mtDNA

[Guest]

hey !! heres a thought !! get the Irish guy on your side by complimenting him why dontcha !

Let me point this out.

Your first post to me was one of hostility. Since then you have made no contribution except to insult me or question my abilities. It seems you have an axe to grind and do not wish to discuss anything in a reasonable manner. Thats ok, it obviously makes you feel better to put me down.

Your car analogy sucks btw. Just thought Id point that out.

Divide and conquer is sneaky, but worth a shot.

Sorry about my strident tone.

The car analogy sucks? "Sucks?

[MM6]

I wish you the very best of luck on your "divide and conquer" tactic between myself and the Irish guy.

[Guest]

I wish you the very best of luck on the divide and conquer tactic between myself and the Irish guy.

I was taking the piss with that line. I have no desire to divide and conquer anyone in an internet forum.

Seriously speaking, can you please enlighten me on the defects with the car analogy? I gave it some thought but will humbly admit if it has some terminal defect as an analogy useful to consider even if ultimately to reject.

[MM6]

Your car analogy has been used many times by ID proponents - indeed Im surprised you'd let yourself fall into the trap of purporting to have thought it all up by yourself

"One of the most egregious examples of weak ID inductions masquerading as reason is the argument from analogy used in an attempt to establish the validity of a “design” inference. Biological systems and structures are routinely compared to casually recognized artifacts from the broad scope of human activity"

http://www.csicop.org/intelligentdesignwatch/analogy.html

or perhaps youd like to read this discussion:

http://boards.historychannel.com/thread.jspa?threadID=600025226&messageID=600449955

[Guest]

Your car analogy has been used many times by ID proponents - indeed Im surprised you'd let yourself fall into the trap of purporting to have thought it all up by yourself

"One of the most egregious examples of weak ID inductions masquerading as reason is the argument from analogy used in an attempt to establish the validity of a “design” inference. Biological systems and structures are routinely compared to casually recognized artifacts from the broad scope of human activity"

http://www.csicop.org/intelligentdesignwatch/analogy.html

or perhaps youd like to read this discussion:

http://boards.historychannel.com/thread.jspa?threadID=600025226&messageID=600449955

As I predicted, you cannot grapple with the analogy intellectually and have to dismiss it summarily.

I did think up that analogy on my own.

I am familiar with the mousetrap analogy used by Prof. Michael Behe, a tenured biochemistry professor at Lehigh University, to illustrate irreducible complexity. But you are too far above his pedestrian thinking to bother with such nonsense.

We apparently have nothing to debate or discuss.

Have a nice weekend.

[Guest]

loads of S*** dis all is, yous lots trying to use big words tp inpresss
ya all looks silly!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
middle class pffff come live in da getto,u soon realise how ficling gay u is!

[Guest]

Your car analogy has been used many times by ID proponents - indeed Im surprised you'd let yourself fall into the trap of purporting to have thought it all up by yourself

"One of the most egregious examples of weak ID inductions masquerading as reason is the argument from analogy used in an attempt to establish the validity of a “design” inference. Biological systems and structures are routinely compared to casually recognized artifacts from the broad scope of human activity"

http://www.csicop.org/intelligentdesignwatch/analogy.html

or perhaps youd like to read this discussion:

http://boards.historychannel.com/thread.jspa?threadID=600025226&messageID=600449955

As I predicted, you cannot grapple with the analogy intellectually and have to dismiss it summarily.

I did think up that analogy on my own.

I am familiar with the mousetrap analogy used by Prof. Michael Behe, a tenured biochemistry professor at Lehigh University, to illustrate irreducible complexity. But you are too far above his pedestrian thinking to bother with such nonsense.

We apparently have nothing to debate or discuss.

Have a nice weekend.

Your analogy is borrowed from work freely available on the web which I have quoted. So far you have made no contribution to this "discussion" except a borrowed analogy.

You do not offer any insight into this subject or attempt any expanation of your thought processes.

You have failed to engage in any kind of discussion on any of the points that myself or OIR have made.

Instead you you have made an overt attempt to goad me, questioning my intellect whilst failing miserably to show any spark of your own. One would almost think you had no interest here other than to bring this "exchange" down to a series of personal tirades against me.

As for your quoting of Behe.

Behe's theory of irreducible complexity has been around for 10 years - there is nothing new or startling in your revelation that you are familiar with his moustrap analogy.

Behe is an ID proponent. There is nothing new or novel in an anti-evolutionist pointing to a complex or intricate natural structure, and professing skepticism that it could have been produced by the "random" processes of mutation and natural selection.

Intelligent design is not science. It invokes a supernatural, not a natural force. It’s that simple.

I shall now bow out of this "discussion" as there is plainly an ulterior motive to your posts. There is certainly no intellectual basis to them.

Indeed one might almost think you were a naive first timer.

