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Author Topic:   Is ID falsifiable by any kind of experiment?
dwise1
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Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 35 of 507 (900267)
10-26-2022 12:22 AM
Reply to: Message 34 by WookieeB
10-25-2022 8:48 PM


Re: ID About to Fail?
ringo writes:
Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. If you talk about probabilities, you need to provide numbers. Solid numbers.
But you don't, not always.
Numbers, not so much:
quote:
"Figures don't lie, but liars can figure."
"There are three kinds of lies: Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics."
I included that last to make a point. Statistics are data points, raw data devoid of meaning. Statistical analysis gives those data points meaning. Throw up big numbers and it sounds impressive and convincing, but provide some kind of context or analysis to show what those big numbers actually mean and suddenly they're not so impressive.
A prime example of this is Kent Hovind's "solar mass loss" claim (link is to my page on that claim at the top of which I present that "statistics" quote). Sun is losing 5 million tons of mass per second for about 5 billion (109) years amounts to a truly astronomical total amount of solar mass lost. Hovind just waves his hands to present a scenario of the ancient sun being immensely larger and so massive that it would have "sucked the earth in". But his entire claim is refuted by simply comparing the total mass lost to the sun's current mass: a few hundredths of one percent of the sun's total mass so the ancient sun would have been no larger than now (though the sun is slowing increasing in size) and so marginally more massive as to "suck the earth in" by less than 60,000 miles (every year, the earth is 3 million miles closer to the sun in the dead of winter than at the height of summer in the Northern Hemisphere). Kent Hovind went through extreme measures to avoid discussing his claim and I've seen him in subsequent presentations forbidding his audience to do the math or to listen to anybody who has done the math.
NOTE: the following is not an accusation, but rather an argument for the vital importance of establishing one's math model when calculating probabilities.
The same thing is done in probability arguments in which the numbers don't mean a thing until a proper math model is presented. At the very least, a math model must describe as accurately as possible the physical system that it's trying to describe. In physics, that can be very easy, but biology is far more complicated, messy, and wet than physics (hence the talk of biology suffering from "physics envy" because biological systems are much more difficult to model (but try to explain that to Kleinman) ).
Many models of highly complex systems require certain simplifying assumptions, such as replacing complex physical events (eg, the rolling of a die) with stochastic functions (eg, the probability of rolling a certain number). In some cases, this can be examined through an analogy. ringo's multiple references to "weasling" in his Message 31 seemed to invoke the WEASEL programs. Your apparent setting up an argument around randomly generating the alphabet (sorry, you seemed to engage in more hand-waving than actually presenting a model) only supported that.
When I first read Chapter Three, "Accumulating Small Changes", of Richard Dawkins' The Blind Watchmaker (1986) in which he reported on his first "WEASEL" program to generate a line of Shakespeare ("METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL"), I simply could not believe it. So, using his description of his program (he didn't provide a program listing) as a software specification, I wrote my own in my working language at the time, Pascal (I think he had done it in BASIC, an interpretive and hence slower language, on a Mac, but Pascal was complied and hence faster). I called mine MONKEY after Eddington's infinite monkeys (though that had nothing to do with evolution, but rather with the thermodynamics problem of the probability of all the gas molecules in a container all randomly moving to just one side of the container). Dawkins had left his program running over lunch, whereas my compiled MONKEY would succeed in less than a minute (within 30 seconds typically), each time, every time, without fail. Not being able to believe even my own results, I set out to analyze the probabilities involved. What I found was that, while the probability of progressing towards the target string was both improbable and became increasingly improbable the closer it got to the target string, the probability of every single attempt failing consistently every single time (ie, never ever succeeded, not ever once) became so virtually impossible as to make generating the target string inevitable.
I posted my files, including the source code of my program and my analysis of the probabilities, on CompuServe in 1990. Every single month thereafter (until about six years later when CompuServe finally severed all support for me through its anti-ASCII "improvements"), it was being downloaded. I openly requested any and all critiques of it and the only valid critique was that my Markov chains were off by one. The invalid ones argued against having MONKEY having a target string or against it being a direct model of evolution, both of which I addressed in my original posting (which included directly quoting Dawkins on those issues).
Most of the creationist/ID (same thing) "refutations" of WEASEL involve non-existent "locking rings" that were supposed to locking any successful letter -- that nonsense was invented either by Sobel or Dumbski, but they clearly do not exist. In a former collection of WEASEL programs, mine was included and labeled as being the most faithful one to the original (of which we still have no source code as far as I know). My own MONKEY was based on my software specification which I wrote based on Dawkins' description of his program. Nowhere in Dawkins' description did any kind of "locking rings" ever appear and hence they were not part of my own software spec. For that matter, I have always freely provided my source code (first the original Pascal, but now also in C), so if anyone would want to claim that the consistent and inevitable success of my MONKEY depends on "locking rings", then I ask only that they point that out in my source code. And if anyone would want to falsely claim that the executable is from other source code, then all they have to do is to compile it themselves and run it themselves.
 
