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  Topic: A Separate Thread for Gary Gaulin, As big as the poop that does not look< Next Oldest | Next Newest >  
N.Wells



Posts: 1836
Joined: Oct. 2005

(Permalink) Posted: Jan. 23 2016,12:14   

Quote (GaryGaulin @ Jan. 23 2016,11:00)
Quote (N.Wells @ Jan. 22 2016,21:15)
I just answered your challenge by providing examples of evolution proceeding by means of mutation, recombination, genetic drift, and natural selection, rather than needing a "Creator".  Why don't you deal with that before moving the goalposts yet again?

I am not an adherent to the "naturalism" belief, which (whether you know it or not) sneaks philosophy/religion into science by creating a "natural" and "supernatural" dichotomy.

Stop moving the goalposts by expecting scientific theories to include your religious/philosophical beliefs.

You are seriously muddled, as usual.  Try reading (and writing) for comprehension.  I didn't say that you were an adherent to naturalism.

I did say that to any normal speaker of English, specifically excluding you, "behavior of matter" is the essence of any expected naturalistic explanation, albeit too broad a generalization to be useful.

Several of us have noted that you continue to mistake methodological naturalism for metaphysical naturalism, and that to equate the former with a religion is completely mistaken.  It is simply a working assumption borne out by past experience.

Neither methodological naturalism nor metaphysical naturalism are responsible for creating a dichotomy between natural and supernatural.  Imagination and superstition propose the supernatural.  Metaphysical naturalism rejects it out of hand; methodological naturalism largely ignores it.

I have no religious beliefs, but beyond that I am not 'expecting scientific theories to include my philosophy'.  Rather, my philosophy stems from what science has learned about the world, as presented in its theories (in the proper sense of the word theory, which excludes your claptrap).

Unlike you, I am not moving the goalposts - I am very specifically addressing your questions and challenges.

  
GaryGaulin



Posts: 5385
Joined: Oct. 2012

(Permalink) Posted: Jan. 23 2016,12:31   

Quote (N.Wells @ Jan. 23 2016,12:14)
Unlike you, I am not moving the goalposts - I am very specifically addressing your questions and challenges.

Then provide empirical scientific evidence for how SuperNatural Selection works.

If you cannot do that without resorting to religion then you are clearly promoting a religious/philosophical belief.

--------------
The theory of intelligent design holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection.

   
NoName



Posts: 2729
Joined: Mar. 2013

(Permalink) Posted: Jan. 23 2016,12:45   

Quote (GaryGaulin @ Jan. 23 2016,13:31)
Quote (N.Wells @ Jan. 23 2016,12:14)
Unlike you, I am not moving the goalposts - I am very specifically addressing your questions and challenges.

Then provide empirical scientific evidence for how SuperNatural Selection works.

If you cannot do that without resorting to religion then you are clearly promoting a religious/philosophical belief.

You are so so very confused.  How do you even manage velcro?

NO ONE HERE is arguing for 'supernatural selection'.
There's nothing supernatural about evolution, neither the random mutation nor the natural selection.  None of it.
Yet you reject the modern synthesis in favor of what?

If it's not a naturalistic argument and it's not a supernatural argument, what is it?  


Everything you've laid out recently (like on the last page) is simply a poor re-hash of a naturalist theory.  Minus the rigor, the operational definitions, the evidence, the logic, and all the science of course, but insofar as it stakes out a set of claims, they are claims that are banal, trivial, and entirely uncontroversial.

We in the community of methodological naturalists have explanations.  Not all of them, but we've made astounding progress in the last century.

You, in whatever isolated community in which you remain the only member [rather degenerate for a 'community'], reject naturalistic explanations yet have zero explanations of your own, of any sort, to offer.

The only one who is inserting 'religious/philosophical belief' into the discussion is you.  Probably because you don't know what the words mean; that's usually the case with you.

