Antievolution.org - Antievolution.org Discussion Board -Topic::The Bathroom Wall

Posted: Oct. 25 2008,11:11

Reading people self-reporting high IQ's extrapolated from entrance exams on a science-based board is a little like reading Penthouse Forum for the stories of the proverbial 10" dick.

We all know everybody here has got one.

Well everbody except for ERV, although I would hope that she has a big black strap-on she's saving for Dr. Dr. Dembski.

It also comes perilously close to borderline DaveTard behavior, but without the pathetic self-aggrandisement, boorishness and general wingnuttery-at-large.

Be careful friends!

Louis

Posts: 6436
Joined: Jan. 2006

Posted: Oct. 25 2008,11:26

Quote (Bing @ Oct. 25 2008,17:11)

Reading people self-reporting high IQ's extrapolated from entrance exams on a science-based board is a little like reading Penthouse Forum for the stories of the proverbial 10" dick.

We all know everybody here has got one. �

Well everbody except for ERV, although I would hope that she has a big black strap-on she's saving for Dr. Dr. Dembski.

It also comes perilously close to borderline DaveTard behavior, but without the pathetic self-aggrandisement, boorishness and general wingnuttery-at-large.

Be careful friends!

Dear Penthouse,

You'll never believe what happened to me. The other day I took this IQ test and, long story short, Jenna Jameson came into the room and....

Louis

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Bye.

Posts: 4991
Joined: May 2002

Posted: Oct. 25 2008,12:08

What my test score tells people is that I am very good at taking that sort of test. I haven't joined any high-IQ groups or the like, mainly because I've occasionally met the people who do.

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"You can't teach an old dogma new tricks." - Dorothy Parker

dheddle

Posts: 545
Joined: Sep. 2007

Posted: Oct. 25 2008,12:23

Quote (Wesley R. Elsberry @ Oct. 24 2008,23:34)

I haven't taken a specific IQ test as an adult. If the mean scores on GREs are any guide, I do have scores above the mean for the Mensa and Four Sigma Society respondents as reported here.

I was in the honors dorm as a freshman, and there was one self-promoting woman I knew from there who was also a zoology major. She sought me out to tell me about the outstanding score she had received on her GRE, and how this would make her pick of top-flight grad school a cinch, and generally going on and on about how special her test score made her. I eventually got a word in edgewise, and asked her how she had answered a specific question from the math section of the GRE. She talked about her approach to the problem for a while, then made the connection that I had also taken the exam. "What was your score?" she asked.

I told her.

"I hate you," she said, and walked off.

I had this experience as a freshman. I was taking a huge lecture EE course and the instructor gave a killer, killer exam. When he returned them, he told us the average was 24. I had a 65. I was feeling pretty macho. I went back to the dorm and saw my extremely laid-back friend George, another physics major dabbling in EE. He was in the class, but a different recitation. Still inflated, I asked him "Hey man, howdja do on the EE exam?"

"Oh, I got 100."

Man did that ever rain on my parade.

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Mysticism is a rational enterprise. Religion is not. The mystic has recognized something about the nature of consciousness prior to thought, and this recognition is susceptible to rational discussion. The mystic has reason for what he believes, and these reasons are empirical. --Sam Harris

stevestory

Posts: 13407
Joined: Oct. 2005

Posted: Oct. 25 2008,12:49

John Cole:

Quote

This is the type of ignorant Christian Nationalism, where hillbilly gut instincts and religious edicts trump knowledge and reason, that corrupt Republicanism has devolved into. This is what is meant to be �conservative� these days. It has nothing to do with the conservatism of years past, and everything to do with nativism (notice how Paris, France was included in the mocking- those god damned furriners!), reflexive hatred of the other, suspicion and derision towards those who know something, and cronyism. This woman embodies everything that is wrong with the current Republican party; there is a reason the know-nothings embrace her.

Posts: 970
Joined: Sep. 2007

Posted: Oct. 25 2008,14:11

Quote (Reciprocating Bill @ Oct. 24 2008,16:32)

� � � � � �

Quote (Daniel Smith @ Oct. 24 2008,12:22)

Now I'd be willing to bet that you'd find it in yourself to critique a "highly technical paper" if its conclusion was supportive of ID - wouldn't you?

