are replaced by other theories, not ignorance
2 ID tries to replace the age of the earth, evolution, radionucleotide dating, paleontology, etc, with ignorance
3 ID will not replace evolution

1 The world is slowly becoming less religious
2 ID is a crank religious belief
3 ID will slowly lose support

1 Federa judges are members of the "educated, intelligent" sector
2 Probably no such judge will be fooled into thinking ID is science
3 ID will eventually be prohibited as creationism.

1 IDers whine about an oppressive scientific conspiracy
2 Like all cranks do
3 Line three contains no info.

Listening to IDists:

1) Yawn
2) Yawn
3) Yawn
4) Zzzzzzz

IDists best argument:

1) Walks like a duck
2) Must be a duck
3) er....
4) thats it.

Theory of ID:

1) you
2) must
3) be
4) joking

ad infinitum.

Could your average ID proponent be said to be "impersonating a scientist"? After all, he has some books, and some polysyllabic phrases, and possibly a white coat as well. He sure LOOKS like a scientist to those who only just look.

Yes but that's the way they are with religion too. They've stolen this religion from a previous culture and they don't understand the basics of it (the bits which enable it to make sense within that culture!). Yet they want to pretend to be doing it somehow. So they put on this superficial act of piety and try out the big theological words and concepts (like they do the scientific ones) but can't put them together coherently and make the most laughable blunders. They would simply be clowns (like those children in the attic) if it weren't for the fact that they've been given guns, money and power and the opportunity to abuse them.

Unfortunately we are rather in the position of police negotiators trying to talk down mostly illiterate, psychopathic children or drug addicts. The only thing predictable about their responses is that those will be about the most stupid or dangerous ones you could imagine. They'd press the trigger in a fit of pique or a momentary slip and only some of them would even be sorry (or claim to be) afterwards.

The talkorigins post of the month for May was interesting. I didn't know that land vertebrates (and most modern fish as well) were descended from fresh water fish.

Henry

Oh, are we supposed to post numbered lists of statements to explain why we hold whatever position? Okay, I'll try that.

1) Plenty of later species are like slightly modified copies of some one earlier species, enough to make it seem likely that the pattern holds also for those species for which fossils of predecessors haven't been identified.

2) Plenty of taxonomic groups seem to be modified copies of some one (or a few) earlier species, again enough to make it seem likely the pattern holds for those without fossil record. (When the group has more than one predecessor, the group can be split up into non-overlapping subsets each of which does have one predecessor.)

3) Successor species are generally within geographic reach of the predecessor.

4) Amount of genetic difference between species generally correlates fairly well with time since last common predecessor of those species.

5) Different species normally don't share internal details with each other outside of those possessed by most of those common to the taxonomic group containing those species. (Those common across the group are presumed to have been present in the common predecessor.)

6) Descent with change directly implies statements 1 through 5.

7) While ID is consistent with 1-5, it's also consistent with their negations, so it cannot be taken to imply them.

8) The simplest interpretation of deliberate engineering of life (traditionally referred to as "intelligent design" or ID) is inconsistent with 1-5; reconcilling it with those statements requires adding the assumption that the engineer(s) used descent with change as the primary (perhaps only) method. (Or alternatively that the engineer(s) deliberately simulated it to enough precision to fool us so far.)

9) If "intelligence" is defined as simply an ability to solve problems and remember earlier solutions, then under evolution by natural selection the gene pool of the evolving species would meet the definition of "intelligent designer", which means that the term "ID" could be taken to mean the opposite of what ID advocates seem to mean by it. Which means they really need to define their terms more precisely.

10) AFAIK the advocates of ID have yet to use the concept to explain a particular pattern in nature, which is pretty much the first thing that's expected of a proposed hypothesis in science.

Henry

New, breaking news from the DI....

Check it out here.

I just wish the reference list was included to see if they were trying the same old tricks of saying that such and such paper disagrees with evolution, when in reality it is only a disagreement on a specific evolutionary pathway or something like that. Of course, I don't know of ANY actual scientific arguments against evolution, so I definitely smell a rat.

Personaly I still think the Universe is more likely to have been "created" than to have occured through only naturalistic methods.

Personaly I still think the Universe is more likely to have been "created" than to have occured through only naturalistic methods.

Two lungfish swim into a bar...

Two lungfish swim into a bar . . .

Interesting. Go here, to "Wittingshire," an ID-friendly website:
http://wittingshire.blogspot.com/

Scroll down to a post titled "Straight talk." Doesn't that describe very well what is the problem with intelligent design bluster?

"We get different types of dogs and different types of cats, but you have never seen a 'dat,' " he said.

We wish [Buttars] would get the name right and not propose something he doesn't understand.

— John West

Like I've said, it's delicious schadenfreude, to watch the rubes come along and give away the DI's game.

"Sen. Chris Buttars, R-West Jordan, plans to lead the fight for instruction of divine design in Utah public schools. He wants to defuse some of the expected controversy by avoiding the term "creationism" altogether.
Instead, he favors "divine design," sometimes called "intelligent design," which "doesn't preach religion," he said. "The only people who will be upset about this are atheists."

Why? In other words the only people who will not be upset are people who believe in God? Oh, I think just about every biologist will be upset.

Perhaps Sen. Chris Buttars just needs to be educated. How many books could we send him?

If anyone in the Raleigh/RTP area needs to hire a young engineer with a physics degree, please send an email to my given address. I'm interested in a variety of areas of EE, and have just graduated.

Posted by Flint on June 23, 2005 02:41 PM (e) (s) Personaly I still think the Universe is more likely to have been "created" than to have occured through only naturalistic methods. I wasn't aware that our collection of "naturalistic methods" included one for making universes. Some day, maybe we'll actually come to understand the mechanism involved. Whether we call that mechanism "naturalistic" seems arbitrary to me. For all I know, universes are created by a certain class of gods, and the mechanism for making THEM can be understood. Whether we call THAT method "naturalistic" seems to stretch the concept past the breaking point.

If anyone in the Raleigh/RTP area needs to hire a young engineer with a physics degree, please send an email to my given address. I'm interested in a variety of areas of EE, and have just graduated.

Soooo with reference to the post that implies science is always right and religion is always wrong when the two clash.

Thanks, Paul. it was an odyssey. I've never done anything as hard as get that degree. I intend to put it to practical use now. I know there are some lurkers here from Raleigh/Cary/Chapel Hill, so I wanted to put out the For Hire sign.

It is startling that those in the media and academia appear most disturbed by this aberrant behavior, since they have zealously promoted moral relativism by sanctioning "private" moral matters such as alternative lifestyles. Priests, like all of us, are affected by culture. When the culture is sick, every element in it becomes infected. While it is no excuse for this scandal, it is no surprise that Boston, a seat of academic, political and cultural liberalism in America, lies at the center of the storm.

Numbers game? I'm pointing out a new phenomenon: scientists of the highest caliber in the highest echelon starting to take seriously the possibility that evolution (i.e., chemical evolution/origin of life as well as macroevolution) are bankrupt and ID will soon be mainstreamed. That is a new development. If you disagree, point me to a young-earth creationist in the past few decades who was a Nobel laureate in a discipline appropriate for assessing the claims of evolutionary theory --- I don't know any. The two scientists I met with yesterday are indeed in the relevant scientific disciplines. I expect within the next twelve months we'll have a conference in which they will come out in the open with their views (the wheels are already in motion for such a conference).

Yeah. Instead of talking about ID having "a chance", why doesn't he just describe an observed pattern in nature that's quite likely if some form of I.D. is accurate, but quite unlikely if evolution works as described?

Henry

9:26am mt

Wow, conservative George Will, writing in Newsweek, comes down against ID.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/8358264/site/newsweek/

To all of you wondering what ID will do if the court cases go against it, well here it is straight from the horse's mouth (so to speak).

They'll just call it something else and keep truckin' that Creationist line!

why doesn't he just describe an observed pattern in nature that's quite likely if some form of I.D. is accurate, but quite unlikely if evolution works as described?

— Henry J

why doesn't he just describe an observed pattern in nature that's quite likely if some form of I.D. is accurate but quite unlikely if evolution works as described?

I therefore offer the following proposal if ID gets outlawed from our public schools: retitle it Intelligent Evolution (IE).

Dembski, at his blog "Uncommon Descent," says he had lunch with a Nobel laureate...

— Ed Darrell

Bill, is this seriously going to happen. Did two scientists really assess evolution as bankrupt? Comment by Benjii --- June 27, 2005 @ 9:15 am Benjii: I don't bluff. I don't take prisoners. --WmAD Comment by William Dembski --- June 27, 2005 @ 11:02 am

many tax protesters therefore believe that, if the courts do not agree with them, it is only because they have not yet used the right words to explain their positions. So, after a particular argument loses for the twentieth or thirtieth time, one of the less dim bulbs in the tax protester community comes up with a new "formula" with different words, that they then proclaim to be the "real thing."

My experiences with tax protesters lead me to believe that their motivations are ultimately emotional or psychological, and not financial, and that they do not really care whether or not they are presenting any legitimate arguments to the courts...The symptoms identified as evidence of Schiff's mental disease are the same symptoms exhibited by many tax protesters, namely an obsession with the tax laws, an irrational belief in the correctness of their own position despite all evidence to the contrary, and a willingness to go to prison or financial ruin rather than cooperate with the tax system.

D(e/u)mbski: I therefore offer the following proposal if ID gets outlawed from our public schools: retitle it Intelligent Evolution (IE).

Calling it Intelligent Evolution might be another baby step towards believing evolution. It seems they are getting around to it, it's just taking them a really long time. A hundred years ago they said evolution was all wrong. All changes were superficial and meaningless. A few years ago, they gave in on some evolution. They said they now believed 'micro' evolution, but not 'macro'. Behe now says he's willing to believe evolution all the way back to single-celled organisms. Dembski said ID could accomodate whatever evolutionary science found. It's taken them 140 years, but they've made some progress. Who knows. In another 40 years or so, they might understand the whole thing.

Duembsi said: I don't take prisoners.

This is a pretty sweet Loom post:

http://www.corante.com/loom/archives/2005/06/28/lucky_octopi.php

Just out of the blue, I would guess the Nobel Laureate is Richard Smalley. Smalley's gone around saying some nutty religious things lately.

— steve

Yeah, now that you point that out, I think it looks pretty likely.

From Dembskis blog: I therefore offer the following proposal if ID gets outlawed from our public schools: retitle it Intelligent Evolution (IE).

I therefore offer the following proposal if ID gets outlawed from our public schools: retitle it Intelligent Evolution (IE).

Ohhh Yah!!! Let's see the YEC's wrap their brain around that piece of blindingly insane doublethink. Hey iDIot savants, how long do you think your big tent will last when you keep asking the rank and file to bend ever farther from the "special creation" tenet of their favorite book?

So if they change the name to IE, will we be treated to Bill Duembski announcing that IE will be our Waterloo? Our Latakia? Our Midway?

Or will the IE 'theorists' be from a whole new generation. If so, what PhD's will these guys have? Electrical Engineering? Particle Physics?

Dembski is either (1) seriously deluded or (2) not terribly bright..

Astrophysicists are anxiously awaiting a federal court decision on a lawsuit that threatens a planned gamma ray telescope near Kitt Peak in Arizona. The Tohono O'odham tribe brought suit against the scope this spring, arguing that the deity they believe created the world resides near where the array is to have been built. The NSF, which is funding the $13.1 million project with the DoE, has already spent $1 million at the site. Construction was halted after the lawsuit was filed...

In other news, the Steve Story tribe announced that its deity resides "somewhere on Fifth Avenue" in New York City, and it would like the land turned over pronto.

Calling it Intelligent Evolution might be another baby step towards believing evolution. It seems they are getting around to it, it's just taking them a really long time. A hundred years ago they said evolution was all wrong. All changes were superficial and meaningless. A few years ago, they gave in on some evolution. They said they now believed 'micro' evolution, but not 'macro'. Behe now says he's willing to believe evolution all the way back to single-celled organisms. Dembski said ID could accomodate whatever evolutionary science found. It's taken them 140 years, but they've made some progress. Who knows. In another 40 years or so, they might understand the whole thing.

That was one of JAD's lines.

The Tohono O'odham are genetically related to the Pima. When Father Kino explored the area in the late 1500's the area was known at the kingdom of Pimera. It has since changed hands. The whole Baboquivari mountain range is sacred to the Tohono O'odham tribe. If I remember correctly, their diety lives 13 miles south of Kitt peak on Baboquivari peak.

The Tohono O'odham are genetically related to the Pima. 

Also a lovely example of cultural insensitivity from someone interested in organismal relationships.

Re "our Waterloo? Our Latakia? Our Midway? "

You forgot the Alamo. ;)

Henry

Hehe thanks, yes, it could also be our Alamo.

I'm thinking ID is more like the Creationists' Vietnam.

"Indeed, to say that rejecting naturalism entails accepting supernaturalism holds only if nature is defined as a closed system of material entities ruled by unbroken laws of material interaction. But this definition of nature begs the question. Nature is what nature is and not what we define it to be. To see this, consider the following riddle: How many legs does a dog have if one calls a tail a leg? The correct answer is four. Calling one thing another thing doesn't make it something else."

"Indeed, to say that rejecting naturalism entails accepting supernaturalism holds only if nature is defined as a closed system of material entities ruled by unbroken laws of material interaction. But this definition of nature begs the question. Nature is what nature is and not what we define it to be. To see this, consider the following riddle: How many legs does a dog have if one calls a tail a leg? The correct answer is four. Calling one thing another thing doesn't make it something else."

Re: telescope at Kitt's Peak: I vaguely recall a similar story from several years ago dealing with a telescope in AZ (?) to which some members of an Apache tribe objected. Some kind of compromise was worked out, in part because the scientists were willing to give guided tours to interested tribal members, and the site was moved from right at the tippy-top of the butte, which was sacred, to a downslope location from which visibility was still excellent.

I'm no scientist, or even well versed in these issues but, after reading the rebuttals (and researching the issues) to all of Dembski's points, I have come to the conclusion that Dembski is a moron. Grasping at an ever decreasing number of straws.

Props for exposing these idiots.

test

Dembski's piece is destined for the Oxford Handbook on Religion? Sez who?

Sez him

Hi can someone tell me if this timeline and story are true. I know for a fact alot of them are but wanted to get some outside opinoins on some of the ones I did not know for sure about. My brother died of AIDS and I am infected with Hepatitis C and I am sure now that it was done on purpose and its not just my family that was murdered but alot of innoccent families accross our great country.
Thanks for any help in helping me find the truth.

1931 Dr. Cornelius Rhoads, under the auspices of the Rockefeller Institute

for Medical Investigations, infects human subjects with cancer cells. He

later goes on to establish the U.S. Army Biological Warfare facilities in

Maryland, Utah, and Panama, and is named to the U.S. Atomic Energy

Commission. While there, he begins a series of radiation exposure

experiments on American soldiers and civilian hospital patients.

1932 The Tuskegee Syphilis Study begins. 200 black men diagnosed with

syphilis are never told of their illness, are denied treatment, and instead

are used as human guinea pigs in order to follow the progression and

symptoms of the disease. They all subsequently die from syphilis, their

families never told that they could have been treated.

1935 The Pellagra Incident. After millions of individuals die from Pellagra

over a span of two decades, the U.S. Public Health Service finally acts to

stem the disease. The director of the agency admits it had known for at

least 20 years that Pellagra is caused by a niacin deficiency but failed to

act since most of the deaths occured within poverty-striken black

populations.

1940 Four hundred prisoners in Chicago are infected with Malaria in order

to study the effects of new and experimental drugs to combat the disease.

Nazi doctors later on trial at Nuremberg cite this American study to defend

their own actions during the Holocaust.

1942 Chemical Warfare Services begins mustard gas experiments on

approximately 4,000 servicemen. The experiments continue until 1945 and made

use of Seventh Day Adventists who chose to become human guinea pigs rather

than serve on active duty.

1943 In response to Japan's full-scale germ warfare program, the U.S.

begins research on biological weapons at Fort Detrick, MD.

1944 U.S. Navy uses human subjects to test gas masks and clothing.

Individuals were locked in a gas chamber and exposed to mustard gas and

lewisite.

1945 Project Paperclip is initiated. The U.S. State Department, Army

intelligence, and the CIA recruit Nazi scientists and offer them immunity

and secret identities in exchange for work on top secret government projects

in the United States.

1945 "Program F" is implemented by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC).

This is the most extensive U.S. study of the health effects of fluoride,

which was the key chemical component in atomic bomb production. One of the

most toxic chemicals known to man, fluoride, it is found, causes marked

adverse effects to the central nervous system but much of the information is

squelched in the name of national security because of fear that lawsuits

would undermine full-scale production of atomic bombs.

1946 Patients in VA hospitals are used as guinea pigs for medical

experiments. In order to allay suspicions, the order is given to change the

word "experiments" to "investigations" or "observations" whenever reporting

a medical study performed in one of the nation's veteran's hospitals.

1947 Colonel E.E. Kirkpatrick of the U.S. Atomic Energy Comission issues a

secret document (Document 07075001, January 8, 1947) stating that the agency

will begin administering intravenous doses of radioactive substances to

human subjects.

1947 The CIA begins its study of LSD as a potential weapon for use by

American intelligence. Human subjects (both civilian and military) are used

with and without their knowledge.

1950 Department of Defense begins plans to detonate nuclear weapons in

desert areas and monitor downwind residents for medical problems and

mortality rates.

1950 In an experiment to determine how susceptible an American city would be

to biological attack, the U.S. Navy sprays a cloud of bacteria from ships

over San Franciso. Monitoring devices are situated throughout the city in

order to test the extent of infection. Many residents become ill with

pneumonia-like symptoms.

1951 Department of Defense begins open air tests using disease-producing

bacteria and viruses. Tests last through 1969 and there is concern that

people in the surrounding areas have been exposed.

1953 U.S. military releases clouds of zinc cadmium sulfide gas over

Winnipeg, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Fort Wayne, the Monocacy River Valley in

Maryland, and Leesburg, Virginia. Their intent is to determine how

efficiently they could disperse chemical agents.

1953 Joint Army-Navy-CIA experiments are conducted in which tens of

thousands of people in New York and San Francisco are exposed to the

airborne germs Serratia marcescens and Bacillus glogigii.

1953 CIA initiates Project MKULTRA. This is an eleven year research program

designed to produce and test drugs and biological agents that would be used

for mind control and behavior modification. Six of the subprojects involved

testing the agents on unwitting human beings.

1955 The CIA, in an experiment to test its ability to infect human

populations with biological agents, releases a bacteria withdrawn from the

Army's biological warfare arsenal over Tampa Bay, Fl.

1955 Army Chemical Corps continues LSD research, studying its potential use

as a chemical incapacitating agent. More than 1,000 Americans participate in

the tests, which continue until 1958.

1956 U.S. military releases mosquitoes infected with Yellow Fever over

Savannah, Ga and Avon Park, Fl. Following each test, Army agents posing as

public health officials test victims for effects.

1958 LSD is tested on 95 volunteers at the Army's Chemical Warfare

Laboratories for its effect on intelligence.

1960 The Army Assistant Chief-of-Staff for Intelligence (ACSI) authorizes

field testing of LSD in Europe and the Far East. Testing of the european

population is code named Project THIRD CHANCE; testing of the Asian

population is code named Project DERBY HAT.

1965 Project CIA and Department of Defense begin Project MKSEARCH, a

program to develop a capability to manipulate human behavior through the use

of mind-altering drugs.

1965 Prisoners at the Holmesburg State Prison in Philadelphia are subjected

to dioxin, the highly toxic chemical component of Agent Orange used in Viet

Nam. The men are later studied for development of cancer, which indicates

that Agent Orange had been a suspected carcinogen all along.

1966 CIA initiates Project MKOFTEN, a program to test the toxicological

effects of certain drugs on humans and animals.

1966 U.S. Army dispenses Bacillus subtilis variant niger throughout the New

York City subway system. More than a million civilians are exposed when army

scientists drop lightbulbs filled with the bacteria onto ventilation grates.

1967 CIA and Department of Defense implement Project MKNAOMI, successor to

MKULTRA and designed to maintain, stockpile and test biological and chemical

weapons.

1968 CIA experiments with the possibility of poisoning drinking water by

injecting chemicals into the water supply of the FDA in Washington, D.C.

1969 Dr. Robert MacMahan of the Department of Defense requests from

congress $10 million to develop, within 5 to 10 years, a synthetic

biological agent to which no natural immunity exists.

1970 Funding for the synthetic biological agent is obtained under H.R.

15090. The project, under the supervision of the CIA, is carried out by the

Special Operations Division at Fort Detrick, the army's top secret

biological weapons facility. Speculation is raised that molecular biology

techniques are used to produce AIDS-like retroviruses.

1970 United States intensifies its development of "ethnic weapons"

(Military Review, Nov., 1970), designed to selectively target and eliminate

specific ethnic groups who are susceptible due to genetic differences and

variations in DNA.

1975 The virus section of Fort Detrick's Center for Biological Warfare

Research is renamed the Fredrick Cancer Research Facilities and placed under

the supervision of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) . It is here that a

special virus cancer program is initiated by the U.S. Navy, purportedly to

develop cancer-causing viruses. It is also here that retrovirologists

isolate a virus to which no immunity exists. It is later named HTLV (Human

T-cell Leukemia Virus).

1977 Senate hearings on Health and Scientific Research confirm that 239

populated areas had been contaminated with biological agents between 1949

and 1969. Some of the areas included San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Key

West, Panama City, Minneapolis, and St. Louis.

1978 Experimental Hepatitis B vaccine trials, conducted by the CDC, begin

in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Ads for research subjects

specifically ask for promiscuous homosexual men.

1981 First cases of AIDS are confirmed in homosexual men in New York, Los

Angeles and San Francisco, triggering speculation that AIDS may have been

introduced via the Hepatitis B vaccine

1985 According to the journal Science (227:173-177), HTLV and VISNA, a

fatal sheep virus, are very similar, indicating a close taxonomic and

evolutionary relationship.

1986 According to the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

(83:4007-4011), HIV and VISNA are highly similar and share all structural

elements, except for a small segment which is nearly identical to HTLV. This

leads to speculation that HTLV and VISNA may have been linked to produce a

new retrovirus to which no natural immunity exists.

1986 A report to Congress reveals that the U.S. Government's current

generation of biological agents includes: modified viruses, naturally

occurring toxins, and agents that are altered through genetic engineering to

change immunological character and prevent treatment by all existing

vaccines.

1987 Department of Defense admits that, despite a treaty banning research

and development of biological agents, it continues to operate research

facilities at 127 facilities and universities around the nation.

1990 More than 1500 six-month old black and hispanic babies in Los Angeles

are given an "experimental" measles vaccine that had never been licensed for

use in the United States. CDC later admits that parents were never informed

that the vaccine being injected to their children was experimental.

1994 With a technique called "gene tracking," Dr. Garth Nicolson at the MD

Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, TX discovers that many returning Desert

Storm veterans are infected with an altered strain of Mycoplasma incognitus,

a microbe commonly used in the production of biological weapons.

Incorporated into its molecular structure is 40 percent of the HIV protein

coat, indicating that it had been man-made.