Explicitly, my MONKEY page contains links to download files. My mathematical analysis of the probabilities involved is at MONKEY PROBABILITIES (MPROBS), directly available for download through my MONKEY page (exact-same link as above, but skeptics may follow both).
 
OK, arriving at probabilities through the proper math models. So what are the proper math models? That is the question that Kleinman seems incapable of understanding.
So, I would assume that the "model" you were trying to build up to is producing the alphabet in alphabetical order, which is what my MONKEY does.
You led with dice rolling. That is inherently stateless, not stateful. Inherently, subsequent rolls know nothing about the rolls before them. That's why you need cookies on the World Wide Web. Each and every web page rendering is stateless; it has no knowledge of what went before. So how can you go to Amazon and fill your shopping cart and check it out in the end? Cookies (or some similar mechanism to remember what you had entered in previous pages). Cookies can be abused, which is why you're told to guard against them, but at the same time you need (or needed) them to do any business online.
Typically (at least I've never seen any exception to this rule) creationists try to saddle evolution with single-step selection models. That is where you try to make an entire complex system all fall together in one single step. That seems to also be the typical saltationist creationist model of speciation in which an entire new species suddenly appears ("a snake lays an egg and a bird hatches" according to one clueless creationist) replete with entirely new complex features -- complete and utter nonsense that only a stupid lying creationist could ever seriously consider.
We can calculate the probability of the entire alphabet spontaneously falling together in alphabetical order in one single step: 1.6244×10-37. I posited a supercomputer that would make a million attempts every second. In order to arrive at a million-in-one chance of success would take about 195 trillion years -- nearly 10,000 times longer than the universe's estimated age of 20 billion years!
Of course, that model only describes creation ex nihilo, not evolution nor natural processes. That is why your model absolutely requires an external Creator. But your limitations are not ours.
Cumulative selection is based on evolutionary processes and so models those processes far better. It is stateful, always starting from the last position you had reached. Walking cross country, you cannot reliably arrive from NYC to Denver in one single very long step, yet after a series of shorter steps that led you to the vicinity of Denver, another short step to Denver is not unreasonable.
Clearly, a math model that depends on single step selection will very reliably fail while a model the depends on cumulative selection would almost be guaranteed to succeed. Clearly.
What is the probability of the synthesis of amino acids? Inevitable. What is the probability that amino acids will form protein-like structures (AKA proteinoids)? Inevitable. What is the probability that a number of those proteinoids would have autocatalytic properties? Inevitable.
 
So if your probability math model is going from nothing but basic chemicals to a complete unicellular life form in one single step (AKA "single-step selection"), then you can forget it since that model is doomed to failure.
But if the model is any kind of step-wise development of naturally occurring precursors eventually leading to a self-replicating structure of some kind (which will eventually lead to that complete unicellular life form) will follow the probability models of cumulative selection which is known to succeed.
So just what is your model? And why?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 34 by WookieeB, posted 10-25-2022 8:48 PM WookieeB has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 40 by WookieeB, posted 11-06-2022 1:32 AM dwise1 has not replied
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dwise1
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Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 48 of 507 (903140)
12-05-2022 3:08 AM
Reply to: Message 47 by WookieeB
12-05-2022 1:21 AM


Re: ID About to Fail?
Taq writes:
Why would evolution need a target? This highlights one of the flaws of ID thinking.
Perhaps you should ask that question of Richard Dawkins or dwise1. It is their model that uses a target.