OK, try me. I defy you to show us one paper - just one - published from the perspective of ID that meets the following simplified description:

1. It furnishes a conceptual and technical framework for empirical research.
�
2. Quite specific empirical questions regarding the origins of a particular microbiological system are raised and addressed within those interwoven conceptual and technical frameworks.

3. Careful empirical research conducted by the authors resolved those questions.

Produce that paper - just one - and I'll tell you whether I feel able to critique it.

How about I provide a list of papers that generally support a more saltational form of evolution (some more so than others) or which paint a picture of genetic design (as opposed to accidental evolution). �Like your examples, none of these papers by themselves fully encapsulate the position I favor, (and some are not written from an ID perspective), but taken together they each constitute one move in an extraordinarily complex, empirically driven discussion of multiyear duration which occurred within a community of scientists with each representing a "click" in the giant ratchet towards a more saltational, designed and directed evolutionary theory.

Note: �These are mostly published papers although a few links are to websites where the authors offer their alternate theories of ID and evolution.

(If, however, you're not interested in looking at all of them and instead insist that I supply "just one", this first one will do:)

The Protein Folds as Platonic Forms: New Support for the Pre-Darwinian Conception of Evolution by Natural Law

Can the genetic code be mathematically described?

Detecting Structure in Parity Binary Sequences

Why repetitive DNA is essential to genome function

Unbiased Mapping of Transcription Factor Binding Sites along Human Chromosomes 21 and 22 Points to Widespread Regulation of Noncoding RNAs

Genome Informatics: The Role of DNA in Cellular Computations

Bacteria are small but not stupid: cognition, natural genetic engineering and socio-bacteriology

Natural genetic engineering in evolution

Changes of cell behavior by near-infrared signals

A long-range attraction between aggregating 3T3 cells mediated by near-infrared light scattering

The Yersinia enterocolitica Motility Master Regulatory Operon, flhDC, Is Required for Flagellin Production, Swimming Motility, and Swarming Motility

The origin of mutants

Evolution of moth sex pheromones via ancestral genes

Mechanism for saltational shifts in pheromone communication systems

Transposable elements as the key to a 21st century view of evolution

Structural Dynamics of Eukaryotic Chromosome Evolution

Evolution of mammalian genome organization inferred from comparative gene mapping

CHROMOSOME REARRANGEMENTS AND TRANSPOSABLE ELEMENTS

Ontogenesis and Morphological Diversification

THE "BLIND ALLEY": ITS SIGNIFICANCE FOR EVOLUTIONARY THEORY

EVOLUTION AS A SELF-LIMITING PROCESS

Ontogeny, Phylogeny and the Origin of Biological Information

AN EVOLUTIONARY MANIFESTO: A NEW HYPOTHESIS FOR ORGANIC CHANGE

FURTHER OBSERVATIONS ON THE PRODUCTION OF PARTHENOGENETIC FROGS.

Kinetochore reproduction theory may explain rapid chromosome evolution

The saltational model for the dawn of H. sapiens, chin, adolescence phase, complex language and modern behavior

Birth of a unique enzyme from an alternative reading frame of the preexisted, internally repetitious coding sequence.

The transposable elements of the Drosophila melanogaster euchromatin: a genomics perspective

Transcription-related mutations and GC content drive variation in nucleotide substitution rates across the genomes of Arabidopsis thaliana and Arabidopsis lyrata

Convergent Evolution of Viviparity, Matrotrophy, and Specializations for Fetal Nutrition in Reptiles and Other Vertebrates

Rapid Morphological Change in an Introduced Bird

Rogue weeds defy rules of genetics

Origin of life on earth and Shannon�s theory of communication

A New Design Argument

A New Biology for a New Century

Macrodevelopment A New Theory of Evolution

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"If we all worked on the assumption that what is accepted as true is really true, there would be little hope of advance." �Orville Wright

"The presence or absence of a creative super-intelligence is unequivocally a scientific question." Richard Dawkins

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Posted: Oct. 25 2008,15:01

Somebody explain what "empirical research" means to Daniel.

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"You can't teach an old dogma new tricks." - Dorothy Parker

khan

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Posted: Oct. 25 2008,15:07

Quote (Wesley R. Elsberry @ Oct. 25 2008,16:01)

Somebody explain what "empirical research" means to Daniel.

