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blipey Posts: 2061 Joined: June 2006 (Permalink) Posted: April 22 2008,12:50    Quote (Richardthughes @ April 22 2008,08:50) This thread's going to be a classic: http://www.uncommondescent.com/philoso....re-3268 3:2 it gets nixed by the end of the week. -------------- But I get the trick question- there isn't any such thing as one molecule of water. -JoeG And scientists rarely test theories. -Gary Gaulin

Richard Simons Posts: 425 Joined: Oct. 2006 (Permalink) Posted: April 22 2008,13:00    From the Biologic Institute's Research page:   Quote The second question is being addressed by examining what it takes for cells to work the way they do. What would be needed for a working genetic code to originate? What would the simplest possible metabolic system for a free-living organism look like? What would the simplest force transducing molecular machine look like? How would new protein folds appear in working form? These are difficult problems, but they can all be addressed. The key is to couple what we know about complex systems in general with what we can observe for specific biological systems. To get answers, at least provisional ones, we are examining the properties of stars that make Earth-like planets possible. We are looking at the nature of information and codes, and probing molecular machines and enzyme folds. We are modifying, analyzing, and modeling genes and genomes, and building model systems to see how they evolve. Is studying the stars really an efficient way to determine the simplest possible metabolic system for a free-living organism? -------------- All sweeping statements are wrong.

Richardthughes Posts: 11178 Joined: Jan. 2006 (Permalink) Posted: April 22 2008,13:06    Given the staleness of their thinking and lack of progress across any field accept press releases for almost a decade, it's important they pretend to be doing new stuff.. -------------- "Richardthughes, you magnificent bastard, I stand in awe of you..." : Arden Chatfield "You magnificent bastard! " : Louis "ATBC poster child", "I have to agree with Rich.." : DaveTard "I bow to your superior skills" : deadman_932 "...it was Richardthughes making me lie in bed.." : Kristine

dnmlthr Posts: 565 Joined: Mar. 2008 (Permalink) Posted: April 22 2008,13:18    Risking to show full frontal ignorance, and pretending they'll actually get around to do research, I wonder what they'll use for a noise source. A regular pseudo random number generator wouldn't do. If they build a noise source, wouldn't the result by definition be generated by an intelligence? Can Dr. Dr. build a noise source so random that not even he can infer design from it? -------------- Guess what? I don't give a flying f*ck how "science works" - Ftk

dnmlthr Posts: 565 Joined: Mar. 2008 (Permalink) Posted: April 22 2008,13:21    I write like crap. Can Dr. Dr. build a noise source so random that not even he _hisself_ can infer design from it? -------------- Guess what? I don't give a flying f*ck how "science works" - Ftk

Richardthughes Posts: 11178 Joined: Jan. 2006 (Permalink) Posted: April 22 2008,13:38    http://www.uncommondescent.com/philoso....-256577 Quote 10 Horace_Worblehat 04/22/2008 12:59 pm Sal Cordova: Darwin himself had a deformed daughter. I suppose he could not bring himself to advocate Eugenics lest he sacrifice his own. One can also speculate that Darwin wished Eugenics were practiced, and thus he would not have supposedly been in the predicament of having a deforemed child….who knows….. Which daughter would that be? Anne Elizabeth, Mary Eleanor, Henrietta Emma, or Elizabeth? What deformity did she suffer from? Your speculation about eugenics is just a rather nasty vicious slander about a man who by all accounts dearly loved his children and was heartbroken when his daughter Anne died from tuberculosis. Your mean spirited speculations reflect very poorly on you. I could speculate about your character, but you have made its defects clear. Bravo, Sir, Bravo. -------------- "Richardthughes, you magnificent bastard, I stand in awe of you..." : Arden Chatfield "You magnificent bastard! " : Louis "ATBC poster child", "I have to agree with Rich.." : DaveTard "I bow to your superior skills" : deadman_932 "...it was Richardthughes making me lie in bed.." : Kristine

