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Source: (consider it) Thread: The Death of Darwinism
Alan Cresswell

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quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
Sin corrupts ... causes aging.


Crikey. I never realised it was because of sin that we aren't all new born infants, fated to never grow older.

quote:
How clever of Evolution to not design our bodies so as to appear it did. [Big Grin]
I keep trying to parse that sentence, and I just can't quite work out what you are trying to say. Which makes it a poorly designed statement.

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Rex Monday

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I've never understood how if sin causes ageing, ageing is practically universal across all living organisms with the exception of one species of jellyfish.

The biology of this is intriguing, but the theology simply incomprehensible.

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I am largely against organised religion, which is why I am so fond of the C of E.

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Boogie

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# 13538

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Immortal jellyfish - who knew?

If we'd evolved from them there wouldn't be much space left on planet Earth!

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Ann

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quote:
Originally posted by leo:
Richard Dawkins did a brilliant demonstration of how the eye could evolve - in his Royal Institution Christmas lectures.

I had it on tape but someone taped over it.

Anyone know whether it is on Youtube?

Is this what you're looking for?

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Ann

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leo
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quote:
Originally posted by Ann:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
Richard Dawkins did a brilliant demonstration of how the eye could evolve - in his Royal Institution Christmas lectures.

I had it on tape but someone taped over it.

Anyone know whether it is on Youtube?

Is this what you're looking for?
You wonderful, wonderful person.

Thank you very much.

[ 16. November 2014, 14:50: Message edited by: leo ]

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My Jewish-positive lectionary blog is at http://recognisingjewishrootsinthelectionary.wordpress.com/
My reviews at http://layreadersbookreviews.wordpress.com

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jrw
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quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
Sin corrupts ... causes aging.


Crikey. I never realised it was because of sin that we aren't all new born infants, fated to never grow older.


But presumably there's a difference between growing older and growing old, the latter being deterioration of the body.

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plug plug

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Boogie

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quote:
Originally posted by jrw:
But presumably there's a difference between growing older and growing old, the latter being deterioration of the body.

There can't be any birth if there is no death.

No death = no soil, no plants, no oxygen, no anything.

Our life depends on death - why should we be exempt from it?

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Garden. Room. Walk

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lilBuddha
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quote:
Originally posted by Rex Monday:
I've never understood how if sin causes ageing, ageing is practically universal across all living organisms with the exception of one species of jellyfish.

The biology of this is intriguing, but the theology simply incomprehensible.

It is obvious| These jellyfish are sinless. Well, perhaps excepting the ones who get eaten.

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LeRoc

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quote:
lilBuddha: These jellyfish are sinless. Well, perhaps excepting the ones who get eaten.
They so deserve it.

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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)

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Dafyd
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quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
How clever of Evolution to not design our bodies so as to appear it did. [Big Grin]

I keep trying to parse that sentence, and I just can't quite work out what you are trying to say.
I believe it is an attempt at sarcasm, somewhat vitiated by an utter failure to understand the position that he's being sarcastic about.

The underlying logical fallacy is interesting: I can't work out whether it's one of the ones with a name.
I think the fallacy goes:
If inefficiencies are evidence of not design, then efficiencies are evidence of design. Therefore, there's evidence of design.

[ 16. November 2014, 16:19: Message edited by: Dafyd ]

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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams

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no prophet's flag is set so...

Proceed to see sea
# 15560

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Weirdly, some animals named as jellyfish such as the Portuguese man o' war (technically not a jelly fish)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_man_o%27_war

have a polyp stage of life where individuals live as plankton, then conglomerate together to form what looks like a single animal to us, with some of the "polyp persons" becoming specialised as stinging cells or swimming cells etc.

I also enjoy other conventional thinking-violating organisms such clown fish (think Nemo), the males of which turn into females if the female leaves her harem of males - the largest of which turns into a female usually. Headless male insects which continue to copulate after their mate eats their head is also food for thought, so to speak.


[for some reason that link breaks the URL code- so I've had to put it in plain - L]

[ 16. November 2014, 19:35: Message edited by: Louise ]

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\_(ツ)_/

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Jamat
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quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
How clever of Evolution to not design our bodies so as to appear it did. [Big Grin]

I keep trying to parse that sentence, and I just can't quite work out what you are trying to say.
I believe it is an attempt at sarcasm, somewhat vitiated by an utter failure to understand the position that he's being sarcastic about.

The underlying logical fallacy is interesting: I can't work out whether it's one of the ones with a name.