Should I practice first by explaining it to the cat?

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"It's as if all those words, in their hurry to escape from the loony, have fallen over each other, forming scrambled heaps of meaninglessness." -damitall

That's so fucking stupid it merits a wing in the museum of stupid. -midwifetoad

Frequency is just the plural of wavelength...
-JoeG

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Posted: Oct. 25 2008,15:09

Quote (Wesley R. Elsberry @ Oct. 25 2008,16:01)

Somebody explain what "empirical research" means to Daniel.

myeh, if anyone is going to flush their time down a toilet, I could use just enough of it (five minutes or so) to get them to be my friend on FaceBook and accept my KnightHood invitation.

At least it would have some benefit to it, as I would get a small amount of enjoyment.

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“Why do creationists have such a hard time with commas?

Linky“. ~ Steve Story, Legend

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Joined: Jan. 2006

Posted: Oct. 25 2008,15:13

P.S. Thanks to those of you who've already indulged me on that.

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“Why do creationists have such a hard time with commas?

Linky“. ~ Steve Story, Legend

carlsonjok

Posts: 3326
Joined: May 2006

Posted: Oct. 25 2008,15:33

Quote (Lou FCD @ Oct. 25 2008,15:09)

be my friend on FaceBook and accept my KnightHood invitation.

Well, you might try this guy. �He is even a knight already.

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It's natural to be curious about our world, but the scientific method is just one theory about how to best understand it. �We live in a democracy, which means we should treat every theory equally. - Steven Colbert, I Am America (and So Can You!)

Reciprocating Bill

Posts: 4265
Joined: Oct. 2006

Posted: Oct. 25 2008,15:36

[tap tap] is this thing working? �One two three one two three [tap tap tap]

Daniel,

Show us one paper - just one - published from the perspective of ID that meets the following simplified description:

1. It furnishes a conceptual and technical framework for empirical research.

2. Quite specific empirical questions regarding the origins of a particular microbiological system are raised and addressed within those interwoven conceptual and technical frameworks.

3. Careful empirical research conducted by the authors resolved those questions.

Produce that paper - just one - and I'll tell you whether I feel able to critique it.

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Myth: Something that never was true, and always will be.

"The truth will set you free. But not until it is finished with you."
- David Foster Wallace

"Here’s a clue. Snarky banalities are not a substitute for saying something intelligent. Write that down."
- Barry Arrington

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Posted: Oct. 25 2008,15:46

Quote (Wesley R. Elsberry @ Oct. 24 2008,14:12)

Quote (Daniel Smith @ Oct. 24 2008,12:26)

Here's Michael Behe's take on the paper Wesley cited on the Krebs' cycle (It's in the section responding to Kenneth Miller): � � �

Quote

Finally Miller discusses a paper which works out a scheme for how the organic-chemical components of the tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle, a central metabolic pathway, may have arisen gradually. (Melendez-Hevia et al. 1996) There are several points to make about it. First, the paper deals with the chemical interconversion of organic molecules, not the enzymes of the pathway or their regulation. As an analogy, suppose someone described how petroleum is refined step by step, beginning with crude oil, passing through intermediate grades, and ending with, say, gasoline. He shows that the chemistry of the processes is smooth and continuous, yet says nothing about the actual machinery of the refinery or its regulation, nothing about valves or switches. Clearly that is inadequate to show refining of petroleum developed step by step. Analogously, someone who is seriously interested in showing that a metabolic pathway could evolve by Darwinian means has to deal with the enzymic machinery and its regulation.

Now Behe is a biochemist, so I think he's qualified to critique a highly technical paper.

Wow... another paper that Behe didn't actually read. From the caption in Figure 2:

�

Quote

Enzymes: (1) synthase, (2, 3) isomerase, (4) dehydrogenase, (5) aldehyde dehydrogenase, (6) kinase, (7) succinate dehydrogenase, (8) fumarase, (9) malate dehydrogenase, (10) oxaloacetate decarboxylase.

There seem to be a number of enzymes in the discussion for a paper that, according to Behe, doesn't mention any.

I think what Behe was objecting to was not whether they mentioned enzymes or not, but whether they explained their origin (if new ones are required) and their regulation. �Any metabolic pathway contains enzymes, to think that he was implying that theirs didn't is, I think, a strawman.