Venus Mousetrap Posts: 201 Joined: Aug. 2007 (Permalink) Posted: April 22 2008,13:38    Quote (Venus Mousetrap @ April 22 2008,11:23) I just posted this on the Biologic Website thread at UD Quote I fear this is going to go the same way as the rest of ID research, because nothing has actually changed. The website looks nice and has a lovely logo (I like ambigrams), but I can still see the same problems that pro-evolution people have been noting for years: it's all about the gaps, not about the theory. Under the research page, for example, it starts talking about the limits placed upon life, and search spaces, which in the ID literature means 'what can evolution actually do?'. There isn't anything there about what design does, so it's back to the old 'if we can't understand how this was done, it was designed'. I'm sorry if you've heard that before, but the fact is that ID has been doing that for years and it has not once been successful. This site is more of the same - no one is going to take it seriously because it can be so easily demolished by the same refutations. Here's what I would take seriously: a page with definitions of information as it is used by working ID researchers, definitions of CSI, and a few simple test examples on, for example, randomly generated and designed text strings. An API for common ID mathematical algorithms and functions would also enable people to get started on the first ID programs and applets. These would be absolutely irrefutable, because they would actually work, and the worst that opponents would be able to say is that they don't do enough... which will become less of a problem as the research is built upon into more complex methods of analysis. hasn't shown up yet. EDIT: to clarify which thread. And because I can, apparently. .look what UD decided to let through instead of my comment

Erasmus, FCD Posts: 6349 Joined: June 2007 (Permalink) Posted: April 22 2008,13:43    roflmao.  i think he is a puppet anyway. Quote Ahhh, a compass into a world bustling with riches yet to be discovered. No, that was just me farting. -------------- You're obviously illiterate as hell. Peach, bro.-FtK Finding something hard to believe based on the evidence, is science.-JoeG the odds of getting some loathsome taint are low-- Gordon E Mullings Manjack Heights Montserrat I work on molecular systems with pathway charts and such.-Giggles

Richardthughes Posts: 11178 Joined: Jan. 2006 (Permalink) Posted: April 22 2008,13:46    JPCollado would get equally excited about "searching for delicious bars of chocolate in the toilet". -------------- "Richardthughes, you magnificent bastard, I stand in awe of you..." : Arden Chatfield "You magnificent bastard! " : Louis "ATBC poster child", "I have to agree with Rich.." : DaveTard "I bow to your superior skills" : deadman_932 "...it was Richardthughes making me lie in bed.." : Kristine

Bob O'H Posts: 2564 Joined: Oct. 2005 (Permalink) Posted: April 22 2008,14:10    I'm not sure Horace_Worblehat is his real name. Ah, having googled, I wonder if it's Kristine's new sockpuppet  Can someone wave a banana at her and see how she reacts? -------------- It is fun to dip into the various threads to watch cluelessness at work in the hands of the confident exponent. - Soapy Sam (so say we all)

Arden Chatfield Posts: 6657 Joined: Jan. 2006 (Permalink) Posted: April 22 2008,14:17    Quote (Annyday @ April 21 2008,20:23) I've never liked Arthur C. Clarke's writing much, outside of his idioms. See, the joy of sci fi for me is, to a great degree, wondering what a technology would do or how you'd make it. Clarke breaks out that indistinguishable-from-magic stuff for all the important things, which I find a fantastic buzz-kill. When you have technology that's indistinguishable from magic and/or acts of God, why bother making it sci fi at all? The monolith could have been constructed by voodoo and not a lot would have been lost! -------------- "Rich is just mad because he thought all titties had fur on them until last week when a shorn transvestite ruined his childhood dreams by jumping out of a spider man cake and man boobing him in the face lips." - Erasmus

