Orchid XP v8 escreveu:
> By the time it got to the part about "maybe at some point in the future 
> we will have the technology to design our own genome and travel back in 
> time to seed the Earth with it", I was in a state of utter disbelief. 
> *How* can somebody who claims to be a scientist seriously propose such 
> nonesense?!

Hmm, can't a scientist speculate?  Thought experiments, anyone?

not that that guy is much of a scientist...

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>> By the time it got to the part about "maybe at some point in the 
>> future we will have the technology to design our own genome and travel 
>> back in time to seed the Earth with it", I was in a state of utter 
>> disbelief. *How* can somebody who claims to be a scientist seriously 
>> propose such nonesense?!
> 
> Hmm, can't a scientist speculate?  Thought experiments, anyone?

"Hmm, how could something this complex have arrisen? Well, maybe it was 
designed by aliens from another planet."

"Well, yeah, but then how did *they* arrise in the first place? You 
haven't really answered the question, just moved it to another planet."

"Hmm, well, maybe in the future *we* will became sufficiently advanced 
to both design entire genomes and also travel through time. So maybe 
*we* are the 'aliens'?"

"Uh... now you've just hidden the problem inside a temporal paradox 
instead of answering it."

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> activist federal judge 

I remember once the supreme court said something like

"Activist? Of course we're activist. You come and stand in front of us and 
ask us to make a decision. Who do you expect to act, Donald Duck?"

How can you be an "activist" judge, if your job is to make the decision 
about what was intended by a particular law?


-- 
   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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Orchid XP v8 escreveu:
>>> By the time it got to the part about "maybe at some point in the 
>>> future we will have the technology to design our own genome and 
>>> travel back in time to seed the Earth with it", I was in a state of 
>>> utter disbelief. *How* can somebody who claims to be a scientist 
>>> seriously propose such nonesense?!
>>
>> Hmm, can't a scientist speculate?  Thought experiments, anyone?
> 
> "Hmm, how could something this complex have arrisen? Well, maybe it was 
> designed by aliens from another planet."
> 
> "Well, yeah, but then how did *they* arrise in the first place? You 
> haven't really answered the question, just moved it to another planet."
> 
> "Hmm, well, maybe in the future *we* will became sufficiently advanced 
> to both design entire genomes and also travel through time. So maybe 
> *we* are the 'aliens'?"
> 
> "Uh... now you've just hidden the problem inside a temporal paradox 
> instead of answering it."

Hmm, yea.  It makes a lot less sense now. :P

BTW, wasn't he supposed to be supporting a creationist view?  He's 
contradicting even that by suggesting man created man! O_o

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>>> Hmm, can't a scientist speculate?  Thought experiments, anyone?
>>
>> "Hmm, how could something this complex have arrisen? Well, maybe it 
>> was designed by aliens from another planet."
>>
>> "Well, yeah, but then how did *they* arrise in the first place? You 
>> haven't really answered the question, just moved it to another planet."
>>
>> "Hmm, well, maybe in the future *we* will became sufficiently advanced 
>> to both design entire genomes and also travel through time. So maybe 
>> *we* are the 'aliens'?"
>>
>> "Uh... now you've just hidden the problem inside a temporal paradox 
>> instead of answering it."
> 
> Hmm, yea.  It makes a lot less sense now. :P

In other words, as a "thought experiment", the result is pretty 
conclusive: this line of reasoning doesn't make coherant sense.

> BTW, wasn't he supposed to be supporting a creationist view?  He's 
> contradicting even that by suggesting man created man! O_o

*shrugs*

All I know is that his book's argument is basically

1. Darwin's theory has various problems. (E.g., it doesn't address how 
life *started* - well, yes, that's true, it doesn't.)

2. Darwin's theory is therefore false.

3. ID is therefore correct. (Wuh?!)

4. "Now that we have proved that ID is correct, this raises several 
interesting questions..."

That last point really made me gasp. Seriously, you haven't *proved* 
anything! You're just waving your hands around going "hey, Darwin is 
imperfect, therefore you're all wrong". Sheesh...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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"Mike Hough" <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote in message
news:498736d9$1@news.povray.org...

> That says it all, really. While scientists must provide sound experimental
> or empirical evidence to support a hypothesis, ID proponents merely point
> out the things that scientist do not know for certain and use that to
> dismiss everything else. Something you often hear in the scientific
> community is "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." The only
> logical conclusion one can make is that ID is not a science.

Not really, I am afraid, for if absence of evidence (that ID is science) is
not evidence of absence, whether ID is science or not would remain an open
question. The much more rigorous principle to apply in such cases is the "if
it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck" principle.

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Behe actually spoke at our church once.

His talk said he supported John Paul II's view of evolution.  I asked him if he
felt that a process of "change through descent" could be responsible for
speciation. He replied that it has.

What's so bad then?

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gregjohn wrote:
> Behe actually spoke at our church once.
> 
> His talk said he supported John Paul II's view of evolution.  I asked him if he
> felt that a process of "change through descent" could be responsible for
> speciation. He replied that it has.
> 
> What's so bad then?

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.

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"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?

-- 
Tim Cook
http://empyrean.freesitespace.net

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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?

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.

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)?

Of course, he could be right... but it's not falsifiable.

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