I think the fallacy goes:
If inefficiencies are evidence of not design, then efficiencies are evidence of design. Therefore, there's evidence of design.

Thank you for the compliment. It is really more ironic than sarcastic perhaps oxymoronic with an emphasis on the moronic, sort of like mindless genius.

--------------------
Jamat ..in utmost longditude, where Heaven
with Earth and ocean meets, the setting sun slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern gate of Paradise. (Milton Paradise Lost Bk iv)

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Jamat
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Steve Meyer lecture
This is worth a look concerning ID debate.

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Jamat ..in utmost longditude, where Heaven
with Earth and ocean meets, the setting sun slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern gate of Paradise. (Milton Paradise Lost Bk iv)

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Karl: Liberal Backslider
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# 76

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quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
Steve Meyer lecture
This is worth a look concerning ID debate.

A BBS like this isn't really amenable to a point by point dissection of an 80 minute lecture. Perhaps you could explain some of Meyer's stronger and most central points for us so that we can examine them?

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Might as well ask the bloody cat.

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Eliab
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I listened to it.

Key points:

ID isn’t religious. It’s a theory based on the same type of inferences that drive other scientific enquiries.

ID doesn’t dispute that natural selection is a real process that produces biological change.

Darwin is popularly believed to have solved the question of life, but natural selection doesn’t address the ‘origin of life’ question at all.

In the past this wasn’t seen as a problem because it was assumed that the building blocks of life – cells – were basically simple, and their origin could be pre-supposed. Darwin answered the question of how increasing organisation and complexity could be generated.

We now know that the cell is incredibly complicated. DNA replication in particular is far more complex than anything Darwin could have imagined.

The only way we know that nature generates DNA is by replicating existing DNA. Current theories on how the process started are unconvincing. An “RNA world” with a subsequent DNA takeover is not a solution – an RNA world would be almost as complicated and its origins would be just as difficult to explain.

DNA contains a great deal of information (a lot of the lecture was spent quantifying this in terms of information conceived as ‘reduction of uncertainty’, ‘probability’ and ‘specificity’, but I hope I do not do the lecturer an injustice by focussing on the staggeringly large amount of information as being his crucial point).

The best scientific explanation is that phenomena should be explained if possible in terms of observable causes – the analogy was made to Lyell’s Principles of Geology: we explain landscape in terms of accretion and erosion over time, because we know that those processes occur and can in principle account for changes in the landscape.

The best process we know of for generating and encoding information is conscious design.

We cannot better account for DNA, or the information contained therein, by any other process.

Therefore it is a valid inference, on the same basis of reasoning as science commonly employs, to conclude that DNA, and the information in the genetic code, was consciously designed.


I hope that is a fair summary of the argument.

It was a pretty convincing exposition of the argument “We cannot at present fully explain how DNA came to be except by postulating design”, but not, unless I missed the point, much of an argument for the much stronger proposition “We could not, in principle, ever explain how DNA came to be except by postulating design”. I associate the ID movement with arguments of the latter type – arguing not merely that we don’t know the way that natural processes could move from A to B, but that getting from A to B is actually impossible by natural processes.

--------------------
"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"

Richard Dawkins

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Karl: Liberal Backslider
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Which sounds like a bait and switch - present "we can't currently explain this" when asked for "what cannot in principle be explained." [Biased]

I'd dispute a few other points - the complexity of the individual cell has been long appreciated, but I suppose that depends on Meyer's timescale - the early microscopists who just saw boxes probably thought they were - and the whole point of RNA World is that it is less complex than DNA; RNA can catylise its own duplication, rather than the chicken and egg issue of DNA and its replication enzymes.

As I understand it. I'm not an expert.

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Might as well ask the bloody cat.

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lilBuddha
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Isn't it also a lie to say ID is not religious?
It was formulated by the YEC to get creationism back into the classroom.

--------------------
I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou

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Crœsos
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quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Isn't it also a lie to say ID is not religious?
It was formulated by the YEC to get creationism back into the classroom.

It can even be demonstrated by this transitional (literary) fossil. [Big Grin]

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Humani nil a me alienum puto

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Martin60
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# 368

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quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
How clever of Evolution to not design our bodies so as to appear it did. [Big Grin]

I keep trying to parse that sentence, and I just can't quite work out what you are trying to say.
I believe it is an attempt at sarcasm, somewhat vitiated by an utter failure to understand the position that he's being sarcastic about.

underlying logical fallacy is interesting: I can't work out whether it's one of the ones with a name.
I think the fallacy goes:
If inefficiencies are evidence of not design, then efficiencies are evidence of design. Therefore, there's evidence of design.