Tracy P. Hamilton Posts: 1239 Joined: May 2006 (Permalink) Posted: April 22 2008,14:38    Quote (k.e.. @ April 22 2008,09:19) Quote (Annyday @ April 22 2008,16:55)   Quote (guthrie @ April 22 2008,03:04)     Quote (Annyday @ April 21 2008,22:23) I've never liked Arthur C. Clarke's writing much, outside of his idioms. See, the joy of sci fi for me is, to a great degree, wondering what a technology would do or how you'd make it. Clarke breaks out that indistinguishable-from-magic stuff for all the important things, which I find a fantastic buzz-kill. When you have technology that's indistinguishable from magic and/or acts of God, why bother making it sci fi at all? The monolith could have been constructed by voodoo and not a lot would have been lost! . Cuba! I have to defend Clarke here.  In terms of "magic technology" he was no different from any of his contemporaries.  But he did also write some decent hard SF, I recently re-read "A fall of moondust", and it was about as hard SF as you're going to get, certainly more so than anything I have seen on the shelves today.  Clarke couldnt go "nanotech!" every time he wanted to do something odd. You're probably right. Actually, even when his stories fill up with psychics and alien-gods there's some great, down-to-earth sci-fi going on during the lead-in. OK HOMO'S, YOU ALL TALK ABOUT GIRLYMAN SCI-FI LIKE IT OWNS THE SPACE. WELL ME 'N MY ROBOSHERIFF ARE HEAR TO TELL YOU IT AINT HARD CORE SCI-FI. NO HARD CORE SCI-FI™ IS ALL ABOUT NANOBOTS GETTING INTO YOUR PANTS AND BEFORE YOU KNOW IT BEING UNDER THE SPELL OF A CRAZED PSUEDO SCIENTIST WHO MEASURES YOUR VALUE BY YOUR SUPIDITY AND YOUR LOVE FOR HIM er OR HER ...MY HARD CORE SCI-FI™ IS NOT HOMO EROTIC PER SE BUT NONSEXIST..phew I STILL CARE ABOUT YOU BILL ....SORRY ABOUT THE DARWIN THING. PLEASE ANSWER MY PHONE CALLS..dt. LISTEN UP, HOMOS!  THIS IS HARD SCI-FI: http://www.tekjansen.com/ -------------- "Following what I just wrote about fitness, you’re taking refuge in what we see in the world."  PaV "The simple equation F = MA leads to the concept of four-dimensional space." GilDodgen "We have no brain, I don't, for thinking." Robert Byers

stevestory Posts: 13407 Joined: Oct. 2005 (Permalink) Posted: April 22 2008,14:38    Quote (Arden Chatfield @ April 22 2008,15:17) Quote (Annyday @ April 21 2008,20:23) I've never liked Arthur C. Clarke's writing much, outside of his idioms. See, the joy of sci fi for me is, to a great degree, wondering what a technology would do or how you'd make it. Clarke breaks out that indistinguishable-from-magic stuff for all the important things, which I find a fantastic buzz-kill. When you have technology that's indistinguishable from magic and/or acts of God, why bother making it sci fi at all? The monolith could have been constructed by voodoo and not a lot would have been lost! Now that's funny. I just saw this comment on UD: Quote 9 inunison 04/22/2008 12:42 pm Dave, I think you are missing the point. No one in the right mind can point finger at Darwin or at any of his modern proponents, and call them Nazis just because they believe or are convinced that Darwinism is true. However, I think it is legitimate to test the idea, any idea, by taking it to its logical conclusion(s), or to its extreme. You only need to ask question like “What is the central tenet of Darwinism and what are the social (and other) implications?” Now you can ask the same question regarding Christianity and see what the difference is. These armchair philosophers don't let any facts stand in their way, do they? If you sat around and hypothesized that the 'logical conclusion' of vegetarianism is hopping like a kangaroo, and you go and look at a bunch of vegetarians and nobody's hopping like a kangaroo, if you have an IQ about 90 you'll probably realize that your armchair philosophy is wrong. If your IQ is below 90, you go to UD and report that all the vegetarians you can find must be doing it wrong.

Tracy P. Hamilton Posts: 1239 Joined: May 2006 (Permalink) Posted: April 22 2008,14:40    Quote (Richardthughes @ April 22 2008,13:38) http://www.uncommondescent.com/philoso....-256577   Quote 10 Horace_Worblehat 04/22/2008 12:59 pm Sal Cordova: Darwin himself had a deformed daughter. I suppose he could not bring himself to advocate Eugenics lest he sacrifice his own. One can also speculate that Darwin wished Eugenics were practiced, and thus he would not have supposedly been in the predicament of having a deforemed child….who knows….. Which daughter would that be? Anne Elizabeth, Mary Eleanor, Henrietta Emma, or Elizabeth? What deformity did she suffer from? Your speculation about eugenics is just a rather nasty vicious slander about a man who by all accounts dearly loved his children and was heartbroken when his daughter Anne died from tuberculosis. Your mean spirited speculations reflect very poorly on you. I could speculate about your character, but you have made its defects clear. Bravo, Sir, Bravo. But, but Darwin had a death's head walking stick! -------------- "Following what I just wrote about fitness, you’re taking refuge in what we see in the world."  PaV "The simple equation F = MA leads to the concept of four-dimensional space." GilDodgen "We have no brain, I don't, for thinking." Robert Byers

