In article <473cb774$1@news.povray.org>, dne### [at] sanrrcom says...
> > single living cell). Accepting the former but doubting the latter is
> > considered contradictory.
> >   Regardless of what is the truth, that logic is flawed.
> 
> Check this out for why it makes sense to doubt that:
> 
> http://denbeste.nu/essays/cake.shtml
> 
Wouldn't that be, "Why it doesn't make sense to doubt it?" Mind you, 
this guy makes some common mistakes. First one is suggesting that their 
are some huge number of *possible* combinations that would work. Really? 
How does he determine this? Yeah, the math would seem to suggest that is 
the case, but we are not dealing with arbitrary objects, which one can 
"presume" all interconnect in functional ways, no matter how you arrange 
them. Lets put it this way. Take a processor. There may be an infinite 
number of ways you "could" combine the instructions, but some **won't** 
do anything at all, such as INC X followed immediately by DEC X. 
Chemistry is far more complex than a processor. Just because you can 
imagine combining A with G in umptenth billion ways, or even imagine 
other chemicals in place of it, doesn't mean that every combination or 
chemical that could happen would work. Some may be too unstable, some 
too stable. Some sequences could cause folding errors, which would 
destabilize the whole mechanism and prevent *any* of it working. Unless 
he has some way to *test* every possible chemical, or every possible 
combination, and lay out a statistical table that specifies what works 
and what just doesn't at all, his "REALLY BIG NUMBER" might be a really 
small number. We don't have the data to produce such a table (we still 
don't know how every chemical in existence has an effect on every other 
chemical in *every* situation, let alone how every DNA molecule 
can/would effect arbitrary sequences of genetic code.) Claiming that you 
can make predictions of what is/isn't possible, when you don't even have 
the data to make a vague guess, is a bad idea. And this is just what he 
is doing: "Since we have virtually **no** data to determine what 
possible combinations *can* or *do* work, lets just assume they all 
work, then make up some 'really big number' based on that assumption."

Sorry, but such a number is meaningless, since it presumes facts you 
don't have.

But none of that really matters, since the article says *nothing* about 
the likelihood of macro vs. micro, and only supports the idea that it 
all works, based on the existing "chart". A fact that would **support** 
the idea that it all started from a single cell, since, even if there 
where a thousand possible "working" solutions, the only way you get only 
*one* solution that works, on all scales, is via common descent.

Well, ok, you could get it via engineered DNA, but if so, the engineer 
is an idiot, in as much that nothing in our DNA is engineered to be 
robust or stable, just "good enough". Engineers don't design things to 
be, "Barely good enough to stay afloat.", and that is what you get when 
you start looking at the hacks, screwy solutions, and bad designs in 
biological systems. The other claim is a, "genetic map", leading from 
the first versions to the newest ones, which plays out like some sort of 
master program. But.. Oops, that doesn't work either, since lots of 
species don't have near enough unused "data" in them to do that 
(including viruses), some viruses and the like have barely enough to 
function at all, for example, let alone contain "code" to define how 
they got from the first cell to now, and we are finding the function of 
most of the "junk" DNA in humans and other animals. This pretty much 
only leaves the "damaged" DNA, which are regions containing copies of 
things that are broken, like the Vitamin C gene, which exists in humans, 
in a damaged form, but isn't functional, which is why *we* get scurvy, 
while non-primates don't. We know what it *should* have done, what it 
does in other animals, and that it **is** broken. And that is the point, 
we survive *despite* it being broken, since we can get what it used to 
produce from other sources. If we couldn't, then we *would* die out.

There is nothing in there that would suggest denial of common descent of 
macro evolution.

-- 
void main () {

    call functional_code()
  else
    call crash_windows();
}

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Warp wrote:
> >   The article and the photo series was nothing more than mocking for the
> > sake of mocking. "Have a look at these photos and have a good laugh."
> > There was no other point.

> Yes. And I feel it's entirely appropriate to mock people who are trying 
> to get others to act in self-destructive ways.

  Mocking for the sake of mocking is not constructive nor helpful. It only
increases aversion between different groups. Is that really the correct
way of doing things?

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Patrick Elliott <sel### [at] rraznet> wrote:
> Why the #@$@$@ is it flawed.

  You sound like a religious fanatic.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:
> 
>   Regardless of whether evolution is true or not, that's one of the things
> which always make me laugh. Anti-christian atheists always consider so-called
> microevolution (eg. wolves and dogs having a common ancestor species) to be
> the same thing as macroevolution (everything on Earth evolved from one
> single living cell). Accepting the former but doubting the latter is
> considered contradictory.
I don't know if you ever read the origin of species, but for me the main 
point in it revolves around the concept of a species. I think the point 
where the devout christian Darwin turned away from a literal 
interpretation of the bible is in the story of Noah's ark. While 
thinking of the concept of a species and the definition of it he was 
gradually forced to admit that there is no such concept as a species. 
Undoubtedly a dog and an oak are not the same species, but that does not 
imply that for every two individual plants or animals you can decide 
whether they are the same species or not, not even a supernatural being 
can do that. Hence there is no way that Noah's story can be true. After 
taking that hurdle Darwin freed himself from the literal interpretation 
of the bible and was able to take all the other steps.
I am an atheist (though not an anti-christian one, some of my best 
friends are Christian) and indeed I think that microevolution and 
macroevolution are the same thing. Because the distinction is based on 
the concept of a species, which may be handy concept in everyday live, 
but scientifically it is fundamentally flawed. It is possibly comparable 
to using Newtonian physics. Handy in normal live, but we know that in 
the end, nature is not like that.
 >   Regardless of what is the truth, that logic is flawed.
True, if you believe that 'species' is a well defined concept then it is 
indeed possible to believe one and not the other.

