Junk in the Trunk

More discussion here:

http://talkrational.org/showthread.php?t=55051

The entire "controversy" is grounded in the use of imprecise language, particularly imprecise use of the term "functional". I am on the side of those who think the ENCODE press releases greatly misused the term "functional", but until people actually agree to use the term to mean the same thing, all dialogue is just people insulting each other for using the same word in different ways.

I think just using the term "active" instead of "functional" might have helped a great deal.

"Functional" and "junk" are both subjective terms which need to be carefully defined if conflicts about their use are to be resolved. There also needs to be some effort to be honest and consistent, though, because there will always be gray areas. If "functional" means "does something for the cell which facilitates cell survival and/or reproduction", then mutations with negative impact, recessive alleles, and even alleles that code for proteins that work but perform a totally redundant function might not make the grade as "functional". On the other hand, if we define "functional" as "potentially does something that impacts on cell survival and/or reproduction", all sorts of "junk" like transposable elements meets the definition of "functional".

Complicating it all is that it is extremely important to understand what such potentially active junk might do, whether we call what it does "functional" or not. Nothing could be more absurd than - not to imply anyone would do this - inhibiting or disparaging study of the role of genome elements validly considered junk, in things like causing neoplasms or infection, susceptibility, by affecting protein or RNA expression, or chromosome stability, through recombination, transposition, etc, out of fear that creationists might claim that such study means that something is "functional".

I will illustrate what I am talking about with the example of TURF13.

As readers here may recall, the TURF13 story goes approximately like this (feedback welcome if corrections or elaborations are relevant). Some loci in the genome of a strain of maize recombined to come together in one or more events. Prior to the recombination these loci represented functionless junk by reasonable standards. Now they are a single locus which codes for an expressed protein. But here's the real catch - so far, all the new protein has been shown to do is to make the maize strains that carry it susceptible to a particular fungal infection. It may have some sort of beneficial activity as well, but that hasn't been detected, to the best of my knowledge.

Is the TURF13 gene functional? It codes for a protein. Were the loci that recombined to create it functional? Almost certainly not, but they were "active".

The entire “controversy” is grounded in the use of imprecise language, particularly imprecise use of the term “functional”.

— harold

Including quote mining those who have no problem with evolution to pretend that they do.

Nick,

Bozo Joe is once again infesting these threads using a different name. As you know, he was permanently banned for threatening violence against anyone who disagreed with his insane ideas. Pleas dump all of his posts to the bathroom wall immediately until he can once again be banned. If you don't do this, this thread will become filled with the most vile and insane nonsense imaginable. Joe is psychotic and completely irrational, he simply cannot handle the truth. Do him a favor and put him out of our misery.

Is the TURF13 gene functional? It codes for a protein. Were the loci that recombined to create it functional? Almost certainly not, but they were “active”.

For added fun & excitement, see the twitter discussion: https://twitter.com/DanGraur

DS said: Nick, Bozo Joe is once again infesting these threads using a different name. As you know, he was permanently banned for threatening violence against anyone who disagreed with his insane ideas. Pleas dump all of his posts to the bathroom wall immediately until he can once again be banned. If you don't do this, this thread will become filled with the most vile and insane nonsense imaginable. Joe is psychotic and completely irrational, he simply cannot handle the truth. Do him a favor and put him out of our misery.

Anything by a Masked Panda (1686), such as the one directly prior to my post. Joe has been using that name for a few days now. And he will undoubtedly change names once again when he is banned. He is absolutely obsessed over the idea of junk DNA. He is not emotionally capable of letting the discussion continue without trying to interrupt it.

harold said: The entire "controversy" is grounded in the use of imprecise language, particularly imprecise use of the term "functional". I am on the side of those who think the ENCODE press releases greatly misused the term "functional", but until people actually agree to use the term to mean the same thing, all dialogue is just people insulting each other for using the same word in different ways. I think just using the term "active" instead of "functional" might have helped a great deal. "Functional" and "junk" are both subjective terms which need to be carefully defined if conflicts about their use are to be resolved. There also needs to be some effort to be honest and consistent, though, because there will always be gray areas. If "functional" means "does something for the cell which facilitates cell survival and/or reproduction", then mutations with negative impact, recessive alleles, and even alleles that code for proteins that work but perform a totally redundant function might not make the grade as "functional". On the other hand, if we define "functional" as "potentially does something that impacts on cell survival and/or reproduction", all sorts of "junk" like transposable elements meets the definition of "functional". Complicating it all is that it is extremely important to understand what such potentially active junk might do, whether we call what it does "functional" or not. Nothing could be more absurd than - not to imply anyone would do this - inhibiting or disparaging study of the role of genome elements validly considered junk, in things like causing neoplasms or infection, susceptibility, by affecting protein or RNA expression, or chromosome stability, through recombination, transposition, etc, out of fear that creationists might claim that such study means that something is "functional". I will illustrate what I am talking about with the example of TURF13. As readers here may recall, the TURF13 story goes approximately like this (feedback welcome if corrections or elaborations are relevant). Some loci in the genome of a strain of maize recombined to come together in one or more events. Prior to the recombination these loci represented functionless junk by reasonable standards. Now they are a single locus which codes for an expressed protein. But here's the real catch - so far, all the new protein has been shown to do is to make the maize strains that carry it susceptible to a particular fungal infection. It may have some sort of beneficial activity as well, but that hasn't been detected, to the best of my knowledge. Is the TURF13 gene functional? It codes for a protein. Were the loci that recombined to create it functional? Almost certainly not, but they were "active".

DS said:

harold said: The entire "controversy" is grounded in the use of imprecise language, particularly imprecise use of the term "functional". I am on the side of those who think the ENCODE press releases greatly misused the term "functional", but until people actually agree to use the term to mean the same thing, all dialogue is just people insulting each other for using the same word in different ways. I think just using the term "active" instead of "functional" might have helped a great deal. "Functional" and "junk" are both subjective terms which need to be carefully defined if conflicts about their use are to be resolved. There also needs to be some effort to be honest and consistent, though, because there will always be gray areas. If "functional" means "does something for the cell which facilitates cell survival and/or reproduction", then mutations with negative impact, recessive alleles, and even alleles that code for proteins that work but perform a totally redundant function might not make the grade as "functional". On the other hand, if we define "functional" as "potentially does something that impacts on cell survival and/or reproduction", all sorts of "junk" like transposable elements meets the definition of "functional". Complicating it all is that it is extremely important to understand what such potentially active junk might do, whether we call what it does "functional" or not. Nothing could be more absurd than - not to imply anyone would do this - inhibiting or disparaging study of the role of genome elements validly considered junk, in things like causing neoplasms or infection, susceptibility, by affecting protein or RNA expression, or chromosome stability, through recombination, transposition, etc, out of fear that creationists might claim that such study means that something is "functional". I will illustrate what I am talking about with the example of TURF13. As readers here may recall, the TURF13 story goes approximately like this (feedback welcome if corrections or elaborations are relevant). Some loci in the genome of a strain of maize recombined to come together in one or more events. Prior to the recombination these loci represented functionless junk by reasonable standards. Now they are a single locus which codes for an expressed protein. But here's the real catch - so far, all the new protein has been shown to do is to make the maize strains that carry it susceptible to a particular fungal infection. It may have some sort of beneficial activity as well, but that hasn't been detected, to the best of my knowledge. Is the TURF13 gene functional? It codes for a protein. Were the loci that recombined to create it functional? Almost certainly not, but they were "active".

Good point. Sequence conservation is a good indicator of functional constraint. SInce mutations are random, all sequences will eventually mutate and natural selection will act to weed out the deleterious changes. Therefore, functional constraint will lead to a very precise pattern of sequence divergence and conservation in constrained and unconstrained sequences. However, some nucleotides have a "function" even if the nucleotide sequence is not constrained. So the exact definition of "function" is critical is this is the test to be applied. FOr example, the exact number of nucleotides between the promotor and the site of initiation of transcription is critical to proper gene expression, but only a few of the nucleotides in the sequence are conserved. That having been said, there is a large proportion of the human genome that has no known "function". The sequence could be anything, or it could be missing completely with no effect whatsoever on phenotype. This is the result of the evolutionary process and the limitations of naturals selection with respect to these characters. To pretend that the genome is "designed" or "efficient" or the product of anything other than these natural forces is contrary to all of the evidence. You can believe it is you want and you can say it as often as you like, but that doesn't make it true.

Well the definition of "functional" cannot be that it could one day take on some function. We know that any random sequence can mutate into something "functional". All DNA represents the raw material on which natural selection can act. But then again, creationists can't use this definition, not without admitting that random mutaion and natural selection can produce new information, new genes, new functions and new structures. And that was the reason for all this bluff and bluster about "junk DNA" in the first place. So for once it's heads evolution wins and tails creationism fails.

DS said: Well the definition of "functional" cannot be that it could one day take on some function. We know that any random sequence can mutate into something "functional". All DNA represents the raw material on which natural selection can act. But then again, creationists can't use this definition, not without admitting that random mutaion and natural selection can produce new information, new genes, new functions and new structures. And that was the reason for all this bluff and bluster about "junk DNA" in the first place. So for once it's heads evolution wins and tails creationism fails.

Nick, see the above post for Bozo Joe.

I called it. This guy is as predictable as the next number in the Fibonacci series.

I think you guys should all read Graur et al., which as Nick mentions is open-access. Everything anyone has said so far was addressed in that paper, and pretty well, I think.

Looks like I don't have sufficient admin status for doing bannings, so try to ignore him, I'll BW as able.

Nick Matzke said: Looks like I don't have sufficient admin status for doing bannings, so try to ignore him, I'll BW as able.

Hear, hear.

John Harshman said: I think you guys should all read Graur et al., which as Nick mentions is open-access. Everything anyone has said so far was addressed in that paper, and pretty well, I think.

From page 31:

"Third, numerous researchers use teleological reasoning according to which the function of a stretch of DNA lies in its future potential. Such researchers (e.g., Makalowski 2003; Wen et al. 2012) use the term “junk DNA” to denote a piece of DNA that can never, under any evolutionary circumstance, be useful. Since any piece of DNA may become functional, many are eager to get rid of the term “junk DNA” altogether. This type of reasoning is false. Of course, pieces of junk DNA may be coopted into function, but that does not mean that they presently are functional."

Man these guys are smart.

From page 32:

"It has been pointed to us that junk DNA, garbage DNA, and functional DNA may not add up to 100% because some parts of the genome may be functional but not under constraint with respect to nucleotide composition. We tentatively call such genomic segments “indifferent DNA.” Indifferent DNA refers to DNA sites that are functional, but show no evidence of selection against point mutations. Deletion of these sites, however, is deleterious, and is subject to purifying selection. Examples of indifferent DNA are spacers and flanking elements whose presence is required but whose sequence is not important. Another such case is the third position of four-fold redundant codons, which needs to be present to avoid a downstream frameshift."

Now where have I heard that before?

So ENCODE is just plain wrong and one must conclude that they have some political or religious agenda rather than the service of science.

Or perhaps they just wanted their results to be controversial and generate some publicity. Unfortunately, it seems to have backfired.

In any event, the rebuttal paper seems to agree with me. So I conclude that they got it right. :)

Or perhaps they just wanted their results to be controversial and generate some publicity. Unfortunately, it seems to have backfired.

I enjoyed the suggested parallels between the genome and "bloatware", which generally refers to humongous software projects written by many different people over an extended period of time, all of which is ideosyncratically documented (if at all). During this period, features are dropped or de-emphasized, debugged, patched, worked around, extended, and otherwise mangled.

Graur's programming contacts divided such computer code into categories - functional and useful, dead, and useless. The functional useful part is obvious. But dead (that is, unreachable via any path) code nonetheless sometimes ends up performing the equivalent of spacing or alignment utility (masking bugs elsewhere).

Useless code, now, is fascinating and seems very like much of what ENCODE identified. Useless code is reached during execution, and performs functions - it can produce values, modify data structures or files, etc. What makes it useless is that nothing elsewhere in the system uses or even notices these functions. It can also be essential for spacing and alignment (like dead code), for consuming bus cycles that can mask potential race conditions, for introducing delays that let IO operations complete, and so on (and on and on. BTDT.)

I think it would be a mistake to dismiss useless code as non-functional. Perhaps like a pseudogene, it might someday do something useful again. For now, it's just noise but it DOES execute, it DOES perform functions, it's expensive to try to identify it and weed it out, so over time it just keeps growing.

Actually, as the paper points out, only about ten percent of pseudogenes are transcribed. So most are not "executed" at all and none perform any "function". Not a very good design really.

IMHO some of you guys are too lenient towards the ENCODE guys especially towards Ewan Birney. I don't know if re-defining "funcrional" was just a cheap trick or if he really wasn't aware of 40 years of population genetics, molecular and evolutionary biology. I tend to think the later is true because he seemingly didn't grasp the C-value paradox.

Nick Matzke said: For added fun & excitement, see the twitter discussion: https://twitter.com/DanGraur

Watching the Discovery Institute and UD cluster with glee around the ENCODE project's claims is like watching flies cluster. You know something is rotten already.

Thanks Nick. That was a great read.

DS said: Actually, as the paper points out, only about ten percent of pseudogenes are transcribed. So most are not "executed" at all and none perform any "function". Not a very good design really.

https://me.yahoo.com/a/UIFqpY46nexUlCvhZ8zfKDh3zX4VO81SHItDeWm6L4agSA6W#dd2ba said:

DS said: Actually, as the paper points out, only about ten percent of pseudogenes are transcribed. So most are not "executed" at all and none perform any "function". Not a very good design really.

Nobody claims that pseudogenes are the product of design (although Wells claims they may have a role in the expression of functional genes). They are mostly defunct duplicate genes, an example of what happens when natural selection relaxes its conserving power. And pseudogenes make up less than 2% of the genome.

You can change names all you want Joe, we still know it's you. Looks like my claims have more support than your mamas bra.

And just for your information, introns make up nearly fifty percent of the human genome and mobile genetic elements such as SINES and LINES make up about 45 percent. There are over a million and a half SINES alone. Not really a very efficient design. So, the majority of the human genome serves no function whatsoever. You lose again.

Nick,

You are going to have to closely examine every post made by A Masked Panda, since Joe seems to be switching names more often than a convict on the run. I sure hop it costs him money every time he does it. But don't ban others using Yahoo accounts such as Glen Davidson. Like a breast without nipples, that would be pointless.

DS said: You can change names all you want Joe, we still know it's you. Looks like my claims have more support than your mamas bra.

And just for your information, introns make up nearly fifty percent of the human genome and mobile genetic elements such as SINES and LINES make up about 45 percent. There are over a million and a half SINES alone. Not really a very efficient design. So, the majority of the human genome serves no function whatsoever. You lose again.

Retroelements can provide binding sites for transcription factors and protect promoter CpG islands from repressive chromatin modifications, and may be also involved in nuclear compartmentalization of transcriptionally active and inactive domains.

https://me.yahoo.com/a/UIFqpY46nexUlCvhZ8zfKDh3zX4VO81SHItDeWm6L4agSA6W#dd2ba said:

DS said: You can change names all you want Joe, we still know it's you. Looks like my claims have more support than your mamas bra.

Grow up. This immature and silly name-calling does not advance the cause of science and the progress of mankind.

And just for your information, introns make up nearly fifty percent of the human genome and mobile genetic elements such as SINES and LINES make up about 45 percent. There are over a million and a half SINES alone. Not really a very efficient design. So, the majority of the human genome serves no function whatsoever. You lose again.

You are, once again, wrong. Introns make up about 30% of the genome, and they contain many defunct retrotrasposons. You completely ignored intergenic regions that make up another 30%.The vast majority of SINEs and LINEs are,in fact, immobile. It is now known that repetitive elements in DNA are involved in the regulation of gene expression: Regulation of mammalian gene expression by retroelements and non-coding tandem repeats http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bies.20741/pdf

Retroelements can provide binding sites for transcription factors and protect promoter CpG islands from repressive chromatin modifications, and may be also involved in nuclear compartmentalization of transcriptionally active and inactive domains.

There is a good summary of the functions of SINEs and Alu elements here: http://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/transposons-or-jumping-genes-not-junk-dna-1211

Oh and thanks for confirming that some mobile genetic elements can change due to random mutation and natural selection to take on some regulatory function. That was the conclusion of the reference you cited. You didn't cite a reference that disproved the claim you were trying to make again did you Joe?

DS said: Oh and thanks for confirming that some mobile genetic elements can change due to random mutation and natural selection to take on some regulatory function. That was the conclusion of the reference you cited.

Well let's see what the paper in question has to say about these elements:

"Hence, regardless of their transcriptional or translational status, pseudogenes are nonfunctional!"

"Thus, in the vast majority of cases, introns evolve neutrally, while a small fraction of introns are under selective constraint (Ponjavic et al. 2007). Of course, we recognize that some human introns harbor regulatory sequences (Tishkoff et al. 2006), as well as sequences that produce small RNA molecules (Hirose 2003; Zhou et al. 2004). We note, however, that even those few introns under selection are not constrained over their entire length."

"Whether transcribed or not, the vast majority of transposons in the human genome are merely parasites, parasites of parasites, and dead parasites, whose main “function” would appear to be causing frameshifts in reading frames, disabling RNA-specifying sequences, and simply littering the genome."

So there you have it, some small proportion of junk DNA may evolve through random mutation and natural selection to take on some "function". But those are the exceptions that prove the rule. The human genome is filled with inactive genes, mobile elements that jump and mobile elements that don't, introns that may or may not do anything at all, usually they don't serve any function either. It's mostly junk. It's not designed, it's not efficient and you can't claim otherwise without admitting that evolution can and does produce new genes and new functions from random mutation and natural selection.