1994 Senator John D. Rockefeller issues a report revealing that for at

least 50 years the Department of Defense has used hundreds of thousands of

military personnel in human experiments and for intentional exposure to

dangerous substances. Materials included mustard and nerve gas, ionizing

radiation, psychochemicals, hallucinogens, and drugs used during the Gulf

War .

1995 U.S. Government admits that it had offered Japanese war criminals and

scientists who had performed human medical experiments, salaries and

immunity from prosecution in exchange for data on biological warfare

research.

1995 Dr. Garth Nicolson, uncovers evidence that the biological agents used

during the Gulf War had been manufactured in Houston, TX and Boca Raton, Fl

and tested on prisoners in the Texas Department of Corrections.

1996 Department of Defense admits that Desert Storm soldiers were exposed

to chemical agents.

1997 Eighty-eight members of Congress sign a letter demanding an

investigation into bioweapons use & Gulf War Syndrome.

http://bsnorrell.tripod.com/id33.html

I came here to post a question. But now I'm reluctant. Because of James's comment above. It's 3-star Michelin-rated troll food. I don't think people here will be able to resist Fisking it, and my question will get lost. But I'll ask it anyway:

We all know 'theory' in the vernacular is not the same as it is in the science jargon. I've been through philosophy of science, I understand the Demarcation Problem between science and pseudoscience, but can someone submit the best available definition of theory, as it is used in the science sense?

Quite apart from any trolls, you're likely to get people quibbling over the best wording when asking for a best definition! I'll offer a definition though:

A scientific theory is the best explanation for the available facts/evidence.

That's rather bland though and some notes are needed for the hard of thinking:

* It has to actually do some explaining not just say so, eg answer "how" type questions.

* It has to include all relevant evidence and not arbitrarily exclude bits which already discredit it (until such time as new data does come along and a better theory or version of the theory is formulated!) but it doesn't have to step into an entirely different area of science.

* It has to make predictions which come true (though those can include where to find evidence and what that evidence will look like rather than being futuristic predictions).

* Such predictions have to allow the possibility that the theory will be discredited by further evidence which doesn't fit - and not just because a particular predicting person was incompetent.

All of these sub-points are why evolution is a good scientific theory and ID/creationism is religious nonsense.

Guillermo Gonzalez issues a plea for other scientists to defend him and his scientific integrity from charges that "Privileged Planet" is not solid science. Go see:
http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/index.php?command=view&id=2699&program=CSC&callingPage=discoMainPage

Perhaps Dr. Gonzalez can lead the way: I challenge Dr. Gonzalez to defend Bernard Kettlewell and other moth scientists from attacks by Dr. Jonathan Wells. Unscrupulous attacks on science and scientists should be defended against by good scientists everywhere.

Dr. Gonzalez: Will you respond to the call?

Theory: In science, a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that can incorporate facts, laws, inferences, and tested hypotheses. The contention that evolution should be taught as a "theory, not as a fact" confuses the common use of these words with the scientific use. In science, theories do not turn into facts through the accumulation of evidence. Rather, theories are the end points of science. They are understandings that develop from extensive observation, experimentation, and creative reflection. They incorporate a large body of scientific facts, laws, tested hypotheses, and logical inferences. In this sense, evolution is one of the strongest and most useful scientific theories we have.

I challenge Guillermo Gonzalez to defend his coauthor's views on why Einstein was confused about special relativity. Defend that 'solid science'.

It's quiet here...too quiet.

You mean like this?

— In Comment 36649 Russell

Smalley mentioned the ideas of evolution versus creationism, Darwin versus the Bible's "Genesis." The burden of proof, he said, is on those who don't believe that "'Genesis' was right, and there was a creation, and that Creator is still involved.

EBI researchers have changed our view of 4 billion years of microbial evolution. Christos Ouzounis and colleagues have gained intriguing quantitative insights into how gene families are transferred, not only 'vertically' through passage from one organism to its progeny, but also 'horizontally' through the exchange of genetic material between distantly related organisms.

"Theory" also has a technical meaning that is a bit more precise than the usual textbook characterizations.

In this usage, a theory is a set of propositions closed under the entailment relation. This is how it is used in mathematics and various branches of the more advanced sciences.

A hypothesis is actually what most people mean by theory. This is a single proposition about the world that meets various desirata (of which we can discuss elsewhere).

Like the tree thing wasn't confusing enough by itself???? Ack!

Was PT down for a few hours yesterday evening? For a few hours (between 5 and 10 mt) I couldn't get it to load (other pages worked).

Russell,
Re "I say: get used to it!"

Nah, I'll just let the virologists deal with that stuff. :)

But it is interesting that virus dna insertions in germ lines have "created" some of the evidence for evolution.

Henry

Charles Krauthammer, The Washington Post Whether he personally believes in evolution: "Of course." What he thinks of intelligent design: "At most, interesting." Whether intelligent design should be taught in public schools: "The idea that [intelligent design] should be taught as a competing theory to evolution is ridiculous. ... The entire structure of modern biology, and every branch of it [is] built around evolution and to teach anything but evolution would be a tremendous disservice to scientific education. If you wanna have one lecture at the end of your year on evolutionary biology, on intelligent design as a way to understand evolution, that's fine. But the idea that there are these two competing scientific schools is ridiculous."

Folk here might be interested in an editorial in the New York Times setting out official Roman Catholic theology on evolution:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/07/opinion/07schonborn.html

Finding Design in Nature

"Evolution in the sense of common ancestry might be true, but evolution in the neo-Darwinian sense - an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection - is not. Any system of thought that denies or seeks to explain away the overwhelming evidence for design in biology is ideology, not science."

This is a pretty authoritative statement by the archbishop of Vienna, who also edited the RC catechism. It seems to me a deliberate step back from what Pope John-Paul II was saying.

Lesz, it is not a step back at all. Schonborn makes some poor choice of words which can lead to confusion. (His agressiveness at times doesn't help.)

He is only arguing that the Catholic Church are theistic evolutionists and not atheistic evolutionists. I have no idea why he thought that this needed clarification.

This recent article from the Cincinnati Archdiocese is much clearer: http://www.catholiccincinnati.org/tct/july0805/070805creationism.html.

My focus with evolution tends to be on the molecular side, so with regard to human origins, I'm still sorting out what I believe. I do know, however, what I don't believe, that is, I don't believe that humans evolved from ape-like ancestors by a gradual process of descent with modification. Thus I don't see human consciousness and language ability gradually emerging as an ape-like ancestor gradually becomes more and more human. Thus I see these features of our humanity as well as the physical endowments needed for these features as emerging suddenly.

— William Dembski

So, he "doesn't believe..." and he "doesn't see..."? Well, I don't see (or believe) how either of those counts as a counter argument to common ancestry. ;)

Besides, haven't experiments shown that chimps and gorillas can learn some degree of language skills? They can't talk as we do due to anatomical differences, so I don't see any easy way to judging the mental differences.

Henry

Let's run with the ID idea that we were "intelligently designed". Would someone please tell me why The Designer (TM) did such a poor job? Is The Designer (TM) still considered intelligent?

(I sound like Lenny asking the same question ;))

Seriously, the next question one would ask is, "Who created The Designer?" Space monkeys? God(s)?

Imagine not having ANY physical evidence for evolution. The idea of ID is still inadequate.

Dembski defends his concept of specified complexity from the challenge of evolutionary computation by asserting that what results from evolutionary computation (and all other algorithmic processes) is at best apparent specified complexity, not actual specified complexity[18].

No checks here.

Jon A. Pastor Wrote: If the observer's contextual knowledge can cause the same physical phenomena to be interpreted as either CSI or not, CSI would appear to be a pretty useless criterion for detecting design

tomato/fish tautology

Only sanity checks.

Question for the IDers here:

1 you say that CSI is essential to the determination of design

2 you say that a watch laying in some grass is detectably designed

Q: How much CSI is in the watch, how much in the grass, and what's the rule which allows the conclusion about the watch?

Question for the IDers here:

1 you say that CSI is essential to the determination of design

2 you say that a watch laying in some grass is detectably designed

Q: How much CSI is in the watch, how much in the grass, and what's the rule which allows the conclusion about the watch?

No checks here.

Question for the IDers here:

1 you say that CSI is essential to the determination of design

2 you say that a watch laying in some grass is detectably designed

Q: How much CSI is in the watch, how much in the grass, and what's the rule which allows the conclusion about the watch?

Re Darwin and the Argument from Ignorance

Darwin anticipated the argument from ignorance, but even he could not foresee the argument from IDioC

For lack of a better place to put this, I'll try the bathroom wall. This is a question about teaching deep time at the intro college level.

I teach geology and have a fairly standard "disclaimer" when I start geologic time. It goes something like this: Given US population statistics, some of you are probably people who belive that the world was created about 6000 years ago. Because this is not philosophy class, we will not spend class time comparing various religious and scientific views. Feel free to take comparative religion or some such if you want to discuss those issues. I am perfectly happy to have you continue in your religious beliefs: however, this is a science class, and we will be discussing what _physical_ evidence from the _physical_ world tells us. You do not need to "agree" with this, but you must be able to explain to me how geological dating works, what the evidence for deep time is, and how scientists use different dating techniques.

I overheard a student during lab for this topic say something about how scientists probably can't be Christians if they think this way. This makes me think my intro is somehow leading some students to conclude that evolution and religion are "opposites" in some way, whereas all I'm trying to do is say up front that I'm not going to make them deny their religion (however irrational), but I'm not going to give them air time for creationism either.

I think what I'd like to do is expand my preamble a little, to include a brief description of the religions and sects which do not deny evolution. I'm aware that the official position of the Catholic church is that they're fine with evolution, but don't really know much else. Does anyone have suggestions for places to find a list of which religions say what about evolution? I'd particularly like to do this because this quarter I have a lot of students from other religious backgrounds: animist, eastern orthodox, muslim, LDS, etc.

On the other hand, would I just be opening up a bigger can of worms by bringing up religion more than necessary?

What about plaids?

Coincidence? Satanic plot? Subtle protest?

Harry Potter retailers wage dark war...

Wal-Mart is offering the book for US$16.66 (euro13.66) and discount warehouse club Costco put a US$15.99 (euro13.11) price tag on the book.

My problem is that I don't see how it is possible. I am not satisfied that the mechanisms of Darwinism can pull it off. It appears to me that the weight of the evidence points to Intelligent Evolution. Otherwise known as "IE".

— Jon Crowell

In Dembski's latest paper prepared for The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Science, and posted last night he states: "Indeed, to say that rejecting naturalism entails accepting supernaturalism holds only if nature is defined as a closed system of material entities ruled by unbroken laws of material interaction. But this definition of nature begs the question. Nature is what nature is and not what we define it to be. To see this, consider the following riddle: How many legs does a dog have if one calls a tail a leg? The correct answer is four. Calling one thing another thing doesn't make it something else."

Is Dembski retarded?

geogeek,

I don't teach science, but that's not how I would approach it if I did. I'd worry that your expanded preamble might seem to suggest that some religions (the science-compatible ones) are 'better.' I'm guessing you teach at a university, not a public high school, so there may be no constitutional issue, but I still think it would be a bad and counterproductive idea.

I would try to approach the issue without any direct mention of religion at all.

I don't think the fundamental value of science is explanatory power. After all, scientific explanations are always limited and uncertain to some degree, whereas anything can be perfectly explained by arguing that a sufficiently powerful deity made it so. (I wouldn't actually raise this point in class, though.)

The real value of science is accurate prediction.

For example, we observe in a controlled setting that element X always decays to form element Y, and always by a certain process at a certain rate. We observe something similar for element W decaying into element Z, although the rate and maybe the process are different. We hypothesize that this is always true, even in uncontrolled settings.

From this, we predict that the ratios of X:Y and W:Z in some rock should depend on the age of the rock, and that the ages estimated from each ratio should be consistent with one another. We measure the ratios in many rock samples and find that our prediction is true. That is why we "believe" that the age of the rock has been accurately determined.

Science allows us to take what we know and predict what we will observe in the future. Good hypotheses give consistently correct predictions and become theories. Bad hypotheses give incorrect predictions and get revised or discarded. Thus science is pragmatic. It says "these ideas give consistently accurate predictions of the world around us."

Does that mean that science is True in some religious/metaphysical sense? That's completely outside the scope of science, and isn't something I would discuss in science class. Not even in the tangential sense of discussing religions that are compatible with accepted geology.

So I would suggest you tell your students that geology, like all sciences, is based on a pragmatic method that makes objectively accurate predictions about the world around us, and you expect them to approach it and understand it from that perspective.

All IMHO, of course. Also, please excuse anything stupid in my decay example. I'm a biologist, not a geologist, so I hope my point is clear, even if my example sucks.

qetzal, that's one of the best explications of the nature and value of science I've ever seen -- certainly the best I've seen at this site, which is surprising, as it points the way to how best, I think, to champion science in the public arena.

"This makes me think my intro is somehow leading some students to conclude that evolution and religion are "opposites" in some way . . ."

If a religion states that the world is "6,000 years old", for example, I would say that places it at odds, to say the least, of science.

Quite simply say, the Sun used to orbit the Earth. Not true. The Earth, in some cultures, used to be 6,000 years old. Not true. No more pussy-footing around facts to spare ones feelings for Christ's sake.

Religion and rational thought are opposites.

Most opposites aren't.

Heat and cold (lack of heat)
Light and dark (lack of light) etc

Religion (Lack of rational thought)

Oh, I see.

In wandering around old topics from the last year, I come across Phil Johnson's HIV=AIDS denial claptrap quite often and it got me to wondering: would Phil Johnson be willing to have live, full strength strains of HIV virus injected into himself in order to demonstrate that HIV does not cause AIDS? It might go a long way toward proving that he is right. But then scientific testing of hypothesis is not really Johnson's way, is it?
Paul

Poaching making China elephants evolve tuskless

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsarticle.aspx?type=scienceNews&storyid=2005-07-17T030544Z_01_N16192796_RTRIDST_0_SCIENCE-ENVIRONMENT-CHINA-ELEPHANTS-DC.XML

of coarse they, creationist, would say this is only a loss of information.

Some people will misinterpret this as a (teleological) claim of evolution responding to poaching, rather than yet another example of a random mutation becoming advantageous due to a change in the environment.

"This makes me think my intro is somehow leading some students to conclude that evolution and religion are "opposites" in some way ..." If a religion states that the world is "6,000 years old", for example, I would say that places it at odds, to say the least, of science. Quite simply say, the Sun used to orbit the Earth. Not true. The Earth, in some cultures, used to be 6,000 years old. Not true. No more pussy-footing around facts to spare ones feelings for Christ's sake.

Lenny:

You may wish to dig one step deeper, and say that science can conflict with any statement about the observable universe made by any religion. Science also conflicts with statements made by science about the observable universe, as the data pour in.

The real problems lie with any testable statement positioned as a definition. Some religions make few or no such statements (I'm not a comparative religion authority), and even the fundies make some religious statements that are neither testable, nor implied to have passed valid tests. For example, the statement that "if you are sincere, your prayers will be answered" is not testable - nearly any subsequent eventuality can be considered the "answer".

And this is why evidence causes such violent allergic reactions among the creationists. It sets up a conflict when something is true by definition but false by observation or vice versa. Except in the rarest cases, the only solution is to deny, distort, fabricate, misrepresent, misinterpret or otherwise insult the evidence to force a fit. As Dawkins writes, this process is universal - it dominates in every culture everywhere in all known history. I'm not personally convinced that Dawkins has identified its survival value, but it gives every appearance of arising from something biological.

...unless, like the fundies, we simply assume there is only one.

— Rev Dr Lenny Flank

Thanks for the comments. However, I think geologists (and astronomers) run into some problems simply saying that the power of science is in its predictive capabilities, because we are interested particularly in looking _back_ at evidence of prior events and interpreting what happened based on "the laws of physics" in the current physical world. Do biologists have Uniformitarianism stated as a particular principle, the way geologists and astronomers do? This principle essentially says "physical and energetic processes occuring in the modern universe occured the same way throughout the history of the universe," allowing us to say, for example, that erosion rates in geologic history were similar to modern erosion rates. I'm ignoring the 6 seconds or whatever it is right after the Big Bang, just counting "normal" physics. Approximating the amount of time it should have taken to deposit all the known sedimentary rocks was one of the first clues to Europeans that the history of the world should be measured in the 100s of millions of years.

I don't want to give the impression that geologists only look forward and never back, but most of our predictions are so ridiculously long-term that the predictive value is basically nil. Of course predicting volcanic eruptions, earthquakes (though we can't do this yet, and I have my doubts about it ever being possible), and some climate change variables is within the human time-scale, but we also predict things like the re-activation of subduction on the E coast of the U.S. When? Oh, sometime in the next 40 million years or so....

Most of us are, in fact, explaining why some rock or geologic feature is where it is and not somewhere else, how it got there, how it alters or re-inforces what we knew about the area and time is question from earlier work.

Your example of radiometric dating is great. Perhaps I have become a victim of lazy thinking in the differences between prediction and explanation...

You may wish to dig one step deeper, and say that science can conflict with any statement about the observable universe made by any religion.

And this is why evidence causes such violent allergic reactions among the creationists. It sets up a conflict when something is true by definition but false by observation or vice versa

The first installment of Creation Summer Camp Live from the 2005 Creation Mega-Conference by Ronald Bailey is now posted.

Global-warming denier Bailey posted part 2 today.

http://www.reason.com/rb/rb072005.shtml

One of my favorite things is watching otherwise intelligent people strain to believe an ancient fairy tale contradicted by a few hundred years of evidence. Like Lisle in Bailey's story. It's schaudenfreude, I know, but nobody's perfect.

One of my favorite things is watching otherwise intelligent people strain to believe an ancient fairy tale contradicted by a few hundred years of evidence.

Next time an IDer has you at the end of your wits with their stupidity, try the insult generator. It even has an "auto-flamer" option to use against the biggest dullards of the bunch.

eg

Though you bite so sharp at reasons, you are so empty of them.

Interesting article

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/8683395/site/newsweek/

"If you can (cast) enough doubt on evolution," the Rev. Terry Fox, a Southern Baptist minister in Kansas, said this year, "liberalism will die."

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/07/24/MNGDLDRBOS1.DTL&feed=rss.news

God is a Dick Part V:

http://evangelicalatheist.com/

Hmm. This place has been too quiet; maybe a little joke might liven it up.

*****
Scientists have shown that the moon is moving away at a tiny, although measurable distance from the earth every year.

If you do the math, you can calculate that 85 million years ago the moon was orbiting the earth at a distance of about 35 feet from the earth's surface.

This would explain the death of the dinosaurs.
The tallest ones, anyway.

*****

Henry

testing

Cool article on speciation.

Cool article on speciation.

Test result:

It did make me chuckle, Henry.

?

It should be easy to refute the fact that Shannon's ideas on information theory and "entropy" have nothing to do with the argument from design as correctly understood.

1) No origin of life experiment in abiogenesis has ever been shown to be explanatory of the beginning of life even in some upwardly mobile simplistic sense.

2) The calculations have been performed by a host of world class scientists and no pop-zoologist like Dawkins can change that. See Origins by Dr. Robert Shapiro or more currently the work "Abiogenesis: A Review of teh Current Theories".

3) Abandoning the chance formation of the so called simple replicator , Kenyon and otheres have moved on to "chemical predestination", which unquestionably breaks down after we leave the biomers to amino acid (racemic always and forever) formation behind.

4) In all such work the negentropy work necessary for sorting the levo dextro forms of amino acids and sugars into their optically pure roles in life molecules is performed by the scientists by detailed planning , never by the chemistry.

5) The ordering of the molecules into complex readable instructional and process driving codes involves significant negentropy work to be performed which is not a part of the chemistry of the constituents and not derived from either raw or rectified solar energy although such given photosynthesis et al that energy does drive the chemical processes up hill and maintain them there though in a constantly decaying cycle leading finally to death.

6) The calculations of the negentropy work for informatinal purposes has been calculated by several scientists and are a part of the literature though the sorting work is usually not quantified.. just qualified.

These are things well known by real practicing on the edge scientists and denied by pop-scientists to sell books and others to maintain their grant funding.

Some progress could be made in the argument if evolutionists were to state the indisputable facts concerning the underpinnings of their theory...namely they haven't a clue about origins and all attempts to explain same are failed, hypothetical, science fiction and non-inclusive of real informational entropic and ordering entropic considerations... notwithstanding the chaos, clay-based, far from equilibrium proposals which never show anything in the laboratory that is remotely convincing as pre-biotic based.

Then maybe people would say well we're willing to let evolution be the only theory which persists based on "skyhooks" ... let's give them a little more time ... at least the're being honest now.

Evopeach

It should be easy to refute the fact

Evopeach -

Sounds like you have some quibbles with the present state of "Origins of Life" research (for lack of a better term).

This is, unfortunately, outside my area of experience so I can't debate point-by point.

Could you please explain, so that this interested layman can understand, how ID theory would yield an alternative, and a (presumably) more fruitful strategy of inquiry?

Every day scientists perform their work and invariably they are hybridizing their intellect, conceptual, conscious thought, knowhow and experience onto matter to achieve results which would not occur without their intricate involvement.

ID eventually and particularly would say that if after 100 years of expansive and rigerous efforts to discover some way of demonstrating the processes of abiogenesis in a repeatable, demonstrable, pre-biotic experimental setting then perhaps the informational sorting and code bearing entropy work was done by the Designer in an entirely analogous way to the current human scientists.

After all when such results in a "system" that eats bacon and eggs and using that energy results in conscious, conceptual thought with real valuable outcomes there is something a little bit more settling about a Designer than the random formation of the cerebral cortex from hydrogen gas molecules.

RADCON

Evopeach-

Huh?

So the whole argument is an evidence free and simplistic Analogy!?

That's it? An analogy, isn't it. No data, just sounds nice.

Please feel free to explicate this into something else that I might have missed, noting well that abiogenesis is not in the mix of evolutionary thought (at present).

Thanks in advance.

then perhaps the informational sorting and code bearing entropy work was done by the Designer in an entirely analogous way to the current human scientists.

— Evopeach

We finally officially hear from the ID group on the Creation Mega Conference. Dembski references Jason Rosenhouse's comments on Gitt's talk. I wondered how long it would be before he would acknowledge the existence of a YEC conference in another part of the big tent.

I'm curious if there will be a public response to the ID talk.

Scientia et Fermentum. Ediacaran, back to the frat house for beer to celebrate you're your "A" in Latin.

Flint, TS, Dr. John:

I don't believe I'll permit you to define away the issue by claiming some divorce of beginnings (underpinnings) of evolution theory from the entire subject. That might fly in some circles but don't go there with me. Lets keep it logical and consistent with decades of writings that start with say singularities, cosmic eggs, big bangs, elementary particles and forces, expansions, coolings, condensations, gravity, hydrogen..... all the way up to the cerebral cortex.

It would be very helpful if you could offer some modest explanation of the fact that there is not a whit of evidence that any work has elucidated the issues previously laid out to anyones satisfaction... thus the skyhook approach prevails.

A remarkable outcome of ID might be to eliminate all taxpayer funding of ETSI, origin of life experiments and other fruitless and unprofitable efforts and spend the resources on real science of detailed examination of the genome, alternative stem cell research, bottom up nanotechnology developmental research, none of which have a darn thing to do with the big bang or anything else up to the point of the first cell.

Of course a whole slew of people might have to get busy and get grat money for really useful work with real results.

So lets say evolution starts its inquirey at the post cell level and stays out of the origins business which has no results to date worth supporting.

