avocationist
Posts: 173
Joined: Feb. 2006
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What is it about this particular site that it goes down so often? I logged on to reply three nights in a row and hit times when it "couldn't be found." Rest of internet OK, and this has happened quite a few other times.
Quetzal-
| Quote | Mike Gene's essays only call into question whether the flagellum can be adequately explained by 'undirected' mechansims such as co-evolution. I freely admit I'm not in a position to refute all of his points. This isn't really my area.
But consider: Mike Gene is doing what many ID proponents do. He's selecting one particular system and saying, "This system is way too complex to have evolved without intelligent guidance." In doing so, he in no way refutes non-directed evolution in general. At best, he can only claim that we don't know enough at present to adequately explain how the flagellum might have evolved. But he presumably wants to take that a step further, and claim there is no way in principle that the flagellum could have evolved without intelligent intervention. |
If we find even one system that truly cannot be explained by random mutation, then evolution is in trouble. As for selecting one system, we must start somewhere, and focus on particular systems is the only way to go anyway, to gain the deepest understanding.
I know I already responded to this post. I'm trying to figure out where I left off.
Henry said:
| Quote | | My take on it: Not seeing descendants from fusion events that produced incoherent results doesn't mean they didn't happen - it means if it happened, they died without leaving descendants. |
OK, but the existence of failures doesn't detract from the need to explain success.
And this: | Quote | | Well, if series of small steps is ruled out, that leaves only one huge step, which seems to me to be enormously less likely. And since complex life forms exist, that means picking the less unlikely of two very unlikelies. Besides, how does one know that the intermediate stages don't work? You'd have to rule out every possible sequence to know that. |
Well, a lot of people are not satisfied to simply decide to believe in evolution because the evidence that paleontolgoy points to is unacceptable. Being unacceptable to you, makes it seem ludicrous or implausible to you. Or, as Bodhidharma, one of the greatest zen teachers of all time said, "Behold the mind."
No, Henry, I will never submit to simply picking the least objectionable of two objectionable theories. Better to just hold out.
It isn't just a matter of ruling out every possible sequence. It isn't just one little item. There are too many miracles in evolution, and by the way, I don't believe in miracles. And some things do appear unlikely in principle, such as a slow change from a limb to a wing.
And this: | Quote | | But, an arm is already a partially evolved wing. An arm with a large surface area is moreso. Besides which "that's inconceivable" isn't a valid argument - otherwise much of physics would have been thrown out before it got started. |
If an arm is a partially evolved wing, then anything is anything. I can only suggest reading Denton's Evolution, chapter 9, pages 199-209, and if you like it, continue to read about the avian lung on page 210.
Chris,
| Quote | | Add up to what? purpoesful arrangement of parts is a tautology. |
Why is it a tautology, and why is a tautology always wrong?
| Quote | | Hubert Yockey said intelligence is not required and that intelligent design is rubbish. |
Yes, he is an evolutionist, who says strange and discouraging things about origin of life research. Frankly, I don't know what he means when he says that life is an axiom and unsolvable within science. I wonder if he knows.| Quote | | If the universe was not 'well aranged' and we saw life then maybe that would be a better argument for intelligence. |
But it is life that it is well arranged for. It's looking like the whole inanimate world lends support to the animate world.
GCT,
| Quote | | One quick example, which I've already pointed out is where you chided me with the knowledge that one can believe in god and accept evolution, even though I had already used it to counter your arguments that ToE is atheistic. |
Yes, I have come to see from you and others that NDE is more accepting of theism than I had thought. I should have prefaced my comment with "As you have pointed out..."
| Quote | | Of course, then you still turn around and insist that Miller must be an IDist since he believes in god. |
Yes, Miller is an IDist who disagrees with the likes of Behe on how and where God intervened. He definitely believes random processes are capable of producing a lot more than Behe does. On the other hand, I don't know to what extent he thinks God interfered on the quantum level (his hypothesis). Perhaps God directed mutations that way, which would be almost indistinquishable from Behe's position.
| Quote | | And, you continue to make comments about "materialistic reductionism" which say to me that you have not changed your position at all. |
What about my comments have been incorrect?
| Quote | This is so wrong on so many levels, it's hard to know where to begin.
