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PuckSR Posts: 314 Joined: Nov. 2005 (Permalink) Posted: Mar. 06 2006,12:01    good improvement on his analogy..... but one point would remain the same.....and this is what avocationist and others seem to miss.  No matter how you shuffled, and how you taped the cards together.  The odds of having the cards in the final order are exactly the same. This is how Dembski can get such a high "improbability" for life.   Once you understand statistical probability....his argument, and almost all arguments of a similiar nature seem remarkably ridiculous. Hopefully....we can just help Avo understand the math....analogies are inherently flawed, the actual example is almost always what you are trying to explain

Henry J Posts: 5787 Joined: Mar. 2005 (Permalink) Posted: Mar. 06 2006,12:07    Yeah, the deck of cards analogy has at least two problems. One is that some cards "stick" together, which was already mentioned. Also that nobody knows how many of those 52 factoral sequences would still produce a highly diverse ecosystem, even if not identical to the one we've got. Henry

Jay Ray Posts: 92 Joined: Feb. 2006 (Permalink) Posted: Mar. 06 2006,13:33    I see what you're saying, Qetzal.  I really do.  It almost seems an unavoidable consequence.  Aside from finding life on another planet, computer models have the most promise.  Computer models have their own flaws, of course; someone has to make the software.  And even the most sophisticated computer models cower at the complexity and interdependance of natural systems.   No teaching method is perfect.  In this case, I think stressing the process and not the result is an improvement, and every little bit counts.  If we were to abandon instruction because of the inadequacies of the tools, we may as well close down all the schools and curl up in the fetal position.  Better to improve the tools and keep on plugging away.

avocationist Posts: 173 Joined: Feb. 2006 (Permalink) Posted: Mar. 09 2006,19:05    Hi Puck, Quote I think ID has tons of evidence, and I believe that it has a great deal of merit.  Ken Miller would agree with me. Well, maybe, but I thought KM thinks the design is undetectable.  In which case it has no merit. Quote The problem, and you seem to completely miss this, is that ID is a philosophical conjecture. No, it is more than that. Sure, as a philosophical conjecture, you can posit nearly anything, but ID does try to interpret empirical facts. And, I think, popular evolution theory can also be accused of waxing philosophical. Quote This is an invocation of Pascal's Wager.  In case you arent familiar with the fatal flaw of Pascal; he attempted to rationalize a belief in God.  There are several problems with the actual wager, but the lesson is that you cannot rationalize beliefs.  Read up on Pascal please!!!! This is the second time you brought him up and apparently I found his idea repugnant for the very reason that you say it is flawed. Or wait, maybe not. I am not sure what it means to say you cannot rationalize beliefs. Of course you can and you had better at least try. No, I found it repugnant because it is absurd to say that it is safer to believe in God in case he really is a whacked-out petty tyrant who will blame you for not knowing if he exists - I mean you can't believe in God because it is a safer bet. And why should I read Pascal when I already find his thought silly? I think you made a lot of assumptions about what I meant when I said a universe with God is better - even tho I explained it! It has nothing to do with Pascal's wager. Quote Miller is closer to Behe in the theological department. Of course, in the scientific department, Miller is nowhere near a confused IDist....ID is scientific right? Miller and Behe both believe in a God who is the cause of our world and takes an interest in it. The difference is in how or where the interference line gets drawn. Miller even thinks God may influence random mutations on a quantum level which appears to be chance, and Behe thinks God might just create a flagellum de novo - somehow - These two positions are not very far apart no matter what Miller may say. Miller does not accept the kind of interference that Behe envisions to create the flagellum "in a puff of smoke" but their ideas of God's interference and design/causation are just not that far apart, and Dawkins and Miller just really aren't that close. GCT, Quote Let GCT go back and show where I twisted his arguments. And I responded to this already...Here's what I said. No need to repeat the last post - I have completely lost track of the thread of the conversation and if you think I have twisted your words you need to show how. Not that I expect you to do that level of research at this point, - but I did not know to what you were referring. Quote So, now you resort to personal attacks? No, you didn't address this.  You simply made the assertion that the universe would be a lot different with a god than without. Alright, I'm guilty. I found it a bit frustrating that when I say the universe with God is quite different than without, that you took it to mean that the laws of gravity or something would be different. Quote The problem with your statement is the same problem that you have with a lot of your statements, namely a complete lack of evidence coupled with a complete inability to separate philosophy from real life.   There is no separation of philosophy from real life.  What a bizarre thought. But of course, one can realize that one's philosophical opinions are more or less provisional. Which they are. Quote You have NO CLUE AT ALL whether there truly is a god or not, and you have NO CLUE AT ALL how things might or might not be different. You give up too easily. There might be a temendous amount we don't know, but we can surely surmise that if there is no God there is also no soul, no reincarnation or afterlife, no conscious intention behind the universe, that matter is the primary reality and things like intelligence are emergent properties of matter. Whereas if there is a God then something which has the property of self-existence and something like a universal mind would be the causal to matter, and that therefore all things are really one thing at their origin, and that something other than dead matter is the source of our existence. Quote Good job, you've got the slippery evasion tactic down pat. No, you need to explain to me why you think a person or people altering a shoreline would be detectable as design. Quote You've also admitted that you haven't read the books that could convince you that it IS true. Like Mayr's book? I am trying to read it, but it is very simplistic and makes bold statements with little detail. It is going over stuff that I have already read refutations of. But maybe it will get better. My main reason for reading it is to better understand why you guys think the evidence is so good. Quote Plus, you're convinced that ID is true, even in the face of no evidence for it, yet evolution is not true even though there are mountains of evidence for it. Remember, many of the mountains of evidence are data which are not in dispute, but the interpretation of that evidence, and certain extrapolations from that evidence are what is in dispute. Quote Because science does not presuppose god, that's why.  The fact that you can't even understand how an a priori assumption of god violates science means that you really have no standing at all in this discussion. Neither should science presuppose no God, and despite what Puck and some others have said, this is quite often out there in the public domain. Judge Jones said that there is a centuries old agreement against the supposition of God, and that ID invokes and 'permits' the supernatural. How can the supernatural not be permitted, and why must we call God supernatural? An a priori assumption of God does not prevent a person from doing perfectly good science, even in the arena in which it might matter, so long as they are willing to be proved wrong. Quote How would the universe be different?  You have no frickin' clue at all! If there is a god, there's no other possible reality?  Says who?  God couldn't have made a different reality?  That's a howler. If there is no god, then what does it matter if there is no need for a god?  I mean that a universe with a God is a different ballgame than one without. Whichever one we are in, it is the only possibility. If there is a God, it means that God caused existence and that matter could not have caused itself. If there is no God and matter is eternal, then God is an imaginary idea. I am not sure what you mean by couldn't God have made a different reality. I think that you mean couldn't he have made a different universe. I suppose he could but that is really a matter of detail - this type of story or that type of story. God IS the universe, whatever sort s/he morphs Itself into. Quote Either way, it's all claptrap.  They have no idea what possible universes there are/were/whatever, and neither do you. Given the elements that exist, they are all finely tuned and cannot be more finely tuned to produce life as we know it. Quote What people take away from their textbooks does not change the actual definition.  So, once again you are shown that evolution does not mean no god. Textbooks have stated, and the Weisel 38 have stated, that evolution theory proposes an unplanned and unguided process, and many or most evolutionists expect or hope that life itself was capable of self-assembly. You asked this: This is your answer to how you can tell whether Dawkins or you are right about god through science? And I answered this: I am saying that we will find out more about genetic expression, embryonic development, chromosomal rearrangements and so forth, and this, I hope, will put to rest some false ideas about how species can evolve through small random mutations. And then you replied:  So, you didn't answer my question, but you felt compelled to go on some tangent?  Nice.  Is that an attempt at obfuscation, or what? *********** Why not rephrase the question? You spend a lot of time accusing me of not answering or twisting words and I spend a lot of time wondering where we got lost. Perhaps if you included more than the final sentence in an exchange. If I don't answer right, clarify. I have no idea where your question came from - I do hold out the hope that science will prove something about consciousness such that it will make materialism untenable. Or perhaps some other types of proofs will occur. As it stands now, no one can prove God to another. The best one person can do is to help another one to expand their thoughts so that he can discover it for himself. As for who will be the discoverers of the limits of change through mutation, it doesn't matter. If IDists are in the minority, then it will likely not be them. Quote Having a god does not necessarily mean that we have souls and will transcend.  It does not mean that we will have life after death. Perhaps not, but at least the possibility is there, whereas if there is no God, the possibility is most likely not there. Quote Where did you get the idea that a god couldn't create a universe where people live and die and don't have life after death? I think it is very likely that it is indeed impossible due to the nature of God and life that there is no such thing as a living being without spirit, in which case God couldn't create such a universe. Quote Also, how does one determine that a universe with a god is ten trillion times better? The real number is not computable, so I picked a small number to illustrate. Quote Miller accepts evolution.  For you to insist that Miller is a closet IDist is completely specious. Anyone who believes in God is an IDist. So there! Quote (BTW, those "others here" that said one can believe in god and accept evolution...I'm one of them!  The fact that you imply that I'm arguing that one must be atheist to accept evolution, when I've specifically stated otherwise is completely intellectually dishonest.) Of course I realize you are one of them - why do you think I implied you were not? Quote What's all this talk about "better"?  What makes us "better" than other primates? Quote You seem to have some sort of superiority complex over the other animals on this planet, and you want to impart that onto the science as if it is part of a scientific argument. I guess I sort of wonder what to say to this. Certainly evolution papers and books talk pretty often about acquiring better and better adaptations. Like where Dawkins says that 5% of an eye is better than 6% of an eye. Is it better to have an IQ of 130 than 70? Sure, chimps have some better traits than we have, but the overall package is that we are an improvement and the point of the argument was all about the vastness of the improvements and the numbers of changes which have occured - also the writer promotes the idea of interventionism, that we humans were genetically modified by an outside race. I pasted it here just because it was a useful list of differences. As for the value judgement, in my view, all things, every grain of sand or twig, is a perfect manifestation of God and are doing exactly what they should be doing. I don't even think of one person as better than another. I don't think Mother Theresa is better than Stalin. She isn't. I think that God is the animating spirit and universal consciousness in all living beings, and possibly even in inanimate things. Therefore, the animals are each unique and valuable expressions of consciousness. At the same time, I find it a sort of pretense, and it is probably born of desperation to halt the mindless and uncaring desecration of the planet and rotten treatment of animals when people say that we are no better than animals or animals and people have the same rights. Animals have the right to our respect and protection.

