Invisible wrote:
> As for people who oppose genetic engineering, they will argue that 
> bananas are OK, because the gene alteration happened "naturally".

I always giggle at the food store proclaiming "Seedless Grapes! No GMO!"

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
> Personally, I would make the separation that "Euclidean geometry" is a 
> mathematical theory, while "the real world conforms to Euclidean 
> geometry" is a scientific theory.

Exactly this. There are all kinds of geometries that are *not* useful 
outside mathematics, *because* they don't conform closely enough to the real 
world.

Which is more scientific: Newton's equations, or Einstein's equations?

It's just that mathematical theories that can't be related to something 
useful predicting how the world works get talked about only in very abstruse 
and rare situations. Hence, all the "math" that most people know is math 
that's somehow equatable to some subset of reality, making it seem like math 
is about reality.

Generate random text strings until one compiles. What good is that program? 
It almost certainly doesn't do anything useful. But it's just as valid a 
program as one you've carefully crafted from a detailed specification.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

Post a reply to this message

John VanSickle wrote:
> Actually, it does.  It predicts, among other things, that the genetic 
> code for organisms may have features of no present use, but which may be 
> of use by descendant creatures. 

Then the proponents should be able to point out a whole bunch of genes that 
were present in older species that turned on in newer species without any 
mutation when the environment changed.

Which gene would that be, then?

> Be that as it may, I am against the teaching of life's origins on the 
> public dime, because it is a matter of public debate,

No it's not.

I guess we shouldn't teach about the holocaust either, or whether the USA 
won the civil war, or whether Hawaii is really a state of the USA?

> and is therefore 
> incompatible with the principles that underlie a free society.  What 
> invariably happens, when the government is allowed this power, is that 
> the people who are in the wrong will go running to the government to 
> have their view imposed by fiat, and all conflicting views suppressed to 
> one degree or another. 

Nobody is suppressing your ability to teach ID outside of science classes or 
in your own schools. The problem is that the issue was looked at, in detail, 
by those responsible for deciding what gets taught in public schools, and 
those looking at it decided it isn't science, after a long and public debate.

 > At the present moment a person who is skeptical
> that natural selection is sufficient to explain the entirety of 
> observable living systems is subject to exclusion from participating in 
> scientific and educational endeavors, even when the topic has no bearing 
> on the origin of life.

I think there are plenty of educators who teach math or social studies or 
english and believe God created man. In what way are they being excluded?

> "But we're not ignorant like they were then."  Actually, it's because of 
> a shift in political connections.

Um, no. It's the scientific method.

> As a practical matter, I of course oppose the teaching of views I 
> disagree with, but I also oppose the forced teaching of views that I 
> agree with, because that breeds resentment--especially if someone gets 
> drunk with power and exceeds his authority--and I don't want my views 
> getting blamed for some idiot's power trip.

So you support teaching only 100% non-controversial subjects? So you'd skip, 
say, the holocaust as part of history class?

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
> You seriously expect me to believe 

That's a terrible argument.  "I couldn't imagine how something as complex as 
predicting the future that way could have happened" is just as bad an 
argument as "I couldn't imagine how hemoglobin came about."

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
> Actually I think you'll find it's that all tetrapods are descendants of 
> a single fish ancestor, which just happened to have 5 digits. By now it 
> would be far too difficult to change it.

Sure. But we grew lungs, and new digestive systems, and homeostasis, scales 
and skin and fur and feathers, wings and hooves and talons, but we still all 
have five fingers, including the animals whose fingers are in a stiff and 
unbending mitten of cartilage. Look at the vast range of shapes out there, 
and tell me that it makes sense that none of them got rid of the pinky 
finger, or put on another bone somewhere.

> In short, I suspect that tetrapods all have 5 digits because there are 
> now highly complex, well-developed and extensively inter-dependent 
> systems of gene regulation for building 5 digits. You'd have to change a 
> hell of a lot of stuff to make it, say, 6.

No, that's the point. From what I read, you'd only have to change one gene. 
Except it's a gene in the middle of *another* sequence as well, which 
regulates development of the reproductive system.

> If you look at things that aren't tetrapods, you find that 5 isn't so 
> special.

You may be missing my point. Not that 5 is special, but the *persistence* of 
5 fingers when all else is changing is unusual.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

Post a reply to this message

John VanSickle wrote:
> On 1/7/2011 1:05 PM, Darren New wrote:
>> I'm not sure why you have a job in IT instead of a job in teaching.
> 
> I taught computer literacy to fifteen-year-olds.

It's entirely possible to teach adults. :-)

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
> On 10/01/2011 04:01 PM, John VanSickle wrote:
> 
>> Teaching requires, in addition to subject matter competency, skill in
>> classroom management and lesson planning and presentation. I was hired
>> having a CIS degree, but with no training in the other areas. If you
>> don't know what to watch for, the kids will go crazy. Toss in the kids
>> who weren't raised right (for whatever reason), and the situation
>> becomes unmanageable.
> 
> I would have thought the biggest problem is that kids don't want to 
> learn anything, don't give a damn what you're talking about, and will 
> basically go to any lengths to avoid being taught.
> 
> _That_ is why I'm not a teacher.

Don't teach kids. Teach adults.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

Post a reply to this message

Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Interestingly enough, all the "evidence" for ID is equally explained by 
> evolved outer-space aliens doing genetic engineering on Earth. Even *if* you 
> accept that evolution couldn't have produced the eye, or flagellum, or 
> whatever, you *still* don't get to say it must have been God, unless you 
> also rule out life anywhere else in the universe.

  That's also the major problem in all of the arguments for the existence
of God (such as the cosmological, transcendental and ontological ones):
Even if you accepted all the postulations of the arguments as valid (which
they aren't, but even if), they are simply giving the unknown origin of
the Universe the label "God", without telling anything at all about this
"God". It's just a meaningless label for the unknown.