Lou FCD Posts: 5455 Joined: Jan. 2006 (Permalink) Posted: April 22 2008,14:44    Quote (Tracy P. Hamilton @ April 22 2008,15:40) Quote (Richardthughes @ April 22 2008,13:38) http://www.uncommondescent.com/philoso....-256577     Quote 10 Horace_Worblehat 04/22/2008 12:59 pm Sal Cordova: Darwin himself had a deformed daughter. I suppose he could not bring himself to advocate Eugenics lest he sacrifice his own. One can also speculate that Darwin wished Eugenics were practiced, and thus he would not have supposedly been in the predicament of having a deforemed child….who knows….. Which daughter would that be? Anne Elizabeth, Mary Eleanor, Henrietta Emma, or Elizabeth? What deformity did she suffer from? Your speculation about eugenics is just a rather nasty vicious slander about a man who by all accounts dearly loved his children and was heartbroken when his daughter Anne died from tuberculosis. Your mean spirited speculations reflect very poorly on you. I could speculate about your character, but you have made its defects clear. Bravo, Sir, Bravo. But, but Darwin had a death's head walking stick! And he beat a puppy! -------------- “Why do creationists have such a hard time with commas? Linky“. ~ Steve Story, Legend

Quidam Posts: 229 Joined: Mar. 2008 (Permalink) Posted: April 22 2008,14:49    Quote (Lou FCD @ April 22 2008,13:44) And he beat a puppy! Some puppies were designed to be beaten -------------- The organized fossils ... and their localities also, may be understood by all, even the most illiterate. William Smith, Strata. 1816

stevestory Posts: 13407 Joined: Oct. 2005 (Permalink) Posted: April 22 2008,16:15    This bit is from Pure Pedantry: Quote We could look to science; at least it has got some solid truths worked out. In a sense, science attempts to circumvent our innate psychological handicaps in two ways. 1) It cheats. We run experiments over and over until it gets the right answer by brute force. 2) The scientific method involves the voluntary suspension of your intuition. What matter is what the data shows, not the way you think the world should work. This is something I see all the time between scientists and the laypublic. A lot of creationist people see evolution or relativity or whatever other science they deny and it looks ridiculous to them or violates their common sense and so they reject it. One of the great benefits of getting an actual science education is that it forces you to overcome this. An answer can look completely right to you, and yet it's completely wrong, and as you go through the years you are forced to deal with this situation several times. It's an important lesson to learn, and it's a shame the creationist types never learn it.

stevestory Posts: 13407 Joined: Oct. 2005 (Permalink) Posted: April 22 2008,16:21    Quote In making his case, Gilbert walks us through a series of fascinating--and in some ways troubling--facts about the way our minds work. In particular, Gilbert is interested in delineating the shortcomings of imagination. We're far too accepting of the conclusions of our imaginations. Our imaginations aren't particularly imaginative. (from here, http://www.amazon.com/Stumbling-Happiness-Daniel-Gilbert/dp/1400042666 , also linked from PP) Isn't it a shame Behe didn't understand this. He could have saved himself the embarrassment of the last decade. 'Course, he would have missed out on a lot of cold hard cash, so maybe he's better off.

Erasmus, FCD Posts: 6349 Joined: June 2007 (Permalink) Posted: April 22 2008,16:53    Quote (stevestory @ April 22 2008,16:15) This bit is from Pure Pedantry: Quote We could look to science; at least it has got some solid truths worked out. In a sense, science attempts to circumvent our innate psychological handicaps in two ways. 1) It cheats. We run experiments over and over until it gets the right answer by brute force. 2) The scientific method involves the voluntary suspension of your intuition. What matter is what the data shows, not the way you think the world should work. This is something I see all the time between scientists and the laypublic. A lot of creationist people see evolution or relativity or whatever other science they deny and it looks ridiculous to them or violates their common sense and so they reject it. One of the great benefits of getting an actual science education is that it forces you to overcome this. An answer can look completely right to you, and yet it's completely wrong, and as you go through the years you are forced to deal with this situation several times. It's an important lesson to learn, and it's a shame the creationist types never learn it. sounds like something Roughgarden might have said.  skeptic have you had a sex change? Roughgarden's account of 'establishing facts in science just as in everyday life' Quote by building a convincing case for the fact (p. 583) .  Simberloff says this proceeds Quote through his native abilities, common sense, and experience.  In everyday life, he feels, we rarely if ever adhere to formal rules in constructing a convincing case, so it is rarely if ever appropriate for scientists to abide by formal rules.   -------------- You're obviously illiterate as hell. Peach, bro.-FtK Finding something hard to believe based on the evidence, is science.-JoeG the odds of getting some loathsome taint are low-- Gordon E Mullings Manjack Heights Montserrat I work on molecular systems with pathway charts and such.-Giggles

