More Luskin head-faking about human descent

Got to love liars for jesus. Compartmentalizing the strictures of their religion so as to lie out their asses without the moral limits normal people have. Their god is not going to be pleased at all.

ID advocates -

What explanation of human descent do Casey Luskin, Axe, and Gauger propose? Or do you propose?

All the book does is desperately try to explain away some of the evidence for the mainstream view.

But arguing against the evidence for human evolution is not the same thing as providing evidence for ID/creationism.

1) Could any evidence convince you of the theory of evolution, and if so, what type of evidence is now lacking, that would convince you if present?

2) The Supreme Court ruled against the direct teaching of Biblical Young Earth Creationism as science in public schools; however, if that ruling were overturned, which would you support more, teaching of ID, or direct teaching of Bible-based YEC?

3) Do you think it is important for opponents of the theory of evolution to fully understand the theory of evolution? If so, can you explain it, and if not, can you explain why not?

4) Who is the designer? How can we test your answer?

5) What did that designer do? How can we test your answer?

6) How did the designer do it? How can we test your answer?

7) When did the designer do it? How can we test your answer?

8) What is an example of something that was not designed by the designer?

9) Some parts of the Bible suggest that pi equals exactly three, and that the earth is flat and has four corners. Do you accept these as facts of physical reality, and if not, why do you deny the theory of evolution on the grounds of Biblical literacy, if it can be symbolic about other scientific issues?

10) Is there any possible way to get any creationists to answer these question? Are there creationist forums I could post them at, without having my comment deleted and my account banned?

Recall Martin Luther's "What harm would it do, if a man told a good strong lie for the sake of the good and for the Christian church...a lie out of necessity, a useful lie, a helpful lie, such lies would not be against God, he would accept them."

@Paul Burnett,
Of course Luther was lying when he said that :)

This topic and its Opening Post is highly critical of the Discovery Institute, which is referred to as the "Disco Tute."

For the Record: It is relevant and important to point out that the Fellows at the Discovery Institute, like the Fellows here at PandasThumb, accept the concepts of natural selection, microevolution, macroevolution to exist in nature. In fact, some fellows at the Discovery Institute go as far as accepting the concepts of common descent and human evolution as well.

Ray (Old Earth, Paleyan IDist-species immutabilist)

@Ray Martinez,
What? Where do I find evidence of this amazing escape toward reality at the Tute?

Some interesting items from a new book out: "Denying Science" by John Grant:

Mano Singham in God vs. Darwin (2009, p. 101):

"Intelligent Design" (ID) can best be understood as a carefully crafted theory designed to eliminate those features that had led to the defeat (because of the Establishment Clause) of piror efforts to combat the teaching of evolution in public schools.

And Phillip Johnson has stated:
"I realized," he says, "that if the pure Darwinist account was accurate and life is all about an undirected material process, then Christian metaphysics and religious belief are fantasy."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/14/AR2005051401222.html

Even if evolutionists make a few accurate corrections on a whole book its just nitpicking to define the book by a few errors. If they are errors.
In short poor sampling is going on here.

Again its pressed about Luskin being a lawyer and not this or that.
Does this mean all of mankind must not study the facts about these matters but only a few and the rest of us trust them in their conclusions?
I note evolutionists do try to persuade the people by making a case.
So if the people can and should be persuaded by a case based on evidence then the people can contend against evolution based on studying the evidence.
This book helps introduce and direct people to higher criticism of old time evolution.

By the way its still all about bits and pieces of bones and drawing connections.
There is no biological investigation ever going on in studying fossils where the intent is figuring out the origins of those present fossils or their destiny.
Its been a grand flaw of logic to ever have seen fossils as part of biological investigation for conclusions other then seen in the fossil.
Fossils tell no tale without geological sequence and so its not the fossils but only the geology that is the evidence for conclusions about the creatures fossilized.
If the sequences were weeks apart and the creatures just from upriver then the error would be from the geology and not biology.
so the sum is that fossils can't be biological evidence for evolution.
150 years of error in this matter.

Ray Martinez the delusional clueless Liar for Jesus barfed: This topic and its Opening Post is highly critical of the Discovery Institute, which is referred to as the "Disco Tute." For the Record: It is relevant and important to point out that the Fellows at the Discovery Institute, like the Fellows here at PandasThumb, accept the concepts of natural selection, microevolution, macroevolution to exist in nature. In fact, some fellows at the Discovery Institute go as far as accepting the concepts of common descent and human evolution as well. Ray (Old Earth, Paleyan IDist-species immutabilist)

Robert Byers lied: By the way its still all about bits and pieces of bones and drawing connections. lying snipped for brevity and nausea so the sum is that fossils can't be biological evidence for evolution. 150 years of error in this matter.

Paul Burnett said: Recall Martin Luther's "What harm would it do, if a man told a good strong lie for the sake of the good and for the Christian church...a lie out of necessity, a useful lie, a helpful lie, such lies would not be against God, he would accept them."

John said:

Ray Martinez the delusional clueless Liar for Jesus barfed: This topic and its Opening Post is highly critical of the Discovery Institute, which is referred to as the "Disco Tute." For the Record: It is relevant and important to point out that the Fellows at the Discovery Institute, like the Fellows here at PandasThumb, accept the concepts of natural selection, microevolution, macroevolution to exist in nature. In fact, some fellows at the Discovery Institute go as far as accepting the concepts of common descent and human evolution as well. Ray (Old Earth, Paleyan IDist-species immutabilist)

For the Record, Ray, the Disco Tute is comprised of a pathetic band of mendacious intellectual pornographers of whom two of the most vile are David Klinghoffer and Casey Luskin. Neither Klinghoffer or Luskin accept natural selection, microevolution or macroevolution.

RIght, bones are not biological! HA HA HA HA HA HA HA Try again dipstick.

DS said: RIght, bones are not biological! HA HA HA HA HA HA HA Try again dipstick.

Ray Martinez said: So Klinghoffer and Luskin are species immutabilists, like myself?

On one occasion I had a conversation with Luskin. I did not come away with the impression that he was a fixist---just the opposite. Can you support your claim?

Thanks. Johnson, Dembski and Behe accept natural selection and microevolution. Dembski goes to great lengths to avoid stating his position on how species come to be in the wild. If anyone produces quotes another could produce other quotes that "contradict"---that's the web of deceit he has created. In short, he desparately desires not to be viewed or perceived as a Creationist---but, at the same time, he has produced quotes that "say" just that.

That said, Dembski, the intellectual big gun at the D.I., is an Evolutionist (species are mutable). He justifies his position by asserting Darwinian evolution "agnostic." Then, in the same writing, he makes two grand statements---(1) "My thesis is that all disciplines find their completion in Christ and cannot be properly understood apart from Christ" and "Christ is indispensable to any scientific theory." Note that he says "Christ" and not God the Creator.

Ray Martinez said: ...some fellows at the Discovery Institute go as far as accepting the concepts of common descent and human evolution as well.

ID does attempt to solve the problem with teaching sectarian religious doctrine in US state-supported schools. But we should also note that traditional creationism ran into problems whenever they attempted to give a description of their alternative. Whenever they attempted to specify what happened and when, it turned out to have major problems. (Unless they retreat to some sort of "omphalism" - that the world was created with all the appearances of evolution, for example.) So ID carefully avoids describing a positive, substantive alternative.

Ray Martinez said:

John said:

Ray Martinez the delusional clueless Liar for Jesus barfed: This topic and its Opening Post is highly critical of the Discovery Institute, which is referred to as the "Disco Tute." For the Record: It is relevant and important to point out that the Fellows at the Discovery Institute, like the Fellows here at PandasThumb, accept the concepts of natural selection, microevolution, macroevolution to exist in nature. In fact, some fellows at the Discovery Institute go as far as accepting the concepts of common descent and human evolution as well. Ray (Old Earth, Paleyan IDist-species immutabilist)

For the Record, Ray, the Disco Tute is comprised of a pathetic band of mendacious intellectual pornographers of whom two of the most vile are David Klinghoffer and Casey Luskin. Neither Klinghoffer or Luskin accept natural selection, microevolution or macroevolution.

So Klinghoffer and Luskin are species immutabilists, like myself? On one occasion I had a conversation with Luskin. I did not come away with the impression that he was a fixist---just the opposite. Can you support your claim? Thanks. Johnson, Dembski and Behe accept natural selection and microevolution. Dembski goes to great lengths to avoid stating his position on how species come to be in the wild. If anyone produces quotes another could produce other quotes that "contradict"---that's the web of deceit he has created. In short, he desparately desires not to be viewed or perceived as a Creationist---but, at the same time, he has produced quotes that "say" just that. That said, Dembski, the intellectual big gun at the D.I., is an Evolutionist (species are mutable). He justifies his position by asserting Darwinian evolution "agnostic." Then, in the same writing, he makes two grand statements---(1) "My thesis is that all disciplines find their completion in Christ and cannot be properly understood apart from Christ" and "Christ is indispensable to any scientific theory." Note that he says "Christ" and not God the Creator.

Actually the DI guys have said a lot of things. The big problem (one of many) is that they change what they say depending on who they are talking to. When quoted by religious magazines and churches, the DI fellows say that "any science that isn't directly from Jesus, is automatically wrong" (paraphrase, but I can provide the quote if anyone is interested).

Yet, when talking to courts of law, it's all, "well, ID doesn't talk about mechanisms, well it does, but we don't have any, but that's not what ID is about anyway".

I had an online debate with JoeG (turns, opening, rebuttals, etc) on this very subject.

There are two possible conclusions. The first is that the DI doesn't have a clue what they actually think... and by extension, there is no consistent notion of ID or creationism. The second is that they are all liars.

Since the claims of quotemining by most DI fellows and ID supporters has been extensively supported; since there have been multiple instances where these people have been corrected (in science, quotes, concepts, law, etc) and they still promote the same mistakes they were corrected on; then the only conclusion possible is that they are a bunch of liars for Jesus.

And Ray, why do you keep running when people start asking you questions? You can believe whatever you like, no one cares. But you can't claim to have support for your notions.

Would you like to talk about species immutability and the Scottish Fold cat? You know, the one where we know when the mutation happened, we even know which animal it happened in. Now, there is an entire breed based on that single mutation. If you say, "but it's still a cat", then I suggest you look up the word 'immutable' and change your description of your notions.