  Further claiming that this "God" is the god of a modern religion is a
typical argument from ignorance.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Invisible wrote:
> > On 10/01/2011 04:01 PM, John VanSickle wrote:
> >
> >> Teaching requires, in addition to subject matter competency, skill in
> >> classroom management and lesson planning and presentation. I was hired
> >> having a CIS degree, but with no training in the other areas. If you
> >> don't know what to watch for, the kids will go crazy. Toss in the kids
> >> who weren't raised right (for whatever reason), and the situation
> >> becomes unmanageable.
> >
> > I would have thought the biggest problem is that kids don't want to
> > learn anything, don't give a damn what you're talking about, and will
> > basically go to any lengths to avoid being taught.
> >
> > _That_ is why I'm not a teacher.
>
> Don't teach kids. Teach adults.

wise suggestion.  Adults seeking education are eager to learn because most
likely were the types of kids who didn't want to learn back then and because of
that took quite a beating in life.  They are much more humble now.

Post a reply to this message

Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> > Be that as it may, I am against the teaching of life's origins on the 
> > public dime, because it is a matter of public debate,

> No it's not.

  Just read a funny anecdote of what happens when things are considered
"a matter of public debate":

"In Brockport, N.Y, in 1887, M.C. Flanders argued the case of a flat
Earth for three nights against two scientific gentlemen defending
sphericity. Five townsmen chosen as judges voted unanimously for a
flat Earth at the end."

  You can really come up with "proofs" of any argument you want. For example
in 1864 an author named William Carpenter published a book named "Theoretical
Astronomy Examined and Exposed - Proving the Earth not a Globe", and later
in 1885 another book named "A hundred proofs the Earth is not a Globe". He
was being serious.

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

On Mon, 10 Jan 2011 13:59:17 -0500, nemesis wrote:

>> > _That_ is why I'm not a teacher.
>>
>> Don't teach kids. Teach adults.
> 
> wise suggestion.  Adults seeking education are eager to learn because
> most likely were the types of kids who didn't want to learn back then
> and because of that took quite a beating in life.  They are much more
> humble now.

Unfortunately, it's adults who get to make all the important decisions, 
and many of those adults aren't much more humble - if anything, they're 
more obstinate in saying "yes, the world is flat, if it was round, [...]".

At least kids have open minds, for the most part.  It's only when they've 
been filled with the ignorance and hate of those who believe that their 
beliefs supersede actual knowledge and learning that their minds close.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>>> Be that as it may, I am against the teaching of life's origins on the 
>>> public dime, because it is a matter of public debate,
> 
>> No it's not.
> 
>   Just read a funny anecdote of what happens when things are considered
> "a matter of public debate":

Good story. However, even *if* it used to be a matter of public debate, the 
debate has occurred in public as specified by the laws of our country, and 
the result has been obtained that ID is a thinly-veiled attempt to introduce 
religion into the science class, which is also illegal in this country.

Just like it's a matter of public debate whether Fred should go to jail or 
not, right up until the jury comes back with a verdict.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

Post a reply to this message

Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> which is also illegal in this country.

  As if that had stopped it before... :P

  (I read somewhere that recently Barack Obama decided to announce the
National Day of Prayer, or something like that, even though shortly before
a judge had ruled it unconstitutional for the president to do so. I suppose
there were no consequences of this clear breaking of the 1st amendment...)

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> > > Be that as it may, I am against the teaching of life's origins on the
> > > public dime, because it is a matter of public debate,
>
> > No it's not.
>
>   Just read a funny anecdote of what happens when things are considered
> "a matter of public debate":
>
> "In Brockport, N.Y, in 1887, M.C. Flanders argued the case of a flat
> Earth for three nights against two scientific gentlemen defending
> sphericity. Five townsmen chosen as judges voted unanimously for a
> flat Earth at the end."
>
>   You can really come up with "proofs" of any argument you want. For example
> in 1864 an author named William Carpenter published a book named "Theoretical
> Astronomy Examined and Exposed - Proving the Earth not a Globe", and later
> in 1885 another book named "A hundred proofs the Earth is not a Globe". He
> was being serious.
>
>   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth

fun anecdote, no doubt. :)

As far as I remember too, Mormoism started complete with witnesses and all
recognized legally.  First religion I think started with full legal backing...

That's the problem with layman thinking they can do better than centuries of
professionals dedicated to research.  They assume reality can be voted.

Post a reply to this message

On Mon, 10 Jan 2011 16:20:18 -0500, nemesis wrote:

> They assume reality can be voted.

I blame American Idol. ;-)

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On 1/9/2011 8:44 PM, Darren New wrote:
> Patrick Elliott wrote:
>> if the universe isn't logically consistent than science would have to
>> be wrong on a huge scale,
>
> I don't think so.
>
>> You would need to.. have an inconsistent universe, which never the
>> less, managed to be consistent on the large scale only. Like..
>> statistically stable, but completely unstable on the basic level.
>
> We have that already. It's called quantum mechanics. :-)
>
>> Mind, this wouldn't preclude it being consistent, it would only mean
>> that events where not predictable on the smallest scale, but that the
>> law of averages/big numbers both made it consistent once you had
>> enough events to look at.
>
> Again. :-)
>
But.. This only seems to be the case, isn't certain, and its not so 
random you can't create conditions where one result is **way** more 
probable than another. Still not "inconsistent".

