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Junior Member (Idle past 1330 days) Posts: 18 From: Pittsburgh Joined: |
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Author | Topic: Biased accounts of intelligent design | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
When the preponderance of evidence shows that known natural processes are fully capable of producing a certain result, that means that we don't need to add a supernatural process to explain it. But if the "evidence" is just an imaginative reconstruction then you don't have a preponderance of evidence.
For instance when we look at dog breeds and see variations in bone lengths, variations in skull sizes and shapes, we see that mutation and selection are fully capable of producing these results. You see no such thing. You see some of the range of variation built into the dog genome, period. You assume the "mutation and selection" formula, for which there is no evidence.
When we look at the differences in chimpanzee to human bone lengths and skull sizes and shapes we see that these differences are less than those observed in dog breeds. The preponderance of evidence shows that natural processes of mutation and selection are therefore fully capable of producing these results and we don't need to add a supernatural process to explain it. First, nobody is talking about a supernatural process here, but all you have is two different species, chimp and human and no evidence whatever of relatedness between them. You don't have evidence of mutation and selection either, you simply assume that as well. All this is imagination and nothing else.
Meanwhile you have never proved evolution is not possible, in spite of what you think. A fair assessment of what I say above should at least suggest that you haven't proved it possible since you are referring to pure hypotheticals and not to actual evidence at all.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Faith writes: There is no way to prove such a thing one way or the other; And science never does prove results (you should now this by now), just provides the best explanations for the observed evidence with known natural processes: what the preponderance of evidence shows. This explanation is subject to change when new information challenges the explanation (relativity vs Newton's gravity and the orbit of Mercury for example). I don't know how you talk yourself into such a piece of hifalutin verbal puff.
... it's a subjective judgment. No, it is an informed tentative conclusion based on the preponderance of evidence and the known natural processes. When we are dealing with subjective opinions, they can be as varied as the people with them, but when informed people reach the same tentative conclusion then they are basing it on the known evidence and the known natural processes. I'd laugh but that wouldn't be polite. Adherents to a shared delusion will come to the same conclusions too. Once you've got the idea that all these different designs from all over the taxonomic tree suggest a sequence of development all adherents to the theory/delusion will come up with the same explanation that therefore evolution from one to the next is possible. Based on nothing but an imaginative interpretation of the different designs as stages in development rather than different designs. Nobody has ever seen such a thing as a supposed stage developing into another stage, it's all mental "evidence," not real.
We know that mutations occur -- they are observed -- so the existence of mutations is FACT. Most indubitably. But beyond that all you've got is fanciful ideas about what mutations do.
We know that selection occurs -- it has been observed -- so the existence of selection as a process is FACT. No problem with that one either.
... All sorts of such sequences have been invented to explain how, say, the eye could have evolved, although the different eyes in the sequence come from all over the taxonomic tree in no particular relation to each other. Just the fact that you can imagine a sequence out of them is enough to persuade some despite the complete lack of any evidence that an evolutionary track from one to another ever happened. Well I have discussed the eye design on Message 4 of the Silly Design thread ... but to put it in perspective here to answer your question, what we have is a preponderance of evidence from different eyes of different stages/levels in development, each one fully functional for the critter involved, that show modification of existing parts from one stage to the next, No you do not know that these different designs are stages in development, or that they show modification of any sort at all -- the ONLY evidence you have is of all these DIFFERENT eye types that are FULLY FUNCTIONAL for the creature that possesses them: all the rest is sheer imaginative puff.
... modifications that we know can occur through mutation and selection.... You KNOW no such thing, you suppose it, you imagine it, you assume it, you do not KNOW it and you haven't a shred of evidence for it.