You can't have it both ways Joe. In fact, you can't have it either way. Now if you disagree with the published article, you know what you can do about it. But of course, that usually doesn't work out for you either now does it Joe?

https://me.yahoo.com/a/UIFqpY46nexUlCvhZ8zfKDh3zX4VO81SHItDeWm6L4agSA6W#dd2ba said:

DS said: Oh and thanks for confirming that some mobile genetic elements can change due to random mutation and natural selection to take on some regulatory function. That was the conclusion of the reference you cited.

Yes, why don't you believe only what you want to believe? No. The ability to affect regulatory function is not due to random mutation but due to the nature of transposed sequence itself. If SINEs and LINEs were really junk DNA, they would have been removed from the genome by deleting mechanisms a long time ago. You asked what the function of these SINEs and LINEs were and gave you the answer.

harold said: So you say their function is to cause beneficial mutations. A couple of days ago, you said there were no beneficial mutations.

Well at least he didn't deny having claimed there were no beneficial mutations. Joe is at least consistently wrong. By the way, in case no one noticed, he just admitted to using different names. That alone is grounds for banishment.

Is A Masked Panda (d2ba) the same as A Masked Panda (1686)?

Do you see anyone else around her claiming that there are no beneficial mutations?

May I ask which Joe this is?

No, they are not ‘mutations’ of DNA sequences as such, but are rather rearrangements/transpositions.

I believe his is the Joe that was permanently banned for threatening to bring a machine gun to a scientific conference and "reeducate" anyone who disagreed with him. Now he is reduced to claiming that a rearrangement or a transposition event is not a "mutation" and that evolution of a novel mechanism of regulation of gene expression can never be "beneficial". I think everyone can see he is still full of the same crap, no matter what name he tries to use.

And yes, Joe ran away from several hundred questions last time as well.

Mike Elzinga said: Watching the Discovery Institute and UD cluster with glee around the ENCODE project's claims is like watching flies cluster. You know something is rotten already.

Ron Okimoto said: There is no doubt that the results were over-hyped, but in a way that is just human nature. What is sad is that so many authors went along with the overblown conclusions. Were there any dissenters? Did they get out voted?

Joe Felsenstein said:

Ron Okimoto said: There is no doubt that the results were over-hyped, but in a way that is just human nature. What is sad is that so many authors went along with the overblown conclusions. Were there any dissenters? Did they get out voted?

Several people in my own department were authors on that paper. I don't know what opportunities they may have had to comment or dissent before publication, although I do know that some of them have subsequently dissented from the conclusion about junk DNA. But consider that if your lab put a major effort into ENCODE you are under pressure to have your name on the resulting publications, especially if ENCODE is funding that work.

Joe Felsenstein said:

Ron Okimoto said: There is no doubt that the results were over-hyped, but in a way that is just human nature. What is sad is that so many authors went along with the overblown conclusions. Were there any dissenters? Did they get out voted?

Several people in my own department were authors on that paper. I don't know what opportunities they may have had to comment or dissent before publication, although I do know that some of them have subsequently dissented from the conclusion about junk DNA. But consider that if your lab put a major effort into ENCODE you are under pressure to have your name on the resulting publications, especially if ENCODE is funding that work.

harold said: Are the objections solely based on the misleading use of the term "functional" and the excess hype? Does anyone think that the actual technical findings are non-reproducible; i.e. locus claimed to be transcribed actually is not transcribed in any cells at a significant rate? Or is it entirely that the findings are accurate as far as they go, but were somewhat deceptively overhyped?

DS said: I believe his is the Joe that was permanently banned for threatening to bring a machine gun to a scientific conference and "reeducate" anyone who disagreed with him.

To misrepresent a hypothesis that you’re claiming to disprove is HORRIBLE. This is unethical. We cannot put up with this.

If we put up with this, other hypotheses will be done in also. The Central Dogma of Mol. Biol. is next.

diogeneslamp0 said:

DS said: I believe his is the Joe that was permanently banned for threatening to bring a machine gun to a scientific conference and "reeducate" anyone who disagreed with him.

Do you have a link or reference for that? I have also read that Joe sold components (nuts and bolts) to the Iranian nuclear program. True or not true? That would put his Holocaust denial in a whole new light.

harold said: Does anyone think that the actual technical findings are non-reproducible; i.e. locus claimed to be transcribed actually is not

matthew.s.ackerman said:

harold said: Does anyone think that the actual technical findings are non-reproducible; i.e. locus claimed to be transcribed actually is not

The Graur et al. paper makes some claims that some of the technical findings are useless and that some of them are wrong. The three claims that I recall from the paper (which I read yesterday, but these things fade fast) are : that 1) much of the transcription data comes from HeLa cells known to have aberrant transcription patterns. This could make the data less useful since transcription may rarely occur in many of these regions in healthy human cells. That 2) that the average length of transcription factor binding sites called in Encode's data was 600 bp, while the longest known transcription factor binding site is currently 33bp. It was unclear to me whether Encode is calling specious transcription factor binding sites, or whether they are simply including a lot of flanking sequence around true transcription factor binding sites. I would assume the later. And finally that 3) the data used to infer selective constraint at functional loci may suffer from ascertainment bias. They determine polymorphic sites from three populations but only determine allele frequency in one population. As a result their conclusion that at least some of the new sites that they detect that do not show inter-specific evolutionary conservation are under purifying selection (and thus that some of their biochemically functional sites have what I would call a biological function) is suspect.

1) much of the transcription data comes from HeLa cells known to have aberrant transcription patterns. This could make the data less useful since transcription may rarely occur in many of these regions in healthy human cells.

That 2) that the average length of transcription factor binding sites called in Encode’s data was 600 bp, while the longest known transcription factor binding site is currently 33bp. It was unclear to me whether Encode is calling specious transcription factor binding sites, or whether they are simply including a lot of flanking sequence around true transcription factor binding sites. I would assume the later.

And finally that 3) the data used to infer selective constraint at functional loci may suffer from ascertainment bias. They determine polymorphic sites from three populations but only determine allele frequency in one population. As a result their conclusion that at least some of the new sites that they detect that do not show inter-specific evolutionary conservation are under purifying selection (and thus that some of their biochemically functional sites have what I would call a biological function) is suspect.

There a foundational problem here and that's the misconception about function. One has to expect that DNA binding proteins will bind in useless ways, that RNA transcriptase will transcribe useless bits of DNA, and this will also occur in tissue specific ways. It's expected. It is not functional by any remotely sensible notion of "function". Energetically, RNA transcription accounts for very little of an Eukaryotic cell's energy budget. Even 10% non-functional transciption would be too little a cost to provide for a noticeable selective disadvantage. This is not arcane knowledge. I learned it as an undergraduate many decades ago. The authors of ENCODE publications seem unaware of this basic biological knowledge. They promote an absurd misconception: that everything that happens in a cell happens for a functional reason. They deserve ridicule for promoting that misconception.

rog.shrubber said: There a foundational problem here and that's the misconception about function. One has to expect that DNA binding proteins will bind in useless ways, that RNA transcriptase will transcribe useless bits of DNA, and this will also occur in tissue specific ways. It's expected. It is not functional by any remotely sensible notion of "function". Energetically, RNA transcription accounts for very little of an Eukaryotic cell's energy budget. Even 10% non-functional transciption would be too little a cost to provide for a noticeable selective disadvantage. This is not arcane knowledge. I learned it as an undergraduate many decades ago. The authors of ENCODE publications seem unaware of this basic biological knowledge. They promote an absurd misconception: that everything that happens in a cell happens for a functional reason. They deserve ridicule for promoting that misconception.

the value of the ENCODE data should be determined independently of either of these two things.

harold said: It's possible that I'm being too kind, but I'm wondering whether, when all the hype is subtracted away, there might be some worthwhile data.

DS said: You can change names all you want Joe, we still know it's you. Looks like my claims have more support than your mamas bra. And just for your information, introns make up nearly fifty percent of the human genome and mobile genetic elements such as SINES and LINES make up about 45 percent. There are over a million and a half SINES alone. Not really a very efficient design. So, the majority of the human genome serves no function whatsoever. You lose again. Nick, You are going to have to closely examine every post made by A Masked Panda, since Joe seems to be switching names more often than a convict on the run. I sure hop it costs him money every time he does it. But don't ban others using Yahoo accounts such as Glen Davidson. Like a breast without nipples, that would be pointless.

Joe Felsenstein said:

Ron Okimoto said: There is no doubt that the results were over-hyped, but in a way that is just human nature. What is sad is that so many authors went along with the overblown conclusions. Were there any dissenters? Did they get out voted?

Several people in my own department were authors on that paper. I don't know what opportunities they may have had to comment or dissent before publication, although I do know that some of them have subsequently dissented from the conclusion about junk DNA. But consider that if your lab put a major effort into ENCODE you are under pressure to have your name on the resulting publications, especially if ENCODE is funding that work.

Ron Okimoto said: It is probably a tough call. You do have to publish and you do have to acknowledge the granting agency. I would hope that there must have been some time to evaluate the manuscript. Then there is the question of how did it get past the reviewers?

DS said:

diogeneslamp0 said:

DS said: I believe his is the Joe that was permanently banned for threatening to bring a machine gun to a scientific conference and "reeducate" anyone who disagreed with him.

Do you have a link or reference for that? I have also read that Joe sold components (nuts and bolts) to the Iranian nuclear program. True or not true? That would put his Holocaust denial in a whole new light.

The exchange is somewhere on the bathroom wall, probably a couple of hundred pages back. I have no desire to wade through all that crap, but feel free if you like. Perhaps someone else knows more precisely. I have no idea about nuclear programs or holocaust denial, but it wouldn't surprise me one bit.

“Joseph Esfandiar Hannon Bozorgmehr from Manchester, United Kingdom. He infected other postings on Sandwalk under the name “Reza” [Darwinism and Junk DNA]. He’s been banned from Pharyngula and was banned from RichardDawkins.net except that he created 95 new identities in order to get around the ban. He is a holocaust denier. He used to run a business “selling components – just nuts and bolts – to the Iranian nuclear and missile industries” but it was shut down because of sanctions. Now he rants against British conspiracies.” [Source]

diogeneslamp0 said:

DS said:

diogeneslamp0 said:

DS said: I believe his is the Joe that was permanently banned for threatening to bring a machine gun to a scientific conference and "reeducate" anyone who disagreed with him.

Do you have a link or reference for that? I have also read that Joe sold components (nuts and bolts) to the Iranian nuclear program. True or not true? That would put his Holocaust denial in a whole new light.

The exchange is somewhere on the bathroom wall, probably a couple of hundred pages back. I have no desire to wade through all that crap, but feel free if you like. Perhaps someone else knows more precisely. I have no idea about nuclear programs or holocaust denial, but it wouldn't surprise me one bit.

This is what I read. Can't vouch for accuracy.

“Joseph Esfandiar Hannon Bozorgmehr from Manchester, United Kingdom. He infected other postings on Sandwalk under the name “Reza” [Darwinism and Junk DNA]. He’s been banned from Pharyngula and was banned from RichardDawkins.net except that he created 95 new identities in order to get around the ban. He is a holocaust denier. He used to run a business “selling components – just nuts and bolts – to the Iranian nuclear and missile industries” but it was shut down because of sanctions. Now he rants against British conspiracies.” [Source]

This is of course the whole point. If the genome were intelligently designed, one would expect that it would function efficiently with a minimum of waste. If on the other hand it were the product of billions of years of random processes such as mutations, duplications, transpositions and other events that were then subjected to selection, one would expect to see an inefficient mess composed mostly of junk, some of which could sometimes become functional due to random mutation and natural selection. This is in fact exactly what is observed.

So the discoveries of modern genetics correspond precisely to what one would expect if evolution is true and are inconsistent with the hypothesis of intelligent design. That's why the IDiots are so eager to jump on any suggestion to the contrary.

DS said: ....If the genome were intelligently designed, one would expect that it would function efficiently with a minimum of waste.

DS said: ...If on the other hand it were the product of billions of years of random processes such as mutations, duplications, transpositions and other events that were then subjected to selection, one would expect to see an inefficient mess composed mostly of junk, some of which could sometimes become functional due to random mutation and natural selection.

So that would be a no Stevie PP. YOu have no explanation whatsoever for the decrepitude of the human genome. That's what I thought.

But why would that be expected? Degeneration is not a sign of non-design but a limitation on the lifespan of a designed object. Just ask Ford.

Steve P. said: But why would that be expected? Degeneration is not a sign of non-design but a limitation on the lifespan of a designed object. Just ask Ford.

DS said: ....If the genome were intelligently designed, one would expect that it would function efficiently with a minimum of waste.

Er, no. One would expect to not see any life on the planet for the simple reason that the degeneration of a non-designed object would be all that much faster than a designed one, duh.

DS said: ...If on the other hand it were the product of billions of years of random processes such as mutations, duplications, transpositions and other events that were then subjected to selection, one would expect to see an inefficient mess composed mostly of junk, some of which could sometimes become functional due to random mutation and natural selection.

We've been through this before with Stevie. In his analogy, a brand new car has extra plastic embedded right in the middle of every plastic part, plastic that must all be removed in order for the car to function properly. The new car has over two million broken radios in it, almost none of which will ever be able to do anything at all other than slow down the car. Because of all of this the car gets extremely poor gas mileage and no one wants to buy it. But hey, it's not a poor design. No it's what happens when a car if left alone too long! Got it.

As usual, Steve P. recites a variant of the hackneyed argument originated by Henry Morris back in the 1970s; namely, evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics.

John Sanford’s “genetic entropy,” Dembski’s calculations of the probabilities of molecular assemblies, Behe’s “irreducible complexity,” and every ID/creationist misconception about complex organic molecules all have their roots in Henry Morris’s teachings.

ID/creationism can’t even explain the existence of solids and liquids, let alone complex molecules.

All ID/creationist camp followers stopped learning science back in middle school. They no longer have a clue about what they don’t know.

Steve P. said: But why would that be expected?

Hey Steve P. --

Based on your posts, you probably share my interest in complexity and the limits of self-organization. I sure hope you're joining in the fun in the free MOOC "Introduction to Complexity" offered by the Santa Fe Institute. Some good stuff there so far, so far with no scary calculations of entropy.

DS said: So that would be a no Stevie PP. YOu have no explanation whatsoever for the decrepitude of the human genome. That's what I thought.

Rolf said:

But why would that be expected? Degeneration is not a sign of non-design but a limitation on the lifespan of a designed object. Just ask Ford.

Oh, I didn't know Ford have experience with replicating cars?! Fords mate Mazdas?

phhht said: So StevieP, why don't you explain to us how to empirically distinguish the designed from the non-designed. Remember, you method must apply not only to genomes and flagella, but also to snowflakes and pocket watches. But of course you cannot explain any such thing, because no such method exists.

Steve P. said: This is neither here nor there, pretty much meaningless for the simple reason that neither do you have a method for proving Darwinian processes are non-designed, non-goal oriented. In fact, you are at a greater disadvantage as you would have to prove a negative.

To be sure, an appeal to the lack of ability to directly observe a designer is not an explanation for the non-designed nature of Darwinian processes.

Mike Elzinga said: As usual, Steve P. recites a variant of the hackneyed argument originated by Henry Morris back in the 1970s; namely, evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics. John Sanford’s “genetic entropy,” Dembski’s calculations of the probabilities of molecular assemblies, Behe’s “irreducible complexity,” and every ID/creationist misconception about complex organic molecules all have their roots in Henry Morris’s teachings. ID/creationism can’t even explain the existence of solids and liquids, let alone complex molecules. All ID/creationist camp followers stopped learning science back in middle school. They no longer have a clue about what they don’t know.

Steve P. said: Rather, ID is in the business of trying to provide intellectually, mathematically, empirically satisfactory explanations for what Darwinism can't satisfactorily explain, which is all the most important questions about how life originated, developed, and sustains itself.

Mike Elzinga said: As usual, Steve P. recites a variant of the hackneyed argument originated by Henry Morris back in the 1970s; namely, evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics. John Sanford’s “genetic entropy,” Dembski’s calculations of the probabilities of molecular assemblies, Behe’s “irreducible complexity,” and every ID/creationist misconception about complex organic molecules all have their roots in Henry Morris’s teachings. ID/creationism can’t even explain the existence of solids and liquids, let alone complex molecules. All ID/creationist camp followers stopped learning science back in middle school. They no longer have a clue about what they don’t know.

Steve P. said: This is neither here nor there, pretty much meaningless for the simple reason that neither do you have a method for proving Darwinian processes are non-designed, non-goal oriented. In fact, you are at a greater disadvantage as you would have to prove a negative. To be sure, an appeal to the lack of ability to directly observe a designer is not an explanation for the non-designed nature of Darwinian processes.

phhht said: So StevieP, why don't you explain to us how to empirically distinguish the designed from the non-designed. Remember, you method must apply not only to genomes and flagella, but also to snowflakes and pocket watches. But of course you cannot explain any such thing, because no such method exists.

Steve P. said: Yet, life in general has been around for 3 billion years. So obstructing the 2nd law for 3 billion years is just as good as saying it violates the 2nd law. A rejection of this observation is simply pedantry.

Steve P. said: But, but, but I just gave you the explanation. You missed it???

DS said: So that would be a no Stevie PP. YOu have no explanation whatsoever for the decrepitude of the human genome. That's what I thought.

