On 4/23/2011 12:22 PM, andrel wrote:
> On 23-4-2011 0:03, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>> On 4/21/2011 3:35 PM, andrel wrote:
>>>> ID's central premise, sadly, is that it just "poofed" into being. Hell,
>>>> even the ones arguing "front loading", fail to grasp that any such
>>>> "master genetic code", to avoid breaking the organism fatally, while
>>>> inserting new features, has to take clear steps, in which it replaces
>>>> parts of the system, only as possible, before reaching and end result.
>>>
>>> I know it would be hard to find a sensible way to construct something in
>>> such a way that it could not have been evolved. Precisely because your
>>> bridge example is a known pitfall (and the paragraphs above therefore
>>> effectively a strawman argument). But simply the fact that you believe
>>> it is not possible does not mean you have in any way proven it to be so.
>>> Man and nature are often more inventive than either of them would have
>>> though.
>>
>> Which then brings up Russel's Teapot. Its that a strawman argument, but
>> an accurate description of the problem. There is no logically
>> conceivable way that you can construct something in genetics where it
>> just appears, any more than with a bridge, so trying to find one that
>> did is like chasing invisible teapots. Its a useless pursuit of
>> something that you can't be 100% sure doesn't exist, but for which there
>> are lots, and lots, of evidence to suggest that its simply an
>> unnecessary complication to go hunting for it.
>>
>> The first step, if you want to hunt for such a thing, is to come up with
>> a plausible description of what, and where, it will be found. Given a
>> few thousands years, some idiot is bound to find a teapot (if for no
>> other reason that that by then some other idiot will have accidentally
>> left one in an airlock, before someone else went EVA). By the same
>> token, if some clown keeps hunting long enough, they are bound to find
>> something "designed", but not because DNA was designed, but because
>> someone actually inserts some designed DNA in someone/something, then
>> dies, or something, without telling anyone.
>>
>> Its the only conceivable condition where you can spend your time looking
>> for the genetic equivalent of Bigfoot, and actually find something that
>> isn't a man in a gorilla suit.
>
> The problem here is that every argument you use assumes that everything
> evolved in a natural way. If you assume that (or even if you know that
> it is a fact,) then everything is entirely clear. But it all falls apart
> if you start from the other assumption.
> Somewhere in my library is a book I inherited from my father. It gives a
> number of arguments that proof that God does exist. Very convincing,...
> if you believe God does exist. I found most of them amusing and/or
> interesting but none was convincing.
>
> So unless you have a proof of evolution that convinces even the die hard
> creationists then we better leave it at that. You don't have to convince
> me.
>
>
The real problem with things like that book though is that 50 people 
have written 50 different books, all making the same arguments. Its the 
whole, "deep theological position", issue, where you go to a modern 
theologian tell them, "The arguments I have heard are all silly, can you 
come up with some that are not.", and they reply, "Well, you just 
haven't heard the deep ones, so yes." A few days later you are handed a 
list of their *best* arguments, and... it looks like its been cribbed 
out of the list you previously rejected.

By contrast, we started out with, "Something like evolution might 
explain this", went to, "See, more examples of why this is likely true", 
to, "heh, we just found DNA!", to, "Heh, look at this microbe evolve the 
ability to eat something it never could before, and the process is just 
like what we thought!", etc. The "depth" of the argument grows, because 
their is something tangible to examine, and from lack of evidence to 
suggest another mechanism. Theological arguments don't, because all they 
do is rehash the original premise, without having a damn thing to 
examine, or test against. They also don't seem to have a single clue 
what arguments other prior theologians already made on the subject. lol

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