What we also have is nested hierarchies of different eye bearing species that show hereditary processes: all mammals have eyes with a fixed shape of the eyeball, a cornea that can be changed by muscles to focus on a retina with the optical nerve in front of the retina and causing a blind spot. all cephalopods have eyes with fixed cornea and flexible eyeballs that can be changed by muscles to focus on the retina with the optical nerve behind the retina, so no blind spot. What these two examples show is that the location of the optical nerve is arbitrary, one side or the other, andonce selected it becomes the location for all descendants. This is not design but happenstance. Design, imho, would mean that one system could be added to the other, creating an eye with zoom focus ability like zoom binoculars and zoom cameras (known design viewing systems). Human designers commonly add elements from one design to another. This has never been observed in species, as they are all confined in nested hierarchies without any traits shared across branches. Traits crossing branches to mix with different branches of species would invalidate evolution. This is what should be expected from design. This has not occurred. Everything you just wrote is sheer conjecture, not one word of actual fact in support of the conjecture.
But have you in fact "explained" the appearance of design by these {informed by evidence and known processes} purely imagined sequences of natural processes? Is this science? Really? Fixed it for you ... PLEASE DO NOT EVER PRESUME TO "FIX" ANYTHING I OR ANYONE ELSE WRITES. THERE IS ENOUGH CONFUSION AND MISUNDERSTANDING HERE WITHOUT INVENTING MORE.
...your reference to "purely imagined sequences" is just an argument from incredulity rather than a refutation actually showing they could not occur. THEY ARE IN ACTUAL FACT PURELY IMAGINARY SEQUENCES THAT THEREFORE HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO SCIENTIFIC STANDING AS SUCH. I DON'T HAVE TO SHOW THEY "COULD NOT OCCUR," THE FACT THAT THEY ARE PURE MENTAL CONSTRUCTIONS IS ENOUGH TO SHOW THEY HAVE NO SCIENTIFIC STANDING WHATEVER. THEY HAVE NO ACTUAL GENETIC RELATIONSHIP WHATEVER, AND NOBODY HAS EVER DEMONSTRATED THAT ONE COULD EVOLVE INTO ANOTHER EVER. YOU HAVE NOTHING BUT IMAGINATIVE PUFF.
Such arguments are not scientific or informed. Interestingly it is what you have done repeatedly without regard for the preponderance of contrary evidence and in violation of numerous known natural processes. Again, when the preponderance of evidence shows that known natural processes are fully capable of producing a certain result, that means that we don't need to add any supernatural process/es to explain it. And you have no idea what a bunch of hot air that is and nothing else.\ Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Yeah I probably got it all wrong. It was some kind of creature with a rotating flagellum, maybe not even an insect, maybe a bacterium? Something Behe talked about anyway. I remember the drawing looking like a bug. What I recall is that it was claimed that since other varieties of the same creature had some of the parts though not the whole rotating apparatus that this was evidence that the rotating apparatus had evolved through all those other types now dubbed "stages," despite the fact that the other varieties had no known genetic relation to the one with the rotating flagellum.
ABE: Yeah it's a bacterium, sorry. Here's a few seconds of a video demonstrating how it works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEVq7jCT4kw Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
The genes specific to Great Danes and Bulldogs and Dachshunds do not exist in wild wolves or in other breeds. They would definitely NOT exist in other breeds because the whole method of getting a breed is the ELIMINATION of the genetic material for other breeds. As for their existence in wild wolves what do you thihnk you are looking at? Today's wolves can't be the ancestor of all dogs because they'd already have lost all the genetic material for all those breeds down the millennia. The current wolf is not the ancestor of all dogs. Only the original wolf would have all the genetic material for all the breeds and today's wolf would have lost it, making today's wolf just a breed like all the others.
They are the product of accumulated mutations in each breed, selected over the years by people. Pure assumption based on the false statement above; not a shred of evidence. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Yes I know that was your point but it's just a false assumption that there should be a greater difference between chimp and human bones. Why should there be?
Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Wow whqat a lot of mere assertion masquerading as science and you accuse ME of that.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Diseases and death are the result of the Fall, not the original Creation.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
God's mercy has given us many ways to cure diseases despite our sins. He even sent Jesus to give us eternal life. But we still die on on our way there, and we still have plenty of diseases we can't cure.