No. The fallacy is that evolution designs.

--------------------
Love wins

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Karl: Liberal Backslider
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# 76

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quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Isn't it also a lie to say ID is not religious?
It was formulated by the YEC to get creationism back into the classroom.

It can even be demonstrated by this transitional (literary) fossil. [Big Grin]
[Killing me] [Killing me] [Killing me]

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Might as well ask the bloody cat.

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Eliab
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quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Which sounds like a bait and switch - present "we can't currently explain this" when asked for "what cannot in principle be explained."

I wouldn't accuse Meyer of a bait-and-switch on the evidence of the lecture alone. I thought it could be taken at face value as an argument for a more modest sort of claim than those I would generally associate with ID, so I'm inclined to take it that way unless there's some other reason to doubt his good faith.

As a theist but not a creationist, the argument that DNA replication is so complex and improbable that we can only speculate as to how it may have got going, and can, perhaps, see the hand of God at work, is not one that I have any antipathy for. 'This could have been designed' seems to be to be a legitimate speculation about life's origins. So the more modest claims make sense to me as far as they go. I just wouldn't want to:

a) employ it as an argument for the truth of theism. 'God' is a theory with explanatory power only if you are already persuaded that the existence of God is at least very plausible. If you aren't so persuaded (and many atheists aren't) then a naturalistic account, however uncertain, is always going to look more convincing;

b) make it a ground of my own faith. DNA may be amazing and hard to account for, but if science does discover an full explanation for how it came during my lifetime, I want to find that discovery wonderful and exciting, not to regret it as finishing off something that helps me to believe.

--------------------
"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"

Richard Dawkins

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agingjb
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I find it curious that any theist would so limit their view of Divine Artistic Economy as to insist that there must be detectable intervention at any point in the history of the universe.

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itsarumdo
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quote:
Originally posted by agingjb:
I find it curious that any theist would so limit their view of Divine Artistic Economy as to insist that there must be detectable intervention at any point in the history of the universe.

That depends on your definition of "detectable". For instance, it was a peculiar quirk of fate that put an oddball like Winston Churchill with all the right experience and skills in just the right place at just the right time. Not to mention George VI.

To use Dawkin's analogy, how do you tell that a watchmaker has not taken the mechanism apart, cleaned it so that it works properly and then put it back together again? The answer is that - you can't - except that things work unexpectedly in a particular direction. The watch apparently (to everyone except the watchmaker) needs no repair.

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Penny S
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I once read someone put forward the idea that, a thousand years hence, people would claim that the history of WWII was clearly mythical, since the names of the leaders of the good side were obviously made up. Church Hill, Freeman of Rose Field (presumably referencing the Rosicrucian lot). Not sure if they included Joy Stone (Winston) in this hypothesis. De Gaulle is obviously the iconic Gaul, like Asterix. Whether Stalin was included, I don't know. Ironcutter (Eisenhower) would fit with the superhero metallic thing there. Then there's the Mount of the man of power (Montgomery). All coincidence?
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Alan Cresswell

Mad Scientist 先生
# 31

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quote:
Originally posted by itsarumdo:
That depends on your definition of "detectable". For instance, it was a peculiar quirk of fate that put an oddball like Winston Churchill with all the right experience and skills in just the right place at just the right time. Not to mention George VI.

Which, of course, relates to our particular history. We look back and see Churchill just when and where he was needed to bring us to where we are now. If he hadn't been there, someone else would have taken on the role of leading the UK in 1939 after Chamberlain was clearly out of his depth. We would have a different history, we wouldn't have some memorable speeches but probably gained others. And, we'd be here looking back commenting on the peculiar quirk of fate that put [whoever] in the right place and time to lead the country.

And, of course, the same applies to our own evolution. We look back and comment on some unlikely developments without which our evolution would have been different (how remarkable that a comet killed off the large dinosaurs allowing small mammals to occupy ecological vacancies). But, they're much less remarkable if we don't think that there's anything special about our particular history.

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lilBuddha
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quote:
Originally posted by itsarumdo:
For instance, it was a peculiar quirk of fate that put an oddball like Winston Churchill with all the right experience and skills in just the right place at just the right time. Not to mention George VI.


Kinda like the peculiar quirk of fate that put Hitler, with the right experience and skills at just the right place at just the right time?
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Jamat
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# 11621

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quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Isn't it also a lie to say ID is not religious?
It was formulated by the YEC to get creationism back into the classroom.