Moron babbled: Anyway, the very fact that organisms can replicate provides life the tool to violate the 2nd law. True, no single organism violates the 2nd law. Thats what death is all about. Yet, life in general has been around for 3 billion years. So obstructing the 2nd law for 3 billion years is just as good as saying it violates the 2nd law. A rejection of this observation is simply pedantry.

Rather, ID is in the business of trying to provide intellectually, mathematically, empirically satisfactory explanations for what Darwinism can't satisfactorily explain, which is all the most important questions about how life originated, developed, and sustains itself.

phhht said: So (Steve P has) no such method. That's what I thought. Can you, yourself, personally, tell the designed from the non-designed?

Look Stevie, you go on about the "Second Law" and then insist that something "violates" it. Here's news: in science, a law is something that's ALWAYS true. It cannot be broken. That's why it's called a "law", and not just "the usual thing" or "the average".

So, do you think the Second Law of Thermodynamics actually is a law of the physical universe? Or do you think something can "violate" it? If so, then it's not really a law, and you need to quit calling it that.

So is the Second Law truly a law or not?

Steve P. said: Rather, ID is in the business of trying to provide intellectually, mathematically, empirically satisfactory explanations for what Darwinism can't satisfactorily explain, which is all the most important questions about how life originated, developed, and sustains itself.

phhht said: So you have no such method. That's what I thought. Can you, yourself, personally, tell the designed from the non-designed?

Steve P. said: This is neither here nor there, pretty much meaningless for the simple reason that neither do you have a method for proving Darwinian processes are non-designed, non-goal oriented. In fact, you are at a greater disadvantage as you would have to prove a negative. To be sure, an appeal to the lack of ability to directly observe a designer is not an explanation for the non-designed nature of Darwinian processes.

phhht said: So StevieP, why don't you explain to us how to empirically distinguish the designed from the non-designed. Remember, you method must apply not only to genomes and flagella, but also to snowflakes and pocket watches. But of course you cannot explain any such thing, because no such method exists.

SWT said:

Steve P. said: Yet, life in general has been around for 3 billion years. So obstructing the 2nd law for 3 billion years is just as good as saying it violates the 2nd law. A rejection of this observation is simply pedantry.

No. Acceptance of that observation demonstrates ignorance of thermodynamics.

apokryltaros said:

phhht said: So (Steve P has) no such method. That's what I thought. Can you, yourself, personally, tell the designed from the non-designed?

Steve P has no time to tell the designed from non-designed: when he's not trolling here, insulting us for not blindly swallowing his bullshit, he's too busy making buckets and buckets of money hand over fist in his mythical, science-free fabric company in Taiwan.

Oh, dear me. A violation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

What's next, perpetual motion? I imagine that would come in very useful in the fabrics manufacturing business.

So basically what SteveP is trying to tell us is that his understanding of the second law thermodynamics is no better than FL's understanding of "objective evidence".

Time to move another troll to the bathroom wall. These guys are just playing their own version of dumb and dumber. What a waste of protoplasm.

Steve P. said: SWT, if life didn't violate the 2nd law, it would be indistinguishable from sand dunes and waterfalls.

Moron brayed: Such thin skin, Stanton. And such utter ignorance. Science free fabric production? Do tell? Your rhetorical spiel is day old bread. Time to grab your recycled shopping bag.

SWT said:

Moron said: SWT, if life didn't violate the 2nd law, it would be indistinguishable from sand dunes and waterfalls.

Nope, life does not violate the second law of thermodynamics. Flows of matter and energy through living organisms allow them to remain in states with net entropies less than the equilibrium net entropies for their total energy. If you'd take the time to actually learn some thermodynamics, you'd be able to stop posting such silly things.

SWT said:

Steve P. said: SWT, if life didn't violate the 2nd law, it would be indistinguishable from sand dunes and waterfalls.

Nope, life does not violate the second law of thermodynamics. Flows of matter and energy through living organisms allow them to remain in states with net entropies less than the equilibrium net entropies for their total energy. If you'd take the time to actually learn some thermodynamics, you'd be able to stop posting such silly things.

Steve P. said: Can you yourself, personally, tell the non-designed from the designed?

phhht said: So you have no such method. That's what I thought. Can you, yourself, personally, tell the designed from the non-designed?

Steve P. said: This is neither here nor there, pretty much meaningless for the simple reason that neither do you have a method for proving Darwinian processes are non-designed, non-goal oriented. In fact, you are at a greater disadvantage as you would have to prove a negative. To be sure, an appeal to the lack of ability to directly observe a designer is not an explanation for the non-designed nature of Darwinian processes.

phhht said: So StevieP, why don't you explain to us how to empirically distinguish the designed from the non-designed. Remember, you method must apply not only to genomes and flagella, but also to snowflakes and pocket watches. But of course you cannot explain any such thing, because no such method exists.

phhht said:

Steve P. said: Rather, ID is in the business of trying to provide intellectually, mathematically, empirically satisfactory explanations for what Darwinism can't satisfactorily explain, which is all the most important questions about how life originated, developed, and sustains itself.

So give us a hint, StevieP. How does ID explain, empirically, how life originated? How does it explain the development of life? How does it explain how life sustains itself?

harold said: However, out of curiosity, are you saying that point mutations and indels can never be beneficial but rearrangements and transpositions can?

Where do you stand of duplication of nucleotide sequences?

DS said: This is of course the whole point. If the genome were intelligently designed, one would expect that it would function efficiently with a minimum of waste. If on the other hand it were the product of billions of years of random processes such as mutations, duplications, transpositions and other events that were then subjected to selection, one would expect to see an inefficient mess composed mostly of junk, some of which could sometimes become functional due to random mutation and natural selection. This is in fact exactly what is observed.

"Our analyses have revealed many novel aspects of gene expression and regulation as well as the organization of such information, as illustrated by the accompanying papers."

https://me.yahoo.com/a/FGBzQUZtsemthPseqYzKYHG1950GVQdQElnix0p2OwOZDtFTmQ--#98415 said:

DS said: This is of course the whole point. If the genome were intelligently designed, one would expect that it would function efficiently with a minimum of waste. If on the other hand it were the product of billions of years of random processes such as mutations, duplications, transpositions and other events that were then subjected to selection, one would expect to see an inefficient mess composed mostly of junk, some of which could sometimes become functional due to random mutation and natural selection. This is in fact exactly what is observed.

ENCODE has found that the genome is, in fact, highly organized and that it is not true that the genome is a random mess: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v489/n7414/full/nature11247.html

"Our analyses have revealed many novel aspects of gene expression and regulation as well as the organization of such information, as illustrated by the accompanying papers."

This is entirely consistent with what one would expect from an intelligent design.

https://me.yahoo.com/a/FGBzQUZtsemthPseqYzKYHG1950GVQdQElnix0p2OwOZDtFTmQ--#98415 said:

DS said: This is of course the whole point. If the genome were intelligently designed, one would expect that it would function efficiently with a minimum of waste. If on the other hand it were the product of billions of years of random processes such as mutations, duplications, transpositions and other events that were then subjected to selection, one would expect to see an inefficient mess composed mostly of junk, some of which could sometimes become functional due to random mutation and natural selection. This is in fact exactly what is observed.

ENCODE has found that the genome is, in fact, highly organized and that it is not true that the genome is a random mess: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v489/n7414/full/nature11247.html

"Our analyses have revealed many novel aspects of gene expression and regulation as well as the organization of such information, as illustrated by the accompanying papers."

This is entirely consistent with what one would expect from an intelligent design.

Does life violate the 2nd law of thermodynamics? If it did, that rule wouldn't have been called a "law" in the first place. We know that cells grow or divide to make more cells, so obviously this process doesn't violate any laws of nature.

How to distinguish designed object from non-designed object?

(1) Compare the object to similar objects that are known to have been constructed (engineered) by people (or maybe animals other than people); see if it matches.

(2) Compare the object to similar objects that are known to be producible by known natural processes; see if it matches.

On failure of both (1) and (2), further research is required to reach a reliable conclusion. (Of course, biology in general falls into (2), since natural mechanisms for it are known.)

On success of both (1) and (2), further research is again required, since in this case it might be natural or somebody might have done it on purpose. (I reckon people in forensics deal with this case a lot. )

Keep in mind that failure of either (1) or (2) can result from lack of knowledge of ways either nature or people might do things. (Remember how neutron stars were discovered? )

Does that about sum up the general principles?

Henry

https://me.yahoo.com/a/FGBzQUZtsemthPseqYzKYHG1950GVQdQElnix0p2OwOZDtFTmQ--#98415 said:

harold said: However, out of curiosity, are you saying that point mutations and indels can never be beneficial but rearrangements and transpositions can?

Point mutations and indels tend to mess up genetic information and we have ample evidence of this from thousands of diseases caused by them. Transpositions can also be harmful if they land in important areas, but usually involve insertions in regions which are not protein-coding and whose sequence is not as critical.

Where do you stand of duplication of nucleotide sequences?

Gene duplication is a form of recombination, not mutation. Recombination is usually beneficial to an organism and maintains sexual reproduction.

DS said: Read the paper posted above and you will see that ENCODE is sadly mistaken, as are you.

PA Poland said: You seem to be quite confused (willingly or not) - gene duplication is NOT a form of recombination. Who told you it was ?

https://me.yahoo.com/a/FGBzQUZtsemthPseqYzKYHG1950GVQdQElnix0p2OwOZDtFTmQ--#98415 said:

DS said: Read the paper posted above and you will see that ENCODE is sadly mistaken, as are you.

You misunderstand what ENCODE actually discovered. They found that the arrangement of coding and non-coding DNA is key to the function of the genome. Hence, "gene deserts" serve to separate genes in a way which we are only now beginning to understand.

phhht said: So, 98415 (may I call you 98?), why don't you give us an empirical method for distinguishing the designed from the non-designed.

https://me.yahoo.com/a/FGBzQUZtsemthPseqYzKYHG1950GVQdQElnix0p2OwOZDtFTmQ--#98415 said:

phhht said: So, 98415 (may I call you 98?), why don't you give us an empirical method for distinguishing the designed from the non-designed.

How does SETI distinguish between natural (non-designed) and artificial (designed) signals from outer space? Why don't you know the answer to this?

DS said: You misunderstand what ENCODE discovered. They found that much of the human genome is actually useless junk. They just didn't admit it.

phhht said: I infer from your answer that you know of no such method. Is that correct?

https://me.yahoo.com/a/FGBzQUZtsemthPseqYzKYHG1950GVQdQElnix0p2OwOZDtFTmQ--#98415 said:

phhht said: I infer from your answer that you know of no such method. Is that correct?

You should infer from my answer that the method is available and known to radio astronomers (among others). You can start by reading this paper: http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F3-540-54752-5_238#page-1

https://me.yahoo.com/a/FGBzQUZtsemthPseqYzKYHG1950GVQdQElnix0p2OwOZDtFTmQ--#98415 said:

phhht said: I infer from your answer that you know of no such method. Is that correct?

You should infer from my answer that the method is available and known to radio astronomers (among others). You can start by reading this paper: http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F3-540-54752-5_238#page-1

How do I separate the designed from the non-designed?

I have two quartz crystals. One is natural, the other grown in a laboratory. The laboratory crystal looks nothing like a natural one. The laboratory crystal has certain key features, manifestly obvious, that identify it.

Just Bob has natural diamond crystals, and man-made diamond crystals. Can he tell the difference? I dare say he can. Can a man-made diamond be made that looks just like a natural crystal? Perhaps. In that case I suppose you could conclude all diamonds are man-made, but you would be wrong.

I found a pocket watch on the heath. I declare it is designed because I am familiar with human technology, and I am a keen student of natural history. Pocket watches are not found in nature, at least not so far. Knowing the answer beforehand I declare the watch designed. (Bully for me.)

Every example of design I am aware of is human design. (Okay, birds design nests, spiders design webs, if you like. And there are other exceptions.) I judge 'design' in the context in which I know it - human technology, because that's all I know (I don't really know Klingon technology very well, or Santa Claus' technology for that matter).

Complex things, like a pocket watch, with all its intricate parts, are beyond my ability to manufacture or design. Therefore anything that is complex, and beyond my own abilities, must be designed. Almost everything in the natural world is complex beyond my ability to comprehend. Therefore it must be designed by some human smarter than me.

Since I can't explain it, Big Daddy In The Sky must have made it.

Simple.

See how easy that was that?

Aren't simple-minded answers easier?

Thanks for listening.

Suppose a truck carrying bricks has an accident, and the entire load of bricks is dumped out of the truck onto the shoulder of the road. Overnight, an obsessive artist purchases a truckload of bricks indistinguishable from the load that fell onto the shoulder of the road and painstakingly builds an exact replica of the heap of bricks that resulted from the chance accident.

The original pile of bricks is not designed.

The second pile of bricks was painstakingly designed and constructed.

How do I tell, strictly by looking at the two indistinguishable piles of bricks, which was designed and which was the result of chance?

https://me.yahoo.com/a/FGBzQUZtsemthPseqYzKYHG1950GVQdQElnix0p2OwOZDtFTmQ--#98415 said:

phhht said: I infer from your answer that you know of no such method. Is that correct?

You should infer from my answer that the method is available and known to radio astronomers (among others). You can start by reading this paper: http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F3-540-54752-5_238#page-1

Steve P. said: Anyway, the very fact that organisms can replicate provides life the tool to violate the 2nd law. True, no single organism violates the 2nd law. Thats what death is all about.

Mike Elzinga said:

https://me.yahoo.com/a/FGBzQUZtsemthPseqYzKYHG1950GVQdQElnix0p2OwOZDtFTmQ--#98415 said:

phhht said: I infer from your answer that you know of no such method. Is that correct?

You should infer from my answer that the method is available and known to radio astronomers (among others). You can start by reading this paper: http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F3-540-54752-5_238#page-1

I would suggest that phhht was implying that YOU don’t know any way to distinguish between designed and not-designed. Furthermore, YOU don’t have a clue about how SETI is going about it. Not one ID/creationist has a clue; it’s all hand waving (it looks designed to me; therefore it is designed. But there is lots of fake math in ID/creationism; fake math founded on ignorance of basic science at even the middle and high school level.

SWT said: Suppose a truck carrying bricks has an accident, and the entire load of bricks is dumped out of the truck onto the shoulder of the road. Overnight, an obsessive artist purchases a truckload of bricks indistinguishable from the load that fell onto the shoulder of the road and painstakingly builds an exact replica of the heap of bricks that resulted from the chance accident. The original pile of bricks is not designed. The second pile of bricks was painstakingly designed and constructed. How do I tell, strictly by looking at the two indistinguishable piles of bricks, which was designed and which was the result of chance?

Mike Elzinga, do you have a good source for the criteria used to judge electromagnetic signals from space? Too periodic or too random a signal doesn't make for a good "Hello Universe" message. Unmodulated signals are pretty much useless as identifiers of 'intelligence'. Modulated signals with a combination of some periodicity and pseudo-randomness seem to me to be the best candidates. Got any useful links?

https://me.yahoo.com/a/FGBzQUZtsemthPseqYzKYHG1950GVQdQElnix0p2OwOZDtFTmQ--#98415 said:

DS said: You misunderstand what ENCODE discovered. They found that much of the human genome is actually useless junk. They just didn't admit it.

So we should ignore the fact that "95% of the genome lies within 8 kilobases (kb) of a DNA–protein interaction (as assayed by bound ChIP-seq motifs or DNase I footprints), and 99% is within 1.7 kb of at least one of the biochemical events measured by ENCODE."

An omnipotent deity surely has the power to design, engineer, and manufacture a rock or pile of dirt that EXACTLY conforms to his specs. Every single atom in the rock or dirt could be positioned exactly as the deity dictated--perhaps to give the appearance of non-design, for some unknown deity reason. How could you possibly tell if such an object was designed or not?

Just Bob said: Answers we've heard from IDiots (probably including this one, using a different name) to "Name something not designed" have been in the nature of "any rock" or "a pile of dirt". When I asked the following question--

An omnipotent deity surely has the power to design, engineer, and manufacture a rock or pile of dirt that EXACTLY conforms to his specs. Every single atom in the rock or dirt could be positioned exactly as the deity dictated--perhaps to give the appearance of non-design, for some unknown deity reason. How could you possibly tell if such an object was designed or not?

--I never got an answer. I wonder why.

How do I tell, strictly by looking at the two indistinguishable piles of bricks, which was designed and which was the result of chance?

phhht said: I'll stop implying and say straight out that 98415 has no objective method to distinguish the designed from the non-designed. I doubt he can do that trick subjectively, even for himself, personally. I don't think he can look at a thing and tell whether it is designed or not, much less say how anybody else can do that. Furthermore, 98415 can't give even the sketchiest description of how "ID explain[s], empirically, how life originated", how it developed, or how it sustains itself. Isn't that about right, 98415?

Mike Elzinga said:

https://me.yahoo.com/a/FGBzQUZtsemthPseqYzKYHG1950GVQdQElnix0p2OwOZDtFTmQ--#98415 said:

phhht said: I infer from your answer that you know of no such method. Is that correct?

You should infer from my answer that the method is available and known to radio astronomers (among others). You can start by reading this paper: http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F3-540-54752-5_238#page-1

I would suggest that phhht was implying that YOU don’t know any way to distinguish between designed and not-designed. Furthermore, YOU don’t have a clue about how SETI is going about it. Not one ID/creationist has a clue; it’s all hand waving (it looks designed to me; therefore it is designed. But there is lots of fake math in ID/creationism; fake math founded on ignorance of basic science at even the middle and high school level.

prongs said: Mike Elzinga, do you have a good source for the criteria used to judge electromagnetic signals from space? Too periodic or too random a signal doesn't make for a good "Hello Universe" message. Unmodulated signals are pretty much useless as identifiers of 'intelligence'. Modulated signals with a combination of some periodicity and pseudo-randomness seem to me to be the best candidates. Got any useful links?