ABE: Oh and disease and death took a long time to kick in after the Fall, it was a gradually accumulating thing. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
So I read through the Wikipedia article on specified complexity and of course probably don't really understand it, so I have some questions I may not even be able to ask clearly, which will of course defeat any attempt to enter the discussion at all, but anyway...
All those mathematical calculations: what exactly is being calculated: something like the number of trials it would take for the natural processes to generate, say, that amazing e coli flagellum? The flagellum being one example of "specified complexity" or do I have that wrong? I did try to get how those terms are used but... So if it's about number of trials are we talking about mutations adding information to get from some unspecified biological formation to the rotary flagellum? Am I anywhere in the ballpark? I always imagine a whole series of completely useless trials between one and another biological formation along any supposed evolutionary track, such as between the reptilian ear and the mammalian ear that supposedly evolved from it, and I don't know if this is part of the calculations or not. I'm supposing the mathematical calculations shown in that article about specific complexity are the same sort of calculations that would be used to determine how many trials it would take to get from the reptilian to the mammalian ear? This raises questions of just what stages one should have in mind between the one and the other, if they are simply random or follow some kind of rational process? And how the latter kind of process might be justified by any known genetic principles? (why wouldn't you get part of the structure of the inner ear of the reptile showing up on the tail of the reptile as one of the "stages" to the structure of the mammalian ear?)_ Is there some formula for determining how many stages such an evolutionary process would have to go through? And of course I'm convinced that for any kind of evolution to occur you have to lose genetic complexity from the genome of the creature that is evolving. I "know" that mutations can't possibly save this inevitable consequence of the processes of evolution but I can't prove it. But there, I said it anyway. Cheers. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
The process we envisage is one in which most or all of the steps are functional and confer a selective advantage. I have a long list of things I wish for too, that are never going to happen. In other words what you envisage doesn't have any rational or biological justification, it's just wishfulness reified. Of course it would be nice if all the steps were functional but since you must have mutations in mind, what genetic principle makes such functionality even a remote possibility, certainly for "most or all" of the steps. Even one such step would be hard to justify. And then not only are the functional but they "confer selective advantage?" And you don't think the ToE is a monumental fantasy?
Neutral or slightly disadvantageous steps are possible (and observed) steps don't necessarily halt the process because unlikely things happen all the time. Some kind of calculations of the mathematical probabilities ought to show this is just plain impossible.
Pallen and Matzke wrote a well-known paper on how the flagellum could have arisen from existing functional elements. I'm pretty sure I saw an outline of that reasoning somewhere some time ago. That's where known structures are put in a sequence to argue that evolution from one to another is possible. Like all those various eye designs from all over the taxonomic tree are arbitrarily placed according to some judgment of their fitting as developmental stages from a simple kind of eye to the most complex. ABE: So we should scrap all the mathematical attempts? That's fine with me, they seem impossible anyway. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
I'm glad you say the calculations are BS because nobody knows the numbers needed." That's how it hit me too but since I'm no mathematician there's no point in my saying it.
But I think I DO "have a clue what steps [you] envisage." They have to involve mutations, right? In which case any claims of getting functional advantageous steps don't fit with any biological/genetic principles I've ever heard of. But of course perhaps you can enlighten me. I do suspect that if you spelled out those "logical and scientific reasons for each proposed step" in one of those sequences that are envisaged to show how developmental stages can be constructed from wildly unrelated biological systems, they WOULD be arbitrary. What else could they be? You are depending on your imagination to define how some very complicated structures must fit together. You're bound to leave out a lot of elements if nothing else, but just the procedure itself is whimsical. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
I'd say that's a one in a million or zillion pleasant outcome, and of course I'd doubt it was a mutation, but more likely a beneficial combination of existing genetic stuff that happened to come along.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Not sure examining the DNA is always reliable for determining whether a given allele or combination is a mutation or not.
Also I did answer the question: "I'd say that's a one in a million or zillion pleasant outcome...."
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