avocationist Posts: 173 Joined: Feb. 2006 (Permalink) Posted: Mar. 10 2006,04:53    Chris, Quote I do not see any positive scientific evidence for design, is their anything specific that you see as good evidence? By positive evidence, do you mean that you don't want what might be considered negative evidence, such as problems with the theory? You say there are other flagella with parts missing. I'm not sure what you mean. Are you saying they are simpler or use other designs than the one Behe has popularized? I'm not sure what you mean about assembling the parts in their current form - how do you suppose a system like the flagellum could have evolved? An inability to assemble them gradually is exactly what Behe claims. Re us and chimps - does no one find the chromosome fusing odd? Is it usual for chromosomes to successfully fuse? That the differences between us and chimps are caused by quite small differences in DNA is interesting - nonetheless we still have 30 or 35 million base pair adjustments, plus a chromosome fusion to account for. GCT, Quote The books you've read that convinced you that evolution isn't true, were written by people who convinced themselves evolution isn't true because their god said so.  Their god told them evolution was bunk, so they went out and figured out how they could make convincing arguments that evolution is bunk.  Nevermind the fact that they formed their conclusion then looked for data.... Well that is an assumption that first of all calls some of them liars, altho they could be self-deluded, and it also suggests that those on the evolution side could be equally motivated by inner desires to find a certain type of worldview vindicated. And it denies any possibility that they could be persuaded by evidence or facts, so what you're really saying is that 'we are right because we are right.' Henry, Quote But, how would a person know what the differences are, (God or no-God universe) unless that person had seen at least one universe of each type? Well, I think I answered this in the post above. I am talking about global, foundational differences, not little details. Quote An evolving gene pool can try various things that are within its "reach", and it can "remember" previous results. Those are two of the properties we associate with intelligence. So even if intelligence is required, why would that form of it be insufficient? Well that really is the crux of it. Is it sufficient? It is a stretch to call the above intelligence. Quote Scientific evidence consists of consistent repeatable patterns in observations, such that those patterns logically follow from the premise (or hypothesis) being tested. Well, yes, but remember the phlogiston, remember the epicycles. It's tricky. Jay Ray, Good post. In fact, I do realize that there have to be some of your sticky laws going on, and even though I have been entertained by some of the arguments about chances of proteins getting together, I have long wondered or supposed what unknown forces might help coherent patterns to form. I hardly need to do your deck shuffling experiment, since what you say is obviously true. The question is, though, how much can we extrapolate from the way that subatomic particles congregate, and atoms and molecules congregate, to the formation of the inner workings of the cells, the many millions of life forms, the fact that a cell has billions of highly organized and complex atoms which perform a dazzling array of functions? We are talking about complex information here. I'm not sure the two correlate, even though I suspect in many ways you are on the right track so far as the organizational patterns in the universe. Even if we grant that the organization of life isn't quite as outrageous as proposed by some creationists, nonetheless  we have not a few but millions upon million of these amazingly varied and successful life forms. And there are things that nature unaided cannot do. We do them all the time. We write novels or compose symphonies. Why, when faced with the greatest complexity and unlikely mass of organization should we ridicule the notion that it might have taken an intelligence to accomplish?   It seems to me there could be two kinds of organization. One would be helped by sticky laws that we don't know about. Perhaps they would help a membrane to form. But other designs are free of the necessity to have formed themselves in this or that way by any sort of law. And then the origin of life itself seems to actually go against what laws we do know about. Also, while you say your sticky laws might make life even inevitable, such arguments to me seem like good ones for those theists who think that God was able to frontload the whole universe even as far back as the big bang for just that. In other words, even if you are right, it is pretty dam-ned fishy how it has all worked out. As for creationists refusing to acknowledge sticky laws, first, we haven't really found them yet (but we might). But while it is fashionable to tar creationists with the same brush as ID, many or most ID people do not adhere to the restrictive and in my opinion shallow and immature thoughts of creationists. Some ID people like perhaps Mike Gene of telic thoughts are essentially theists or even deists. They are very interested in a front-loaded universe and would be searching for ways this could come about. Russell, Quote Sure, you could probably get a computer simulation to do it effortlessly, but then, of course, the IDers will say, "all bets are off, because the computer was the result of intelligent design." I don't think so. This is something a computer program could easily accomplish and has almost no relation to a computer program that tries to simulate actual evolution. I think the variables in actual evolution are so complex that we cannot create a computer program to simulate it. questzal, Quote The same thing applies to the argument about life. Even if you could positively establish that life on earth was exceedingly unlikely, it doesn't prove anything unless you assume that life is a desired outcome.But of course, if you assume life is desired in advance, then you're assuming God in advance. I don't see how this follows. You seem to be saying that, yes, the chances of life occurring are indeed one divided by many trillions, but it was just the way the random shuffle happened to fall. Nonetheless, there is something noteworthy about the fact that we have a planet teeming with millions of life forms when the chances of that were vanishingly small. I don't think we need to extrapolate further about having specified it in advance. Now, you can say that each and every shuffle of the deck is also very unlikely. But we can also say that they all do nothing different from one another, nor would a random shuffling of pebbles and shells on the beach. No matter how many times the waves toss them about, and no matter that each one is unlikely if specified in advance, they also do not stand out one from another in any discernable way. But that one shuffle - life, does. What would you think if you walked down to the beach and the waves formed words out of the shells, either in one wave or over a succession of 60 or so waves - "Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country" ? Now, you will say oh, but I have specified that in advance. And someone else later down in the posts has said that after all, there is not only one solution to proteins or perhaps even to life. But I will accept any sufficiently complex sentence in any language or alphabet on earth. So you see how many good solutions I will accept! I'll accept even things other than words. A small house with windows and doors would do, or a code that can be decoded as a blueprint for building that house. Now, I realize that there is a flaw in what I just said, to whit... Puck, Quote but one point would remain the same.....and this is what avocationist and others seem to miss.  No matter how you shuffled, and how you taped the cards together.  The odds of having the cards in the final order are exactly the same. It's the second time you've said this. I do realize that each shuffle is equally unlikely, and that it is our preference for high cards and certain suits which makes a certain hand specified as desirable. And I am quite sure Dembski realizes that as well. What YOU don't seem to understand is that each of those many deals don't accomplish anything and don't have any structured meaning. You can randomly shuffle letters forever and not get a novel by chance. Your argument implies that all shuffles are really equally valuable. The flaw in my argument is that one does not necessarily have to get an entire shuffle right in one throw. But even if I acknowledge that there may be sticky laws, and of course the Great Law - what works gets preserved - there are too many improbable miracles in evolution theory, and there are too many systems that seem highly unlikely to congregate without intelligent design behind them somewhere. Can any of you see that the possibility of the existence of an eternal being is 1) A reasonable assumption given the mystery of the existence of anything at all without cause 2) That such a being might accomplish things just as we do and that given the possible existence of a prior intelligence it might seem actually more rational and less miraculous to suppose that this being organized the universe than to rely upon an endless succession of unlikely winners at the lottery of chance? Why should we be the first or the only intelligence? Henry, Quote Also that nobody knows how many of those 52 factoral sequences would still produce a highly diverse ecosystem, even if not identical to the one we've got. Well, given the universe that we occupy, books like Nature's Destiny are narrowing the options on that.

Henry J Posts: 5787 Joined: Mar. 2005 (Permalink) Posted: Mar. 10 2006,07:49    Re "And, I think, popular evolution theory can also be accused of waxing philosophical." Some scientists give philosophical opinions, yes. The theory itself doesn't. Re " Anyone who believes in God is an IDist. " I don't think so. Re "I think the variables in actual evolution are so complex that we cannot create a computer program to simulate it." Yeah, any computer simulation is going to have to leave out a huge amount of detail, so there is a risk of this messing up a conclusion. Henry

PuckSR Posts: 314 Joined: Nov. 2005 (Permalink) Posted: Mar. 10 2006,08:06    Avo- You are so close to "getting it", but you just need to take the final step. Science cannot believe in the supernatural, for a very simple reason.  Science is based on observing the natural world.  Supernatural "things" do not occur in a natural world.....this means that if angels really exist, and they are observable in some way....then they are natural Lets go back to Miller, Behe, and Dawkins: Miller and Behe both believe that God could be involved in our world.... Miller, however, doesnt care.  Why doesnt he care? Because Miller is only interested in the best possible explanation of observations.  Miller will readily admit to you that the earth might only be 6000 years old, and that the evidence is all misleading.  Miller is not searching for the "truth", he is searching for the best explanation of the evidence. Behe is searching for the truth.  He "knows" that there is a God, and so he believes he must find the evidence that points towards God. I know that you think that all theists are IDists.....but your totally wrong. An IDist doesnt believe that God interfered.  An IDist believes that there is definative evidence that God interferes. Miller is not an IDist because he doesnt believe that there is any evidence. I am not an IDist because I dont believe that there is any definitive evidence Many people on this forum are theists but not IDists. The reason that more than 50% of the population support intelligent design...is because they fail to see this difference.  I personally believe that this confusion comes from the common fundamentalist Christian position of faith=knowledge. You can have as much faith as you want in something.....you will never have knowledge because of faith. So....you can believe all that you want that the intricate nature of this reality is evidence of a designer.  You can point to the incredible complexity of life and the overwhelming odds of it being created.  You can look at all of that and say..."There must be a God".  That is perfectly alright.  No one on this site will fault you for that belief An IDist says...the only possible conclusion that you can make based on the evidence is that a God exists...and that he interferes is a fact...that cannot be denied.  God is a scientific fact.  Now, if you hold this position we will argue with you at great length.

C.J.O'Brien Posts: 395 Joined: Aug. 2005 (Permalink) Posted: Mar. 10 2006,08:21    Quote Re "I think the variables in actual evolution are so complex that we cannot create a computer program to simulate it." Yeah, any computer simulation is going to have to leave out a huge amount of detail, so there is a risk of this messing up a conclusion. But this is the point of computer simulation, and their strength. Computing power simply allows the experimental method to benefit from a new "control space." It's no different in principle from a 'nuts and bolts' experimental design, where variables are as tightly controlled as possibe. The point of experimentation is to limit the variables to try and draw limited conclusions from idealized conditions. The map is not the territory, and no scientist, whether performing physical experiments or computer simulations, thinks that it is. But, a good map allows us to reliably navigate the territory. Avo: Quote there are too many improbable miracles in evolution theory, and there are too many systems that seem highly unlikely to congregate without intelligent design behind them somewhere. Can any of you see that the possibility of the existence of an eternal being is 1) A reasonable assumption given the mystery of the existence of anything at all without cause 2) That such a being might accomplish things just as we do I credit you, as have others, for being reasonable, and, especially, civil. But I feel like we haven't made any progress. The above is just more assertion based on incredulity. And science just doesn't engage in "reasonable assumption[s]" based on "mystery." Once you start positing miracles, empirical inquiry breaks down. If nothing else out of this thread, I would like you to understand that. -------------- The is the beauty of being me- anything that any man does I can understand. --Joe G

Jay Ray Posts: 92 Joined: Feb. 2006 (Permalink) Posted: Mar. 10 2006,15:44    Avo, Thanks for the lengthy reply.  I think its great that you have an abiding interest in communicating on this blog.  As do the rest of us, as evidenced by the length of our own repsonses.  Thus my opening for, uh, ahem, a lengthy reply. Quote I have long wondered or supposed what unknown forces might help coherent patterns to form. I wonder too, all the time.  I think you recognize that we humans have identified at least some of the big ones.  Could there be more forces, more subtle, that we are as yet unaware of?  Probably.  Its fun to think about.  The *cue narrational reverb* grrrrreat unknowwwwwn, and its complement discovery, are two of the most compelling concepts that lead people toward science.   At the risk of being pedantic, it strikes me that that *all* patterns are coherent.  Coherency is perhaps the single defining characteristic of patterns, for without coherency it's just noise.  There would be no pattern there.  I grant that this property "coherency" may often be subtle and difficult to detect, but whenever you notice coherency, you notice a pattern and vice versa.  So I am curious, do you think there are patterns that are not coherent?  I think that an incoherent pattern is just one that hasn't been perceived yet.  Once we do notice the pattern, well, then its coherent.  Anyway, I digress... Quote ...how much can we extrapolate from the way that subatomic particles congregate, and atoms and molecules congregate, to the formation of the inner workings of the cells, the many millions of life forms, the fact that a cell has billions of highly organized and complex atoms which perform a dazzling array of functions? We are talking about complex information here. I'm not sure the two correlate, even though I suspect in many ways you are on the right track so far as the organizational patterns in the universe. We can extrapolate quite a bit.  And to be sure, we find that a high volume of our extrapolations (especially in the form of predictions or retrodictions) have been amply confirmed by experiment and observation.  This is quite the opposite of any ID supposition I've ever seen; they make no verifiable statements.  ID seems intent on maintaining mystery, rather than explaining it.  To a naturalist or a deist, complexity seems to be a natural outgrowth of the sticky laws + randomness + time + the universe.  I gather we disagree on this rather fundamental point?  One thing we might agree upon is that whether or not the universe and its laws as a whole came into existance via an undiscovered utterly natural process, or if it was poofed into existance by god, once the ball is rolling complexity will arise.   The important question that arises out of this is, if one assumes god got the ball rolling initially, does god meddle?  I, for one, do not make that assumption.  For those that do, I'd say that their opinions about a god that "tweaks" or not, a) implicitly places limitations on god whatever way they make the distinction, and b) presumes that any mere human can know anything procedural or methodological about god at all.  Dangerous turf, if you ask me. Quote Even if we grant that the organization of life isn't quite as outrageous as proposed by some creationists, nonetheless  we have not a few but millions upon million of these amazingly varied and successful life forms. Here again I find that I would expect exactly the diversity we do find, given the sticky laws + randomness + time + the universe.  I think this is one of the most basic differences between IDers and naturalists.   The naturalist understands the thing in terms of process.  While there may be lots of points in our deep history where things could have gone differently, nevertheless here we are today--concious, self aware, curious and questioning and fascinated.  That I exist at all makes life all the more precious.  As a kind of cheap illustration of this sensation, nobody thinks twice about a coin that falls except maybe to pick it up and put it back in the pocket.  But if the coin falls and lands on edge--that's us, mind you-- then suddenly we're impressed, in a good way.   A naturalist feels that way all the time.  At least I do. To contrast, the IDer doesn't look at the process, only at the result.  All the ID conclusions stem from here, the result.  The IDer I believe, feels uncomfortable in a universe where so much depends on flips of the coin.  Or to put it another way, since an assumption of god is there from the start, the IDer gets great comfort out of the feeling that the universe, and especially human existance, is intentional and that god really, I mean really cares about us.  I predict that you'll never see any procedural description coming out of the ID proponents--such considerations are antithetical to the beginning assumptions.  This is one of the reasons that it isn't science. And there are things that nature unaided cannot do. We do them all the time. We write novels or compose symphonies. Why, when faced with the greatest complexity and unlikely mass of organization should we ridicule the notion that it might have taken an intelligence to accomplish? Interesting point, and one which I don't intend to dwell on for long, lest I fill twelve pages.  I'd like to briefly profess my opinion that nature just does what it does, and when we say it "cannot" do something, we are saying more about our own tendencies than anything true about nature itself.  Any "rearrangements" we may make of nature's ordinary course are purely for our convenience, so we like to think, and in no way should this be considered a reflection of the inadequacies of nature to do anything at all except to conform to our desire.  If there was ever evidence of intelligent design, surely its when humans go poking their collective finger into the planetary pies. Secondly, I find nature has a music all of her own that rivals any symphony composed in human history.  Don't get me wrong here, I love good music, novels, art in general.  Good art moves me, what more can I say?  When I look at nature, I see the process as the symphony, the fugue and the poetry.  Nature is music. Quote It seems to me there could be two kinds of organization. One would be helped by sticky laws that we don't know about. Perhaps they would help a membrane to form. But other designs are free of the necessity to have formed themselves in this or that way by any sort of law. And then the origin of life itself seems to actually go against what laws we do know about. I'm not sure what you mean here, except for the last line, which I will tend to disagree with.  I'm not sure how the origin of life runs contrary to any known laws.   Quote Also, while you say your sticky laws might make life even inevitable, such arguments to me seem like good ones for those theists who think that God was able to frontload the whole universe even as far back as the big bang for just that. In other words, even if you are right, it is pretty dam-ned fishy how it has all worked out. Heh.  Well, to tell you the truth, I have no big dispute with someone who wants to shrug their shoulders and posit frontloading.  I think frontloading as a concept is as unprovable as god, so if someone wants to believe it, well, I'm probably not going to tell them they are wrong.  Its unprovable either way.  But if you accept frontloading, then again you have to ask yourself, does god continue to meddle?  Why would god need to?  And why assume we can know anything about it either way? Quote As for creationists refusing to acknowledge sticky laws, first, we haven't really found them yet (but we might). Wait.  I thought you agreed that gravitation and electromagnetism--at least--were instances of sticky laws.   Quote But while it is fashionable to tar creationists with the same brush as ID, many or most ID people do not adhere to the restrictive and in my opinion shallow and immature thoughts of creationists. True-ish.  ID is a more subtle concept until you parse it out, where it labors under the same limitations as standard YEC.  But that subtlety attracts a wider audience, thus we are having this conversation here today.  Which is to say that its an interesting conversation.  I find most philosophical conversations appealing.   Quote Some ID people like perhaps Mike Gene of telic thoughts are essentially theists or even deists. They are very interested in a front-loaded universe and would be searching for ways this could come about. They can keep searching until sun goes woosh, but they will find nothing hard and true, because the universe is a process and that isn't what they are looking for.