-- 
void main () {
   If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

<A HREF='http://www.daz3d.com/index.php?refid=16130551'>Get 3D Models, 
3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>

Post a reply to this message

On 1/9/2011 8:57 PM, Darren New wrote:
> Patrick Elliott wrote:
>> Think we may be talking about different things here... The idea I am
>> talking about is that you programmaticaly do the equivalent of:
>
> Well, if you're talking about logical reversability, sure. But that's
> not all that much more interesting than memoization.
>
>> 1 + 2 + 4 * 5 = result
>> roll back to 1 + 2
>> 3 * 10 + 5 = result
>
> Pulling out the result is irreversible.
>
>> The point of the idea being that if you do not have to "turn on" a
>> switch, only shut some off, the cost is lower.
>
> That's not how it works. You have to drive the circuit backwards. You
> don't just turn off parts of it, as that's irreversible too. Unless
> you're talking about "logical reversibility", which isn't what I'm
> talking about.
>
Yeah, what I was talking about was a programmatic attempt at applying 
logical reversibility. The stuff you are talking about is completely 
different.

-- 
void main () {
   If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

<A HREF='http://www.daz3d.com/index.php?refid=16130551'>Get 3D Models, 
3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>

Post a reply to this message

On 10-1-2011 13:16, Warp wrote:
> Invisible<voi### [at] devnull>  wrote:
>> Well, there are plenty of other plants that are so mutated that they are
>> now incapable of reproducing for themselves but for some special animal
>> that farms them. (I might mention, for example, the fungi that
>> leafcutter ants culture, for example.) The natural world is full of
>> complex partnerships such as this. I don't think you could call the
>> banana "unatural".
>
>    Well, many people seem to think that anything that is man-made (or only
> possible because of human intervetion) is by definition artificial and
> unnatural (and hence obviously harmful).

Yes over-population is one of the biggest problems.

Post a reply to this message

Patrick Elliott wrote:
> But.. This only seems to be the case, isn't certain,

It's as certain as anything. There's actually experimental evidence that 
it's not only unknowable, but actually random. We *know* it's not just a 
limitation in our knowledge or what we're measuring, but that the 
measurements really aren't even there until we look.

 > and its not so
> random you can't create conditions where one result is **way** more 
> probable than another.

Only statistically. For any given single interaction, the probability is 
always the same.  In QED, that's called "charge".

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

Post a reply to this message

Patrick Elliott wrote:
> Yeah, what I was talking about was a programmatic attempt at applying 
> logical reversibility. The stuff you are talking about is completely 
> different.

Logical reversibility hasn't anything to do with saving energy, altho it 
might have something to do with speeding up computations. obviously, logical 
reversibility is a necessary precursor to physical reversibility.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:
>   (I read somewhere that recently Barack Obama decided to announce the
> National Day of Prayer, or something like that, 

The "national day of prayer" has been around since we were fighting the 
godless communists (I kid you not) in the 1950's, passed by Congress at the 
time. That's the same time we got "under god" added to "one nation under 
god" in the pledge of allegiance.  Given that Obama keeps referring to 
atheists in all his speeches (which ticks off the religious folks) I would 
guess (without a cite) this is at least as much a lie as half the other 
things said about him.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

Post a reply to this message

On 10/01/2011 06:22 PM, Darren New wrote:
> Invisible wrote:
>> You seriously expect me to believe
>
> That's a terrible argument. "I couldn't imagine how something as complex
> as predicting the future that way could have happened" is just as bad an
> argument as "I couldn't imagine how hemoglobin came about."

OK, well how about chaos theory? That puts hard bounds on what can and 
cannot be predicted. I should imagine that over the course of 4 billion 
years, one single stray photon would probably be enough to perturb the 
system sufficiently that it wildly diverges from your predictions. So 
you'd have to predict solar activity too. (Not to mention random stray 
comets colliding with Earth.)

On top of that, the effect of living organisms themselves is 
significant. So in order to work out what what types of organisms you 
need to design, you need to know what environments will be available, 
which *depends on* what types of organisms you design.

Seriously, you don't need to be a chaos theory expert to see that all of 
this is wildly impossible. (Not forgetting that the original premis is 
already impossible because the number of species wildly exceeds the 
information content of the first genomes.)



Now, Behe put forth the idea of "irreducible complexity". The idea being 
that a system is irreducibly complex if removing any single component of 
it breaks the system. Such systems, Behe asserted, cannot evolve.

Of course, that's a bit like buying a car, removing the engine 
management system, observing that the car no longer works, and arguing 
that the car cannot have been invented before computer technology became 
available. Which, obviously, is absurd.

Then again, that's not *quite* the same, since the designs of artificial 
devices can make sudden jumps. Evolution, in general, can't do that.

Dawkins showed that irreducibly complex systems can in fact evolve. For 
example, suppose protein A exists, and does something useful. Now 
suppose that a protein B comes along, which makes protein A slightly 
more efficient. Assuming whatever A does is beneficial, doing it better 
is obviously something that natural selection would favour.

What happens next is that A and B co-evolve. Any change in B which 
enhances its effect on A would tend to be favoured. Any change in A 
which enhances the effect of B on it would also tend to be favoured. 
Fast-forward a few million generations and I wouldn't be at all 
surprised if we now have a situation where A doesn't even *work* any 
more without B.

In other words, the system has become irreducibly complex. And of 
course, there's no particular reason why a protein C can't join the 
party at some point along the smooth continuous route to irreducible 
complexity. And then we would have 3 interrelated proteins that only 
function in combination with each other.

Behe also chose an unfortunate example of an irreducibly complex system: 
a cellular motor. He pointed out that it's a complex of 9 proteins, and 
removing any one of them breaks the motor, so therefore it could not 
have evolved. Except that somebody recently discovered a parasite that 
uses just 2 of these proteins to make holes in the cell walls of its 
host. So those 2 proteins on their own do something useful. They don't 
make a motor, but they /are/ useful (for something slightly different).

Post a reply to this message

On 10/01/2011 05:03 PM, Warp wrote:

>    The theory of evolution != the theory of life's origins.
>
>    The theory of evolution says nothing about how life first came into
> existence on Earth. That would be abiogenesis.