Maybe it is a lie if you believe that to say it is not religious is a wilful distortion of the facts. I've no doubt that is the case for some ID proponents. ID certainly suits and meshes with a Christian world view but knowledge does not stand or fall on the religious convictions of anyone.

Meyer claims he is actually using the same reasoning Darwin and Lyell did in suggesting a forensic approach to the evidence. His major point, (and thank you, Eliab, for the above analysis,) is that in every single case where information is discovered, a conscious mind rather than a naturalistic process was always behind that information. He is simply applying that principle to the 'software' in the cell.

--------------------
Jamat ..in utmost longditude, where Heaven
with Earth and ocean meets, the setting sun slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern gate of Paradise. (Milton Paradise Lost Bk iv)

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lilBuddha
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quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Isn't it also a lie to say ID is not religious?
It was formulated by the YEC to get creationism back into the classroom.

Maybe it is a lie if you believe that to say it is not religious is a wilful distortion of the facts.

It is a lie because it pretends it is not a backdoor to get religious teaching into science classes.
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:

I've no doubt that is the case for some ID proponents. ID certainly suits and meshes with a Christian world view but knowledge does not stand or fall on the religious convictions of anyone.

Then why are the majority of ID proponents Christian?
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:

Meyer claims he is actually using the same reasoning Darwin and Lyell did in suggesting a forensic approach to the evidence. His major point, (and thank you, Eliab, for the above analysis,) is that in every single case where information is discovered, a conscious mind rather than a naturalistic process was always behind that information. He is simply applying that principle to the 'software' in the cell.

He can claim whatever he wants. All "intelligent" design does is take the process a step farther than the average person's level of knowledge wave hands and say wOOooOoooOooo, s'all too complicated, must be a designer in there, innit.

--------------------
I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou

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Jamat
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# 11621

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What Meyer does is point out that no unguided process ever can be shown to have created anything. Since something is here then there has to be an intelligent process behind it. Perhaps you should listen to Him since all he seems to do is what Darwin did. Design a method of seeking to understand the reality you cannot test for.

--------------------
Jamat ..in utmost longditude, where Heaven
with Earth and ocean meets, the setting sun slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern gate of Paradise. (Milton Paradise Lost Bk iv)

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Karl: Liberal Backslider
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# 76

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This starts to head towards "not even wrong" territory.

An unguided process can be shown to create, for example, bigger guppies, and more colourful ones.

An "intelligent process" is also a something. If you are going to argue that things require intelligent causes, then you are going to require an intelligent process to create your intelligent process. If you start arguing mystically about "first causes" and so on, then you are revealing the religious roots of ID.

The point about evolution is that you absolutely can test for it. You can make predictions - e.g. "if whales evolved from Group A then their proteins should show a greater similarity to those of existing members of group A than of group B" - test, confirm or disprove. As happens. All the time.

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Might as well ask the bloody cat.

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JoannaP
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quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
What Meyer does is point out that no unguided process ever can be shown to have created anything. Since something is here then there has to be an intelligent process behind it. Perhaps you should listen to Him since all he seems to do is what Darwin did. Design a method of seeking to understand the reality you cannot test for.

AIUI, evolution explains how life diversified into so many species; it says nothing about how that life came into existence in the first place.

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"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." Benjamin Franklin

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Dafyd
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quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
The point about evolution is that you absolutely can test for it. You can make predictions - e.g. "if whales evolved from Group A then their proteins should show a greater similarity to those of existing members of group A than of group B" - test, confirm or disprove. As happens. All the time.

Well, often you don't get any clear cut answers and morphological criteria or even different genetic criteria support different evolutionary trees. (Since you mentioned whales, according to wikipedia there's a shortage of proto-hippo fossils in a period where there ought to be some.)
That's really only to be expected though - convergent evolution and long chain attraction mean that those kinds of predictions are going to come up with equivocal answers. It does however mean that these kinds of predictions don't count as falsifying tests for evolution, let alone Darwinian evolution.

This doesn't make 'we don't know how it was done so we think it was designed' any better as an argument. I think as put it's pretty close to a No True Scotsman.
Evolution can't come up with any true explanation for feature X.
Here's an explantion of feature X by evolution.
Evolution can't come up with an explanation, so that must be No True explanation.

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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams

Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004  |  IP: Logged
Alan Cresswell

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# 31

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quote:
Originally posted by JoannaP:
AIUI, evolution explains how life diversified into so many species; it says nothing about how that life came into existence in the first place.

