Is an Intelligent Designer Necessary?

Russell E. Rierson writes:

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It appears to be impossible to prove or disprove the existence of an ultimate "intelligent designer".

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The problem is that from a strictly evidentiary aspect where the designer remains unseen, it is impossible to falsify the claim.Every single result you get is compatible with the "god did it" claim.For example, all life on this planet seems to be based upon DNA. Can we infer design from this? No, not really because all life could conceivably be independent with no two species having the same chemical used for transfer of genotype from generation to generation and a designer would be just as justified.Therefore since both A and ~A are compatible with the claim of "god did it," then the fact that we have one does not actually tell us anything about the veracity of the claim.This is the source of the phrase, "A solution that explains everything actually explains nothing."Instead, we seek explanations that require the results that we see. The reason why the commonality of DNA in life is evidence of evolutionary processes is because evolution requires that to be the case. If life didn't share that commonality, if all life were unique, then we couldn't claim evolution.That doesn't mean "god did it." Just because evolutionary theory as we understand it isn't true doesn't mean that creationism gets the win.------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

Mike Doran writes:

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answer--yes, gaia is required

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Um, where is the evidence that this is a conscious process?Too, you made a bunch of unsupported and seemingly random comments.Where is your evidence that algae and fundi populations affect cloud formation?------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

Mike Doran responds to me:

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It is a distributed process

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Non sequitur.I didn't ask if it was alive.I asked if it were conscious. Fire often behaves like it were conscious and alive, but it isn't.------------------
Rrhain
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Mike Doran responds to me:

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Actually, fire on earth may be part of living processes.

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What it means is there is too much O2 and too little water to support the existing biosphere in a region.

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No, what it means is that a certain exothermic reaction is taking place. Unless you are saying that all chemistry is actually biochemistry, then fire is not conscious.

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The short answer is, however, that there is no chemical process on earth that isn't modulated by the living earth, to include burnings.

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You have confused the fact that the system of the earth exists and that the reactions that take place within that system are then used as reagents for some other chemical reaction with some sort of consciousness.Again, direct question: Are you saying that all chemistry is actually biochemistry?------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

Mike Doran responds to me:

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Self awareness is probably limited to humans . . . and arguably a few primates.

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You've never had a pet, have you?At one point, my parents had a dog and a cat. The cat was not fond of the dog while the dog continually tried to play with the cat. The arrangement of the house had it such that there was a peninsula separating the kitchen from the dinette and above the dinette was the dining room. The phone was at the wall end of the peninsula while the dog's dish was just inside the kitchen past the entrance between the kitchen and dinette (with the entrance from the dinette to the dining room right next to that).I was on the phone and the dog was at her dish, eating. The cat came into the dinette from the family room, being very careful to keep well back towards the wall so that the dog would not see her. She crept along the peninsula, right behind the dog, paused to get ready, and then swatted the dog on the rear and took off through the dining room, disappearing. The dog spun around and saw only me with a look on her face of, "What'd you do that for?" I simply said, "It wasn't me...it's was the cat," and the dog took off looking for her.There are plenty of animals that are self-aware. Oh, I agree that being alive does not equate to consciousness. Some things have a greater sense of self than others. But your assertion is that the earth seems to be one of those things that is conscious.And you haven't answered my question:Are you saying that all chemistry is actually biochemistry?

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And because of Gaia's early cirrus cloud nucleotide sorting

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This is gibberish. Do you have something concrete to discuss? Perhaps a journal article?------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

Mike Doran responds to me:

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I am answering it before your eyes, and you are corresponding with someone who will be remembered hundreds of years, perhaps, after my death, becuase of it. Kindof cool, eh?

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No, you aren't the first person I've met that has a god complex.The thing is, I've actually met people who have made the most astounding breakthroughs in their field. None of them behave as you do.------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

Mike Doran responds to me:

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It would appear you project a little.

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And it is clear you project a lot. I wasn't the one claiming that the entire world would bow down before me. That would be you.

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I am not making the comment for the reasons you think, just making an honest observation.

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Then publish.There's a Nobel Prize waiting for you if you can justify your claims. What on earth are you doing wasting your time on a podunk Internet BBS when you could be getting your theory on the cover of Nature and Science in a special double-publication?

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but at this point I am trying to find publication.

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So do it already. All the journals have processes for submission. What do you need us for?

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BTW, do you know what a dielectric is?

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Yes. I took physics.

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I could explain more, but you are too skeptical of God to listen.

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Ah, see, now I know you'll never get published and that your "discovery" is all in your head. You see, someone who has truly found something and wants to share it with the world doesn't mind having to take the time to show others. He doesn't denigrate them as beneath him. Your attitude will not help you make it past peer review. Your authors are going to want to know every tiny detail about your work and you had better come up with a justification for it other than, "I don't have time to waste on your puny intellect."Why are you scared to teach me?Oh, and if you can't get published, prove everybody wrong and come up with a practical application. If it were truly the case that somebody had found a way to make a car run on old banana peels and coffee grounds, then all the oil companies in the world couldn't stand in his way. It would truly be a revolution that nobody could deny.------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

Mike Doran responds to me:

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I have not said that the entire world would bow down before me.