I actually think that it cannot have a target. Didn’t you get that from me saying “ Cumulative selection could not have a target in mind”?
First, I noticed that you seemed to misunderstand a lot about MONKEY/WEASEL, including serious ones regarding single-step selection and cumulative selection. Unfortunately, I have many things to take care of and haven't had time to respond yet. Sorry
Obviously, evolution doesn't use targets, but then neither MONKEY nor WEASEL were ever intended to simulate evolution, as both Dawkins and I have explicitly stated, but rather they are abstractions intended to compare the performance of two different systems: single-step selection and cumulative selection.
In comparing those two systems, all selection criteria were kept the same, in this case having a target string. Therefore, the immense difference in the results are due to the characteristics of the selection method being used. Having a target in the abstraction for cumulative selection is not the reason for its incredible success, because the single-step experiment has the exact-same use of a target string to measure success. Isn't that the classic approach in experiments (and in troubleshooting)? Hold all variables the same except for the one that you are testing.
Evolution using cumulative selection "tests success" through differential reproduction in response to the environment. That is not trivial to model mathematically, as I pointed out in my page, MONKEY, which you claimed to have read. (so why did you miss that part?)
Here is what I wrote:
quote:
  • Objections have been raised about using a target string being a form of teleology; eg from an email I received:
    "Any complexity is provided by the experimenter. Dawkins' model with the weasel words is designed so that it will *always* hit the target. This is the equivalent of teleology, guided development, which means that either the organism itself or some outside controller 'knows' what it is planning to be."
    First and foremost, it must be remembered that the exact same selection criteria were used for single-step selection as were used for cumulative selection. MONKEY and WEASEL were controlled experiments for comparing the results generated by two different selection methods: single-step selection and cumulative selection. Standard procedure in controlled experiments is to perform the experiment twice while changing one and only one factor, the factor you are testing, and keeping everything else the same. Then, it is assumed, any differences observed are due to that factor.
    If this foreknowledge of the target, this "teleology", were the cause of MONKEY's success, then why doesn't single-step selection "*always* hit the target" as well, instead of missing it by light-years? Why is there so much difference between the results of the two selection methods? The reason is inherent in the selection methods themselves, as analyzed in MPROBS.DOC. The immense difference in results is due to the methods themselves.
    This objection also misses the point that selection happens. Whether performed/guided by an external intelligence or not, selection happens. Artificial selection is applied by humans trying to direct the changes in their domesticated crops and livestock. Darwin took that practice as an analogy for what nature was doing and called it "natural selection". The central theme of Dawkins' "Blind Watchmaker" was that natural selection is blind to the outcome. Dawkins has been criticized for having forgotten this in presenting his WEASEL, but in saying that his critics only demonstrate that they had not read what Dawkins had written:
    "Although the monkey/Shakespeare model is useful for explaining the distinction between single-step selection and cumulative selection, it is misleading in important ways. One of these is that, in each generation of selective 'breeding', the mutant 'progeny' phrases were judged according to the criterion of resemblance to a distant ideal target, the phrase METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL. Life isn't like that. Evolution has no long-term goal. There is no long-distance target, no final perfection to serve as a criterion for selection, although human vanity cherishes the absurd notion that our species is the final goal of evolution. In real life, the criterion for selection is always short-term, either simple survival or, more generally, reproductive success. If, after the aeons, what looks like progress towards some distant goal seems, with hindsight, to have been achieved, this is always an incidental consequence of many generations of short-term selection. The 'watchmaker' that is cumulative natural selection is blind to the future and has no long-term goal."
    (Blind Watchmaker, pg 50)
    This "teleology problem" is more apparent than real. Certainly, a better simulation of evolution or natural selection would make use of immediate selective pressure arising from the environment itself. Indeed, better simulations have been written and run and have demonstrated that natural selection works.
    But then neither MONKEY nor WEASEL was ever billed as a simulation of evolution nor of natural selection. All they were ever intended to do was to compare two different kinds of selection, which they have done rather well. The significance of that comparison is that cumulative selection, the method that was modelled after the way that life works and that natural selection is understood to work, functions extremely well, whereas single-step selection, the method that has nothing at all to do with how either evolution or life itself works, fails miserably.
    The added significance of this comparison to the creation/evolution discussion is that creation science routinely misrepresents evolution as using single-step selection (which ironically is the selection method of their own model, creation ex nihilo) and creationists neglect to tell their audiences that there is another method which far better describes what life actually does. And in making that omission, the creationists are deceiving themselves and their audience.
  • What part of that could you not understand?
     