Ray Martinez the delusional clueless Liar for Jesus barfed:

John said:

Ray Martinez the delusional clueless Liar for Jesus barfed: This topic and its Opening Post is highly critical of the Discovery Institute, which is referred to as the "Disco Tute." For the Record: It is relevant and important to point out that the Fellows at the Discovery Institute, like the Fellows here at PandasThumb, accept the concepts of natural selection, microevolution, macroevolution to exist in nature. In fact, some fellows at the Discovery Institute go as far as accepting the concepts of common descent and human evolution as well. Ray (Old Earth, Paleyan IDist-species immutabilist)

For the Record, Ray, the Disco Tute is comprised of a pathetic band of mendacious intellectual pornographers of whom two of the most vile are David Klinghoffer and Casey Luskin. Neither Klinghoffer or Luskin accept natural selection, microevolution or macroevolution.

So Klinghoffer and Luskin are species immutabilists, like myself? On one occasion I had a conversation with Luskin. I did not come away with the impression that he was a fixist---just the opposite. Can you support your claim? Thanks. Johnson, Dembski and Behe accept natural selection and microevolution. Dembski goes to great lengths to avoid stating his position on how species come to be in the wild. If anyone produces quotes another could produce other quotes that "contradict"---that's the web of deceit he has created. In short, he desparately desires not to be viewed or perceived as a Creationist---but, at the same time, he has produced quotes that "say" just that. That said, Dembski, the intellectual big gun at the D.I., is an Evolutionist (species are mutable). He justifies his position by asserting Darwinian evolution "agnostic." Then, in the same writing, he makes two grand statements---(1) "My thesis is that all disciplines find their completion in Christ and cannot be properly understood apart from Christ" and "Christ is indispensable to any scientific theory." Note that he says "Christ" and not God the Creator.

John said: I can't wait to read your answers,

There are two possible conclusions. The first is that the DI doesn’t have a clue what they actually think… and by extension, there is no consistent notion of ID or creationism. The second is that they are all liars.

harold,

I agree with you in all particulars. I'd just add that I think that how religion is practiced has an important influence here. I'll try to describe what I mean without causing offense.

Religious leaders are authoritarian. They talk big, they talk confidently, the rebuke questions instead of answering them and they have no problem making up stories to support their positions. The believers are used to this. They are used to not asking questions and blind acceptance.

I think many of the creationist crowd (FL, Ray, and some others) honestly can't understand why we don't just accept their word that things are a certain way. They are speaking confidently. They are rebuking questions. They are making up stories to support their ideas. They are probably honestly confused why we keep asking questions and why we don't accept answers.

They have never had to deal with evidence. They don't have any evidence, they've never had it, they don't understand the concept of evidence.

And because we don't speak as confidently, we don't talk with 100% certainty, we hedge, they see this as 'weakness' on our part. So, they see that we have lost. Every time we can't answer a question with 100%, that's more 'evidence' that we are wrong.

ogremk5 said: harold, I agree with you in all particulars. I'd just add that I think that how religion is practiced has an important influence here. I'll try to describe what I mean without causing offense. Religious leaders are authoritarian. They talk big, they talk confidently, the rebuke questions instead of answering them and they have no problem making up stories to support their positions. The believers are used to this. They are used to not asking questions and blind acceptance. I think many of the creationist crowd (FL, Ray, and some others) honestly can't understand why we don't just accept their word that things are a certain way. They are speaking confidently. They are rebuking questions. They are making up stories to support their ideas. They are probably honestly confused why we keep asking questions and why we don't accept answers. They have never had to deal with evidence. They don't have any evidence, they've never had it, they don't understand the concept of evidence. And because we don't speak as confidently, we don't talk with 100% certainty, we hedge, they see this as 'weakness' on our part. So, they see that we have lost. Every time we can't answer a question with 100%, that's more 'evidence' that we are wrong.

Robert Byers said: Even if evolutionists make a few accurate corrections on a whole book its just nitpicking to define the book by a few errors.

harold said:

ogremk5 said: harold, I agree with you in all particulars. I'd just add that I think that how religion is practiced has an important influence here. I'll try to describe what I mean without causing offense. Religious leaders are authoritarian. They talk big, they talk confidently, the rebuke questions instead of answering them and they have no problem making up stories to support their positions. The believers are used to this. They are used to not asking questions and blind acceptance. I think many of the creationist crowd (FL, Ray, and some others) honestly can't understand why we don't just accept their word that things are a certain way. They are speaking confidently. They are rebuking questions. They are making up stories to support their ideas. They are probably honestly confused why we keep asking questions and why we don't accept answers. They have never had to deal with evidence. They don't have any evidence, they've never had it, they don't understand the concept of evidence. And because we don't speak as confidently, we don't talk with 100% certainty, we hedge, they see this as 'weakness' on our part. So, they see that we have lost. Every time we can't answer a question with 100%, that's more 'evidence' that we are wrong.

That is a great description. I usually prefer to use words like "rigid ideology" or "authoritarian dogma" rather than "religion". The reasons for this are 1) hypothetically some religious leaders don't behave that way, but more to the point, 2) rigid authoritarian ideologues are not confined to the world of religion. Whether they are all inspired by religious leaders, or whether many religious sects are simply the most common example of a more generalized authoritarian tendency, I could not say. Your description of how authoritarians operate is dead on. It's about imposing one's will rather than persuading with reason.

I would further suggest that religion is being used as a tool to support their disgust at the idea of being physically related to the rest of the world of life. Rather than religion being the source for their rejection of evolutionary biology.

TomS said: I would further suggest that religion is being used as a tool to support their disgust at the idea of being physically related to the rest of the world of life. Rather than religion being the source for their rejection of evolutionary biology.

fnxtr said:

John said: I can't wait to read your answers,

I can.

fnxtr said:

John said: I can't wait to read your answers,

I can.

dalehusband said: How come you have never supported your claims about species being fixed?

harold said: Ray Martinez, question for you. If you are a species immutablist, how do you define species?

Can you give a specific example of a case where superficially very similar organisms are actually members of different species, and a case where there is a lot of diversity within the same species, to illustrate how your definition deals with such cases?

Mr Martinez supports Ernst Mayr's definition of "species": a group of individuals that is reproductively isolated, and can only breed amongst themselves.

This is a definition that has the advantage of providing a hard, bright line. Mayr acknowledged, of course, that it was arbitrary. But he argued, cogently I think, that in discussing the concept of speciation, definition was essential. After all, although other definitions might suit individual cases better, sense requires that some definition be generally applied.

There is nothing at all odd or special about this. Human beings are used to working with fractal definitions. With all such definitions, when the edge cases and boundary conditions are closely inspected, one finds cases that may be on one side or the other, depending upon further definition, more and more so. "Life" itself is one such fractally defined term. It's hardly a matter of wonder that so is "species".

But the very existence of these "edge cases" puts paid to Mr Martinez's contention that the species are immutable. Apply Mayr's definition to line and ring species, for example, and we find that some populations are reproductively compatible with those next to them on the line, which are in turn reproductively compatible with the next ones along, but the ends of the line are incompatible. Where is the dividing line, then?

There are cases of populations that are genetically and morphologically distinct, and which are reproductively isolated from each other in nature, but breed in captivity. It's again an edge case.

These edge cases illustrate an aspect of evolution: populations separate over time when there is some cause for divergence, not necessarily geographical, between them. This observed condition is explained by evolution; indeed, evolution requires it. Some populations are observed to be in the intermediate stages of this process. These are boundary conditions, edge cases, and they contradict species immutability.

I find it scandalous that so many ad hominems have been directed at our creationist visitors--as is the case for so many PT posts-- but the topic of the post has been mostly ignored.

Did any of you evolutionist fucks read Afarensis' blog post? Did any of you see the outrageous lie exposed there, that Luskin has been telling FOR YEARS NOW?

Luskin had a quote supposedly about Lucy, supposedly from Johanson. This quote was cited by Luskin again and again FOR YEARS to the effect that Lucy's bones were jumbled about sticking out of the ground and might not all be from the same individual or the same species.

But as Afarensis discovered, Luskin's quote wasn't from Johanson, and wasn't about Lucy. It was from Tim White, and was about OH 62.

Now THAT is outright lying. Wrong author, wrong fossil, wrong species, wrong genus. Granted, those are small errors for a creationist.

Yet believe it or not, there's another Luskinlie [TM] that Afarensis did not note, that is even worse. If you can't believe the first Luskinlie [TM], here's an even worse one, believe it or not.

In a recent post at ENV Luskin said that Spoor et al. (1994, their paper on inner ear labyrinth morphology in hominids) proved that the skull of Homo habilis is most similar to...wait for it now... a baboon.

A fucking baboon. Has this nutjob Luskin ever seen a fucking baboon skull? What kind of fucking mental patient would believe, and say out loud, that the skull of Homo habilis is more similar TO A BABOON than to a human!?

Jesus Tapdancing Christ, it's like Luskin is screaming "I'm Napoleon!" in his underwear. He's a mental fucking patient.

And you, you evolutionist fucks-- how can you evolutionist fucks, in post after post here at PT, waste your time pummeling an elderly, disoriented gentleman like Byers with ad hominems, when you have a young, fat, cunning, smarmy, pathological liar like Casey Luskin right in your sights? Stop beating up senior citizens and GO GET HIM FOR FUCK'S SAKE.

Um. I'll leave that comment up, but reluctantly. There's a point there, buried in the rage.

Evolution was accepted when Darwin published in 1859. He was the founding architect. The foundation of his explication still stands today. I am after that foundation. Gould 2002 (1000 + pages) was written in defense of that foundation. If that foundation were to fall every thing built on top goes with it.