The theory of evolution as currently understood does not have an explanation for the origin of the first replicating organism. So, in that sense you are correct. Though, it's not clear what would be that first replicating organism - the cell with DNA and proteins is almost certainly a few million (or more) generations of replication down the line from that first organism.

However, scientists have a variety of ideas of how that first self-replicating organism could have appeared. When, if, science understands the necessary processes to the point where there is a highly likely process that is understood and tested by which some form of self-replicating assembly of chemicals can develop from something else, would it seem so out of place to extend the understanding of evolution to include that first step of the development of life as we know it?

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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.

Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Jamat
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# 11621

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quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
quote:
Originally posted by JoannaP:
AIUI, evolution explains how life diversified into so many species; it says nothing about how that life came into existence in the first place.

The theory of evolution as currently understood does not have an explanation for the origin of the first replicating organism. So, in that sense you are correct. Though, it's not clear what would be that first replicating organism - the cell with DNA and proteins is almost certainly a few million (or more) generations of replication down the line from that first organism.

However, scientists have a variety of ideas of how that first self-replicating organism could have appeared. When, if, science understands the necessary processes to the point where there is a highly likely process that is understood and tested by which some form of self-replicating assembly of chemicals can develop from something else, would it seem so out of place to extend the understanding of evolution to include that first step of the development of life as we know it?

Well,well, talk about hand waving.
You have said elsewhere you have no problem with the virgin birth or the resurrection. Why then do you need a naturalistic explanation for the origin of life?

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Jamat ..in utmost longditude, where Heaven
with Earth and ocean meets, the setting sun slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern gate of Paradise. (Milton Paradise Lost Bk iv)

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agingjb
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Why would an all-powerful God need to intervene in a physical process that He had, presumably, initiated?

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Refraction Villanelles

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Karl: Liberal Backslider
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# 76

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quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
quote:
Originally posted by JoannaP:
AIUI, evolution explains how life diversified into so many species; it says nothing about how that life came into existence in the first place.

The theory of evolution as currently understood does not have an explanation for the origin of the first replicating organism. So, in that sense you are correct. Though, it's not clear what would be that first replicating organism - the cell with DNA and proteins is almost certainly a few million (or more) generations of replication down the line from that first organism.

However, scientists have a variety of ideas of how that first self-replicating organism could have appeared. When, if, science understands the necessary processes to the point where there is a highly likely process that is understood and tested by which some form of self-replicating assembly of chemicals can develop from something else, would it seem so out of place to extend the understanding of evolution to include that first step of the development of life as we know it?

Well,well, talk about hand waving.
You have said elsewhere you have no problem with the virgin birth or the resurrection. Why then do you need a naturalistic explanation for the origin of life?

You have no problem with embryology and germ theory; why do you need a supernatural explanation for the origin of life?

We can play this game for ever.

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Might as well ask the bloody cat.

Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Alan Cresswell

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# 31

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quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
You have said elsewhere you have no problem with the virgin birth or the resurrection. Why then do you need a naturalistic explanation for the origin of life?

First off, I'm not sure about the Virgin Birth. It isn't central to my faith, I'm agnostic on the subject.

The Resurrection, on the other hand, is a fundamental part of the faith. What is more, there is evidence that something extraordinary happened on that first Easter morning; those early disciples experienced something that they interpreted as meeting the risen Christ, an experience so powerful that they suffered often brutal deaths for their faith. The faith of those first disciples is something that needs an explanation.

And, an additional general point about miracles. I don't think miracles just happen to entertain us, they have a purpose and that purpose is to act as signs.

So, we come to the origin of life. Is God acting in a supernatural way at this point central to the faith? No. That God created the heavens and the earth is fairly central, but the process by which He works is entirely different. Does God creating life by supernatural processes act as some sort of sign? Not really, in part because it would be a sign no-one actually saw. Is there compelling evidence that God chose to act supernaturally at this point, but then act through natural processes the rest of the time? No, none at all.

That was the long answer. If you want the short response, I don't need a super-naturalistic explanation for the origin of life.

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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.

Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Martin60
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# 368

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So where is the evidence for guidance in 13.8 Ga of information? According to Meyer? Where does he point to any that I can see?

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Love wins

Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001  |  IP: Logged
Jamat
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quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
So where is the evidence for guidance in 13.8 Ga of information? According to Meyer? Where does he point to any that I can see?