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"If we all worked on the assumption that what is accepted as true is really true, there would be little hope of advance." �Orville Wright

"The presence or absence of a creative super-intelligence is unequivocally a scientific question." Richard Dawkins

Posts: 970
Joined: Sep. 2007

Posted: Oct. 25 2008,15:50

Quote (Albatrossity2 @ Oct. 24 2008,11:55)

Quote (Daniel Smith @ Oct. 24 2008,12:26)

Now Behe is a biochemist, so I think he's qualified to critique a highly technical paper.

No, he's not. Sorry to break this to you, but Behe stopped being a functioning biochemist quite a while ago when he stopped publishing primary publications (with actual Behe-generated data) in the peer-reviewed literature.

Wow! I'd never dream of critiquing a scientist just because he hasn't published a paper in the primary literature lately.

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"If we all worked on the assumption that what is accepted as true is really true, there would be little hope of advance." �Orville Wright

"The presence or absence of a creative super-intelligence is unequivocally a scientific question." Richard Dawkins

oldmanintheskydidntdoit

Posts: 4999
Joined: July 2006

Macrodevelopment A New Theory of Evolution

Posted: Oct. 25 2008,16:05

Quote (Daniel Smith @ Oct. 25 2008,14:11)

� � �

Quote

What if the animals of the early Cambrian era were really generic "stem animals", analogous to the generic "stem cells" in the early embryo? What if the evolution of the biosphere historically proceeded "top down" from the generic to the specific (i.e., from phylum to class to order to family to genus and, finally, down to the species level) for essentially the same reasons as the development of the individual embryo proceeds from the most-generic stem cells down to more-specific types of cells, and ultimately down to the most-specific cells that comprise the organs in the fully developed biological individual?

Wouldn't such a nonlinear theory of evolution likely be superior to the outdated 19th century, linear, mechanical, reductionistic theory of neo-Darwinism, according to which the biosphere is (essentially) "nothing but" a statistical calculating machine? And wouldn't this theory of macrodevelopment stand the best chance of resolving the conflict between religious and scientific viewpoints with respect to the biosphere?

And if you are wondering how *you* can become a member of the Fellowship of St. Benedict then wonder no more
� � �

Quote

Anyone who agrees with the principles set forth in this website is already a member of the Fellowship of St. Benedict (sort of like J.R.R. Tolkien's fictional Fellowship of the Ring!) There is no registration list of members or dues.

Round of applause for Daniel everybody. I'm converted....

And the primary purpose of the website, as ever, is selling a book.

I can see why Daniel uses it as a source however

Quote

This book is intended for the general reader and presumes only a knowledge of high school mathematics.

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I also mentioned that He'd have to give me a thorough explanation as to *why* I must "eat human babies".
FTK

if there are even critical flaws in Gauger�s work, the evo mat narrative cannot stand
Gordon Mullings

jeffox

Posts: 671
Joined: Oct. 2007

Posted: Oct. 25 2008,16:08

Oh Danny Boy. . .

Quote

Quote (Albatrossity2 @ Oct. 24 2008,11:55)
Quote (Daniel Smith @ Oct. 24 2008,12:26)

Now Behe is a biochemist, so I think he's qualified to critique a highly technical paper.

No, he's not. Sorry to break this to you, but Behe stopped being a functioning biochemist quite a while ago when he stopped publishing primary publications (with actual Behe-generated data) in the peer-reviewed literature.

Wow! I'd never dream of critiquing a scientist just because he hasn't published a paper in the primary literature lately.

I suppose, Daniel, as long as one knew if Behe actually read the paper cited or not. Eh?

oldmanintheskydidntdoit

Posts: 4999
Joined: July 2006

Posted: Oct. 25 2008,16:10

Quote (Daniel Smith @ Oct. 25 2008,15:50)

Quote (Albatrossity2 @ Oct. 24 2008,11:55)

� �

Quote (Daniel Smith @ Oct. 24 2008,12:26)

Now Behe is a biochemist, so I think he's qualified to critique a highly technical paper.

No, he's not. Sorry to break this to you, but Behe stopped being a functioning biochemist quite a while ago when he stopped publishing primary publications (with actual Behe-generated data) in the peer-reviewed literature.