harold said: ID advocates - What explanation of human descent do Casey Luskin, Axe, and Gauger propose? Or do you propose? Fallacy of no alternative All the book does is desperately try to explain away some of the evidence for the mainstream view. critiquing an existing theory is not a bad thing, scientifically speaking. But arguing against the evidence for human evolution is not the same thing as providing evidence for ID/creationism. True. Thats why ID is developing its ideas. IC, information as an independent entity, hierarchical levels of command/control, egigentics, etc, etc. We've been at it for what 20+ years. ToE has been at it for 150. Give it time. give it time. 1) Could any evidence convince you of the theory of evolution, and if so, what type of evidence is now lacking, that would convince you if present? why, if lenski's bacteria actually produced new parts, one by one, where each new part, in random fashion showed signs of function at each step, with each new part added changing the function of the previously achieved function. 2) The Supreme Court ruled against the direct teaching of Biblical Young Earth Creationism as science in public schools; however, if that ruling were overturned, which would you support more, teaching of ID, or direct teaching of Bible-based YEC? teach ID should be taught irrespective of whether or not biblical YEC is taught or not. They are not the same animal as can readily be perceived. 3) Do you think it is important for opponents of the theory of evolution to fully understand the theory of evolution? If so, can you explain it, and if not, can you explain why not? sure, its important. But the theory of evolution can hardly be explained in a blog post. There is this special characteristic of the ToE, that is has a long train of caveats and qualifications. Like I always say, ToE is crushing itself under the weight of its own hedge bets. 4) Who is the designer? How can we test your answer? Irrelevant. Do we need to understand the identity of a designer to study the characteristics of design. Do I need to meet Picasso to know how Picassao painted. Sure, it might be alot easier to interview him and let him spill the beans. But that would take all the fun out of studying Picasso. But more so, his paintings would probably lose all their price value. It is the aura of his creative brilliance that keeps his paintings pulling in millions. We don't want to disturb that trend now, would we? So likewise, why in the world would we want God to chronicle his workday? Let us do science and when we think we have figured out his methods, we give the old man a call and tell him the jig is up. We now know His 'magic tricks' we not tricks at all. Just our inability to pierce the fog of our unknowing. This IMO is the advantage of ID. Our starting point is design, so we want to figure out the methods of design. ToE starts with no design, therefore seeks no answers as to how it may have been designed. so no chance at looking for the big picture. Its looking at an elephant's trunk and declaring it a python, not stopping to ponder the possibility that its a part connected to a greater whole. 5) What did that designer do? How can we test your answer? see no. 4. 6) How did the designer do it? How can we test your answer? see no. 4. 7) When did the designer do it? How can we test your answer? see no. 4. 8) What is an example of something that was not designed by the designer? Its not a matter of designed/undesigned but rather what type/level of design. Was it done by flinging paint at the canvas, or maybe accidental drips or drops of paint ending up having a nice touch. We can figure that out. Just ask the folks at CSI Las Vegas, or NY, or Miami if you prefer. they could tell you the angle, pressure, velocity was definitely produced by flings and not an overloaded paint brush. 9) Some parts of the Bible suggest that pi equals exactly three, and that the earth is flat and has four corners. Do you accept these as facts of physical reality, and if not, why do you deny the theory of evolution on the grounds of Biblical literacy, if it can be symbolic about other scientific issues? No, I would not accept these as facts. The Bible has been translated so many times. In fact, we could probably go way back to the original aramaic and find that pi was never mentioned to be exactly 3. or that the earth is flat was a metaphor and not actually intended to convey the author's take on reality. 10) Is there any possible way to get any creationists to answer these question? Are there creationist forums I could post them at, without having my comment deleted and my account banned? done

to help you while you are pondering the ponds, here's zappa and ponty pondering cosmik debris.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dp6LT2MdaPI

Ummm.... Ray, I'm going to remind you again to look up the word "immutable". You keep using that word, I don't think it means what you think it means.

I think what you mean is that species don't change into other species. Fortunately, that concept has been proven wrong dozens of times over. It's safe to say that you are wrong.

SteveP. There's so much wrong with your answers that it's almost too much effort to comment on them. Suffice to say that everything you have said is completely wrong and/or completely made up. You don't have any evidence for the things you say. You use fallacy completely incorrectly and your entire concept of we don't have to know the designer to know it was designed is wrong as well. All of these things have been shown wrong a long time ago. You might want to read the transcript of the Kitzmiller trial.

But thanks for playing.

Ray Martinez said:

harold said: Ray Martinez, question for you. If you are a species immutablist, how do you define species?

I accept Mayr's Biological Species Concept (BSC).

Can you give a specific example of a case where superficially very similar organisms are actually members of different species, and a case where there is a lot of diversity within the same species, to illustrate how your definition deals with such cases?

First, Darwin, on the voyage of the Beagle, brought home two almost identical species that were later dissected and found to be reproductively incompatible. Darwin refused to believe that God created two almost identical species. He then reasoned evolution had occurred. But he never used the aforementioned as evidence that evolution had occurred absent an agent of causation because science already accepted each species created independently (Darwin 1859:6; London: Murray). Diversity within species is not a problem for the BSC. The BSC is based on sexual reproduction. Diversity represents variation.

diogeneslamp0 said: I find it scandalous that so many ad hominems have been directed at our creationist visitors--as is the case for so many PT posts-- but the topic of the post has been mostly ignored. Did any of you evolutionist fucks read Afarensis' blog post? Did any of you see the outrageous lie exposed there, that Luskin has been telling FOR YEARS NOW? Luskin had a quote supposedly about Lucy, supposedly from Johanson. This quote was cited by Luskin again and again FOR YEARS to the effect that Lucy's bones were jumbled about sticking out of the ground and might not all be from the same individual or the same species. But as Afarensis discovered, Luskin's quote wasn't from Johanson, and wasn't about Lucy. It was from Tim White, and was about OH 62. Now THAT is outright lying. Wrong author, wrong fossil, wrong species, wrong genus. Granted, those are small errors for a creationist. Yet believe it or not, there's another Luskinlie [TM] that Afarensis did not note, that is even worse. If you can't believe the first Luskinlie [TM], here's an even worse one, believe it or not. In a recent post at ENV Luskin said that Spoor et al. (1994, their paper on inner ear labyrinth morphology in hominids) proved that the skull of Homo habilis is most similar to...wait for it now... a baboon. A fucking baboon. Has this nutjob Luskin ever seen a fucking baboon skull? What kind of fucking mental patient would believe, and say out loud, that the skull of Homo habilis is more similar TO A BABOON than to a human!? Jesus Tapdancing Christ, it's like Luskin is screaming "I'm Napoleon!" in his underwear. He's a mental fucking patient. And you, you evolutionist fucks-- how can you evolutionist fucks, in post after post here at PT, waste your time pummeling an elderly, disoriented gentleman like Byers with ad hominems, when you have a young, fat, cunning, smarmy, pathological liar like Casey Luskin right in your sights? Stop beating up senior citizens and GO GET HIM FOR FUCK'S SAKE.

What explanation of human descent do Casey Luskin, Axe, and Gauger propose? Or do you propose? Fallacy of no alternative

All the book does is desperately try to explain away some of the evidence for the mainstream view. "critiquing an existing theory is not a bad thing, scientifically speaking."

But arguing against the evidence for human evolution is not the same thing as providing evidence for ID/creationism. "True. Thats why ID is developing its ideas. IC, information as an independent entity, hierarchical levels of command/control, egigentics, etc, etc. We’ve been at it for what 20+ years. ToE has been at it for 150. Give it time. give it time."

1) Could any evidence convince you of the theory of evolution, and if so, what type of evidence is now lacking, that would convince you if present? why, if lenski’s bacteria actually produced new parts, one by one, where each new part, in random fashion showed signs of function at each step, with each new part added changing the function of the previously achieved function.

2) The Supreme Court ruled against the direct teaching of Biblical Young Earth Creationism as science in public schools; however, if that ruling were overturned, which would you support more, teaching of ID, or direct teaching of Bible-based YEC? teach ID should be taught irrespective of whether or not biblical YEC is taught or not. They are not the same animal as can readily be perceived.

3) Do you think it is important for opponents of the theory of evolution to fully understand the theory of evolution? If so, can you explain it, and if not, can you explain why not? sure, its important. But the theory of evolution can hardly be explained in a blog post. There is this special characteristic of the ToE, that is has a long train of caveats and qualifications. Like I always say, ToE is crushing itself under the weight of its own hedge bets.

4) Who is the designer? How can we test your answer? Irrelevant. Do we need to understand the identity of a designer to study the characteristics of design. Do I need to meet Picasso to know how Picassao painted. Sure, it might be alot easier to interview him and let him spill the beans. But that would take all the fun out of studying Picasso. But more so, his paintings would probably lose all their price value. It is the aura of his creative brilliance that keeps his paintings pulling in millions. We don’t want to disturb that trend now, would we? So likewise, why in the world would we want God to chronicle his workday? Let us do science and when we think we have figured out his methods, we give the old man a call and tell him the jig is up. We now know His ‘magic tricks’ we not tricks at all. Just our inability to pierce the fog of our unknowing. This IMO is the advantage of ID. Our starting point is design, so we want to figure out the methods of design. ToE starts with no design, therefore seeks no answers as to how it may have been designed. so no chance at looking for the big picture. Its looking at an elephant’s trunk and declaring it a python, not stopping to ponder the possibility that its a part connected to a greater whole.

5) What did that designer do? How can we test your answer? see no. 4. 6) How did the designer do it? How can we test your answer? see no. 4. 7) When did the designer do it? How can we test your answer? see no. 4.

8) What is an example of something that was not designed by the designer? Its not a matter of designed/undesigned but rather what type/level of design. Was it done by flinging paint at the canvas, or maybe accidental drips or drops of paint ending up having a nice touch. We can figure that out. Just ask the folks at CSI Las Vegas, or NY, or Miami if you prefer. they could tell you the angle, pressure, velocity was definitely produced by flings and not an overloaded paint brush.

9) Some parts of the Bible suggest that pi equals exactly three, and that the earth is flat and has four corners. Do you accept these as facts of physical reality, and if not, why do you deny the theory of evolution on the grounds of Biblical literacy, if it can be symbolic about other scientific issues? No, I would not accept these as facts. The Bible has been translated so many times. In fact, we could probably go way back to the original aramaic and find that pi was never mentioned to be exactly 3. or that the earth is flat was a metaphor and not actually intended to convey the author’s take on reality.

10) Is there any possible way to get any creationists to answer these question? Are there creationist forums I could post them at, without having my comment deleted and my account banned? done

harold said:

diogeneslamp0 said: I find it scandalous that so many ad hominems have been directed at our creationist visitors--as is the case for so many PT posts-- but the topic of the post has been mostly ignored. Did any of you evolutionist fucks read Afarensis' blog post? Did any of you see the outrageous lie exposed there, that Luskin has been telling FOR YEARS NOW? Luskin had a quote supposedly about Lucy, supposedly from Johanson. This quote was cited by Luskin again and again FOR YEARS to the effect that Lucy's bones were jumbled about sticking out of the ground and might not all be from the same individual or the same species. But as Afarensis discovered, Luskin's quote wasn't from Johanson, and wasn't about Lucy. It was from Tim White, and was about OH 62. Now THAT is outright lying. Wrong author, wrong fossil, wrong species, wrong genus. Granted, those are small errors for a creationist. Yet believe it or not, there's another Luskinlie [TM] that Afarensis did not note, that is even worse. If you can't believe the first Luskinlie [TM], here's an even worse one, believe it or not. In a recent post at ENV Luskin said that Spoor et al. (1994, their paper on inner ear labyrinth morphology in hominids) proved that the skull of Homo habilis is most similar to...wait for it now... a baboon. A fucking baboon. Has this nutjob Luskin ever seen a fucking baboon skull? What kind of fucking mental patient would believe, and say out loud, that the skull of Homo habilis is more similar TO A BABOON than to a human!? Jesus Tapdancing Christ, it's like Luskin is screaming "I'm Napoleon!" in his underwear. He's a mental fucking patient. And you, you evolutionist fucks-- how can you evolutionist fucks, in post after post here at PT, waste your time pummeling an elderly, disoriented gentleman like Byers with ad hominems, when you have a young, fat, cunning, smarmy, pathological liar like Casey Luskin right in your sights? Stop beating up senior citizens and GO GET HIM FOR FUCK'S SAKE.