Point mutations and indels tend to mess up genetic information and we have ample evidence of this from thousands of diseases caused by them. Transpositions can also be harmful if they land in important areas, but usually involve insertions in regions which are not protein-coding and whose sequence is not as critical.

Mike, thanks for the link and the summary.

Since human technology is all we know and understand, that's what we look for, with a slight variation. We are looking for ourselves "out there."

Biblical SETI might look for signs and "miracles" such as we see in the Old Testament - handwriting in the stars, burning bushes, wheels of light, angels, fantastic beasts, and demons flying through space. Remember looking out into space is looking back in time. Old Testament times, under the old covenant, when those kinds of miracles were still in force, are only 2,000 light years out there in outer space. We should be able to see them.

I have seen a purported image of a 'genuine' angel in outer space amongst the stars, hanging on the wall in the home of true believers. It was claimed to have been taken by an ordinary person with an ordinary camera, at night. It was in reality a greatly magnified view of a planetary nebula with a classical painting of an angel printed as a double exposure. None of this could dissuade the faithful from their belief. You can see it here: http://www.angelsghosts.com/angel_in_the_night_sky_angel_picture.html
(I wonder if FLuvius Oris accepts all the eyewitness evidence at www.angelsghosts.com as proof of angels and ghosts? What are the chances he'll answer? None.)

By the way, I've searched for the classical painting of the angel used in the double exposure but have never found it.

Now that we can detect extra-solar planets, LDS SETI should be looking for the planet Kolob. You know, the planet where Joseph Smith said, under divine inspiration, Jesus lives today while waiting for his second coming.

Wonder why the Discovery Institute doesn't spend their money on Biblical SETI?

It's a great opportunity for them to make their first 'discovery.'

https://me.yahoo.com/a/NYurV78hguWQI07mDM4_ByAK9ua3chsB40bC4MLUp65DdaTj#ecf65 said:

DS said: Why ignore it? Why not just admit that that means that the majority of the genome serves no function? What's the problem?

Du-uh. Because the findings show that the vast majority of the genome appears to play a role in gene regulation, DNA repair and protection against enzymatic degradation, chromosomal replication, mRNA stability and alternative splicing.

I would recommend legal action.

What an excellent suggestion! Let's prosecute all those who have a different opinion to our own! After all, Hobson's choice has become Darwin's "you are with me or against me." Fascism is alive and well in contemporary science.

Nick,

This is at least the fourth user name used by Joe on this thread. Is anyone going to do something about it or not?

https://me.yahoo.com/a/NYurV78hguWQI07mDM4_ByAK9ua3chsB40bC4MLUp65DdaTj#ecf65 said:

DS said: No Joe, let's prosecute those who are so pig headed and stubborn that they defy being banned by using hundreds of sock puppets just to disrupt a conversation because they can't stand the fact that there are people who know more than they do.

You are the only individual disrupting the conversation with your immature paranoia and incessant personal attacks against forum members. You are in high school, aren't you? You have to respect and tolerate the spirit of the First Amendment and democratic values.

The design vs. non-design "controversy" doesn't exist for mainstream science, only for its religiously motivated proponents. Everyone knows who they mean by the 'designer.' They don't mean aliens from outer space.

To pretend that the design vs. non-design "controversy" is a scientific issue is manifestly false when you see it is a scientifically-worded extension of the inspired vs. non-inspired "controversy" surrounding ancient texts.

Replace "inspired" by "contains words and concepts designed by The Almighty" and you can see how easy it is to move from a controversy about which texts should be included into the Bible, to a controversy about which features of the natural universe are 'designed.'

And if anyone says, "It's all designed." How does that help further investigations of Nature?

I, for one, do not want to step backwards in time a thousand years.

https://me.yahoo.com/a/NYurV78hguWQI07mDM4_ByAK9ua3chsB40bC4MLUp65DdaTj#ecf65 said:

prongs said: And if anyone says, "It's all designed." How does that help further investigations of Nature?

The founders of modern science had no problem accepting the design argument because it made sense to them. They conceived of the universe as a giant machine contrived by God. Yes, Galileo, Newton, Boyle, Hooke etc investigated natural phenomena in the knowledge that the observable universe had been designed by a supreme intelligence. The observations they made only served to reinforce this view of a grand design and purpose behind reality. The scientific method was not in opposition to a belief in God. Darwin,however, was one of a group of ideological materialists who were determined to overturn the design argument and substitute it with the blind workings of chance and necessity, a "blind watchmaker" in contrast to Paley's intelligent watchmaker. Darwin wasn't interested in finding real evidence for his extraordinary claim, but was instead prepared to willfully speculate and extrapolate to try and explain it. For example, Darwin has not a shred of evidence to support his contention that they vertebrate eye had evolved gradually by way of natural selection. Modern Darwinists to this day have no evidence that the eye has been fashioned by the accumulation of random variations. But, like Darwin, they are first and foremost ideologues and shameless charlatans, not scientists.

I, for one, do not want to step backwards in time a thousand years.

On the contrary, science becomes much richer when we realize that the natural world ,along with its natural laws, has been designed and for a purpose. We then try and understand the design and the means by which it was implemented - the exciting field of biomimetics is all about this. Materialism only serves to kill this noble pursuit.

https://me.yahoo.com/a/NYurV78hguWQI07mDM4_ByAK9ua3chsB40bC4MLUp65DdaTj#ecf65 said:

phhht said: But now we know that there are no gods. Nobody can see one. Nobody can detect one. Today, we recognize that gods are fictional characters, like Harry Potter or The Avengers. It's only people who have difficulty telling the imaginary from the real who say different.

And just how are you to confirm that there are no "gods" by looking through your microscope or telescope? Gods are themselves not material beings, even though they have material and measurable effects.

And it's the same with design, your god surrogate. Nobody, including you, can see it. Nobody can detect it. As far as objective evidence goes, design DOES NOT EXIST.

I see evidence for design every day and night. The design inference is far stronger now than when it was first proposed by William Paley. The problem is that, in spite of the massive "appearance" of design in the natural world, there are those who delude themselves by insisting that it is "illusory" and can somehow be explained by chance and necessity.

It's futile and silly to attack evolution on religious grounds.

It is futile and silly to deny the unmistakable signature of creation/design on ideological grounds.

Feign laughter all you like. There are no arsenic bacteria. There is no Harry Potter, wizard. There is no second lunar satellite. Right? We know these claims are true because when we look, we find no such bacteria, no such person, no such satellite.

And when we look for gods, we don't find them either. Your pitiful claims of evidence for the existence of gods do not provide empirical evidence for the existence of gods. You know, evidence like that for the existence of apples, or zebras, or cosmic rays, or the Higgs boson. Something someone who is not a loony can actually test for himself.

But for gods, you got nothing but natural processes, personal incredulity, and god-of-the-gaps. No gods are required to explain or understand the Big Bang, or biological complexity, for that matter. And how can I, myself, test to show that physical constants are finely tuned? It's all standard Christian-crazy apologist bafflegab.

And that snowflake bullshit. Is a snowflake designed, or not? Are the rings of Saturn designed, or not? You cannot say. All you can do is weasel and squirm and dodge.

Really, can't you do better than that?

https://me.yahoo.com/a/NYurV78hguWQI07mDM4_ByAK9ua3chsB40bC4MLUp65DdaTj#ecf65 said: The snowflake argument is plain silly because the natural forces that craft the crystalline structure are themselves dependent on finely-tuned physical constants and laws. Snowflakes reflect the internal order of the crystal’s water molecules as they arrange themselves in predetermined spaces.

https://me.yahoo.com/a/FGBzQUZtsemthPseqYzKYHG1950GVQdQElnix0p2OwOZDtFTmQ--#98415 said:

PA Poland said: You seem to be quite confused (willingly or not) - gene duplication is NOT a form of recombination. Who told you it was ?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_duplication "Gene duplication (or chromosomal duplication or gene amplification) is a major mechanism through which new genetic material is generated during molecular evolution. It can be defined as any duplication of a region of DNA that contains a gene; it may occur as an error in homologous recombination, a retrotransposition event, or duplication of an entire chromosome." Tandem duplication occurs as a result of unequal crossing over between chromosomes.

https://me.yahoo.com/a/NYurV78hguWQI07mDM4_ByAK9ua3chsB40bC4MLUp65DdaTj#ecf65 said: Tell the folks at SETI that they cannot detect the signature of design/artificiality in EM signals from outer space.

The snowflake argument is plain silly because the natural forces that craft the crystalline structure are themselves dependent on finely-tuned physical constants and laws. Snowflakes reflect the internal order of the crystal’s water molecules as they arrange themselves in predetermined spaces.

phhht said:

https://me.yahoo.com/a/NYurV78hguWQI07mDM4_ByAK9ua3chsB40bC4MLUp65DdaTj#ecf65 said: Tell the folks at SETI that they cannot detect the signature of design/artificiality in EM signals from outer space.

In fact, THEY HAVE NOT DETECTED extraterrestrial intelligence. One blindingly obvious reason that might be so would be because they CANNOT do that, any more than you can.

phhht said:

https://me.yahoo.com/a/NYurV78hguWQI07mDM4_ByAK9ua3chsB40bC4MLUp65DdaTj#ecf65 said: Tell the folks at SETI that they cannot detect the signature of design/artificiality in EM signals from outer space.

In fact, THEY HAVE NOT DETECTED extraterrestrial intelligence. One blindingly obvious reason that might be so would be because they CANNOT do that, any more than you can.

prongs said: Same thing with religious Intelligent Design - if the purported design isn't close enough to human design, it won't be recognized as divine design. It has to be superior to human design, but still recognizable as an extension of human design. I submit that Man has made God in his own image. Therefore divine design looks just like human design.

Scott F said:

phhht said:

https://me.yahoo.com/a/NYurV78hguWQI07mDM4_ByAK9ua3chsB40bC4MLUp65DdaTj#ecf65 said: Tell the folks at SETI that they cannot detect the signature of design/artificiality in EM signals from outer space.

In fact, THEY HAVE NOT DETECTED extraterrestrial intelligence. One blindingly obvious reason that might be so would be because they CANNOT do that, any more than you can.

It's entirely possible that an extraterrestrial intelligence might produce signals that we cannot recognize. They might use frequencies that SETI is not looking at. They might modulate that signal in ways that SETI is not looking for (eg. polarization modulation rather than AM or FM). They might be using encryption that we don't recognize, rendering the signals indistinguishable from "noise". They might not even be using the EM spectrum. But what SETI *can* do is to detect EM signals that humans might produce. It's exactly the same as Paley's watch. If we find a watch on the heath, we know that the watch is designed because we know that people design watches like that. Similarly, if SETI were to detect EM signals from space, we would know (with some amount of uncertainty) that those signals were designed, because we know that we would design signals like that. SETI really doesn't claim anything more than that. SETI does not claim to have some magical "Intelligent Design" detector, which is guaranteed to find anything that is intelligently designed, as the deluded folks at the DI claim to have. The people at SETI aren't stupid, like Creationists. They know the limitations they are working under. SETI claims to be able to detect EM signals in certain narrow ranges of frequencies which we know that humans might design if we were trying to use the EM spectrum to communicate across space using our current level of technology. SETI is using science, instead of the "magic" of ID. One might argue that it is a fruitless endeavor (and therefore a waste of scarce funding resources), when in fact it merely has a very low probability of succeeding. Since we are here, it is certainly possible that there might be other intelligences out there. If we never even look, we'll never know.

Steve P. said: Anyway, the very fact that organisms can replicate provides life the tool to violate the 2nd law. True, no single organism violates the 2nd law. Thats what death is all about.

Mike Elzinga said:

https://me.yahoo.com/a/NYurV78hguWQI07mDM4_ByAK9ua3chsB40bC4MLUp65DdaTj#ecf65 said: The snowflake argument is plain silly because the natural forces that craft the crystalline structure are themselves dependent on finely-tuned physical constants and laws. Snowflakes reflect the internal order of the crystal’s water molecules as they arrange themselves in predetermined spaces.

This is an example of how you can tell that an ID/creationist doesn’t even have a high school science education. ID/creationists just make up crap on the spot; arguments of expediency. He has no clue.

If the “snowflake argument” is “plain silly”, then give a plain answer. Is an individual snowflake designed (to have the exact shape it has) or not? It’s easy. Type “yes” or “no”.

Scott F said: I would disagree. That's not how Creationists appear to use ID. Their claim is not that the purported design looks like human design, but that purported design is so complex that it could not be human design.

Basically, ID is the argument from incredulity, “I can’t imagine how something that complex cannot be designed, therefore it is designed, and Big Daddy In The Sky designed it.”

Henry J said: **Unless one is producing a "reality" TV show. Henry

Henry J said: I'd say "designed" it to do what?" is the next question* to ask them, i.e., what goal did the "designer" have in mind when engineering these species. Henry

phhht said: Please don't misunderstand me: I am an avid supporter of SETI.

Scott F said: Inscrutable are the ways of the Lord.

SWT said:

Steve P. said: SWT, if life didn't violate the 2nd law, it would be indistinguishable from sand dunes and waterfalls.

Nope, life does not violate the second law of thermodynamics. Flows of matter and energy through living organisms allow them to remain in states with net entropies less than the equilibrium net entropies for their total energy. If you'd take the time to actually learn some thermodynamics, you'd be able to stop posting such silly things.

PA Poland said:

Steve P. said: This is neither here nor there, pretty much meaningless for the simple reason that neither do you have a method for proving Darwinian processes are non-designed, non-goal oriented. In fact, you are at a greater disadvantage as you would have to prove a negative.

Nope - in REALITY, generally the person making a POSITIVE claim has the burden of proof. You ASSERT that living things are DESIGNED; therefore, it is up to YOU to back up that assertion with evidence supporting it. And no - blubbering 'Me am too slow-witted to understand real world biology, so GODDIDIT !!!!!!' is not evidence FOR creatorism. In such cases, the sensible default is "living things were NOT designed until evidence to the contrary is presented". Got something besides your willful ignorance and boundless, arrogant posturing ? Where did you get the idea that 'Darwinian processes are non-goal oriented.' ? Living long enough to reproduce is enough of a 'goal' for evolution to work. It is just that, IN REALITY, there is no need for a mind to guide it (which is what twists the undies of you and your willfully ignorant creatorist ilk). The RESULTS of Darwinian processes over enough generations is the APPEARANCE of design, since the less fit variants tended to go extinct, leaving the better variants.

To be sure, an appeal to the lack of ability to directly observe a designer is not an explanation for the non-designed nature of Darwinian processes.

REALITY is an explanation for the non-designed nature of Darwinian processes, since AT NO POINT IS THE INTERVENTION OF MAGICAL SKY PIXIES REQUIRED. ** YOU ** are the one claiming designers exist, so it is up to YOU to back up the statement.

prongs said:

Scott F said: I would disagree. That's not how Creationists appear to use ID. Their claim is not that the purported design looks like human design, but that purported design is so complex that it could not be human design.

I think perhaps we agree more than you realize. I did not express myself well. I should have said, "Therefore divine design looks just like human design, except much better, so much better that no human could have designed it, at least not in this day and age." Give human technology a thousand years and I'll bet we'll be capable of things that seem divine today. Basically, ID is the argument from incredulity, "I can't imagine how something that complex cannot be designed, therefore it is designed, and Big Daddy In The Sky designed it."

stevaroni said:

Steve P. said: Anyway, the very fact that organisms can replicate provides life the tool to violate the 2nd law. True, no single organism violates the 2nd law. Thats what death is all about.

Um... Life does not violate the 2nd law. Life is not a closed system, the first prerequisite. For instance, the living organism known as "Steve P" continuously takes in energy in the form of food and excretes waste in the form of words. If you'd like, Steve we could run an experiment to turn you into a closed system and see what happens, say, for example, sealing you in an oil drum and stashing you in a cool basement for a week. I confidently predict that the laws of entropy will soon enough re-assert jurisdiction.

It has done so for three billion years and is still going strong.

— Steve P.

Steve P. said: Talking about what happens to individual organisms is meaningless. Energy flows through individual organisms destroys them over time. But each organism is able to overcome the effects of entropy on its systems by replicating itself. In essence, reproduction allows Life to cheat the 2nd law. //Organisms don't evolve, populations do. Organisms don't violate the 2nd law, Life does.//

SWT said:

Steve P. said: SWT, if life didn't violate the 2nd law, it would be indistinguishable from sand dunes and waterfalls.

Nope, life does not violate the second law of thermodynamics. Flows of matter and energy through living organisms allow them to remain in states with net entropies less than the equilibrium net entropies for their total energy. If you'd take the time to actually learn some thermodynamics, you'd be able to stop posting such silly things.

Steve P. said: You fail to realize that it does not matter if the system is open or closed.

Steve P. said: Talking about what happens to individual organisms is meaningless. Energy flows through individual organisms destroys them over time. But each organism is able to overcome the effects of entropy on its systems by replicating itself. In essence, reproduction allows Life to cheat the 2nd law. //Organisms don't evolve, populations do. Organisms don't violate the 2nd law, Life does.//

SWT said:

Steve P. said: SWT, if life didn't violate the 2nd law, it would be indistinguishable from sand dunes and waterfalls.