Zachriel Posts: 2723 Joined: Sep. 2006 (Permalink) Posted: April 22 2008,18:29    Quote (Richardthughes @ April 22 2008,13:38) http://www.uncommondescent.com/philoso....-256577 Quote 10 Horace_Worblehat 04/22/2008 12:59 pm Sal Cordova: Darwin himself had a deformed daughter. I suppose he could not bring himself to advocate Eugenics lest he sacrifice his own. One can also speculate that Darwin wished Eugenics were practiced, and thus he would not have supposedly been in the predicament of having a deforemed child….who knows….. Which daughter would that be? Anne Elizabeth, Mary Eleanor, Henrietta Emma, or Elizabeth? What deformity did she suffer from? Your speculation about eugenics is just a rather nasty vicious slander about a man who by all accounts dearly loved his children and was heartbroken when his daughter Anne died from tuberculosis. Your mean spirited speculations reflect very poorly on you. I could speculate about your character, but you have made its defects clear. Bravo, Sir, Bravo. Scordova admits his error! Quote scordova: As far as her being deformed, she was actually sickly and died at the early age of 10. I was mistaken. Scordova continues, Quote scordova: I suppose Darwin could only bring himself to execute only the first part of the Eugenic program, namely the inbreeding step. See, Darwin didn't really want to kill his disabled child. He wanted to kill his sickly daughter, Anne, the apple of his eye, his joy. Oh, what an honest fellow that scordova is. -------------- You never step on the same tard twice—for it's not the same tard and you're not the same person.

khan Posts: 1554 Joined: May 2007 (Permalink) Posted: April 22 2008,18:50    Quote (stevestory @ April 22 2008,17:21) Quote In making his case, Gilbert walks us through a series of fascinating--and in some ways troubling--facts about the way our minds work. In particular, Gilbert is interested in delineating the shortcomings of imagination. We're far too accepting of the conclusions of our imaginations. Our imaginations aren't particularly imaginative. (from here, http://www.amazon.com/Stumbling-Happiness-Daniel-Gilbert/dp/1400042666 , also linked from PP) Isn't it a shame Behe didn't understand this. He could have saved himself the embarrassment of the last decade. 'Course, he would have missed out on a lot of cold hard cash, so maybe he's better off. A working hypothesis: When someone says "we all know that...", whatever follows is likely to be ugly and a lie. -------------- "It's as if all those words, in their hurry to escape from the loony, have fallen over each other, forming scrambled heaps of meaninglessness." -damitall That's so fucking stupid it merits a wing in the museum of stupid. -midwifetoad Frequency is just the plural of wavelength... -JoeG

Annyday Posts: 583 Joined: Nov. 2007 (Permalink) Posted: April 22 2008,19:02    Quote (khan @ April 22 2008,18:50) Quote (stevestory @ April 22 2008,17:21) Quote In making his case, Gilbert walks us through a series of fascinating--and in some ways troubling--facts about the way our minds work. In particular, Gilbert is interested in delineating the shortcomings of imagination. We're far too accepting of the conclusions of our imaginations. Our imaginations aren't particularly imaginative. (from here, http://www.amazon.com/Stumbling-Happiness-Daniel-Gilbert/dp/1400042666 , also linked from PP) Isn't it a shame Behe didn't understand this. He could have saved himself the embarrassment of the last decade. 'Course, he would have missed out on a lot of cold hard cash, so maybe he's better off. A working hypothesis: When someone says "we all know that...", whatever follows is likely to be ugly and a lie. Have you ever read Foucault's Pendulum? Right before someone says something completely batshit insane in that book, they always say "As everybody knows..." or equivalent. Strikingly, I have yet to hear such a phrase used in any other context. -------------- "ALL eight of the "nature" miracles of Jesus could have been accomplished via the electroweak quantum tunneling mechanism. For example, walking on water could be accomplished by directing a neutrino beam created just below Jesus' feet downward." - Frank Tipler, ISCID fellow