1) I actually strongly agree that excessive insults directed at Robert Byers are distasteful. I believe that people do it because they are frustrated. However, Robert Byers doesn't use insults, profanity, or harsh language and I personally don't see the point of responding to him with that. This comment is not a defense of Robert Byers' scientific, religious, or likely social/political views.

diogeneslamp0 said: I find it scandalous that so many ad hominems have been directed at our creationist visitors--as is the case for so many PT posts-- but the topic of the post has been mostly ignored. Did any of you evolutionist fucks read Afarensis' blog post? Did any of you see the outrageous lie exposed there, that Luskin has been telling FOR YEARS NOW? Luskin had a quote supposedly about Lucy, supposedly from Johanson. This quote was cited by Luskin again and again FOR YEARS to the effect that Lucy's bones were jumbled about sticking out of the ground and might not all be from the same individual or the same species. But as Afarensis discovered, Luskin's quote wasn't from Johanson, and wasn't about Lucy. It was from Tim White, and was about OH 62. Now THAT is outright lying. Wrong author, wrong fossil, wrong species, wrong genus. Granted, those are small errors for a creationist. Yet believe it or not, there's another Luskinlie [TM] that Afarensis did not note, that is even worse. If you can't believe the first Luskinlie [TM], here's an even worse one, believe it or not. In a recent post at ENV Luskin said that Spoor et al. (1994, their paper on inner ear labyrinth morphology in hominids) proved that the skull of Homo habilis is most similar to...wait for it now... a baboon. A fucking baboon. Has this nutjob Luskin ever seen a fucking baboon skull? What kind of fucking mental patient would believe, and say out loud, that the skull of Homo habilis is more similar TO A BABOON than to a human!? Jesus Tapdancing Christ, it's like Luskin is screaming "I'm Napoleon!" in his underwear. He's a mental fucking patient. And you, you evolutionist fucks-- how can you evolutionist fucks, in post after post here at PT, waste your time pummeling an elderly, disoriented gentleman like Byers with ad hominems, when you have a young, fat, cunning, smarmy, pathological liar like Casey Luskin right in your sights? Stop beating up senior citizens and GO GET HIM FOR FUCK'S SAKE.

diogeneslamp0 said: I find it scandalous that so many ad hominems have been directed at our creationist visitors--as is the case for so many PT posts-- but the topic of the post has been mostly ignored. Did any of you evolutionist fucks read Afarensis' blog post? Did any of you see the outrageous lie exposed there, that Luskin has been telling FOR YEARS NOW? Luskin had a quote supposedly about Lucy, supposedly from Johanson. This quote was cited by Luskin again and again FOR YEARS to the effect that Lucy's bones were jumbled about sticking out of the ground and might not all be from the same individual or the same species. But as Afarensis discovered, Luskin's quote wasn't from Johanson, and wasn't about Lucy. It was from Tim White, and was about OH 62. Now THAT is outright lying. Wrong author, wrong fossil, wrong species, wrong genus. Granted, those are small errors for a creationist. Yet believe it or not, there's another Luskinlie [TM] that Afarensis did not note, that is even worse. If you can't believe the first Luskinlie [TM], here's an even worse one, believe it or not. In a recent post at ENV Luskin said that Spoor et al. (1994, their paper on inner ear labyrinth morphology in hominids) proved that the skull of Homo habilis is most similar to...wait for it now... a baboon. A fucking baboon. Has this nutjob Luskin ever seen a fucking baboon skull? What kind of fucking mental patient would believe, and say out loud, that the skull of Homo habilis is more similar TO A BABOON than to a human!? Jesus Tapdancing Christ, it's like Luskin is screaming "I'm Napoleon!" in his underwear. He's a mental fucking patient. And you, you evolutionist fucks-- how can you evolutionist fucks, in post after post here at PT, waste your time pummeling an elderly, disoriented gentleman like Byers with ad hominems, when you have a young, fat, cunning, smarmy, pathological liar like Casey Luskin right in your sights? Stop beating up senior citizens and GO GET HIM FOR FUCK'S SAKE.

diogeneslamp0 said: Thank you harold, for at least responding. Your objections are noted.

harold said:

diogeneslamp0 said: I find it scandalous that so many ad hominems have been directed at our creationist visitors--as is the case for so many PT posts-- but the topic of the post has been mostly ignored. Did any of you evolutionist fucks read Afarensis' blog post? Did any of you see the outrageous lie exposed there, that Luskin has been telling FOR YEARS NOW? Luskin had a quote supposedly about Lucy, supposedly from Johanson. This quote was cited by Luskin again and again FOR YEARS to the effect that Lucy's bones were jumbled about sticking out of the ground and might not all be from the same individual or the same species. But as Afarensis discovered, Luskin's quote wasn't from Johanson, and wasn't about Lucy. It was from Tim White, and was about OH 62. Now THAT is outright lying. Wrong author, wrong fossil, wrong species, wrong genus. Granted, those are small errors for a creationist. Yet believe it or not, there's another Luskinlie [TM] that Afarensis did not note, that is even worse. If you can't believe the first Luskinlie [TM], here's an even worse one, believe it or not. In a recent post at ENV Luskin said that Spoor et al. (1994, their paper on inner ear labyrinth morphology in hominids) proved that the skull of Homo habilis is most similar to...wait for it now... a baboon. A fucking baboon. Has this nutjob Luskin ever seen a fucking baboon skull? What kind of fucking mental patient would believe, and say out loud, that the skull of Homo habilis is more similar TO A BABOON than to a human!? Jesus Tapdancing Christ, it's like Luskin is screaming "I'm Napoleon!" in his underwear. He's a mental fucking patient. And you, you evolutionist fucks-- how can you evolutionist fucks, in post after post here at PT, waste your time pummeling an elderly, disoriented gentleman like Byers with ad hominems, when you have a young, fat, cunning, smarmy, pathological liar like Casey Luskin right in your sights? Stop beating up senior citizens and GO GET HIM FOR FUCK'S SAKE.

1) I actually strongly agree that excessive insults directed at Robert Byers are distasteful. I believe that people do it because they are frustrated. However, Robert Byers doesn't use insults, profanity, or harsh language and I personally don't see the point of responding to him with that. This comment is not a defense of Robert Byers' scientific, religious, or likely social/political views.

The important thing to ask is: who generates the quote mines? Byers doesn't create new quote mines. Luskin, the DI, CMI and ICR generate quote mines. The DI has people on salary who do nothing but hunt through libraries for new quote mines. When a quote mine like the Lucy / OH62 quote is discovered, we should google it and see for how many years, in how many books, they've been flogging it. All ID proponents have are quote mines and ad hominems. Without that, they've got nothing. Luskin and the DI generate quote mines, Byers doesn't. Every time Byers or SteveP show up at PT, every single thread here gets derailed into endless ad hominems directed at them. Admittedly, SteveP is obnoxious but Byers isn't. Byers is polite even when provoked. But must every time they write any comments at all, must every single PT thread get derailed into name calling? There are real knowledgeable scientists here. I would like to see them use their enormous skills with less noise.

harold said:

diogeneslamp0 said: Thank you harold, for at least responding. Your objections are noted.

harold said:

diogeneslamp0 said: I find it scandalous that so many ad hominems have been directed at our creationist visitors--as is the case for so many PT posts-- but the topic of the post has been mostly ignored. Did any of you evolutionist fucks read Afarensis' blog post? Did any of you see the outrageous lie exposed there, that Luskin has been telling FOR YEARS NOW? Luskin had a quote supposedly about Lucy, supposedly from Johanson. This quote was cited by Luskin again and again FOR YEARS to the effect that Lucy's bones were jumbled about sticking out of the ground and might not all be from the same individual or the same species. But as Afarensis discovered, Luskin's quote wasn't from Johanson, and wasn't about Lucy. It was from Tim White, and was about OH 62. Now THAT is outright lying. Wrong author, wrong fossil, wrong species, wrong genus. Granted, those are small errors for a creationist. Yet believe it or not, there's another Luskinlie [TM] that Afarensis did not note, that is even worse. If you can't believe the first Luskinlie [TM], here's an even worse one, believe it or not. In a recent post at ENV Luskin said that Spoor et al. (1994, their paper on inner ear labyrinth morphology in hominids) proved that the skull of Homo habilis is most similar to...wait for it now... a baboon. A fucking baboon. Has this nutjob Luskin ever seen a fucking baboon skull? What kind of fucking mental patient would believe, and say out loud, that the skull of Homo habilis is more similar TO A BABOON than to a human!? Jesus Tapdancing Christ, it's like Luskin is screaming "I'm Napoleon!" in his underwear. He's a mental fucking patient. And you, you evolutionist fucks-- how can you evolutionist fucks, in post after post here at PT, waste your time pummeling an elderly, disoriented gentleman like Byers with ad hominems, when you have a young, fat, cunning, smarmy, pathological liar like Casey Luskin right in your sights? Stop beating up senior citizens and GO GET HIM FOR FUCK'S SAKE.

1) I actually strongly agree that excessive insults directed at Robert Byers are distasteful. I believe that people do it because they are frustrated. However, Robert Byers doesn't use insults, profanity, or harsh language and I personally don't see the point of responding to him with that. This comment is not a defense of Robert Byers' scientific, religious, or likely social/political views.

The important thing to ask is: who generates the quote mines? Byers doesn't create new quote mines. Luskin, the DI, CMI and ICR generate quote mines. The DI has people on salary who do nothing but hunt through libraries for new quote mines. When a quote mine like the Lucy / OH62 quote is discovered, we should google it and see for how many years, in how many books, they've been flogging it. All ID proponents have are quote mines and ad hominems. Without that, they've got nothing. Luskin and the DI generate quote mines, Byers doesn't. Every time Byers or SteveP show up at PT, every single thread here gets derailed into endless ad hominems directed at them. Admittedly, SteveP is obnoxious but Byers isn't. Byers is polite even when provoked. But must every time they write any comments at all, must every single PT thread get derailed into name calling? There are real knowledgeable scientists here. I would like to see them use their enormous skills with less noise.