Quite. And while the theory of evolution is universally accepted, 
abiogenesis is essentially still at the stage of "well, we've got some 
ideas, but basically nobody /really/ knows".

>    Basically the only thing that the theory of evolution postulates is that
> the genes of large populations change over time (something even the most
> hardcore young-earth creationists don't deny) and that some changes get
> preserved while others disappear due to natural selection (again, something
> the creationists don't deny). That's about it.

Evolution asserts that species are not fixed; they /change/. And so the 
species we see today were not always there. And, in particular, not so 
much evolution itself, but molecular evidence says that all life on 
Earth has a single common ancestor.

That's about as much as evolution itself actually says about the origin 
of life; that life didn't originate as twenty billion species, but as 
just one. (Actually, it was probably a handful of species; it's just 
that only one of them left descendants. As far as we know.)

Post a reply to this message

On 10/01/2011 06:32 PM, Darren New wrote:
> Invisible wrote:
>> Actually I think you'll find it's that all tetrapods are descendants
>> of a single fish ancestor, which just happened to have 5 digits. By
>> now it would be far too difficult to change it.
>
> Sure. But we grew lungs, and new digestive systems, and homeostasis,

Just about every living organism has homeostasis. I presume you mean 
*temperature* homeostasis?

> scales and skin and fur and feathers, wings and hooves and talons, but
> we still all have five fingers, including the animals whose fingers are
> in a stiff and unbending mitten of cartilage. Look at the vast range of
> shapes out there, and tell me that it makes sense that none of them got
> rid of the pinky finger, or put on another bone somewhere.

Right. So what you're saying is that it's unusual that 5 digits is a 
conserved feature?

Well, horses and similar have finger/toe bones fused together. But then, 
actually the anatomy of a horse leg is quite interesting. A human arm 
has two straight bits, a wrist and then a bunch of fingers. In a horse, 
the first straight bit is actually inside the body, the second straight 
bit is the top of the visible leg, and the remaining bones of the leg 
are actually what would be knuckle and finger bones in a human. Weird.

I suspect what it boils down so is that there's no specific reason why 
some number other than 5 would be an advantage, so it hasn't changed. 
(This of course doesn't rule out random "neutral" changes I suppose...)

> No, that's the point. From what I read, you'd only have to change one
> gene. Except it's a gene in the middle of *another* sequence as well,
> which regulates development of the reproductive system.

Well, if that's the case, I haven't read about it myself. I would 
suggest though that something like this would require changing many, 
many genes, all at the same time, which is why it doesn't happen.

(Oh, you can probably make it happen by changing one of the cellular 
differentiation genes, which tell cells "where they are". But that would 
probably break stuff all over the place. Indeed, these genes tend to be 
extremely highly conserved.)

Post a reply to this message

On 10/01/2011 06:32 PM, Darren New wrote:

> It's entirely possible to teach adults. :-)

You haven't met my work colleges...

Post a reply to this message

>> That's a terrible argument. "I couldn't imagine how something as complex
>> as predicting the future that way could have happened" is just as bad an
>> argument as "I couldn't imagine how hemoglobin came about."
>
> OK, well how about chaos theory? That puts hard bounds on what can and
> cannot be predicted. I should imagine that over the course of 4 billion
> years, one single stray photon would probably be enough to perturb the
> system sufficiently that it wildly diverges from your predictions.

Unless you run your prediction simulation on the same "hardware" as the 
real thing.

I can run some chaotic program on my PC and the results look pretty 
chaotic, yet I am then able to predict *exactly* the outcome if you run 
it again on your PC (assuming same CPU architecture etc).

I can then be the intelligent designer, playing about with the initial 
conditions until I find something that looks nice.  Then I can inform 
you the initial values and you get to see the nice outcome too.

Post a reply to this message

On 10/01/2011 06:05 PM, Darren New wrote:
> Invisible wrote:
>> The fundamental difference between ST and ID, of course, is that ST
>> has a realistic possibility of becoming testable some day soon. ID
>> does not.
>
> ID is testable. It just failed the tests. But it's certainly testable.

ID is not testable. It's so vague that any time someone falsifies it, 
the proponents can just claim that the theory says something slightly 
different, and hence is not falsified.

Now, if ID supplied some actual details - who the designer was, why they 
went to all this trouble, when the designing happened, how the designer 
could do something that we cannot, etc. - then there would be some 
danger of finally nailing it to the floor.

Don't hold your breath...

Post a reply to this message

>> OK, well how about chaos theory? That puts hard bounds on what can and
>> cannot be predicted. I should imagine that over the course of 4 billion
>> years, one single stray photon would probably be enough to perturb the
>> system sufficiently that it wildly diverges from your predictions.
>
> Unless you run your prediction simulation on the same "hardware" as the
> real thing.
>
> I can run some chaotic program on my PC and the results look pretty
> chaotic, yet I am then able to predict *exactly* the outcome if you run
> it again on your PC (assuming same CPU architecture etc).
>
> I can then be the intelligent designer, playing about with the initial
> conditions until I find something that looks nice. Then I can inform you
> the initial values and you get to see the nice outcome too.

Computer systems are designed to be predictable.

The trouble with unpredictable systems such as the Earth's atmosphere is 
that arbitrarily tiny perturbations of the initial state yield huge 
divergences in the end result.

If I set my Earth up the same way as your Earth, but with a 10^-47 error 
in wind speed in one place, the weather patterns of my Earth will 
rapidly diverge from the weather patterns you got.

On top of all that, the Earth has been here for a few billion years. 
Where did the designer find the time (and space?) to rerun their 
simulation countless hundred trillion times to get it all to work out? 
The only really plausible explanation is a designer "outside" of the 
universe - the old "the universe is a computer simulation on somebody's 
desk" theory.