Quidam Posts: 229 Joined: Mar. 2008 (Permalink) Posted: April 22 2008,19:09    Slimy Sal really does earn his nick name.  Anne was not particularly sickly for an age without the benefits of modern medicine.  Let's hope the anti-science crusaders are not successful and we don't have to go back to pre-enlightenment days First cousin marriages were not and are not uncommon.  God commanded many cousins to marry, including Zelophehad's 5 daughters, Eleazar's daughters, Jacob (who married both Rachel and Leah, first cousins), and Isaac and Rebekkah (first cousins once removed). All were ancestors of Jesus Christ, who as we all know was sickly and died young. Albert Einstein married his first cousin. All European countries permit marriage between first cousins. It is also legal throughout Canada and Mexico for cousins to marry. The USA is the only western country with cousin marriage restrictions - and even here 26 states allow first cousin marriages. The risks are minimal. -------------- The organized fossils ... and their localities also, may be understood by all, even the most illiterate. William Smith, Strata. 1816

khan Posts: 1554 Joined: May 2007 (Permalink) Posted: April 22 2008,19:30    Quote (Annyday @ April 22 2008,20:02) Quote (khan @ April 22 2008,18:50) Quote (stevestory @ April 22 2008,17:21)   Quote In making his case, Gilbert walks us through a series of fascinating--and in some ways troubling--facts about the way our minds work. In particular, Gilbert is interested in delineating the shortcomings of imagination. We're far too accepting of the conclusions of our imaginations. Our imaginations aren't particularly imaginative. (from here, http://www.amazon.com/Stumbling-Happiness-Daniel-Gilbert/dp/1400042666 , also linked from PP) Isn't it a shame Behe didn't understand this. He could have saved himself the embarrassment of the last decade. 'Course, he would have missed out on a lot of cold hard cash, so maybe he's better off. A working hypothesis: When someone says "we all know that...", whatever follows is likely to be ugly and a lie. Have you ever read Foucault's Pendulum? Right before someone says something completely batshit insane in that book, they always say "As everybody knows..." or equivalent. Strikingly, I have yet to hear such a phrase used in any other context. Haven't read it. I formulated my hypothesis while observing my ex-MIL, who was a devout xian who was intolerant of just about everybody (did you know that the entertainment industry is all a Jewish-Catholic conspiracy?). -------------- "It's as if all those words, in their hurry to escape from the loony, have fallen over each other, forming scrambled heaps of meaninglessness." -damitall That's so fucking stupid it merits a wing in the museum of stupid. -midwifetoad Frequency is just the plural of wavelength... -JoeG

khan Posts: 1554 Joined: May 2007 (Permalink) Posted: April 22 2008,19:33    Quote (Quidam @ April 22 2008,20:09) Slimy Sal really does earn his nick name.  Anne was not particularly sickly for an age without the benefits of modern medicine.  Let's hope the anti-science crusaders are not successful and we don't have to go back to pre-enlightenment days First cousin marriages were not and are not uncommon.  God commanded many cousins to marry, including Zelophehad's 5 daughters, Eleazar's daughters, Jacob (who married both Rachel and Leah, first cousins), and Isaac and Rebekkah (first cousins once removed). All were ancestors of Jesus Christ, who as we all know was sickly and died young. Albert Einstein married his first cousin. All European countries permit marriage between first cousins. It is also legal throughout Canada and Mexico for cousins to marry. The USA is the only western country with cousin marriage restrictions - and even here 26 states allow first cousin marriages. The risks are minimal. Minimal, unless it becomes the norm. -------------- "It's as if all those words, in their hurry to escape from the loony, have fallen over each other, forming scrambled heaps of meaninglessness." -damitall That's so fucking stupid it merits a wing in the museum of stupid. -midwifetoad Frequency is just the plural of wavelength... -JoeG