Which "linear paradigm" are you talking about that is "mine"? |
The one which is turtles all the way down, so far as causation events go.
| Quote | | Why can I not account for the existence of matter? |
Well, please do.
| Quote | | What must a god do to be "deserving" of the label and why is it necessary? |
A God must be the source of the universe and all existence. And that is necessary because if he can't, we need to find who/what can.
| Quote | | Do you even understand what it is you are talking about when you talk about things causing one another? Who's talking about multiple uncaused causes to the universe? |
If God is not the cause of matter/energy, then it has another cause than God. But God is also uncaused. Therefore, we would have two very different items, both uncaused. I consider this impossible.
| Quote | | So, I can assume that you love all of yourself unconditionally? You don't wish you were a little smarter or better looking or anything else? What you wrote here is claptrap. You've made an a priori commitment to a notion of a loving god, and now you can't imagine one that isn't loving, so you make poor arguments as to why it should be so. |
There is a difference between seeing lack of perfection in a being and rejection of that being or lack of support for that being. Even the Bible agrees. When Jesus speaks of the perfection of the Father, he gives the example that He sends his rain to the just and the unjust.
| Quote | | and then finish with a crude snipe at me, nice. |
This: The perception of God is outside the range you are used to.
was not a snipe at you. It is more or less the human condition.
| Quote | | Also, you have yet to demonstrate how you have the knowledge of the possible outcomes of the universe given god or no god in order to make the determination that a universe with a god is fundamentally different, let alone better. |
I'm saying they are mutually exclusive. If one is true, the other both isn't, and cannot be.
| Quote | | The insistence that it is one or the other {random evolution versus design] is called setting up a false dichotomy, but you wouldn't engage in logical fallacy, would you? |
Well, evidence that a system required design would be evidence against its random generation. Perhaps you are thinking of other alternatives than God vs NDE. One other alternative is interventionism, which thinks other beings, perhaps very old, perhaps even from a prior universe, or from a planet that got life going a few billion years ahead of ours, intervened here. I'm certainly open to other possibilities.
| Quote | | Who could have designed "certain features of the universe" or "brought matter into existence" if not god? You arguments are so transparent that I'd be embarrassed to make them if I were you. |
Oh, well, if it is the universe itself we are speaking of, then I can't attribute it to any other than God. Why should I be embarrassed? I have never been embarrassed to say that in my view God is the primary reality.| Quote | | Oh really? How do you find "indirect evidence" for god through science? Hint, you can't. |
This is an assumption on your part. Consciousness research is a possibility. Quantum mechanics/string theory is another. And I think there are more. In my view, reality is all of a piece. One continuum, from God to a twig. As we get deeper into reality, we should find evidence, and it is far more likely that the evidence will be indirect than direct, for the reason that we don't have instruments to measure spirit. At least not now.
You say we 'can't' find scientific evidence for God, but if my view of reality is correct, it 'must' find evidence for God. Otherwise, science is fundamentally limited. So fundamentally limited that it can never get to to the bottom of our reality, more limited than I hope or can accept if I do not have to.
Seven,
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Avo, why did you use profanity? |
Sorry, it wasn't meant to come out that strong.
By the way, I know a guy with two older brothers who's gay, and he's left-handed. How did that happen?
Puck,
| Quote | | Intelligent Design cannot believe in a Deistic entity...front-loading is a Deistic idea....ID is a theistic idea. If ID is Deistic...then it believes in evolution...which it doesnt |
I don't know about all that. Front-loading is a newish idea, but some ID folk are interested. But I do agree that it's hard to imagine a front-loaded flagellum. I find it hard to imagine a front-loaded cell. I think if there is front-loading, it was not just at the big bang, but at the start of life also. Perhaps the inanimate followed by the animate frontloading event.
| Quote | | If God doesnt exist....we could still have souls and reincarnation. |
Maybe.
| Quote | | but quit assigning your conceived God to a God that can be proposed by rational reasoning....its just absurd. Your God is based on a lot more than rationalism... |
How so?
| Quote | | Quit using that tired old line about Darwinism being just as religious as ID. |
I do see parallels, and not just with religion. I see patterns in human thought and behavior, and those patterns often repeat themselves in different situations and times, and they also often repeat themselves on two opposite sides of an equation. That is probably why the extreme right and extreme left are often equally oppressive and violent.
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