Sanctum Posts: 88 Joined: Feb. 2006 (Permalink) Posted: Mar. 11 2006,05:29    My compliments to all the most recent participants here. Excellent last batch of comments all-round.

Jay Ray Posts: 92 Joined: Feb. 2006 (Permalink) Posted: Mar. 11 2006,22:55    I just noticed this: Quote Can any of you see that the possibility of the existence of an eternal being is 1) A reasonable assumption given the mystery of the existence of anything at all without cause 2) That such a being might accomplish things just as we do Anythings possible, I guess.  I'm not so sure about reasonable.  If we're to say that a concious, intelligent eternal being can exist, we have to acknowledge that this being was itself uncaused. But if we're to be open to the possibility that this concious, intelligent being can exist without a cause, why not skip a step and give the universe itself the same possibility? We simply don't know for sure what caused our universe to happen.  Down past the plank time, stuff is just unknowable.  My best guess is that some physical process is responsible; I put nothing past quantum weirdness.   Of course, we quickly get into a chain of being type argument that ends up back where we started.  What came before the big bang, and what caused that?  And what before that? That old joke: A boy asks his father, "what does the earth rest on, dad?" The earth is being carried on the back of a giant turtle, son. The boy then asks, "But dad, what does that turtle rest on?" Well, it stands on the back of an even bigger turtle, son.  Dad knows what is coming next. The boy naturally asks, "What about THAT turtle?" Dad throws up his hands.  Its no good, son!  Its turtles all the way down. I remember pondering eternity, both time and space, at the age of four, maybe five.  I quickly became accustomed to the the idea.  At the time I hadn't heard of galaxies, so I had this picture in my mind of the edge of our universe, where the stars ran out.  But instead of just trailing off, there was this sort of hard boundary, like the whole thing was inside a box. What was on the other side of the wall?  Was the wall itself forever thick, or was there another universe on the other side?  And if there was another universe, what was on the other side of ITS walls?  Turtles all the way.  Forever never scared me.  I enjoyed thinking about it.  To this day, thinking about eternity puts me in a trance.  The earth is gone, its just me and the dark sky amid a field of stars. I feel at home. But then I have this friend.  She's creative, cheerful, intelligent, very progressive.  Eternity scares the crap out of her.  A major preconception of mine was dismantled when we had this talk.  She said that when she thinks about eternity, her brain kind of switches gears involuntarily and tries to start thinking about something else.  It had never really occured to me that eternity could have a negative effect on someone, especially creative types.   I'm not sure yet what to make of this.

avocationist Posts: 173 Joined: Feb. 2006 (Permalink) Posted: Mar. 12 2006,07:37    Henry, Quote Re " Anyone who believes in God is an IDist. " I don't think so. I'm not sayiung there is really no difference. I am just pointing out that once you postulate any sort of God at all, the deck is stacked. There is an obvious correlation between: There is a God  ===== the world evolved. Puck, Quote Science cannot believe in the supernatural, for a very simple reason.  Science is based on observing the natural world.  Supernatural "things" do not occur in a natural world.....this means that if angels really exist, and they are observable in some way....then they are natural. The question here is about observation. I think that what we observe is skewed or narrowed by our perceptive abilities. Perhaps even narrowed by attitudes of mind. If angels exist, what if we cannot observe them, or cannot usually observe them? Or haven't figured out how to observe them? I don't accept your division of natural and supernatural. Perhaps "observable and not observable by current means" would be more useful. That we have learned to observe many things that were once not observable should give us great pause. Supposing that the origin of life required intentional intervention, as I think it probably did. I still can't think of that as a miracle. It seems events qualify as miraculous if they are more rare and discontinuous? I have a problem with the statement that science "cannot" believe in the supernatural. If they take that stance they are as locked in as the religious side. Apparently you consider God supernatural. And you believe God initiated this world, do you not? And you suppose that this is forever undetectable? But that whatever event or events he caused, were indeed supernatural? Quote I know that you think that all theists are IDists.....but your totally wrong. An IDist doesnt believe that God interfered.  An IDist believes that there is definative evidence that God interferes. Alright, that is a fair point, one which I believe I have already tried to refute. I do not think it is even possible to have a world that is the result of an intelligent plan but which is also not detectable as such, because to say that is to say that randomness and chaos are perfectly capable of producing the very same things that intelligence and planning can produce. Which renders intelligence meaningless and impotent. And we see that human intelligence and planning are anything but meaningless and impotent. Anyway, you are saying the difference is that Miller doesn't think there is evidence - nonetheless he thinks the world both received and required fundamental planning and interference. In this sense he is most certainly an IDist, not in the sense of fitting some definition in people's minds, but in the actual facts themselves. Miller believes this world is the result of intelligent planning. Quote The reason that more than 50% of the population support intelligent design...is because they fail to see this difference.  I personally believe that this confusion comes from the common fundamentalist Christian position of faith=knowledge. You can have as much faith as you want in something.....you will never have knowledge because of faith. I'm not sure you're right that they fail to see the difference. I think most people do think that there is evidence, if only in a 'common sense' kind of way. I mean, really, Dawkins has said in his book/s that (paraphrasing) evolution explains the undesigned emergence of features which appear designed. And remember, he does not believe God so much as initiated matter. So what is wrong with a person saying, "If it looks designed, it probably was designed?" Especially if they intuit that there probably is a God? I'm surprised you say there is a christian idea that faith equals knowledge. I rather find an over-adulation of faith at the expense of knowledge. Recently on UD a commentator said that faith cannot be destroyed by scientific knowledge. But this is a rather dangerous approach. I don't say that faith should be easily destroyed by the first scientific factoid that appears to disagree with it. But if your faith means believing every word of the Bible is true, then the sun goes around the earth. And the original Koran is in heaven and written in Arabic, mistakes and all. I think what you meant is that they accept faith as a substitute for knowledge. Or that they allow spiritual faith, which should lead to spiritual knowledge, to instead inform their scientific opinions too strongly. Quote An IDist says...the only possible conclusion that you can make based on the evidence is that a God exists...and that he interferes is a fact...that cannot be denied.  God is a scientific fact.  Now, if you hold this position we will argue with you at great length. It occurs to me that it is a good thing that scientific culture takes a skeptical stance. Because it helps to cut out the excess of junk. False ideas are a huge impediment, and religion, in my opinion is full of them. Buddhism, the most rational and psychologically sophisticated religion, shows this very well. I'd go so far as to say it is better to be an agnostic or atheist than to hold rigidly to an insular belief system that is false. Nonetheless, I think God may end up as a fact and it would be a good thing. But if "he" does, no doubt he will fail to conform to our preconceptions.

qetzal Posts: 311 Joined: Feb. 2006 (Permalink) Posted: Mar. 12 2006,07:57    Avocationist, I'll try to explain. Quote You seem to be saying that, yes, the chances of life occurring are indeed one divided by many trillions, but it was just the way the random shuffle happened to fall. Nonetheless, there is something noteworthy about the fact that we have a planet teeming with millions of life forms when the chances of that were vanishingly small. I don't think we need to extrapolate further about having specified it in advance. Now, you can say that each and every shuffle of the deck is also very unlikely. But we can also say that they all do nothing different from one another, nor would a random shuffling of pebbles and shells on the beach. No matter how many times the waves toss them about, and no matter that each one is unlikely if specified in advance, they also do not stand out one from another in any discernable way. But that one shuffle - life, does. No. 1.  We have no idea of the chances of life occurring. We know of one universe. We know there's life in our tiny, tiny, remote corner of it. That's all we know. We can't even say whether life is likely anywhere else in this universe, much less how unlikely the universe itself is. 2.  Even if we knew that life was a very unlikely outcome, that tells us nothing about God. How do we know that life is a special outcome, and not just one outcome at random? We don't. Of course, it's special to us. But that's not relevant to this discussion. You're assuming life is special to God. That God created life because that's what he wanted. And you may be right. The existence of life is consistent with that belief, but it isn't evidence for it.