If you look at the 10 mins from 50-60. Towards the 59min of the lecture he points out that the chemistry in the cell is separate to the information sequencing. He illustrates by the analogy of the magnetic board. The point is that self organising is a problem.

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Jamat ..in utmost longditude, where Heaven
with Earth and ocean meets, the setting sun slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern gate of Paradise. (Milton Paradise Lost Bk iv)

Posts: 3228 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Jul 2006  |  IP: Logged
Curiosity killed ...

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Mmm - isn't this because mitochondria and chloroplasts have bacterial DNA and the endosymbiotic theory is that they were originally bacteria that became embedded in cells. (That link looks a bit like cell genetics 101). It is also called symbiogenesis.

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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat

Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006  |  IP: Logged
Martin60
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# 368

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So supernatural guidance is obvious in the last minute?

One can unequivocally see only the hand of God in the chemistry in the cell being separate to the information sequencing?

Information sequencing is not due to chemistry?

Careful how you answer. I'm still one of those who believes that the immediate origins of stuff and life and mind are supernatural. But it won't take much nonsense, like you need a willy to be a priest, to turn me in to a Christian materialist.

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Love wins

Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001  |  IP: Logged
no prophet's flag is set so...

Proceed to see sea
# 15560

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The whole shebang (life, evolution, universe and everything) must never provide evidence for the existence of God* or there is no freedom to believe or not believe. Proof means there is not faith.

Additionally, I should say that faith is overrated. I pretend** to be Christian for far more selfish and immediate reasons. It pleases my aesthetic sense to go to church where people are at least trying to be kind and selfless at least in theory. It helps and has helped me with some pretty awful anxieties from horrid life experiences. It provides me some comfort and amusement. I am professionally trained in science to the level of PhD; I see nothing within the ID arguments that tells me it is anything but a slight of hand so as to slip a "just so" religious argument into places it does not belong. If ever ID was proved true, I would cease to believe anything about God immediately.


*or do I go by the bizarre nickname Intelligent Designer?

**is faith required, or may I subject my scepticism to the divine care within the "mystery of faith" and contentedly leave it there while I ponder more important things like the sequence of notes in a cantata, series of comfortable words, or the genius of liturgy? All of which draws me much closer to Presence than kitchen table science.

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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/

Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010  |  IP: Logged
Martin60
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# 368

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It provides infinite evidence.

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Love wins

Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001  |  IP: Logged
Martin60
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# 368

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So far Meyer is talking in circles. ALL arguments do.

So what came first, the chemicals or the information?

If oxygen is discovered in an extra-solar planetary atmosphere, then God is definitely not the immediate, necessary cause of life. Or mind. Or matter. The circle is broken. All argument is instantly irrelevant.

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Love wins

Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001  |  IP: Logged
lilBuddha
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# 14333

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quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:

If oxygen is discovered in an extra-solar planetary atmosphere, then God is definitely not the immediate, necessary cause of life. Or mind. Or matter. The circle is broken. All argument is instantly irrelevant.

It already is. The question of the existence of god(s) is separate from evolution and the quest for understanding the universe.
If you must nail your colours to that mast, nail them near the top because the ship is already sinking.

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Hallellou, hallellou

Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008  |  IP: Logged
Palimpsest
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quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
If oxygen is discovered in an extra-solar planetary atmosphere, then God is definitely not the immediate, necessary cause of life. Or mind. Or matter. The circle is broken. All argument is instantly irrelevant.

Don't follow your logic that brings you to that conclusion, but there are URL=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_209458_b]extrasolar planets with oxygen[/URL]
Posts: 2990 | From: Seattle WA. US | Registered: Nov 2011  |  IP: Logged
no prophet's flag is set so...

Proceed to see sea
# 15560

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Oh for pity's sake. The atmosphere of earth didn't contain oxygen until 2500 million years ago.

--------------------
Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/

Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010  |  IP: Logged
no prophet's flag is set so...

Proceed to see sea
# 15560

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Oh for pity's sake. The atmosphere of earth didn't contain oxygen until 2500 million years ago.

--------------------
Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/

Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010  |  IP: Logged
Martin60
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# 368

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Exactly NPFISS... I had to correct BBC Radio 4's 'science' hack on Monday. If only people READ.

What I really want to know is what came first? The chicken or the information? The chicken or the chemistry? And why the sea is boiling hot and whether pigs can fly?

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Love wins

Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001  |  IP: Logged
Martin60
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# 368

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Or did the chemistry precede the chicken? Across the road?

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Love wins

Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001  |  IP: Logged



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