In short, to make the implausible ID theory work, you need to postulate 
even more radical theories such as the designer running the universe as 
a computer simulation...

Post a reply to this message

> The trouble with unpredictable systems such as the Earth's atmosphere is
> that arbitrarily tiny perturbations of the initial state yield huge
> divergences in the end result.

Same if I have a 4GB chaotic simulation running on my machine, just one 
bit different in the initial conditions will yield 4GB of completely 
different data.  Yet it will be totally repeatable.

> If I set my Earth up the same way as your Earth, but with a 10^-47 error
> in wind speed in one place, the weather patterns of my Earth will
> rapidly diverge from the weather patterns you got.

Sure, but what if you set up your Earth with the *exact* same initial 
conditions?  I know there is randomness inherent at the quantum level, 
but maybe that's just because we haven't figured out yet what is driving 
those events, so they just *appear* random to us.

> On top of all that, the Earth has been here for a few billion years.
> Where did the designer find the time (and space?) to rerun their
> simulation countless hundred trillion times to get it all to work out?

Who knows what is going on outside of our universe, or before our 
universe was started?

> In short, to make the implausible ID theory work, you need to postulate
> even more radical theories such as the designer running the universe as
> a computer simulation...

So if you got a computer simulation running here on Earth, that somehow 
simulated molecular interactions etc, and then you started it off with 
the DNA of an ant or something, you would have an ant "alive" in your 
computer.  If you made the computer big enough that you can simulate 
more complex lifeforms, and then intelligent lifeforms, how would they 
ever figure out what was going on outside of their "world"?  Obviously 
the "world" and complexity of the simulation would have to be orders of 
magnitude smaller than our universe, but that simply means some "parent" 
universe of ours would just need to be bigger and more complex.

Post a reply to this message

On 11/01/2011 10:31 AM, scott wrote:
>> The trouble with unpredictable systems such as the Earth's atmosphere is
>> that arbitrarily tiny perturbations of the initial state yield huge
>> divergences in the end result.
>
> Same if I have a 4GB chaotic simulation running on my machine, just one
> bit different in the initial conditions will yield 4GB of completely
> different data. Yet it will be totally repeatable.

Only because it's data in a computer.

> Sure, but what if you set up your Earth with the *exact* same initial
> conditions?

In general, that's not physically possible.

It's like the fact that, according to the laws of physics, it is 
possible to UNscramble an egg. But have you tried it recently? It's 
quite hard.

> So if you got a computer simulation running here on Earth, that somehow
> simulated molecular interactions etc, and then you started it off with
> the DNA of an ant or something, you would have an ant "alive" in your
> computer. If you made the computer big enough that you can simulate more
> complex lifeforms, and then intelligent lifeforms, how would they ever
> figure out what was going on outside of their "world"? Obviously the
> "world" and complexity of the simulation would have to be orders of
> magnitude smaller than our universe, but that simply means some "parent"
> universe of ours would just need to be bigger and more complex.

Right. If you accept that our universe is a computer simulation and that 
ID's "designer" is outside out universe, then the theory becomes at 
least logically plausible. (And still not testable.)

That's *a lot* of assumptions just to avoid accepting the vast amount of 
evidence supporting evolution.

Post a reply to this message

> Right. If you accept that our universe is a computer simulation and that
> ID's "designer" is outside out universe, then the theory becomes at
> least logically plausible. (And still not testable.)
>
> That's *a lot* of assumptions just to avoid accepting the vast amount of
> evidence supporting evolution.

If our universe is a kind of computer simulation, that doesn't mean 
evolution didn't or couldn't have happened.  It just means someone or 
something set up the "rules" and the "initial conditions".

Post a reply to this message

On 08/01/2011 04:19 PM, Warp wrote:
> Paul Fuller<pgf### [at] optusnetcomau>  wrote:
>> Makes you wonder what life on a Kuiper Belt Object might be like.
>
>    I don't think it would be physically possible for any kind of life to
> form that far from the Sun.

Certainly life, as we understand the concept, requires energy. Most life 
on *our* planet uses the Sun for that. But not all of it: it's well 
documented that there are organisms fed by chemicals originating from 
the Earth's core, for example. It's plausible that such a thing could 
happen on more distant planets. (Although I have no idea whether the 
chemistry of any /specific/ known planet makes this likely.)

>    It's hard to imagine how life could form without water.

Life, as we understand is, is a dense network of chemical reactions. 
That would logically appear to require some kind of solvent. There's no 
specific reason why it should be water; some scientists have suggested, 
say, ammonia.

More fundamental perhaps is carbon, which is capable of forming very 
complex compounds. (Silicon is also sometimes suggested.)

>    Of course for the water to be any good, it has to be in liquid form.
> If you are too far away from the Sun, all the water will be frozen solid.
> This isn't a very fertile ground for life to form. There are little chemical
> reactions going on, chemicals are not very free to move, and there are
> probably a huge bunch of other properties necessary for *any* kind of
> life to form which just aren't possible with deep-frozen ice.

You're aware that (on Earth) there are organisms that live in solid ice, 
right?

(Of course, further from the Sun, that probably wouldn't be viable.)

Live as it exists on Earth fundamentally requires liquid water, but 
there are reasons to suppose that this isn't necessarily a hard 
requirement for "life" to exist.

>    Now, perhaps if there was a liquid which remains an liquid form at those
> temperatures, it could ostensibly happen. However, such liquids are both
> extremely rare (iow. there wouldn't be enough of it in any given planet),
> and their chemical properties are probably inadequate for any kind of
> lifeforms.

What makes you think that chemicals which are "rare" on Earth would 
necessarily be rare elsewhere?

(E.g., O2 used to be "rare" on Earth - extremely rare, in fact.)