Lets understand and copy the designers handiwork and get results.... hmmm come to think of it thats what has been happening for centuries.

Argument by analogy is a perfectually acceptable method if used properly.

Evopeach

It should be easy to refute the fact that Shannon's ideas on information theory and "entropy" have nothing to do with the argument from design as correctly understood.

Evopeach, you seem to be insisting that all of evolutionary theory is invalid because we don't have an acceptable scientific theory of abiogenesis. That's nonsensical.

To argue by analogy, would you similarly insist that we can't understand how to drive from LA to SF unless we can first explain how we got to LA?

Or look at it another way. Suppose that the first self-replicating organism on earth did not arise spontaneously. Say God or aliens or comets put it here.

Even if you could prove that beyond any reasonable doubt, it wouldn't invalidate a single aspect of evolutionary theory. Everything we currently know about evolution, common descent, natural selection, genetic variation, nested heirarchies, etc., etc. would still be just as well supported, just as consistent with all the evidence, and just as useful in predicting the world around us.

Evopeach

"I don't believe I'll permit you to define away the issue by claiming some divorce of beginnings (underpinnings) of evolution theory from the entire subject. That might fly in some circles but don't go there with me. Lets keep it logical and consistent with decades of writings that start with say singularities, cosmic eggs, big bangs, elementary particles and forces, expansions, coolings, condensations, gravity, hydrogen..... all the way up to the cerebral cortex."

The theory of evolution deals with cellular and post-cellular life (such as viruses) on earth. A theory of abiogenesis - explaining how cellular life got here - would be a very nice extension. However, the theory of evolution stands on its own without it. Big bang cosmology is extremely well established, as well, with or without a theory of abiogenesis.

"It would be very helpful if you could offer some modest explanation of the fact that there is not a whit of evidence that any work has elucidated the issues previously laid out to anyones satisfaction... thus the skyhook approach prevails."

I can't entirely understand this, but if you mean why don't we have a theory of abiogenesis yet, it's partly because it's extremely difficult to figure out what may have happened billions of years ago to ephemeral organic entities, and partly because, until relatively recently, we didn't have enough knowledge of molecular biology to even begin to think about abiogenesis.

"A remarkable outcome of ID might be to eliminate all taxpayer funding of ETSI, origin of life experiments and other fruitless and unprofitable efforts"

I don't agree that these are necessarily fruitless, but you'll be relieved to learn that they receive virtually no funding, relatively speaking. Why didn't you just check the facts for yourself?

"and spend the resources on real science of detailed examination of the genome, alternative stem cell research, bottom up nanotechnology developmental research, none of which have a darn thing to do with the big bang or anything else up to the point of the first cell."

I'm with you in supporting strong funding for these activities. A widespread adoption of ID, as promoted by the Discovery Institute, would be extremely harmful to such enquiry, and would prevent us from training future biomedical scientists. It's only partly true that biology is unconcerned with "the big bang". Physics and chemistry can't be seperated from biology. There's tremendous overlap.

"Of course a whole slew of people might have to get busy and get grat money for really useful work with real results."

The number of people involved in abiogenesis research is not a "slew", and a fair number of them probably have private funding. Where did you get the idea that abiogenesis is a heavily funded area? Physicists, chemists, and astonomers can and should study the conditions of the early universe, of course. There's no reason to think that this research might not lead to practical applications, as well as being inherently valuable.

"So lets say evolution starts its inquirey at the post cell level and stays out of the origins business which has no results to date worth supporting."

While I don't agree that research on the origin of life is necessarily worthless, I do agree that for now, the theory of evolution explains what has happened SINCE the origin of cellular life.

It seems that you have no problem with the evolution of cellular life, if I understand you correctly. So I'm not sure why you reference "intelligent design". Although anyone can use that term, it's nearly always taken as a reference to the pseudo-scientific output of the Discovery Institute, which is almost exclusively an effort to deny the evolution of cellular life.

1) No origin of life experiment in abiogenesis has ever been shown to be explanatory of the beginning of life even in some upwardly mobile simplistic sense. 2) The calculations have been performed by a host of world class scientists and no pop-zoologist like Dawkins can change that. See Origins by Dr. Robert Shapiro or more currently the work "Abiogenesis: A Review of teh Current Theories". 3) Abandoning the chance formation of the so called simple replicator , Kenyon and otheres have moved on to "chemical predestination", which unquestionably breaks down after we leave the biomers to amino acid (racemic always and forever) formation behind. 4) In all such work the negentropy work necessary for sorting the levo dextro forms of amino acids and sugars into their optically pure roles in life molecules is performed by the scientists by detailed planning , never by the chemistry. 5) The ordering of the molecules into complex readable instructional and process driving codes involves significant negentropy work to be performed which is not a part of the chemistry of the constituents and not derived from either raw or rectified solar energy although such given photosynthesis et al that energy does drive the chemical processes up hill and maintain them there though in a constantly decaying cycle leading finally to death. 6) The calculations of the negentropy work for informatinal purposes has been calculated by several scientists and are a part of the literature though the sorting work is usually not quantified.. just qualified. These are things well known by real practicing on the edge scientists and denied by pop-scientists to sell books and others to maintain their grant funding.

I don't believe I'll permit you to define away the issue by claiming some divorce of beginnings (underpinnings) of evolution theory from the entire subject. That might fly in some circles but don't go there with me.

Evopeach -

What IS or IS NOT has nothing to do with how "settling" something feels to you. What feels settling to you is usually a reflection of the evironment (nurture) you evolved under. Most likely, mom and dad (or guardian(s)) fed these concepts to you at an age when you could not have rationally cooperated. In turn you built your life around these ideas. I don't doubt that believing there is an unconditionally loving father-figure constantly looking over me is settling. But it's time to look into your inductive reasoning. Break the stimulus..response, stimulus..response, stimulus..response programs of your childhood. I must assure you that the wonderful figure you call god is really parts of your brain (probably right frontal lobe) being activated by your consciousness and other things. Most people don't know it yet, but to conclude that "a god did it" regarding anything is a non-sequitur. Chalk gods down as one of the many flawed ideas from primitive humans. Our existence is a wonderful mystery. That's as good as it gets for us at this point. Sorry, you wont be living forever. Your non-existence when you die is equivalent to your non-existence before you were born. You were oblivious then, you will be oblivious after.

What is IS, what is not, IS NOT. We do not determine what IS or IS NOT. Even if it feels settling.

Take care.

Daniel

A remarkable outcome of ID might be to eliminate all taxpayer funding of ETSI, origin of life experiments and other fruitless and unprofitable efforts and spend the resources on real science of detailed examination of the genome, alternative stem cell research, bottom up nanotechnology developmental research, none of which have a darn thing to do with the big bang or anything else up to the point of the first cell.

— EvoPeach

Obviously you don't have to have a notion of the ultimate origin of something in order to have useful theories about how it behaves. Thinking otherwise is stupid.

But evopeach, what's your Intelligent Design theory of the origin of biological organisms? And please don't say simply, they were designed. I'm asking how they were produced. To design something is not to produce it. A good origin-of-life theory would explain how the first organism was produced.

By the way, Peachy, abiogenesis is not an essential underpinning of evolutionary theory. Evolution is true even if the first earth organism was produced by the Plutonians from Aqua Teen Hunger Force.

I would say the investigation into abiotic origins is massively UNDERfunded. A Pubmed search of "abiotic origin of life" turns up 53 articles. In contrast "HIV Vaccine" turns up 3787, Multiple Sclerosis turns up 31292, Stem Cell therapy 35000. Contrary to popular belief, we have a well-funded program of applied research, but I can't even imagine writing a grant for funding on the origin of life. I think the area is far from exhausted-certainly not to the point of giving up, and invoking a deity to explain our origins.
Nevertheless, some very nice work on abiotic synthesis has been done lately. Interestingly, a lot of the work is Japanese, Italian or French in origin. I know of only a couple of NSF-funded researchers persuing the issue.

I would consider the following review:
On the origins of cells: a hypothesis for the evolutionary transitions from abiotic geochemistry to chemoautotrophic prokaryotes, and from prokaryotes to nucleated cells.

http://www.journals.royalsoc.ac.uk/openurl.asp?
genre=article&id=doi:10.1098/rstb.2002.1183

Also, specifically answering the issue of abiotic chirality, etc; is the notion either light energy, conditons around hydrothermal vents, or achiral catalysts (clay) could have aided in the sterochemistry that prevailed as life took off

http://www.springerlink.com/openurl.asp?genre=article&id=doi:10.1007/s11084-005-0638-y

In general, the articles in this journal are interesting and provocative. Have a look, and its clear that research in this area is ongoing (and improving!). I think the notion scientists have exhausted their inquiry, and have given up and we must invoke ID is silly.

Ah! The reincarnation of Becker, Staul and Priestly: The modern phlogiston brothers are here with their little temper tantrums, pop psych I comments and reference to authority arguments, red herrings and strawman fallicies.

To demonstrate the true state of science currently in the grip of the evokings one need only examine the historical facts in the light of the current posts denigrating Dr.'s Kenyon and by inference his colleague Steinman.

You amateurish attempts give sophistry a very bad name.

Consider a disturbing case in Califomia involving a
distinguished biology professor, Dean Kenyon. In January of
1993, Kenyon was removed from his biology classroom at San
Francisco State University after a few students complained
to administrators about ideas they heard in lecture.

Can scientists change their minds about controversial ideas?

The problem? Kenyon's approach to teaching evolutionary
theory. Professor Kenyon had grown increasingly skeptical
about the textbook theory of how life first originated on
Earth¾a theory he had earlier done much to advance. SFSU's
administrators have insisted that Kenyon not discuss his new
views¾or the reasons for them¾with introductory biology
students. Ironically, they justified their actions in the
name of "science."

Controversy in San Francisco

The controversy emerged in the fall of 1992 after the
biology department chairman, John Hafernik, told Kenyon not
to teach "creationism." Kenyon, who included three lectures
on biological origins (out of 27 total) in his introductory
course, presented both standard evolutionary interpretations
of biological evidence and difficulties with those
interpretations. He also discussed philosophical
controversies raised by the issue and his own view that
living systems display evidence of "intelligent design," a
view not incompatible with some evolutionary thinking.

Hafernik accused Kenyon of teaching biblical creationism and
ordered him to stop. Kenyon asked for clarification. He
wrote the Dean, James Kelley, asking what exactly he could
not discuss. Was he "forbidden to mention to students that
there are important disputes among scientists about whether
or not chemical evolution could have taken place on the
ancient earth?" Was he barred from mentioning "the important
philosophical issues at stake in discussions of origins?"

Kelley insisted that Kenyon "teach the dominant scientific
view" not the religious view of "special creation on a young
earth." Kenyon replied that he taught the dominant view. But
he also discussed problems with it and that some biologists
see evidence of intelligent design.

He received no reply. Instead, he was yanked from teaching
introductory biology and reassigned to labs.

Recently, following pressure on the administration from
SFSU's Academic Freedom Committee, its Academic Senate and
the American Association of University Professors, Hafernik
informed Kenyon that he would be reinstated. The biology
department has since, however, proposed to ban as
"unscientific" any discussion of "intelligent design."

Academic Freedom: Disturbing Implications

Kenyon's case raises troubling questions about whether
scientists must now pass ideological muster to maintain
standing in the scientific community.

Kenyon, as it turns out, is an authority on chemical
evolutionary theory and the scientific study of the origin
of life. After receiving a Ph.D. in biophysics at Stanford,
he later completed post-doctoral work at Oxford, NASA and
the University of California, Berkeley. In 1969, he co
authored a seminal theoretical work titled Biochemical
Predestination.1 The book articulated what was arguably the
most plausible evolutionary account of how a living cell
might have organized itself from chemicals in the
"primordial soup."

Kenyon's subsequent work resulted in numerous scientific
publications.2 As evidence rolled in during the late 1970s,
however, he began to question his earlier ideas. When run
under realistic conditions, so-called "simulation"
experiments repeatedly produced irrelevant sludge or low
yields of desired amino acids.3 Further, molecular biology
revealed the encoded messages along the spine of large
biomolecules such as DNA.4 Both experiments and developments
in the field of information theory suggested that simple
chemicals do not arrange themselves into such complex
information-bearing molecules without, that is, "guidance"
from human experimenters.5

To Kenyon and others, these results raised important
questions about how "naturalistic" the origin of life really
was. If undirected chemical processes cannot produce the
coded strands of information found in even the simplest
cells, could perhaps a directing intelligence have played a
role? By the 1980s, Kenyon was sympathetic to the idea.6
That a man of Kenyon's stature should have to lobby for the
right to teach introductory biology, whatever his current
view of origins, is absurdly comic. Dr. Kenyon knows perhaps
as much as anyone in the world about a problem that has
stymied an entire generation of research scientists. Yet he
has been prevented from reporting the negative results of
research7 and from giving students his candid assessment of
it.

Moreover, as Kenyon has been at pains to explain to his
administrators, his view hardly qualifies as biblicism, let
alone religious advocacy. When Kenyon discussed the notion
of "intelligent design" he did so as an inference from
biological data, not a deduction from religious authority.
It may well be that the biological evidence Kenyon discussed
has larger philosophical¾even theistic¾implications. Yet one
can hardly fault Kenyon for that. As his personal history
makes clear, his present view has resulted from long years
of experimentation and study not a prior religious
commitment.

It is rare to kill yea pulverize three birds with one article but then it is hard to defend the indefensible thus the comments such as origins are not part of evolution are dismissive by about 80% of teh publications and textbooks on every aspect of biology and the natural sciences. (see the instant case for Kenyon's class)

I think I shall refer you to the Library of Congress for your examination.

When you have shot all the open minded brilliant scientists and relegated them to the ashpile I hope we have more to lean on that Dawkins who has not seen a test tube in 40 years, he's a zoologist.

I would go round up your best folks so I at least have a semblance of a challenge.

Oh and go ahead and include any long division in your arguments you might need... its ok.

Evopeach

It is rare to kill yea pulverize three birds with one article

Hey, EvoPooch: it's kind of bad form to cut and paste a whole article without attribution. For those interested, the source is the highly reliable and unbiased Stephen Meyer

Evopeach -

1. Does cellular and post-cellular life on earth evolve? Yes or no?

2. If it does, what mechanisms underly its evolution?

3. What would prevent us from studying and understanding the evolution of cellular life, even without a perfect explanation of its origin?

4. a)Are you advocating the logic that the evolution of life cannot be understood, unless its origin is understood, yes or no? b) If yes, why is this different, in logic, than arguing that the orbit of the moon cannot be understood, without a perfect knowledge of the origin of the moon? c) Why would this logic not render scientific study of anything impossible? (If your answer to "a)" is no, please feel free to skip "b)" and "c)"

Failure to answer these questions will be construed as inability to answer them competently. Please forgive my cynicism.

Harold

Sorry for tardy response, but the answer to your (I'm sure you know which) question is yes.

Harold and Russell

Change has occurred in the genome and one very poor method was mutation in the low percentage of germ cells being reproductively beneficial at the population strata.

The ever monotomically increasing self contained if not original differentiating and unique combinatorial possibilities of reproduction being uncovered as we speak are almost limitless and combined with gene switching and signaling could well prove to provide 99% of all change, so called micro-evolution, as the genome and molecular level machinery and processes are elucidated.

As for macro-evolution and such it is hardly a demonstrable event snd is hightly questionable .... perhaps unnecessary.

No I proposed concentration on projects with real practical outcomes like genome and bottom up nanotechnology research, things that lead to real projects and real products and actually help people.... not whether there is life in the universe and is it carbon based.

As for the abstracts:

If I have a concentrated batch of optically pure levo amino acids under carefully controlled conditions they can assist in the i can get optically biased sugars........wow a sure Nobel prize.

Clay gumbies move on TV why not in the lab.

Of course one can and should examine life as I proposed leaving the unproductive origin piece behind... no future in it.

ETSI has been the most monumental waste of resources in the past century without a asingle meaningful result. We have to quit wasteing brainpower and resources on useless endeavors. Even Sagan said it was useless in essence since no communication or travel to such places was possible.... not ever.

Now about Kenyon ..When you grow up and get past form over substance and personal attack why not deal with the substance in the light of your hackjob on Kenyon.. or have you never heard of Stanford.. etc.

Evopeach

Evopeach's answers to harold's questions, translated for those who left your Gibberish phrase-books at home:

1)Does cellular and post-cellular life on earth evolve? Yes or no?

A:Yes, but mutations don't have anything to do with it.

2)If it does, what mechanisms underly its evolution?

A:Sex! But macroevolution is "unnecessary."

3)What would prevent us from studying and understanding the evolution of cellular life, even without a perfect explanation of its origin?

A:Fascination with sharp, shiny objects is so distracting sometimes, wouldn't you agree? Now, ahem, what was the question again?

4)a)Are you advocating the logic that the evolution of life cannot be understood, unless its origin is understood, yes or no? b) If yes, why is this different, in logic, than arguing that the orbit of the moon cannot be understood, without a perfect knowledge of the origin of the moon? c) Why would this logic not render scientific study of anything impossible? (If your answer to "a)" is no, please feel free to skip "b)" and "c)"

A:Gumby dammit!

The ever monotomically increasing self contained if not original differentiating and unique combinatorial possibilities of reproduction being uncovered as we speak are almost limitless and combined with gene switching and signaling could well prove to provide 99% of all change, so called micro-evolution, as the genome and molecular level machinery and processes are elucidated.

Now about Kenyon ..When you grow up and get past form over substance and personal attack why not deal with the substance in the light of your hackjob on Kenyon.. or have you never heard of Stanford.. etc.

thus the comments such as origins are not part of evolution

As for macro-evolution and such it is hardly a demonstrable event snd is hightly questionable .... perhaps unnecessary.

Sorry to keep feeding the troll, but the following quote is just such a perfect summation of ID's agenda, that I can't let it slip:

"A remarkable outcome of ID might be to eliminate all taxpayer funding of ETSI, origin of life experiments and other fruitless and unprofitable efforts and spend the resources on real science of detailed examination of the genome, alternative stem cell research, bottom up nanotechnology developmental research, none of which have a darn thing to do with the big bang or anything else up to the point of the first cell."

So it would be a great success for ID if research into the origin of life stopped, would it? Thanks for being so honest. I suggest you testify to that effect next time there's a hearing on ID in the classroom. I'm sure it would go down well.

I think EvoPeach meant Gnome Research.

Also, EvoPeach failed to take into account the effects of Quantum Red Shifts. I make sure all my gnomes wear tin foil hats to protect them from QRS.

Evopeach -

I don't understand your answer.

You may be arguing that all cells contain sufficient genetic material to allow the development of any type of organism, and that gene regulation alone determines development. I've seen some creationists make that argument. It's empirically wrong, and in fact, impossible. A pea plant does not have the genetic material needed for the development of a dolphin, or vice versa. In fact, for all cells to contain enough DNA to hold the genome of all organisms is an outrageous impossibility. The only reason I can think of for anyone to make such an outrageous claim is an irrational emotional desire to deny basic scientific fact.

You seem to be claiming that mutation rates are insufficient for evolution. This, too, is empirically false.

You seem to think that I have commented in some way on someone named Kenyon. I haven't, but I certainly favor the firing of anyone who tries to distort the teaching of science to promote his own religious views (which is utterly different from teaching science accurately, while having religious views), if that person is in a science teaching professional position.

I am compelled to the cynical conclusion that you don't understand the theory of evolution, and have no interest in attempting to do so, but have set yourself up as a "denier" of it for some kind of social, political, or personal reason.

A note on Kenyon -

I don't know anything about this case. It sounds vaguely familiar. For all I know, he may be some guy with a valid scientific beef with certain hypotheses of abiogenesis. San Francisco State U has the legal right to hire and fire according to US law and the contracts people sign, I suppose. I DON'T support firing people who have valid scientific arguments against something in a mainstream textbook, of course.

My cynical guess is that if he is being supported by the DI, he must be a crackpot. But I'm willing to be swayed by evidence to the contrary (or, of course, to have my cynical guess confirmed by affirmative evidence.

Apparently Obrien is one of those who can read but not comprehend and so thinks that his clown act is funny to me or perhaps his little evo audience ... but actually just a show of insecurity of his place in the pecking order. I don't respond to ignorant clown acts but to thoughtful debate.

Anyway the Kenyon article ( spelling it out to you C A T is cat) shows that the attribution of Chemical Evolution to his and Steinmans efforts is correct and that after a decade of watching utter failure by the entire evolutionary comunity to demonstrate a 1/10** 256 possibile explanation he decided it was just possible to look at ID as a scientific explantion or at least a cogent philosophical one.

Kenyon is not a yahoo, incompetent, idiot, turncoat but rather a fine scientist who wrote the seminal material on the subject of Chemical Predestination and has many published peer reviewed publications in accepted journals, etc.

Do I really have to do book and chapter on the possible combinations of the sperm egg interactions leading to unique traits that are themselves inheritable etc. in the jillions. Now being further compounded by the possible gene switching and signaling which can cause additional traits and functionalities to be activated.

Don't tell me what I intended .. I said nothing about time or process beyond what was explicit.

Life was designed, created and that such that enormous adaptive capability was originally in place and more discovered every day... mutation with natural selection has been tried and found terribly wanting. Live with it! It does play a somewhat minor role.

Unless there's a big market for deformed fruit flys I'd think again about how beautiful mutations are. Let's see today my fellow scientists we'll take this group of people suffering from spina bifida and radiate the hell out of them with xrays inducing millions of mutations and repeat over their lifetime until we get the cure.

Oh ! Thats not the method used.........why not.

EVO

Hairoilduh

I doubt that anyone understands evolution since it means anything you want it to in order to support a position at teh time and has more variations than the human genome.

As to the thought of course I do not think all the kinds or species have the same genome... how rediculous. The statement is that each kind or species has the genome to account for all or nearly all of the variation we observe with experimentally varifiable limits generally speaking including outliers. There are no twelve feet tall people. Sugar beets sugar concentration is about 17% maximum.

So the 90% ( revised down from 96%) of genetic agreement with chimps is inconsequential in overall scheme of things... perfect logic empirically observable ...well maybe on this forum.

DO you really think its efficient to start from a blank sheet of paper with every new generation of air plane without common design features from a Piper Cub to a F106.... hint they both have wings.

Lets see now Bob do you still have that picture of a bird, we gotta do a new car.

You might reread Origins to see Shapiro's destruction of your every statement.

Evo

Ah, that Kenyon. PT could do with a glossary. Though it's a bit of a hint anyway when google turns up no real science pages but just creationists claiming someone is eminent etc and skeptic sites pointing out why that assessment is laughable.

Evopeach -

You need to learn more if you wish to comment on the theory of evolution. I suspect you are constrained from doing so by a variety of issues, and I don't wish to comment excessively on your posts, as doing so comes uncomfortably close to cruelly holding you up to ridicule. Nevertheless, I will point out a few major factual errors.

"Life was designed, created and that such that enormous adaptive capability was originally in place and more discovered every day"

The theory of evolution explains how life adapts to changing environmental conditions quite well, starting at what was "originally in place". You have not proposed any comprehensible alternate ideas.

"... mutation with natural selection has been tried and found terribly wanting. Live with it! It does play a somewhat minor role."

Genetic variability and natural selection have tremendous explanatory power. Your next comments reveal extremely profound ignorance of biology. In fact, you should have learned better than this in high school, if not earlier.