Our major agreement is much more important than the issues I disagreed with you about. Let me make it clear that I very, very strongly support critiquing the primary source creationists. That is the main reason why I read this and some other related blogs. I also agree with rebutting the rank and file types as well, though. That's "rebutting" them. The primary source creationists have walled themselves off in sites where comments are not allowed or censored. All we can do is review their output from afar, or comment on the output. However, the rank and file surrogates do, to some extent, put themselves out there in publicly accessible venues, as advocates of ID/creationism. Rebutting and challenging them in a civil but not obsequious manner demonstrates the nature of ID/creationism to third party readers. It's not mutually exclusive. One can critique the original output from creationist sources and also critique its rank and file advocates. Incidentally, I try not to do name-calling. That's my personal style; that's what I feel makes my communication effective, and that's how I like to communicate. No effort to tell others what to do is implied here.

I'll bite on SteveP.'s non-answers to harold's questions. Actually, I'll just point out that aside from saying "we're working on it," he basically gave every excuse for ID having absolutely no answers to any of those questions yet still should be taught in schools as a scientific alternative to evolution. Steve, you can't teach an empty assertion as an alternative to the real deal. ID has absolutely no answers to offer. By your own description it currently has nothing. What exactly is there to teach?

Steve P.--I've refrained from arguing with you, for the exact reasons that diogenes has said. But what they hey--maybe some other readers will stumble upon this and get something out of it.

It really truly does matter who the designer is, because if it isn't identified, literally EVERY objection to intelligent design can be rebutted with a completely ad hoc counterargument. It becomes impossible to disprove.

For example, as has been noted numerous times before, many systems in the human body and elsewhere in nature are very poorly "designed." We have prostate problems in old age, which could have been easily avoided by placing reproductive and excretory systems further apart. The recurrent laryngeal nerve takes an unnecessary circuitous route through the chest of all mammals. There is a blind spot in the human eye. Etc. Cdesign propenentsists make the claim that this doesn't disprove design--human designers make mistakes all the time, no big deal.

And that's correct--it doesn't disprove design in general. But it does disprove some certain classes of designers. Specifically, it rules out all designers that are both very very smart (these are really basic errors that don't occur elsewhere in nature) AND not malicious (of course any designer could just be picking on us). All remaining designers should be either kind of dumb or evil. So, if you identify the designer as, oh, I don't know. . . the all-wise and loving Christian god, for instance, that's a testable proposition, and it turns out to be false.

Likewise the fact that biological organisms are "designed" to be in a constant arms race with each other. Rabbits are "designed" to run from foxes, foxes are "designed" to chase rabbits. This, once again, suggests a capricious designer, if one exists at all. Or a designer who doesn't care about the fates of its beings, it just really really enjoys watching foxes chase rabbits. I suspect that the ID crowd are not too keen on advancing that theory.

What happens if you don't specify a designer? You can chalk up anything and everything to its whims. You can explain every possible existing scenario, can't possibly exclude anything, and therefore you're not really explaining very much. The bacterial flagellum is intelligently designed! What's that? You can take away parts and it can still function as a secretion system? That's because the designer WANTED it to look evolved. Etc. It has the same problems as the Omphalos argument or last thursdayism.

Take an example from economics. Some economists have claimed that all people have the same preferences, they just face different cost functions. This is obviously ludicrous, but why do they say it? They contended that preferences can be an ad hoc explanation that explains anything. "Why did he hit his hand with a hammer? Oh, he likes doing that. Why did he try not to do it again? He changed his mind." And that's correct, "preferences" can explain any behavior. However, we can increase the predictive power by using personality. "Why does she like punk rock? She's an INTJ (or whatever the big 5 equivalent is), and they tend to be loners and enjoy individualist art styles." Once we actually specify some other solid, predictable, relatively stable details about a person, we can use preferences as a falsifiable explanation.

And if you don't think being able to explain every possible outcome is a problem, consider a simple example. Say we're trying to determine the final cent values on, say, the price of potatoes. One person says, "I believe it will always be between 90 and 99 cents." Another says, "I believe it will be between 0 and 99 cents." The second hypothesis is poorly specified. It predicts all prices between 0 and 99 with equal probability. If the price is NEVER anything below, say, 80 cents, the first hypothesis is wrong (it is sometimes lower than 90), but the second hypothesis is still trumped by "it's between 80 and 99." The second hypothesis assigns high probabilities (exactly 1% per number) to 80 numbers that never appear, making hypothesis 2 wrong 80% of the time! So as long as the world is constrained by evidence, constrained hypotheses will be better. In other words, as long as our world makes any logical sense, constrained hypotheses are better, because they are wrong less often. I doubt I have to convince anyone that hypotheses which are frequently wrong are not very good.

Intelligent design without any specifications on the designer's power, personality, or motives is exactly that--a theory that works for all possible worlds, or a theory that has perfect predictive power only in a world in which none of the laws of logic hold and all bits of evidence are both true and false at the same time. Literally every fact about known biology could be the opposite of what it is, and that would still be consistent with SOME designer. You just have to say, "It's the designer who wanted everything to be that way." Ad hoc. Useless.

Swimmy said: Steve P.--I've refrained from arguing with you, for the exact reasons that diogenes has said. But what they hey--maybe some other readers will stumble upon this and get something out of it. It really truly does matter who the designer is, because if it isn't identified, literally EVERY objection to intelligent design can be rebutted with a completely ad hoc counterargument. It becomes impossible to disprove. *snip* Intelligent design without any specifications on the designer's power, personality, or motives is exactly that--a theory that works for all possible worlds, or a theory that has perfect predictive power only in a world in which none of the laws of logic hold and all bits of evidence are both true and false at the same time. Literally every fact about known biology could be the opposite of what it is, and that would still be consistent with SOME designer. You just have to say, "It's the designer who wanted everything to be that way." Ad hoc. Useless.

Ray Martinez said:

dalehusband said: How come you have never supported your claims about species being fixed?

Never had the opportunity here at Pandas. There are several lines of evidence that support fixity: 1. Observation of design-in-nature. Said observation, seen in each species, says each species has an Intelligent origin (special creation; Paley's Watchmaker).

2. In the paleontological crust of the Earth species appear abruptly and fully formed, endure in a state of changelessness, then disappear abruptly. Some workers note that species change slightly. The same corresponds to variation, not microevolution.

3. The non-existence of natural selection. Show me any Darwinian modification in species, accomplished by an unguided and unintelligent natural process, and I will promptly concede the debate.

Ray Martinez said:

dalehusband said: How come you have never supported your claims about species being fixed?

Never had the opportunity here at Pandas. There are several lines of evidence that support fixity: [snip] 3. The non-existence of natural selection. Show me any Darwinian modification in species, accomplished by an unguided and unintelligent natural process, and I will promptly concede the debate.

ogremk5

My wife loves Scottish Folds even though our many highly-allergic relatives preclude us from owning cats. Could you point me to sources of some of the information you mentioned? Thanks.

I got the breed history from the CFA here: http://www.cfa.org/Client/scottish.aspx

I base the genetics information on this article: http://web.archive.org/web/20060827095454/http://www.ava.com.au/avj/9902/99020085.pdf

It describes how the mutation that causes the ears to fold also tends to result in major skeletal disorders in homozygous animals. It's kind of like a Manx, except the homozygous condition isn't immediately lethal.

If you're interest in cat genetics, I just found a very interesting articles about long-hair genetics and another about how the breeds are related.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0888754307002078
http://jhered.oxfordjournals.org/content/98/6/555.full

Enjoy. And yes, cat genetics is one of my hobbies.

harold said: Responding to Steve P. You won't say who the designer is.

Richard B. Hoppe said: In the case of ID, we have no independent evidence of the existence of the purported designing agents (and let us not forget the manufacturing agents). There's no evidence that any such entities exist. Hence the existence of the IDists' purported intelligent agents is a legitimate question that IDists avoid like the plague.

Richard B. Hoppe said:

harold said: Responding to Steve P. You won't say who the designer is.

The issue is not who the designer is; it's what sort of entity the designer is. In the ID creationists' favorite examples of design inferences--forensics, archaeology, the so-called "special sciences"--we know from independent evidence that agents capable of producing the phenomena exist: we have independent evidence of the existence of humans.

In the case of ID, we have no independent evidence of the existence of the purported designing agents (and let us not forget the manufacturing agents). There's no evidence that any such entities exist. Hence the existence of the IDists' purported intelligent agents is a legitimate question that IDists avoid like the plague.

Richard B. Hoppe said:

harold said: Responding to Steve P. You won't say who the designer is.

The issue is not who the designer is; it's what sort of entity the designer is. In the ID creationists' favorite examples of design inferences--forensics, archaeology, the so-called "special sciences"--we know from independent evidence that agents capable of producing the phenomena exist: we have independent evidence of the existence of humans. In the case of ID, we have no independent evidence of the existence of the purported designing agents (and let us not forget the manufacturing agents). There's no evidence that any such entities exist. Hence the existence of the IDists' purported intelligent agents is a legitimate question that IDists avoid like the plague.

Richard B. Hoppe said:

harold said: Responding to Steve P. You won't say who the designer is.

The issue is not who the designer is; it's what sort of entity the designer is. In the ID creationists' favorite examples of design inferences--forensics, archaeology, the so-called "special sciences"--we know from independent evidence that agents capable of producing the phenomena exist: we have independent evidence of the existence of humans. In the case of ID, we have no independent evidence of the existence of the purported designing agents (and let us not forget the manufacturing agents). There's no evidence that any such entities exist. Hence the existence of the IDists' purported intelligent agents is a legitimate question that IDists avoid like the plague.

apokryltaros said:

Richard B. Hoppe said:

harold said: Responding to Steve P. You won't say who the designer is.

The issue is not who the designer is; it's what sort of entity the designer is. In the ID creationists' favorite examples of design inferences--forensics, archaeology, the so-called "special sciences"--we know from independent evidence that agents capable of producing the phenomena exist: we have independent evidence of the existence of humans.

By understanding who and what the alleged designer is/was, we can then get insights to understanding how the designer works/worked. Like, we can divine the motives, personal tastes and inspirations behind various artists by examining their artwork, or we can tell if methodically worn bones are tools made by ancient humans or chewed on by prehistoric, cave-dwelling hyenas.

In the case of ID, we have no independent evidence of the existence of the purported designing agents (and let us not forget the manufacturing agents). There's no evidence that any such entities exist. Hence the existence of the IDists' purported intelligent agents is a legitimate question that IDists avoid like the plague.

In the case of Intelligent Design, the Intelligent Designer is always unsubtly implied to be God as described in the Holy Bible. IDists avoid legitimate questions about how the Intelligent Designer works because that would mean pinning God down inside of a laboratory, and worse yet, it would require them to do actual work: two things IDists regard as horrifying blasphemy of the very worst sort. Thus, IDists always want Intelligent Design to be accepted without question, without hesitation, and why they always throw temper tantrums and sulk when they are not accepted without question or hesitation.