Nope, life does not violate the second law of thermodynamics. Flows of matter and energy through living organisms allow them to remain in states with net entropies less than the equilibrium net entropies for their total energy. If you'd take the time to actually learn some thermodynamics, you'd be able to stop posting such silly things.

"Organisms don’t violate the 2nd law, Life does."

Then it's not a law (in your world).

Unlike human-made laws, scientific laws (really, laws of the universe) CANNOT BE VIOLATED. If they can, then they're not laws.

If you think "life violates the 2nd Law", then YOU can't keep calling it a "law". It's NOT a law, in your formulation. Your argument is actually that the 2nd Law is not really a law.

So why do you persist in calling it a law, when, by your own statements, you don't believe it's a law?

Moron babbled: In essence, reproduction allows Life to cheat the 2nd law.

Moron lied: Likewise, Darwinian evolution is basically an argument from ignorance.

Just Bob said: "Organisms don’t violate the 2nd law, Life does." Then it's not a law (in your world). Unlike human-made laws, scientific laws (really, laws of the universe) CANNOT BE VIOLATED. If they can, then they're not laws. If you think "life violates the 2nd Law", then YOU can't keep calling it a "law". It's NOT a law, in your formulation. Your argument is actually that the 2nd Law is not really a law. So why do you persist in calling it a law, when, by your own statements, you don't believe it's a law?

apokryltaros said:

Moron babbled: In essence, reproduction allows Life to cheat the 2nd law.

If the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics could be broken, then it would not be a law in the first place.

Steve P. said: //[...] Organisms don't violate the 2nd law, Life does.//

In essence, reproduction allows Life to cheat the 2nd law.

Steve P. said: Talking about what happens to individual organisms is meaningless. Energy flows through individual organisms destroys them over time. But each organism is able to overcome the effects of entropy on its systems by replicating itself. In essence, reproduction allows Life to cheat the 2nd law. //Organisms don't evolve, populations do. Organisms don't violate the 2nd law, Life does.//

Steve P. said: But Stevaroni, You fail to realize that it does not matter if the system is open or closed.

You can put me in a barrel for a week, or put me out in the sun for a couple of days without my favorite baseball cap, or send me to Antarctica without my parka

The laws of entropy (as you put it) will always assert jurisdiction (again as you put it) over me. No matter what I do, I cannot maintain the almost perfect metabolic cycle that has sustained me so far. Sooner or later, its efficiency erodes and I'm outta here. I can't and don't get out alive. Neither do you. But Life does. It has done so for three billion years and is still going strong.

Mike Elzinga said: “Effects of entropy.” Heh.

stevaroni said: If, one day, the sun were to blink out, our external power source will be gone, and everything alive on Earth will die.

So much fail. So little time. I'm curious in hearing just what part of reproduction Steve P. thinks violates the 2LOT. DNA duplication? Every cell does that, not just sex cells! Production of egg and sperm? Insemination? Early stages of development of blastocyst? Later stages? Puberty? As far as I know, every single one of those processes relies on using chemically stored energy and putting out waste, and obeys the laws of thermo just fine.

C'mon Steve, enquiring minds want to know. At what point does the 2LOT violation take place?

"Dementropy" - A condition suffered by creationists and cdesign proponentists when they try to work out the details of Life divinely disobeying their Law of Conservation of Entropy and Information.

Steve P. said: Mr. Poland, there are bucket loads of evidence to support design. It is up to you to accept it or not. Replying "nope, nope, not good enough" doesn't absolve you of the responsibility to accept reason and rationality.

FYI, reproduction is a design concept, not Darwinian. The only way you can use reproduction as evidence for darwinian evolution is show how it came to be through natural selection acting on random variation. You haven't been able to do so. Therefore, reproduction is not evidence for Darwinian evolution but it is evidence for intelligent design evolution; i.e. life had to have and did have a starter kit.

That is the rational and logical position that puts ID ahead of Darwinian evolution.

By the way, is there a mind guiding Google or Windows 7 or Microsoft Office? Maybe I should look inside my computer and hunt for the little munchkins that are pushing the electrons around and making things happen under my keyboard and behind my monitor.

PA Poland said:

Steve P. said: This is neither here nor there, pretty much meaningless for the simple reason that neither do you have a method for proving Darwinian processes are non-designed, non-goal oriented. In fact, you are at a greater disadvantage as you would have to prove a negative.

Nope - in REALITY, generally the person making a POSITIVE claim has the burden of proof. You ASSERT that living things are DESIGNED; therefore, it is up to YOU to back up that assertion with evidence supporting it. And no - blubbering 'Me am too slow-witted to understand real world biology, so GODDIDIT !!!!!!' is not evidence FOR creatorism. In such cases, the sensible default is "living things were NOT designed until evidence to the contrary is presented". Got something besides your willful ignorance and boundless, arrogant posturing ? Where did you get the idea that 'Darwinian processes are non-goal oriented.' ? Living long enough to reproduce is enough of a 'goal' for evolution to work. It is just that, IN REALITY, there is no need for a mind to guide it (which is what twists the undies of you and your willfully ignorant creatorist ilk). The RESULTS of Darwinian processes over enough generations is the APPEARANCE of design, since the less fit variants tended to go extinct, leaving the better variants.

To be sure, an appeal to the lack of ability to directly observe a designer is not an explanation for the non-designed nature of Darwinian processes.

REALITY is an explanation for the non-designed nature of Darwinian processes, since AT NO POINT IS THE INTERVENTION OF MAGICAL SKY PIXIES REQUIRED. ** YOU ** are the one claiming designers exist, so it is up to YOU to back up the statement.

PA Poland said: Or do you just expect everyone to fall for the idiotic "Me can't figure it out, therefore GODDIDIT !!!!!!" routine ?

Stevie Pee. said: By the way, is there a mind guiding Google or Windows 7 or Microsoft Office? Maybe I should look inside my computer and hunt for the little munchkins that are pushing the electrons around and making things happen under my keyboard and behind my monitor.

prongs said: It's not munchkins. You need to study this Theory.

prongs said: Einstein's relativity is not needed when you use this Theory.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics is the result of the fundamental uncertainty in nature, manifest in quantum mechanics, which is overcome only by intelligent intervention. The Second Law of Thermodynamics disproves the atheistic Theory of Evolution and Theory of Relativity, both of which deny a fundamental uncertainty to the physical world that leads to increasing disorder. (http://www.conservapedia.com/Second_Law_of_Thermodynamics)

Relativity has been met with much resistance in the scientific world. To date, a Nobel Prize has never been awarded for Relativity. Louis Essen, the man credited with determining the speed of light, wrote many fiery papers against it such as The Special Theory of Relativity: A Critical Analysis. Relativity is in conflict with quantum mechanics,[8] and although theories like string theory and quantum field theory have attempted to unify relativity and quantum mechanics, neither has been entirely successful or proven. (http://www.conservapedia.com/Theory_of_Relativity)

For example, Democratic President Barack Obama helped publish an article by liberal law professor Laurence Tribe to apply the relativistic concept of "curvature of space" to promote a broad legal right to abortion. (it's quite an interesting footnote - ED) The Theory of Relativity enjoys a disproportionate share of federal funding of physics research today.

Despite censorship of dissent about relativity, evidence contrary to the theory is discussed outside of liberal universities.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics disproves the atheistic Theory of Evolution and Theory of Relativity, both of which deny a fundamental uncertainty to the physical world that leads to increasing disorder.

Frank J said:

It has done so for three billion years and is still going strong.

— Steve P.

It's actually closer to 4, but that's good enough to rub it in to YECs. Make sure you do that, as well as let them know that you find theit implied "independent abiogenesis of 'kinds'" as absurd as you find "Darwinism." I have been scarce on these boards lately, so I probably missed where you elaborated on when the designer supposedly intervenes to add "information." So please update me on that.

Steve P. said: The only intervention from intelligence is at the get-go, where matter is programmed. Then the end result is let loose to run its course.

Steve P. said: So lets make the effort to understand life as more than just physics and chemistry. That is what is jump starting the seemingly moribund biological discovery process.

SWT said:

Steve P. said: Talking about what happens to individual organisms is meaningless. Energy flows through individual organisms destroys them over time. But each organism is able to overcome the effects of entropy on its systems by replicating itself. In essence, reproduction allows Life to cheat the 2nd law. //Organisms don't evolve, populations do. Organisms don't violate the 2nd law, Life does.//

SWT said:

Steve P. said: SWT, if life didn't violate the 2nd law, it would be indistinguishable from sand dunes and waterfalls.

Nope, life does not violate the second law of thermodynamics. Flows of matter and energy through living organisms allow them to remain in states with net entropies less than the equilibrium net entropies for their total energy. If you'd take the time to actually learn some thermodynamics, you'd be able to stop posting such silly things.

Nope, life does not violate the second law of thermodynamics. Flows of matter and energy through populations of living organisms allow them to remain in states with net entropies less than the equilibrium net entropies for their total energy. If you’d take the time to actually learn some thermodynamics, you’d be able to stop posting such silly things.

Steve P. said: Im not sure why you refuse to directly reply to the clear observation that energy flows eventually destroy individual organisms but never destroys life in general.

A rinse and repeat rhetorical tactic, like Darwinian evolution really doesn't seem to do all that much. It nibbles around the edges but doesn't get to the heart the matter.

Life is unique in the universe precisely because it has a way of obstructing the 2nd law. Otherwise, it wouldn't be life but just another mundane natural phenomenon. To claim that life is not a unique feature of the universe is just hubris.

All that is needed for evolution to work is imperfect replication to generate heritable variation, and selection.

What is it with you festering god-botherers ? If something is beyond ** YOUR ** willfully limited ability to understand, you immediately start gibbering about Magical Sky Pixies that somehow did stuff sometime in the past for some reason.

Given the FACT that evolution has many known and observed mechanisms that completely explain what is observed in real-world creatures, there is no point in invoking the unknowable whim of an unknowable being that somehow did stuff sometime in the past for some reason.

Your “observation” is incorrect. Energy flows maintain individual organisms – when these flows are blocked, the organism dies.

Were that not enough, you’ve graciously provided additional evidence that you don’t understand the thermodynamics of nonequilibrium systems:

Life is unique in the universe precisely because it has a way of obstructing the 2nd law. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be life but just another mundane natural phenomenon. To claim that life is not a unique feature of the universe is just hubris.

We see persistent, inanimate nonequilibrium systems all the time. For example, hurricanes. For example, the Great Red Spot on Jupiter. For example, Benard convection. These systems and many others persist at a total entropy less than the equilibrium entropy consistent with their total energy as long as there are flows of matter and energy to maintain them – the entropy produced by the dissipative processes is exported out of the system. This is the same mechanism that is in operation in living organisms. To claim that life somehow has an exemption from the laws of nature is just hubris.

stevaroni said: {2nd law and relativity}

One of the tactics of the ID/creationists is to demonize scientists by accusing them of claiming that “life is just physics and chemistry.” This kind of demonizing has direct roots in the sectarian habits of demonizing those who don’t believe as they do.

This accusation not only attempts to make scientists look callous and inhuman, it is also another betrayal of ID/creationism’s profound misunderstanding of the universe and the properties of matter and energy as science has come to understand them.

As I keep repeating, ID/creationist camp followers and their leaders stopped learning science back in middle school; they never followed through on anything. What they have cobbled together in their minds as “science” are grotesque distortions of bent and broken science concepts that now comport with their sectarian dogma; and by taunting and attempting to get scientists to debate them, they try to make their “science” look legitimate.

I don't know much about obstructing laws, but we routinely violate the laws of nature; we resist gravity, we pump water and drive our cars uphill. We even send stuff so far out it never will return to earth again; the ultimate insult to God.

There remains one law that can't be obstructed, namely the law of stupidity, as Schiller observed.

Steve actually said: Imperfect replication results in death unless the organism recognizes the imperfection and makes the requisite corrections.

Stevie Pee Pee wrote:

"Imperfect replication results in death unless the organism recognizes the imperfection and makes the requisite corrections. In fact, that is actually what we observe organisms doing; continually making the necessary corrections to keep the genome viable. And that is no thanks to imperfect replication. Far from being an engine of growth and development, imperfect replication is a clear obstacle that organisms bend over backwards to avoid."

RIght. There are no beneficial mutations Stevie, just keep repeating that over and over. Funny you should say that on a thread that is about the fact that the majority of the human genome is just so much junk. You seem to have misunderstandings of the basic nature of reality. Why you want to display them is a mystery.

TIme to dump this troll and his off topic bullshit to the bathroom wall. Any further response by me will be found there.

Steve P. said: Btw, for those who claim a single violation of the sLot renders the sLot not a law, just think about this- laws are broken all the time, but they are still laws for the simple fact that it is respected in the vast majority of cases. Exceptions don't make the law. So life violating the sLot does not make the sLot not a law. It makes it a law with the usual exceptions tacked on.

Rolf said: I don't know much about obstructing laws, but we routinely violate the laws of nature; we resist gravity, we pump water and drive our cars uphill. We even send stuff so far out it never will return to earth again; the ultimate insult to God. There remains one law that can't be obstructed, namely the law of stupidity, as Schiller observed.

Keelyn said:

Rolf said: I don't know much about obstructing laws, but we routinely violate the laws of nature; we resist gravity, we pump water and drive our cars uphill. We even send stuff so far out it never will return to earth again; the ultimate insult to God. There remains one law that can't be obstructed, namely the law of stupidity, as Schiller observed.

I don't think that is exactly the kind of 'violation' Stevie means. (But, you probably realized that, anyway)

Steve P. said: Bullshit Poland, that is nothing but a just so story. So much for your interest in rational and reasonable argument.

Imperfect replication results in death unless the organism recognizes the imperfection and makes the requisite corrections.

In fact, that is actually what we observe organisms doing; continually making the necessary corrections to keep the genome viable. And that is no thanks to imperfect replication. Far from being an engine of growth and development, imperfect replication is a clear obstacle that organisms bend over backwards to avoid.

Moreover, variation is generated by the genome, not some haphazard, fumbling process you make it out to be. Evolution is an intelligent process and has no friggin' use for imperfect replication.

All that is needed for evolution to work is imperfect replication to generate heritable variation, and selection.

Poor Poland, you are the only one gibbering about God here as is the usual practice. It seems you have a lot more interest in religion than the people you wail on so ineffectively.

What is it with you festering god-botherers ? If something is beyond ** YOUR ** willfully limited ability to understand, you immediately start gibbering about Magical Sky Pixies that somehow did stuff sometime in the past for some reason.

What a fuckin' liar! You can't back shit up. Not one of the mechanisms you propose are the result of Darwinian processes.

It is YOU(pl) who willfully co-opts intelligent processes and tries to pawn in off as the result of imperfect replication creating heritable variation. You can't show jack shit!! Lenski's experiments didn't show imperfect replication. They showed bacteria actively modifying their genome searching for a solution to their food ration problem. There was no friggin' imperfection is what took place. If it was imperfection that ruled, the colony would have died out in a heartbeat.

By the way, your childish tantrum won't change things a wit. You've got nada. Never had. Its all ad hoc co-option of things you can't begin to explain using your simplistic recipe. Give it a rest already.

Given the FACT that evolution has many known and observed mechanisms that completely explain what is observed in real-world creatures, there is no point in invoking the unknowable whim of an unknowable being that somehow did stuff sometime in the past for some reason.

Steve P. said: Frank, this "where did the designer intervene?' line is pretty old. The only intervention from intelligence is at the get-go, where matter is programmed. Then the end result is let loose to run its course.

... there is a rejection of science’ self-appointed position of arbiter of what constitutes reality.

Steve P. said: So the rest of us should just hang up are inquiring minds and stop what we are doing. Elzinga has figured everything out for us.

Keelyn said: Apologies for the errors in the equation – I cannot get it format properly. The ‘i’ should be subscripted and an ‘i’ should appear directly under ∑

Steve P. said: It is clear from your posts that you emphatically deny anything else but physics and chemistry is taking place.

The jury is still out as to whom actually possesses the profound misunderstanding of the universe and how it works.

It is your (pl)refusal to accept any position that rejects matter and energy as the only constituents of reality that is cause for rejection.

Your attempts to discount a huge body of collective human experience in favor of a strictly material concept of reality should not and must not go unchallenged.

Steve P. said: It would have had to be a perfect metabolic system in order to sustain itself prior to the development of a reproductive system.

...You lay claim to "a huge body of collective human experience,' but your purported "experience" has no backing whatsoever in the real world. It's all stories, SpevieT, just like Harry Potter, just like The Avengers. Your religious illness impairs your ability to tell the real from the imaginary.

Keelyn said to Steve P.: For example, explain what this means: dU = TdS – PdV + ∑µ_ίdN_i

SWT said:

Keelyn said to Steve P.: For example, explain what this means: dU = TdS – PdV + ∑µ_ίdN_i

How dare you! You actually expect Steve P. to bring his knowledge of thermodynamics forward to the late 1870's?

0 == CONTOUR INTEGRAL { dQ/T + dCSI }

prongs said: Now the best recent example of design is the human navel, Navel CSI, or NCSI for short. ... Millions of people are watching NCSI for the next biggest evidence of design. It won't be long, although it may take the courts to allow it into the public schools.

SWT said: NCSI? As developed by Gibbs?

Dave Luckett said:

Steve actually said: Imperfect replication results in death unless the organism recognizes the imperfection and makes the requisite corrections.

This is possibly the craziest idea ever flown on this board. We've had FL tell us that the Book of Job is literal history, we've had Biggy tell us that after he was dead Jesus told the disciples what happened during his trial before Pilate, we've had Crazy Joe inform us that the Norman masons rule Britain because there's lions on the shield, all that. But the idea that an organism can see that it's imperfect and correct its own germ plasm, that takes the piss-soaked biscuit.