"Unless there's a big market for deformed fruit flys I'd think again about how beautiful mutations are. Let's see today my fellow scientists we'll take this group of people suffering from spina bifida and radiate the hell out of them with xrays inducing millions of mutations and repeat over their lifetime until we get the cure."

Spina bifida is actually largely an environmental problem. Undoubtedly there may be some complex genetic predisposition, but the major risk factor is maternal folate deficiency. Here is a link, in the unlikely event that you actually want to learn something. http://www.sbaa.org/site/PageServer?pagename=about_prevention

Excessive X-radiation would induce random mutations, mainly somatic unless the gonads were specifically targeted. It might well lead to increased genetic disorders in the offspring, as well as increased risk of neoplasm, for someone so targeted. High dose X-radiation can induce sterility. I have no idea what the hell you're making this offensive statement for, however.

"Deformed" fruit flies and genetic diseases are examples of mutations with deleterious effects (however, in some cases, there may be beneficial effects as well, and in many cases, gene dosage is a factor). The existence of deleterious mutations merely disproves the imaginary assertion that "there are no deleterious mutations". It does not logically argue that all mutations are uniformly deleterious, does it?

Actually, though, it's clear that you don't know enough about science to understand terms like mutation.

...Now being further compounded by the possible gene switching and signaling which can cause additional traits and functionalities to be activated.

Evopeach -

Sorry if my tone is excessively harsh above.

"I doubt that anyone understands evolution since it means anything you want it to in order to support a position at teh time and has more variations than the human genome."

This is simply incorrect. I understand the theory of evolution quite well, as do millions of other people, maybe billions. However, it is clear that you don't understand evolution. I'm not saying this to be insulting.

I would like to point out that the theory of evolution has no relevance to your worth and dignity as a human, your choice whether or not to practice a religion, your rights, or anything else of the sort.

...there is something a little bit more settling about a Designer than the random formation of the cerebral cortex from hydrogen gas molecules.

—

mutation with natural selection has been tried and found terribly wanting.

— Evopeach

It's clear that, whatever else he may be saying, Evopeach was NOT recommending that we actually expose people to excess X-radiation, nor implying that anyone here would make such a recommendation.

The subject is more inflammatory than he may have realized. Deliberately abusing people with X-radiation, often with the achieved goal of "sterilizing" them, has an extremely sordid and dishonorable history. It's probably these associations that led to my rather outraged reply.

Evopeach, dear, this is a rather obscure type of satire you are engaging in, isn't it? Some sort of "scientific" variation of that Dead End Kids leader's Brooklymese nonsensical contortions and elaborations of otherwise mundane statements until they became hilariously empty of meaning?
I've read your posts here a couple of times, and not one thing even seems to be intended to enlighten some particular idea or opinion you have, but rather to impress yourself with some very thick cloak of proFUNdity.

How old are you? If over thirty, you are either a master comedian on the wrong forum, or need to take up gardening.

Actually its a factual rendering of where the complete theory leads you.

Everything began with the big bang and prceeded up to hydrogen atoms as the dominate atom or molecule in the universe. The over 20 billion years the evolutionary process culminated in the human brain,the most complex arrangement of matter in the universe.

If no one put logos or information in from outside the universe then all the information myust have been contained in the evolving universe in the first particles and energy and then in the hydrogen gas since it has never ever ever been shown to reside on any molecular property or atomistic property not even a hint of such information based, code capable activity as we observe in life... wonder where it came from.

Is is not in the chemistry thats a given it rides upon the chemistry.

And I thought non sequitur was the largest word Hairoild knew..wow am I impressed.

And about that ETSI and Origin research.... its not the worst use of public funds its a close second to the tea tasting board.

Is that blood in your underwear children?

Evopeach

Darwinfinchy,

If you can't read or comprehend .. I regret that but I suspect I've read more on this subject of debate on both sides of the issue than most here. I am not technically illterate but refuse to be swayed by the jargon of evolution which is not clarifying to anyone but just back patting by its "true believers".

Nothing can falsify it because it can be plasticized to accept any view or result no ,matter how contrary to the original thesis.

The honest evolutionist test:

Is Dr. Francis Collins a fine scientist whose work is worthy of the aclaim he has received? Or is he a moronic, fundamentalist, psycho, brainwashed, bible believing nutcase... since he is a bible believing practicing Christian who happens to be a theistic evolutionist?

I'm eagerly awaiting your answers yuck bunnies.

Evopeach

Evopeach is a splendid example of problems within the current education system. "Techno-babble" and self deceit has replaced inquiry, reasoning, and enlightenment. He evidently believes that any and all opinions are equally correct, with or without supporting evidence. Especially if his, and only his personal goddidit.
It's a shame adults can be allowed to graduate High School, and not understand basic biology, or even fact from fiction and belief.

This is a troll who learned at JAD's knee.

I mean, "blood in your underwear"?!
"yuck bunnies"?!?

How do you like them perfumed pumpkins?

A remarkable outcome of ID might be to eliminate all taxpayer funding of ETSI....

—

So lets say evolution starts its inquirey at the post cell level and stays out of the origins business....

No I proposed concentration on projects with real practical outcomes like genome and bottom up nanotechnology research, things that lead to real projects and real products and actually help people.... not whether there is life in the universe and is it carbon based.

It should be easy to refute the fact that Shannon's ideas on information theory and "entropy" have nothing to do with the argument from design as correctly understood.

Dear Rocky,

I think a couple of engineerng degrees and a thirty year career from engineering analyst to ecex vp and CIO of a 3 billion dollar company might support the idea of a questioning mind.

This forum is the home of the evolutionary quisling brigade of sychophantic true believers who read nothing, tolerate nothing and attack anyone and everything that doesn't fall into their little egocentric views.

You are part of the cannibal group ..those who eat their own if they detect the slightest faltering from the party line.

Now what about the honest evo test?

Fransis and I are waiting,

Evopeach

Change has occurred in the genome and one very poor method was mutation in the low percentage of germ cells being reproductively beneficial at the population strata. The ever monotomically increasing self contained if not original differentiating and unique combinatorial possibilities of reproduction being uncovered as we speak are almost limitless and combined with gene switching and signaling could well prove to provide 99% of all change, so called micro-evolution, as the genome and molecular level machinery and processes are elucidated.

Lenny,

Read the posts Lenny or get Squiggy to read them for you.

The complete lack of any evidence that the genetic code and sequencing informational work was done by chance or by predestination is a given and no work gives it any chance of ever being demonstrated in our lifetime.period.

Real complex codes absent a programmer, a designer, a thinker, an enabler, a constrainer a conceptual knowledge worker,, a scientist has ever enabled complexity to inform matter with codes, code readers, code translaters, machinery repair mechanisms that work over billions of repetitions.

Codes despite this genetic algorithm garbage never ever happen by chance .... programmers build in their biases and results and there were no programmers in the beginning save One.

Evopeach

Being an Engineer, although I'm glad for you, does not make you a subject matter expert. I also work in a very large company, (so what in this discussion), have engineers work for me, and the common joke is about "keeping engineers in their box" so they don't get in trouble.
I always question everything, and came from a religous background.
But, sorry, you are engaged in meaningless techno-babble, with no answer.
So,
What, again, *IS* the "argument from design, as correctly understood"?

What, again, do you think the designer did?

What mechanisms, again, do you think the designer used to do whatever the heck you think it did?

Where, again, can we see such mechanisms in operation today?

Your continued non-answer is an answer.

You might reread Origins to see Shapiro's destruction of your every statement.

I suspect I've read more on this subject of debate on both sides of the issue than most here.

The designer put into the non-living matter the information and negentropic work to enable life to be a reality as we currently observe it minus the variation that has occurred over time.

Since it was a one time creative act from outside the time and space continuum it is not being repeated today and is unobservable.

But clearly scientists do the same thing in a less dramatic form everyday. They inject their knowledge, knowhow, conceptual thought, action and influences upon matter to achieve results which otherwise would never occur.

Whats so strange or unscientific about that?

Evopeach

Read the posts Lenny or get Squiggy to read them for you.

The designer put into the non-living matter the information and negentropic work to enable life to be a reality as we currently observe it minus the variation that has occurred over time. Since it was a one time creative act from outside the time and space continuum it is not being repeated today and is unobservable.

I think a couple of engineerng degrees and a thirty year career from engineering analyst to ecex vp and CIO of a 3 billion dollar company might support the idea of a questioning mind.

As an engineer...I feel the need to apologise to the rest of you. I don't know what's wrong with a small minority of my colleagues, but that's what they are; a small minority. Although arrogant, most of us are not this ignorant.

The designer put into the non-living matter the information and negentropic work to enable life to be a reality as we currently observe it minus the variation that has occurred over time. Since it was a one time creative act from outside the time and space continuum it is not being repeated today and is unobservable. But clearly scientists do the same thing in a less dramatic form everyday. They inject their knowledge, knowhow, conceptual thought, action and influences upon matter to achieve results which otherwise would never occur. Whats so strange or unscientific about that?

the home of the evolutionary quisling brigade of sychophantic true believers who read nothing, tolerate nothing and attack anyone and everything that doesn't fall into their little egocentric views.

Ick! And here I thought the mice eating the widdle birds was the most uncomfortable thing I was gonna have to look at today.

But watching Evopeach melting into little squooshy pieces--literally dissolving into greater and greater incoherence from post to post--is somehow worse.

In a weird way, I guess I'm lucky that I'm not able to identify quite as readily with him as I did with the chicks.

But it's still sad.

And I for sure hope Lenny's pizza boy doesn't slip and fall on the remaining bits of slime!

(Lenny, maybe you should have the pizza boy deliver at the back door, at least until the last slippery bits of Evopeach have had a chance to completely evaporate...)

I am not technically illterate but refuse to be swayed by the jargon of evolution which is not clarifying to anyone but just back patting by its "true believers".

Where's the disenvoweler when you need one?

Sorry for tardy response, but the answer to your (I'm sure you know which) question is yes.

Evopeach,

you are an engineer and business manager, and believe this is evidence of a questioning mind? Having been an engineer and engineering manager myself for a couple of decades, I find, based on my experience, that there is no particular correlation between the practices of engineering or business management and having a "questioning mind" in the scientific sense.

In fact, as I am now pusuing a science degree, I have had to unlearn certain inquiry methods that were a staple of my problem-solving arsenal. Engineering predisposes one to look for solutions to problems, while science requires a search for better questions.

I think you'll find that people here don't respect degrees or positions; they respect clear, well-reasoned argument. Their responses to you suggest they do not find your argument clear and well-reasoned.

"There are no twelve feet tall people."

light goes on - after wading through the gibberish, it turns out evopeach is mostly making the tired complaint that you can breed frequency changes, but useful new alleles cannot possibly happen.

"CIO of a 3 billion dollar company"

and isn't used to having his pronouncements criticised.

Would the real Proud Waterfront Property Owner please stand up?

The occurrence, from time to time, of an especially nasty form of sh*t-flinging troll would seem to call for an amendment to Godwin´s law. Unfortunately, since you per definition can never win an argument against a troll, and likewise, invoking Godwin´s law in a forum thread automatically leads to forfeit of the discussion...well, "occupational hazard" maybe?

The designer put into the non-living matter the information and negentropic work to enable life to be a reality as we currently observe it minus the variation that has occurred over time.

Unless there's a big market for deformed fruit flys I'd think again about how beautiful mutations are. Let's see today my fellow scientists we'll take this group of people suffering from spina bifida and radiate the hell out of them with xrays inducing millions of mutations and repeat over their lifetime until we get the cure.

The honest evolutionist test: Is Dr. Francis Collins a fine scientist whose work is worthy of the aclaim he has received? Or is he a moronic, fundamentalist, psycho, brainwashed, bible believing nutcase... since he is a bible believing practicing Christian who happens to be a theistic evolutionist?

EvoPeach writes "
It should be easy to refute the fact that Shannon's ideas on information theory and "entropy" have nothing to do with the argument from design as correctly understood.

1) No origin of life experiment in abiogenesis has ever been shown to be explanatory of the beginning of life even in some upwardly mobile simplistic sense.

..... "

Evo, msyself and others have already explained to you why abiogenesis has no bearing on the viability of TOE.

Can you explain what impact a workable theory of abiogeneis would have on understanding the diversification of life over the past few hundred million years?

Now if intelligent design theorists wish to now pigeon-hole themselves to addressing abiogenesis, thats fine with me.

If you think the state of abiogenesis as a scientific theory is in a sorry state.. guess where ID is at?

EvoPeach writes "Flint, TS, Dr. John:

I don't believe I'll permit you to define away the issue by claiming some divorce of beginnings (underpinnings) of evolution theory from the entire subject.

Abiogeneis is not the "underpinnings" of evolution theory.

You will not be allowed to confuse the two, and get away with it.

"That might fly in some circles but don't go there with me."

Unfortunately for you, in this circle you can't get away with sloppy reasoning.

Now, for the third time, please explain how an understanding of abiogeneis impacts the understanding of how life diversified over geologic time.

Do you have answer or not?

The ever monotomically increasing self

EvoPeach writes"Ah! The reincarnation of Becker, Staul and Priestly: The modern phlogiston brothers are here with their little temper tantrums, pop psych I comments and reference to authority arguments, red herrings and strawman fallicies.

To demonstrate the true state of science currently in the grip of the evokings one need only examine the historical facts in the light of the current posts denigrating Dr.'s Kenyon and by inference his colleague Steinman."

Its apparent that you have relieved yourself of the burden of independent thought. Let us know when your done reading from a script and have summoned the courage to answer questions.

This is a troll who learned at JAD's knee. I mean, "blood in your underwear"?! "yuck bunnies"?!? How do you like them perfumed pumpkins?

The ever monotomically increasing self contained if not original differentiating and unique combinatorial possibilities of reproduction being uncovered as we speak are almost limitless and combined with gene switching and signaling could well prove to provide 99% of all change, so called micro-evolution, as the genome and molecular level machinery and processes are elucidated.

Ooh! Evo! Can't keep your feet on the ground, with your head in the clouds, or else up your,.. y'know.

What a big, self-inflated troll you are; without an original idea, or even individually kooky opinion!
And your sense of humor! That old I'm-rubber-you're-glue comeback! That would make you emotionally about nine years old, and seems quite to suit you as you present yourself here, with your pompous, empty, SILLY intellectual blathering and bragging. You're fooling no one except perhaps your hollow, purposeless self (which is all that likely matters, isn't it?)

Enough of this. Another useless creep, Evopeach, has added his particularly un-different scent to the public sewer that is the (vicious) lie-basedd-and-filled idiocy called "creationism."

I feel shattered, Harold (#39811). Evopeach is a HE?!! I had illusions of a cute little, but misguided, brunette female. Bugger. I wouldn't have had the same feeling if there'd been truth in his non du guerre, e.g. Evocucumber.

Comment #39814 Posted by Evopeach on July 27, 2005 05:28 PM (e) (s) Darwinfinchy, If you can't read or comprehend ..

Evopeach said: If I have a concentrated batch of optically pure levo amino acids under carefully controlled conditions they can assist in the i can get optically biased sugars........wow a sure Nobel prize.

Well its nice to know there is one evo you now states openly that Francis is a highly qualified scientist and a devout christian. So since there is one such person whose God is not a cerebral malfunction of some sort and is able to function quite nicely as a theistic evolutionist meaning God is the source of all creation originally and evolution accounts for diversification it is surely possible that there are many such scientists past present and future as is well known by the open minded.

Now we're getting somewhere.

Now how about the rest of you care to answer the same honest evo question?

By the way no one denied that science is performed everyday by the method I proposed for the Creator.
Oh and now that you have agreed that origins are relatively unimportant and can be even should be separated from science/evolution having no practical signifigance to the theory or its practice I congratulate you.

Lets see that's two out of two for my position and zero for your team.

You guys may be quick studies after all,

Evo

Evopeach said: Well its nice to know there is one evo you now states openly that Francis is a highly qualified scientist and a devout christian.

The designer put into the non-living matter the information and negentropic work to enable life to be a reality as we currently observe it minus the variation that has occurred over time. Since it was a one time creative act from outside the time and space continuum it is not being repeated today and is unobservable.

— evopeach

William A. Dembski wrote: The first quote is from Denyse O'Leary -- I'm sure she won't mind me revealing her.

I'm holding a copy of Biology Concepts and Applications the current trext used in the college where I work after early retirement as a second career.

It contains several chapters on the origins theories from the origins of our solar system through all the usual just so theories up through the current state of evolution.

"One time long ago ATP and other molecules of life formed spontaneously.... yuk, yuk.

Evopeach

Andrea,

Do you happen to have an extra $100 bucks around as I can furnish whatever transcripts and employment contracts you might need.

EVO

Well its nice to know there is one evo you now states openly that Francis is a highly qualified scientist and a devout christian.

So since there is one such person whose God is not a cerebral malfunction of some sort and is able to function quite nicely as a theistic evolutionist meaning God is the source of all creation originally and evolution accounts for diversification it is surely possible that there are many such scientists past present and future as is well known by the open minded.

Peach writes "By the way no one denied that science is performed everyday by the method I proposed for the Creator."

SO, the creator(s) is/are a celestial biomechanic(s)?

I don't know of too many creators that work at x-purposes.

My compliments to the nematode Creator. Apparently he/she/it just wasn't on the same page as everyone else or was a practical jokester.

"Oh and now that you have agreed that origins are relatively unimportant"

We can add reading comprehension to your other problems.

We have agreed that origins are relatively unimportant in explaining life's diversification over geologic time.

"and can be even should be separated from science/evolution having no practical signifigance to the theory or its practice I congratulate you"

That has to be the first time in a long time I've received congratulations for an elemetary exercise in basic logic.

There might be ne or two others like the late Wildersmith who were first class scientists, researchers and academicians and christian.

Evopeach

Everything began with the big bang and prceeded up to hydrogen atoms as the dominate atom or molecule in the universe. The over 20 billion years the evolutionary process culminated in the human brain,the most complex arrangement of matter in the universe.

— Evopeach

Well its nice to know there is one evo you now states openly that Francis is a highly qualified scientist and a devout christian. So since there is one such person whose God is not a cerebral malfunction of some sort and is able to function quite nicely as a theistic evolutionist meaning God is the source of all creation originally and evolution accounts for diversification

— Evopeach

Posted by Embarrassed on July 27, 2005 06:13 PM (e) (s) As an engineer...I feel the need to apologise to the rest of you. I don't know what's wrong with a small minority of my colleagues, but that's what they are; a small minority. Although arrogant, most of us are not this ignorant.

Posted by evopeach on July 27, 2005 09:19 PM (e) (s) Andrea, Do you happen to have an extra $100 bucks around as I can furnish whatever transcripts and employment contracts you might need. EVO

None of the articles on this site are critical of Christianity or even involved with Christianity.

I said the articles, not comments. Even most of the comments are critical of a specific variety of Christianity; few are critical of Christianity as a whole.

I read "involved with" liberally. And I figured your distinction would not impress evopeach. And I don't think any of the comments under "Is Evolution Religion" are critical of a specific variety of Christianity, but there is plenty of criticism of religion, and Christianity specifically.

I'm holding a copy of Biology Concepts and Applications the current trext used in the college where I work after early retirement as a second career. It contains several chapters on the origins theories from the origins of our solar system through all the usual just so theories up through the current state of evolution.

There might be ne or two others like the late Wildersmith who were first class scientists, researchers and academicians and christian.

Evopeach

Wildersmith was a kook and a half. Sorry. His book "Information Theory" The Scientific Alternative..

Was among the worst piece of pseudo-scientific gibberish I've ever read.

The man didn't even understand what a "random walk" was..

I'm still not sure what Evopeach wishes to establish by waving around the name of Dr. Francis Collins.

Collins, as do all non-creationist Christians (which is about 95% of us, I suspect), starts in his faith from the assumption that God is behind creation. Darwin started there, too. That assumption is only important to creationists because it means that creation is true and accurate, and what creation demonstrates to scientists is similarly true and accurate.

Consequently, the millions of observations* that demonstrate, explain, confirm and provoke awe about evolution, show the truth. That's not a claim intelligent design or any other form of creationism can make.

Creationists need to read the story of Oomphalos and take it to heart.

* _{Peter and Rosemary Grant, alone, have several millions of data points in their painstakingly complete observations of every individual in at least three different species over about 30 years. There is a veritable Himalaya Range of data backing evolution.}

This discussion of the pre-biotic origins of "living matter" is quite fascinating and so I have a few more questions for Evopeach.

If I understand correctly, inanimate matter has, upon creation, been somehow "impregnated" with the "code" for self-assembly into "life".

What mechanism accomplishes the encoding?

Is there a way we can directly detect this code?

If not, there must surely be an indirect way of detecting its effects (in the same manner manner that we have deduced the existence of a Big Bang through its long term effects).

At what organizational level of matter is this encoding apparent: the molecular level (i.e., hydrogen or helium, something else?), or the nuclear level, or the sub-nuclear level perhaps? (quarks maybe?).

Or is there an undiscovered elementary particle (the "pregnon" I'll call it) we should be looking for?

A couple more questions:

Is all matter impregnated with the "life code"?

If not, why the partition between "viable" and "non-viable" matter (for lack of a better term)?

If so, is there "life" occurring right now in interstellar gas clouds, or on gas giant planets that have recently been detected?

If life does not occur everywhere there is matter, what are the necessary conditions for matter to assemble into "life"?

SO far results are:

Origins are unimportant and disconnected from study of life and biology... agreed

Name of forum is talk.origin oldest blog.. extensive origin FAQ

All currrent texts (peer reviewed) have extensive material on various theories of origins

lots of work in the field of origins... conference recommended herein

Theistic evolution is Francis position and I was told God was a psychic disorder on this forum.. guess that person is in the 5% of kook evolutionists

How should one reconcile such dispersion?

RADCON

One would reconcile it by learning how to comprehend what one is reading.

rdog29

From this forum: There is great failure in a working demonstrable origin theory in evolution theory: namely none

The genetic code is a given in all life and is a reral message system and is quite apart from the chemistry. Chemistry can do some of the necessary work with energy and proper transducers (sun to photosynthesis to organism, etc.) ( biomass to metabolism to energy to thought and functin) but it cannot do sorting work on random amino acids to deliver right and left hand separation without direct planned intervention from outside agencies, scientists.

It is apart and rides on the chemistry and is not inherent in it ... no support for chemical predestination is extant today. Codes like the morse code or the english language requires cognitive conscious thought and agreement on interpretation between the code and the code reader and all transmission facilities. Never has a code arisen by random activities and cannot even in a billion years or a trillion.

Code in live makes the entire process work because it drives replication in a hightly reliable and efficient manner with very very few undetected and unrepaired errors in the copies.

The genetic code was a part of the ubiquitious comon design founf in all life everywhere and in all investigations of life.

The sorting, coding and specificity work observed is completely dependent on the instructional code and cannot work without it. It is a form of negentropy maintained by energy flow in a constrained open system with transducing reactive chemical components necessry for life to function as we observe it.

The work is a result of placing the necessary codes and transducers in place at the time of creation by The Scientist/Creator/God who invented the design and at least in the Bible claims that for Himself.

This was a one time act sufficient for all time including the great majority of the adaptive/variation capacity as well within species /kinds.