[MM6]

Your car analogy has been used many times by ID proponents - indeed Im surprised you'd let yourself fall into the trap of purporting to have thought it all up by yourself

"One of the most egregious examples of weak ID inductions masquerading as reason is the argument from analogy used in an attempt to establish the validity of a “design” inference. Biological systems and structures are routinely compared to casually recognized artifacts from the broad scope of human activity"

http://www.csicop.org/intelligentdesignwatch/analogy.html

or perhaps youd like to read this discussion:

http://boards.historychannel.com/thread.jspa?threadID=600025226&messageID=600449955

As I predicted, you cannot grapple with the analogy intellectually and have to dismiss it summarily.

I did think up that analogy on my own.

I am familiar with the mousetrap analogy used by Prof. Michael Behe, a tenured biochemistry professor at Lehigh University, to illustrate irreducible complexity. But you are too far above his pedestrian thinking to bother with such nonsense.

We apparently have nothing to debate or discuss.

Have a nice weekend.

Your analogy is borrowed from work freely available on the web which I have quoted. So far you have made no contribution to this "discussion" except a borrowed analogy.

You do not offer any insight into this subject or attempt any expanation of your thought processes.

You have failed to engage in any kind of discussion on any of the points that myself or OIR have made.

Instead you you have made an overt attempt to goad me, questioning my intellect whilst failing miserably to show any spark of your own. One would almost think you had no interest here other than to bring this "exchange" down to a series of personal tirades against me.

As for your quoting of Behe.

Behe's theory of irreducible complexity has been around for 10 years - there is nothing new or startling in your revelation that you are familiar with his moustrap analogy.

Behe is an ID proponent. There is nothing new or novel in an anti-evolutionist pointing to a complex or intricate natural structure, and professing skepticism that it could have been produced by the "random" processes of mutation and natural selection.

Intelligent design is not science. It invokes a supernatural, not a natural force. It’s that simple.

I shall now bow out of this "discussion" as there is plainly an ulterior motive to your posts. There is certainly no intellectual basis to them.

>edit< lon99

[Guest]

hey this is good id love to be able to talk like that
will you teach me?

[one_irish_rover]

Your car analogy has been used many times by ID proponents - indeed Im surprised you'd let yourself fall into the trap of purporting to have thought it all up by yourself

"One of the most egregious examples of weak ID inductions masquerading as reason is the argument from analogy used in an attempt to establish the validity of a “design” inference. Biological systems and structures are routinely compared to casually recognized artifacts from the broad scope of human activity"

http://www.csicop.org/intelligentdesignwatch/analogy.html

or perhaps youd like to read this discussion:

http://boards.historychannel.com/thread.jspa?threadID=600025226&messageID=600449955

As I predicted, you cannot grapple with the analogy intellectually and have to dismiss it summarily.

I did think up that analogy on my own.

I am familiar with the mousetrap analogy used by Prof. Michael Behe, a tenured biochemistry professor at Lehigh University, to illustrate irreducible complexity. But you are too far above his pedestrian thinking to bother with such nonsense.

We apparently have nothing to debate or discuss.

Have a nice weekend.

No, you did not think up that analogy on your own. Paley popularized the watch/watchmaker analogy two hundred years ago. It was intellectually permissible then, but now, after hundreds of years and mountains of convergent evidence - from anthropology, astronomy, cosmology, biochemistry, development, evolution, geology, thermodynamics - supporting evolution of complex systems - only an ignorant fool would buy into that analogy. Thousands of intellectuals since Paley have destroyed that argument, and nearly every scientist walking the earth today could tell you why the irreducible complexity argument is complete hogwash.

So you changed the analogy from a watch or mousetrap to a car - that's your idea of original thought? You should try to get that published. How about an electric tin opener, a jet, a camera...look how mindwarpingly original my thought is there. I just did what you did. Look, mostirreverent put it most succintly and accurately - "things are not random. there are the pressures of the natural laws that force form. and in the case of the car, and forgetting the plastics for a moment, most of it is crystalline, and relatively static as opposed to the intertwining notion and motion of biomolecules."

a watch, a car, a camera - those are obviously human-engineered objects - they're mechanical and solid state devices. Any dodo brain would conceed that they are designed. So why weren't there loads of mechanical devices all over Earth before the appearance of human? why didn't your intelligent designer design these sorts of things? well, I'm sure you could make up some reason, like maybe he wanted to let humans do it. Engineered devices such as these are not subject to natural selection and other evolutionary mechanisms, or any other laws that allow increased complexity in natural systems - because they are static at best, and will degrade over time, losing information/complexity - they are horrible analogies.

Physical systems (planets, solar systems, tornados) form, and increase in complexity, through natural laws, such as gravitation and nonequilibrium thermodynamics. Biological systems form and evolve in complexity as per the same laws along with addition/natural formation of self-replicating polymers and high-fidelity information storage molecules (eg RNA, DNA) upon which mutations and evolutionary mechanisms (eg natural selection) can act. Dissipative structures, dynamical systems, etc. Now if you don't know what I'm talking about then please, read up, as I said, it is too much to lay out here in any detail. I am convinced that you will see the foolishness of your arguments. (I hope - you didn't seem to understand my probability explanation against an infinitely complex creator of the universe, although I laid it out as simply and clearly as possible)

And yes, this is a pedestrian argument. This argument and other creationist/ID arguments like it should be long been dead - MM6 and I have given you plenty of links to read up and educate yourself - unless you want to be a Behe and ignore evidence and logic, that's your affair.