    On my MONKEY page, I go on to write:
    quote:
  • Working on a project to more fully simulate evolution would be interesting, if I had the time. In such a project we would need to define an environment, phenotypes that would interact with that environment as they try to survive, genotypes that would direct the development of those phenotypes, and rules for the mutation of those genotypes.
    The problems in developing such a simulation are considerable. All of these elements would need to be as realistic and as free from interference as possible. The criteria for fitness should not be predetermined arbitrarily but would have to come directly from the environment and the organisms' interaction with that environment. The embryonic development from genotype to phenotype should follow regular rules which could be arbitrary to some extent, but the phenotypes produced should not be predetermined, but rather be the result of the expression of the genotypes -- a software example of this is Dawkins' Biomorphs (footnote reference to The Blind Watchmaker). The mutation of the genotypes should be the easiest part of the project, once the genotypes have been defined. Of course, one of the greater problems would be how to evaluate the simulation; if we allow the model to be too abstract then the resultant environment and "organisms" could be so alien to us that we could not make any sense out of it.
    The closest that I have seen programs come to simulating selection based
    on the interaction of an organism with its environment are TBUGS and Dr. Ray Thomas' TIERRA. (go to my MONKEY page for those footnotes)
    In the meantime, I would still like to hear ideas for programs to simulate evolution and, if I should ever have to time to attempt such a project, I would definitely need ideas to work with. Of course, as I tell people who try to model evolution with single-step selection (like Michael Denton), we have to keep in mind just what we are trying to model.
  • Something, BTW, that Kleinman still has no clue about.
     
    Taq writes:
    We could use the multipart complex mammalian middle ear as an example. It is made up of 3 highly adapted bones (i.e. the malleus, incus, and stapes). If you remove one the whole thing stops working. In the fossil record, we many transitional reptile to mammal fossils demonstrating how two bones in the reptilian lower jaw moved up into the mammalian middle ear.
    So what. 2 bones does not hearing make. It is all assumed[ that the two bones moved from the jaw to the ear. Though of course that has not really been shown how. If anything, you have something in the roughly general location that is of the right substance, but nothing to show that they were the right shape or interacted from a chewing or jaw function to that of a hearing one. You still have a lot of detail to write from your imagined story.
    Yeah, you really need to do your homework there.
    In the reptilian jaw those bones provide the jaw's point of articulation. The mammalian jaw uses a different point of articulation. There are reptile-mammal transitional fossils showing the transition from the one point of articulation to the other, some even with both points of articulation. There are also series of fossils showing those bones moving into the middle ear.
    And OBTW, in many reptiles those bones, still as part of the jaw, are used in sensing sound.

    This message is a reply to:
     Message 47 by WookieeB, posted 12-05-2022 1:21 AM WookieeB has not replied

      
    dwise1
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    Posts: 5930
    Joined: 05-02-2006
    Member Rating: 5.8


    (1)
    Message 49 of 507 (903141)
    12-05-2022 3:42 AM
    Reply to: Message 47 by WookieeB
    12-05-2022 1:21 AM


    Re: ID About to Fail?
    Taq writes:
    Why wouldn't adding parts create a multi-part complex system?
    Of course you need to add parts to create a multi-part complex system. But you need ALL of the parts there, and they have to have been fitted together properly before you have any system. So, if you have any parts missing, you have no system. If any parts are not properly configured\fitted for its ‘partner’ part(s), then you have no system (even if technically ALL the ‘parts’ are present).
    OK, just what exactly is your model here?
    A co-worker made the claim that the probability of the vertebrate eye evolving was nil. Unfortunately, all attempts to discuss it with him only led to him becoming increasingly hostile. Basically, he didn't understand it himself but rather had to recite the mantra that he had been taught, much like Sheldon trying to teach Penny physics with one set story ("It was a balmy Mediterranean day in Greece, ... ").
    What I had been hearing from creationists for a few decades was a scenario in which you would take a razor blade to a vertebrate (usually human) eye and slice it up into its component parts. None of those component parts could produce sight all on its own, but rather they all had to work together to produce sight. Obviously.
    The standard creationist argument was that each individual component part had to have "evolved" independently of all the other component parts in order to miraculously come together in the final product of a functioning vertebrate eye.
    I suspect that that is your argument here. And of course that entire argument is total bullshit. Stupid bullshit that creationists will dream up, but which no scientist would advance.
    Dawkins addressed the issue in his The Blind Watchmaker, but even that was based directly on what Charles Darwin had himself written. Creationists love to quote-mine Darwin as saying that the evolution of the eye defies human imagination, but they always leave out that he then said that when we apply reason we can solve that apparent problem. Then he proceeded over multiple pages with examples out of nature of visual systems at all the possible stages, each one fully functional for vision, albeit later ones better than earlier ones.
    The thing is that it's not your standard creationist BS model of entirely separate structures all evolving independently of each other. Rather, the evolutionary model is that all those features evolved together.
    At every step of the way, you had photosensitivity and some way for the organism to perceive that. From then on, everything else was an improvement. Sight, to one extant or another, was always present at every step in the evolution of the vertebrate eye.
    All components evolved together. Or are you trying to push the creationist nonsensical narrative that they all had to have "evolved" separately and independently of each other?