The information so placed is unique, real and not potential information, not Shannons surprise effects.

This hydridization of conscious thought, intellect, knowhow, conceptual information onto matter to bring into being order, comlexity and function otherwise impossible is what scientisits do every single day. What is different to suppose that The Ultimate Scientist did so at the first as proclaimed.

After seven days ... it was finished... adaptive and variation effects do not require revisiting the design.

Evo

The code is seen at the molecular level and in an integrated systematic way regarding the multiplicity of molecular messages involved in say cell replication and regulation.

If detection and elucidation of the genetic code is not the exact demonstration then ... well .. hmmm!

There are no other codes in the process but of course this one is still being investigated for full function and is a WIP.

Evo

Weinstein,

You could not hold his lab book successfully. He had three earned Phd's from reputable universities, published extensively, debated Dawkins at Oxford and fought to a narrow loss among a select peer group, wrote for lay people as well, taught in the states and around the world in major colleges and though deceased his work has more impact than yours currently.

You are a nutcase if you go after this guys credentials scientifically buster brown.

I suggest you have a little more to argue than personal attacks.

EVO

I'm reminded of that line from Fargo

"So what you're saying is, Evo... whadda you saying?

There was something about L-amino acids. The fact that all life is based on the L-form amino acids is evidence of common descent in my book. I'd love to hear the counter argument.

A. E. Wildersmith

Ph.D. in physical organic chemistry at University of Reading, England (1941)
* Dr.es.Sc. in pharmacological sciences from Eidgenossische Technische Hochschule (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology) in Zurich
* D.Sc. in pharmacological sciences from University of Geneva (1964)
* F.R.I.C. (Fellow of the Royal Institute of Chemistry) Professorships held at numerous institutions including: University of Illinois Medical School Center (Visiting Full Professor of Pharmacology, 1959-61, received 3 "Golden Apple" awards for the best course of lectures), University of Geneva School of Medicine, University of Bergen (Norway) School of Medicine, Hacettepe University (Ankara, Turkey) Medical School, etc.
* Former Director of Research for a Swiss pharmaceutical company
* Presented the 1986 Huxley Memorial Lecture at the invitation of the University of Oxford
* Author or co-author of over 70 scientific publications and more than 30 books published in 17 languages
* NATO three-star general

All cars have steering wheels but they were designed pretty much independently.

Levo for amino acids and Dextro for sugars.

Now how did that 100 perecent optically pure separation occur in the warm little pond. Should be snap to illustrate in a prebiotic experiment. One hundred years and counting... na da

EVO

SU Moron,

One would have more to offer than meaningless childlike personal attack if one did not fit their own description.

You give vomit a good smell, relatively speaking.

Evo

This is really bugging me.

All life on Earth is based on the the L-amino acids. This seems to me overwhelming evidence of common descent, yet no-one seems to proffer this in support of evolution. Why is this? SEF suggested it could equally support ID but did not expand.

Also, as a thought experiment, if a parallel world is imagined, identical in every way except that the stereoscopicity (doesn't look right somehow) were reversed and only the D-forms existed, what organisms could and couldn't survive in their parallel world.

Evo

Were 40014 and/or 40015 intended as a reply to 40009?

If you are not familiar with the complete failure of anyone to illustrate the pre-biotic separation L and L forms of amino acids from the always occuring racemic mixtures in every such unaided experiemt then I sugges some reading would help.

RAD

Evo,

As you maintain your inscrutable style, I'm still not sure you're referring to me. Anyway, on the offchance.

Once abiogenesis happened, the die was cast, if one accepts the theory of common descent. As soon as the ancestral organism existed based on the L-form, all descendents were doomed to follow suit. There's no way back.

Alan,

Once the digital computer was created de novo by the chance assembly of the cpu all the others were similarly designed.

Gag Gag Barf

Evo

I think this is a dialogue of the deaf.

Abiogenesis: how life got started on earth. Several hypotheses, no convincing theories yet.

Evolution: the only broadly accepted theoretical explanation of how things continued after abiogenesis.

I say one would expect all descendent organisms to have the same "handedness" should the theory of common descent be correct. This is what is observed.

You say... what?

OK,

one day I found a computer and I having no curiousity in how it came to be or such mundane things I just accepted it fell from an egg and went on to use and investigate all newer models all of which were apparently hatched from the one I found because they all had cpus and occillators and memory chips.

Science at its best,

EVO

Evo

Your analogy baffles me. Maybe someone else can pick this up, I feel we're wasting each other's time.

Best wishes
Alan

All cars have steering wheels but they were designed pretty much independently.

— Evopeach

Evolution doesn't require that life first appeared on Earth in one certain manner; it only requires that life appeared.

...*pinches self*...

Yeah, I'd say evolution is pretty safe.

Evopeach's analogy would make sense if we didn't know anything about reproduction. Luckily, we do.

Evolution is quite safe being a protected industry, a closed club, a money machine for those involved and a theory totally incapable of being falsified as it can fit any observation into its structure at the blin of an eye. In short it mutates and adapts to every changing discovery at warp speed.

It is the only theory which when criticized retaliates not with reason but venom, character asassination, distortions, untruths and vicious innuendo.

What a shame that young minds are subjected to .... and then ATP and RNA arose spontaneously from the warm, frothy, sea of mixed chemicals... blah , blah , blah.

When we fall further behind the world in science and math part of the reason will be close minded ture believers who refuse to examine themselves and their views. Also because it shows when kids are indoctrinated with such blather as embryonic recapitulation, the spotted moths nursery rhyme, de neuvo ATP and other such garbage.

Look I just pitched a whole batch of various amino acids into my warm bathtub.

Question:

The length of time it takes for them to disassociate back into biomers is:

1 pico second

1 minute

1 hour

Your answer king of chemistry,

Evopeach

Clearly JAD or DaveScot.

SUM,

How do you get a theory into the position of being unassailable, adopted without questioning, accepted as unfalsifiable, innoculated against internal discontinuities and yet characterized as pure science.

Oh and did you guys get your cut of the royalty from the sale of your improbability drive to Infocom ?

You're both in the same industry, science fiction games.

Evo

Re: #40022

Just something to think about: Perhaps the prevailing conditions in the pre-biotic era favored the production of L-amino acids, whereas those conditions no longer exist today?

Or perhaps the earliest "living" systems preferentially chose the L-amino acids for some reason?

Hey, hey!
Air Bear has had to acknowledge that I scooped that'un. *Awaiting Pulitzer*

But, amazingly, I'm pretty sure he's not JAD. JAD has tics that always come out, sooner or later. I believe at this point we have enough of a smaple of the Peachster's "style" to know it's his alone (Allah be praised).

Though, he has clearly learned from the master.

Oh, and DaveScot can spell.

Who are those people?

Sorry. #40076 was in response to ShutUp's "Clearly JAD or DaveScot"

and, yes, smaple is a beverage.

Who are those people?

After seven days ... it was finished... adaptive and variation effects do not require revisiting the design.

— Evopeach

Alan, the only way that I can see L-amino acids supporting ID is if they are willing to say that the designer decided to make all life from the one building block. There have been arguments of that nature before, where they will assert that of course there are similarities because designers do that. It is, however, begging the question.

You misrepresent me slightly, Alan. A part of my point there was that it is the creationists/IDers who don't expand. They merely assert it as design but then demonstrate the vacuousness of their assertion by being unable to draw any inferences from that or make any predictions which differ from evolution.

Peachy Keen?

When you run your bathtub amino acid experiment, do you include in the frothing foaming drool that would be flung from your lips as you were poised at tubside?

Or do you want that filtered out, and the experiment run free of foaming additives?

I stand corrected ... that what if composition of the ocean that does what 100 years ago took a genious in Europe to figure out by extracting a particular molecule from deadly nightshade that permitted the two tetrahedral form of a particular amino acid (otherwise chemically and thermodynamically indistinguisable one from the other being mirrow images in space only) to be made distinguishable by an addition of same so that it (the L form) was heaver and they could be separated by centriguge.

Now I see it was all for nought any idiot could have done it by just setting up the experient a little differently... than say the 5,000 others who have tried and failed for a century or more.

The words maybe, could have ,possibly was,were and what if are the most used words in evolution by direct search methods.

The Little Golden Books of Science

If a frog had wings it wouldn't hit its butt on the ground when it hopped.... oh that's just couple of mutations away since it would be reproductively beneficial not to smash your nads every hop or so.

I deal in facts not what if and maybe or could be s,

EVO

When you guys win your Nobel Prize for illlustrating the optical resolution of those mirrow image amino acids by varying the PH of the pond or the amount of cloud cover or concentration of clay particles or .... whatever I will be there to congratulate you and buy a round of drinks.

EVO

The money is in a time capsule under Dawkins seat at his AA chapter.

Evopeach

GCT,

I simply said Genesis 1:1 is an accurate laymans descriptions of a portion of original creation.

Its sort of a History of Science statement rather than hard science intended for a technical audience.

Unless you morons believe Newton ever sat under an apple tree to discover gravity or that Tower of Pizza story.. et al.

Oh and Maxwell didn't really have a half dead and have alive cat... thats an analogy... you know what you scream at me about for using that is and has been used by intelligent people for 5,000 years.

Pitiful,

Evopeach

Peach writes: "A. E. Wildersmith

Ph.D. in physical organic chemistry at University of Reading, England (1941)
* Dr.es.Sc. in pharmacological sciences from Eidgenossische Technische Hochschule (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology) in Zurich
* D.Sc. in pharmacological sciences from University of Geneva (1964)
* F.R.I.C. (Fellow of the Royal Institute of Chemistry) Professorships held at numerous institutions including: University of Illinois Medical School Center (Visiting Full Professor of Pharmacology, 1959-61, received 3 "Golden Apple" awards for the best course of lectures), University of Geneva School of Medicine, University of Bergen (Norway) School of Medicine, Hacettepe University (Ankara, Turkey) Medical School, etc.
* Former Director of Research for a Swiss pharmaceutical company
* Presented the 1986 Huxley Memorial Lecture at the invitation of the University of Oxford
* Author or co-author of over 70 scientific publications and more than 30 books published in 17 languages
* NATO three-star general"

And he was still a kook and a half.

Please present any argument Wildersmith made in "Information Theory: THe alternative to the Neo-Darwinian Synthesis" you feel makes sense.

Peach writes: Weinstein,

Umm thats Dr. Weinstein to you.

You could not hold his lab book successfully. He had three earned Phd's from reputable universities, published extensively, debated Dawkins at Oxford and fought to a narrow loss among a select peer group,

Brave, brave Sir Robin...

wrote for lay people as well, taught in the states and around the world in major colleges and though deceased his work has more impact than yours currently.

And?

What does that half to do with his nonsensical gibberish written in Information THeore: THe Alternative..."

You're merely parroting his credentials as if I should be impressed.

I'm not. I more impressed by the gibberish Wildersmith wrote, than his credentials.

You are a nutcase if you go after this guys credentials scientifically buster brown.

I'm not going after his credentials, mister i have no reading comprehension. I'm on his case about his misunderstandings of random walk theory, gravtation and other basic physical and mathematical concepts he screwed up in his book.

I suggest you have a little more to argue than personal attacks.

Again, my attacks are based on the crap in his books. You have no argument, and you're too chicken to make one.

Again, pick your favorite Wildersmith argument. Lets examine the writings of this scholar of the creationist movement.

Maxwell's cat!!! It certainly is true that having a cat around the house leads to a local increase in entropy. Is that what you're getting at?

For 'complementarity', how about Schroedinger's Demon:
"Yeah, I killed the damn cat. What of it?"

Better recheck that Little Golden Book you say you're getting this stuff out of, because you look dumber every time you open your mouth.

Evopeach,

If Genesis 1:1 is accurate, then you believe that the universe, Earth and all lifeforms on it were created in seven literal days? If you are not drawing this conclusion from the Bible, then what references are you using to form this opinion? If you do truly deal in fact, as you so state, then what "facts" led you to the idea that all was formed in seven days? I guess you could try to say that all lifeforms were not exactly present at the end of seven literal days, but that would not square with the arguments you have set forth that it was a one-time event and that macro-evolution does not happen.

I'm holding a copy of Biology Concepts and Applications the current trext used in the college where I work after early retirement as a second career.

— Evopeach

5) The ordering of the molecules into complex readable instructional and process driving codes involves significant negentropy work to be performed which is not a part of the chemistry of the constituents and not derived from either raw or rectified solar energy although such given photosynthesis et al that energy does drive the chemical processes up hill and maintain them there though in a constantly decaying cycle leading finally to death.

It's time to stop folks. When someone makes this many posts without actually making an argument for their position or addressing the arguments made to them, and posts the most absurdely hypocritical tripe (accusing others of ad hominem attacks and logical fallacies), they are solely out to troll for replies. Not to mention the ridiculous similar style to previous trolls like JAD and DaveScot.

UP your Weinstein I only give respect to people I have respect for:

A.E. Wildersmith also wrote The Natural Sciences Know Nothing of Evolution.

and The Origin of Life and The Time Factor

I personally don't give a damn about your hoggish personal opinions and you couldn't understand a logical argument no matter... I don't throw pearls after swine... great advice.

The principle contribution I think is his presentation on ID as a source of the entropic information for separation of L and D molecules, development of the genetic code and associated DNA/RNA/Ribosomes et al in the original design of life and the singular organization of the code into sequenced instructions on DNA.

Chenmistry alone cannot remoely account for this entropic work, it is not in the chemistry but on the chemistry.

No theory of chance formation of codes is even considerd today.

No theory of chemical predestination is even considered today.

His hypothesis is completely scientific since hybridizing knowledge, knowhow, intellect, conceptual thought ( the essence of code development) onto matter is precisely how science is done every day and never by random methods .. spin the wheel and lets wait).

Its been adopted by a lot of fine scientists as a large part of I.D.

As a matter of record misspelled words and such are by agreement ignored in the flury of activity on such as the NYT editor blog; but then those are intellects one can respect.

Evopeach

Yeah, you get loads of respect for delving into your "chenmistry" "trext," which one is forced to postulate is a mystery novel involving a boy-doll and a fierce dinosaur.

Probably a better read than what you've shown us so far.

I think a couple of engineerng degrees and a thirty year career from engineering analyst to ecex vp and CIO of a 3 billion dollar company might support the idea of a questioning mind.

—

Real complex codes absent a programmer, a designer, a thinker, an enabler, a constrainer a conceptual knowledge worker,, a scientist has ever enabled complexity to inform matter with codes, code readers, code translaters, machinery repair mechanisms that work over billions of repetitions. Codes despite this genetic algorithm garbage never ever happen by chance .... programmers build in their biases and results and there were no programmers in the beginning save One.

All cars have steering wheels but they were designed pretty much independently.

Oh and Maxwell didn't really have a half dead and have alive cat... thats an analogy....

If anyone's interested, Darwin's God author Cornelius Hunter recently visited my blog and left a comment.

Why are y'all wasting your time on this dolt?

Evo wrties: " UP your Weinstein I only give respect to people I have respect for:

A.E. Wildersmith also wrote The Natural Sciences Know Nothing of Evolution.

and The Origin of Life and The Time Factor

I personally don't give a damn about your hoggish personal opinions and you couldn't understand a logical argument no matter... I don't throw pearls after swine... great advice.

"

So does that mean you won't choose a sepcific example from an of Wildersmith's books and discuss them?

Rev, to answer you question

"UP your Weinstein I only give respect to people I have respect for"

Music to my ears.

Oops Evo did write "The principle contribution I think is his presentation on ID as a source of the entropic information for separation of L and D molecules,"

Uh huh. And how did the IDer do that? I don't recall that part in Wildersmith's treatises.

And with respect to genetic algorithms...

I've written brief bits about this subject before. The use of stochastic hill climbing problems in solving systems of equations in a more efficeint manner than traditional methods is fast becomming commonplace in the sciences and engineering.

Stochastic hill climbing methods are a class of mathematical methods which harness randomness to find solutions to equations. It's called hill climbing in an analogy with Sewall Wrights concept of fitness landscapes. Such landscapes have peaks, where organisms have much greater fitness than organisms in the plains and valleys below. The trick is getting up the peak. Darwin discovered the first such algorithm. Its called Natural Selection or descent via modification. As Dan Dennett distilled it, its quite simple, move up the hill when you can, don't move back down it. THe simplest method is the Monte Carlo method. In the monte carlo method (5pts for anyone who can figure out why its called that, -25 pts for anyone who can't) solutions are chosen at random, inserted into the equations and we compute a "cost"; a measure of how well it satisfies the equations. You keep trying randomly derived solutions (guesses) until you have a population of solutions that satisfies your criteria for goodness of fit. Usually this is a value of the cost which is chosen as a threshold. Below such a value you keep the solutions, above you reject. Once you have a population of *good* solutions you can then perform other sorts of statistical analyses to learn more about the properties that the hypothetical *ideal* solution has.

Genetic algorithms are more complex than the Monte-Carlo method. Indeed, they are quite analogous to NS. You have a population of solutions (sans organisms), you breed a new generation via x-fertilization and then see how well these new solutions actually satisy the equations. THose solutions which exceed your cost criteria are *killed* off. With each generation you can lower your cost threshold. This is quite like *selection*. Indeed these terms, pepper the stochastic hill climbing method literature.

In February's Scientific American (2003), there is an article written by engineers and computer scientists who used GA's to create novel electronic circuit deisgns. They were able to duplicate or better 15 previously patented designs using GA's.

In the case of the most complicated task, designing a "cubic signal generator", the GA evolved a design which out perfoms a recently patented design that performs the same task. GA's don't think. They have no cognitive ability. Yet this GA *designed* such a good circuit. Its even more interesting than that. TO quote the authors, "The evolved circuit performs with better accuracy than the designed one, but how it functions is not understood. The evolved circuit is clearly more complicated, but also contains redundant parts, such as the purple transistor that contrbutes nothing to the functioning." (You'll have to see the article). (Page 58, Feb 2003 issue of Sci-Am)

So here is a mindless computer algorithm besting intelligent designers with designs that contain sub-optimal or unneeded parts. How scary is that?

How will the creationists and ID *theorists* respond?

1. Well the algorithm was designed by humans, therefore by the transitive property of whatever, anything resulting from a GA is also designed by humans.

Of course the fact that the authors still have no idea how the circuit works will not deter creationists from using the above. How one designs something while not knowing how it works, even after it is *designed* is a contradiction that will not bother creationists or ID theorists.

2. Well so what if the circuit has an unneeded part. Perhaps in the future they will find it does have a function.

While not stated in the article, it would be a simple matter for them to remove that transistor and verify that the cost value and the performance of the circuit remains unchanged.

3. Perhaps the SOL or some dieletric constants will change in the future, at which point, unneeded parts will have a function.

LOL. But no doubt Bill Dembski and others will take that route.

4. Well its not irreducibly complex.

Sorry, Dr. Behe, you remove something besides the unneeded transistor, and you no longer have a cubic signal generator. Of course, it is likely that transitor was used in a past generation, and is fixed in the *design* as a result of an historical contingency (RIP, SJG).

5. The circuit was originally perfect, but it was ruined after the Fall.

Umm.. not unless the fall occurred a few months ago.

6. This project was rooted in naturalist assumptions. Therefore its not valid. Neener-Neener

No Comment.

7. All of the above.

Show us where the bias was in this method.. show all arguments and maths.

THanks.

Arne writes: An analogy to Schodinger's cat, perchance? Must be pleasant to be so mind-numbingly stoopid that you don't realise it when everyone sees you for a fool and is laughing at you... .

If you thinks thats stoopid.. you should see how Wildersmith tried to explain GR using Newtonian principles.

Dear Rocky, I think a couple of engineerng degrees and a thirty year career from engineering analyst to ecex vp and CIO of a 3 billion dollar company might support the idea of a questioning mind. ............

— evopeach

Theistic evolution is Francis position and I was told God was a psychic disorder on this forum.. guess that person is in the 5% of kook evolutionists

— evopeach

SEF

Sorry if that's how you took it. I was just hoping you or someone would answer the question. Very difficult to spot the body language when reading posts. Also being out of time sync with almost everyone else doesn't help.

And thanks GCT, I think you're right.

PS to SEF

I also rush reading posts as my wife has given me strict instructions not to spend too much time here, she doesn't undestand me.

[T]he message on Darwinian Evolution is getting out to the young people. Check out this hip-hop band's song called "Agency". It is an all out attack on Macro-evolution, Chemical Evolution, Common Descent, even Scientific Naturalism, on the whole. The song also states that "ID is a more possible explanation" and is very friendly to the ID movement and general ID thesis. This rapper is genuinely angry about the rhetoric employed by Darwinists-basing most of their arguments against ID on ad-hominem attacks and "Creationist" labels, in their refutation of ID, rather than addressing the scientific merits of the theory. If the pop-culture is starting to understand the gross inadequacies of Neo-Darwinism to explain the origins and the diversity of life in this universe, perhaps a paradigm shift is closer than we think. The band is called FM108 and tackles issues of biological origins, in addition to issues of criminal justice, particularly wrongful convictions and a variety of other pressing world issues. For more info contact me at: [snip] Hear the song "Agency" by FM108 @ http://www.newmusiccanada.com/genres/artist.cfm?mode=longBio&Band_Id=13736 Filed under: Evolution, Intelligent Design, Darwinism -- William Dembski @ 8:45 pm

Congratulations to the evos discovering Monte Carlo simulation methods recently after I used in four major projects beginning in 1967.

1) Linear propagation of variance model of the accuracy/performance of the the then AH-56A Cheyenne helicopter gunship known know as the AH-64 Blackhawk using a fortan model of the airframe performance in gusting, gunnery subsystem component error distributions, round dispersion models from the army, human error with the use of helmet laser eye piece reticle and associate tracking controls, range error in pulse laser....etc with appropriate distribution types by component sampled run through to an output distribution sample and ac umulated. COnvergence was based not on cost but on comparison of changes in mean and variance of the distribution of roundes fired at a fefined target, speed, attitude etc as well as circular error probable.

2) The economics of removing tetra-ethyl lead from gasoline octane boosting processes in a 100,000 BBD refinery and replacing it with MTBF or other candidates with multi-decision points on capital eqpt chosen, process design, etc.

3) The tradeoff of shifts worked at overtime rates in a surface coal mine against the addition of a coal silo given the uncertainty of unit train arrival patterns, weather patterns, eqpt failures and such . All done to determine pre-tax NPV of alternatives over life of the mine.

AS a technical supervisor of an operations research group from 1972 to 1975 I was Honeywells choice as industry consultant for real world LP and MIP heuristics for solving a large array of optimization problems.

It is good to know that evos are only 35 years behind the power curve in problem analysis, solution and design issues.

Your asked and answered approach to posting is of course not even allowed in the legal system... a form of debate.

EVO

Arne,

Care to explain why you think it doesn't. Still on the drafting table after 30 years and mad at those who succeeded.

Typical

Evo

Stewart W.

Prime example of red herring switch with no answer.

The proposal by Wilder-Smith appears in several books but particularly in that I referenced The Origin of Life. I sort of doubt you have read anything of his in any depth... just skimming to criticize.

Avoidance of a principle argument is called strawman.

Who wrote the pre-biotic hill climbing algorithm for the L&D non-chemical separation of amino acid forms.

Pull your pants up before coming back,

EVO

If a frog had wings it wouldn't hit its butt on the ground when it hopped.... oh that's just couple of mutations away since it would be reproductively beneficial not to smash your nads every hop or so.

