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From: Jim Henderson
Subject: Re: A kind of revolution is happening in the United States
Date: 22 Apr 2011 15:05:20
Message: <4db1d170$1@news.povray.org>
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On Thu, 21 Apr 2011 18:30:19 -0400, Warp wrote:
> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospam com> wrote:
>> I was thinking of something else (but of course I can't remember what
>> now). You are correct that ID does try to pretend to be - I guess I'm
>> having a problem with "scientific" being combined with "religious
>> belief" and that's what led me to say "anti-scientific" - as I see
>> 'religious belief' as being antithetical to 'knowledge'.
>
> The whole idea with the "intelligent design" movement is to mask the
> fact that it's simply repackaged creationism, by removing all mentions
> of "God" and other theistic claims.
Yes, but a rebranding of creationism as "intelligent design" doesn't mean
it's not religiously motivated. I guess for those who don't see through
that deception and who have a very limited understanding of what
scientific discovery actually is might think it was 'an appearance of
science'.
> In the worst case scenario the whole schooling system could get
> sabotaged
> to a catastrophical point. Science, technology and progress would suffer
> enormously.
Yes, and I think ultimately this demonstrates the real danger of this
type of theistic thinking - not to mention that when it enters the public
schools, it violates the establishment clause of the US Constitution. If
a public school is teaching religious theology about the creation of the
universe (whether they use religious metaphors or not), I'm sorry, that's
state-sponsored religion, and that's unconstitutional.
Jim
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From: Jim Henderson
Subject: Re: A kind of revolution is happening in the United States
Date: 22 Apr 2011 15:06:06
Message: <4db1d19e$1@news.povray.org>
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On Thu, 21 Apr 2011 15:35:20 -0700, Darren New wrote:
> On 4/21/2011 15:30, Warp wrote:
>> start demanding to "teach the controversy" in geography class, and so
>> on.
>
> http://www.joeydevilla.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/
teach_the_controversy_t-shirt_designs.jpg
>
> I'm sure you've seen that stuff.
I love it. :)
Jim
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From: Darren New
Subject: Re: A kind of revolution is happening in the United States
Date: 22 Apr 2011 16:32:33
Message: <4db1e5e1$1@news.povray.org>
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On 4/22/2011 11:58, Jim Henderson wrote:
> That's the problem with having a holy book that's used as a 'set of
> directions' where it's been translated, re-translated, interpreted, re-
> interpreted, and heavily edited over a couple millenia.
Yeah, except the Qu'an isn't really quite like that. It's all one giant
unambiguous book written by one guy in one lifetime.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
"Coding without comments is like
driving without turn signals."
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From: Jim Henderson
Subject: Re: A kind of revolution is happening in the United States
Date: 22 Apr 2011 16:43:33
Message: <4db1e875$1@news.povray.org>
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On Fri, 22 Apr 2011 13:32:31 -0700, Darren New wrote:
> On 4/22/2011 11:58, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> That's the problem with having a holy book that's used as a 'set of
>> directions' where it's been translated, re-translated, interpreted, re-
>> interpreted, and heavily edited over a couple millenia.
>
> Yeah, except the Qu'an isn't really quite like that. It's all one giant
> unambiguous book written by one guy in one lifetime.
But I think you'll find that it's been interpreted/translated a few times.
Jim
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From: Nekar Xenos
Subject: Re: A kind of revolution is happening in the United States
Date: 22 Apr 2011 17:00:46
Message: <op.vucxziedufxv4h@xena>
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On Fri, 22 Apr 2011 22:32:31 +0200, Darren New <dne### [at] san rr com> wrote:
> On 4/22/2011 11:58, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> That's the problem with having a holy book that's used as a 'set of
>> directions' where it's been translated, re-translated, interpreted, re-
>> interpreted, and heavily edited over a couple millenia.
>
> Yeah, except the Qu'an isn't really quite like that. It's all one giant
> unambiguous book written by one guy in one lifetime.
>
unambiguous?
http://www.google.co.za/search?client=opera&rls=en&q=ambiguous+quran&sourceid=opera&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8
--
-Nekar Xenos-
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From: Patrick Elliott
Subject: Re: A kind of revolution is happening in the United States
Date: 22 Apr 2011 18:03:47
Message: <4db1fb43@news.povray.org>
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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.
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From: Darren New
Subject: Re: A kind of revolution is happening in the United States
Date: 22 Apr 2011 18:20:23
Message: <4db1ff27$1@news.povray.org>
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On 4/22/2011 14:00, Nekar Xenos wrote:
> unambiguous?
>
http://www.google.co.za/search?client=opera&rls=en&q=ambiguous+quran&sourceid=opera&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8
Perhaps "ambiguous" was a poor choice of word compared to "contradictory".
I was really referring to Jim's quote "the one that says 'kill the infidels'
or the one that says 'Islam is peaceful'."
The answer is "whichever comes later."
One may reasonably be confused about what something unclear means, but one
cannot be reasonably confused about which instructions are applicable and
which aren't. Unlike, say, the Bible, where some people think what Paul (and
later popes) wrote supersedes what Jesus said, and others don't.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
"Coding without comments is like
driving without turn signals."