Rolf said: Ahhh, nothing like the scent of magic in the air...

harold said: ID was created to push Creation Science without openly admitting that it's supposed to be the Christian God.

Paul Burnett said:

harold said: ID was created to push Creation Science without openly admitting that it's supposed to be the Christian God.

...except when they're giving talks to fellow fundagelicals. They give lots of talks at church meetings - but never at actual scientific conferences.

harold said:

Paul Burnett said:

harold said: ID was created to push Creation Science without openly admitting that it's supposed to be the Christian God.

...except when they're giving talks to fellow fundagelicals. They give lots of talks at church meetings - but never at actual scientific conferences.

And it is very beneficial for neutral observers to be made aware that sometimes they claim that they can identify the designer as the Christian God, but that at other times, for purely cynical reasons of pseudo-legalistic strategy, they will refuse to do so.

An example of Harold's statement is the case of the greenish warblers. They are ring species, and serve as evidence. that species are not immutable. Here, have a look, Ray

Mike, I get a "403 Forbidden" error at that URL.

Richard B. Hoppe said:

harold said: Responding to Steve P. You won't say who the designer is.

The issue is not who the designer is; it's what sort of entity the designer is. In the ID creationists' favorite examples of design inferences--forensics, archaeology, the so-called "special sciences"--we know from independent evidence that agents capable of producing the phenomena exist: we have independent evidence of the existence of humans. In the case of ID, we have no independent evidence of the existence of the purported designing agents (and let us not forget the manufacturing agents). There's no evidence that any such entities exist. Hence the existence of the IDists' purported intelligent agents is a legitimate question that IDists avoid like the plague.

ksplawn said: I'll bite on SteveP.'s non-answers to harold's questions. Actually, I'll just point out that aside from saying "we're working on it," he basically gave every excuse for ID having absolutely no answers to any of those questions yet still should be taught in schools as a scientific alternative to evolution. Steve, you can't teach an empty assertion as an alternative to the real deal. ID has absolutely no answers to offer. By your own description it currently has nothing. What exactly is there to teach?

SteveP says: By way of example, Darwinian evolution relies upon the notion that life spontaneously arose.

He’s asking for hard evidence, which he should know if hard to come by, even for Darwinian evolution.

This is what ID is doing as well; collecting a comprehensive set of circumstantial evidence that points in one direction; that of intelligence being the driving force behind life.

Swimmy said: Steve P.--I've refrained from arguing with you, for the exact reasons that diogenes has said. But what they hey--maybe some other readers will stumble upon this and get something out of it. It really truly does matter who the designer is, because if it isn't identified, literally EVERY objection to intelligent design can be rebutted with a completely ad hoc counterargument. It becomes impossible to disprove. For example, as has been noted numerous times before, many systems in the human body and elsewhere in nature are very poorly "designed." We have prostate problems in old age, which could have been easily avoided by placing reproductive and excretory systems further apart. The recurrent laryngeal nerve takes an unnecessary circuitous route through the chest of all mammals. There is a blind spot in the human eye. Etc. Cdesign propenentsists make the claim that this doesn't disprove design--human designers make mistakes all the time, no big deal. And that's correct--it doesn't disprove design in general. But it does disprove some certain classes of designers. Specifically, it rules out all designers that are both very very smart (these are really basic errors that don't occur elsewhere in nature) AND not malicious (of course any designer could just be picking on us). All remaining designers should be either kind of dumb or evil. So, if you identify the designer as, oh, I don't know. . . the all-wise and loving Christian god, for instance, that's a testable proposition, and it turns out to be false. Likewise the fact that biological organisms are "designed" to be in a constant arms race with each other. Rabbits are "designed" to run from foxes, foxes are "designed" to chase rabbits. This, once again, suggests a capricious designer, if one exists at all. Or a designer who doesn't care about the fates of its beings, it just really really enjoys watching foxes chase rabbits. I suspect that the ID crowd are not too keen on advancing that theory. What happens if you don't specify a designer? You can chalk up anything and everything to its whims. You can explain every possible existing scenario, can't possibly exclude anything, and therefore you're not really explaining very much. The bacterial flagellum is intelligently designed! What's that? You can take away parts and it can still function as a secretion system? That's because the designer WANTED it to look evolved. Etc. It has the same problems as the Omphalos argument or last thursdayism. Take an example from economics. Some economists have claimed that all people have the same preferences, they just face different cost functions. This is obviously ludicrous, but why do they say it? They contended that preferences can be an ad hoc explanation that explains anything. "Why did he hit his hand with a hammer? Oh, he likes doing that. Why did he try not to do it again? He changed his mind." And that's correct, "preferences" can explain any behavior. However, we can increase the predictive power by using personality. "Why does she like punk rock? She's an INTJ (or whatever the big 5 equivalent is), and they tend to be loners and enjoy individualist art styles." Once we actually specify some other solid, predictable, relatively stable details about a person, we can use preferences as a falsifiable explanation. And if you don't think being able to explain every possible outcome is a problem, consider a simple example. Say we're trying to determine the final cent values on, say, the price of potatoes. One person says, "I believe it will always be between 90 and 99 cents." Another says, "I believe it will be between 0 and 99 cents." The second hypothesis is poorly specified. It predicts all prices between 0 and 99 with equal probability. If the price is NEVER anything below, say, 80 cents, the first hypothesis is wrong (it is sometimes lower than 90), but the second hypothesis is still trumped by "it's between 80 and 99." The second hypothesis assigns high probabilities (exactly 1% per number) to 80 numbers that never appear, making hypothesis 2 wrong 80% of the time! So as long as the world is constrained by evidence, constrained hypotheses will be better. In other words, as long as our world makes any logical sense, constrained hypotheses are better, because they are wrong less often. I doubt I have to convince anyone that hypotheses which are frequently wrong are not very good. Intelligent design without any specifications on the designer's power, personality, or motives is exactly that--a theory that works for all possible worlds, or a theory that has perfect predictive power only in a world in which none of the laws of logic hold and all bits of evidence are both true and false at the same time. Literally every fact about known biology could be the opposite of what it is, and that would still be consistent with SOME designer. You just have to say, "It's the designer who wanted everything to be that way." Ad hoc. Useless.

Dave Luckett said:

SteveP says: By way of example, Darwinian evolution relies upon the notion that life spontaneously arose.

That's a flat lie, a straight-out falsehood.

He’s asking for hard evidence, which he should know if hard to come by, even for Darwinian evolution.

Of course he's asking for hard evidence for "intelligent design", because he's rational. The rest of the quote is a flat lie. The evidence for evolution is vast, detailed and specific.

This is what ID is doing as well; collecting a comprehensive set of circumstantial evidence that points in one direction; that of intelligence being the driving force behind life.

Another flat lie. Not one single piece of evidence, circumstantial or otherwise, has ever been presented for intelligent design. Intelligent design consists wholly, solely and exclusively of specious arguments from personal incredulity, ignorance, or religious belief against evolution, and there is not one single scientific observation to support it.

SteveP. said: By way of example, Darwinian evolution relies upon the notion that life spontaneously arose.

SteveP.

Of course drawing inferences is a part of science. Of course, the rest of science is testing those inferences with experiments and additional observations. Of course, drawing valid inferences from data and not attempting to force data to fit one's preferred inference is a part of it too.

Tell me Steve, what is all the data for ID? Evolution has several hundred years of data, peer-reviewed research, successful predictions, tools, even valuable products and processes. What does ID have?

Oh yeah... inferences.

Too bad that's not enough to do anything useful with. Let me know when ID is the root cause of the development of a new product, process or system that successfully predicts the future state of anything and/or is a valuable product that is used by lots of people.

Tell me, do you take all the antibiotics like your doctor tells you to? Do you know why?

SteveP. said: I love this level or argumentation. Lies, lies, damn lies. WTF? But u know what they say about the guy that screams "Liar!" It is usually him being dishonest (to be polite of course).

phhht said:

SteveP. said: By way of example, Darwinian evolution relies upon the notion that life spontaneously arose.

This is not the case. SteveP knows that. He is consciously making a statement he knows to be false. That is lying. Right, SteveP?

ogremk5 said: Tell me Steve, what is all the data for ID? Evolution has several hundred years of data, peer-reviewed research, successful predictions, tools, even valuable products and processes. What does ID have? Oh yeah... inferences.

apokryltaros said:

phhht said:

SteveP. said: By way of example, Darwinian evolution relies upon the notion that life spontaneously arose.

This is not the case. SteveP knows that. He is consciously making a statement he knows to be false. That is lying. Right, SteveP?

Only a complete idiot would assume that a complete and total understanding of Abiogenesis is necessary to understand how to grow bacteria or breed chickens, or examine orchid lineages.

SteveP. said: Mr. Hoppe conveniently forgets that drawing inferences is part of doing science. Yet, he demands independent evidence that a designing agent that we would recognize as being like us actually exists. He's asking for hard evidence, which he should know if hard to come by, even for Darwinian evolution.

Another IDiot said: "As for your example, I’m not going to take the bait. You’re asking me to play a game: “Provide as much detail in terms of possible causal mechanisms for your ID position as I do for my Darwinian position.” ID is not a mechanistic theory, and it’s not ID’s task to match your pathetic level of detail in telling mechanistic stories. If ID is correct and an intelligence is responsible and indispensable for certain structures, then it makes no sense to try to ape your method of connecting the dots. True, there may be dots to be connected. But there may also be fundamental discontinuities, and with IC systems that is what ID is discovering."

ogremk5 said: SteveP. Of course drawing inferences is a part of science. Of course, the rest of science is testing those inferences with experiments and additional observations. Of course, drawing valid inferences from data and not attempting to force data to fit one's preferred inference is a part of it too. Tell me Steve, what is all the data for ID? Evolution has several hundred years of data, peer-reviewed research, successful predictions, tools, even valuable products and processes. What does ID have? Oh yeah... inferences. Too bad that's not enough to do anything useful with. Let me know when ID is the root cause of the development of a new product, process or system that successfully predicts the future state of anything and/or is a valuable product that is used by lots of people. Tell me, do you take all the antibiotics like your doctor tells you to? Do you know why?

apokryltaros said:

ogremk5 said: Tell me Steve, what is all the data for ID? Evolution has several hundred years of data, peer-reviewed research, successful predictions, tools, even valuable products and processes. What does ID have? Oh yeah... inferences.

And the only inferences Intelligent Design proponents are allowed to make are: "It's too complex for me to understand, therefore, DESIGNERDIDIT" "Understanding evolution is hard, therefore it's wrong, and it's evil" And most importantly, "The only person qualified to be the Intelligent Designer is God!"