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Oh, don't be so naive. You're absolutely right that the words "bown down before me" did not escape your fingers. But here's what you said: Are you seriously trying to tell us that you weren't saying that you were going to change the dominant paradigm? That your work would be so important for so many?Come on. Don't be disingenuous.

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For instance, I was able to predict the tropical storm that hit the Carolinas--in April of this year.

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Then why didn't you warn anybody?

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What I look for on general topic bbs like this is someone who is thinking about the same general ideas as I am--to find a collaborater.

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You've written a thousand pages and you need a collaborator?

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So really if you have some pull toward finding publication, by all means let's have at it.

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I'm not the one trying to get published. Have you considered writing to the journals and simply asking them for their criteria?If you really have such earth-shattering information, then stop holding it back and publish, for crying out loud!See, I had the great fortune or misfortune, depending upon how you look at it, of studying mathematics with a bona fide genius. When you were looking for assistance on your research, he would often have already written a paper on it...which he hadn't published. There are quite a lot of people who jokingly say that they want to be there when he dies...so that they can raid his filing cabinets and finally get all this stuff he's hoarding published.But here's the thing: He doesn't pretend to be god's gift to mathematics. He simply does his work as he is more interested in the work than in anything else.------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

Mike Doran responds to me:

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BTW, I talked about my forecast at TWC and started quite a firestorm there when it came true. It created so much controversy they booted me.

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Why don't I believe that? Why do I think that whether or not you got booted from The Weather Channel, it had absolutely nothing to do with the accuracy of your prediction?

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Questions?

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Yes. Just how much grasping at straws are you going to do?You are, indeed, correct that there are electrical differences between the atmosphere and the surface. There's a reason that there are a hundred strokes of lightning every second.But you are taking every tiny thing that could even remotely be described as electrical and attempting to claim it has cosmic significance.Have you considered the possibility that your limited exposure to the fields of meteorology, physics, and fluid dynamics might be affecting your ability to synthesize your claim? Is there no college or university nearby that you can attend to gain more experience?It's hard to know where to begin with your claim precisely because you are bouncing from one concept to the next, not sticking around long enough to develop the significance of any. It is not enough to merely recognize that the ocean, being saltwater, has ions in it. You have to explain how your process happens. Why does the ocean become negative? Why the ionosphere positive? Lightning strikes go both ways, after all.------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

Mike Doran responds to me:

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But you are taking every tiny thing that could even remotely be described as electrical and attempting to claim it has cosmic significance.

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Initially, nucleotide parasols probably had no influence on cloud formations below them. Nucleotides carry a negative ion value. That means, at a minimum, by shape, weight, size and CHARGE, cirrus clouds would BAND and tend to be SORTED.

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Define "sorted."And then you need to explain how the miniscule amount of charge on a nucleotide could have an effect upon some as large and amorphous as a cloud. You're simply throwing out terms and claiming that things happen with absolutely no explanation as to how.You need a specific mechanism.

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Have you considered the possibility that your limited exposure to the fields of meteorology, physics, and fluid dynamics might be affecting your ability to synthesize your claim?

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Don't be skeptical of me. Ignore me.

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Why? That isn't how science works. Science works not by ignoring data but by being skeptical of it. Anybody can say anything they want, but we need to examine their claims in detail before we can possibly come to understand what they are saying and agree that it is an accurate description of what is going on.Stop with the martyr complex.

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I am simply trying to teach you an idea

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No, you're not. You're trying to intimidate me into submission.

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I have more than enough background to know material.

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Then publish already! Stop wasting your time here and publish. Yeah, yeah...you're looking for a collaborator. What on earth do you need one for? Write to the journals, ask for their submission criteria, explain to them that you might need some assistance, and ask for their help. Surely there's an educational institution closer to you than the internet that would be able to assist you. Go to the library, read the journal articles that are connected to your field, and write to the authors with your ideas.

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The ionosphere is negative, couples in a capacitive way through the eye to the ocean surface, which then attracts positive ions. Then, in the ocean around the eye, the ocean becomes relatively positive.

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That doesn't answer the question. How does the ionosphere manage to affect the ocean from 75 km above? And why doesn't this happen constantly throughout the system?

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There are no strikes in a tropical storm.

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You're misunderstanding. I'm asking why the system only works in a single direction. Electricity goes both ways. Now, the ionosphere is generally filled with positive ions (the E-region is primarily O2+, the F-region is NO+ and O2+, and Topside you start seeing H+ and He+).So explain to me how something at the outer reaches of the atmosphere is coupled to the ocean.

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I am explaining to you why.

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No, you're just asserting. You need to explain the mechanism in detail.------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

Mike Doran responds to me:

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The coupling I discuss here is not directly pressures, not heat, not winds,not water/clouds content, but electrical--which then includes all these factors in storm behaviors.