Wow! I'd never dream of critiquing a scientist just because he hasn't published a paper in the primary literature lately.

Don't worry. Behe has been dismantled over and over.

http://sfmatheson.blogspot.com/2008....ow.html

Quote

What Behe is saying is this: if event A has probability a, and event B has probability b, then the probability of both events happening is a times b. But that is only true if the events must happen simultaneously. That's the only time you multiply two probabilities. And to make matters worse, Behe is confusing two very different probabilities: the probability that the event will happen in any given attempt, and the probability that it will occur at all.

Quote

About 2 months ago, I finished a series on Michael Behe's latest book, The Edge of Evolution. I concluded that it was a terrible book, displaying significant errors of both fact and judgment. The book's main argument is a population genetics argument, and Behe seems to have little knowledge or understanding of that difficult subject. The book is a joke, and I believe it will someday be seen as one of the more disastrous mistakes made by the ID movement.

He's a joke Daniel. He did everybody a favour by putting intelligent design in the same category as astrology, on the record, in court.

Talk about an own goal.

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I also mentioned that He'd have to give me a thorough explanation as to *why* I must "eat human babies".
FTK

if there are even critical flaws in Gauger�s work, the evo mat narrative cannot stand
Gordon Mullings

Posts: 4991
Joined: May 2002

Posted: Oct. 25 2008,16:11

Quote (Daniel Smith @ Oct. 25 2008,15:46)

Quote (Wesley R. Elsberry @ Oct. 24 2008,14:12)

� �

Quote (Daniel Smith @ Oct. 24 2008,12:26)

Here's Michael Behe's take on the paper Wesley cited on the Krebs' cycle (It's in the section responding to Kenneth Miller): � � � � �

Quote

Finally Miller discusses a paper which works out a scheme for how the organic-chemical components of the tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle, a central metabolic pathway, may have arisen gradually. (Melendez-Hevia et al. 1996) There are several points to make about it. First, the paper deals with the chemical interconversion of organic molecules, not the enzymes of the pathway or their regulation. As an analogy, suppose someone described how petroleum is refined step by step, beginning with crude oil, passing through intermediate grades, and ending with, say, gasoline. He shows that the chemistry of the processes is smooth and continuous, yet says nothing about the actual machinery of the refinery or its regulation, nothing about valves or switches. Clearly that is inadequate to show refining of petroleum developed step by step. Analogously, someone who is seriously interested in showing that a metabolic pathway could evolve by Darwinian means has to deal with the enzymic machinery and its regulation.

Now Behe is a biochemist, so I think he's qualified to critique a highly technical paper.

Wow... another paper that Behe didn't actually read. From the caption in Figure 2:

� � �

Quote

Enzymes: (1) synthase, (2, 3) isomerase, (4) dehydrogenase, (5) aldehyde dehydrogenase, (6) kinase, (7) succinate dehydrogenase, (8) fumarase, (9) malate dehydrogenase, (10) oxaloacetate decarboxylase.

There seem to be a number of enzymes in the discussion for a paper that, according to Behe, doesn't mention any.

I think what Behe was objecting to was not whether they mentioned enzymes or not, but whether they explained their origin (if new ones are required) and their regulation. �Any metabolic pathway contains enzymes, to think that he was implying that theirs didn't is, I think, a strawman.

Really?

Quote

[...] yet says nothing about the actual machinery of the refinery or its regulation, nothing about valves or switches [...]

Love those standards of yours, twice the size of other people's.

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"You can't teach an old dogma new tricks." - Dorothy Parker

Posts: 5455
Joined: Jan. 2006

Posted: Oct. 25 2008,16:35

Quote (carlsonjok @ Oct. 25 2008,16:33)

Quote (Lou FCD @ Oct. 25 2008,15:09)

be my friend on FaceBook and accept my KnightHood invitation.

Well, you might try this guy. �He is even a knight already.

uh, no thanks.

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“Why do creationists have such a hard time with commas?

Linky“. ~ Steve Story, Legend

Posts: 5455
Joined: Jan. 2006

Posted: Oct. 25 2008,16:45

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“Why do creationists have such a hard time with commas?