DS said: Stevie Pee Pee wrote: "Imperfect replication results in death unless the organism recognizes the imperfection and makes the requisite corrections. In fact, that is actually what we observe organisms doing; continually making the necessary corrections to keep the genome viable. And that is no thanks to imperfect replication. Far from being an engine of growth and development, imperfect replication is a clear obstacle that organisms bend over backwards to avoid." RIght. There are no beneficial mutations Stevie, just keep repeating that over and over. Funny you should say that on a thread that is about the fact that the majority of the human genome is just so much junk. You seem to have misunderstandings of the basic nature of reality. Why you want to display them is a mystery. TIme to dump this troll and his off topic bullshit to the bathroom wall. Any further response by me will be found there.

It’s bad enough that little Stevie PP’s latest litanies of babbling are completely wrong in every conceivable scientific respect, but this little snip is enough to make even the typical seventh grader choke on her Cheerios:

Translation : ‘observations of REALITY that show Stevie P to be wrong shall be screamed at until they bend to his will !!!!’

...Continuing the psychotic rant :

...Steve P looks in a mirror and screeches :

It is a KNOWN FACT that no DNA polymerase is perfect - MUTATIONS WILL OCCUR.

Imperfect replication is what provides a genome with OPTIONS - it is the creative part of evolution (given the FACT that whether a change is beneficial, deleterious or neutral is context dependent).

You, on the other hand, would have people believe that bacteria can willfully guide their own lives.

phhht said: Here's your problem in a nutshell, SpevieT:

... there is a rejection of science’ self-appointed position of arbiter of what constitutes reality.

That's exactly ass-backwards. It is REALITY which decides what constitutes SCIENCE, not vice versa.

Dave Luckett said:

Steve P. said: The only intervention from intelligence is at the get-go, where matter is programmed. Then the end result is let loose to run its course.

For cripes' sake, Steve, that idea is deism. Nobody's got anything much to say about deism, because it can't be detected and there's no proving or disproving it. The only argument is whether Occam's Razor applies, or whether the deist God gets a free pass because if there is any explanation for matter, it might as well be that one as any. Why are you here to trash evolution, then? It's no problem, for a deist. If evolution happens because of the fundamental properties of matter and energy, fine. It still happens.

The careful reader will note that Steve P. has now completely abandoned any pretense of following up on the thermodynamic discussion. Color me shocked.

Steve P. said: Keelyn figures "little Stevie PP" is a devasting reply. You win hands down. No contest. But you ought to match me one on topic post. Then you can claim you are not partaking in trolling your own sides threads.

It’s bad enough that little Stevie PP’s latest litanies of babbling are completely wrong in every conceivable scientific respect, but this little snip is enough to make even the typical seventh grader choke on her Cheerios:

Steve P. said: No shit, Sherlock! I didn't claim that anything is perfect. It is clear that I claimed organisms try to maintain what they have as much as possible but obviously are not successful all the time. James Shapiro has described just how organisms engineer their own mutations all the time.

Steve P. said: Btw, for those who claim a single violation of the sLot renders the sLot not a law, just think about this- laws are broken all the time, but they are still laws for the simple fact that it is respected in the vast majority of cases. Exceptions don't make the law. So life violating the sLot does not make the sLot not a law. It makes it a law with the usual exceptions tacked on.

Steve P. and then later says: It would have had to be a perfect metabolic system in order to sustain itself prior to the development of a reproductive system. But perpetual motion machines are impossible. It is your side that has drilled this concept. Yet it it precisely a perpetual motion machine that would be necessary absent a preexisting reproductive system.

So did Steve P ever get around to showing anyone those magical explanations that Intelligent Design can provide about life that Darwinian (sic) Evolution can not?

Or was he just too busy insulting everyone for kissing his ass and not swallowing his bullshit without question, as usual?

Steve P. said: Ha, the only one who is screaming is Poland. He probably lifted the table turning rhetorical ploy from Elzinga, to try and cover up the evidence of his own screaming and screeching. Notice how it is his posts that contain a disproportionate amount of capitalizations. True, it could just be that Poland has not taken the time to learn how to bold or italicize words and phrases. Guess we will have to let Poland enlighten us in this regard.

And twit this, and twit that, and magical sky pixies. He's just cookin' with gas now!

Translation : ‘observations of REALITY that show Stevie P to be wrong shall be screamed at until they bend to his will !!!!’

...Continuing the psychotic rant :

...Steve P looks in a mirror and screeches :

No shit, Sherlock! I didn't claim that anything is perfect. It is clear that I claimed organisms try to maintain what they have as much as possible but obviously are not successful all the time. James Shapiro has described just how organisms engineer their own mutations all the time. Denying this reality shows your unwillingness to get with the 21st century. May I suggest you pick up the pace Poland.

It is a KNOWN FACT that no DNA polymerase is perfect - MUTATIONS WILL OCCUR.

Imperfect replication is what provides a genome with OPTIONS - it is the creative part of evolution (given the FACT that whether a change is beneficial, deleterious or neutral is context dependent).

This one's a keeper. Poland unwittingly falls head first into design language and he's none the wiser. Darwinian processes have options??!! Evolution is creative??!! Wait, it get it. You are a Poe. A stealth proponent of intelligent design. Nice to have you on board!

If you actually spent the effort to read up on what colonies of bacteria are actually capable of, you would not make such glib comments. But you don't know any better. You are the consummate raconteur.

You, on the other hand, would have people believe that bacteria can willfully guide their own lives.

Steve P. said: I missed this one. Luckett, Deism is about leaving the scene. What I am saying is that design can be about starting ane developing a company, electing a board of directors, being the chairman of that board, taking part in meetings, employee training, etc, facilitating discussions without being a micro-manager. But at the same time you have to supply the funds for a continuous stream of starbuck's coffee. you have provide for a continuous supply of electricity to power the projector. You have to provide for uninterrupted wifi. So not being a micro-manager is not the same thing as being AWOL. Btw, logical conclusions trump Occam's razor, which strictly speaking is not a logical construct but a preferred option based on experience. The simpler explanation may not always be the correct one.

But Steve P. originally said: The only intervention from intelligence is at the get-go, where matter is programmed. Then the end result is let loose to run its course.

phhht said:

Steve P. said: It is clear from your posts that you emphatically deny anything else but physics and chemistry is taking place.

That's because nobody can find any EVIDENCE that anything else but physics and chemistry is taking place. Nobody, SpevieT, most emphatically including you. You have nothing but unsupported claims. You cannot back up anything you claim with any sort of evidence whatsoever. All you have is hot air.

The jury is still out as to whom actually possesses the profound misunderstanding of the universe and how it works.

The jury has come in, rendered its verdict, thanked the scientists, and gone home. They've all gone on vacation in the Bahamas. You missed the whole trial.

It is your (pl)refusal to accept any position that rejects matter and energy as the only constituents of reality that is cause for rejection.

No, SpevieT, is is YOUR (singular) utter inability to provide any empirical EVIDENCE that there is any other constituent of reality. All you have to say in contradiction is unsupported hogwash.

Your attempts to discount a huge body of collective human experience in favor of a strictly material concept of reality should not and must not go unchallenged.

You can challenge all you like, but until you come up with some EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE, the only reaction you will receive is derisive scorn. So why not give us some, SpevieT? Tell us how to empirically distinguish the designed from the non-designed. Tell us how to empirically detect a god. But that's all too hard for you (singular), isn't it, you (singular) blustering blowhard. You lay claim to “a huge body of collective human experience,’ but your purported “experience” has no backing whatsoever in the real world. It’s all stories, SpevieT, just like Harry Potter, just like The Avengers. Your religious illness impairs your ability to tell the real from the imaginary.

SWT said: The careful reader will note that Steve P. has now completely abandoned any pretense of following up on the thermodynamic discussion. Color me shocked.

If you actually spent the effort to read up on what colonies of bacteria are actually capable of, you would not make such glib comments. But you don't know any better. You are the consummate raconteur.

You're wrong. I win.

SWT said: The careful reader will note that Steve P. has now completely abandoned any pretense of following up on the thermodynamic discussion. Color me shocked.

Keelyn said to Steve P.: For example, explain what this means: dU = TdS – PdV + ∑µίdNi

How dare you! You actually expect Steve P. to bring his knowledge of thermodynamics forward to the late 1870’s?

Ford Doolittle just published his ENCODE critique in PNAS

SPARC

Steve has just spent half a dozen paragraphs demonstrating that he hasn't a clue what the second law says or what its application is.

Steve P. said: Nonetheless, the logic remains intact no matter what your rhetorical ploys to win points with the audience is. Organisms could not survive the 2nd law without reproduction.

SWT said: The careful reader will note that Steve P. has now completely abandoned any pretense of following up on the thermodynamic discussion. Color me shocked.

Keelyn said to Steve P.: For example, explain what this means: dU = TdS – PdV + ∑µίdNi

How dare you! You actually expect Steve P. to bring his knowledge of thermodynamics forward to the late 1870’s?

Steve P. said: If I remember correctly, your previous comments as pasted below hardly serves as thread facilitator...just yet another weak rhetorical jab. Nevertheless, it is disingenuous to claim I am abandoning any follow-up. Work is first priority.

People still have to put gas in their car because there is no way to produce a system that is perfectly efficient, thanks to the 2nd law.

Oh Steve understands 2LOT all right, at least his version anyway.

Living things wear down, wear out, just like car engines.

"Entropy", whatever that is, must be like friction and wear. Don't need no pesky equations and definitions - Elzinga be damned.

Without reproduction, all living things would disappear from the Earth in one generation. Reproduction cheats Death. "Entropy", whatever that is, must be like Death. (I know it is because thermodynamic people talk about "Heat Death.")Therefore Reproduction cheats the 2LOT. Praise the Designer.

See how easy that was? What's wrong with you people? Such a simple concept.

phhht said:

Steve P. said: It is clear from your posts that you emphatically deny anything else but physics and chemistry is taking place.

That's because nobody can find any EVIDENCE that anything else but physics and chemistry is taking place. Nobody, SpevieT, most emphatically including you. You have nothing but unsupported claims. You cannot back up anything you claim with any sort of evidence whatsoever. All you have is hot air.

The jury is still out as to whom actually possesses the profound misunderstanding of the universe and how it works.

The jury has come in, rendered its verdict, thanked the scientists, and gone home. They've all gone on vacation in the Bahamas. You missed the whole trial.

It is your (pl)refusal to accept any position that rejects matter and energy as the only constituents of reality that is cause for rejection.

No, SpevieT, is is YOUR (singular) utter inability to provide any empirical EVIDENCE that there is any other constituent of reality. All you have to say in contradiction is unsupported hogwash.

Your attempts to discount a huge body of collective human experience in favor of a strictly material concept of reality should not and must not go unchallenged.

You can challenge all you like, but until you come up with some EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE, the only reaction you will receive is derisive scorn. So why not give us some, SpevieT? Tell us how to empirically distinguish the designed from the non-designed. Tell us how to empirically detect a god. But that's all too hard for you (singular), isn't it, you (singular) blustering blowhard. You lay claim to “a huge body of collective human experience,’ but your purported “experience” has no backing whatsoever in the real world. It’s all stories, SpevieT, just like Harry Potter, just like The Avengers. Your religious illness impairs your ability to tell the real from the imaginary.

Steve P. said: Nonetheless, the logic remains intact no matter what your rhetorical ploys to win points with the audience is. Organisms could not survive the 2nd law without reproduction.

Steve P. said: So the logic is clear. Replicate before its too late.

Scott F said: If *I* had been the designer, "the logic would be clear": If a part wears out, regenerate it. None of this pesky "replicate" stuff. Why wait around for a "female" of my species to evolve, when I could simply regenerate the parts that I need instead? Now that's "Design" for you!

eric said: In Iain Banks' Consider Phlebas, the human-influenced Culture fights a race of immortal beings called Idirans. The Idiran religion states that Idirans have immortal souls, but no one else does, because what God would be stupid enough to put an immortal soul in a mortal body?

Mike Elzinga said to Steve P: The people around here aren’t as stupid as you think they are.

eric said:

Steve P. said: Nonetheless, the logic remains intact no matter what your rhetorical ploys to win points with the audience is. Organisms could not survive the 2nd law without reproduction.

I will ask again: exactly which step in reproduction violates the 2LOT? Production of sperm and egg? That's just like any other cell production. Conception? Implantation on a uterine wall? Early zygote development? Later foetus development? Post-birth development? The biological changes that accompany puberty? All of these steps take in energy, use it inefficiently, and produce waste. Thus they all obey the LOTs. If you're going to assert that some part of this process violates the 2LOT, I'd like to know which step actually produces the large minus delta S once all interactions with the outside world is taken into account. IOW, no just considering the inside of the refrigerator; you have to include the waste heat too.

apokryltaros said: Or better yet, what scientific research has been done to prove that reproduction magically violates the 2nd law of Thermodynamics, thereby magically proving that evolution magically doesn't exist, and that a magical Intelligent Designer magically exists?

prongs said: You just don't get it, do you? Steve doesn't need any scientific research to prove what is self-evident (as in "We hold these truths to be self-evident ...").

prongs said: More important is the question Mike Elzinga raises about reincarnation. If Reproduction cheats 2LOT for Steve, how much better that the Designer uses Reincarnation to cheat 2LOT and Death itself? Steve must provide a lucid, cogent argument why Reincarnation is not the Designer's first choice. Otherwise, Steve must accept Reincarnation as one of the techniques in the Designer's Toolbox.

Cells divide. That's the key to sustained life, and evolution. If cells didn't divide, life soon would become extinct. That's a fact of life. There are many ways in which an organism, unicellular or not, may be destroyed, become dead. Without reproduction, life would be doomed. No need for appeals to the 2LOT.

I don't think Steve P is as smart as he seem to think he is.

Rolf said: Cells divide. That's the key to sustained life, and evolution. If cells didn't divide, life soon would become extinct. That's a fact of life. There are many ways in which an organism, unicellular or not, may be destroyed, become dead. Without reproduction, life would be doomed. No need for appeals to the 2LOT. I don't think Steve P is as smart as he seem to think he is.

prongs said: No need for equations and technical definitions. Now just what scientific advancements can be made with such a conceptual foundation? Casting out Dark Energy? Time will tell. You be the judge.

He says, “The reason is simple. It is fallacious to assume the existence of a complex structure on the basis of the mere existence of its raw material. In addition, there is no organizing principle on Mars or informational instructions by which such basic elements could be naturally organized into something as complicated as a washing machine.”

Steve P. babbled: Mr. Poland, there are bucket loads of evidence to support design. It is up to you to accept it or not.

PA Poland said: And just who is the 'Intelligent Designer' that you've been blubbering about all this time ? Oh, right - you don't have the guts to come right out and SAY who it is. I wonder why ...

Scott F said: Fortunately, most people learn and mature beyond this simplistic true/false, black/white mentality and learn to question reality, learn to question their perception of that reality. Sadly, many do not.

I totally agree the Steve P. is in a fundamentally different class than for example, FL and Biggy.

However, I'd describe him differently and perhaps less charitably: Steve P. is a crank. He's misunderstood some basic concepts, convinced himself that his understanding is superior to that of people who work in the field, and convinced himself that those who disagree with him are blinded by their prejudiced fealty to the old way of thinking.

Try scoring him on this well-known index.

For extra credit, score atheistoclast on the same scale.

I think you're on to something there, Scott. There are, as Frank J says, many flavours of evolution deniers. Most of them are fundamentalists of one of the Abrahamic religions - in the west, generally, that would mean that most of them are Christian fundamentalists of various sorts, but most of those are YEC or simply ignorant. Steve P would seem to be a different "kind", and there are a few more of them. They're a minor moiety within denialism, but they're present. As you say, Steve P's take is some kind of cellular or chemical-level self-awareness and ability to self-direct. Borzorgmehr plumps for an invisible, immaterial "morphic field". Other outliers have various, equally vapid, equally nonsensical ideas.

As Frank J remarks, the only thing they have in common with the fundies is that they deny evolution. (The fundies, as he also says, are of various and often incompatible opinions among themselves.) But that's output. The input for their ideas also seems to have one salient feature in common with the fundies: it doesn't consist of evidence. Denialists don't get evidence. They don't know what it is, or of what it consists, or what it is used for, or of how it is interpreted.

FL simply sees God everywhere (or at least, that's what he says he sees. Actually, he sees himself.) Biggy (remember him?) thinks the Bible is evidence (Actually, he doesn't. He thinks that whatever some authority has told him about the Bible is evidence.) Steve P sees whatever he sees. He can't describe it, and he gets deeply frustrated when he's asked to demonstrate it, but he knows - knows - that it's there.

It really makes me wonder how much of the human mind, or perhaps how many humans, are similarly afflicted. The placebo effect is real, and whatever it consists of, it involves a basic self-delusion. There is also the ganzfeld effect - show an absolutely blank white field to a subject and suggest that this is a visual acuity test, and the test subject will begin to describe the shapes and figures they see on it. Is this a root cause for Steve P's delusions - simply seeing something that isn't there?

But it is one thing to see what you want to see, or what you think you should see. It's another to refuse to see what is plainly evident. Denial of evolution requires both. The first is explicable. The second is far more difficult to explain.

One never gets the impression that ID/creationists – or people like Steve P. – ever grasp the significance of physics and chemistry in biology. To them apparently, physics and chemistry are irrelevant and can’t explain anything.