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But that doesn't answer the question. How does the ionosphere manage to affect the ocean from 75 km above? And why doesn't this happen constantly throughout the system?You are simply asserting. Great...so you think it is electrical in nature, but you need to tell us how. How does the electrical field of the ionosphere manage to affect the ocean from such a great distance away and through the neutral atmosphere between the ionosphere and ocean which would act as an insulator?I do not deny the existence of a global electrical circuit. The mere existence of lightning shows it to exist. The question put to you is how your model tells us anything we don't already know.

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There is a device in electronics called a capacitor.

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Yes, I know what a capacitor is.You need to show how the system is accurately described like a capacitor. Mere assertion isn't sufficient. Merely noticing that there are some similarities isn't sufficient. You need to show that it is actually working as one and provide the mechanism.

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Rarely seen lightning fields and purple sprites were detected in the eye of the hurricane by the ER-2 pilot as he flew more than 19.8 km (65,000 ft) above the Atlantic."

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You do realize that you just contradicted yourself, yes? You claimed previously that there is no lighting in the eye of a hurricane and yet here we are detecting what you claim doesn't happen.And if you're looking for a collaborator, why don't you contact the people in this report? They seem to be working right up your alley: Go talk to them for advice.

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Do any of you recall my posting the NASA link on an algae bloom off the French coast?

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Is it possible you have the direction backwards? That it wasn't the algae bloom causing the heat but rather the heat resulted in the algae bloom?Oh, and I don't deny that there is probably a feedback loop involved, at least to some extent, but you need to do more to show your model is accurate rather than nothing more than post hoc musings.------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

Mike Doran responds to me:

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Define "sorted."

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In the above post, I described the "handedness" problem.

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We're talking about electrical charge, not isomers. Isomers are electrostatically identical.

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The example, from which there are many, is that there is handedness to the nucleotides when in fact the Miller experiments produced nucleotides without handedness.

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Irrelevant. We're still talking about electric charge, not isomers. How did the electric charge get sorted?

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Therefore, in the process of going from a "dust" to a a band of cirrus

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Um, the large-scale structure of anything that could reasonably be called "dust" would have very little to do with the isomers and everything to do with the crystallization properties.And at any rate, you've changed the subject yet again. We're talking about electrical charges.

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CHARGE (how it spins in DIRECTION relative to a transient field matters in its induced charge orientation

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No, it's the other way around. How it spins in a direction relative to a transient field depends upon the transient field. And a polar molecule isn't electrostatically induced. It's an inherent part of the molecule due to the geometric construction of its chemical bonds.

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you have shown a mechanism by which a sorting could occur, and because you have emperical evidence that in fact sorting DID occur,

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Incorrect.You have merely asserted it...and did so by simply ignoring that you were on one train of thought to jump to another, completely unrelated train.In the end, there is still no mechanism and no actual evidence that what you claim exists actually does.

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For instance, there is the field of biology a growing agreement that there are nucleotides that are "junk".

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Um, evidence?Surely you aren't confusing what is called "'junk' DNA" with the nucleotides that make it up, are you? And while you're at it, you are equivocating on the word "junk." Biologists don't use it the way the average person uses it.

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"And then you need to explain how the miniscule amount of charge on a nucleotide could have an effect upon some as large and amorphous as a cloud. You're simply throwing out terms and claiming that things happen with absolutely no explanation as to how."

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Early in precellular evolution that's all there would be as far as self replicating life, so there would be a lot of it, IMHO.

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That doesn't answer the question. You need to define "a lot." Why is it that a human being, which happens to have quite "a lot" of nucleotides doesn't appear to have any effect?You need to isolate your variables and control for them. You have done nothing of the sort. Heck, you haven't even defined your variables in the first place.Nothing but bluster. Where is the mechanism? Where are the specifics? Less poetry, more substance.------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

Mike Doran responds to me:

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What is discussed is a COUPLING.

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But you need to explain how and why they are coupled. You can't just claim that they are. The mere existence of two plates of opposite charge does not mean they form a capacitor. You need to show that they actually have an effect upon each other as is seen in capacitors.

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Look, it is going to be difficult to discuss this unless you are with the climatology.

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I know, but you haven't even begun to do that. You've simply tossed out terms thinking I won't understand them.

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Please read it.

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Where does it talk about electrical charge? It seems to be focused on temperature and humidity gradients. What on earth does this have to do with your claim?

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Read that paper, understand it, and then come back to papa and we can talk.

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Read as, "I don't understand what this paper means, but I have a hunch you don't, either, so my overinflated ego can be kept propped up for another day.""Come back to papa"?Now I know you don't know what you're talking about.------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

You're babbling, Mike.Where does the paper you're talking about mention electrical charge?Be specific.

You're still babbling, Mike.Where does the paper you're talking about (Does the Earth Have an Adaptive Infrared Iris?) mention electrical charge?Be specific.------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!