avocationist Posts: 173 Joined: Feb. 2006 (Permalink) Posted: Mar. 12 2006,12:25    CJ, Me: Quote there are too many improbable miracles in evolution theory, and there are too many systems that seem highly unlikely to congregate without intelligent design behind them somewhere. Can any of you see that the possibility of the existence of an eternal being is 1) A reasonable assumption given the mystery of the existence of anything at all without cause 2) That such a being might accomplish things just as we do You: Quote I credit you, as have others, for being reasonable, and, especially, civil. But I feel like we haven't made any progress. The above is just more assertion based on incredulity. And science just doesn't engage in "reasonable assumption[s]" based on "mystery." Once you start positing miracles, empirical inquiry breaks down. If nothing else out of this thread, I would like you to understand that. Perhaps I shouldn't have used the word mystery. The existence of anything at all is a great, unexplained phenomenon. I don't know what to do with your assertion of incredulity. This is a bizarre and mind-numbing idea put forth as a control and shaming technique. Must science be willing to accept any explanation so long as it avoids anything but mindless and unguided processes? You see, you seem to be saying that if there is a God that his actions were miraculous. Yet if that is the case, what are we to do? Ignore it? Why in the world should empirical inquiry break down if God, for example, started life? This is where Darwists are in danger of behaving like Christians. You can't insist on the philosophical assumption that there is no design, or that design is undetectable. I should clarify that I do not think of God as creating nature and then subverting its laws or poofing things into existence. I think nature was created and then God worked within it to bring to fruition the possibilities it contained. Jay Ray, Quote So I am curious, do you think there are patterns that are not coherent? No, it was just a typical, thoughtless redundancy, like "very unique." I guess I meant "highly coherent". Quote To a naturalist or a deist, complexity seems to be a natural outgrowth of the sticky laws + randomness + time + the universe.  I gather we disagree on this rather fundamental point? Yeah, I'd say so. Quote One thing we might agree upon is that whether or not the universe and its laws as a whole came into existance via an undiscovered utterly natural process, or if it was poofed into existance by god, once the ball is rolling complexity will arise. It must be so, because that is what happened. (With a lot of help from yin and yang.) Quote The important question that arises out of this is, if one assumes god got the ball rolling initially, does god meddle? You know, I live on the buckle of the Bible belt, and so at times I make remarks at work that alerts somebody's antennae. I was asked, "Don't you believe in God?" And I just stopped - I didn't know how to answer. I certainly can't say no but a yes answer confirms that I believe in their puny God. I think I just said, "not in the way you think." You might as well ask if I believe in breathing. In the same way, the question "does God meddle," doesn't really compute, because God is all there is, or ever can be. There is no outside to God. I don't think that the reason God is difficult to discern is because he deliberately hid himself or preferred people to have blind faith, but because God is everything. Where is the contrast? So it isn't a question of meddling, but it is a question of how and by what processes this whole drama has unfolded and continues to unfold. You may have heard, if you like philosophy, that it isn't so much important to get the right answers, but to know the right questions. I used to be a person who asked similar questions, but now those questions contain assumptions that I can no longer understand. What with God being everything, it is hard for me to conceive of a personal God, and so this is an area that puzzles me. A personal God with preferences is a limited being, not an infinite one. It may be that God is only capable of a focused will or intent when He/she is expressed through a mind of some sort that is less then the Totality. I have serious doubt that frontloading at the big bang can have included the tendency to form something like DNA and the cell. It looks to me like there are designs in biology of the meddling sort. That may be a product of lesser minds than what I would call God, or the Absolute, or Atman, who may not engage in that sort of activity. In my opinion, christianity gives that role to the Logos. Quote I, for one, do not make that assumption.  For those that do, I'd say that their opinions about a god that "tweaks" or not, a) implicitly places limitations on god whatever way they make the distinction, and b) presumes that any mere human can know anything procedural or methodological about god at all.  Dangerous turf, if you ask me. Why do you say that it places limitations on God? This seems a popular idea. What's this about "mere human?"  Why dangerous? anyway, ID doesn't necessarily say they can know anything about procedure or method, just the bare fact of design. As to whether we can know about method, that remains to be seen. But you criticize ID for wanting to maintain mystery, and then you say we can never know about procedure or method. Quote Here again I find that I would expect exactly the diversity we do find, given the sticky laws + randomness + time + the universe.  I think this is one of the most basic differences between IDers and naturalists. It is easy to say, "Why that is exactly what I would expect!" It is exactly what you'd expect if you already accept a set of ideas which are unproven and presume a lot. Quote To contrast, the IDer doesn't look at the process, only at the result. Hmmm, well that certainly is true of a YEC. I find YECism really boring. What is interesting about a magical God with a big magic wand who waves it over the planet making millions of species in a day? Pure magic! Quote The IDer I believe, feels uncomfortable in a universe where so much depends on flips of the coin. I don't know if I am uncomfortable, but it just doesn't appear that much was left to chance. But neither do I see God as an outside agency tinkering, deciding to make the blueprint for a beaver or a badger down to the last detail. Rather, I think that God is unfolding within and as the universe, and is also probably transcendent in some way that I don't understand. Quote the IDer gets great comfort out of the feeling that the universe, and especially human existance, is intentional and that god really, I mean really cares about us. I do think that something like humans is intentional and required for completion. The question, does God care about us, is another nonquestion because there is no need to ask it. Like karma, it takes care of itself. We are not separate from and cut off from, God. As they say in the east, that which was never born cannot die. We are part of that and are therefore unvulnerable, altho we don't know it. And God's love is universal and impersonal. Quote I predict that you'll never see any procedural description coming out of the ID proponents--such considerations are antithetical to the beginning assumptions.  This is one of the reasons that it isn't science. I don't agree with that at all. It could happen any time. Quote I'd like to briefly profess my opinion that nature just does what it does, sure, but what is nature, then? Might it contain more than meets the eye? And when a person says that nature just does what it does, then you have no real right to argue with ID, because you have stood back and assessed the situation from a distance. ID is about looking up close. You are satisfied and find it adequate to say, "Nature just does what it does." That is hardly different than saying, "God did it, so we can't study it." Quote and when we say it "cannot" do something, we are saying more about our own tendencies than anything true about nature itself. What? What are yousaying? I mentioned some very specific types of things that humans do with their intelligence that of course nature cannot do, such as write novels or build cars. Quote Any "rearrangements" we may make of nature's ordinary course are purely for our convenience, so we like to think, and in no way should this be considered a reflection of the inadequacies of nature to do anything at all except to conform to our desire. I think you are finding it an attack upon the value of nature to say that it cannot do the things humans do. Sure, and humans cannot do what nature does. This is not a value judgement, just a difference in qualities. Humans are produced by nature, and we have fantastic minds capable of amazing feats. We can give nature the glory for it, if you like, but the point is, that  human focused intelligence accomplishes things which would not happen without intelligent input. Quote Secondly, I find nature has a music all of her own that rivals any symphony composed in human history.  Don't get me wrong here, I love good music, novels, art in general.  Good art moves me, what more can I say?  When I look at nature, I see the process as the symphony, the fugue and the poetry.  Nature is music. That may be literally true. There is a whole thread of thought which says that vibration, of which sound is an aspect, is the main method by which existence becomes manifest. It seems compatible with string theory. Quote I'm not sure how the origin of life runs contrary to any known laws. In trying to come up with scenarios for a cell to form, mostly a long list of problems presents itself. Of course life itself doesn't go against the laws of nature, but what I mean is that the chance formation of DNA, proteins, the cell membrane and that sort of thing has not been accounted for, and has run up against many dead ends. Life appears to be discontinuous with nonlife. Quote But if you accept frontloading, then again you have to ask yourself, does god continue to meddle?  Why would god need to? Yes, those are the questions. I  tend to favor some idea that there is intelligence residing within, perhaps in the DNA, guiding it. It appears like a learn as you go project, yet not a mindless one.   Quote And why assume we can know anything about it either way? Well, I think we are in the dark ages now much as we were 500 years ago. Relativelyspeaking. It was reasonable to suppose that maggots spontaneously arose from rotten meat. It looked that way, it was consistent, and the micro-world didn't exist.  If we don't destroy our civilization, in time we will understand very much more about embryonic and other genetic and epigenetic processes, and then, I think, we will have a clearer idea about whether random mutation has the creative power currently attributed to it. How do you see ID as laboring under the same limitations as YEC? Quote They can keep searching until sun goes woosh, but they will find nothing hard and true, because the universe is a process and that isn't what they are looking for. But frontloading IS a kind of process. Isn't drawing up a blueprint, getting parts delivered, and building a house, making a few adjustments as you go, and putting in the finishing decorations a process? Quote If we're to say that a concious, intelligent eternal being can exist, we have to acknowledge that this being was itself uncaused. Right, otherwise, what use is he? Quote But if we're to be open to the possibility that this concious, intelligent being can exist without a cause, why not skip a step and give the universe itself the same possibility? Because, if by universe, you mean only dead matter, then it is simply impossible to suppose that it caused itself, nor can dead matter itself have the property of self-existence, uncaused existence. But if you think of the universe as a seamless whole, with mind or an uncaused principle at its core, then it could be as you say. Quote Down past the plank time, stuff is just unknowable.  My best guess is that some physical process is responsible; I put nothing past quantum weirdness. There is no planck time or quantum weirdness without existence. Exsitence is primary. Quote What came before the big bang, and what caused that?  And what before that? The big bang, if it even happened, is not that important because obviously it had a cause. Quote I remember pondering eternity, both time and space, at the age of four, maybe five. To this day, thinking about eternity puts me in a trance. Good. Add to those two, existence. Eternity, infinity, and existence - all not able to fit in with our usual linear mode of thought and experience, all unavoidably necessary yet almost impossible for our minds to grasp. Quote It had never really occured to me that eternity could have a negative effect on someone, especially creative types. The difference is one of fear. It scares her. It scares her because it feels like annihilation. Her ego/mind is attempting to protect itself by switching gears. Quote To this day, thinking about eternity puts me in a trance.  The earth is gone, its just me and the dark sky amid a field of stars. I feel at home. I think that is very close to our true situation - almost all of what we think of as reality is a comfort zone to protect us from the true state of affairs - each of us is alone in a vast empty black without a compass. Sunlight and other people is what keeps our sanity. I'm fond of solipsism.

avocationist Posts: 173 Joined: Feb. 2006 (Permalink) Posted: Mar. 12 2006,12:30    Oh, I missed this: Quote And if there was another universe, what was on the other side of ITS walls? I don't accept the idea of multiple universes. If there are such, then the one whole is what I would call the universe. Universe, by definition, means ONE.

Chris Hyland Posts: 705 Joined: Jan. 2006 (Permalink) Posted: Mar. 12 2006,12:31    Quote By positive evidence, do you mean that you don't want what might be considered negative evidence, such as problems with the theory? I mean evidence that actually points to an intelligence as opposed to just pointing out supposed problems with evolution. Quote You say there are other flagella with parts missing. I'm not sure what you mean. Are you saying they are simpler or use other designs than the one Behe has popularized? I'm not sure what you mean about assembling the parts in their current form - how do you suppose a system like the flagellum could have evolved? An inability to assemble them gradually is exactly what Behe claims. Behes point as far as I can see is that if you removed a protein from the Ecoli flagellum it would cease to function, I have no problem accepting this. It does not follow however that the system could not have evolved by addition of parts. Say the part that we remove, part A, causes the flagellum to cease functioning and we suspect that it was the last part to be added, and is attached to parts B and C. Saying that this means that part A couldn't have been added by evolution assumes that the structure of parts B and C were the same as they are now when part A was added (and the structure of part A was the same for that matter). Maybe there is some evidence I haven't seen that proves this assumption, in which case I'd be grateful if you'd point me to it. Quote Re us and chimps - does no one find the chromosome fusing odd? Is it usual for chromosomes to successfully fuse? Usual enough for us not to find it odd, we see it in plants quite often i think. Quote That the differences between us and chimps are caused by quite small differences in DNA is interesting - nonetheless we still have 30 or 35 million base pair adjustments, plus a chromosome fusion to account for. Some of them are, for example the difference in brain sizes is caused mainly by differential expression of certain hormones during development(at least thats the most likely explination), which requires relatively few mutations in promoter regions and transcription factors. The point is that every single advance, be it the comparison of a new genome or some new advance in evodevo answers more questions regarding evolution and solidifies the theory. ID proponents for some reason like to say that these advances only help to show how the species barrier is becoming more and more of an obstacle for evolution, whereas every paper I read on the subject shows the exact opposite. Quote and it also suggests that those on the evolution side could be equally motivated by inner desires to find a certain type of worldview vindicated. And it denies any possibility that they could be persuaded by evidence or facts, so what you're really saying is that 'we are right because we are right.' I can never really understand this point, atheists don't belive in god because they see no evidence of a god, not because they would rather there wasn't. If I saw evidence there was a god, then I'd say 'you know what I was wrong', and then I'd pay my friend the money I bet him whe I was 9(I see myself more of an apatheist, although that probably wouldn't stop me going to ####). This is not the opposite of christianity, the disproof of the existence of god would have a lot more effect for christians, so I don't think you can say scientists are just trying to protect the atheist worldview. Quote I have a problem with the statement that science "cannot" believe in the supernatural. Do you have a problem with the statement 'Science cannot believe in the supernatural as there is currently no way to distinguish a phenomenon as supernatural'? Quote I do not think it is even possible to have a world that is the result of an intelligent plan but which is also not detectable as such Richard Dawkins completely agrees with you. Quote because to say that is to say that randomness and chaos are perfectly capable of producing the very same things that intelligence and planning can produce. Which renders intelligence meaningless and impotent. What do you mean by the very same things? At the moment we know of no intelligence that can produce what we see in the natural world, and there are many things we have created that the natural world could not. In the future it is possible that we will be able to create improved versions of everything in the natural world. Im really not sure why anything we observe in this universe renders intellegence meaningless.

