ericmurphy
Posts: 2460
Joined: Oct. 2005
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| Quote (afdave @ Dec. 21 2006,10:36) | Richard ... | Quote | | If they used an analogy (e.g., cells are like little factories stuffed full of little machines) just what point were they trying to make? |
Alberts was making the point that life science students should study some of the things that engineers study to help classify and understand cellular machines. Watching people dodge this clear fact is hilarious. |
Dave, people should study human-made machines in order to understand biological "machines" (note the quotes) because one analogizes to another. Because the "machine" analogy is a potentially-useful analogy.
I don't understand why you're so hung up on this stupid point. So what if you define "machine" to include biological structures? If you think that's some sort of "proof," or even evidence, that biological structures were "designed," you're an idiot. It's been pointed out to you countless times that argument simply does not work. It's just another argument from analogy that's just as broken as your "watch" analogy, and for exactly the same reason: human-built machines do not reproduce, and biological "machines" do.
We've been going around and around in circles like this for a week now, and clearly you're dizzy and punch-drunk. I suggest you get off the merry-go-round.
| Quote | Mike PSS ... | Quote | Dave,
Let's say I find a rock with a sharp edge. How can I qualitatively determine whether this rock is a designed tool or just a sharp rock?
I know how to quantitatively determine this but you state in your point 1) that we determine archeological design qualitatively. |
Mike-- As I told Improvius, I don't care how you label the test. But I determine it with my eyeballs in the same way that you do. This test would not work if the object was questionable. We would need something more rigorous. But it works great for stuff like arrowheads and pottery ... and many biological machines! |
It works it what way, Dave? What test are you talking about? You're not defining any terms here, but I'll do it for you. You're claiming you can make a qualitative test for complexity, but you're wrong. You can say if something is complex or not only in relationship to some other thing. Complexity is unavoidably a comparative term, and if you're comparing one object's complexity to another, then it has to be a quantitative test, regardless of whether you think it can be "eyeballed" or not. (At this point, Dave is clearly mistaking the distinction between "qualitative" and "quantitative" for the distinction between "more accurate" and "less accurate.")
But so what, Dave? Until you can demonstrate that above a certain point, complexity is required, you don't have an argument! You're going around and around about whether you need a qualitative or quantitative test for relative complexity, but without evidence that complexity requires design, your argument has no wheels. It's up on blocks with no engine.
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2006 MVD award for most dogged defense of scientific sanity
"Atheism is a religion the same way NOT collecting stamps is a hobby." —Scott Adams
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