 From what I understand, other planets have been found to have vastly 
different chemistry to Earth.

> (Also, most liquids other than water get denser when they
> solidify, which is a big problem.)

Care to explain why?

>    (Conversely, a planet which is too *close* to the Sun cannot form life
> either, this time because there's no water because it's all vaporized away.
> It also makes forming a viable atmosphere quite hard, making it a very
> hostile environment, where strong radiation hits directly the surface
> of the planet, destroying any complex chemicals that might form by chance.)

I would have thought the biggest problem with living close to the Sun 
would be simply that any complex molecules would get smashed to pieces 
very rapidly.

Post a reply to this message

Replying to Invisible but some comments on what Darren kicked off about 
fingers.

On 8/01/2011 5:05 AM, Darren New wrote:
 >
 > I remember reading somewhere that there's a gene that controls how many
 > fingers you have *and* something about the reproductive system, so any
 > mutation in that gene tends to keep you from reproducing for entirely
 > unrelated reasons. Hence the reason why everything from fish to bats to
 > birds to people have five finger bones.
 >

On 11/01/2011 8:54 PM, Invisible wrote:
>
> I suspect what it boils down so is that there's no specific reason why
> some number other than 5 would be an advantage, so it hasn't changed.
> (This of course doesn't rule out random "neutral" changes I suppose...)
>

Given the enormous range of limb variations it is surprising that the 
number 5 is so common.  Sure some of the digits might be fused or 
reduced to almost nothing.

However I don't think it is true that *all* tetrapods have 5 digits.

Snakes are tetrapods.  While some snakes have vestigial hind legs, I 
don't know that they actually have digits.  Most snakes have no 
remaining legs to speak of - maybe a bump where the legs might have been 
but no identifiable limbs and certainly no digits.

Similar with whale hind limbs I think.  Some species have vestigial 
pelvis and hind limbs.  Usually within their bodies.  Occasionally some 
individuals have some protrusion.  Maybe digits are present during 
development of the foetus but as far as I know there are not actual 
digits by the time they are born.  Could be wrong on that but in any 
case they are well on the path to losing them altogether.

The limb changes here might start out as 'the limb genes are still there 
but the gene(s) controlling their size, placement, function etc cause 
them to get smaller, relocated or stop working'.  Given enough time 
though, genes that generate something that is irrelevant tend to 
accumulate changes and either become 'broken' or can be co-opted for 
something else.

Then going the other way there are animals with more than 5 digits on 
one or more limbs.  Some people for instance - see 'polydactylism'. 
Some of the pictures out there are fake but it is a real condition. 
Most common is 6 fingers or toes instead of 5.  It may be a quite 
harmless single gene mutation or part of a more severe complex.  As far 
as I know the milder form doesn't render the individual  prematurely 
dead or infertile.

There is a breed or at least a population of 'polydactyl cats' that have 
more than the usual number of toes on their front legs, back legs or 
both.  They even apparently can be more dextrous than normal so that 
might confer an advantage in some ways but there may be some 
disadvantages as well.  Again, I don't think that the genetic change 
that causes this is fatal.  It certainly does not prevent development 
from egg to adult because these cats are real.

The point that some genes are deeply interconnected with others or are 
so important to development or metabolism etc so tend to be highly 
conserved is true.  But as with most things in biology there are more 
things Horatio...

Post a reply to this message

>    Water would be the liquid of choice because it has two very special
> properties that basically no other liquid has: It's extremely common,
> and its solid form has lessed density than its liquid form. Without these
> two properties there would be no life on Earth (or anywhere else). (There
> are probably also many other necessary properties, related to solubility
> and how water reacts chemically with other compounds, but I do not know
> enough about chemistry to say anything about that.)
>
>    It's hard to imagine how life could form without water.

How come?  Didn't life as we know it develop because there was plenty of 
water around?  On planets or moons much further away where another 
liquid is in plentiful supply (eg methane) couldn't some kind of life 
develop that uses that instead?  What's the general definition of life 
(without referencing the specific life we have on Earth)?

Post a reply to this message

Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> >    Of course for the water to be any good, it has to be in liquid form.
> > If you are too far away from the Sun, all the water will be frozen solid.
> > This isn't a very fertile ground for life to form. There are little chemical
> > reactions going on, chemicals are not very free to move, and there are
> > probably a huge bunch of other properties necessary for *any* kind of
> > life to form which just aren't possible with deep-frozen ice.

> You're aware that (on Earth) there are organisms that live in solid ice, 
> right?

  They did not originate in ice. The simply adapted to it afterwards.

> >    Now, perhaps if there was a liquid which remains an liquid form at those
> > temperatures, it could ostensibly happen. However, such liquids are both
> > extremely rare (iow. there wouldn't be enough of it in any given planet),
> > and their chemical properties are probably inadequate for any kind of
> > lifeforms.

> What makes you think that chemicals which are "rare" on Earth would 
> necessarily be rare elsewhere?

  There would have to be a significantly different process that formed
those rare elements than here on Earth. What would that process be?

  Heavy elements are formed when stars explode. After that the only way
for one element to change into another is by radioactive decay, and there's
only so much that will be formed that way.

> (E.g., O2 used to be "rare" on Earth - extremely rare, in fact.)

  O2 is not essential for life (unlike eg. water).

> > (Also, most liquids other than water get denser when they
> > solidify, which is a big problem.)

> Care to explain why?

  If water had a higher density when it freezes (as happens with the vast
majority of other chemical compounds), life on Earth wouldn't exist because
all bodies of water would freeze from the bottom up, killing all living
organisms. Water having a lower density when it freezes happens to create
a nice protective "shell" on top of bodies of water when they freeze,
insulating it from the cold. (That's why eg. lakes don't freeze solid
throughout, they only get a relatively thin layer of ice. Relative to
the entire depth of the lake, of course.)