Jay Ray Posts: 92 Joined: Feb. 2006 (Permalink) Posted: Mar. 12 2006,18:51    Jay Ray, Quote No, it was just a typical, thoughtless redundancy, like "very unique." I guess I meant "highly coherent". I thought so.  Sorry about the diversion. Quote One thing we might agree upon is that...once the ball is rolling complexity will arise. It must be so, because that is what happened. (With a lot of help from yin and yang.) This is a good place to start from then.  Maybe we can come back to it sometime. Quote In the same way, the question "does God meddle," doesn't really compute, because God is all there is, or ever can be. There is no outside to God. I don't think that the reason God is difficult to discern is because he deliberately hid himself or preferred people to have blind faith, but because God is everything. Where is the contrast? So it isn't a question of meddling, but it is a question of how and by what processes this whole drama has unfolded and continues to unfold. I understand this.  And to some extent, I agree.  My take is exceedingly taoist.  Humans, like all of nature, are an expression of the whole thing.  I think we agree that whatever the universe is--whether it is an unintelligent process or guided--there is no way we can seperate ourselves from it.  I'm glad you clarified your postion, because I understand where you are coming from a little better.  Your take is a whole lot more sophisticated than Christian fundamentalism. The whole point of the "meddling" question doesn't really apply to you, if I've learned the right things about your position.  Its mostly used to illuminate an inconsistancies in the typically fundamentalist doctrine. Quote You may have heard, if you like philosophy, that it isn't so much important to get the right answers, but to know the right questions. Ideally, we'd aim for both.  Asking the right questions does no good if you draw the wrong conclusions.  This isn't an either/or. Quote A personal God with preferences is a limited being, not an infinite one. It may be that God is only capable of a focused will or intent when He/she is expressed through a mind of some sort that is less then the Totality. I'm glad you've moved past that glaring stumbling block. Quote I have serious doubt that frontloading at the big bang can have included the tendency to form something like DNA and the cell. Me too.  But then, nothing compels me to claim frontloading in the first place.  Maybe Dembski can teach you some things about the subject?  Its definately not my field. Quote It looks to me like there are designs in biology of the meddling sort. That may be a product of lesser minds than what I would call God, or the Absolute, or Atman, who may not engage in that sort of activity. In my opinion, christianity gives that role to the Logos. Interesting.  So your thought is that somehow this eternal, concious being was incapable of directly tinkering with atoms and molecules and instead works through lesser intermediaries?  If I'm wrong, please correct me.  If I'm right, then I'd ask how the lesser intermediaries themselves came to be. Quote Why do you say that it places limitations on God? This seems a popular idea. What's this about "mere human?"  Why dangerous? Its a response to the inconsistant fundamentalism doctrine which among a host of other contradictory claims, says that god is omni-everything, who works in mysterious ways, is unknowable yet full of very human emotions, who is benevolent and full of the most perfect love and at the same time, venegeful and jealous and petty and cruel.  A god whose subjects are required to have faith without evidence, and who should also know him by his works.  Etc.   Anyone who claims to know how a god like this is going to do something contradicts numerous "authoritative" statements about that god.  It gets old quickly.  But I'm now understanding that this doesn't apply to you, and I hope I won't have to bring this up with you anymore. Quote anyway, ID doesn't necessarily say they can know anything about procedure or method, just the bare fact of design. Just because something resembles a design does not mean that it necessarily has been.  This is a major sticking point for a lot of people. Quote As to whether we can know about method, that remains to be seen. But you criticize ID for wanting to maintain mystery, and then you say we can never know about procedure or method. Both are true, at least in the case of your average Behe or Dembski.  Your ID take is a different from theirs.  You should take a closer look at what they are saying, and what they are not.  It seems like you might have some weighty philosophical disagreements with them. Quote It is exactly what you'd expect if you already accept a set of ideas which are unproven and presume a lot. Then you say something like this which puts you squarely back in the middle of the YEC arguments.  What unproven ideas?  What presumptions? Quote To contrast, the IDer doesn't look at the process, only at the result. Hmmm, well that certainly is true of a YEC. I find YECism really boring. What is interesting about a magical God with a big magic wand who waves it over the planet making millions of species in a day? Pure magic!   Quote I don't know if I am uncomfortable, but it just doesn't appear that much was left to chance. But neither do I see God as an outside agency tinkering, deciding to make the blueprint for a beaver or a badger down to the last detail. Rather, I think that God is unfolding within and as the universe, and is also probably transcendent in some way that I don't understand. You probably aren't uncomfortable, and I take that as good. Perhaps you can explain how you square statistical, probabilistic quantum mechanics with a being who leaves little to chance?  Why go through all the trouble to create this system which is almost entirely random, when in fact what you really wanted to do was have the universe be what it is today?  "Unfolding" implies that everything is going according to plan.  Why do the laws of physics sport this feature?  Newtonian mechanics would have worked better for this task. Quote I do think that something like humans is intentional and required for completion. Completion?  Completion of what?  What goal does the god-verse have in mind, here?  Explain how you derive this.   Quote The question, does God care about us, is another nonquestion because there is no need to ask it. Like karma, it takes care of itself. We are not separate from and cut off from, God. As they say in the east, that which was never born cannot die. We are part of that and are therefore unvulnerable, altho we don't know it. And God's love is universal and impersonal. I agree that its a non-question.  I agree we are part of it, and invulnerable from the overview.  But I'm not sure I follow the some of this.  What is love without care?  Where do you derive the conclusion that there is any emotion whatsoever felt by this eternal, concious, intelligent being?   Quote I don't agree with that at all. It [ID's description of process or method]could happen any time. It won't come out of Behe or Dembski, that's for sure. It'll be someone with a more Eastern perspective.  Maybe you?  But if there is, the process described won't say a darn thing about the most important parts of ID, which are the designer or its intelligence.  Therefore it won't prove a thing.  It'll be a description of blind, self consistant, unintelligent process which naturalists have been pointing out for eons.  But hey, if you have some specific facts, please tell the Discovery Institute.  They could use some good news. Quote sure, but what is nature, then? Might it contain more than meets the eye? Of course there is more than meets the eye.  I don't know of a single scientist that would claim otherwise. I certainly haven't.  To the contrary: anytime I reference the unknown, I'm referring to this very concept.  What I wont do is a priori replace it with "intelligence" or "plan" or "love" or anything at all.  Its just the unknown. Quote And when a person says that nature just does what it does, then you have no real right to argue with ID, because you have stood back and assessed the situation from a distance. ID is about looking up close. Slow down.  What is your evidence that I assess only from a distance?  I object to that characterization, for I also assess from as close as I can get.  My position is not purely philosophical.  Perhaps this will become more clear if you notice that both in this thread, and in others, I base arguments and reference definate physical processes which support my claim that no intelligence is required to see what we see.  Perhaps More will come to light as our conversation trundles ahead.   I'm not sure how ID being about "looking up close" in any way grants it superiority as a method of discovery. If we're going to stick to an ocular analogy, I'd say that on the one hand, ID is downright myopic.  They are squinting so hard they've lost sight of everything but what's real.  On the other, they have this feeling that there must be some kind of guiding hand in control of all this, so everything they look at is filtered through that lens.  "If it looks designed, it is designed!" Wellll, wait a minute, bub, says I.  That's quite an extraordinary claim.  You're going to have to offer more evidence than a subjective impression to justify that statement. Quote You are satisfied and find it adequate to say, "Nature just does what it does." That is hardly different than saying, "God did it, so we can't study it." ...  What are yousaying? I mentioned some very specific types of things that humans do with their intelligence that of course nature cannot do, such as write novels or build cars. You took that quote out of context, or you read something into it that was not intended.  The point was that when making statements about nature's "ability" are attributing human qualities where they are not justified.  Because although we'd like them to, that rivers don't flow uphill somehow suggests that nature is incomplete or insuffiecient in some way?  No. It flows downhill because it must, by the laws of physics.  It does what it does because is has to. Quote I think you are finding it an attack upon the value of nature to say that it cannot do the things humans do. Sure, and humans cannot do what nature does. This is not a value judgement, just a difference in qualities. Humans are produced by nature, and we have fantastic minds capable of amazing feats. We can give nature the glory for it, if you like, but the point is, that  human focused intelligence accomplishes things which would not happen without intelligent input. I'm finding it incorrect and unjustified to dress an unconcious nature in human clothes or feelings.  I'm a stickler that way.  I think its a dangerous tendency that we humans don't know when to leave well enough alone.  Ever read Kurt Vonnegut Jr?  In his book Galapagos, the narrator of the story is a cute widdle fuzzy-wuzzy from the distant, post-apocalyptic future.  The narrator is actually a descendant of those earlier humans, who now has a smaller brain than his distant ancestors.   The cute widdle fuzzy wuzzy claims that the problem with the older humans is that their brains were just a bit too big.  Big enough to get into trouble, but not big enough to get out of it.  So when they screwed up the planet, the few survivors had the adaptation of brains that didn't grow so big anymore.  Sounds about right to me. Quote Secondly, I find nature has a music all of her own ... Nature is music. That may be literally true. There is a whole thread of thought which says that vibration, of which sound is an aspect, is the main method by which existence becomes manifest. It seems compatible with string theory. Heh.  If there was ever justification for creationists to claim "well, its just a theory!", then I think  "string theory" has earned it.  Practicing scientists should object to attaching "theory" to the concept. Its a hypotheses, untested and at least so far, untestable.  Its very interesting and extremely suggestive work, but totally, completely, utterly undemonstrated at this point.   Quite opposite from evolutionary theory... Quote In trying to come up with scenarios for a cell to form, mostly a long list of problems presents itself. Of course life itself doesn't go against the laws of nature, but what I mean is that the chance formation of DNA, proteins, the cell membrane and that sort of thing has not been accounted for, and has run up against many dead ends. Life appears to be discontinuous with nonlife. Talk about your problems.  There are plenty of this board who have a deep knowledge of the biological sciences.  I even know some biology and physics myself.  I'm lousy at math, though.  In any case, step away from philosophy for awhile and maybe the science itself will give you some new ideas one way or another.  Its a win-win, as far as I can tell.  Plus, (here's a nudge in the ribs for you) this is your chance to put your money where your mouth is and "look close" like you think all good IDers do. We'll all grant you that at least so far, we don't have a digital recording of how replicating molecules came to exist.  But we're looking, and I bet we come up with a plausible explanation.  The great unknown!  Our big brains have to look around the corner to see what's there.   Quote But if you accept frontloading, then again you have to ask yourself, does god continue to meddle?  Why would god need to? Yes, those are the questions. I  tend to favor some idea that there is intelligence residing within, perhaps in the DNA, guiding it. It appears like a learn as you go project, yet not a mindless one. This doesn't make sense to me.  I'm going to see if I can't sum up what I'm hearing from you.  Correct me if I'm wrong, and I'll try not to get too snarky. The god-verse has always existed.  The god-verse feels love, but doesn't care.  He has some plan, part of which involves the tiny speck called planet earth, and all the life on it, including humans.  The god-verse doesn't or can't act directly, so he acts through intermediaries.  He's a kind of supervisor, then.  The god-verse is trying to stick to the plan, but mistakes occur.  Maybe these mistakes aren't the god-verses mistakes.  Perhaps they are the mistakes of the intermediaries who act on his behalf.  Yet he (or they) learns from these mistakes, and so the plan, of which we are an intentional part, is unfolding constantly.   I'm scratching my head here trying to understand this.  What is the plan?  Why can't GV work directly? What's the deal with the intermediaries?  What are they?  How were they created, or did they also always exist? Are they subservient to GV somehow?  How the heck did you figure all this out, anyway?  Oh, did I ask what the plan was? It all sounds very Hindu to me. Quote Well, I think we are in the dark ages now much as we were 500 years ago. Relativelyspeaking. It was reasonable to suppose that maggots spontaneously arose from rotten meat. It looked that way, it was consistent, and the micro-world didn't exist.  If we don't destroy our civilization, in time we will understand very much more about embryonic and other genetic and epigenetic processes, and then, I think, we will have a clearer idea about whether random mutation has the creative power currently attributed to it. I agree.  The picture will be clearer in the future. Quote How do you see ID as laboring under the same limitations as YEC? Perhaps later.  I'm getting antsy. Quote But frontloading IS a kind of process. Isn't drawing up a blueprint, getting parts delivered, and building a house, making a few adjustments as you go, and putting in the finishing decorations a process? My understanding of "frontloading" is a sort of magic wand, an imprinting of initial conditions.  The implication to me is that god wanted things to happen more or less a certain way, and with a wave of the wand (frontloading), set the universe in motion.    Everything after that is happening "just so", because of the frontloading.  But frontloading and actual building are two different things.   Frontloading is often referred to by creationists when they talk about "the laws of the universe being just right for life".  Of course, they don't admit the anthropic bias.  So you never hear them say "its just right for MY life".  That's because IF the laws were a little different, OTHER life could have or would have occured, and that's not what god frontloaded things for.  No siree, god wanted ME. I think it was Dembski who referred to frontloading when he suggested that the original biological cell contained DNA for every different kind of life on the planet that would come after.  Massive, massive frontloading.  As this original "supercell" multiplied, the various sections of DNA that form individual species broke off into daughter cells.  So gradually, Dembski's idea was that the supercell, just like a machine, contained all the instructions that would eventually lead to right here, right now, and of course, humans specifically were part of the plan. What you describe is not what I think creationists mean by frontloading.  You're describing a busy infrastructure involving architects, engineers, construction workers, raw material gathers, etc.  Even one little person could decide he wants to build a log cabin, say, and then go about the process of doing so.  But that's not frontloading.  That's tweaking what nature would do by itself without intelligent interference.  Its an active, time reliant process.  It's a whole series of things, coming together over time to complete a function: forming ideas, drawing up plans, hacking and sawing, dragging and sweating, rearranging, binding and lashing and gluing and nailing, etc. Quote ...we have to acknowledge that this being was itself uncaused. Right, otherwise, what use is he? Use?  I think this is about the plan again, right?  *waits for it* Quote Because, if by universe, you mean only dead matter, then it is simply impossible to suppose that it caused itself, nor can dead matter itself have the property of self-existence, uncaused existence. So. Dead matter cannot be caused without direct intervention.  Life itself is a heckof a lot more complicated than dead matter.  And you're saying that neither life nor just plain stuff could happen uncaused.   But this original intelligent, concious creator thing is obviously alive in every meaningful sense.  Its certainly more complicated than dead matter.  So by that logic, it could not exist either.  Its self-contradictory to assign life without a cause while simultaneously exluding it. Quote There is no planck time or quantum weirdness without existence. Exsitence is primary. I'm with ya. Quote The big bang, if it even happened, is not that important because obviously it had a cause. That it had a cause is likely.  Is that important?  I dunno. I think its fascinating... but important?  *shrug*  I guess I don't really know what that means. Quote I don't accept the idea of multiple universes. If there are such, then the one whole is what I would call the universe. Universe, by definition, means ONE. I have no evidence for "other universes", and don't make the claim either way.  Anyway, its a matter of definition.  Semantics, really, and not that interesting of a distinction. One last thing.  Do you or do you not agree that electromagnetism and gravity exist?  What about the nuclear force?