If I recall correctly, frogs have internal testes.

After a quick review of four university biology degree programs I was amazed to find that the math requirements consist of Introduction to Statistics and College Algebra... for a BS Degree.

Please tell me I'm not trying to explain things technical to a group who thinks the Peano Postulates were developed by Chopin.

Pitiful,

EVO

Congratulations to the evos discovering Monte Carlo simulation methods recently after I used in four major projects beginning in 1967. 1) ... 2) ... 3) ...

— evopeach

Minimalist,

Congrats your vacuous response without a hint of understanding keeps alive the intellect free zone of the posters herein.

EVO

Oh, so did I miss the part where you actually answered any of Stuart Weinstein's questions?

No, wait, I didn't, because you didn't.

Evopeach hasn't answered anything, nor will (s)he. Yet, Evopeach has the gall to call this an "intellect free zone" while spewing forth the most assinine and incoherent rants we've seen in a long time. Typical.

This does bring to mind a question that I've had for a while. Why is it that Creationists that post here and elsewhere typically are so frigging arrogant? Sometimes they come in and act like they are trying to learn something, but that seldom lasts longer than one or two posts. Some, like Evopeach here, come in like that from the first post. Others just declare themselves grandiose things, like the "Isaac Newton of Information Theory." If anyone knows why this phenomenon happens, or has any good hypotheses, I'm all ears.

Dembski listens to hip hop? I'm floored.

ts, he's been trying to pedal that line for quite a while now.

Everyone wants to feel special, smart, and important. Some people take it too far, and not just fundie creationists either: there are plenty of "zany brainy" types out there -- many with blogs, unsurprisingly -- who are desperate to be thought of as Totally Out There Iconoclasts who are Totally Challenging Your Views On Everything. "I reject creationism and evolution, man! BAM!, I just blew your f*ckin' mind!" Typically, though, they're just blathering ignorantly. (See: Instapunk's recent posts on Pharyngula).

Of course, the fundies came up with that moronic allegory that goes something like, "a scientist climbed the mountain of knowledge, only to find that the priests were there at the top aaaalllll along!" It's a way to feel smart without actually putting any honest effort into actually learning anything.

Actually, though, it's probably more of an ego defense thing than pure arrogance. Scientists are out there challenging their worldviews with evidence, facts, and concepts they find too complex to handle -- so the solution is a bit of mental judo wherein they are the dumb ones, and you're smarter.

Once upon a time a nameless medical drug research and manufacturing company decided to pursue the development and manufacturing of synthetic insulin.

The Chief Scientific Officer proposed an internal competition between two teams of their brightest employees over a twelve month period culminating in a day long presentation session for the Operating Committee of the company and invited guests.

When the great day came Group GA came before the committee with a one hundred slide power point presentation proceeded by a few introductory remarks by Dr. Evoking.

"Gentlemen, let me start by saying that our group has taken the scientifically sound, even proven, random mutation and natural selection methodology in formulating our approach to the design of the candidate drug and its manufacture for our great enterprise. Using this established paradigm, being based on the Laws of Evolution, we are certain of finding the solution to our problem while minimizing staff time and resources in the design phase."

(At this point a small sigh was heard, muffled by a handkerchief, from the chair of the Chief Engineer who had slipped into the room quietly.)

We therefore identified all of the component molecules of natural insulin, the several dozens of intermediate reactions involving those, candidate catalysts, pressures, temperatures, concentrations and staging and possible flow-sheet combinations and stage sequences and simply fed them into our GA process designer software and proceeded to implement the results by taking each design printout through a pilot bench operation until at any given stage we hit a dead end. The process to date has worked well and we are up to the third of some forty-eight stages in the ninth trial process having eliminated eight unworkable schemes this last quarter.

We are now certain that given a little time this GA method will undoubtedly lead us to several sub-optimal but acceptable solutions and ask for full funding of our approach.

"The Comptroller who had been busy with the aid of a bright MBA on a laptop calculating the likely cost of the method reaching one solution in the next century had turned ashen white and was kicking the CFO under the table."

The Chief Scientific Officer had slipped out of the room mumbling something about an unexpected international conference call on his cell phone.

In due course the pitch was completed and the GA group was dismissed after the usual handshakes and congratulatory remarks ... accompanied by downcast faces all around.

After a brief break in which several people called their brokers to check regulatory rules on certain stock option transaction possibilities, the group reconvened and the ID group marched into the room to present.

"Gentlemen we have concluded our study with a an approach based on the sound design, pilot and scale approach used by our firm during its early history and which has made us a respected and very profitable enterprise indeed."

We are able to report to you that after careful design using our combined intellect and experience we have a complete flow-sheet for the process, equipment and operating cost and return on investment analysis that assures us the project is well within our capital budget and operating budget and requiring no additional borrowing or equity transactions to complete while meeting all the goals of our financial forecast in eps for the next decade."

And lo there was much rejoicing in the executive dining room that day and the ID team leader was invited to sit in the CEO private room and kibitz about the upcoming football season, while the GA team was banished to the local Burger King.

Moral: The Gambler's Ruin Problem is alive and well in world today.

OK, now I've got Hunter and Larry Caldwell himself emailing my blog. Anyone interested:

http://blogs.salon.com/0003494/2005/07/26.html

If you could read you would note a post laying out Wilder-Smiths ID argument on the informational content of genetic molecules/ machinery, shown it is incapable of being sourced to the proposed and discarded evo models of chance and predestination and hypothecized the Disigner as having provided the negentropic intellectual work which no natualistic random approach can perform, necessary to enable the complex genetic code, sequencing, organization and amino acid sorting critical to life as we observe its function at the molecular level.

Products of the failed HS ed system is one explanation for such inability to comprehend,

Evo

And a persistent inability to spell would mark you as a graduate of what sort of educational system?
Your rhetoric is worse than your spelling, which must take a great deal of effort. But it is clear that your mind is not involved in any of your output. Perhaps a different source can be correctly inferred.
You sir or madam are a pretentious fraud.

hugs,
Shirley Knott

Dear Knotthead,

Take off your labcoat and maybe your frustrations will be alleviated eventually.

AS for spelling such is routinely not even considered on forums such as the New York Times and other places where form over substance is the rule.

Now if you have a cogent response or comment that addresses something other than spelling and punctuation you can win the high IQ of the day among your peers by stating it for the record.

But we both know you're part of a word processing pool at a temp agency,

Evo

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Why is it that Creationists that post here and elsewhere typically are so frigging arrogant?

Let's see now despite many FAQs on Origins arguments in support of evolution in Talk.origins ( the name??), text books, non-fiction works by evos, this forum and TV documentaries ad finitum....it required me about 187 milliseconds of thought to bring to this eclectic group the universal view that no, actually origins are unimportant and disconnected from evolution which actually begins post the first viable replicator/cell. Then we can see the indisputable efficacy of neo-darwinian thought and theory in action ( that is above the pre-cambrian).

So since we have agreed that there is not a scintilla of experimental demonstrable support for the abiogenesis beginning of even simple precursors let alone the replicator ... we'll take that as a given and move on to the post replicator age.

Hmmmmmmmmm!

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good report. Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear." Hebrews 11:1-3

And I thought you folks wanted to keep faith out of this forum and here you have adopted Paul's definition... and so quickly.. heck I guess I'm having an impact.

Evo

Is there a contest running somewhere? Is somebody giving away real money to the, uh, personality who can post the most inane things in a 48-hour time period?

Peachy-pie, did you just state that the "first viable replicator/cell" occurred "above the pre-cambrian"?

I seriously think you need to get back to playing with your Ken doll and T-Rex model, as soon as possible...

Dearest Peachfuzz,
It is clear you not only haven't a clue but that you wouldn't recognize one if it had a death grip on either of your two brain cells.
I would indulge in a battle of wits with you but you appear to be unarmed.
And your palpable dishonesty is manifest in your every post.
Do please remove yourself from the genetic pool and devote all your attentions to that apex of child-abuse, the Christian faith.

hugs,
Shirley Knott

Let's see now despite many FAQs on Origins arguments in support of evolution in Talk.origins ( the name??), text books, non-fiction works by evos, this forum and TV documentaries ad finitum....it required me about 187 milliseconds of thought to bring to this eclectic group the universal view that no, actually origins are unimportant and disconnected from evolution which actually begins post the first viable replicator/cell. Then we can see the indisputable efficacy of neo-darwinian thought and theory in action ( that is above the pre-cambrian). So since we have agreed that there is not a scintilla of experimental demonstrable support for the abiogenesis beginning of even simple precursors let alone the replicator ... we'll take that as a given and move on to the post replicator age.

Your asked and answered approach to posting is of course not even allowed in the legal system... a form of debate.

Shirley,

I'll settle for a cogent statement other than from an Abbott and Costello routine...perhaps Shecky Greene.

One example of dishonesty please.. waiting.

One example of your wits ..........oops, not enough time in the finite eternity for you to evolve to that level.

Well I admit your intellect is quite child-like and perhaps having your world view fed to you in small shredded pieces is interprerted by you as abuse... but its really just the apogee of rational discourse via true rhetoric.... not the sophistry you enjoy do much,, rather rhetoric.

Now I am not as a person in the gene pool.. rather my genes have contributed all they are going to promise.... vas vas . People are not themselves in the gene pool but rather contribute their genes to the pool in the process of sperm egg sexual reproduction.

If you need further information please refer to any standard H.S. Biology text.

Oh yeah and an integral sign is not the same thing as a stop signal in a school zone.
SWAK,
Evo

Dear Pinhead,

You would then be the only attorney who is routinely permitted to ask and then answer without input from the person being interrogated or guestioned in this case those cross examination questions you pose.

Not supposing you are not totally stupid you understood perfectly well that you did ask and answer in you post and having had your tongue pulled down and stuck in your ear you are trying to spin weasle out of it... get a life.

And about that post its all mine and I just had fifteen minutes over lunch to type it in word, spell check and cut paste it... are you familiar with windows and word.

Where do you people buy your talking points?

Very stale,

Evo

Barney ,

Not put that bullet back in your shirt pocket before you hurt someone.

No the comment on the precambrian was parenthetical ... as in indirectly related.

Prio to today your team said, " evolution does a pretty good job of explaining life after the pre-cambrian".

Thus evolution does a pretty good job of explaining life after the reliable repliator.

One could conjecture that the replicator formed de neuvo or whatever before the Cambrian by some time period. Wow

EVO

Nobody, Your Peachiness, and certainly not little old me, proposed that the examiner gets to answer his or her own questions.

That's about the sleaziest wiggle we've seen from you yet.

Now, why don't YOU get around to answering Dr. Weinstein's questions...?

Huh? Or can't you handle it?

That's what we thought...

Evopeach, in a different 'net incarnation you were "KeithE", weren't you?

Evopeach left off some relevant information from the story. See, the ID group was able to come in under budget and on time because they only had to reference one book, the Bible. The checked the online version, did a search for "insulin" and found no references. Therefore, they deduced that there really is no such thing as insulin, so there was no need to manufacture it. So, they all patted themselves on the back, made their report, and then went to pray for god to heal those sick people that obviously didn't need something that wasn't in the Bible.

Interesting thoughts minimalist and ts. Doesn't the Bible admonish people to be humble?

Also, as a thought experiment, if a parallel world is imagined, identical in every way except that the stereoscopicity (doesn't look right somehow) were reversed and only the D-forms existed, what organisms could and couldn't survive in their parallel world.

I have no interest in engaging in "dialog" with EvoPooch, but for those of you following his contributions: note that the story about insulin and GA stands out like a sore thumb from the rest, in that it's grammatical and not riddled, to the point of near incomprehensibility, with spelling errors.

My hypothesis: it's cut&pasted from somewhere.

Heh, Russell, I scooped your 40380 in my 40358!

But you're right, time to stop feeding this bottom-most of bottom-feeding trolls, or, as it was most pithily put earlier:

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Pinhead,

Please refer to Item 40217 by Johnny Cohran Wienstein who after some jaron about hill climbing:
So here is a mindless computer algorithm besting intelligent designers with designs that contain sub-optimal or unneeded parts. How scary is that?

How will the creationists and ID *theorists* respond?

1. Well the algorithm was designed by humans, therefore by the transitive property of whatever, anything resulting from a GA is also designed by humans.

Of course the fact that the authors still have no idea how the circuit works will not deter creationists from using the above. How one designs something while not knowing how it works, even after it is *designed* is a contradiction that will not bother creationists or ID theorists.

2. Well so what if the circuit has an unneeded part. Perhaps in the future they will find it does have a function.

While not stated in the article, it would be a simple matter for them to remove that transistor and verify that the cost value and the performance of the circuit remains unchanged.

3. Perhaps the SOL or some dieletric constants will change in the future, at which point, unneeded parts will have a function.

LOL. But no doubt Bill Dembski and others will take that route.

4. Well its not irreducibly complex.

Sorry, Dr. Behe, you remove something besides the unneeded transistor, and you no longer have a cubic signal generator. Of course, it is likely that transitor was used in a past generation, and is fixed in the *design* as a result of an historical contingency (RIP, SJG).

5. The circuit was originally perfect, but it was ruined after the Fall.

Umm.. not unless the fall occurred a few months ago.

6. This project was rooted in naturalist assumptions. Therefore its not valid. Neener-Neener

No Comment.

7. All of the above.

See that sentence ending with that funny little letter ? ; thats called a question in our language.

See items 1-7 which are the answers to the questions in seven versions answered in my and others behalf by the questioner JCW.

That is called asked and answered and is not permitted in any civl or criminal preceeding.

Get you head(s) out of yout butts for once.

Evo

Again, pick your favorite Wildersmith argument. Lets examine the writings of this scholar of the creationist movement.

4005 is Wilder-Smiths argument laid out in "origon of LIfe".

I have posted this several times and someone can't read.

EVO

A more detailed examination involving the Wilder-Smith treatment is given in the following:

Charles B. Thaxton, Walter L. Bradley, and Roger L. Olsen, The Mystery of Life's Origin: Reassessing Current Theories (New York: Philosophical Library, 1984) (Very complete and detailed / quantifies the information content in DNA and protein / includes the important work of Ilya Prigogine).

EVOPEACH

I ask again; why is anyone wasting their time on this dolt?

Customers who bought this [i.e., Thaxton's] book also bought: Evolution : A Theory In Crisis by Michael Denton; Uncommon Dissent: Intellectuals Who Find Darwinism Unconvincing by John. Wilson; DARWINS BLACK BOX: THE BIOCHEMICAL CHALLENGE TO EVOLUTION by Michael J. Behe; Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science & Theology by William A. Dembski; Icons of Evolution: Science or Myth? Why Much of What We Teach About Evolution is Wrong by Jonathan Wells; Science and Evidence for Design in the Universe (Proceedings of the Wethersfield Institute) by Michael J. Behe

Re "Naturalistic process 'couldn't possibly' account for [...]"

It doesn't have to account for it, it just has to be consistent with it.

Henry

I came across JAD here recently. Same old stewed rutabagas.

...as long as you reversed the handedness of all the molecules.

I would indulge in a battle of wits with you but you appear to be unarmed.

It's old. I can't tell you where I first saw it though. Maybe it's just one of those often reinvented things.

. . .

Google turns up a number of hits on the significant parts and I can't be bothered to work through them.

Alan,

I agree - 'normal' Earth life wouldn't be able to survive by eating 'mirror' organisms.

OTOH, I see no reason why 'mirror' animals and 'mirror' humans wouldn't be just as viable as 'normal' ones (theoretically speaking, of course).

Note that it's not just the amino acids. Lots of biomolecules have a specified handedness. E.g. most of the sugars, including ribose and deoxyribose in RNA & DNA (respectively).

You'd almost certainly have to change the handedness of all the biomolecules, not just the amino acids.

JCWeinstein,

Ater your butt whipping and humiation in front of your fellow sychophants viz a viz your open admission of the sophmoric methods as in ask and answer... is there any way we couoldlet you save face.

Its difficult for AE Wilder-Smith to add to his work since he is deceased.

Darwin is dead a hundred years, did'nt know jack about molecular biology or the genome et al yet you cling to a theory as though his approach was current.

Of course now that I have reiterated for the 4th time the AEWS argument as you asked there is no comment.

That old line is no doubt new to people who think Monte Carlo Simulation is a new and novel technique invented by biologists. Hee Haw Hee Haw

This group gives a new emphasis to and defines the need for "no child left behind".

Tell me somewhere in your ranks there's a person who can muster up a cogent argument.

The rest of you pour up a blass of kook-aide and hope they show up soon.

The Evo Kicker

My Kook Meter just went off scale.

Show of hands: EvoPeach = Jon Davison

Quetzal,

I don't think I am making myself clear enough. Let me put it slightly differently. Imagine a mirror world which is identical to the real world in every respect except that abiogenesis "chose" the D-route. (I guess DNA has to exist as its stereo-isomer in this mirror world, but that raises another question). Imagine that you can bring a small population of any organism from the mirror world to our world and observe it in its mirror habitat. Will it survive? I'm guessing that any organism that sustains irself from a simple energy source such as light or chemicals will be OK, and animals as a rule won't be. But are there exceptions? Would herbivores survive, for example? Perhaps the question is trivial or not interesting.

I found primary sources on D-amino acids a bit heavy going. Did pick up one point that heat treating milk reduces its nutritional content by accelerating the tendency for stereo isomers of amino acids in solution to decay to a mixture of L and D forms, so some economic relevance.

Nah,

JAD could be incoherent, but this......

Denton, Michael 1986 Evolution: A Theory in Crisis Chevy Chase: Adler and Adler. Dembski, William A. (Editor) 2004 "Uncommon Dessent: Intelectuals Who Find Darwinism Unconvincing" Wilmington Del.: Intercollegiate Studies Institute) Dembski, William A. 1999 Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science and Religion. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press Behe, Michael J. 1996 Darwin's Black Box. New York: Touchstone (Simon & Schuster) Wells, Jonathan 2000 Icons of Evolution. Washington D.C.: Regnery Publishing, Inc. Behe, Michael J., William Dembski, Stephen C. Meyer (Editors) 1999 Science and Evidence for Design in the Universe: Wethersfield Institute Proceedings. San Francisco: Ignatius Press

George, that's ridiculous. If you were here when JAD arrived, read what he wrote, read the well thought out counters to his nuttery, and then his insulting, arrogant, and ignorant replies, you might have a better grasp on why people stopped bothering with him, and why he was later banned. The man is a nut with serious reading comprehension problems, a persecution complex, and unbrideled arrogance that has no basis in anything that he's written. He would make 1000 word posts that didn't actually pose an argument for anything but were mainly littered with phrases like "how do you like them tomatoes", "who is next", "darwimps", and "groupthink". When he did post anything of substance (during the first few days he posted here), he would completely ignore the responses and debunkings of his insane arguments. There's no point in allowing someone like that to continue posting. He brought nothing to any discussion he interjected himself into, and the operators of this site gave him far more leeway than I certainly would have.

My Kook Meter just went off scale. Show of hands: EvoPeach = Jon Davison

Nah, JAD could be incoherent, but this......

Science. 1992 Jun 5;256(5062):1445-8. Erratum in: Science 1992 Jul 10;257(5067):147. Comment in: Science. 1992 Jun 5;256(5062):1403-4. Total chemical synthesis of a D-enzyme: the enantiomers of HIV-1 protease show reciprocal chiral substrate specificity [corrected] Milton RC, Milton SC, Kent SB. Department of Cell Biology, Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA 92037. The D and L forms of the enzyme HIV-1 protease have been prepared by total chemical synthesis. The two proteins had identical covalent structures. However, the folded protein-enzyme enantiomers showed reciprocal chiral specificity on peptide substrates. That is, each enzyme enantiomer cut only the corresponding substrate enantiomer. Reciprocal chiral specificity was also evident in the effect of enantiomeric inhibitors. These data imply that the folded forms of the chemically synthesized D- and L-enzyme molecules are mirror images of one another in all elements of the three-dimensional structure. Enantiomeric proteins are expected to display reciprocal chiral specificity in all aspects of their biochemical interactions.

EvoFraud writes:"JCWeinstein,

Ater your butt whipping and humiation in front of your fellow sychophants viz a viz your open admission of the sophmoric methods as in ask and answer... is there any way we couoldlet you save face."

Let me guess.. English is not your first langauge.

"Its difficult for AE Wilder-Smith to add to his work since he is deceased."

Well, that is a shame. I've contemplated using his book "Information Theory" to illustrate just how many misconceptions one can write is just a few chapters.

Your problem is, the only thing you're capable of doing is to live vicariously through the creationist doyens.

"Darwin is dead a hundred years, did'nt know jack about molecular biology or the genome et al yet you cling to a theory as though his approach was current."

Funny.. I don't even recall mentioning Darwin. However the fact that Darwin didn't know jack about the genome or molecualr biology only makes his achievements all the more remarkable.

"Of course now that I have reiterated for the 4th time the AEWS argument as you asked there is no comment."

About what? L and R handed amino acids? An interesting anomaly, but nothing that indicates abiogenesis is not possible. At any rate the Murchinson meteorite also has more L than R.

So what now? Your IDesinger seeded meteorites with more L than R and sent them careening into Earth?

"That old line is no doubt new to people who think Monte Carlo Simulation is a new and novel technique invented by biologists. Hee Haw Hee Haw"

Funny, I nver claimed that. THe sure sign of a bad loser is to attempt to refute things nobody has claimed to be true.

And I'm still waiting for you to point out the biases in the GA example I gave earlier. Show all maths.

"This group gives a new emphasis to and defines the need for "no child left behind".

Tell me somewhere in your ranks there's a person who can muster up a cogent argument."

I think the problem here is that since you can't muster up one yourelf, it could be that you don't know what one looks like.

I beginnig to see why you post under a pseduonym. If I were that dishonest and incoherent, I wouldn't want to use my real name either.

And I'm still waiting for you to point out the biases in the GA example I gave earlier. Show all maths.

ShutUpMoron

I suspect our innocent little george may be a pseudonym for JAD. Hey, John, you old fart, I'm sure if you promised to behave, they would put you back on probation!

Quetzal

I was kinda hoping a biochemist might spill out of the woodwork.

Thanks for your trouble. More googling for me.

Lets play the flasjh cards for the KG group one more time.

Missing entropic work beyond the chemistry never acounted for and never answered here or elsewhere.

Sorting work of L&D amino acids. -- NADA except my favorite martian

Coding work to put conceptual information on the DNA molecule

Sequencing work to organize the code into actionable instructions

These have been calculated by people and never accounted for by evos.

How did it get there ..... outside ID just like scientists do every day at a lesser level of complexity.

Tell us and win a Nobel prize.... anyone... anytime.

EVO

When congress outlaws chimera where will evos get their transistional forms.

Evopeach

John

Just ask nicely and see what happens. I was never in favour of banning you, but you are your own worst enemy.

I frankly think it was cowardly of you to ban him from Panda's Thumb.

Professor Davison george

I suspect You may need to offer a convincing apology to Dr. Elsberry for the remarks that got you banned.

I have already discussed this with Davison

My guess is that 'mirror' world photosynthesizers would be fine, since they require only sunlight, CO2, H2O, and inorganic compounds that are achiral. The same might be true of organisms that get their energy from other abiotic sources (e.g. hydrothermal vents).