Linky“. ~ Steve Story, Legend

Posts: 4991
Joined: May 2002

Posted: Oct. 25 2008,16:47

I was looking for scores from the UF - KY game, and came across a U.K. fan site with comments from U.K. fans as the game progressed. The winner (IMO):

Quote

When you don�t use your creative skills as a coach in situations like this, it results in what we have here � a four-hour prostate exam with 90,000 inlookers.

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"You can't teach an old dogma new tricks." - Dorothy Parker

didymos

Posts: 1828
Joined: Mar. 2008

Posted: Oct. 25 2008,19:21

Quote (Daniel Smith @ Oct. 25 2008,12:11)

How about I provide a list of papers that generally support a more saltational form of evolution (some more so than others) or which paint a picture of genetic design (as opposed to accidental evolution).

Ooh, shocker: generally supporting and painting a picture is A-OK when something seems to favor the ideas Daniel likes, but is completely out of the question when it doesn't.

Quote

�Like your examples, none of these papers by themselves fully encapsulate the position I favor, (and some are not written from an ID perspective), but taken together they each constitute one move in an extraordinarily complex, empirically driven discussion of multiyear duration which occurred within a community of scientists with each representing a "click" in the giant ratchet towards a more saltational, designed and directed evolutionary theory.

So, if you're now co-opting (how Darwinian of you) RB's standards, you must think they're fundamentally good standards. And since modern evolutionary theory meets those standards nigh-infinitely better than your mostly unspecified and vague ideas about evolution, I'd say it's kind of hypocritical to continue rejecting work that has been done within and which confirms MET's explanatory framework. In detail.

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I wouldn't be bothered reading about the selfish gene because it has never been identified. -- Denyse O'Leary, professional moron
Again "how much". I don't think that's a good way to be quantitative.-- gpuccio

Albatrossity2

Posts: 2780
Joined: Mar. 2007

Posted: Oct. 25 2008,19:53

Quote (Daniel Smith @ Oct. 25 2008,15:50)

Quote (Albatrossity2 @ Oct. 24 2008,11:55)

� �

Quote (Daniel Smith @ Oct. 24 2008,12:26)

Now Behe is a biochemist, so I think he's qualified to critique a highly technical paper.

No, he's not. Sorry to break this to you, but Behe stopped being a functioning biochemist quite a while ago when he stopped publishing primary publications (with actual Behe-generated data) in the peer-reviewed literature.

Wow! I'd never dream of critiquing a scientist just because he hasn't published a paper in the primary literature lately.

Oh, that's not the only reason why Behe is not a good source of intelligent criticism. To his lack of recent relevant publications you can add

1) publishing a crappy non-peer reviewed book and ignoring scientific criticisms that he failed to include lots of relevant data, misrepresented a key bit of information from a review paper, and generally failed miserably at advancing the cause of ID.

2) admitted, under oath, that astrology is as scientific as ID,

and

3) was revealed as a poser, again under oath, when his notions about the lack of evidence for the evolution of the immune system were revealed to be based only in his ignorance of the relevant literature.

But hey, if you want to invoke him as an expert, go right ahead. It is just another bit of evidence that you are clueless about how real scientists go about the business of doing and interpreting scientific research.

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Flesh of the sky, child of the sky, the mind
Has been obligated from the beginning
To create an ordered universe
As the only possible proof of its own inheritance.
� � � � � � � � � � � � - Pattiann Rogers

jeffox

Posts: 671
Joined: Oct. 2007

Posted: Oct. 25 2008,20:35

[Graffiti moved to Bathroom Wall. - Lou FCD]

(Lou, I don't care if you move this - I have a little bit too much time on my hands right now and just can't resist this one)

HEY GANG, I FIGURED OUT WHAT MR. FTK LOOKS LIKE:

Posts: 970
Joined: Sep. 2007

Posted: Oct. 26 2008,14:48

Quote (didymos @ Oct. 25 2008,17:21)

� � � � � �

Quote (Daniel Smith @ Oct. 25 2008,12:11)

How about I provide a list of papers that generally support a more saltational form of evolution (some more so than others) or which paint a picture of genetic design (as opposed to accidental evolution).

Ooh, shocker: �generally supporting and painting a picture is A-OK when something seems to favor the ideas Daniel likes, but is completely out of the question when it doesn't.