GCT Posts: 1001 Joined: Aug. 2005 (Permalink) Posted: Mar. 13 2006,05:40    Quote (avocationist @ Mar. 10 2006,01) No need to repeat the last post - I have completely lost track of the thread of the conversation and if you think I have twisted your words you need to show how. Not that I expect you to do that level of research at this point, - but I did not know to what you were referring. If you are not twisting my words, why do you ascribe to me arguments that I explicitly didn't make and in fact said the opposite of? Quote Alright, I'm guilty. I found it a bit frustrating that when I say the universe with God is quite different than without, that you took it to mean that the laws of gravity or something would be different. And yet you still can't tell us how it would or would not be different...more on that later. Quote There is no separation of philosophy from real life.  What a bizarre thought. But of course, one can realize that one's philosophical opinions are more or less provisional. Which they are. How is that bizarre?  You can philosophize all you want about any number of god-like beings, but it doesn't make them real. Quote You give up too easily. There might be a temendous amount we don't know, but we can surely surmise that if there is no God there is also no soul, no reincarnation or afterlife, no conscious intention behind the universe, that matter is the primary reality and things like intelligence are emergent properties of matter. Whereas if there is a God then something which has the property of self-existence and something like a universal mind would be the causal to matter, and that therefore all things are really one thing at their origin, and that something other than dead matter is the source of our existence. That's all very nice, but you still have no clue which situation we are currently living under, nor which one would truly be better if the situation were reversed.  Further, how could we even tell if it were reversed?  If I currently have a soul, it's completely undetectable.  If god created the universe or not, we can't tell.  So, how can you "know" that the universe is vastly different with or without god? Quote No, you need to explain to me why you think a person or people altering a shoreline would be detectable as design. Because it IS design.  That's the point.  If Dembski can't discern that it is design, then what good is his design filter? Quote Like Mayr's book? I am trying to read it, but it is very simplistic and makes bold statements with little detail. It is going over stuff that I have already read refutations of. But maybe it will get better. My main reason for reading it is to better understand why you guys think the evidence is so good. I think you need a simplistic book (no offense) because your understanding of evolution is frankly not that great.  Don't forget that the "refutations" you have already read are a load of hooey that are based on religious arguments. Quote Remember, many of the mountains of evidence are data which are not in dispute, but the interpretation of that evidence, and certain extrapolations from that evidence are what is in dispute. Ah, the old "I just interpret the empirical data to infer design" canard.  The problem with that, however, is that in order to "infer" design, you must first assume a designer...oops, it just becomes a circular argument. Quote Neither should science presuppose no God, and despite what Puck and some others have said, this is quite often out there in the public domain. Judge Jones said that there is a centuries old agreement against the supposition of God, and that ID invokes and 'permits' the supernatural. How can the supernatural not be permitted, and why must we call God supernatural? An a priori assumption of God does not prevent a person from doing perfectly good science, even in the arena in which it might matter, so long as they are willing to be proved wrong. And, unfortunately for you, not assuming 'god' is not the same as assuming 'not god.'  Science must be completely agnostic on the issue, and evolution is, ID is NOT. Also, I'll note that an a priori assumption doesn't preclude someone from doing good science, but it can't interfere with the science.  Oh wait, I've already said this.  Why must I repeat myself again and again just to have you repeat it back to me as if it's your argument? Quote I mean that a universe with a God is a different ballgame than one without. Whichever one we are in, it is the only possibility. If there is a God, it means that God caused existence and that matter could not have caused itself. If there is no God and matter is eternal, then God is an imaginary idea. I am not sure what you mean by couldn't God have made a different reality. I think that you mean couldn't he have made a different universe. I suppose he could but that is really a matter of detail - this type of story or that type of story. God IS the universe, whatever sort s/he morphs Itself into. So what?  Oh, there is a flaw in your argument.  If there is a god, that does not preclude the ability for matter to have "caused" itself.  God may be nothing more than an observer.  Of course, you still can't prove that the universe would be different with or without god. Quote Given the elements that exist, they are all finely tuned and cannot be more finely tuned to produce life as we know it. Where is your evidence? Quote Textbooks have stated, and the Weisel 38 have stated, that evolution theory proposes an unplanned and unguided process, and many or most evolutionists expect or hope that life itself was capable of self-assembly. And you still don't understand what "random" means.  Uplanned and unguided AS FAR AS SCIENCE CAN DISCERN (note the emphasis, because you really need to get this through your head!<!--emo&  Science can not tell about plans or intentions or gods, so as far as the limited practice of science can tell, we don't see a plan or guide.  That doesn't mean that science is saying that there is no god.  Also, note that no science talks about the planning and guiding from god, so we are back to you saying that all science is atheistic.  We don't really have to go over that again, do we? Quote You asked this: This is your answer to how you can tell whether Dawkins or you are right about god through science? And I answered this: I am saying that we will find out more about genetic expression, embryonic development, chromosomal rearrangements and so forth, and this, I hope, will put to rest some false ideas about how species can evolve through small random mutations. And then you replied:  So, you didn't answer my question, but you felt compelled to go on some tangent?  Nice.  Is that an attempt at obfuscation, or what? *********** Why not rephrase the question? You spend a lot of time accusing me of not answering or twisting words and I spend a lot of time wondering where we got lost. Perhaps if you included more than the final sentence in an exchange. If I don't answer right, clarify. Fine, I will rephrase, although it was a very straightforward question.  If you refuse or evade this question, I will have no choice but to accuse you of such. How will you scientifically test for god? Is that clear enough for you? Quote I have no idea where your question came from - I do hold out the hope that science will prove something about consciousness such that it will make materialism untenable. Or perhaps some other types of proofs will occur. As it stands now, no one can prove God to another. The best one person can do is to help another one to expand their thoughts so that he can discover it for himself. Then go figure out how to do that and run some experiments.  The fact that NO ONE has ever done that is pretty telling in this regard.  But, one of the reasons I asked is because IDists think that they can empirically prove god.  How will you do that? Quote As for who will be the discoverers of the limits of change through mutation, it doesn't matter. If IDists are in the minority, then it will likely not be them. It's not because they are in the minority.  It's because they don't actually do any scientific experiments! Quote Perhaps not, but at least the possibility is there, whereas if there is no God, the possibility is most likely not there. So what?  Really, I don't care if we have souls or not for the purposes of this discussion.  How can you scientifically test for that or show that we have souls?  You can't. Quote I think it is very likely that it is indeed impossible due to the nature of God and life that there is no such thing as a living being without spirit, in which case God couldn't create such a universe. Anytime someone says "God couldn't" my stock answer is that you don't understand what omnipotence is (assuming you think god is omnipotent.) Quote The real number is not computable, so I picked a small number to illustrate. Ten trillion is a small number to you? Either way, you are right that the real number is not computable.  I'm glad you agree with me on that.  What you are incorrect about is whether that number must necessarily be above 1.  There is no logical imperative for a god-full universe to be better than a god-less universe. Quote Anyone who believes in God is an IDist. So there! Tell that to the Christian posters here who support evolution, see what they say. Quote Of course I realize you are one of them - why do you think I implied you were not? Because you felt the need to specifically restate my position as your own in some effort to win a debate point against me, thereby implying that it was NOT my position. Quote I guess I sort of wonder what to say to this. Certainly evolution papers and books talk pretty often about acquiring better and better adaptations. Like where Dawkins says that 5% of an eye is better than 6% of an eye. Is it better to have an IQ of 130 than 70? Sure, chimps have some better traits than we have, but the overall package is that we are an improvement.... Only if one assumes that humans are some end result.