  (Although I don't know this for certain, I'm pretty sure that if the
Earth was closer to the Sun so that it would never experience ice ages
or the like, it would be too close for life to form for other reasons.)

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

scott <sco### [at] scottcom> wrote:
> How come?  Didn't life as we know it develop because there was plenty of 
> water around?  On planets or moons much further away where another 
> liquid is in plentiful supply (eg methane) couldn't some kind of life 
> develop that uses that instead?  What's the general definition of life 
> (without referencing the specific life we have on Earth)?

  Do other liquids have the same chemical properties advantageous to the
forming of life?

  Also, other liquids often require such cold temperatures that the planet
may be uninhabitable for that reason: It doesn't receive enough energy from
the Sun to form or sustain life.

  Also, if the liquid gets a higher density when it freezes, it can become
a problem with respect to forming life.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

>>> (Also, most liquids other than water get denser when they
>>> solidify, which is a big problem.)
>
>> Care to explain why?
>
>    If water had a higher density when it freezes (as happens with the vast
> majority of other chemical compounds), life on Earth wouldn't exist because
> all bodies of water would freeze from the bottom up, killing all living
> organisms.

Is it a requirement of life to have frozen water around?  Couldn't life 
start on a planet where there were areas that never froze (or at least 
didn't freeze for long enough for life develop sufficiently)?

Post a reply to this message

Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> Evolution asserts that species are not fixed; they /change/. And so the 
> species we see today were not always there. And, in particular, not so 
> much evolution itself, but molecular evidence says that all life on 
> Earth has a single common ancestor.

  Actually the definition of "species" is a hard one.

  By definition two animals are of different species if they cannot produce
fertile offspring. However, this definition is lacking.

  It's lacking because the definition implies transitivity: If A can reproduce
with B (thus A and B are of the same species), and B can reproduce with C
(thus B and C are of the same species), by definition A and C should be of
the same species (and hence able to reproduce). However, there are eg.
so-called ring species (look it up) where this doesn't happen: It may be
that A and C cannot reproduce, making them by definition members of
different species, even though B can reproduce with either A or C. This
makes a clear definition of B's species rather difficult.

  (And with ring species we are not necessarily talking here about some
weird obscure unicellular organisms living in the depths of the ocean
which defy all classification. We are talking about regular everyday
animals, such as certain species of seagull.)

  A ring species is actually an excellent demonstration of how speciation
can happen gradually, unlike the straw man that some creationists present
of "a species suddenly transforming into another": Yes, it *is* possible
for a subgroup of a species to *slowly* transform into a different species
over time, and during this period the ability of procreation between the
two groups gradually becomes less and less possible (the probability of
a successful fertilization becomes smaller and smaller because of the
constantly increasing differences in genes). If this subgroup further
spawns an even more isolated sub-subgroup, we may end up precisely in the
situation where a member of group A can procreate with a member of group
B, and a member of B with a member of C, but a member of A cannot procreate
with a member of C.

  The difficulty of classifying B in the example also demonstrates the
completely fuzzy line between when a species becomes another species.
If you trace the ancestry of a modern species back to an ancestral species
which spawned one or more other modern species, it's hard to define when
exactly the modern species became to exist exactly. By definition every
offspring is of the same species has its parents, but if you continue
this back long enough, you end up with animals that are so different from
the modern equivalents that they cannot be considered of the same species
anymore (if that ancient species was brought back to life today, it would
be unable to reproduce with its modern descendant). However, drawing the
dividing line where the ancient species became the modern one is impossible.
It's a fuzzy line.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Warp wrote:
> >   (I read somewhere that recently Barack Obama decided to announce the
> > National Day of Prayer, or something like that, 

> The "national day of prayer" has been around since we were fighting the 
> godless communists (I kid you not) in the 1950's, passed by Congress at the 
> time. That's the same time we got "under god" added to "one nation under 
> god" in the pledge of allegiance.  Given that Obama keeps referring to 
> atheists in all his speeches (which ticks off the religious folks) I would 
> guess (without a cite) this is at least as much a lie as half the other 
> things said about him.

  Well, perhaps this will do for a citation:

http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/prayerday.asp

"Observances of the National Day of Prayer took place throughout the
U.S. in 2009 and again in 2010. The status of the National Day of
Prayer is currently somewhat uncertain, though, as on 15 April 2010 a
federal judge ruled in favor of a challenge brought by the Freedom
from Religion Foundation and held that the National Day of Prayer is
unconstitutional. The Obama administration was actually the defendant
in that suit, arguing in favor of retaining the National Day of
Prayer."

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

scott <sco### [at] scottcom> wrote:
> Is it a requirement of life to have frozen water around?  Couldn't life 
> start on a planet where there were areas that never froze (or at least 
> didn't freeze for long enough for life develop sufficiently)?

  I don't know. There are tons and tons of things that allowed life to
form of Earth, and changing even one of them would have made it a lot
more difficult, if not impossible. (Christians will say that the Earth
is like that because God created it like that. Scientists will simply
point out the anthropic principle: Earth was not created for us. We are
on earth because of all the countless random planets on the Universe Earth
happened to be optimal for the formation of life, so it did.)

  It might be that if the weather system on Earth (over periods of millions
of years) was such that water never froze at large portions of it, it might
be hostile for life for other reasons. Perhaps a changing climate is somehow
necessary for life. As said, I don't know.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

>>>     Of course for the water to be any good, it has to be in liquid form.
>
>> You're aware that (on Earth) there are organisms that live in solid ice,
>> right?
>
>    They did not originate in ice. The simply adapted to it afterwards.

That's true. It's also true that planets that are far from the Sun right 
now might have been nearer at some point. Or the Sun's output may have 
changed.

