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And lo On Tue, 03 Feb 2009 09:41:26 -0000, Invisible <voi### [at] dev null> did
spake thusly:
> Tim Cook wrote:
>> "Invisible" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>>> According to his book, all the species that now exist were "programmed
>>> into" the first lifeforms when the Intelligent Designer first built
>>> them. Over time, these species came and went, according to the
>>> Designer's original plan.
>> Well, if you make your program well enough, and let it run for
>> however-many aeons, and it spits out huge varieties of things, couldn't
>> you say that, in a way, they were "programmed into" the first things?
Depends. If I create a programme that just spouts 16 random 0 and 1's and
I stop it at 16 1's was that result programmed in? On the other hand if I
wrote the programme such that tests if a 1 appears and if surrounded by
1's (assume circular) keep it steady when 16 1's appear is that programmed
in?
> He made it sound as if all the species that would ever exist, and the
> exact time that they would arrise and die out was pre-ordined in the DNA
> of the first lifeforms. In particular, that the "unused" parts of the
> DNA are actually the encodings for later lifeforms.
Sound's like he's been reading Darwin's Radio and Darwin's Children
without clocking to the bit about them being fiction.
> All of which is *highly* implausible. How is the supposed Designer
> supposed to know how the climate of the planet is going to evolve over
> the next thousand millennia? Or, for that matter, how do you encode
> several hundred billion genomes into just one (deterministically)?
And yet IIRC frog dna contains multiple context situations dependant on
the temperature of the frogspawn.
> Of course, he could be right... but it's not falsifiable.
Or to be precise it doesn't present any form of experimental ability
regardless of current ability. I'm thinking of String Theory here which is
currently untestable, but happily provides rigid experiments that could be
provable.
--
Phil Cook
--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com
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Too many people get stuck on the idea that humans and intelligent life are
like the goals of a deterministic process when nothing could be further from
the truth. Evolution has no agenda, people are not special and it is simply
the best stratigy for the evironment is going to be the one that comes to
dominate.
The idea that evolution was "programmed" at the start makes the assumption
that the programmer had knowlege of all the environmental changes that would
happen over 1,000,000,000 or more years. A premise that sounds somewhat less
likely than the premise of natural selection.
So, no. there was no magical programmer to set everything in motion. There
is no merit to discuss ID in a scientific framework.
--
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Halbert wrote:
> Too many people get stuck on the idea that humans and intelligent life are
> like the goals of a deterministic process when nothing could be further from
> the truth. Evolution has no agenda, people are not special and it is simply
> the best stratigy for the evironment is going to be the one that comes to
> dominate.
As an aside, the most successful organisms on this planet... are not
humans. By any stretch of the imagination.
If you happen to be a human-sized organism, then certainly humans are
the most visible lifeforms around here. But, truth be told, the most
numerous animals are unicellular. By some considerable margin.
Also, people tend to look down on animals such as living fossils and so
forth. As if "yeah, they were great in their day, but superior organisms
have evolved now". But you know what? Unsegmented worms are *still* here
today, which means that one way or another they *still* manage to
compete successfully with the "superior" organisms around them.
The goal of evolution is not to come up with more and more sophisticated
designs. It's to come up with STUFF THAT WORKS. However clever or dumb
that might turn out to be.
> The idea that evolution was "programmed" at the start makes the assumption
> that the programmer had knowlege of all the environmental changes that would
> happen over 1,000,000,000 or more years. A premise that sounds somewhat less
> likely than the premise of natural selection.
> So, no. there was no magical programmer to set everything in motion. There
> is no merit to discuss ID in a scientific framework.
Er, yeah.
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John VanSickle wrote:
> That's easy. You pretend the law requires "interpretation," and issue
> the interpretation that fits what you wish the law said.
Why would it be in front of the judge if it didn't require interpretation?
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
"Ouch ouch ouch!"
"What's wrong? Noodles too hot?"
"No, I have Chopstick Tunnel Syndrome."
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John VanSickle wrote:
> Except when they're talking about whether there's a God. Then absence
> of evidence--and evidence then is defined to exclude any observation
> that cannot be duplicated--*is* evidence of absence.
Absence of evidence *is* evidence of absence, tho. Basic probability theory.
Which is more unlikely: The unicorn you don't see is in the room, or the
unicorn you *do* see is in the room?
> On the other hand, it is a valid criticism of a theory to point out that
> it does not explain certain observations, and that at times biologists
> explain the existence of a certain feature by stating nothing more than
> that it evolved.
"Failure to explain an observation" is quite different from "theory's
prediction contradicts observation". In any case, "it evolved" is an
explanation that's disprovable.
> Indeed, neither abiogenesis nor macroevolution have actually been
> observed in nature (or accomplished in the laboratory);
Abiogenesis has been accomplished in the lab now. Macroevolution is easy to
observe in the lab as well.
Unfortunately, those who wish to continue disbelieving proof will dismiss
both with the True Scotsman argument.
> they are both
> assumed to have happened without any direct supporting evidence.
The direct supporting evidence for abiogenesis is "life is here now, life
wasn't here 1 second after the big bang." :-)
The supporting evidence for macroevolution is legion. Including all the
fossils, for example.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
"Ouch ouch ouch!"
"What's wrong? Noodles too hot?"
"No, I have Chopstick Tunnel Syndrome."
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>
> Abiogenesis has been accomplished in the lab now. Macroevolution is easy
> to observe in the lab as well.
>
I would be very interested in reading about this. When, where, who and how?
--
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Halbert wrote:
> I would be very interested in reading about this. When, where, who and how?
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16382-artificial-molecule-evolves-in-the-lab.html
The number of species created in labs are too numerous to list. It takes
about three or four weeks to make a new species of fruit flies, IIRC, just
by taking a group and subjecting half two one set of environments and half
to the other.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
"Ouch ouch ouch!"
"What's wrong? Noodles too hot?"
"No, I have Chopstick Tunnel Syndrome."
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On 3-2-2009 17:29, Darren New wrote:
> The direct supporting evidence for abiogenesis is "life is here now,
> life wasn't here 1 second after the big bang." :-)
How do you know, where you there?
;)
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andrel wrote:
> How do you know, where you there?
If you think you can make life out of unassociated quarks and photons, then
I think that pretty clearly puts to rest the question of whether
macroevolution works. :-)
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
"Ouch ouch ouch!"
"What's wrong? Noodles too hot?"
"No, I have Chopstick Tunnel Syndrome."
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On 3-2-2009 19:46, Darren New wrote:
> andrel wrote:
>> How do you know, where you there?
>
> If you think you can make life out of unassociated quarks and photons,
> then I think that pretty clearly puts to rest the question of whether
> macroevolution works. :-)
>
We know that God did survive, so why not another form of life?
Did I see a slight move in position from you trying to prove that life
must have started sometime after the universe was created to either that
or macroevolution must exist? That leaves the field open for anyone to
seem to admit one in order to keep the other card. You'd be in trouble
with more that one opponent. They won't play the same card to you so
have to split and do two discussions at the same time. Unless you have
perfect memory and totally accurate predict their next moves, you'll end
up contradicting yourself, when taken sufficiently out of context. In
short, this 1 second card will almost certainly let you lose the game.
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