[DirectRabbit]

I am way out of my depth on the science and the quotations on this thread, but I do find it interesting, and I find as always that the proponents of science above all else don't address two obvious issues (although these old chestnuts have perhaps not yet been raised here amid all the arguing!!! LOL):

1. Where does the line lay between natural and supernatural? Is any phenomenon that is observable actually "above nature" or is it simply that it is natural, but we don't have the tools or maybe even the inherent abilities to carry out the right kinds of tests, beyond casual observation. To use an example from my world, when I interview people for jobs, I used to carry out a scorecard "scientific" process to gauge their suitability for the role. I often got it wrong. Latterly I ignored the process and followed my intuition, and invariably got it right! Intuition, ESP, telepathy, call it what you will, is something that cannot be objectively tested or measured by scientists, yet most people acknowledge its existence and efficacy. It is the indefinable something that links you to another person, and enables you to know them quite deeply on a limited acquaintance, beyond rationality.

Likewise so called ghost or psychic phenomena. There is too much evidence for there not to be "something there", but what it is and how to measure it (beyond very basic measures of temperature or EM fields) has eluded scientists so far.

2. and it is linked to 1. Things which used to be considered supernatural are now parts of conventional science. Science is always on the brink of discovery. My knowledge of sub-atomic particle theory is about on a par with my knowledge of Mandarin Chinese, but I have seen TV programmes which informed me that certain particles which were considered pure invention in the past have become scientific fact more recently. Similarly in all fields, from astronomy to medicine... This suggests, by logical deduction, that things which are presently considered outside science will ultimately be capable of explanation/measurement etc.


Therefore, I tend to maintain healthy cynicism, but keep an open mind...

[mostirreverent]

Well science finding particles that were only theory was more like finding the hypotenuse after having found the other two sides and theorizing about the it. The two sides helped define the theory of the triangle and the fitting and finding of the hypotenuse solidified the theory.

I don’t buy the whole ghost thing. There is nothing to suggest that it would be true. And NO, people are the last ones if would trust. Show me the two sides to the ghost first.

[WiredCoffeeJunkie]

Current thinking is that particles don't exist at all, but are probably usually there if you're not looking for them.

The point is that science continues to redefine reality based on our best guesses about observed facts. Shutting your eyes and hoping for a God won't make him appear. In fact all the evidence points to God not wanting to be found at all. Why not take a hint from that?

[DirectRabbit]

Well science finding particles that were only theory was more like finding the hypotenuse after having found the other two sides and theorizing about the it. The two sides helped define the theory of the triangle and the fitting and finding of the hypotenuse solidified the theory.

I don’t buy the whole ghost thing. There is nothing to suggest that it would be true. And NO, people are the last ones if would trust. Show me the two sides to the ghost first.

I find the whole ghost thing utterly fascinating, but I'm not sure where it fits in. I am unusually sensitive (I have discovered) to people's personalities. I understand people and what makes them tick, and I do it instinctively when I first meet them - I am very rarely, if ever, wrong. There is no scientific way of defining or measuring that, so what is it? What is instinct? Am I responding to some as yet undiscovered energy people give off. Maybe, in true Bene Gesserit fashion, I am simply extremely but unconsciously observant of people and read things about them in their body language, but I don't feel it's that easy. I'm an extremely good fuck because I am so empathic (yes, I had to get it in or I wouldn't be DR), but what is empathy? I can feel other peoples' feelings and emotions, physical and mental.

It is a fact that I have proven time and again with results, so it cannot be gainsaid.

Similarly I get feelings about places, and usually find out if I don't like a place that something negative, like a suffering death or violent activity has taken place there. I know (and trust) people who have witnessed poltergeist activity, and that is documented very widely, though never fully explained.

My uninformed belief is that there is a level of energy in the universe which we haven't yet understood, and that is behind all these so-called supernatural phenomena - as I said before, just because we haven't discovered it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It's a bit like extra-terrestrial intelligence, but that's another debate I have firm views on.

I'm not sure whether these things are the spirits of dead people or not. I think here it begins to test credulity. I do believe we exude an energy in our lives that affects others... that is pretty obvious when you think about it (I have a visual model of this in my head, but that's for another day)... but why should that energy cease to exist when we do? In fact, if it follows the principle of conservation of energy, as I imperfectly understand it, it HAS to remain in existence, in some form or another.

This is what spiritualists call residual energy, and seems to me scientifically logical (though I'm sure the scientists here will contest that).

The concept of dead people actually being able to interact with the living is a stretching things a little further. The only thing I can say on that one is that I have witnessed (first hand, not on TV, where who knows what plants may be in the audience) mediums working, and, from what was originally a position of utter cynicism, I have seen and heard some pretty inexplicable stuff, which makes you an awful lot less cynical.

I suppose my bottom line is, just because we can't explain it or conventionally sense it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. When a tree falls in a forest yadda yadda yadda

[DirectRabbit]

Current thinking is that particles don't exist at all, but are probably usually there if you're not looking for them.

Bit like girlfriends...