What ID/creationists and Steve P cannot know – because they never look – is that biophysics and biochemistry are very active areas of research that are demonstrating very concisely that physics and chemistry are central to the operations of biological mechanisms and systems.

There is a report in the recent March issue of Physics Today about the work of Michael Levin and colleagues at Tufts University in the area of “bioelectric signaling.” By manipulating the transmembrane voltage differences to influence the behaviors of cells, they can cause cells to turn on growth in the amputated legs of frogs and cause legs to regenerate, complete with toes and nails. Planarian flatworms can regrow new tails or new heads; or be made to grow two tails or two heads.

This kind of stuff has been known for decades; and even Galvani in 1771 discovered that electricity can make the legs of dead frogs move.

Phenomena like hypothermia and hyperthermia are dramatic demonstrations of the importance of ambient temperature (average kinetic energies per degree of freedom) to the proper functioning of the central nervous system. We know what that implies about the relative magnitudes of kinetic energy and binding energies in these systems; and that is all physics and chemistry.

We know why ID/creationists need “organizational principles” and “informational instructions.” Not one of them knows about the energies of interaction among atoms and molecules that even high school students learn about in physics and chemistry.

ID/creationism is not just bad biology; it wrecks all of science, physics and chemistry in particular.

Dave Luckett said: But it is one thing to see what you want to see, or what you think you should see. It's another to refuse to see what is plainly evident. Denial of evolution requires both. The first is explicable. The second is far more difficult to explain.

He makes excuses about having to spend time at work (I don’t believe him)

Not only does StevieP think that bacteria are intelligent, he thinks that there is no such thing as competition. He says that less fit organisms sacrifice themself to preditors so that the fitter individuals can live. Or something.

Malcolm said: Not only does StevieP think that bacteria are intelligent, he thinks that there is no such thing as competition. He says that less fit organisms sacrifice themself to preditors so that the fitter individuals can live. Or something.

He says that less fit organisms sacrifice themself to preditors so that the fitter individuals can live. Or something.

Henry J said:

He says that less fit organisms sacrifice themself to preditors so that the fitter individuals can live. Or something.

Like Schmoo? So he's a fan of the Lil Abner comics?

Mike Elzinga said:

Steve P. said: Nonetheless, the logic remains intact no matter what your rhetorical ploys to win points with the audience is. Organisms could not survive the 2nd law without reproduction.

The very existence of organisms REQUIRES the second law. Your ID/creationist version of thermodynamics cannot even explain the existence of liquids and solids; or condensed matter of any sort. You really don’t learn from having your errors pointed out to you. You don’t know the concepts and you don’t even know how to use the words in a sentence. Learn some science; otherwise all you are accomplishing is making a complete ass of yourself. The people around here aren’t as stupid as you think they are.

DS said:

prongs said: You just don't get it, do you? Steve doesn't need any scientific research to prove what is self-evident (as in "We hold these truths to be self-evident ...").

Well then, Stevie must be the greatest genius in the history of genius. After all, it's self evident to him. But somehow it wasn't self evidence to any of the real scientists who postulated the second law of thermodynamics in the first place. None of them knew about reproduction? None of them realized that every time an organism reproduces it violates their so called law? Stevie is the only one brilliant enough to see this? Man, the guy is a legend in his own mind. Unless of course Stevie is just full of crap and doesn't have a clue what he is talking about. That's another possibility. But what are the odds that a textile salesman wouldn't know more about science than every real scientist?

prongs said:

apokryltaros said: Or better yet, what scientific research has been done to prove that reproduction magically violates the 2nd law of Thermodynamics, thereby magically proving that evolution magically doesn't exist, and that a magical Intelligent Designer magically exists?

You just don't get it, do you? Steve doesn't need any scientific research to prove what is self-evident (as in "We hold these truths to be self-evident ..."). More important is the question Mike Elzinga raises about reincarnation. If Reproduction cheats 2LOT for Steve, how much better that the Designer uses Reincarnation to cheat 2LOT and Death itself? Steve must provide a lucid, cogent argument why Reincarnation is not the Designer's first choice. Otherwise, Steve must accept Reincarnation as one of the techniques in the Designer's Toolbox. What say you, Steve? (Please answer lest phhht browbeats you yet again.) Gee, this is fun.

Rolf said: Cells divide. That's the key to sustained life, and evolution. If cells didn't divide, life soon would become extinct. That's a fact of life. There are many ways in which an organism, unicellular or not, may be destroyed, become dead. Without reproduction, life would be doomed. No need for appeals to the 2LOT. I don't think Steve P is as smart as he seem to think he is.

phhht said:

Steve P. said: It is clear from your posts that you emphatically deny anything else but physics and chemistry is taking place.

That's because nobody can find any EVIDENCE that anything else but physics and chemistry is taking place. Nobody, SkevieT, most emphatically including you. You have nothing but unsupported claims. You cannot back up anything you claim with any sort of evidence whatsoever. All you have is hot air.

It is your (pl)refusal to accept any position that rejects matter and energy as the only constituents of reality that is cause for rejection.

No, SkevieT, is is YOUR utter inability to provide any empirical EVIDENCE that there is any other constituent of reality. All you have to say in contradiction is unsupported hogwash.

Your attempts to discount a huge body of collective human experience in favor of a strictly material concept of reality should not and must not go unchallenged.

You can challenge all you like, but until you come up with some EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE, the only reaction you will receive is derisive scorn. So why not give us some, SkevieT? Tell us how to empirically distinguish the designed from the non-designed. Tell us how to empirically detect a god. But that's all too hard for you, isn't it, you (singular) blustering blowhard. You lay claim to “a huge body of collective human experience,’ but your purported “experience” has no backing whatsoever in the real world. It’s all stories, SkevieT, just like Harry Potter, just like The Avengers. Your religious illness impairs your ability to tell the real from the imaginary.

SWT said: I totally agree the Steve P. is in a fundamentally different class than for example, FL and Biggy. However, I'd describe him differently and perhaps less charitably: Steve P. is a crank. He's misunderstood some basic concepts, convinced himself that his understanding is superior to that of people who work in the field, and convinced himself that those who disagree with him are blinded by their prejudiced fealty to the old way of thinking. Try scoring him on this well-known index. For extra credit, score atheistoclast on the same scale.

Steve P. said: From a physics and chemistry POV, how did the first proto-cell 1)survive absent the replication machinery found in modern cells and 2)why was replication even necessary for its survival?

Scott F said:

Scott F said: Fortunately, most people learn and mature beyond this simplistic true/false, black/white mentality and learn to question reality, learn to question their perception of that reality. Sadly, many do not.

And this isn't a moral judgement. It's just a clinical observation of fact. My son is very intelligent, and has a heart of gold. Yet still, at 21 years of age and almost a real civil engineer, he will occasionally latch on to a new notion which immediately becomes "fact" to him, a thing that he has "always" known to be true. It's just amazing to watch the process happen in real time. It's evidently part of where he happens to fall on the Asperger's spectrum. And as a "spectrum", different people exhibit and are able to deal with this real physical mental "processing" difficulty to differing degrees. Fortunately for our son, he is able to deal with it (mostly) successfully. When directly questioned about this new fact, he can, eventually, analyze his own thought processes enough to realize what happened, once he's able to disarm his reflexive mental defenses. But without that direct external question, it never (or seldom) occurs to him to question what he knows that he knows. I'm no psychologist, but it's not hard to imagine that others (somewhere else on that spectrum) never learn that ability to question what they know, and (further) to project that inability onto others.

phhht said:

Steve P. said: From a physics and chemistry POV, how did the first proto-cell 1)survive absent the replication machinery found in modern cells and 2)why was replication even necessary for its survival?

1. Don't know. 2. Don't know. So what? Because we don't know, Jesus did it?

Steve P. said: What does Jesus have to do with anything? A little suggestion. Turn off the projector before posting.

phhht said:

Steve P. said: From a physics and chemistry POV, how did the first proto-cell 1)survive absent the replication machinery found in modern cells and 2)why was replication even necessary for its survival?

1. Don't know. 2. Don't know. So what? Because we don't know, Jesus did it?

Steve P. said: What does Jesus have to do with anything? A little suggestion. Turn off the projector before posting.

phhht said:

Steve P. said: From a physics and chemistry POV, how did the first proto-cell 1)survive absent the replication machinery found in modern cells and 2)why was replication even necessary for its survival?

1. Don't know. 2. Don't know. So what? Because we don't know, Jesus did it?

Steve P. said: The only one talking religion here is you prongs....and Stanton, and Just Bob, and DS, and Eric, and SWT, and Elzinga, and Poland, and....ah its pointless...the list is too long. so, same question to you. From a physics and chemistry POV, how did the first proto-cell 1)survive absent the replication machinery found in modern cells and 2)why was replication even necessary for its survival?

prongs said:

apokryltaros said: Or better yet, what scientific research has been done to prove that reproduction magically violates the 2nd law of Thermodynamics, thereby magically proving that evolution magically doesn't exist, and that a magical Intelligent Designer magically exists?

You just don't get it, do you? Steve doesn't need any scientific research to prove what is self-evident (as in "We hold these truths to be self-evident ..."). More important is the question Mike Elzinga raises about reincarnation. If Reproduction cheats 2LOT for Steve, how much better that the Designer uses Reincarnation to cheat 2LOT and Death itself? Steve must provide a lucid, cogent argument why Reincarnation is not the Designer's first choice. Otherwise, Steve must accept Reincarnation as one of the techniques in the Designer's Toolbox. What say you, Steve? (Please answer lest phhht browbeats you yet again.) Gee, this is fun.

Steve P. said: Forgot to add phhht to the list.

ha, phhht calls me SkevieP in 5th grade fashion and turns around and tries to paste me with the grade-schooler label.

....and he keeps on talking about God for some silly reason.

Steve P. said: ha...

C'mon, might warrior for whatever-it-is you're trying to profess, give us a hint! Tell us why you repeat and repeat again and again that there is something we don't know! So what? So what, blusterer?

Steve P. said: From a physics and chemistry POV, how did the first proto-cell 1)survive absent the replication machinery found in modern cells and 2)why was replication even necessary for its survival?

Steve P. said: The only one talking religion here is you prongs....and Stanton, and Just Bob, and DS, and Eric, and SWT, and Elzinga, and Poland, and....ah its pointless...the list is too long.

so, same question to you. From a physics and chemistry POV, how did the first proto-cell 1)survive absent the replication machinery found in modern cells and 2)why was replication even necessary for its survival?

Steve P. said: The only one talking religion here is you prongs....and Stanton, and Just Bob, and DS, and Eric, and SWT, and Elzinga, and Poland, and....ah its pointless...the list is too long.

SWT said: Suppose a truck carrying bricks has an accident, and the entire load of bricks is dumped out of the truck onto the shoulder of the road. Overnight, an obsessive artist purchases a truckload of bricks indistinguishable from the load that fell onto the shoulder of the road and painstakingly builds an exact replica of the heap of bricks that resulted from the chance accident. The original pile of bricks is not designed. The second pile of bricks was painstakingly designed and constructed. How do I tell, strictly by looking at the two indistinguishable piles of bricks, which was designed and which was the result of chance?

SWT said: In response to these posts:

SWT said: The careful reader will note that Steve P. has now completely abandoned any pretense of following up on the thermodynamic discussion. Color me shocked.

Keelyn said to Steve P.: For example, explain what this means: dU = TdS – PdV + ∑µίdNi

How dare you! You actually expect Steve P. to bring his knowledge of thermodynamics forward to the late 1870’s?

Steve P.'s rejoinder was:

Steve P. said: If I remember correctly, your previous comments as pasted below hardly serves as thread facilitator...just yet another weak rhetorical jab. Nevertheless, it is disingenuous to claim I am abandoning any follow-up. Work is first priority.

If you had bothered to put my comments in context, you would have recognized that I was responding to several of your comments immediately preceding. The second comment refers to your clear lack of understanding of the application of the second law of thermodynamics to open and non-adiabatic closed systems; the former refers to your rhetorical move away from actually discussing thermodynamics. If my weak rhetorical jab has brought you back onto the topic of thermodynamics, mission accomplished. So, let's start with the biggest and most obvious error in your response. Once we're done with that we can move on to other points in your comment. Here it is:

People still have to put gas in their car because there is no way to produce a system that is perfectly efficient, thanks to the 2nd law.

The fact that gasoline-powered cars require gasoline to operate is a consequence of the first law of thermodynamics, not the second law of thermodynamics. Until you understand this, there is no point in continuing.

Steve P. said: Hardly a crank. Just interesting to watch the ways in which you(pl) try to avoid the core of the issue. From a physics and chemistry POV, how did the first proto-cell 1)survive absent the replication machinery found in modern cells and 2)why was replication even necessary for its survival?

SWT said: I totally agree the Steve P. is in a fundamentally different class than for example, FL and Biggy. However, I'd describe him differently and perhaps less charitably: Steve P. is a crank. He's misunderstood some basic concepts, convinced himself that his understanding is superior to that of people who work in the field, and convinced himself that those who disagree with him are blinded by their prejudiced fealty to the old way of thinking. Try scoring him on this well-known index. For extra credit, score atheistoclast on the same scale.

phhht said:

Steve P. said: From a physics and chemistry POV, how did the first proto-cell 1)survive absent the replication machinery found in modern cells and 2)why was replication even necessary for its survival?

1. Don't know. 2. Don't know. So what? Well, you loudmouth, you sputterer, you incompetent, so fucking what?

Just to be clear; Even in modern cells, RNA preplicates RNA. The proteins in the ribosome are structural. The catalysis is carried out by the ribosomal RNA.

Your characterization of life as “condensed or soft matter’ is a category error. If condensed matter was a mundane property easily detected through out the universe, you might have a point.

So let me ask you, from a physics and chemistry POV, how did the first proto-cell 1)survive absent the replication machinery found in modern cells and 2)why was replication even necessary for its survival?

Malcolm said: Just to be clear; Even in modern cells, RNA preplicates RNA. The proteins in the ribosome are structural. The catalysis is carried out by the ribosomal RNA.

Oh, yeah, Mike? Well... well... how come sulfur is yellow, huh? And why is mercury liquid at room temperature? Huh? Huh? Your materialistic reductionist philosophy can't explain that, can it, you baby-eater!

Therefore design.

And why is mercury liquid at room temperature?

Henry J said:

And why is mercury liquid at room temperature?

Because thermometers wouldn't work if it was solid or gas! Duh!!1111!!!one!!!!

SWT said: So you have questions for me ... perhaps we'll discuss them after we've cleaned up some of the other threads you've started in this discussion. Actually doing thermodynamics (vs. BS-ing about it) requires a bit of focus and attention; I'm going to do my bit to help you out by constraining my technical comments to thermodynamic issues until it's clear that you understand thermodynamics well enough to engage in the discussion you've initiated. BTW, I judge you to be well over 100 on the Baez scale. You've got some work to do before you get to A t h e i s t o c l a s t levels of crackpottery, but you're on your way.

Steve P. said: Hardly a crank. Just interesting to watch the ways in which you(pl) try to avoid the core of the issue. From a physics and chemistry POV, how did the first proto-cell 1)survive absent the replication machinery found in modern cells and 2)why was replication even necessary for its survival?

SWT said: I totally agree the Steve P. is in a fundamentally different class than for example, FL and Biggy. However, I'd describe him differently and perhaps less charitably: Steve P. is a crank. He's misunderstood some basic concepts, convinced himself that his understanding is superior to that of people who work in the field, and convinced himself that those who disagree with him are blinded by their prejudiced fealty to the old way of thinking. Try scoring him on this well-known index. For extra credit, score atheistoclast on the same scale.

Steve P. said: The act of putting gas in a car speaks to the 2nd law (energy output is either equal to or less than energy input). In the case of combustible engines the efficiency is roughly 50%.

Life requires disparate levels of entropy for each of its numerous subsystems. Each subsystem maintains its particular level of entropy. Yet the energy flows its depends on for energy conversion negatively affects the machinery that maintains the entropy levels. Over time the entropy levels breakdown and the supersystem grinds to a halt. So logically, the individual cell is losing the battle for its integrity due the sLot. The sLot is responsible for the eventual disintegration of the cell. But miraculously, it replicates and gets to start the process all over again. How is this not a circumvention / obstruction/evasion/ violation of the 2nd law on the part of life?

phhht said:

Steve P. said: From a physics and chemistry POV, how did the first proto-cell 1)survive absent the replication machinery found in modern cells and 2)why was replication even necessary for its survival?

1. Don't know. 2. Don't know. So what? Well, you loudmouth, you sputterer, you incompetent, so fucking what?

bbennett1968 said:

Life requires disparate levels of entropy for each of its numerous subsystems. Each subsystem maintains its particular level of entropy. Yet the energy flows its depends on for energy conversion negatively affects the machinery that maintains the entropy levels. Over time the entropy levels breakdown and the supersystem grinds to a halt. So logically, the individual cell is losing the battle for its integrity due the sLot. The sLot is responsible for the eventual disintegration of the cell. But miraculously, it replicates and gets to start the process all over again. How is this not a circumvention / obstruction/evasion/ violation of the 2nd law on the part of life?