SteveP. said: I love this level or argumentation. Lies, lies, damn lies.

By way of example, Darwinian evolution relies upon the notion that life spontaneously arose.

Once that spontaneity occurred, then somehow imperfect replication gave rise to complexity (sophisticated guesswork at play here).

Yet there is no independent evidence (i.e. hard evidence) that this survival via slight and slow advantageous changes occurred.

What they have is what they deem to be a comprehensive set of circumstantial evidence that points in one direction. But this is what ID is doing as well; collecting a comprehensive set of circumstantial evidence that points in one direction; that of intelligence being the driving force behind life.

Steve Proulx demonstrates once more his mendacity: Mr. Hoppe conveniently forgets that drawing inferences is part of doing science. Yet, he demands independent evidence that a designing agent that we would recognize as being like us actually exists. He's asking for hard evidence, which he should know if hard to come by, even for Darwinian evolution. By way of example, Darwinian evolution relies upon the notion that life spontaneously arose. Once that spontaneity occurred, then somehow imperfect replication gave rise to complexity (sophisticated guesswork at play here). Yet there is no independent evidence (i.e. hard evidence) that this survival via slight and slow advantageous changes occurred. What they have is what they deem to be a comprehensive set of circumstantial evidence that points in one direction. But this is what ID is doing as well; collecting a comprehensive set of circumstantial evidence that points in one direction; that of intelligence being the driving force behind life. I detect a wee bit of double standard here. That old saying aptly applies here: "Absense of evidence is not evidence of absense". And yes, that goes both ways. May the better inference be taught in our schools.

harold said: Earlier Steve P. claimed to be able to understand the theory of evolution, but claimed that he could not discuss it because it would require to long a comment. Forgetting that, here he contradicts himself on both of those points with a straw man misrepresentation of the theory of evolution.

By way of example, Darwinian evolution relies upon the notion that life spontaneously arose.

Incorrect. To be clear, of course I think that life arose in a natural, non-miracle-requiring way, but the the theory of evolution does not rely on that. Cellular life and viruses evolve, no matter how they got here.

Once that spontaneity occurred, then somehow imperfect replication gave rise to complexity (sophisticated guesswork at play here).

Unclear whether Steve P. is attempting to deny imperfect replication, or merely attempting to deny that it gives rise to diversity. Either way he's incorrect. Although he gets partial points for knowing that the theory of evolution has something to do replication.

Yet there is no independent evidence (i.e. hard evidence) that this survival via slight and slow advantageous changes occurred.

I've asked Steve P. what evidence for evolution he would accept, and he produced an incomprehensible reply.

What they have is what they deem to be a comprehensive set of circumstantial evidence that points in one direction. But this is what ID is doing as well; collecting a comprehensive set of circumstantial evidence that points in one direction; that of intelligence being the driving force behind life.

Back at the beginning of this thread, I pointed out that the book in question does nothing of the sort, and merely tries to contradict a tiny portion of the strong evidence for evolution, without providing any alternative at all, let alone evidence for an alternative. So we come in a full circle. WHAT IS the evidence of "intelligence being the driving force behind life?"

harold said: So we come in a full circle. WHAT IS the evidence of "intelligence being the driving force behind life?"

Dave Luckett said:

SteveP says: By way of example, Darwinian evolution relies upon the notion that life spontaneously arose.

That's a flat lie, a straight-out falsehood. Expand on that thought if you would. Show how it is a falsehood.

He’s asking for hard evidence, which he should know if hard to come by, even for Darwinian evolution.

Of course he's asking for hard evidence for "intelligent design", because he's rational. The rest of the quote is a flat lie. The evidence for evolution is vast, detailed and specific. Note here how Luckett used the word evidence and not hard evidence. I said Hoppe is asking for hard evidence not evidence - different animals.

This is what ID is doing as well; collecting a comprehensive set of circumstantial evidence that points in one direction; that of intelligence being the driving force behind life.

Another flat lie. Not one single piece of evidence, circumstantial or otherwise, has ever been presented for intelligent design. Intelligent design consists wholly, solely and exclusively of specious arguments from personal incredulity, ignorance, or religious belief against evolution, and there is not one single scientific observation to support it. I won't call your reply a lie, just bullshit is all. Evidence for ID is IC, multiple hierarchical levels of command/control, epigenics, directed mutations, etc. etc. Its not hard evidence mind you but evidence in the same vein as evolution's 'mountains' of evidence.

harold said: So we come in a full circle. WHAT IS the evidence of "intelligence being the driving force behind life?"

Am glad I never accepted his invitation to have breakfast or lunch when he was visiting the Big Apple recently. It would have been something akin to me speaking Klingon to someone who didn’t understand it or English, but spoke instead, some obscure dialect of Cantonese Chinese.

phhht said:

SteveP. said: By way of example, Darwinian evolution relies upon the notion that life spontaneously arose.

This is not the case. SteveP knows that. He is consciously making a statement he knows to be false. That is lying. Right, SteveP?

TomS said:

harold said: So we come in a full circle. WHAT IS the evidence of "intelligence being the driving force behind life?"

What would evidence for (or against) that statement be like? Does anybody have an example of intelligence being a driving force behind life (or behind anything els)? When and where does that driving force happen? What properties does intelligence have, what properties does a driving force have, that result in intelligence being a driving force behind life? In other words, before getting around to evidence for that statement, I'd like to know what it means.

apokryltaros said:

harold said: So we come in a full circle. WHAT IS the evidence of "intelligence being the driving force behind life?"

Other than the fact that biological phenomena confuse, be-awe and anger Creationists Intelligent Design proponents, there is no evidence for "intelligence being the driving force behind life," we're supposed to just shut up, stop doing and studying science forever, and simply bob our heads up and down in rhythm to IDiots' feel-good sophistry.

SteveP. said: Isn't that the holy grail, the million dollar question??? We would all like to know what is behind it? But surely darwinian evolution is not the answer. We know it isn't. We have to look elsewhere. Information as an independent entity is a place to start, as the driving force that underlies quantum activity, which drives atomic activity, which in turns drives bio-chemical reactions. What is unscientific about such a proposal? Difficult yes, but what is not difficult about science? You've all said so ad nauseum. If information can be mapped out as having definite structure and characteristics, then we can move on from there. But if we say information is just an emergent property of matter, then we simply cut off a potentially productive avenue of inquiry.

By way of example, Darwinian evolution relies upon the notion that life spontaneously arose.

SteveP. tone-trolled: Stanton, you are obstinate with this repetitive, strawmanishy prose. There is plenty to study if we consider the notion of information as real and independent of matter. It would actually expand science, not stop it. But you (pl) simply want to punt the ball by calling information 'just' an emergent property of matter, nothing consequential to the study of biology. Now THAT is a science stopper. Your gimmicky turn-about rhetoric is getting......oh, just a wee, wee stale.

apokryltaros said:

harold said: So we come in a full circle. WHAT IS the evidence of "intelligence being the driving force behind life?"

Other than the fact that biological phenomena confuse, be-awe and anger Creationists Intelligent Design proponents, there is no evidence for "intelligence being the driving force behind life," we're supposed to just shut up, stop doing and studying science forever, and simply bob our heads up and down in rhythm to IDiots' feel-good sophistry.

Too bad that’s not enough to do anything useful with. Let me know when ID is the root cause of the development of a new product, process or system that successfully predicts the future state of anything and/or is a valuable product that is used by lots of people.

Tell me, do you take all the antibiotics like your doctor tells you to? Do you know why?

SteveP. lied: I won't call your reply a lie, just bullshit is all. Evidence for ID is IC, multiple hierarchical levels of command/control, epigenics, directed mutations, etc. etc. Its not hard evidence mind you but evidence in the same vein as evolution's 'mountains' of evidence.

More bullshit from Luckett.

He quote mined since he copied only the first line of a several line comment. That's called quote mining. Copying the whole comment would show the train of thought and make it clear I was not conflating abio-genesis with evolution. He could have copied the whole comment without exerting more energy than copying just the first line. But he purposefully copied only the first line.

Quote-mining.

Re yr comments on hard evidence and evidence, pure pedantry. In a court of law circumstantial evidence is indicative of a difference in types of evidence presented. You have hard evidence and you have circumstantial evidence. 'nuff said.

By the way, Luckett, how do you know the difference between life and non-life? From what I understand from you colleagues here at PT, there is no fundamental difference between life and non-life. Just ask Elzinga. Its all just a difference in the level of complexity.

Really need to watch the contortions. Complex knots are hard to undo.

SteveP. said: Argument from utility. Science is not about utility. Anyway, Darwinian evolution is not the 'root' cause of much, except maybe for oscillating variance to stay in step with environmental change. once again maintenence rather than building.

Too bad that’s not enough to do anything useful with. Let me know when ID is the root cause of the development of a new product, process or system that successfully predicts the future state of anything and/or is a valuable product that is used by lots of people.

Don't try to tell me you wanna chock up anti-biotic resistance to evolution? Come on, now. People 'design' anti-biotics to get around bacterial defenses. Bacteria mutate their genomes to fend off anti-biotics. There's absolutely nothing Darwinian about it. Bacteria don't just happen to mutate by chance when confronted with a threat. And when that threat comes, they don't mutate in a random fashion. There is furious activity to combat the threat. Isn't that something, coming from an organism that has no brains to speak of. Just how is it that they direct mutations to fight a threat?

Again, nothing Darwinian here. Rather, its an epic battle of design; man against bacteria. may the better designer win.

SteveP. said: Re yr comments on hard evidence and evidence, pure pedantry.

By the way, Luckett, how do you know the difference between life and non-life? From what I understand from you colleagues here at PT, there is no fundamental difference between life and non-life. Just ask Elzinga. Its all just a difference in the level of complexity.

SteveP. said: You are quote mining, like Luckett. My full comment IMO shows I have not conflated abiogenesis with evolution.

Anyway, doesn't matter. The takeaway here is that to be logically consistent, abio-genesis has to be of a random, spontaneous nature to agree with evolution, which has those same characteristics. Abio-genesis could not be directed and agree with evolution now, could it?

So my comment is correct and still stands.

But I know that word...LIE...rolls of the tongue soooo easily....and has that hard edge to it that is soooo irresistable. Ever though of starting up an LA chapter in your area? I like the sound of LIES Anyonymous. It'll take off like wildfire. Just imagine telling the wife "Hey babe, Im going to LA tonight. Be back late, really late'.

Let's take a well known puzzle in science. Let's say, for example, the puzzle of dark matter.

I propose a "scientific theory" of dark matter:

Intelligence is behind it.

Should I be expecting a phone call from Sweden in a couple of months?