But complex animals typically require lots of different organic compounds in their diets, most of which need to be the correct handedness. Think of essential amino acids, various vitamins, sugars, etc. I doubt any herbivorous vertebrate could survive in mirror form, unless it had a source of mirror plants to eat. Same for carnivores.

Anyone find any way to comment on Raffi Melkonian's questions?

No. I just emailed him a link to http://evolution.berkeley.edu/

For instance I could imagine a D-enzyme that could break down D-glucose. However this version of the enzyme would have evolved seperately and need to be structured differently than the L-enzyme version.

— mcmillan

He is not well

All the old fool wants is a little personal attention.

Speculating further - suppose you somehow created a 'mirror' bacterium that was a facultative photoautotroph, and released it into a suitable Earth environment. Initially, I'd expect it could only survive via photosynthesis. But over time, it could probably evolve the ability to take up and metabolize normal organic molecules. In contrast, 'normal' organisms would probably have difficulting feeding on the 'mirror' bug. Interesting to think about where that might lead.

I'm going solely on memory here, but isn't there some artificial sweetener that has a similar chemical composition to sugar but the opposite "handedness" and therefore can't be broken down and digested -- has the taste of sugar but no calories?

I remembered talk of some protein substitute(s) for sugar some time back (yet another of those things where it all goes silent after the initial media interest). However, Google found this page on wikipedia though including mention of proteins at the bottom.

Apparently, the authors were considering developing L-sugars as artificial sweeteners, but gave up because they were too expensive to make.

"Evidence that L-sucrose is resistant to hydrolysis catalyzed by jejunal brush border enzymes."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=7104853&dopt=Abstract

Abstract: Sweet taste induction by alkyl 2,3-di-O-(L-aminoacyloxy)-α-D-glucopyranosides requires a combination of hydrophobic α-alkoxy and hydrophilic vicinal, diequatorially oriented, L-aminoacyloxy units. Pyranoside chair conformations afford the preferred stereochemical arrangements of these residues for optimum interaction with the receptor....

I've reviewed Evopeach's chatter and while there are similarities between Evopeach and JAD and Evopeach and DaveScot there is more in common with DonkeyKong.

Chimera's would not constitute "transistional forms" at best they would be hybrids.

That and both JAD and DS where not biblical literalists while DonkeyKong was. Combine this with his/her total lack of understanding of scientific concepts, bad grammer, completely confusing posts and many other points I'd lay my best on DK if this person is a previous troll under a new name.

I'm happy to leave them as a troll that just appears to be related to previous trolls.

More foood for thought here

Oops, hit post instead of preview.
S/B More food for thought here.

Wayne Fransis,

Another meaningless diatribe from an obviously incompetent sychophant who cannot present one literate point of debate because they don't teach you that skill at Burger King.

Please have one person with some rhetorical debating skill muster up their courage and talk ideas rather than meaningless insults and bluster.

Are you related to the mule from those old Donald Oconner movies?

EVO

All quiet on the Wilder-Smith front since I reiterated some debate points, I see.

Apparently, the authors were considering developing L-sugars as artificial sweeteners, but gave up because they were too expensive to make. It sure would be a guaranteed money-maker. So would a variety of lawn grass that grows two inches tall and stops. :)

Since evolution should engage in prediction of things evolutionary it should have little problem predicting the best bets on current speciation and macroevolutionary events.

Where would one best look for or anticipate a demonstration of macroevolution today since there would undoubtedly be some quasi-transitional forms to examine at the molecular level, at least.

All ears for evos,

Evopeach

Regarding L-sucrose: Development of a commercial product was rather short-circuited by the discovery of sucralose, which is made by substituting three chorines for three HO molecules, as I recall. It's marketed as Splenda. Here's the website: http://www.splenda.com/

40647 is just between 40646 and 40648 in case you intellectual giants are having trouble finding it.

Evopeach

Oh, where's Intelligent Design Theorist Timmy when we need him?

Once upon a time before time, space or really anything like our universe there was a Wave Function. It had existed always and was the only uncaused cause. Once upon a time however it popped a quiff and an unstable string sized singularity or cosmic egg appeared. Since the wave function and its complex conjugate were real entities and a probability density function, every possible event had to happen at some instant and so the egg was the quiff dreams are made of.

The egg was very energetic, unstable and quickly exploded as the big bang and demonstrated the interesting property of creating the space it expanded into at the speed of light coolng,condensing and forming forces and elementary particles and clouds of hydeogen gas rapidly.

By and by clusters of molecules, ice and such gravitated to form trillions of heavenly bodies which organized into somewhat independently behaving galaxies all rushing apart in an expanding universe.

The Wave Function had spoken.

Very interesting religion,

Evopeach

Once... ...religion,

Having read the various rebuttals on Talk.Origins concerning Information Theory problems with Evolution, the question remains.

Is there any peer reviewed material showing a repeatable experiment wherein codes have arisen spontaneously by purely chemical means which can convey conceptual information to another entity and that entity can then take action on the information conveyed by the code?

If not the theory, apart from the cosmological aspects of beginnings, is examining life completely dependent on an information based existance without any concept, proposal, hypothesis of the origin of that information based system.

There is no need for any shifting to arguments about Shannon ,,, etc. either the theory accounts for the information bearing , actionable codes or it doesn't and if it does where is the work published.

EVOPEACH

Comment #40726 Posted by Savagemutt on August 1, 2005 09:38 AM (e) (s) Oh, where's Intelligent Design Theorist Timmy when we need him?

Dear Timmy,

I take it you cannot refer me to a single peer reviewed paper or a text book or anywhere else that documents the varifiable scientific demonstration of how the negentropic work was sourced for the sorting work, the code development work and the organizing or sequencing work, since it certainly was not performed by chemistry.

Or do you just want to continue your caustic, meaningly, obtuse remarks devoid of any sign of intelligence.

Rest assured your silly little insults are laughable to me and just indicate the usual lack of self assurance and intellectual cowardice so typical of youe evo community.

Still have long hair and your uke?
Evopeach

One day Mr. E Coli Bacteria checked into the Evo Hotel where he had reserved a room and had his luggage sent ahead for an extended stay.

The hotel had 1,000 rooms each secured by a lock requiring a specific key to open the door.

The registrar gave E a ring with 20 keys and said that their had been a malfunction in the office and no one knew exactly which keys fit which doors.

Should E plan on gettting into his room anytime soon?

RADCON

It's a certainty he's cribbing from other places too, but here's a couple of rotten peach's sources to entertain you.
http://www.christiananswers.net/q-eden/edn-thermodynamics.html
http://www.evolution-facts.org/Ev-Crunch/c02a.htm

Some varieties of buffalo grass do exactly that. We had a lawn of the stuff once, and I only had to mow a couple of times a year to get the weeds down. Buffalo grass also puts out an herbicide against weeds, so eventually that mowing would end. Around here in Texas, however, people generally put in sprinkler systems first. Then if they get a landscaper wise enough to xeriscape with buffalo grass, they overwater it with the sprinklers, and kill the grass. And then they curse someone other than themselves ...

That's a shame, Lenny. I had lots of adorable little frogs in my previous garden when I let the grass etc grow much longer than the various neighbours did (because mine remained slightly damper at the base and was thus more welcoming).

Stephen Meyer invades the British airwaves...

http://www0.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/listenagain/ram/today4_darwinian_20050801.ram

(Clip may be gone by tomorrow)

Yuck! He's on the BBC promoting ID as a sensible extension of our research into nanotechnology and nanomachines -- DNA being something that "obviously" had to have a designer.

Sir Richard Attenborough was on there as balance, but he obviously has little experience in defending evolution against IDists. (And hasn't needed it since ID is mainly an American blight). He did OK, and got the last word, but I wish they'd has someone like Richard Dawkins on there instead.

I would indulge in a battle of wits with you but you appear to be unarmed.

Shirley, mind if I borrow that line next time I need a putdown? It's a cracker.

British Transport Police have been targeting specific ethnic groups for "intelligence-led" stop-and-searches as part of their heightened security measures. BTP Chief Constable Ian Johnston said that his officers would not "waste time searching old white ladies". http://www.thisislondon.com/news/articles/PA_NEWA3088221122815454A0?source=PA%20Feed&ct=5

Despite being a member of the ACLU, I can't say I'd demand that they stop checking all those 20-yro muslim boys, and pat down Grandma Lopez instead.

Sure. We all know how eager Hispanic grandmas are to assist 20 yro muslim males with their suicide bombings. Suicidal anger over US military bases on muslim soil knows no color, age, sex, or religion.

I'm glad no one has forgotten the 20 yr old Muslim boys who bombed the Oklahoma City Federal Building. OTOH, it's only Muslim terrorists, not Brazilians heading to work, that the police would ever dream of chasing down and shooting in the head seven times.

Of course, things might have been different if Osama bin Who has been pursued, instead of transferring focus to Iraq and turning the place into a breeding ground and rallying point for Al Qaeda.

We all know how eager Hispanic grandmas are to assist 20 yro muslim males with their suicide bombings.

Steve,

first I'm letting you know that I'll be sending you the bill for the sarcasm meter you just broke :P

Second, please consider that ol' hispanic grandma needn't be eager to assist. 20 yros are perfectly capable of tricking, lying, threatening, etc. grandmas into helping them.

Not to mention that while it is hard for a hispanic grandma to look like a 20 yro muslim, it is quite trivial for a 20 yro to pretend being an old person - enough to fool a policeman doing a rutinary search, at least. I admit this option is unlikely, though.

But the first one is far more worrysome: off the top of my head, I can think of several ways a little old lady could be tricked into carrying something into the subway, to be later retriven by the young man. Indeed, that is why airports ask if you have been given things to carry with you (little old ladies have, in fact, been rutinely used as unwilling drug carriers across borders for years, if I am not mistaken).

Let me state, however, that I am the last person that wants to bother what are perfectly harmless old ladies, or even anyone else. I am just trying to point out that directed searches might simply be ineffective, particularly if the terrorists see a way around them.

Hope that helps,

Grey Wolf

If you pseudos have anything intelligent to say.. like answering or referring me to sources which address my real posts .. that would be a demonstration of how easily such are answerable and dispensed with. But after a week of waiting one concludes the the little tribe has nothing to show.

EVO

Dear Timmy, I take it you cannot refer me to a single peer reviewed paper or a text book or anywhere else that documents the varifiable scientific demonstration of how the negentropic work was sourced for the sorting work, the code development work and the organizing or sequencing work, since it certainly was not performed by chemistry. Or do you just want to continue your caustic, meaningly, obtuse remarks devoid of any sign of intelligence.

— evopeach

If you pseudos have anything intelligent to say.. like answering or referring me to sources which address my real posts .. that would be a demonstration of how easily such are answerable and dispensed with. But after a week of waiting one concludes the the little tribe has nothing to show.

That's a shame, Lenny. I had lots of adorable little frogs in my previous garden when I let the grass etc grow much longer than the various neighbours did (because mine remained slightly damper at the base and was thus more welcoming).

EVO,

Even it all your proposed negatives of Evolution are true (big smile) that in no way points or proves a theory of ID.

Please post evidence for ID.

FYI,

Brian Leiter on search engines and "Intelligent Design".

The latest theory of ID. This one is very well thought out. EVO, did you have a hand in this????

http://www.venganza.org/

Anyone want to guess what the anagram for "deleted listening" is?

Nettled dieseling? Den tile glistened? Gil detested Lenin? Ellen digested tin? Lined dinette legs? Entitled seedling? Ten idled Gentiles? Need little design?

Re "The latest theory of ID."

Pasta la vista!

Now Grey, after being accidently banned for a few days, I can respond to your post. When I originally commented, I meant that I wouldn't object for rights reasons. Whether profiling 20 yro muslims is good strategy is a different question that I didn't mean to address. And somebody above addressed this in a pretty poor way by mentioning some white caucasian christian terrorist. A single data point like that doesn't invalidate profiling. Speaking to my original objection, I should probably elaborate. "Profiling" 20 yro muslims isn't very specific. There are ways they could do it which would make me object for rights reasons. But there are ways that wouldn't. You can be sure that the cops in the tubes in London aren't giving everybody exactly equal attention. When they see 20yro men with ethnic characteristics resembling people from islamic countries, you can bet they pay extra attention. Race and age and stuff play a part in cops' decision-making, and it's reasonable. I'm a 29-yro whitebread-looking white male. I'm pretty sure that if I were loitering in an abortion clinic parking lot, the staff would be a lot more concerned and likely to call the cops, than if I were a black grandmother doing the same thing in the same place. And I think that's reasonable.

If you want to see another case of a person against reliable science, catch a rerun of Meet The Press. Right now there's a guy arguing that thimerosol vaccines cause autism.

On "Jeopardy!" this past week they had a category on "The Evolutionary War".

The questions, er, answers, were:

In 1995 Alabama Gov. James mocked evolution theory by imitating this type of animal whose name means "to imitate".

"Thus from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object, the production of the higher animals, directly follows."
That was the final paragraph from a famous work by this man.

He surprised many in 1996 when he told the pontifical academy of science that evolution was no mere hypothesis.
(Have to name the person, not just the job he held at the time. ;) )

Orderly people are bothered by the idea of these random changes in genetic material helping evolution along.

A 1981 Arkansas law called for balanced teaching of evolution and this opposite type of "science".

Henry

Microscopic fossils found in China emerge as the oldest examples of animals that display bilateral symmetry --- two halves that are mirror images of each other. The find by a USC paleontologist and his peers focused on critters that date back millions of years. By Pamela J. Johnson

[...] period-sized blobs believed to have skimmed the ocean floor with suction-cup mouths some 580 to 600 million years ago.

The discovery is crucial. It suggests that the earliest ancestors to modern-day animals developed before the Cambrian explosion. That so-called explosion period, 488 to 542 million years ago, envelops the time on Earth when most animal groups first appeared.

Cool article on convergent evolution in the NYT

http://nytimes.com/2005/08/09/science/09frog.html

Perhaps you would like to ask some questions then? What is it about this debate (I assume you mean the debate between evolution and ID) that you are unsure about? Perhaps we can help you.

1) Why do proponents of evolutionary theory erroneously believe that design, by it's very nature, requires a designer?

2) Why don't proponents of evolutionary theory instead refute the rediculous implausibility of an intelligent agent behind design in nature?

Methinks that Behe, Dembski Meyer, et, al... have hoodwinked' ya's by pushing the idea design in nature is necessarily evidence for intelligent design.

Taking the bait makes for a lose/lose proposition for science, so we'd better teach the controversy in order to retain design in nature as a function of its themodynamic structuring.

3) If humans, like everything else in nature, have their contributing nitch in the thermodynamic process of our expanding universe, then we are not here by accident, so what is it, if not by *inherent* design?

If there is no perfect cosmic singularity, then design is perpetually inherent as information is NEVER lost.

I see someone got a word of the day calender for their birthday this year.

Great answer, is insulting rhetoric the norm?... apparently so.

Island,

1) Do you know of any designs that do not require a designer? This is now the second time I have heard an argument along these lines, but I've yet to see an example. Perhaps if you could provide an example it would be easier to see what you mean?

2) Actually, people have done refutations of this nature. One argument was made by Jeffreys who also critiqued Privileged Planet not too long ago (and there was a link here on PT.) Doesn't Shanks also do the same? I believe that some of the PT contributors have also done this in their books on ID.

3) How do you know that we humans inhabit some "niche in the thermodynamic process?" I guess I'm not sure what you mean by that. Could you please clarify that? It sounds like a circular argument, however, in that you seem to be saying that humans have a special place, ergo it couldn't have been an accident, ergo design.

1) I need your definition for design.

2) Yeah, it's the easiest way to invalidate ID as a comparable plausibility.

3) It isn't a circular argument, unless there isn't good reason for us to be here, and you can click on my link for more evidence than you can handle in one sitting... or should I copy and paste?

Island,

1) Um, you are the one posing that there is design and that it doesn't require a designer. Perhaps you should come up with a definition and we will see if we can agree on it?

2) 'Nuf said I think there.

3) It still seems circular by this line, "It isn't a circular argument, unless there isn't good reason for us to be here..." But, before I prejudge, let me check out your page and get back to you on this one, deal?

So far, I'm reading island as coming from an anti-ID stance.

I think he's saying that things can appear to us to be intentially "designed," when in fact their apparent designedness is simply the outgrowth of naturals inputs of one kind or another, which wouldn't be a novel proposal around here at all...

"Intent" is an extremely elastic concept in this context, in any event:

I'm intending to breed a new short variety of plant, or a new long-bodied but short legged doggy, and we call that "artificial" selection, since I know in what direction I would like to influence the future phenotype of the plants or canines, and have some breeding program in mind.

Then I head out to mow my lawn. Now I'm only intending to perform a household chore, with no deeper thoughts of "breeding" in mind. But I may nonetheless wind up selecting the next generation of dandelions for short stalks...

Now I'm one of a herd of herbivores, with no deep thoughts of any kind, other than munch, munch, munching, flicking the flies off my butt, and casting an eye to the horizon (and toward my fellow herd members) for signs of sneaky lions, rambunctious T-Rexes, or the like...

But the lazy lawnmower and the drowsy hervivore may still become implicated in the more-or-less unconscious and unintelligent process of "designing" plants that exhibit shorter stalks.

The "breeder" is presumably a designer in the sense the IDists (when they make what little sense they ever do) apparently mean. Is the grass manicurist? The fly-buzzed browser?

One could string out this set of hypotheticals until it would be beyond plain that no "intelligent" "designer" is involved, yet a shorter-stalked plant has still been brought about. And, of course, it would be equally possible to "complexify" the output side of the process, yielding eyes, wings, clotting cascades, whiptailed flagella, etc., etc.

So, yes, in this sense, design without a designer is, in a post-Darwin world, easily conceivable by a process we usually denominate as "natural" selection. To date, this sensible line of thought has not seemed to dissuade the hardcore IDists from their retrograde rounds, but maybe it will impinge upon someone more open-eyed and a tad less committed to the cause.

Bingo, at long last, someone with an honest brain.

It's all in the cosmological model that gets used, and the observed universe also reflects the most consevative mainstream approach, which is the most natural extension of Eistein's General Theory with a cosmological constant.

LaPlace's Demon is perfectly valid in that model, and this is all that we can really say from direct observation, as supported by Occam, so every event occurs via the principle of least action in an expanding universe that has an *increasing negative pressure componet*.

1) Why do proponents of evolutionary theory erroneously believe that design, by it's very nature, requires a designer?

— island

2) Why don't proponents of evolutionary theory instead refute the rediculous implausibility of an intelligent agent behind design in nature?

Methinks that Behe, Dembski Meyer, et, al... have hoodwinked' ya's by pushing the idea design in nature is necessarily evidence for intelligent design.

...no more than I should be than I should be spared the immediate and predictable effects of my misspelling, should I now be mocked for the same, heh heh

I'm not extracting a coherent message from island's comments. Is it just me?

You and anybody else that thinks that they've already got is all figured out and isn't getting that that my supported remarks indicate that "design" means that variation isn't blind, mutation isn't random, as echoed my physics and by Lynn Margulis concerning aburdities of "neo-darwinists" in her opening remarks as a key-note speaker at the 2005 World Conference on Evolution.

Not to mention her son and other scientists that don't buy it... for good reason that you will either recognize, or try to deny exists.

Bingo, at long last, someone with an honest brain.

That's hardly fair, or honest.

No, actually, the only feedback prior to that was dishonest and presumptuous, without any justification, nor any constructive input. So now that you've willfully ignored that, you must first recognize that point, before I will trust that your intentions are honest.

People are honestly trying to understand what you wrote, but it's difficult when you start out by turning reality on its head...

Isn't me that's got reality backwards.

<plonk>

Zero constuctive input... very good, if you're into group mentalities.

You and anybody else that thinks that they've already got is all figured out and isn't getting that that my supported remarks indicate that "design" means that variation isn't blind, mutation isn't random, as echoed my physics and by Lynn Margulis concerning aburdities of "neo-darwinists" in her opening remarks as a key-note speaker at the 2005 World Conference on Evolution.

Not to mention her son and other scientists that don't buy it... for good reason that you will either recognize, or try to deny exists.

Partial translation: physics and the evidence of design tells us that variation isn't blind and mutation isn't random. This seems to have something to do with "every event occurs via the principle of least action in an expanding universe that has an *increasing negative pressure componet*".

Posted by ellery on August 16, 2005 09:29 PM (e) (s)

Isn't the Achilles' Heel of ID the matter of implementation? I mean, it is one thing to have a design idea, but it is another thing to bring it to be. All designers and manufacturing engineers have noticed this. Usually there are aspects of the design---however neat---that cannot be made.They have absolutely nothing on implementation. Evolution gives a mechanism for how things can be assembled. ID has no hope of doing that. All that they can even hope to do, is try to prove that there exists some structure which could not have been assembled by any possible natural algorithm. Of course, they can't do this either, it's ridiculous. Here's a quick summary of the efforts so far:

Mike Behe: Nothing which is Irreducibly Complex could have evolved.
Scientists: Yes it could, here's two different ways it could have.
Behe: Well, i bet it didn't.

William Dembski: Evolution cannot produce CSI.
Scientists: yes it could, look at this example.
Dembski: That's just...uh..Apparent CSI. Not Actual CSI.

You could say it's not going so well.

WHAT? good god. no way i'm retyping all that. formatting errors should not obliterate the text. That's just bad coding.

You should be able to just hit back in your browser to get back to the text. And it's advisable to preview if you've written more than a couple of lines.

I've gotten into the habit of copying everything into memory as soon as i am ready to post it.

can't tell you how many times i lost a half-hours worth of typing because of some posting error.

back didn't work. i'll be copying into memory before i post from now on, that's for sure. but it feels like 1995. Since then, web designers have pretty much learned to preserve field info if there's a problem.

back didn't work. i'll be copying into memory before i post from now on, that's for sure. but it feels like 1995. Since then, web designers have pretty much learned to preserve field info if there's a problem.

Okay, without catching up on the thread, it slowly sunk into my thick skull that I had no good reason to lash out at ts the way that I did, because GCT most certainly had most apparently made every effort to understand what was being said, and I appreciate that more than he knows, so I owe ts an apology for not acknowledging that.

My comment was more historic anyway, and wasn't really intended toward anything that had occurred in this forum, other than the first unwarrented reply that I received.

Now I'll go see how badly I deservingly got my ass chewed for it, and then maybe I'll reply later, after I've had a chance to grow a new one... ;)

Again, ts, I'm sorry that I failed to consider your remarks in context with GCT's input.

Island, I'm glad you commented on that, because I was going to call you out on it.

As for the first point we were discussing, are others correct in assuming you were speaking of "apparent design"? If so, I think that has been well answered.

As for the third point, I'm still reading.

Such is rare -- thanks, and accepted.

Island, having done some reading I do have some questions for you, because I'm not sure I understand what you are getting at.

Are you saying that humans are necessary and the "design" behind the universe is necessary to bring about humans so that we can produce more entropy, which in turn allows the universe to expand? What is the designer in this sense, is it SLOT? Also, regarding your entropic anthropic principle (weak and strong), aren't these metaphysical statements? What I mean is, how is it possible to support or deny those with science?