    This message is a reply to:
     Message 47 by WookieeB, posted 12-05-2022 1:21 AM WookieeB has not replied

    Replies to this message:
     Message 52 by MrIntelligentDesign, posted 12-16-2022 3:31 AM dwise1 has not replied

      
    dwise1
    Member
    Posts: 5930
    Joined: 05-02-2006
    Member Rating: 5.8


    Message 110 of 507 (904169)
    12-22-2022 7:09 PM
    Reply to: Message 109 by AZPaul3
    12-22-2022 3:09 PM


    Re: ID About to Fail?
    I believe that is our MrID. What google finds is the self-published book he was hawking.
    IOW, he is the only other person in the entire universe who spouts the same nonsense as he does.
    Point made and set.

    This message is a reply to:
     Message 109 by AZPaul3, posted 12-22-2022 3:09 PM AZPaul3 has not replied

      
    dwise1
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    Posts: 5930
    Joined: 05-02-2006
    Member Rating: 5.8


    (1)
    Message 113 of 507 (904180)
    12-23-2022 1:02 AM
    Reply to: Message 112 by MrIntelligentDesign
    12-22-2022 11:55 PM


    Re: ID About to Fail?
    I understand Evolution, I understand science, I understand reality.
    Everything that we have seen you write say the exact opposite.
    Yet again, reality contradicts you.
    You really need to learn something. Actually, you need to learn a lot.

    This message is a reply to:
     Message 112 by MrIntelligentDesign, posted 12-22-2022 11:55 PM MrIntelligentDesign has replied

    Replies to this message:
     Message 115 by MrIntelligentDesign, posted 12-23-2022 3:14 AM dwise1 has not replied

      
    dwise1
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    Posts: 5930
    Joined: 05-02-2006
    Member Rating: 5.8


    Message 165 of 507 (904440)
    12-30-2022 5:03 AM
    Reply to: Message 164 by vimesey
    12-30-2022 4:10 AM


    MrID knows absolutely nothing crap at all about evolution.
    . . .
    Oh, yeah!

    This message is a reply to:
     Message 164 by vimesey, posted 12-30-2022 4:10 AM vimesey has not replied

      
    dwise1
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    Message 189 of 507 (904504)
    12-31-2022 4:05 AM
    Reply to: Message 182 by MrIntelligentDesign
    12-30-2022 8:37 PM


    But you are asking me to answer my own question, because you cannot asnwer it?

    Can you answer it or not?
    Yet again you fail to understand what we are asking of you. Let me rephrase it:
    WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?
    If someone were to ask us, "What effect does changing the firkel on the fizzbin have on the lateralization of the trunbulator?", we could never possibly answer that question without first discovering just what the hell that stupid word salad is supposed to mean. At the very least, we would need definitions for " firkel", "fizzbin", and "trunbulator" as well as an explanation of just what "lateralization" entails, most especially on a "trunbulator".
    IOW, just what the F**K is he talking about?
    So before we can address any question you would pose to us, you would have to tell us just what the F**K are you talking about?
    You have made up your own nonsensical terminology that you then insist that we explain it. HOW? Only you could ever possibly have any knowledge at all of what your stupid bullshit nonsense is supposed to mean. All we could ever possibly do would be to try to make a best guess ... which would invariably be the wrong guess.
    So just stop all your stupid bullshit and tells us JUST WHAT THE F**K YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT!
    If you are able to do that, then do it already!
    If you are not able to do that, then shut the fuck up already!
    Can you do that or not?

    This message is a reply to:
     Message 182 by MrIntelligentDesign, posted 12-30-2022 8:37 PM MrIntelligentDesign has not replied

      
    dwise1
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    Message 195 of 507 (904652)
    01-04-2023 12:21 PM
    Reply to: Message 175 by MrIntelligentDesign
    12-30-2022 10:05 AM


    AronRa is very afraid of me intellectually. I had been calling him in Atheist Experience to fight me in science, since I told him that I wrote a book for his Phylogeny Challenge, but he was very afraid.
    No, he just doesn't have the time to waste with you and all the other idiotic creationists who have no clue what they're talking about.
    Today he posted a new video:
    At about the two-minute mark, he talks about you and your ilk (though not by name). Paraphrasing (instead of taking dictation directly -- watch the video yourself!), on the average he wastes an hour a day trying to correct "some anonymous internet nobody who really doesn't seem to know anything, nor do they even care what the truth is, and for what? The very next day I get the same sort of nonsense from another set of randoes."
    Yeah, I read your "refutation" of AronRa' Phylogeny Challenge which consisted of nothing but your rant that he's getting paid for his work.
    Obviously you are nothing more than yet another "anonymous internet nobody" rando who only wants to waste his time with nonsense the demonstrates nothing more than your abject ignorance of evolution or of anything else.
    Why would you ever think that he would want to waste any more time with idiots like you than he already has? He has much more important things to work on.