avocationist Posts: 173 Joined: Feb. 2006 (Permalink) Posted: Mar. 13 2006,19:02    Chris, Quote I mean evidence that actually points to an intelligence as opposed to just pointing out supposed problems with evolution.  How about CSI and IC? Quote It does not follow however that the system could not have evolved by addition of parts. There are two ways. One is the slow evolution of a system such as 5% of an eye, 6% of an eye and so forth, while the organ is one of vision the whole time. The other path is cobbling different parts together so that they have first one function, then something completely else, then yet a third, and so on. I went into this in some detail in a previous post, with questions about how it could work, so maybe you didn't see it. I also know Behe considers it unlikely enough to dismiss as a serious possibility. The trouble I have is finding what I have read so I can cite it. I was also impressed with Mike Gene's essays on the flagellum about how the assembly occurs. Here's some points he makes to refute what he calls the EFM Hypothesis, which he defines: Thus, we have a step-by-step account that involves at least three different functional states: protein export system transformed into nonmotile filament transformed into flagellum. Let us refer to this scenario as the Export-Filament-Motility (EFM) Hypothesis.: Selective Motility? Another aspect of this motility component of the EFM hypothesis worthy of a critical look is the assumption that some kind of primitive, proto-motility function would be selectively advantageous. While a crude Darwinian "common sense" would seem to indicate this, I am not so sure. To appreciate why, we need to ask why it is that modern day bacteria move in a series of straight runs and tumbles. Why don't they simply swim straight for a food source instead of taking a convoluted path involving short bursts of straight runs interspersed with tumbles that randomly reorient them? In fact, bacteria will only be propelled by their flagella spinning about 100-300 times/sec for about 3-4 seconds. Why? We sometimes forget that the small-scale world of bacteria is much different from our macro-world. Bacteria are constantly being buffeted by water molecules and thus live in a "Brownian storm." The simple fact is that because bacteria are so small, they swim through a Brownian storm. Brownian motion will knock bacteria off course after 3-4 seconds. [4] And this highlights a serious problem with the EFM hypothesis. The flagellum is a highly sophisticated machine. Even if one believes it evolved, what we study today is the product of billions of years of evolutionary modification. Yet even this high sophisticated/highly evolved system barely overcomes the Brownian storm. Thus, just how advantageous would some proto-wiggle really be? Imagine a boat in the ocean during a tropical storm. Would a propeller that spun once every second really be any better than no propeller? In other words, it is possible that biologically significant motility on these scales depends on a minimal amount of system complexity and output that is out of reach in a Darwinian search beginning with simple states. To assure myself this was not the case, I did a PubMed search with the following search words: " partial motility flagella selective advantage" and it returned 0 hits. I obtained one hit with the search words partial motility selective advantage" and this was not a relevant study. Thus, this essential feature of the EFM hypothesis is without any evidential support. *********** The space between the two membranes is called the periplasm. Transport via the Sec pathway dumps material into the periplasm. The trick for the bacteria is to grow this into a filament that penetrates the outer membrane in a coordinated manner. So how do cells make P pili? First, you export all the pilus subunits into the periplasm using the sec-machinery. The proteins are threaded through the sec-machinery in an unfolded state and most refold in the periplasm. And therein lies the problem, as the pilus subunits easily form insoluble aggregates (or clumps) in the periplasm through hydrophobic interactions. To prevent this, we need to invoke another component, a special chaperone encoded by PapD. PapD does two things - it binds to the pilus subunits after they are pumped into the perisplasm and prevents them from clumping with each other and also helps the pilus subunits to fold into their proper conformation. In fact, the pilus subunits are not stable as monomers and exist either as bound to the chaperone or as bound to each other as part of the filament. The manner in which the chaperones carry out their function is far more elegant than anyone assumed, employing something that is now called "donor strand complementation" (DSC). The 3-D structures of PapD complexed with PapG (the adhesin on the tip) and PapK (one of the adaptors) have been solved. PapD forms a boomerang-shaped protein with two immunoglobulin-like (Ig-like) domains (a structure composed of layers of antiparallel beta sheets). The N-terminal end of PapK is also an Ig-like domain, but it lacks a C-terminal beta sheet that normally contributes to the hydrophobic core of the domain. This produces a cleft that exposes the hydrophobic core, which is what makes it so sticky and prone to aggregation by itself. The chaperone PapD masks this exposed region in a most fascinating manner - it donates one of its beta strands to complete the Ig-domain in PapK (Fig 1). But it does so in an atypical fashion, as the beta strand it donates runs parallel, not antiparallel, with its neighboring strand. Thus, PapD provides at least two essential functions captured in one very elegant act - by donating one of its beta strands, PapD simultaneously prevents aggregation of PapK while providing the missing steric information for proper folding of PapK. And what this means is the folding of pilus subunits is IC. By themselves, the subunits don't fold properly and are unstable. The steric information for proper folding is not found in a single amino acid chain or gene, but in two distinct chains/genes. And By itself, PapD has no function. Clearly, the simplest known filament is far more sophisticated than the filament imagined by the EFM hypothesis (i.e., biology is not as simple as it assumes). What happens next? The pilus subunit-chaperone complex interacts with a protein channel on the outer membrane, PapC (also known as the usher). The channel is large enough to accommodate the tip of the filament, but not the rod. The actual mechanism of incorporation is being worked out, as the chaperone somehow hands off the pilus subunit to the usher for incorporation into the growing filament. Interaction between the usher and chaperone-pilus subunit does not result in the chaperone-subunit complex breaking apart, thus the mechanism of handoff is also probably quite complicated and sophisticated. But there is one more feature to the story worth mentioning. The pilus subunits themselves are thought to form a filament through a donor strand complementation-like mechanism. Each pilus subunit has an N-terminal extension that does not contribute to its own folding. By itself, it is a disordered strand. However, it has been proposed that this N-terminal extension from one subunit (let's call it A) displaces the displaces the donated chaperone strand associated with another pilus subunit (B). This N-terminal strand would then form a beta strand that runs in an antiparallel direction and complete the Ig-domain of its neighbor in a typical fashion.(Fig 2) Again, the steric information for the Ig-domain of subunit B is supplied from subunit A. This mechanism is called donor strand exchange. And the result is that the filament is made by linking subunits, where each subunit contributes a strand to perfectly complete the fold of its nearest neighbor. Thus, it should be clear that some ad hoc notion of an export protein sticking to itself and sticking to the export apparatus to form a filament does not reflect the biology of the simplest known pilus. Life is much more sophisticated than this. Thus, all the examples of simple, nonmotile filaments in bacteria provide no obvious support for the EFM speculation. ***************** As if having your supporting evidence shown to be irrelevant was not bad enough, there are more problems. For example, let's imagine that with enough luck, somehow a P-pilus-like materializes. After all, such pili are the most common. And therein lies the problem, because while the P-pilus makes a great attachment organelle, it's probably a dead-end if one wants to evolve a flagellum. For one reason, the P-pilus has not been observed to secrete proteins. This could be because the channel is so small . Or it might have something to do with the energetics of the system, as P pili formation is independent of cellular energy. It's not surprising that the P-pilus looks very different from the bacterial flagellum (or even things like type IV pili). Finally, there is yet another fact that suggests flagella did not arise in the manner that the EFM proposes. Whether we're talking about simple type I pili or more complex type IV pili, what they all share in common is being built from the bottom-up. The flagellar filament, in stark contrast, is built from the top down. And the manner in which this done is yet another amazing story in microbiology. How amazing? Robert Macnab is an expert on the flagellum and has been working on them his whole life. As such, you might expect him to be used to the complexity and sophistication of the flagellum. Yet he reacted by noting that this mechanism is " a much more sophisticated process than any of us could have envisaged."[3] In fact, consider how this was reported: "The latest technical discoveries in flagella fascinate biologists such as Robert Macnab, a professor of molecular biophysics and biochemistry at Yale University who also studies flagella. He marvels at how organisms as simple as bacteria have evolved such complex methods to develop propelling features, especially since motility in bacteria is not directly necessary for survival, like DNA replication or protein synthesis. "We think it would not be possible for the system to work with any significantly lower complexity." [4] So let's have a look to see how well the EFM hypothesis' filament formation story anticipates the actual mechanism bacteria use to form filaments. Flagellar Filament Formation Shigella are nonmotile pathogens. Even though Shigella do not express flagella, they do possess the flagellar operons, suggesting this nonmotile state was recently acquired. Four strains were recently analyzed, showing that loss of flagella has occurred independently.[5] In two strains, the only thing missing was fliD, the gene that codes for the protein that caps the filament. What happens if you don't have fliD is that no filament forms? As Ikeda et al. explain, "A fliD-deficient mutant becomes non-motile because it lacks flagellar filaments and leaks flagellin monomer out into the medium." [6] FliD is not merely a regulator or aid, but an essential component for filament formation. To understand why, let's consider the research results that fascinated Macnab and others.[7] The fliD gene products form a five-member pentagon-shaped ring that caps the hollow filament formed by flagellin subunits. Each member of this pentamer has a leglike extension that points downward and interacts snuggly with the filament. However, there is a symmetry mismatch between the cap and the filament. The cap is formed from five protein subunits, but the helical end of the filament itself is formed from 5.5 flagellin subunits. Macnab explains the significance of this as follows: " When one protein of the cap pentamer is at the dislocation point (think of a split washer), it will be in a very different environment from the other four members of the pentamer." [3] In other words, a significant crevice is associated with the cap and end of the filament. And it is proposed that the next flagellin subunit that gets added to the filament is added to this crevice. The addition of the new flagellin subunit is then coupled with the cap itself rotating along the filament axis to open up a new adjecent crevice. As Macnab suggested, think of the cap as a split washer (where the center is filled) sitting on the end of a hollow tube. Individual flagellin proteins travel down to the tube to be added at the tip. The flagellin then gets placed into the space of the split washer, the washer turns, and opens up a new space. Thus, you can envision the cap spinning around, inserting new flagellin monomers one-at-a-time. (Fig 3) Fig 3 (adapted and modified from [7]) [The yellow blocks represent flagellin. Newly added flagellin molecules are shown in violet. As the cap turns, one of its legs exposes an empty slot (shown in the picture second from the left). This slot is the site for the next addition of flagellin. ] Duane Salmon once estimated that the growth rate of the filament to be about 50 flagellin units/sec.[8] Since there are ca. 5 subunits per turn of the helical filament, this suggests that the fliD cap rotates about ten times every second as it incorporates about 50 flagellin subunits. What's most relevant about this is that the C-terminal and N-terminal ends of flagellin subunits are unfolded as they travel down the hollow filament tube, as the folded protein has a significant kink in its middle that would prevent transport through the tube. As Macnab notes, "large conformational changes would be required in the monomers before they could be added to the filament tip." Thus, the fliD cap also does not simply provide a passive, mobile slot to insert flagellin subunits. It also helps flagellin fold. In other words, the cap is a chaperone. Thus, the flagellar filament is built in a way that is similar to P pili and quite different from HbS filaments; the flagellin units do not "self-assemble," they are assembled by a processive chaperone at a rather impressive rate. Things get even more interesting when one considers that just below the cap, the filament cavity is expanded such that its cavity is about twice the size of the central channel that runs through the rest of the filament. It is suggested that this might be the site in which flagellin folds in a manner that is analogous to the folding that occurs in the GroEL chaperonin in the cytoplasm. The parallels are interesting. GroEL is capped by GroES to form a closed chamber, while FliD also functions as a cap to form a closed chamber. It is suggested the filament chamber can house one flagellin monomer at a time, which is exactly how GroEL works. Yet there are a couple of significant differences that probably stem from the fact that GroEL is a generic chaperone chamber that functions only to fold a diverse set of proteins, while the chamber at the distal end of the filament folds and incorporates only one protein, flagellin. The first difference is that GroEL requires energy in the form of ATP hydrolysis that alters the volume of the chaperonin. It is intriguing to speculate that the folding chamber at the end of the filament also undergoes cycles of volume changes associated with the rotation of the cap and insertion of a new flagellin filament. In such a case, the energy could be derived from the winding coupled to favorable protein-protein interactions associated with assembling flagellin subunits into the filament. Secondly, the filament chamber would cycle much faster that GroEL. The typical GroEL cycle lasts 15 sec. The filament, on the other hand, is incorporating 50 subunits/sec. That's folding individual monomers every 0.02 seconds, which is 750 times faster than GroEL. There are several clues that point to design here. 1. Flagellin/fliD and GroEL/GroES are not homologous. Yet if the flagellin/fliD chamber functions as I suggest, we have another system whose sophisticated mechanism is related in a logical fashion (another example would be in the similar proofreading mechanisms of DNA replication and attaching amino acids to tRNA). 2. FliD and flagellin form an IC relationship. FliD has no other basic cellular function apart from forming the filament. Flagellin too has no other basic cellular function apart from forming the filament. And both are needed to form the filament. 3. As suggested, there seems to be only enough room for one flagellin monomer to fit into the chamber and fold. If this is essential, we have another IC-like interaction. Flagellin must be first unfolded to transport through the channel. But it must also be folded again to be incorporated into the filament. If this second folding event depends on the distal chamber, then two independent events must be carefully coordinated to construct the filament. And there is one more interesting twist on all of this. There is suggestive evidence that the hook-associated proteins, those that attach the filament to the basal body and the fliD cap itself, may be chaperoned through donor-strand complementation. Specifically, there are two chaperone proteins that specifically interact with the C-terminal ends of the hook-associated proteins and cap and prevent their premature aggregation. Thus, just as there is a mini-IC relationship with flagellin and the cap, the cap and hook proteins may also share an IC relationship with their specific chaperones. Again, we would see the basic conceptual strategy in protein folding and assembly as seen independently in the P pilus. And the "self-assembly" is highly regulated - a chaperone helps assemble the hook, another chaperone helps assemble the cap, and the cap assembles the filament. In other words, and here is the interesting point, we will soon begin to make a strong argument that assembly of the flagellum itself is IC. To sum this section up, let's consider more problems inherent in the EFM hypothesis    * The EFM hypothesis is divorced from biological reality, as the formation of the simplest filaments (the p pili) is far more involved (at its core) than a protein simply sticking to itself.    * The EFM points to other filaments that employ bottom-up construction to explain the top-down construction of the bacterial filament.    * It is not clear that a transport system, by itself, is "preadapted to form a filament."    * Even if it is true that secretion systems are preadapted to form a filament, such "preadaptation" may very well steer a forming structure away from the fitness peak associated with a flagellum-like structure. For example, the most common filaments do not transport proteins, probably because they are too small and lack sufficient energy sources: "Thus, the chaperone/usher system might not be able to adapt for secretion of soluble proteins." And there is no reason, according to the EFM hypothesis, that the filament must be hollow. One might claim there are lots of uses for nonmotile filaments currently in use by living bacteria. Yet how many have gone on to become rotary propulsion units?    * The bacterial filament itself, along with its assembly process, is IC. It is fundamentally more sophisticated and complex than anything foreshadowed by the EFM hypothesis, indicating again that this hypothesis is divorced from biological reality.   I know it's long but it's pretty interesting and I just took out a couple small parts. And this is what I mean about ID looking up close, Jay Ray. Quote Usual enough for us not to find it odd, we see it in plants quite often i think. Only plants? I'm wondering how it would work. I would think that for two creatures to sucessfully mate they would need to have the same number of chromosomes. Wouldn't it have to happen in one generation, to go from 48 to 46 chromosomes, and wouldn't there have to be several siblings get this mutation perhaps from the same mother, so that they could mate and continue the new species? Or wouldn't it have to occur in the mother and father together? Quote ID proponents for some reason like to say that these advances only help to show how the species barrier is becoming more and more of an obstacle for evolution, whereas every paper I read on the subject shows the exact opposite. Well, that is certainly interesting. Quote Quote and it also suggests that those on the evolution side could be equally motivated by inner desires to find a certain type of worldview vindicated. And it denies any possibility that they could be persuaded by evidence or facts, so what you're really saying is that 'we are right because we are right.' You: I can never really understand this point, atheists don't belive in god because they see no evidence of a god, not because they would rather there wasn't. If I saw evidence there was a god, then I'd say 'you know what I was wrong', and then I'd pay my friend the money I bet him when I was 9 (I see myself more of an apatheist, although that probably wouldn't stop me going to ####). This is not the opposite of christianity, the disproof of the existence of god would have a lot more effect for christians, so I don't think you can say scientists are just trying to protect the atheist worldview. The point is that people have inner motivations to protect a worldview or just to be right, or not to derail a career, and it is not at all confined to situations where the stakes appear to be high. Just recently on UD I saw someone make the opposite point, that most religious scientists  feel that their faith is not vulnerable to scientific inquiry (except perhaps YEC types, which are surely a minority) whereas evidence of design would be very upsetting for an atheist or materialist. Quote Do you have a problem with the statement 'Science cannot believe in the supernatural as there is currently no way to distinguish a phenomenon as supernatural'? I tend not to think in terms of supernatural. Was the origin of the universe supernatural? Perhaps yes, in the sense that nature is within nature, and only something outside nature can cause it. The laws of nature are not the cause of the laws of nature. Quote because to say that is to say that randomness and chaos are perfectly capable of producing the very same things that intelligence and planning can produce. Which renders intelligence meaningless and impotent. ********** What do you mean by the very same things? At the moment we know of no intelligence that can produce what we see in the natural world, and there are many things we have created that the natural world could not. In the future it is possible that we will be able to create improved versions of everything in the natural world. Im really not sure why anything we observe in this universe renders intellegence meaningless. Alright, this is pretty close to GCT's questions also. We live in a universe. This universe may or may not have God. If there is a God then this God is the source of existence, because that really is what the definition of God entails. And not just a verbal definition.  The great question of causation is solved if there is an eternal and nonlinear being that is beyond notions of existence or nonexistence. If there is a God then the way things have turned out for planets and life cannot be unconnected in some way to this God. And if there is a god then existence and the laws of nature come from this God so that random and unguided processes would not be adequate to produce our world. So by rendering intelligence meaningless, I mean the statement that even though there is a God, it looks like a universe might look if there wasn't one. I'm not saying that the universe cannot appear material and nonspiritual to some people. I'm saying only one or the other is true and they are mutually exclusive. If there is a God, it means that not-god was never an option. Likewise, if there's no god, then such a notion is total fantasy, quite unnecessary, and impossible.