  
N.Wells



Posts: 1836
Joined: Oct. 2005

(Permalink) Posted: Jan. 23 2016,13:05   

Quote (GaryGaulin @ Jan. 23 2016,11:35)
       
Quote (ChemiCat @ Jan. 23 2016,10:42)
I see alligators are still putting sticks on birds' heads, salmon are still guarding nests and gametes are molecules.

Is that better?

       
Quote
Otherwise merciless female alligators will lovingly protect their well-cared-for offspring who scurry into the safety of her mouth when in danger, and are taught how to lure nest building birds into range by putting sticks that birds are searching for on her head.

It's slightly better, but it's still very wrong.  

The babies never put sticks on the mother's head, although that's mostly you being incompetent in your own language.  "Female alligators .... her mouth" is also ungrammatical.

You are still greatly exaggerating parental care in crocs and alligators. Yes, it is greater than what is seen in lizards, snakes, and turtles, but that's a low bar. A cocodilian mother may transport her babies from the nest to water if they are having difficulties (this hasn't been observed in all species), and may protect her young by driving away predators for comparatively lengthy periods (usually at least two months, and occasionally up to a year or more, before turning aggressive and driving her offspring away herself, although there are a few crocodilian species that don't do this at all).  However, the mother does not provide her young with food, nor does she groom them, nor does she lick their wounds, and any transportation subsequent to getting the babies from the nest to the water is largely incidental.

However, this isn't your main point, is it? You want to smuggle in good feelings and the ubiquity of parental care and love and marriage-equivalents, so you are discussing "even" alligators and salmon.  However, besides exaggerating parental care in both groups of organisms, you are making all sorts of anthropomorphic assertions by using words like "merciless" and "lovingly".  Also, it is not yet clear that crocodiles learn the stick trick, as opposed to it being genetically hard-wired as an instinct.  However, the bigger problem is that there are countless examples of other species with even less parental care than crocodilians and salmon, so parental care is a specialized adaptation, not a universal phenomenon.  Look at mayflies or mosquitoes, for example.  

Even worse for you, parental investment strategies have been intensively studied and are well understood in terms of selection pressures and adaptive responses, so you are ignorantly crapping all over a very well understood area of biology that has provided many excellent tests of evolutionary theory.   But you don't know about that, and care even less.

Edited to add: not all crocodilian species have mothers that carry young from the nest to water, and no one has ever been able to demonstrate that crocodilian babies learn anything from their mother (although it wouldn't be too surprising if they did).  You may be able to correct me on this, but I also was not able to find any documentation that baby crocodilians move into their mother's mouth for protection: she does pick them up to carry them from the nest, but subsequent transport is minimal (sometimes one will climb up on the mother and stay there while the mother moves somewhere, but mothers never transport the entire brood other than the initial journey from the nest).  In short, in crocodilians, maternal protection consists primarily of defending the eggs in the nest, digging out the eggs when they are ready to hatch, on occasion helping them hatch, carrying them to the water, and subsequently chasing predators (herons, slightly larger juvenile crocodiles, and the like) away from the pod.  Nonetheless, 99% of the babies get eaten instead of ever reaching adulthood.

  
jeffox



Posts: 671
Joined: Oct. 2007

(Permalink) Posted: Jan. 25 2016,13:19   

Something hooted:  
Quote
Then show me convincing empirical evidence that we were not created by the "behavior of matter" (a.k.a. our "Creator").


I think you need to first show us who/what the creator is.  We'll go from there.  :)  :)  :)  

Jeez, he's the hoot that keeps on hooting!

  
ChemiCat



Posts: 532
Joined: Nov. 2013

(Permalink) Posted: Jan. 26 2016,09:05   

Quote
Otherwise merciless female alligators will lovingly protect their well-cared-for offspring who scurry into the safety of her mouth when in danger, and are taught how to lure nest building birds into range by putting sticks that birds are searching for on her head.


Slightly better but still wrong. Try;

"Female alligators teach their young to put sticks on their heads to attract birds, which are searching for nesting materials, within range of a strike to procure a meal."

Now, is it only female alligators that are merciless or do the males sometimes release a meal on moral grounds?