If you'll try to remember, I said that origins were so complex nobody can understand them. �I did not claim that ID offered a clear picture, nor did I claim that it could. �My argument, (as I seem to have to repeatedly explain), is that mankind will never be able to fully explain origins. �What part of that is so difficult to understand?

You might not want to believe this, but I don't think I have all the answers. �I'm a searcher for truth - but I'm also a skeptic when anyone claims to have it. �I'm skeptical of all theories of origins. �I'm skeptical of the mainstream theory of evolution, any alternative evolutionary theory, and creationism and ID theories as well. �I approached all of these initially with equal levels of skepticism. �I'm not sure of anything. �I am leaning towards directed evolution, but I'm not sure that's right. �Of all the ideas I've heard, the one embraced by mainstream science sounds like the least probable and worst explanation so far. �You just can't explain the extremely precise synthesis and regulation at the core of all life by a series of fortunate accidents!
� � � � � �

Quote

� � � � �

Quote

�Like your examples, none of these papers by themselves fully encapsulate the position I favor, (and some are not written from an ID perspective), but taken together they each constitute one move in an extraordinarily complex, empirically driven discussion of multiyear duration which occurred within a community of scientists with each representing a "click" in the giant ratchet towards a more saltational, designed and directed evolutionary theory.

So, if you're now co-opting (how Darwinian of you) RB's standards, you must think they're fundamentally good standards. �And since modern evolutionary theory meets those standards nigh-infinitely better than your mostly unspecified and vague ideas about evolution, I'd say it's kind of hypocritical to continue rejecting work that has been done within and which confirms MET's explanatory framework. �In detail.

What detail? �I've been reading through many papers on the origins of mitochondria (a byproduct of my fruitless search for detail on the origin of the Krebs cycle). �None provides any real level of detail. �I just finished reading this paper. �It is full of speculations about what might have happened, it leans towards a few hypotheses, but it supplies few details. �In fact, it lists far more problems than it does solutions. �Many of these problems are just mentioned in passing almost as if they're no big deal. �Other papers offer more details for some of the specifics mentioned within it, but even when taken together, one does not get a clear picture of exactly how mitochondria evolved or exactly what they evolved from. �You may hold out hope that future papers will give clearer answers and clear up much of this confusion, but I'm predicting that exactly the opposite will happen. �I'm predicting that future research will bring to light more problems that cannot be resolved - so long as scientists insist on undirected natural mechanisms.

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"If we all worked on the assumption that what is accepted as true is really true, there would be little hope of advance." �Orville Wright

"The presence or absence of a creative super-intelligence is unequivocally a scientific question." Richard Dawkins

Albatrossity2

Posts: 2780
Joined: Mar. 2007

Posted: Oct. 26 2008,15:36

Quote (Daniel Smith @ Oct. 26 2008,14:48)

I'm predicting that future research will bring to light more problems that cannot be resolved - so long as scientists insist on undirected natural mechanisms.

Implying, of course, that the answers lie in directed supernatural mechanisms, which must be your favorite source of explanations. And for which you provide no support other than your incredulity about current scientific attempts to provide explanations.

OK, Daniel. I'll bite. What sort of research should be pursued if we want to invoke directed supernatural mechanisms? �What kinds of experiments do you propose that would help you find the "truth" that you allegedly are seeking?

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Flesh of the sky, child of the sky, the mind
Has been obligated from the beginning
To create an ordered universe
As the only possible proof of its own inheritance.
� � � � � � � � � � � � - Pattiann Rogers

Posts: 970
Joined: Sep. 2007

Posted: Oct. 26 2008,15:36

Quote (Reciprocating Bill @ Oct. 25 2008,13:36)

[tap tap] is this thing working? �One two three one two three [tap tap tap]

Daniel,

Show us one paper - just one - published from the perspective of ID that meets the following simplified description:

1. It furnishes a conceptual and technical framework for empirical research.

2. Quite specific empirical questions regarding the origins of a particular microbiological system are raised and addressed within those interwoven conceptual and technical frameworks.

3. Careful empirical research conducted by the authors resolved those questions.

Produce that paper - just one - and I'll tell you whether I feel able to critique it.

From wiki: � � � � �

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Empirical research is any research that bases its findings on direct or indirect observation as its test of reality. Such research may also be conducted according to hypothetico-deductive procedures, such as those developed from the work of R. A. Fisher.