Lou FCD Posts: 5455 Joined: Jan. 2006 (Permalink) Posted: April 22 2008,19:38    Quote (khan @ April 22 2008,20:30) Quote (Annyday @ April 22 2008,20:02) Quote (khan @ April 22 2008,18:50)   Quote (stevestory @ April 22 2008,17:21)   Quote In making his case, Gilbert walks us through a series of fascinating--and in some ways troubling--facts about the way our minds work. In particular, Gilbert is interested in delineating the shortcomings of imagination. We're far too accepting of the conclusions of our imaginations. Our imaginations aren't particularly imaginative. (from here, http://www.amazon.com/Stumbling-Happiness-Daniel-Gilbert/dp/1400042666 , also linked from PP) Isn't it a shame Behe didn't understand this. He could have saved himself the embarrassment of the last decade. 'Course, he would have missed out on a lot of cold hard cash, so maybe he's better off. A working hypothesis: When someone says "we all know that...", whatever follows is likely to be ugly and a lie. Have you ever read Foucault's Pendulum? Right before someone says something completely batshit insane in that book, they always say "As everybody knows..." or equivalent. Strikingly, I have yet to hear such a phrase used in any other context. Haven't read it. I formulated my hypothesis while observing my ex-MIL, who was a devout xian who was intolerant of just about everybody (did you know that the entertainment industry is all a Jewish-Catholic conspiracy?). When I was a fundy, about everything got blamed on those damned Satan-worshipping Mormons and their "Rainbow Cult". I still have an "exposé" type book around here somewhere about how the rainbow was the secret symbol of Mormonism and its control of just about everything. -------------- “Why do creationists have such a hard time with commas? Linky“. ~ Steve Story, Legend

Quidam Posts: 229 Joined: Mar. 2008 (Permalink) Posted: April 22 2008,20:58    Quote (khan @ April 22 2008,18:33) Minimal, unless it becomes the norm. Until relatviely recently it was, if not the norm, far more common. But yes I agree.  Breeders have known of the potential problems for centuries. -------------- The organized fossils ... and their localities also, may be understood by all, even the most illiterate. William Smith, Strata. 1816

k.e.. Posts: 5432 Joined: May 2007 (Permalink) Posted: April 22 2008,21:10    Quote (stevestory @ April 23 2008,00:15) This bit is from Pure Pedantry:   Quote We could look to science; at least it has got some solid truths worked out. In a sense, science attempts to circumvent our innate psychological handicaps in two ways. 1) It cheats. We run experiments over and over until it gets the right answer by brute force. 2) The scientific method involves the voluntary suspension of your intuition. What matter is what the data shows, not the way you think the world should work. This is something I see all the time between scientists and the laypublic. A lot of creationist people see evolution or relativity or whatever other science they deny and it looks ridiculous to them or violates their common sense and so they reject it. One of the great benefits of getting an actual science education is that it forces you to overcome this. An answer can look completely right to you, and yet it's completely wrong, and as you go through the years you are forced to deal with this situation several times. It's an important lesson to learn, and it's a shame the creationist types never learn it. Pure projection. Just replace "science" with Lunatic Fundy Suicide Head Butter, "think" with gut feeling, "intuition" with The Creator™, then "data" with Myth and you see his reality. -------------- "I get a strong breeze from my monitor every time k.e. puts on his clown DaveTard suit" dogdidit "ID is deader than Lenny Flanks granmaws dildo batteries" Erasmus "I'm busy studying scientist level science papers" Galloping Gary Gaulin

Lou FCD Posts: 5455 Joined: Jan. 2006 (Permalink) Posted: April 22 2008,21:21    Quote (k.e.. @ April 22 2008,22:10) Lunatic Fundy Suicide Head Butter, The Moon always gets such a bad rap. Who decided it was OK to blame the moon for the ...erm... loonies? -------------- “Why do creationists have such a hard time with commas? Linky“. ~ Steve Story, Legend

didymos Posts: 1828 Joined: Mar. 2008 (Permalink) Posted: April 22 2008,22:29    Speaking of teh loonz,  DLH likes to preach:   Quote I encourage you to take a break and learn more about logical fallacies and how to avoid them, especially ad hominem arguments. Also study about moral judgments, speaking the truth, accusing people of wrongdoing etc. Pretty bad at the "practice what you" part though. Enh.  Nobody's perfect I guess. -------------- I wouldn't be bothered reading about the selfish gene because it has never been identified. -- Denyse O'Leary, professional moron Again "how much". I don't think that's a good way to be quantitative.-- gpuccio

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