    This message is a reply to:
     Message 175 by MrIntelligentDesign, posted 12-30-2022 10:05 AM MrIntelligentDesign has replied

    Replies to this message:
     Message 198 by MrIntelligentDesign, posted 01-13-2023 7:53 PM dwise1 has replied

      
    dwise1
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    (1)
    Message 200 of 507 (905000)
    01-13-2023 8:02 PM
    Reply to: Message 198 by MrIntelligentDesign
    01-13-2023 7:53 PM


    He knows you for what you are: a fucking idiot who is too stupid to understand being told that his nonsense is complete rubbish.
    Trying to discuss anything (including this simple fact) is a complete and total waste of time. He is very busy doing constructive work and has no reason to waste any time on you.
    Besides, we normals have a natural aversion to you mentally ill unfortunates. We have an instinctual fear that your stupid could get on us and so are disgusted by you.
    Please seek professional help.

    This message is a reply to:
     Message 198 by MrIntelligentDesign, posted 01-13-2023 7:53 PM MrIntelligentDesign has replied

    Replies to this message:
     Message 201 by MrIntelligentDesign, posted 01-13-2023 9:13 PM dwise1 has replied

      
    dwise1
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    Message 206 of 507 (905008)
    01-14-2023 2:09 AM
    Reply to: Message 201 by MrIntelligentDesign
    01-13-2023 9:13 PM


    Actually, AronRa replied in my comments in his YouTube video that linked here!
    What video? Linked where? Because I sure as hell do not see any link!
    Or are you resulting to deliberately lying to us?

    This message is a reply to:
     Message 201 by MrIntelligentDesign, posted 01-13-2023 9:13 PM MrIntelligentDesign has replied

    Replies to this message:
     Message 208 by MrIntelligentDesign, posted 01-14-2023 3:18 PM dwise1 has replied

      
    dwise1
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    (1)
    Message 209 of 507 (905019)
    01-14-2023 3:48 PM
    Reply to: Message 208 by MrIntelligentDesign
    01-14-2023 3:18 PM


    Did you look at AronRa's video on YouTube? I commented there and he answered me.
    He has a very large number of videos on YouTube. WHICH ONE????
    You may as well ask if I looked at that Isaac Asimov book in the public library. He wrote about five hundred (500) books. WHICH ONE????
    What kind of fucking idiot are you?
    WHICH VIDEO ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?

    This message is a reply to:
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    dwise1
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    (1)
    Message 214 of 507 (905106)
    01-17-2023 12:58 PM
    Reply to: Message 213 by Taq
    01-17-2023 12:15 PM


    The problem is not just MrID's ignorance of evolution et alia and how they work, but that he has associated grossly false ideas with those words. That makes it virtually impossible to ever explain the truth to him.
    Since nothing MrID has ever said has ever made any sense, I'll use fellow creationist candle2's misrepresentation of evolution as a simpler example.
    candle2 "defines" what evolution is and how it works with the standard creationist lie that evolution effectively requires dogs to give birth to kittens. To quote him directly from his Message 1328:
    candle2 writes:
    Observation proves that human parents produce human babies;
    that puppies come from dogs; that piglets come from pigs; and,
    chimps procreate chimps.