The following linked article gives a very easy-to-read laymans terms description of the basic idea that's being presented here. Unfortunately, that also means that there it's all hanging out there without any supporting evidence, so a lesser person might perceive this as a weakness to be exploited. Anyway, the endorsing author, Arne Jernelov, is professor of environmental biochemistry, an honorary scholar and former director of the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis in Vienna and a UN expert on environmental catastrophes. I suspect that he's is also a good friend of Lynn Margulis, who is Dorion Sagan's mom. Sagan and Schneider have independently derived a more local version of the same theory as I have, but Carl Sagan's open hostility toward the idea of anthropic specialness doesn't help my case with them because they automatically associate the princple with evidence for god... like so many others have, they accused me of being a creationist the first time that I talked to them... lol.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/edit/archives/2004/09/30/2003204990

GCT, I'm saying that the information that determines the structuring of the universe is perpetually inherent to its energy, so the physics that will produce intelligent life is necessarily in the cards at the moment of the big bang, and comes into play after the universe has evolved for about 13 and a half billion years. Our high energy contribution to the process serves to hold the universe flat as it expands, and the flatness problem is the most significant of all of the anthropic coincidences.

I'm not sure what you mean by metaphysical... since the hypothesis is empirically supported, and the anthropic principle, however tautologous and circular, is a fact that is directly related to the Hierarchy problem, the Naturalness problem, and the fine-tuning problem in particle physics. Not to mention the landscape of string theory... albeit junk science... if you ask me.

island,

I am but a layman with no claim to speciality in understanding any of this, and I am trying to follow your logic, so I have to ask: am I correct in inferring that you are saying that humans(or other intelligent life, which Im guessing is being defined as self aware life capable of asking these questions) are an inevitable result of the physics of the universe?
Isn't that just gussied up 'begging the question' or something? We are here, therefore we are inevitable?

I am but a layman with no claim to speciality in understanding any of this, and I am trying to follow your logic, so I have to ask: am I correct in inferring that you are saying that humans(or other intelligent life, which Im guessing is being defined as self aware life capable of asking these questions) are an inevitable result of the physics of the universe?

Isn't that just gussied up 'begging the question' or something?

~

We are here, therefore we are inevitable?

Matt, what you are missing is that 'we are here, (to perform a very necessary thermodynamic function), therefore we are inevitable, (in terms of "activation energy").

Activation energy is just a means for releasing energy.

The need for this increases as negative pressure increases as the vacuum expands.

Island,

"We are here, (to perform a very necessary thermodynamic function)..." sounds like a metaphysical claim to me. I'm not sure how you can find "purpose" from science. I'm also not sure how humans are necessary in the universe. Given any change to any law or constant or what-have-you and the universe would have been different. I know you argue against this type of argument on your web page, but I find it to be a good argument against any sort of fine-tuning argument. Not because we can hypothesize about "what coulda/shoulda/woulda been" but because we can't really say anything about chance or inevitability because we really have no clue what the probabilities are. The only thing we can say is that we are here, so the probability of that occurring is 1; it happened.

Also, I don't know why the universe HAS to continue to expand from the standpoint of whether the universe is obligated to do anything at all. It is expanding and taking up our excess entropic waste, but are we really the only ones causing the universe to expand? Can we make that claim?

"We are here, (to perform a very necessary thermodynamic function)..." sounds like a metaphysical claim to me.

Not if I can give evidence that it's true, which I have, in spades.

I'm not sure how you can find "purpose" from science.

Teleology, in terms of pure physics, is a valid scientific reality in Einstein's deterministic universe.

I'm also not sure how humans are necessary in the universe.

The anthropic principle HOLDS the universe flat as it expands, and this is the most energy-efficient means for EVENLY distributing the energy... e.g. the path of least *ultimate* action*.

Given any change to any law or constant or what-have-you and the universe would have been different.

That's an assumption that the preferred theory and empiricism say that you can't make if my theory answers the same questions with equal accuracy, in less or equal steps.

... which NECESSSARILY supercedes the following:

I know you argue against this type of argument on your web page, but I find it to be a good argument against any sort of fine-tuning argument. Not because we can hypothesize about "what coulda/shoulda/woulda been" but because we can't really say anything about chance or inevitability because we really have no clue what the probabilities are. The only thing we can say is that we are here, so the probability of that occurring is 1; it happened.

~

Also, I don't know why the universe HAS to continue to expand from the standpoint of whether the universe is obligated to do anything at all.

Um... does the fact that observation indicates that this is occuring at an accelerating rate phase you in the least, or do you figure that there's gonna be a BIG SKID... ?;-)

It is expanding and taking up our excess entropic waste, but are we really the only ones causing the universe to expand? Can we make that claim?

No there are three known sources for this, and the other two have been in affect for a long time. It's a gravity thing, so it's cumulative, meaning that we weren't necessary to the process until we were.

If the second law of thermodynamics points the arrow of time, then the anthropic princple indicates that the journey toward heat death takes place with the greatest amount of order, because the universe would blow itself apart really fast if it were any less flat, and that means that energy is most evenly distributed via this configuration, so the humans are just a pinnacle of the effect.

Matt, what you are missing is that 'we are here, (to perform a very necessary thermodynamic function), therefore we are inevitable, (in terms of "activation energy").

Teleology, in terms of pure physics, is a valid scientific reality in Einstein's deterministic universe.

It's really important to bear in mind about now that "good physical reason" for intelligent life means that the AP isn't strictly anthropic and we likely very far from alone in this universe because of that.

The balance between diametrically opposing runaway tendencies that's common to most, if now all of the anthropic coincidences is predicting life appears almost exactly *between* the relevant spectrum of potential, so every banded spiral galaxy that's in our age-range should have life on it.

That prediction is as valid and testable as the prediction that life *will-not* on Venus or Mars, our most similar sister/brother planets, for the same (between the relevant spectrum), reason.

A smart evolutionary biologist would pick up on that pattern.

We don't live in such a universe; the resolution of the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox established that. And even if we did, determinism isn't teleology.

That paradox doesn't fly in the universe that I established is applicabe to origins science, and determinism is telic.

Some lesser-person wrote:
The article you provided only said that complex structures increase the rate of entropy. There's no reason to expect any specific structure. We are not at all inevitable --- that's a crank claim.

quote, me:
"The following linked article gives a very easy-to-read laymans terms description of the basic idea that's being presented here. Unfortunately, that also means that there it's all hanging out there without any supporting evidence, so a lesser person might perceive this as a weakness to be exploited."

Thank you Tim. You win the stereotype award.

www.anthropic-principle.ORG

Come back when you've got something to say that's worth hearing.

"We are here, (to perform a very necessary thermodynamic function)..." sounds like a metaphysical claim to me. Not if I can give evidence that it's true, which I have, in spades.

— island

I'm not sure how you can find "purpose" from science. Teleology, in terms of pure physics, is a valid scientific reality in Einstein's deterministic universe.

Given any change to any law or constant or what-have-you and the universe would have been different. That's an assumption that the preferred theory and empiricism say that you can't make if my theory answers the same questions with equal accuracy, in less or equal steps

Also, I don't know why the universe HAS to continue to expand from the standpoint of whether the universe is obligated to do anything at all. Um... does the fact that observation indicates that this is occuring at an accelerating rate phase you in the least, or do you figure that there's gonna be a BIG SKID... ?;-)

I'm sorry, I must not have found that on your webpage. I read the first part then skipped into the contents and read a couple pages on what the theory is. Perhaps you could point me to it? You do have to admit that you have tons of links in there, which makes it hard to go through things.

I happen to disagree with this. Science is decidedly mute on the questions of "purpose� and one must make their own conclusions to jump to that step. If Einstein did it, it doesn't necessarily make it right. I have this argument all the time with ID proponents who tell me that evolution is atheistic and I always argue that science is neutral to metaphysical questions.

It's not about accuracy or number of steps if there is an underlying unwarranted metaphysical assumption taking place. The IDers have made the most accurate prediction in the least amount of steps for everything (i.e. "Goddidit�) which I wouldn't characterize as being better since it relies on an illegal underlying assumption. If you can point me to how you got there without any undue underlying assumptions...

It's not about whether it is expanding or not, but about necessity of expansion from the universe's point of view. I think an accelerated rate of expansion is highly interesting, but I don't know that it has bearing on whether the universe inevitably has to expand or not.

Island, I'll go back and take another look at that first page and see if I can make heads or tails of the equations and such.

Until then, I was under the impression that the anthropic principle simply holds that since we are here, the universe must not be such to violate the possibility of us being here. I'm not aware of any stipulation that it be the most energy-efficient configuration.

Serious deep cranky, man.

"most energy-efficient"???

I'm no physicist, but, to me, "efficiency" is only an issue when measurable work is being performed.

So what "work" is the universe as a whole performing in such an efficient manner?

Serious deep cranky, man.

and then the clown expects an anwer... lol

Thank you Tim. You win the stereotype award.

Until then, I was under the impression that the anthropic principle simply holds that since we are here, the universe must not be such to violate the possibility of us being here.

No, the cosmological principle essentially notes the fact that the forces are contrained in a manner that allow for the existence of life.

The weak version notes that the evolutionary physics leads to "sites" where carbon-based life can evolve when the universe is old enough, so it's no coincidence that the observed inhomogeneity that are observed to exist in the large scale structure of our universe in direct conflict with the Copernican Cosmological Principle, also supports a biocentric universe.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rmforall/18135101/in/set-435988/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rmforall/18135102/in/set-435988/

and by the requirement that the Universe be old enough for it to have already done so.

I'm not aware of any stipulation that it be the most energy-efficient configuration.

Methinks it's in line the principle of least action when applied on a universal scale... ;)

Tim wrote:
What part of "not Tim" don't you understand?

No part.

and then the clown expects an anwer... lol

Until then, I was under the impression that the anthropic principle simply holds that since we are here, the universe must not be such to violate the possibility of us being here.

Also, see this linked site for an idea of how the flatness of the universe is one of the problems that is resolved by anthropic constraint on the forces, without the need for inflationary theory:

http://zebu.uoregon.edu/~imamura/209/mar31/anthropic.html

All of the problems listed in the above linked page are addressed and reasonably resolved by the physics on the first page of my website.

Can you answer the question?

After you admit that I haven't been avoiding questions.

I'll be happy to admit the negation of a claim I never made in the first place.

You, island, have not been avoiding questions.

I was just making sure it isn't that you "don't expect an answer" for that unreasonable reason:

So what "work" is the universe as a whole performing in such an efficient manner?

The universe is disseminating energy more evenly than would be the case were the universe less flat and more inclined toward blowing itself apart in a hurry.

I did already say that to somebody, 'if the second law points the arrow of time in an expanding universe, then the flatness aspect of the anthropic principle constrains the universe to maximize the time that the journey toward heat-death requires'.

That equates to the most work for your buck, dude.

Okay, having waded thru the anthropic principle websites I googled up I dont see how you can describe the concept as a rule or in any way binding on much of anything, seems more like a coincidental observation mixed with a hefty dose of circular reasoning and an incredible amount of willing suspension of disbelief.
More like an amusing philosophical exercise than anything grounded in reality. If humans go extinct does the universe stop expanding? If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it...
Is the anthropic P simply a philosophical take on the fairly recent concept of 'dark matter' regarding the expansion of the universe?
Or just a 'baffle-em-with-bs' attempt to drape the concept of a 'tailor-made-just-for-us' universe with a semblance of validity?

The transfer of energy from one physical system to another, especially the transfer of energy to a body by the application of a force that moves the body in the direction of the force. It is calculated as the product of the force and the distance through which the body moves and is expressed in joules, ergs, and foot-pounds.

To me the whole thing reads like output from the postmodernism generator...

Wow... two clueless morons in a row... Is there anyone that knows any physics that I can talk to?

Make that three, and my comment wasn't abusive, because it was directed at willful and wanton ignorance.

Until then, I was under the impression that the anthropic principle simply holds that since we are here, the universe must not be such to violate the possibility of us being here.

Here's another little feature that quite often doesn't get brought up in the debate:

Brandon Carter got the anthropic principle from Robert Dicke's single observaton. Since that time, the number of related coincidences has, and still is growing at a rate of approximately one per year. The occurrence of each additional coicidence (since the initial discovery)compounds the significance of the anthropic implication by orders of magnitude.

How conveniently that never gets noted by people that are tying to downplay the significance of the AP.

My last post might not carry as much weight were it not for the fact that most, if not all of the anthropic coincidences weren't found to exist almost exactly between diametrically opposing tendencies in the relevant spectrum of potential. For example, the observed universe appears to exist almost perfectly between the tendency toward runaway expansion, or runaway gravitation recollaps.

AKA... The flatness problem.

Anybody that doesn't see the relevance to that doesn't need to be discussing the anthropic principle at all.

Island

You surely can't expect everyone to accept your theory without skepticism. As a layman could I ask if your theory makes any testable predictions? Does it imply any consequences of any significance?

You surely can't expect everyone to accept your theory without skepticism. As a layman could I ask if your theory makes any testable predictions? Does it imply any consequences of any significance?

No, but there's a huge difference between honest and willful ignorance, and right off the bat I'd have to note that I have done what you ask for several times already in this here very thread.

Then there's the stuff on my website that you can get to by clicking on the link... where the physics on the first page clearly shows how Einstein's model already includes a mechanism for causality... if that helps, but we could also MAYBE take this to the PhD physicist moderated research group for real time peer review where these relevant posts were made before a bunch of cut-throats that live to shoot you down... if they can.

http://www.lns.cornell.edu/spr/2005-06/msg0069755.html

I'm sorry Island but did you just call me a moron?
Please, explain why the necessity of the insult?
Is everyone who doesn't agrree with you're take on AP a moron?
I personally do not think I am a moron; I think I'm perfectly capable of understanding pretty much anything once carefully explained. Just seems to me the idea of AP has taken a somewhat intriguing concept and stretched it (or smeared) to the point of absurdity.
However, I can take some consolation in the fact that if I am right about AP with but a few minutes examination of key concepts, and you are wrong after the extensive effort you have taken to give your mental machinations an air of verisimilitude, well, your degree of moronism is far greater than anything I can ever hope to attain. So congratulations, you have definitely acheived something substantial one way or the other.
Had I known you were so charming I would never have inquired in the first place.

Sure, dude.
I'm a clueless moron and you're sitting on the secret of life.
Forgive me for not being impressed. bye.

You're right, Matt, I misread you and I'm sorry... I'll explain.

island, I have reviewed your website. Neither it, nor your posts here contain any evidence whatever to support your contentions. While I admire your ability to cut and paste from a few physics texts or web-sites, this hardly constitutes any kind of 'theory'.

Given that we exist, the various physical constants of the universe must be suitable to our existence. Unfortunately, that does not demonstrate any particular dependency of those constants on our existence.

And before you cast aspersions on the lack of knowledge of physics displayed by various posters, it would be well to display some yourself.

We're waiting.

P.S. You're almost as lacking in evidenctial support for your assertions as dear Sallie.

Is there anyone that knows any physics that I can talk to?

Matt, I thought that you had said that you'd gone to my site, I'm sorry that happens sometimes when I'm getting gangbanged instead of having a one-on-one, question to *acknowledged* answer discussion.

Okay, having waded thru the anthropic principle websites

That means that you may have hit Wiki and maybe even Tipler but you had to have read a bunch of crap from people that are either pro-god or are trying to downplay the significance of the anthropic principle in order to fight-off a pro-god argument. So you read a bunch of stuff that has extremely biased motivations behind it. Not too good, so far.

This does not clear picture deliver...

I googled up I dont see how you can describe the concept as a rule or in any way binding on much of anything, seems more like a coincidental observation mixed with a hefty dose of circular reasoning and an incredible amount of willing suspension of disbelief. More like an amusing philosophical exercise than anything grounded in reality. If humans go extinct does the universe stop expanding?

Yes, (insert the physics on the first page of MY website here) but its not just humans, as you've failed to account for the mentioned fact that our contribution to this effort defines good reason why life would be required all over the place in the universe as a very practical means to a very specific end, so you can fail to mention, ignore, and deny the relevance, or your ability to really see any relevance until the cows come home if you want to, the preferred theory and me doesn't really care.

If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it...
Is the anthropic P simply a philosophical take on the fairly recent concept of 'dark matter' regarding the expansion of the universe?

No, everything that I've said falls directly out of the most conservative mainstream approach to explaining an expanding univeres, but then... I've already said that, too.

Or just a 'baffle-em-with-bs' attempt to drape the concept of a 'tailor-made-just-for-us' universe with a semblance of validity?

I've already called that bluff and we can take this to the moderated research group any time that you think that your ready to get a post past the physicist, who most certainly does screen for prior to posting anything.

Island: like it or not you do exhibit a host of cranky traits, including, but not restricted to:

- insulting anyone who disagrees with you
- impenetrable prose (and as a professional scientist, I'm not scared by scientific prose)
- name-dropping (I don't care about the credentials of whoever supports the idea you're peddling)
- condescension
- repetition (repeatedly pointing to your web site is not the same as explaining an idea)

Perhaps, you could point me to some primary research articles, by you or by others, in peer-reviewed, scientific journals on the theory you're defending? Or are all other scientists morons as well?

Sure, right up until they laugh in your pretentious face.

Bring it, big-mouth, cuz I'm walkin the walk.

bla bla bla... Richard, do you have a single point that you can dispute, or do you deserve what you get?

island, I have reviewed your website. Neither it, nor your posts here contain any evidence whatever to support your contentions.

No, I'm sorry but you'll have to be more specific than general attacks with zero content... lol

Given that we exist, the various physical constants of the universe must be suitable to our existence. Unfortunately, that does not demonstrate any particular dependency of those constants on our existence.

And that isn't what my website says, that's the anthropic principle without the entropic interpretaion so are you a liar?

Comment #43283 Posted by sad on August 16, 2005 12:33 PM (e) (s) Oh, that makes sense then. He believes certain things that seem to contradict scientific knowledge and other things that can't be proved. He is a F#$*ing good for nothing piece of trash. Let's never listen to anything he has to say then because of his accompanying historical context. Let's put alot of "LOL's" following his posts too. We can be our own little clan. Oh wait!!!! I'm a F#$*ing good for nothing piece of trash too. My stars! I believe things that contract scientific knowledge. That earth cooled and liquid water appears around 3.8 billion years ago...followed immediately by photosynthetic algae. Darn it!!! That's not gradual. Come on chemical evolution.... where's my trial and error? Where is the gradualism? Now how about that early bacterial complexity? Crap! That's out of key too.

Matt, what you are missing is that 'we are here, (to perform a very necessary thermodynamic function), therefore we are inevitable, (in terms of "activation energy").

No, but there's a huge difference between honest and willful ignorance, and right off the bat I'd have to note that I have done what you ask for several times already in this here very thread.

"But I don't have to know an answer. I don't feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in the mysterious universe without having any purpose---which is the way it really is, as far as I can tell, possibly. It doesn't frighten me." -- Richard P. Feynman

Which is? And why would humans be inevitable?

Click on my 'name' but please bring back a SPECIFIC complaint if you don't find your answer in the first couple of paragraphs, and thanks in advance for not just prtending to have a clue:

And why do your comments give me an ID Mormonism style feel?

I wondered how long it would be before that didn't start at the beginning implied that I'm a creationist. Having been called one more times than Dembski, and having denied it more times than Judas, I can safely say that your lame appeal to perceived similarity of valid points very clearly illustrates your pre-disposition to interpreting evidence a given way. In which case, you may not need to bother clicking on the link.

Does anyone see how this indicates that this person is pre-biased in the manner that they will intepret evidence?

If not, then ya'll are in deep-si9&*t... cuz that that means that you're no better than them.

There should be a "before someone" somewhere in the first sentence of that second paragraph... after " I wondered "...

I could do better, no really.

Is there anyone that knows any physics that I can talk to?

— island

Moses:
Okay, are you honestly ignorant or just willfully ignorant? Because all you've done is a complicated circular exercise in new age navel gazing because you can't deal with the purposeless universe. One of my favorite quotes from my favorite scientist (that's not my wife) of all time:

Sorry, that doesn't mean anything to science. Do you have a specific point of contention?... or are you just going to pretend like you have a clue, while spewing nothing specific like so many others love to do?

SEF... it ain't cuz I asked for it... ZING!

An empirically supported argument can be made that an "entropic" Anthropic Cosmolgical Principle is 'most-natural' in an expanding universe for self-explanatory reasons

— island

but is there enough justifying evidence that the predominant expansive inclination of our universe also represents the reason that the forces are "tuned" in a manner that produces "sites" where intelligent life can arise and evolve?

— island

C ) Is there evidence that humans are capable of some higher-level contribution to the process that is relatively uncommon or "unique" enough in our universe to justify an Entropic Anthropic Cosmological Principle?

— island

Once, again, the answer is yes, as humans are by far the most energy-efficient of only three known sources for isolating the release of enough energy to make real particles from the negative energy of the quantum vacuum, which directly affects the symmetry of the universe, so it is less probably a coincidence that the "flatness" of the universe is also the most apparently significant of all of the "anthropic coincidences".

— island

The evidence most certainly does support a valid hypothesis for design in nature... in terms of a thermodynamic mechanism that enables and requires human creation as a means to satisfy a very practical physical need.

— island

Island,
Is Dorion Sagan's book a good primer or would you recommend another?
Paul

Comment #43559 Posted by island on August 17, 2005 04:06 PM (e) (s) Wow... two clueless morons in a row... Is there anyone that knows any physics that I can talk to?

Lowercase steve has noticed yet another person posting as simply "steve", so to avoid confusion, he thinks he might change that to steve story.

Who are you people and what have you done with all my favorite PT commentators?

Dirac noted that the number of baryons, (protons plus neutrons), in the universe is equal to the square of the gravitational constant, as well as the square of the age of the universe, (both expressed as dimensionless numbers). From this, Rober Dicke realized that a even a slight change in either of these relationships life could not exist. Stars of the right type for sustaining life supportable planets only can occur during a certain range of ages for the universe. Similarly, stars of the right type only can form for a narrow range of values of the gravitational constant.

In 1957, Robert Dicke noted that carbon based life can only exist in our universe when the Dirac's Large Numbers Hypothesis is true. Human existence is possible because the constants of the universe, and for planet Earth, lie almost exactly between the spectrum of potential, within certain highly restricted ranges. Dike's observation means that Dirac's Large Numbers Hypothesis is somehow true even though his cosmological model was flawed, but per the above "new" physics, Dirac's hypothesis is valid within the framework of Einstein's static model if the energy of the observed antiparticle exists in a negative energy state, (by way of negative vacuum pressure), until enough vacuum energy is condensed over an isolated region of space to achieve positive gravitational curvature. This application exposes the causal mechanism for the Anthropic Principle, thereby giving the Strong Anthropic Principle real physical meaning, while removing the weakness that gets it labled as a tautology or a truism. It stands to good reason that repairing Dirac's cosmological model would also repair his large numbers hypothesis, thereby sheding new light on the anthropic principle, and Dirac, (who was known as 'the purist soul in physics', for his "self-honesty"), would expect no less from us, than we should take a hard look at what the math is telling us.

Tim wrote:

— island

What part of "not Tim" don't you understand? No part.

It seems that those who are debating this issue are emotionally invested in the outcome.

I will have to pick up his book sometime. I think I'm in the minority on this issue; I don't care. Not to be crass, but, it doesn't matter to me which way the wind-blows, if God exists and created stuff, then great, if not, then great too. Either-way, both truths seem good to me. It seems that those who are debating this issue are emotionally invested in the outcome.