avocationist Posts: 173 Joined: Feb. 2006 (Permalink) Posted: Mar. 13 2006,21:00    Jay Ray Quote My take is exceedingly taoist. Oh, good. Quote Asking the right questions does no good if you draw the wrong conclusions. Sure, what I meant was that as understanding progresses, so do the questions. some questions aren't so much answered as disappear. Quote Interesting.  So your thought is that somehow this eternal, concious being was incapable of directly tinkering with atoms and molecules and instead works through lesser intermediaries?  If I'm wrong, please correct me.  If I'm right, then I'd ask how the lesser intermediaries themselves came to be. From Tao te Ching, I like #42 the best. If the Tao is so infinite that it cannot even be called one, how is it to make plans? The Tao is the void of Buddhism. To become one, requires some self-consciousness. Now you have two. The duality of two and nonduality make three. Anyway, I'd like to see a good explanation of that passage. From a great power station, you need stepdown units to get structured work done. In the Christian trinity, you have the Source, the Uncreated Energies, and the Organizing Force, which is supposed to be the real creator of this world. I like my names better, don't you? Quote Etc. Jehovah is a misanthropic doody head. And an imposter. I don't care who hears me say it. Quote Just because something resembles a design does not mean that it necessarily has been.  This is a major sticking point for a lot of people. There's more analysis than that. I hope you'll look through my previous post to Chris; I excerpted some of the better and more interesting parts of a very detailed set of 5 essays on the evolution of the flagellum. Oh, and just because it looks designed doesn't mean it wasn't, either. Quote Your ID take is a different from theirs.  You should take a closer look at what they are saying, and what they are not.  It seems like you might have some weighty philosophical disagreements with them. Well, they are Christians. Are you saying that they think method is off-limits? Quote It is exactly what you'd expect if you already accept a set of ideas which are unproven and presume a lot. Then you say something like this which puts you squarely back in the middle of the YEC arguments.  What unproven ideas?  What presumptions? Plenty of people have and have had trouble with Darwin's theory without being YECs! I could go through my books, and I should, to present some of them, or perhaps I can just look around and lift some things from the net. But I can't do it now, cause I spent so much time already. Quote Perhaps you can explain how you square statistical, probabilistic quantum mechanics with a being who leaves little to chance?  Why go through all the trouble to create this system which is almost entirely random, when in fact what you really wanted to do was have the universe be what it is today? I really didn't mean to quantify how much was left to chance as I don't know. I can't form an opinion about the quantum reality as I don't understand it very well and I think some false claims have been made about particles arising without cause. And philosopically, the question of freedom versus determinism is a very difficult one. I suspect both operate but I can't begin to defend that. And how does the randomness of quantum particles affect evolution theory? Quote "Unfolding" implies that everything is going according to plan.  Why do the laws of physics sport this feature?  Newtonian mechanics would have worked better for this task. Well no, I don't define the unfolding too tightly. A general plan, yes. The laws of quantum physics, I suspect, work the way they do because reality requires it. Sub-planck length reality, I think, is already another dimension. My little thought. Has anyone else thought about this? Quote Completion?  Completion of what?  What goal does the god-verse have in mind, here?  Explain how you derive this.   Because, by golly, it would be a sad place without our intelligence to understand and admire it all. We may not be the end-product, either. But we're getting close. In my opinion, it's all about consciousness, so far as any goal type of thing. Quote What is love without care?  Where do you derive the conclusion that there is any emotion whatsoever felt by this eternal, concious, intelligent being? Not sure where the love without care came from. Because I said the love was impersonal? It's the best, the only kind! That which we call love, it is conditional. Easily lost. Easily withdrawn. It has requirements. I don't say that the infinite feels an emotion. I'm saying that a life force and love energy are just the state of its being. It's not a passionate love, it supports all things without distinction. Quote It'll be someone with a more Eastern perspective. (propose a method for ID) Maybe you?   Why thanks, but I am not a scientist and i cannot do it. Anyway, the banned JAD at least gave it a shot. Quote Of course there is more than meets the eye.  I don't know of a single scientist that would claim otherwise. But what I was specifically alluding to was that pure material reductionism is an inadequate explanation of the cosmos. Quote Slow down.  What is your evidence that I assess only from a distance? Well, I mentioned complexity, and you answer that nature just does what it does. That sounds like not wanting to look to close, being easily satisfied with surface explanations. The feeling you speak of, that IDists have, is intuition. You seemed to think that I was disparaging nature because it doesn't compose symphonies (it does, through us) and I explained that I was not and you even posted my explanation, yet still seem to think I was. The passivity of matter is its perfection. OK, string hypothesis it is. I like it. I root for it. Abiogenesis is not the place to start. Abiogenesis really hasn't got off the ground. Better to stick to problems with homology and the fossil record and that sort of thing. The god-verse is not a supervisor, because if he was, he could also act directly. The Tao JUST IS. I suppose my views might be somewhat Hindu. Mostly from hinduism I take advaita. But they do have some notions of advanced states of being in which there is only a very subtle separation left between them and God. Everyone and everything has always existed, in one form or another. I don't know why I should know how they were created but they ought to exist. It doesn't make sense to have such a gap between our type of being and god. I guess frontloading could either be a very general one of creating the universe, laws of nature and elements so that a few planets would probably evolve life forms, or it could be more specific. A book like Nature's Destiny doesn't think it is probable that other forms of life could have evolved. Many different elements conspire to form the best system, which substitues could not fill. Not that the humans would have to be just like us, but more or less. I wasn't really meaning to compare frontloading to building a house. You had said something about frontloading not being the kind of process that this universe really is. I think a process can unfold according to a general plan without being boring. Quote Right, otherwise, what use is he? Use?  I think this is about the plan again, right? No, not the plan. I mean, if we are to have a god-being, she certainly should possess the property of uncaused existence, or its not much of a god. Quote And you're saying that neither life nor just plain stuff could happen uncaused. That's right. Quote But this original intelligent, concious creator thing is obviously alive in every meaningful sense.  Its certainly more complicated than dead matter.  So by that logic, it could not exist either. It isn't complicated. Quote One last thing.  Do you or do you not agree that electromagnetism and gravity exist?  What about the nuclear force? Oh, yeah, I missed that. Of course they exist. I wasn't sure what i said to bring that on...we were discussing sticky laws, and we agreed there might be more we don't know about to add to the ones we have.

Chris Hyland Posts: 705 Joined: Jan. 2006 (Permalink) Posted: Mar. 14 2006,01:06    I am not an expert on the flagellum, I have no idea how it may have evolved, and i have not read Nick Matzke's essay, so I couldn't really respond to a critique of it. One point though is that I was at a conference last year where several people who are experts demonstrated that partial motility is better than no motility at all, so Im going to have to take their word for it. My problems regarding IC are mainly based on other examples of protein complex evolution that I am more familiar with, and in these cases one method of evolution is as I said before: the acestral model is without part A, but the structures of parts B and C are different so that they system does function, it almost certainly functions much less efficiency, and may not even perfrom the same function. The affinity for A binding to B and C is probably very low at this point, however over time it will get higher as this will increase the efficiency of the system, and this process will likely be caused by mutations in A B and C. Eventually B and C will mutate to the point where they can no longer function without A, hence the system will no longer function if A is removed. This is just one method of course, and may not apply to the flagellum i don't know, but there are many more similar routes. But the point is that IC says in principle if you remove a part and the system ceases to function, then that part could have not been added by evolution, and this is not true. Quote Only plants? I'm wondering how it would work. I would think that for two creatures to sucessfully mate they would need to have the same number of chromosomes. Wouldn't it have to happen in one generation, to go from 48 to 46 chromosomes, and wouldn't there have to be several siblings get this mutation perhaps from the same mother, so that they could mate and continue the new species? Or wouldn't it have to occur in the mother and father together? Not only in plants, its just been more studied in plants because it happens more often, you'd be suprised how different chromosome structure can be an hybridization is still possible, see http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/02/life_will_find_a_way.php for an example. It is very possible for example, that human and chimp DNA could hybridize, but even if it could, the difference in gene expression during development would kill any embryo, and as I mentioned it is this that likely causes the major difference between us and chimps, and is probably a major method of evolution across species barriers. Quote How about CSI and IC? CSI and IC simply say that there is a low probability of systems evolving by certain routes. I have already pointed out what i think problems with IC are. CSI in my opinion in its current form is completely unapplicable to biological systems due to a number of factors, including its definition of complexity, specification and information, and the current impossibility of calculating the probability that the flagellum evolved naturaly. In any case, it has not been proven to work on anything other than anecdotal examples. Im not sure how anyone can say they are positive proof of ID, as opposed to arguments from ignorance.

GCT Posts: 1001 Joined: Aug. 2005 (Permalink) Posted: Mar. 14 2006,01:18    2--> Quote (avocationist @ Mar. 14 2006,012) Alright, this is pretty close to GCT's questions also. We live in a universe. This universe may or may not have God. If there is a God then this God is the source of existence, because that really is what the definition of God entails. And not just a verbal definition.  The great question of causation is solved if there is an eternal and nonlinear being that is beyond notions of existence or nonexistence. If there is a God then the way things have turned out for planets and life cannot be unconnected in some way to this God. And if there is a god then existence and the laws of nature come from this God so that random and unguided processes would not be adequate to produce our world. So by rendering intelligence meaningless, I mean the statement that even though there is a God, it looks like a universe might look if there wasn't one. I'm not saying that the universe cannot appear material and nonspiritual to some people. I'm saying only one or the other is true and they are mutually exclusive. If there is a God, it means that not-god was never an option. Likewise, if there's no god, then such a notion is total fantasy, quite unnecessary, and impossible. You lack imagination.  If there is a god, there is no logical imperative that this god is anything more than an observer.  We could still have arisen through chance or "not-god" processes.  There is no logical imperative that this god be about love.  There is no logical imperative that we have souls.  There is no logical imperative that god "caused" our universe or us or anything else.  That isn't to say that god isn't the 'cause' of all of this and we don't have souls, but there being a god does not necessarily entail that we do. What is this "great question of causation?" Now, simply because there is a mutually exclusive set of god or not god does not mean that the universe would be significantly different with or without god.  It is simply your perception of it that you think would be severly changed, yet the funny part about that is that it might not be changed at all.  You seem to think there is a god, but perhaps there isn't one.  Considering that we can't know, you still think there is one, and the universe hasn't changed, nor has your perception. So, the real question is, how will you scientifically determine that there is a god?  ID says that it can be done.  How?  Evolution (and all real science) say that that question is off the table unless we can figure out a way of actually testing for god or not god.  Since we can't actually do that, then we can't say whether things were "planned" or not.  THAT is why we say things like, "Evolution is unplanned and unguided."  We say that because we have the implicit idea that it is unplanned and unguided AS FAR AS SCIENCE CAN DISCERN.  Once you get that thought through your head, you should see why ID is not science.

Russell Posts: 1082 Joined: April 2005 (Permalink) Posted: Mar. 14 2006,05:16    Quote (GCT: ) Why must I repeat myself again and again just to have you repeat it back to me as if it's your argument? Because she's totally committed to the creationist viewpoint. If you've heard of "Morton's Demon", you'll know what I'm talking about. Case in point: quoting - well, no - cutting and pasting pages of "MikeGene", chock-a-block full of technical details about bacterial flagella, none of which does anything to advance the case that really, really complex = "irreducibly" complex. She dismisses Ernst Mayr (! ) as "simplistic", but takes "MikeGene" as the last word on flagellum research. Why? Is "MikeGene" an expert in the field? Does "MikeGene" do research in this area? Who is "MikeGene"? The only thing I know about "him" is that "he", too, sees the world through Design colored glasses. Yet, at the same time, she admits to a lack of understanding of very basic, easy to look up, genetics (the chromosome fusion business.) I wouldn't get too worked up about it. She's never going to "get it". Any evidence or logic you present will be dismissed as just "one side of the argument". Go ahead and argue with her, if you like. (Heck, I like solving Sudoku puzzles; hardly a more productive use of time! ) But you might find this more entertaining. -------------- Must... not... scratch... mosquito bite.

GCT Posts: 1001 Joined: Aug. 2005 (Permalink) Posted: Mar. 14 2006,07:18    Ha ha ha.  Thanks for the site Russell.  That's one of my favorite Python sketches of all time. I'm seriously evaluating whether it is worth my time to engage Avo anymore.  It's amazing how I can come up with an argument that refutes her position, only to have her spit it back to me later on as if it is her argument and somehow strengthens her position.  It's mind-boggling.  Of course, I also like to solve Sudoku puzzles, so maybe I do just like wasting time.

Alan Fox Posts: 1556 Joined: Aug. 2005 (Permalink) Posted: Mar. 14 2006,12:23    Avocationist I don't know whether you got around to reading Dawkins' "The Ancestor's Tale", but I highly recommend another book which my daughter pased on to me to read, just recently. It is "How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World" by Francis Wheen. It does put some current issues into a broader perspective. Anyone who needs an antidote to the po-mo nonsense of Plantinga will enjoy it. This is not a shill, Francis is only a distant relative

Seven Popes Posts: 190 Joined: Mar. 2006 (Permalink) Posted: Mar. 14 2006,15:30    Avo, I'm qouting you:"No, it doesn't seem preposterous at all. What seems preposterous is that a creature could have 7% of a wing," What about 6 percent of a simian tail?  Some humans do develop these at birth, and all of us carry the bones for a vestigial tail. -------------- Cave ab homine unius libri - Beware of anyone who has just one book.

Henry J Posts: 5787 Joined: Mar. 2005 (Permalink) Posted: Mar. 14 2006,16:52    A question here - in what way would 7% of a wing differ from simply an arm? Henry

Seven Popes Posts: 190 Joined: Mar. 2006 (Permalink) Posted: Mar. 16 2006,05:01    If we're talking about Mcnuggets, there's a heap o' difference, Henry J.  Otherwise, none.    By the way, there was an interesting newsie tidbit on 20/20 (or one of the shows like it) on the possible causes of homosexuality.  As I recall, they mentioned hormonal influences, and possibly the effect of antibodies the mother develops to male children.  It seem that the chances of having a gay son increases based on the number of older brothers he  has.  I wonder (out loud, with no intent to derail this well meaning but clearly hopeless thread) how the creationists and IDist respond to these findings. -------------- Cave ab homine unius libri - Beware of anyone who has just one book.

Sanctum Posts: 88 Joined: Feb. 2006 (Permalink) Posted: Mar. 16 2006,06:06    I have two older brothers.

Seven Popes Posts: 190 Joined: Mar. 2006 (Permalink) Posted: Mar. 16 2006,06:37    Well Sactum, do you like gladiator movies? Oddly enough, The number of older brothers means nothing if the lad is left handed.  Odd. http://www.bri.ucla.edu/bri_weekly/news_050812_3.asp A quote from the above site: "So, a male with three older brothers is three times more likely to be gay than one with no older brothers, though there's still a better than 90 percent chance he will be straight. They argue that this results from a complex interaction involving hormones, antigens, and the mother's immune system." -------------- Cave ab homine unius libri - Beware of anyone who has just one book.

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