    No poster on this site has "observed" a dog producing a cat; a
    cow producing a raccoon; or, an ape producing a human.
    candle2 has also demanded that we "prove" evolution and we have responded by explaining to him in detail what evolution is and how it works. But of course he rejects all our explanations, because in order for us to "prove" evolution to his satisfaction we must prove that dogs can give birth to kittens. That is after all what evolution is, not in reality but rather in his mind. And of course we cannot possibly supply such "proof", because that is not how anything works, plus if such an event were to occur (eg, dogs giving birth to kittens) then that would not only disprove evolution but also virtually everything we know about biology.
    Namely, candle2's own gross misunderstanding of evolution prevents him from learning what evolution really is.
    In another example on YouTube, Erika (AKA "Gutsick Gibbon") posted a conversation with a young earth creationist. It all went very cordially with the YEC (an honest one for a welcome change) politely and intently listening to Erika's explanations about fossils. In answer to the YEC's question about how fossils are dated, Erika explained that radiometric dating cannot be applied directly to a fossil (since that would require the fossil to have been completely melted, which would destroy the fossil), but rather fossils are dated by the age of the strata they are found in (cue in explanations of how that is done).
    Although the YEC was listening intently and trying to understand the explanation, I could see the look of confusion on her face and could guess the question in her mind: "But that doesn't explain how you date a fossil directly." All her creationism training had taught her that we must be able to date fossils directly, so she expected an explanation of how to date a fossil directly. That expectation conflicted directly with the reality that Erika was trying to explain to her, that that is not how it works. Her false expectations were preventing her from learning.
    Similarly, candle2's false expectations of what "proof of evolution" would have to answer prevent him from learning what it really is and how it really works -- same as with all creationists.
    In the same manner, MrID's false ideas and expectations of what evolution is lead him to write "a FALSIFICATION ARTICLE for Evolution Theory" which has nothing whatsoever to do with evolution and ends up being complete and utter rubbish. And those same false ideas and expectations also prevent him from understanding the truth that we're trying to tell him, including what you're trying to explain to him about his idiotic questions about evolution being "guided".
    Until he can start to learn what evolution really is and how it works, it will be impossible for us to inform him of the truth. Nothing we ever say to him will make any sense to him, because it does not agree with his false ideas and expectations. He will forever be trapped in an impenetrable bubble of abject ignorance and self-delusion.

    This message is a reply to:
     Message 213 by Taq, posted 01-17-2023 12:15 PM Taq has replied

    Replies to this message:
     Message 215 by Taq, posted 01-17-2023 1:08 PM dwise1 has not replied

      
    dwise1
    Member
    Posts: 5930
    Joined: 05-02-2006
    Member Rating: 5.8


    (1)
    Message 218 of 507 (905388)
    01-25-2023 1:33 PM
    Reply to: Message 217 by Phat
    01-18-2023 2:40 PM


    Re: The Missing Link
    MrID writes:
    Actually, AronRa replied in my comments in his YouTube video that linked here!
    If you are impressed with your interaction with the Grand Poobah himself (Aron Ra) then show us this link.
    And he has disappeared as I suspected he would.
    I very much doubt that there is anything to MrID's claim. Rather, I think that his boast is a lie. He tried to bluff us and we called his bluff, so he folded.
    The only question would be the exact nature of his lie. Did he lie about AronRa having replied to his comments on a YouTube video? Did he even lie about having posted comments?
    Assuming the existence of said comments and reply from AronRa, then most certainly MrID is lying about the nature of that reply. Or at least sought to grossly misconstrue it. Remember, MrID is claiming that AronRa is terrified of responding to him, whereas in reality MrID is just plain so full of bullshit that AronRa doesn't have the time to waste on him nor his army of fellow trolls.
    Here is a recent video posted by AronRa (10 hours ago), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYngbZ28LL4:
    In it, he explains about how trolls try to waste his time with long diatribes of complete nonsense (AKA "creationism") and then he addresses the "questions" of one of them (not MrID, but rather a standard issue creationist idiot).
     
    Now let us examine MrID's bluff further.
    He obviously does not want us to read for ourselves his purported comment exchange with AronRa, which is why he will never provide a link to the video in question. After all, in my decades-long experience with creationists the first step in responding to one of their claims is also usually the last step in refuting that claim: Looking up the source for their claim reveals that that source does not say what they claim it does.
    Hence, once we read that comment exchange for ourselves we will see that it's entirely different than MrID's misrepresentation of it. Therefore, MrID has a vest interest in preventing us from ever reading it ourselves, which requires making it as difficult as possible, even impossible, to ever find that exchange.
    This is similar to a common creationist dodge of refusing to provide the evidence that they constantly claim to have and shifting that responsibility onto us: "If you really want to see my evidence, then go find it yourself!" Seriously, they'll do that! An example is Dr. Duane Gish's "bullfrog protein" claim, which he made up on the spot on national TV ("Creation vs Evolution: Battle in the
    Classroom", KPBS-TV, aired 7 July 1982) to "counter" Dr. Doolittle's presentation of human-chimp protein comparisons:
    quote:
    Doolittle:
    Ever since the time of Darwin the chimpanzee has been regarded as man's nearest living relative. Naturally it was then of interest to biochemists to see what chimpanzee proteins would look like. Now the first protein to be looked at in a chimpanzee, and compared with a human, was the hemoglobin molecule -- hemoglobin one of the blood proteins -- and in fact, there were no differences found in the chimpanzee molecule when 141 amino acids were looked at in the hemoglobin alpha chain. In contrast, if you looked at a rhesus monkey, there were four differences; or if you looked at a rabbit, you found the differences got up into the 20s. If you got up to a chicken you'd find 59 differences; and if you looked at a fish you'd find there were more than a hundred differences. Now this is exactly what you expect from the point of view of evolution.
    Narrator: "Three more proteins were analyzed."
    Doolittle:
    Once again, no differences compared -- chimpanzee compared with human. It was astonishing. In fact a rumor began to sweep around biochemists, that maybe all the differences between chimpanzee and human were really going to turn out to be cultural. Well, in fact, one more protein was quickly looked at - -- this was a large one -- 259 amino acids -- and a difference was found. Whew!
    . . .
    Gish:
    If we look at certain proteins, yes man then, it can be assumed that man is more closely related to a chimpanzee than other things. But, on the other hand, if you look at certain proteins, you will find that man is more closely related to a bullfrog than he is to a chimpanzee. If you focus your attention on other proteins, you'll find that man is more closely related to a chicken than he is to a chimpanzee.
    Doolittle:
    Oh bullfrog! I've heard that gibberish before, I have to tell you."
    (Doolittle then indicated a book full of amino acid sequences from thousands of proteins taken from many hundreds of species and offered Gish all his worldly belongings, a '63 VW and half a house, if Gish could find just one protein in chickens or bullfrogs that is more closely related to human proteins than chimpanzee)