Actually they do mutate by chance. We know the mutation rate and the distribution. We have measured the selection coefficients and their effect on fitness. We have observed that the mutations are random both in the laboratory and in nature. We have used this information to predict the mutations that will occur both in the lab and in nature and we have used this information to design antibiotic treatments and plan for the future. So far, random chance and selection seems to be winning, partly because people like you remain ignorant and do lots of stupid things that give the bacteria the edge. To deny this is to deny over one hundred years of research that your life literally depends on. Get a clue Poindexter. Your ignorance is has no excuse

SteveP. said: Argument from utility. Science is not about utility.

Anyway, Darwinian evolution is not the 'root' cause of much, except maybe for oscillating variance to stay in step with environmental change. once again maintenence rather than building.

Too bad that’s not enough to do anything useful with. Let me know when ID is the root cause of the development of a new product, process or system that successfully predicts the future state of anything and/or is a valuable product that is used by lots of people.

Don't try to tell me you wanna chock up anti-biotic resistance to evolution?

Come on, now. People 'design' anti-biotics to get around bacterial defenses. Bacteria mutate their genomes to fend off anti-biotics.

There's absolutely nothing Darwinian about it.

Bacteria don't just happen to mutate by chance when confronted with a threat.

And when that threat comes, they don't mutate in a random fashion.

There is furious activity to combat the threat. Isn't that something, coming from an organism that has no brains to speak of. Just how is it that they direct mutations to fight a threat?

Again, nothing Darwinian here. Rather, its an epic battle of design; man against bacteria. may the better designer win.

:)

Tell me, do you take all the antibiotics like your doctor tells you to? Do you know why?

Two years ago, I wrote in the New York Times about scientists exploring evolution to discover the function of our genes. We share a 1.2 billion-year-old common ancestor with fungi, for example, and it turns out that fungi (yeast in particular) have networks of genes remarkably similar to our own. Back in 2010, the scientists I interviewed told me they hoped to use this method to find new drugs. In today’s New York Times, I write about how they’ve delivered on that promise. It turns out that a drug that doctors have used for over 40 years to kill fungi can slow the growth of tumors. It’s a striking illustration of how evolution provides a map that allows medical research to find their way to promising new treatments. Check it out.

TomS said: What would evidence for (or against) that statement be like? Does anybody have an example of intelligence being a driving force behind life (or behind anything els)?

Of course Steve doesn't want us to think that science is about "utility". Then it would become painfully obvious that there are thousands of dedicated researchers all over the world who are using evolutionary principles to combat bacterial infections. All of them use the random mutation and natural selection approach, none of them use the magic intelligent designer or the magic intelligent bacteria approach. That isn't a matter of "utility". That is a matter of understanding how the world really works and then being able to use that knowledge to help humanity. The impotent ID nonsense is completely wrong and thus completely worthless in the fight against infectious diseases. We actually do understand the molecular mechanisms behind the evolution of antibiotic resistance, lives depend on it. Stevie wants us to go back to the days of praying to the intelligent bacterial designer and hoping for the best.

Oh well, at least everyone can see that Stevie could't even answer the most simple question about taking antibiotics. Why would anyone pay any attention to him if he doesn't even understand the most basic concepts? If he did have the balls to actually try to answer the question, then everyone would see why he is completely and totally wrong. The sad thing is that he probably really does think that no one understands this stuff, just because he refuses to.

SteveP wrote: Information as an independent entity is a place to start, as the driving force that underlies quantum activity

Information...which drives atomic activity, which in turns drives bio-chemical reactions.

If information can be mapped out as having definite structure and characteristics, then we can move on from there.

What is unscientific about such a proposal?

But if we say information is just an emergent property of matter, then we simply cut off a potentially productive avenue of inquiry.

ogremk5 said: From Carl Zimmer http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/loom/2012/08/21/darwins-drugs-my-article-in-todays-new-york-times/

Two years ago, I wrote in the New York Times about scientists exploring evolution to discover the function of our genes. We share a 1.2 billion-year-old common ancestor with fungi, for example, and it turns out that fungi (yeast in particular) have networks of genes remarkably similar to our own. Back in 2010, the scientists I interviewed told me they hoped to use this method to find new drugs. In today’s New York Times, I write about how they’ve delivered on that promise. It turns out that a drug that doctors have used for over 40 years to kill fungi can slow the growth of tumors. It’s a striking illustration of how evolution provides a map that allows medical research to find their way to promising new treatments. Check it out.

Tell us Steve, how would ID approach this? After all, there aren't any ID researchers... much less those pursuing medical research. Do you honestly think that design can best evolution? That's already been proven to be wrong.

Come on, now. People ‘design’ anti-biotics to get around bacterial defenses. Bacteria mutate their genomes to fend off anti-biotics.

So, you’re telling me that bacteria have the ability mutate their genomes so that they can survive an antibiotic. Seriously? This is even dumber than the statement before.

By way of example, Darwinian evolution relies upon the notion that life spontaneously arose. Once that spontaneity occurred, then somehow imperfect replication gave rise to complexity (sophisticated guesswork at play here). Yet there is no independent evidence (i.e. hard evidence) that this survival via slight and slow advantageous changes occurred. What they have is what they deem to be a comprehensive set of circumstantial evidence that points in one direction. But this is what ID is doing as well; collecting a comprehensive set of circumstantial evidence that points in one direction; that of intelligence being the driving force behind life.

If Intelligent Design Theory really is so much more better than Evolutionary Biology, then, why do Intelligent Design proponents go out of their way to avoid doing any research, make blatant lies like conflating biological evolution with abiogenesis, or claiming that Lucy is really a baboon, and verbally abuse and slander those who do not bow down and worship IDiot proclamations?

SteveP. said: Argument from utility. Science is not about utility. Anyway, Darwinian evolution is not the 'root' cause of much, except maybe for oscillating variance to stay in step with environmental change. once again maintenence rather than building.... Don't try to tell me you wanna chock up anti-biotic resistance to evolution? Come on, now. People 'design' anti-biotics to get around bacterial defenses. Bacteria mutate their genomes to fend off anti-biotics. There's absolutely nothing Darwinian about it. Bacteria don't just happen to mutate by chance when confronted with a threat. And when that threat comes, they don't mutate in a random fashion. There is furious activity to combat the threat. Isn't that something, coming from an organism that has no brains to speak of. Just how is it that they direct mutations to fight a threat? Again, nothing Darwinian here. Rather, its an epic battle of design; man against bacteria. may the better designer win.

ogremk5 said: Do you honestly think that design can best evolution? That's already been proven to be wrong.

TomS said:

ogremk5 said: Do you honestly think that design can best evolution? That's already been proven to be wrong.

Consider malaria. The best efforts of human intelligent design to combat malaria is defeated by the evolution of the malaria parasite. On the other hand, compare the temporary effectiveness of intelligently designed measures against malaria with the lasting effects (although there are also bad consequences of it) of the evolved sickle-cell anemia. Evolution bests design.

I don't have the link, but Steve P has in the recent past claimed that bacteria do in fact have the ability to recognize an external threat (such as antibiotics). In response, they have the ability to intentionally cause "designed" mutations in their own individual genomes to counter that threat. He has explicitly said that it is not the "Intelligent Designer" doing the meddling. It is the bacteria themselves, intentionally changing themselves. Moreover, he has claimed that this "intention" comes from a source outside the mere physical properties of the bacteria itself, so that this source cannot be identified by simply cataloging the contents a particular cell. IIRC, he has avoided the term "vitalism", but I don't recall the phrase that he used.

This is a paraphrasing of his previous posts, so I may not have all the details right, but that is the gist that I remember. As crazy as it sounds.

Steve P may use the phrase "Intelligent Design", but when he uses the term he means something very different than what we "normally" think of as the "modern" "Intelligent Design" movement. For example, IIRC he does not believe in a single "Intelligent Designer". Attributing the notions of "modern" ID to him is a mistake.

Scott F said: I don't have the link, but Steve P has in the recent past claimed that bacteria do in fact have the ability to recognize an external threat (such as antibiotics). In response, they have the ability to intentionally cause "designed" mutations in their own individual genomes to counter that threat. He has explicitly said that it is not the "Intelligent Designer" doing the meddling. It is the bacteria themselves, intentionally changing themselves. Moreover, he has claimed that this "intention" comes from a source outside the mere physical properties of the bacteria itself, so that this source cannot be identified by simply cataloging the contents a particular cell. IIRC, he has avoided the term "vitalism", but I don't recall the phrase that he used. This is a paraphrasing of his previous posts, so I may not have all the details right, but that is the gist that I remember. As crazy as it sounds. Steve P may use the phrase "Intelligent Design", but when he uses the term he means something very different than what we "normally" think of as the "modern" "Intelligent Design" movement. For example, IIRC he does not believe in a single "Intelligent Designer". Attributing the notions of "modern" ID to him is a mistake.

Steve's essentially a lone nutbar. The idea of bacteria directing their own mutations by a form of shared morphic field that exhibits immaterial intelligence is too goofy even for the DI. They might bob their heads along with the crazy, but they're not going to utter a single word that might offend their real backers, the Christian reconstructionists and dominionists, the guys who are so far to the religious right that they make Pat Robertson look like Barack Obama. Immaterial intelligent morphic fields, my eye. The word you're looking for is "God".

That first person plural that Steve's in the habit of using? There is no "we". Steve is one of those guys who get to disarm the minefield by stomping all over it, and the DI is perfectly happy to see him made into flying hamburger, because it will make them look less like a bunch of fruitloops. Not looking like a bunch of fruitloops is item #1 on the DI checklist.

So Steve only thinks he's supporting the DI, and vice-versa. Steve thinks a lot of weird stuff.

Dave Luckett said: Steve thinks a lot of weird stuff.

Scott F said: I don't have the link, but Steve P has in the recent past claimed that bacteria do in fact have the ability to recognize an external threat (such as antibiotics). In response, they have the ability to intentionally cause "designed" mutations in their own individual genomes to counter that threat. He has explicitly said that it is not the "Intelligent Designer" doing the meddling. It is the bacteria themselves, intentionally changing themselves. Moreover, he has claimed that this "intention" comes from a source outside the mere physical properties of the bacteria itself, so that this source cannot be identified by simply cataloging the contents a particular cell. IIRC, he has avoided the term "vitalism", but I don't recall the phrase that he used. This is a paraphrasing of his previous posts, so I may not have all the details right, but that is the gist that I remember. As crazy as it sounds. Steve P may use the phrase "Intelligent Design", but when he uses the term he means something very different than what we "normally" think of as the "modern" "Intelligent Design" movement. For example, IIRC he does not believe in a single "Intelligent Designer". Attributing the notions of "modern" ID to him is a mistake.