>   Anyways, your overly long argumentation is pointless. I was not defending
> anything. I was simply saying that the purpose of that photo gallery was
> nothing more than mocking for the sake of mocking, with no other point.

On the concept of mocking, I think you may be right, but I could not 
force myself to read more than a few paragraphs. When I still had no 
clue what it was about I stopped reading.

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Patrick Elliott wrote:

> o be an "s" in there some place...) museum
> built in the US by Ken Ham, here is your chance. A while back a bunch of
> people donated a mess of money to


I was just about to debate with someone the difference between the young
earth creationist position and the old earth creationist position, and why
the young earth position was not necessarily required from a literal
reading of the text.   I threw in a link to the veggie raptor to boot!

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Warp wrote:

> Regardless of whether evolution is true or not, that's one of the things
> which always make me laugh. Anti-christian atheists always consider
> so-called microevolution (eg. wolves and dogs having a common ancestor
> species) to be the same thing as macroevolution (everything on Earth
> evolved from one single living cell). Accepting the former but doubting
> the latter is considered contradictory.
> Regardless of what is the truth, that logic is flawed.


Michael Behe, author of Darwin's Black Box, makes a claim that neoDarwinian
processes could not have brought about irreducibly complex processes such
as formation of an eye.   He actually came to speak at a conference my
church put on.   I asked him about whether a process of "change through
descent" could bring about speciation.  He said yes, he believed it could.

My 15 seconds of fame in the evolution debate.

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There's nothing wrong with science, but IMO many scientists seem to be
way too arrogant and lack humility, even to the point of being unscientific.
The attitude of many scientists seems to be "since I can't think of any
other rational explanation, then this explanation must be the Truth, the
only Truth, and nothing but the Truth, and anyone who doubts that is nuts".
This is simply a logical fallacy and thus an unscientific attitude.

  Scientists don't seem to learn from past mistakes. For example in the
late 1800's the general attitude among scientists was that physics was
more or less complete, that we know everything there is to know about how
the universe works. Since there is no other rational explanation to explain
how the universe works than newtonian mechanics, then newtonian mechanics
must be the Truth, the only Truth and nothing but the Truth, and anyone
who doubts that is nuts and deserves ridicule. Since there's no other
rational explanation of how light travels in space than that there's a
medium called ether, then ether must be the Truth, the only Truth and
nothing but the Truth, and anyone doubting that is nuts and deserves
ridicule.
  Scientists assumed that they could simply extrapolate the physics of
everyday scale to the physics of the two extremes (atomic scales and
extremely large and fast scales), and that's ok. However, in a typically
arrogant attitude they don't only extrapolated that, but they stated that
it must be the only Truth, and that physics is complete. We know everything
there is to know.

  Then technology advanced, measurement instruments got better, and science
got a lesson in humility. Our knowledge of physics was far from complete.
What was once the Only Complete Truth resulted to be only a very narrow
and limited vision of the whole truth. Suddenly it was not the whole truth.
Very far from it.
  Many arrogant scientists struggled for decades, fighting against the new
evidence. They couldn't admit being wrong. They couldn't admit that perhaps
their Holy Truth was not so true after all. They ridiculed the new evidence,
they ridiculed the scientists who had a more open mind.
  Finally they had to submit and admit that perhaps physics was not complete
and that there might be something else to it than what they thought.

  Have scientists learnt anything from this episode? It doesn't seem so.
They are still arrogant, they still think they know the Truth, the only
Truth and nothing but the Truth, and simply because they can't think of
any other explanation. They think they can go back millions of years and
see what happened, and thus their theory must the the only Truth, and
anyone who doubts it is nuts and deserves ridicule. Over a hundred years
ago scientists assumed that they could simply deduce what happens at
atomic levels, extremely high speeds, etc, without actually "going there".
They were wrong. Nowadays scientists assume that they can simply deduce what
happened millions of years ago, without actually going there. But this must
be the Truth.