But ultimately, yes, it seems more plausible that life would originate 
and thrive in a liquid or possibly vapour environment, rather than a 
solid one. (I have no idea whether it's feasible in plasma.)

>> What makes you think that chemicals which are "rare" on Earth would
>> necessarily be rare elsewhere?
>
>    There would have to be a significantly different process that formed
> those rare elements than here on Earth. What would that process be?

A cursory glance at the chemical composition of the surface or 
atmosphere of various planets around us indicates wildly differing 
chemistry. I don't know enough about planet formation to speculate as to 
why. (Presumably different elements get transported to different places 
or something...)

>>> (Also, most liquids other than water get denser when they
>>> solidify, which is a big problem.)
>
>> Care to explain why?
>
>    If water had a higher density when it freezes (as happens with the vast
> majority of other chemical compounds), life on Earth wouldn't exist because
> all bodies of water would freeze from the bottom up, killing all living
> organisms.

OK. But presumably that's only "a big problem" if the chemical we're 
talking about has a solid phase that can potentially exist on the planet 
in question. For example, ammonia freezes at about -77°C. So long as 
your hypothetical planet never gets that cold, the fact that solid 
ammonia is more dense than liquid ammonia shouldn't be a problem.

Post a reply to this message

> On planets or moons much further away where another liquid
> is in plentiful supply (eg methane) couldn't some kind of life develop
> that uses that instead?

I would say it's plausible.

Water's chemistry is somewhat unusual in a number of ways (particularly 
the fact that it can dissolve such a wide range of solutes), but it 
seems plausible to me that you could use some other solvent.

Post a reply to this message

>    It might be that if the weather system on Earth (over periods of millions
> of years) was such that water never froze at large portions of it, it might
> be hostile for life for other reasons. Perhaps a changing climate is somehow
> necessary for life. As said, I don't know.

I don't know either, which is why I wouldn't dismiss the possibility 
that life could start in other liquids.

Post a reply to this message

On 11/01/2011 02:03 PM, Warp wrote:

>    Actually the definition of "species" is a hard one.

Yes, actually.

I suppose back when everybody thought that all life was fixed and 
unvarying forever, it seemed less problematic. But now that we know that 
one species gradually changes into another... it's a bit like trying to 
classify whether a specific colour is "red" or "orange". The distinction 
is almost arbitrary.

>    By definition two animals are of different species if they cannot produce
> fertile offspring. However, this definition is lacking.
>
>    It's lacking because the definition implies transitivity:

There's a much bigger problem: Some species reproduce asexually. (!)

> However, there are eg. so-called ring species (look it up)

Another of the interesting items from The Ancestor's Tale which my 
initial post skipped over. A continuum of organisms, distinct at the 
ends, but continuous and unbroken across the middle.

>    A ring species is actually an excellent demonstration of how speciation
> can happen gradually, unlike the straw man that some creationists present
> of "a species suddenly transforming into another".

It also neatly demonstrates that geographic separation is not a 
necessary condition for speciation.

>    The difficulty of classifying B in the example also demonstrates the
> completely fuzzy line between when a species becomes another species.
> If you trace the ancestry of a modern species back to an ancestral species
> which spawned one or more other modern species, it's hard to define when
> exactly the modern species became to exist exactly.

Ring species show fuzziness in the spatial domain, ancestor trees show 
it in the temporal domain. Either way, the problem remains the same: how 
to map discrete names to continuous phenomena?

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:
>   I don't think it would be physically possible for any kind of life to
> form that far from the Sun.

There's the Vernor Vinge story "A deepness in the sky", wherein the 
protagonists evolved around a sun that was hot only a few decades out of 
each several centuries and managed to hibernate through the cold times. I 
imagine something like that with a comet could work out. Hard to see how it 
would *evolve*, mind, unless the body started out in a close orbit that got 
more and more eccentric over time somehow.

>   Chemicals need to react with each other, which means that there must be
> some kind of solution where they can freely float or otherwise move.

Weightlessness?

> (Also, most liquids other than water get denser when they
> solidify, which is a big problem.)

I'm not sure that's as much of a problem as you think it is for anything 
other than fish.  Why do you think the fact that it floats is important?

Also, it floats in part because it's a polar molecule (i.e., electrically 
asymmetrical), which may very well be more important than the result of 
floating.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:
> life on Earth wouldn't exist because
> all bodies of water would freeze from the bottom up, killing all living
> organisms.

Well, unless they evolved in San Diego. ;-)

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
> But ultimately, yes, it seems more plausible that life would originate 
> and thrive in a liquid or possibly vapour environment, rather than a 
> solid one. 

There is much hard sci-fi about life in jupiter's clouds, never landing on 
solid ground, taking energy from both the planet and the sun.  It doesn't 
seem too unreasonable.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
> ID is not testable. It's so vague that any time someone falsifies it, 
> the proponents can just claim that the theory says something slightly 
> different, and hence is not falsified.

That's a different problem. Denying the evidence of the failed tests doesn't 
mean that it passed the tests. It only means the proponents are pushing the 
concept regardless of whether it has failed the tests.

ID is certainly testable: We've found no irreducibly complex substructures, 
we have overwhelming evidence of evolution, etc.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

Post a reply to this message

scott wrote:
> but maybe that's just because we haven't figured out yet what is driving 
> those events, so they just *appear* random to us.

FWIW, the answer to this speculation is "no, we have proven that's not the 
case."  :-)

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:
> "Observances of the National Day of Prayer took place throughout the
> U.S. in 2009 and again in 2010.

OK. But it has been around longer than either of us have been alive; it's 
not something Obama ass-pulled. I'm not sure what "The Obama administration" 
refers to there, but I'm pretty sure it encompasses far more than "Obama".

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

Post a reply to this message