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Direct and indirect observation

� �*Observation may be direct, i.e., the researcher is the observer, recording what he or she is watching, or

� �*Observation may be indirect, i.e., the researcher must rely on the reported observations of others.

The paper I cited was based on (perhaps) direct and (definitely) indirect research into protein folding and its mechanisms. �Unless you are claiming the authors have never done even indirect research into protein folding and its mechanisms - that is empirical research.

Questions for empirical research were raised:
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One example of a simple, two-step ��constructional sequence�� for the evolution of the classic TIM barrel from a half barrel was reported recently (Lang et al., 2000). But how feasible might such constructional pathways be in the case of many folds?

Other questions were raised and answers (based on empirical research) were offered, (read the full context for details):
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The fact that such structures should be lawful natural and in essence ��simple�� is entirely counterintuitive. And the question obviously arises, might there be other sets of lawful self-organizing organic forms which arise like the folds out of the intrinsic properties of their basic material constituents? A number of considerations suggest that this possibility cannot be so easily dismissed. We believe that in the case of at least two other classes of self-organizing forms--microtubular and cell forms--there is at least some preliminary and intriguing evidence for believing that these might turn out to represent like the folds, preferred arrangements of matter which are determined by various ��constructional rules�� or ��organizational laws.��

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Might cell forms also be lawful? The observation that some cell forms are almost as ancient and invariant as the protein folds lends some support to the notion.

Although nothing was finally "resolved", I believe in this context that is an unrealistic expectation. �(Show me a paper where any issue is finally resolved re:origins.) � This paper should also spur further research.

And, even if this paper didn't meet all of your qualifications, why don't you humor me and tell me if you'd "dream of critiquing it"? �(Although technically I guess you already have.)

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"If we all worked on the assumption that what is accepted as true is really true, there would be little hope of advance." �Orville Wright

"The presence or absence of a creative super-intelligence is unequivocally a scientific question." Richard Dawkins

Posts: 970
Joined: Sep. 2007

Posted: Oct. 26 2008,15:49

Quote (Albatrossity2 @ Oct. 25 2008,17:53)

� �

Quote (Daniel Smith @ Oct. 25 2008,15:50)

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Quote (Albatrossity2 @ Oct. 24 2008,11:55)

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Quote (Daniel Smith @ Oct. 24 2008,12:26)

Now Behe is a biochemist, so I think he's qualified to critique a highly technical paper.

No, he's not. Sorry to break this to you, but Behe stopped being a functioning biochemist quite a while ago when he stopped publishing primary publications (with actual Behe-generated data) in the peer-reviewed literature.

Wow! I'd never dream of critiquing a scientist just because he hasn't published a paper in the primary literature lately.

Oh, that's not the only reason why Behe is not a good source of intelligent criticism. To his lack of recent relevant publications you can add

1) publishing a crappy non-peer reviewed book and ignoring scientific criticisms that he failed to include lots of relevant data, misrepresented a key bit of information from a review paper, and generally failed miserably at advancing the cause of ID.

2) admitted, under oath, that astrology is as scientific as ID,

and

3) was revealed as a poser, again under oath, when his notions about the lack of evidence for the evolution of the immune system were revealed to be based only in his ignorance of the relevant literature.

But hey, if you want to invoke him as an expert, go right ahead. It is just another bit of evidence that you are clueless about how real scientists go about the business of doing and interpreting scientific research.

You know it's funny: �I read a lot of the criticisms of Behe's book, Darwin's Black Box, before I ever read it. �In fact, even though I owned the book, it sat on the shelf for months because I considered it "already discredited". �Then one day I ran out of books to read so I decided to go ahead and read it anyway. �I was shocked to find out that many of the criticisms I'd heard were already addressed in the body of the book! �IOW, the people doing the criticisms either hadn't bothered to read the book all the way through, or they were intentionally ignoring relevant parts of it.

Have you read it?

As for the court stuff. �Since when is science decided in a court of law? �Was it decided in the Scopes trial? �How about the trial of Galileo?

Come on.

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"If we all worked on the assumption that what is accepted as true is really true, there would be little hope of advance." �Orville Wright

"The presence or absence of a creative super-intelligence is unequivocally a scientific question." Richard Dawkins

Albatrossity2

Posts: 2780
Joined: Mar. 2007