In exactly the same way that a bird, by flying, is not circumventing/ obstructing/ evading/ violating the law of gravity. It's just dealing with it. A molecule of water, by remaining in the upper atmosphere for many years instead of being pulled to the ground, is not doing any of those things to the law of gravity either. It's just being where it is. Your coffee cup and your computer aren't butthurting the law of gravity either, by staying exactly where they are on your desk instead of gravity moving them toward each other. If you removed all other forces from acting on your cup and your computer, gravity would pull them together, wouldn't they? Why doesn't that happen? Goddidit? No, friction. So in your fixation on the cockamamie notion that life "violates" 2LOT by reproducing, maybe the problem is that you are missing something in your analysis (like the other forces acting on cup and PC), instead of the must-less-likely idea that you are correct and hundreds of thousands of biologists, physicists, chemists, etc., are wrong. Maybe you're just not the genius you think you are, and maybe you haven't really scored a point for your silly little imaginary god by repeating this ridiculous little argument straight from the mouth of some other godbot. Stick to the science, no interest here in your dishonest religious apologetics. Crank, begone!

bbennett1968 said:

Life requires disparate levels of entropy for each of its numerous subsystems. Each subsystem maintains its particular level of entropy. Yet the energy flows its depends on for energy conversion negatively affects the machinery that maintains the entropy levels. Over time the entropy levels breakdown and the supersystem grinds to a halt. So logically, the individual cell is losing the battle for its integrity due the sLot. The sLot is responsible for the eventual disintegration of the cell. But miraculously, it replicates and gets to start the process all over again. How is this not a circumvention / obstruction/evasion/ violation of the 2nd law on the part of life?

In exactly the same way that a bird, by flying, is not circumventing/ obstructing/ evading/ violating the law of gravity. It's just dealing with it. A molecule of water, by remaining in the upper atmosphere for many years instead of being pulled to the ground, is not doing any of those things to the law of gravity either. It's just being where it is. Your coffee cup and your computer aren't butthurting the law of gravity either, by staying exactly where they are on your desk instead of gravity moving them toward each other. If you removed all other forces from acting on your cup and your computer, gravity would pull them together, wouldn't they? Why doesn't that happen? Goddidit? No, friction. So in your fixation on the cockamamie notion that life "violates" 2LOT by reproducing, maybe the problem is that you are missing something in your analysis (like the other forces acting on cup and PC), instead of the must-less-likely idea that you are correct and hundreds of thousands of biologists, physicists, chemists, etc., are wrong. Maybe you're just not the genius you think you are, and maybe you haven't really scored a point for your silly little imaginary god by repeating this ridiculous little argument straight from the mouth of some other godbot. Stick to the science, no interest here in your dishonest religious apologetics. Crank, begone!

So, Steve P., not interested in discussing thermodynamics any more?

Nitwit babbled: What's ironic here Bennett is that you need to explain it in terms of birds 'dealing' with it, rather than showing how physics and chemistry is responsible for bird wings. You co-opt design language and in the same breath deny design exists. Can you show how reproduction is the inevitable result of the complex interactions of atoms? What acted upon molecules that inevitably resulted in the proto-cell's first replication event? There was no selective pressure as there was no competition. Why reproduction when the first proto-cell had just won the hard fight to existence? Its inexplicable from a physics and chemistry POV.

Further, what acted upon the first unicellular organism to transform it into a multi-cellular one? It wasn't selection pressure as the vast majority of ecological niches had yet to be filled.

If the 'miracle' of reproduction absent selection pressure was bad enough, how could the first multi-cellular organism maintain its integrity without the scaffolding needed to coordinate the simultaneous replication of all its component cells? Or did the scaffolding 'miraculously' appear?

You guys figure these questions can't be answered so Evolution Did It.

How is that a better take than Design Did It?

Occam's razor does little to address the inherent logical problems.

SWT said: So, Steve P., not interested in discussing thermodynamics any more?

Steve P. said: What's ironic here Bennett is that you need to explain it in terms of birds 'dealing' with it, rather than showing how physics and chemistry is responsible for bird wings. You co-opt design language and in the same breath deny design exists. Can you show how reproduction is the inevitable result of the complex interactions of atoms? What acted upon molecules that inevitably resulted in the proto-cell's first replication event? There was no selective pressure as there was no competition. Why reproduction when the first proto-cell had just won the hard fight to existence? Its inexplicable from a physics and chemistry POV. Further, what acted upon the first unicellular organism to transform it into a multi-cellular one? It wasn't selection pressure as the vast majority of ecological niches had yet to be filled. If the 'miracle' of reproduction absent selection pressure was bad enough, how could the first multi-cellular organism maintain its integrity without the scaffolding needed to coordinate the simultaneous replication of all its component cells? Or did the scaffolding 'miraculously' appear? You guys figure these questions can't be answered so Evolution Did It. How is that a better take than Design Did It? Occam's razor does little to address the inherent logical problems.

bbennett1968 said:

Life requires disparate levels of entropy for each of its numerous subsystems. Each subsystem maintains its particular level of entropy. Yet the energy flows its depends on for energy conversion negatively affects the machinery that maintains the entropy levels. Over time the entropy levels breakdown and the supersystem grinds to a halt. So logically, the individual cell is losing the battle for its integrity due the sLot. The sLot is responsible for the eventual disintegration of the cell. But miraculously, it replicates and gets to start the process all over again. How is this not a circumvention / obstruction/evasion/ violation of the 2nd law on the part of life?

In exactly the same way that a bird, by flying, is not circumventing/ obstructing/ evading/ violating the law of gravity. It's just dealing with it. A molecule of water, by remaining in the upper atmosphere for many years instead of being pulled to the ground, is not doing any of those things to the law of gravity either. It's just being where it is. Your coffee cup and your computer aren't butthurting the law of gravity either, by staying exactly where they are on your desk instead of gravity moving them toward each other. If you removed all other forces from acting on your cup and your computer, gravity would pull them together, wouldn't they? Why doesn't that happen? Goddidit? No, friction. So in your fixation on the cockamamie notion that life "violates" 2LOT by reproducing, maybe the problem is that you are missing something in your analysis (like the other forces acting on cup and PC), instead of the must-less-likely idea that you are correct and hundreds of thousands of biologists, physicists, chemists, etc., are wrong. Maybe you're just not the genius you think you are, and maybe you haven't really scored a point for your silly little imaginary god by repeating this ridiculous little argument straight from the mouth of some other godbot. Stick to the science, no interest here in your dishonest religious apologetics. Crank, begone!

SWT said: So, Steve P., not interested in discussing thermodynamics any more?

RPST said:

Steve P. said: What's ironic here Bennett is that you need to explain it in terms of birds 'dealing' with it, rather than showing how physics and chemistry is responsible for bird wings. You co-opt design language and in the same breath deny design exists. Can you show how reproduction is the inevitable result of the complex interactions of atoms? What acted upon molecules that inevitably resulted in the proto-cell's first replication event? There was no selective pressure as there was no competition. Why reproduction when the first proto-cell had just won the hard fight to existence? Its inexplicable from a physics and chemistry POV. Further, what acted upon the first unicellular organism to transform it into a multi-cellular one? It wasn't selection pressure as the vast majority of ecological niches had yet to be filled. If the 'miracle' of reproduction absent selection pressure was bad enough, how could the first multi-cellular organism maintain its integrity without the scaffolding needed to coordinate the simultaneous replication of all its component cells? Or did the scaffolding 'miraculously' appear? You guys figure these questions can't be answered so Evolution Did It. How is that a better take than Design Did It? Occam's razor does little to address the inherent logical problems.

bbennett1968 said:

Life requires disparate levels of entropy for each of its numerous subsystems. Each subsystem maintains its particular level of entropy. Yet the energy flows its depends on for energy conversion negatively affects the machinery that maintains the entropy levels. Over time the entropy levels breakdown and the supersystem grinds to a halt. So logically, the individual cell is losing the battle for its integrity due the sLot. The sLot is responsible for the eventual disintegration of the cell. But miraculously, it replicates and gets to start the process all over again. How is this not a circumvention / obstruction/evasion/ violation of the 2nd law on the part of life?

In exactly the same way that a bird, by flying, is not circumventing/ obstructing/ evading/ violating the law of gravity. It's just dealing with it. A molecule of water, by remaining in the upper atmosphere for many years instead of being pulled to the ground, is not doing any of those things to the law of gravity either. It's just being where it is. Your coffee cup and your computer aren't butthurting the law of gravity either, by staying exactly where they are on your desk instead of gravity moving them toward each other. If you removed all other forces from acting on your cup and your computer, gravity would pull them together, wouldn't they? Why doesn't that happen? Goddidit? No, friction. So in your fixation on the cockamamie notion that life "violates" 2LOT by reproducing, maybe the problem is that you are missing something in your analysis (like the other forces acting on cup and PC), instead of the must-less-likely idea that you are correct and hundreds of thousands of biologists, physicists, chemists, etc., are wrong. Maybe you're just not the genius you think you are, and maybe you haven't really scored a point for your silly little imaginary god by repeating this ridiculous little argument straight from the mouth of some other godbot. Stick to the science, no interest here in your dishonest religious apologetics. Crank, begone!

What's not ironic here is that you completely change the subject, play the standard IDiot games with words ("design language", therefore design--is your god really so puny and hard to find that he hides in the word choices of his doubters, yet leaves no other trace?), and demand an extreme and unreasonable level of detail for a competing idea while offering none whatsoever for your own (because any positive proposition as to who designed what, where, how, and how you might confirm the hypothesis is apparently not ever going to be part of any IDiot argument about how "obvious" design is). It's not ironic at all, because IDiots are all clueless, dishonest gits who don't give a shit about real science and are only interested in co-opting it to say what they want it to say about their silly superstitions. Your little gotcha game with science, while offering nothing scientifically relevant of your own, is not ironic--it's ID, and it's all ID will ever be.

So the asshole thinks that he can get everyone to magically forget that he was completely wrong about birds and gravity by somehow trying to argue about the beginning of life or some such nonsense., Come on guys, you have to realize by now that he is incapable of any coherent thought let alone reasoned argument.

None of this bullshit has anything whatsoever to do with the subject of the thread. Like so many ignorant trolls before him, all further responses by me to Stevie PP will be on the bathroom wall. I suggest that others do the same. He doesn't deserve the respect of replying here.

Steve P. said: You want to play to your strength discussing thermodynamics? Ok, lets cut to the chase and discuss thermodynamics in the context of my argument rather than let you steer the discuss as far away from it as you can. Again, my argument is that early life in the form of the first single-celled organism would have perished immediately due to thermodynamic conditions. Like rocks, their simple metabolic machinery would have eroded due higher and higher entropy levels. I contend that the first proto-cell logically had to have reproductive capability from its inception, not subsequent to its ascending into animation. The sLot would have destroyed its hard fought victory in quick form without an existing reproductive capability. Logically, design would be the cause of this front-loading of a reproductive capacity, as reproduction indicates foresight of the negative effects of entropy on a cell over time. If the first cell did not have a reproductive capacity, then what saved the first proto-cell from oblivion before it was able to acquire the ability to replicate? Can you show thermodynamics was not an issue for that first proto-cell? Can you show it would not meet the same fate as a rock and perish swiftly due to its inability to handle the influx of energy over time, finally causing loss of control of its metabolic machinery?

SWT said: So, Steve P., not interested in discussing thermodynamics any more?

but Steve P. said: You want to play to your strength discussing thermodynamics? Ok, lets cut to the chase and discuss thermodynamics in the context of my argument rather than let you steer the discuss as far away from it as you can.

Steve P. said:

SWT said: So, Steve P., not interested in discussing thermodynamics any more?

You want to play to your strength discussing thermodynamics? Ok, lets cut to the chase and discuss thermodynamics in the context of my argument rather than let you steer the discuss as far away from it as you can.

Steve P. said: Again, my argument is that early life in the form of the first single-celled organism would have perished immediately due to thermodynamic conditions. Like rocks, their simple metabolic machinery would have eroded due higher and higher entropy levels.

Steve P. said: Can you show thermodynamics was not an issue for that first proto-cell? Can you show it would not meet the same fate as a rock and perish swiftly due to its inability to handle the influx of energy over time, finally causing loss of control of its metabolic machinery?

So, SteveP has no understanding of thermodynamics or biochemistry.

I wonder what he thinks happens when a protein in a cell gets damaged.

It is as if he thinks that the cell is doomed. That would make photosynethsis a little tricky.

stevaroni said:

prongs said: Einstein's relativity is not needed when you use this Theory.

Apparently, true conservatives don't like relativity just as much as they don't like evolution. Earlier today, while I was looking for examples of how 2LOT is described, I made the bad decision to peek at Conservapedia, to see what science haters would make out of thermodynamics. But it's OK, conservatives love the 2nd law. Because...

The Second Law of Thermodynamics is the result of the fundamental uncertainty in nature, manifest in quantum mechanics, which is overcome only by intelligent intervention. The Second Law of Thermodynamics disproves the atheistic Theory of Evolution and Theory of Relativity, both of which deny a fundamental uncertainty to the physical world that leads to increasing disorder. (http://www.conservapedia.com/Second_Law_of_Thermodynamics)

What's wrong with relativity, you ask?

Relativity has been met with much resistance in the scientific world. To date, a Nobel Prize has never been awarded for Relativity. Louis Essen, the man credited with determining the speed of light, wrote many fiery papers against it such as The Special Theory of Relativity: A Critical Analysis. Relativity is in conflict with quantum mechanics,[8] and although theories like string theory and quantum field theory have attempted to unify relativity and quantum mechanics, neither has been entirely successful or proven. (http://www.conservapedia.com/Theory_of_Relativity)

Instructively, it goes on at great lengths to demonstrate that Eddington's experiments are rigged, hyper-accurate clocks do not demonstrate time dilation when moved, and cannot explain (the "arrow of time"), specifically allowing for theoretical time travel (e.g., wormholes) and different rates of passage of time based on velocity and acceleration. Sadly, Conservipedia notes that relativity has a stranglehold on the teaching of physics

For example, Democratic President Barack Obama helped publish an article by liberal law professor Laurence Tribe to apply the relativistic concept of "curvature of space" to promote a broad legal right to abortion. (it's quite an interesting footnote - ED) The Theory of Relativity enjoys a disproportionate share of federal funding of physics research today.

But.. there's hope...

Despite censorship of dissent about relativity, evidence contrary to the theory is discussed outside of liberal universities.

Malcolm said: So, SteveP has no understanding of thermodynamics or biochemistry. I wonder what he thinks happens when a protein in a cell gets damaged. It is as if he thinks that the cell is doomed. That would make photosynethsis a little tricky.

Mike Elzinga said:

prongs said: Mike Elzinga, do you have a good source for the criteria used to judge electromagnetic signals from space? Too periodic or too random a signal doesn't make for a good "Hello Universe" message. Unmodulated signals are pretty much useless as identifiers of 'intelligence'. Modulated signals with a combination of some periodicity and pseudo-randomness seem to me to be the best candidates. Got any useful links?

Paul Davies has a book in paperback entitled The Eerie Silence, copyright in 2010. It gives a pretty good overview of, and a critical look at, SETI and the really difficult problems with detecting intelligence; especially the problem called the “anthropocentric trap” in which we as an intelligent species keep looking for a species that will look, think, and behave like us. When you realize that even other intelligent species on this planet don’t perceive and think like us, you have to ask yourself, “What do we look for?” ID/creationists are babes lost in the thickets of their own making. They think simplistic “Dumbski filters” and amateur (pre high school) probability calculations are going to do it for them. However, since they don’t even understand the basics of science, what phenomena do they think they can sort on? Is some kind of “intelligence” trying to send us a message using Saturn?. ID/creationists don’t know what they are seeing in this image. If they try to get off the hook by asserting it is natural, then they are going to have to explain where the cutoff to “natural” occurs in the physical world. They don’t have a clue about where such a cutoff occurs in the chain of complexity in condensed matter. To ID/creationists, the behaviors of atoms and molecules are “natural” until it comes to things like proteins or the origin of life. Then, all of a sudden, atoms and molecules need “intelligence guidance” to do what they do; but they never explain just where the physics stops and “information” starts pushing atoms and molecules around. But, according to ID/creationist "probability calculations" atoms and molecules are inert; you throw them up in the air and calculate the probability that they will come down in some specified pattern and conclude that evolution and the origing of life can't happen. I often wonder if ID/creationists can tie their shoes.

prongs said: So to answer phhht's question, "How do you detect intelligent design?", the answer is, "Look for something just like human design, but comes from outer space." If that's all they've got, then SETI is pathetic. Their greatest contribution may be the understanding that the only design we can recognize is human design. There is NO design we can be certain of, other than human design. Are you looking for extraterrestrial design? Then look for human designs. Are you looking for divine designs or supernatural designs? Then look for human designs. Are you looking for natural designs? Well, we can point to many of those, but we know they have perfectly good natural explanations. Man created God in his own image. Finding intelligent (divine) designs in Nature is just the reflection of our own intelligence.

Mike,

Yes, I think that's a good summary.

I do like Carl Sagan's depiction of the alien message in the movie Contact. On the simplest level it has a pattern perceptible at a human scale of listening that repeats a sequence of prime numbers. Further inspection reveals human television transmissions embedded more deeply. This tells them that the aliens recognize us and acknowledge us. Even more deeply are embedded the designs to construct a communications device.

Now this is very clever. What it really represents is what we humans might do if we received television signals from another planet orbiting a distant (but not too far) star.

It is precisely the way we might respond to them. In this movie Sagan created the aliens in our own image. That's because we have no other image with which to create aliens or gods.

I remember an article Sagan wrote for Parade magazine, the one that comes with your Sunday paper. In it he wrote that in medieval times people feared demons coming at night, paralyzing them, and transporting them out of their beds for unspeakable abominations. Now that we have 'aliens', people imagine them coming in the middle of the night, paralyzing them, and transporting them out of their beds to the alien ships for unspeakable abominations. Might there be a connection here?

You've been around long enough to recognize there are precious few creationist arguments, and none of them are really new.

Thanks for your comments.