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From: Patrick Elliott
Subject: Re: A kind of revolution is happening in the United States
Date: 22 Apr 2011 18:20:45
Message: <4db1ff3d$1@news.povray.org>
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On 4/22/2011 8:52 AM, Darren New wrote:
>> No, just to the point where it is in principle provable, but in practice
>> not.
>
> But nobody has even come up with an idea of how you would show a protein
> could not have evolved. "Irreducible complexity" doesn't show a protein
> could not have evolved. So how would you recognize such a protein?
>
They have tried math that claims its unlikely, if you 1) get the math
wrong, 2) make a lot of assumptions from the start, and 3) presumes you
have less time to do it that was actually available. Its the lotto
ticket hypothesis. I.e., one person's odds of winning at 1:6 billion is
stupidly low, so it should be somehow equally improbable for 100 million
people, attempting it twice a week, for an entirely unspecified length
of time, to do it either. In reality, people manage to win it almost
every time tickets are sold. In short, their *entire* argument hedges on
the odds of a solution happening with *one* attempt, in *one* step,
within *one* organism, instead of in like 900 trillion gazillion
attempts, with similar numbers of individuals, over multiple steps.
Its about as honest an attempt to describe why "Irreducible Complexity"
is even a valid concept as it would be if they included the joke math,
where you are made to prove that X = Y, by dividing by zero at some
point in the process. There only other hole card is the whole
"ontological depth" thing, which is just more hand waving. The principle
behind it being, "If we have a coherent description of what this was,
and how to measure it, it would amount to, 'Wow, this is X times more
complex that that other thing, thus Y times less likely to happen, in
the same, one step, single organism, single attempt case IC claims had
to happen for evolution to work.'"
Its one of the ironies of the whole idiot mess that evolution says, "You
don't just get things popping up out of no place, it happens slowly, in
all cases.", yet the central themes of ID/Creationism are that things
*do* just pop into existence, without any precursors, in DNA, but that
somehow this disallows rabbits hatching out of chicken eggs, while, at
the same time *claiming* that this is exactly what evolution proposes.
The stupid thing being, one would think that under the, "god did it!",
hypothesis, this is precisely how entire species would have had to
happen. lol
Even their claims about what evolution says (but doesn't), and therefor
ID, are incoherent with respect to their own argument about how you get,
say parrots, if the only birds on their stupid boat had been doves.
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From: Darren New
Subject: Re: A kind of revolution is happening in the United States
Date: 22 Apr 2011 18:23:01
Message: <4db1ffc5$1@news.povray.org>
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On 4/22/2011 15:03, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> 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.
Except, in that case, it *is* precisely a man in a gorilla suit. Humans
tinkering with DNA are no more unnatural than beavers building dams. The
only way you'd actually be justified in teaching that anything discovered by
evolution is in doubt is if there was a *supernatural* source. Aliens
visiting and modifying the DNA doesn't mean the DNA didn't evolve. Not even
large black rectangular aliens.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
"Coding without comments is like
driving without turn signals."
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From: Patrick Elliott
Subject: Re: A kind of revolution is happening in the United States
Date: 22 Apr 2011 18:32:24
Message: <4db201f8$1@news.povray.org>
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On 4/20/2011 10:09 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Wed, 20 Apr 2011 16:08:25 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>
>> No it can't. Not in science.
>
> I didn't say "in science". In common usage, and that's part of the
> problem with the Creationist argument (which I stated before): They
> misuse the word "Theory".
>
> Now, if you couple the idea that ID is not science but evolution is, you
> can use "theory" in describing both - because one has the context of not
> being science, and one has the context of being science.
>
> It is a legitimate *linguistic* usage of the word. My point was to
> illustrate that this is the device used by creationists to argue that
> it's science, and it's born out of ignorance of the *scientific* usage of
> the word as compared to the 'common usage' use of the word - or it's born
> out of malicious use of the same word intended to cause confusion in
> those who don't understand that words can actually mean more than one
> thing, and that the *context* is important.
>
> Jim
Ok, lets put it another way.. Fag may be a legitimate word to be used to
describe a cigarette in some places, but using it a lot in the context
of a gay right rally, because you flat out fail to grasp what the
difference is, is probably a bloody stupid idea.
So, sure, using the layman's "theory" might be legitimate, its ***not***
legitimate if the thing being discussed is scientific evidence, since
doing so is not going to help you find out which is which, any more than
running around San Francisco during a pride parade yelling, "Anyone have
a fag?", is going to get you a tobacco product.
As someone that cares about the distinction, and this goes for most of
the people "in science", I don't give a flying frak what the "layman's"
definition is. Its allowing that definition to go unopposed that creates
everything from sympathy for Anti-vaxers, to climate change denialism,
to, "Its not creationism, honest!" 'teaching the controversy' nonsense.
If any fool can claim *anything* they pull out of their ass is a
"theory", how do you expect anyone to know the difference between the two?
Definitions matter. And, if the definition that is undermining good
sense is a problem, the solution isn't to shrug your shoulders and go,
"Ah, well, they use the word differently." No, the solution is to make
it clear that the murky gibberish version used by the public is *not*
the correct definition of the word, and more to the point, get
politicians, news agencies, and other people, where ever possible, to
stop bloody using it interchangeably with, "I pulled this out of my ass
this morning."
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