  History tends to repeat itself. People never learn from past mistakes.
People are arrogant and think they are omniscient and that they know the
Truth. Anyone who doubts that deserves ridicule.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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> Have scientists learnt anything from this episode? It doesn't seem
> so. They are still arrogant, they still think they know the Truth,
> the only Truth and nothing but the Truth, and simply because they
> can't think of any other explanation. They think they can go back
> millions of years and see what happened, and thus their theory must
> the the only Truth, and anyone who doubts it is nuts and deserves
> ridicule. Over a hundred years ago scientists assumed that they could
> simply deduce what happens at atomic levels, extremely high speeds,
> etc, without actually "going there". They were wrong. Nowadays
> scientists assume that they can simply deduce what happened millions
> of years ago, without actually going there. But this must be the
> Truth.
> 
> History tends to repeat itself. People never learn from past
> mistakes. People are arrogant and think they are omniscient and that
> they know the Truth. Anyone who doubts that deserves ridicule.
> 

The problem is that you cannot do a research about something without
being at least a bit convinced that indeed your ideas are right... It
does not prevent from being open-minded but at some point it will be a
matter of opinion, if two theories explain the facts.

If you go back two centuries earlier, and announce you have a new theory
called relativity that explains everything about the motions of planets
and stars, you will rightfully be told that there is no need for all
these complications because Newton's theory works just as well for what
can be observed. You will have to bring up new facts that show the
limits of the current theory, new experiments where your theory predicts
the observed result and the old one does not.

Of course everyone will shout you down at the beginning, the
establishment will not be happy to see their own theory disturbed (the
older the less happy ;-) ), but in the end if it is convincingly linked
to the facts it will be accepted. And it will be so only because
yourself were convinced that your theory is closer to the Truth... So
when someone else comes to challenge your theory, you will be part of
the establishment...

Creationists do not take that approach at all. We are not discussing
about people bringing new evidence to the table, that is best explained
with their new theory. They are taking the existing facts and building
an extraodinarily twisted explanation just to satisfy their religious
belief.

So yes, at first some will try to explain the current theory, in case
there was a misunderstanding. At some point, when everything answered is
based on false logic and religious belief passed as science, I can
understand the need to finally take a good laugh about it :-)

I tend to think of it like I do of violence: at first you do everything
to avoid it, to settle the things calmly, but then there is a point
where discussing is not the solution anymore. It takes two reasonable
people to end something reasonably.


-- 
Vincent

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473d6557@news.povray.org...
>  Finally they had to submit and admit that perhaps physics was not 
> complete
> and that there might be something else to it than what they thought.

There were only 20 years between Kelvin's claim of "There is nothing new to 
be discovered in physics now" and Einstein's Nobel Prize. In fact, there 
were 15 years between the publication of Einstein's paper on matter/energy 
equivalence and the Times's headline "Newtonian Ideas overthrown". Not too 
bad for overturning a "Holy Truth" and one wishes regular people would be as 
quick as scientists before accepting new ideas.

This phenomenon has been called a paradigm shift by Thomas Kuhn, who said 
that "successive transition from one paradigm to another via revolution is 
the usual developmental pattern of mature science". In other words, that's 
the way science works, and if you've been around scientists, you can see 
that at work even in lesser fields of science.

In any case, it seems that you've been reading some crappy blogs instead of 
actual books about epistemology. Modern science works along the principles 
layed out by Claude Bernard in 1865. Here are some quotes:

"When we meet a fact which contradicts a prevailing theory, we must accept 
the fact and abandon the theory, even when the theory is supported by great 
names and generally accepted"

"Theories are only verified hypotheses, verified by more or less numerous 
facts. Those verified by the most facts are the best, but even then they are 
never final, never to be absolutely believed."

If you haven't read his book "An introduction to the study of experimental 
medicine" you should, it's a fantastic read.

G.

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Vincent Le Chevalier <gal### [at] libertyallsurfspamfr> wrote:
> The problem is that you cannot do a research about something without
> being at least a bit convinced that indeed your ideas are right... It
> does not prevent from being open-minded but at some point it will be a
> matter of opinion, if two theories explain the facts.

  There's a difference between an attitude like "I think this is a very
plausible theory, and I'm going to try to find even more evidence to
support it", and "this theory is the truth, and anyone who doubts it
is nuts and deserves ridicule".

  You can find the latter attitude in all kind of people, from complete
laymen to amateur scientists to professional scientists. Sure, not *all*
people are like that, but many are.

  I don't disagree that any pseudoscientist or religious fanatic who
presents completely unscientifical and implausible claims with no proof
nor evidence deserves to be ignored and if such claims get widespread, it
very much deserves scientifical debunking.

  However, debunking and ridicule are two different things. The former
shows scientifical thinking, the latter shows arrogance.

  Another typical attitude is that anyone who presents even the slightest
opposition to the idea that evolution is the whole Truth, that the evolution
theory presents exactly and accurately what happened, must be a creationist.
The attitude seems to be "if you can't present any counter-arguments or
scientifically plausible alternative theories, then you simply must believe
in the theory of evolution as presented". It's as if it was completely
unscientifical and illogical to doubt a theory if there exists no plausible
alternative. And in this case, if you doubt it, you must be a creationist.
There is no other possibility. Of course this is also a logical fallacy.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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