    Others, including science writer Robert Schadewald, tried to follow up with Gish about his "bullfrog protein". At one point he let it slip that his claim was based on a joke he had overheard ("such a protein had been found, but the results could not be duplicated because the protein was from an enchanted prince"), but even after that slip Gish kept insisting that the protein did indeed exist and that he had evidence of it that he would provide ... which he never did. Finally, he refused altogether and when asked who is responsible for documenting those proteins, Gish said that it was up to Schadewald and Curtis (i.e. "You want to know the sources for my claims? YOU go look it up!").
    In this case, MrID wants to send us off on a wild goose chase which would require us to search through the comments section of every single AronRa video. Not only does each one of those comments sections extend on for many pages (that just keeps loading as you scroll down, but many an individual comment has its own long replies list which is hidden from the top-level view, thus requiring us to painstakingly drill down through the entire comments tree.
    And it doesn't help that we don't even know what MrID's user name is on YouTube.
    He wants to send us off on a wild goose chase where we would waste hours, days, weeks, even months and years trying to find something that most likely doesn't even exist (if common creationist practice is any indication).
    OTOH, when MrID opens YouTube he can pull down a list of his comments that have been replied to -- that's how it works for me.
    Therefore, if he wanted us to know what AronRa's reply was, then he could go straight to those comments and copy and paste them here, both his comment and AronRa's reply. Would take him no more than a few minutes.
    IF he wanted us to know what AronRa's reply was. Which he obviously doesn't want, so he ensures that we will never be able to find it.

    This message is a reply to:
     Message 217 by Phat, posted 01-18-2023 2:40 PM Phat has replied

    Replies to this message:
     Message 219 by Phat, posted 01-25-2023 4:00 PM dwise1 has not replied

      
    dwise1
    Member
    Posts: 5930
    Joined: 05-02-2006
    Member Rating: 5.8


    Message 222 of 507 (905445)
    01-26-2023 3:56 PM
    Reply to: Message 221 by AZPaul3
    01-26-2023 12:26 PM


    Re: Lost & Found
    Which still does not explain MrID's refusal to point us to the video that he was talking about.
    Of course, the standard explanation is that he's a creationist, so he must use any and all dishonest tricks he can.

    This message is a reply to:
     Message 221 by AZPaul3, posted 01-26-2023 12:26 PM AZPaul3 has not replied

    Replies to this message:
     Message 223 by MrIntelligentDesign, posted 01-28-2023 2:35 AM dwise1 has replied

      
    dwise1
    Member
    Posts: 5930
    Joined: 05-02-2006
    Member Rating: 5.8


    Message 224 of 507 (905482)
    01-28-2023 2:51 AM
    Reply to: Message 223 by MrIntelligentDesign
    01-28-2023 2:35 AM


    Re: Lost & Found
    That word salad still does not solve the mystery of why you refuse to provide a link to the video that you claimed exists.
    If you knew what is wrong, then, you will also know what is right, thus, alternative explanation would be very easy.
    The alternative to your incoherent nonsense is called science and evolution. Please learn what those are.

    This message is a reply to:
     Message 223 by MrIntelligentDesign, posted 01-28-2023 2:35 AM MrIntelligentDesign has replied

    Replies to this message:
     Message 225 by MrIntelligentDesign, posted 01-28-2023 8:13 PM dwise1 has replied

      
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