As pointed out to you alligators make no moral judgement about their prey. Stop the anthropomorphism, a reason why I stopped watching American natural history programmes. That and Oprah Winfrey narrating.

  
The whole truth



Posts: 1554
Joined: Jan. 2012

(Permalink) Posted: Jan. 26 2016,10:20   

gary, are you claiming that the behaviors (whatever they may be) of female alligators are "certain features of the universe" that were/are designed-created by your chosen, so-called god, or that female alligators design-create "certain features of the universe" (their behaviors)?

How about male alligators?

Edited by The whole truth on Jan. 26 2016,08:26

--------------
Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. - Jesus in Matthew 10:34

But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me. -Jesus in Luke 19:27

   
The whole truth



Posts: 1554
Joined: Jan. 2012

(Permalink) Posted: Jan. 26 2016,10:35   

gary, how are extirpations and extinctions explained by your so-called 'ID theory'?

--------------
Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. - Jesus in Matthew 10:34

But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me. -Jesus in Luke 19:27

   
JohnW



Posts: 3217
Joined: Aug. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: Jan. 26 2016,11:46   

Quote (ChemiCat @ Jan. 26 2016,07:05)
Quote
Otherwise merciless female alligators will lovingly protect their well-cared-for offspring who scurry into the safety of her mouth when in danger, and are taught how to lure nest building birds into range by putting sticks that birds are searching for on her head.


Slightly better but still wrong. Try;

"Female alligators teach their young to put sticks on their heads to attract birds, which are searching for nesting materials, within range of a strike to procure a meal."

Now, is it only female alligators that are merciless or do the males sometimes release a meal on moral grounds?

As pointed out to you alligators make no moral judgement about their prey. Stop the anthropomorphism, a reason why I stopped watching American natural history programmes. That and Oprah Winfrey narrating.

If the otherwise merciless female alligators were putting sticks on their heads to attract Oprah Winfrey within striking range, I'd watch that.

--------------
Math is just a language of reality. Its a waste of time to know it. - Robert Byers

There isn't any probability that the letter d is in the word "mathematics"...  The correct answer would be "not even 0" - JoeG

  
Texas Teach



Posts: 2084
Joined: April 2007

(Permalink) Posted: Jan. 26 2016,16:18   

Quote (JohnW @ Jan. 26 2016,11:46)
Quote (ChemiCat @ Jan. 26 2016,07:05)
Quote
Otherwise merciless female alligators will lovingly protect their well-cared-for offspring who scurry into the safety of her mouth when in danger, and are taught how to lure nest building birds into range by putting sticks that birds are searching for on her head.


Slightly better but still wrong. Try;

"Female alligators teach their young to put sticks on their heads to attract birds, which are searching for nesting materials, within range of a strike to procure a meal."

Now, is it only female alligators that are merciless or do the males sometimes release a meal on moral grounds?

As pointed out to you alligators make no moral judgement about their prey. Stop the anthropomorphism, a reason why I stopped watching American natural history programmes. That and Oprah Winfrey narrating.

If the otherwise merciless female alligators were putting sticks on their heads to attract Oprah Winfrey within striking range, I'd watch that.

Maybe even this

--------------
"Creationists think everything Genesis says is true. I don't even think Phil Collins is a good drummer." --J. Carr

"I suspect that the English grammar books where you live are outdated" --G. Gaulin

  
N.Wells



Posts: 1836
Joined: Oct. 2005

(Permalink) Posted: Jan. 26 2016,18:27   

Based on continued research into reports of crocodile behavior, according to the reports I can find, crocodilian young do not "scurry into the safety of their mother's mouth when in danger".  The mothers pick their babies up for the initial trip from the nest to the water, but otherwise they protect their young by charging the threatening predator and snapping at it, and having a mouthful of babies would get in the way of doing that.  Feel free to correct me, so if you have a source for your stuff, please cite it (make sure it is Neill, 1971, or later, because earlier literature on crocodile behavior is notoriously error-prone).  

Otherwise, we've got another case of you inventing stuff wholesale on the basis of your thinking that it sounds good, like giraffe resonating chambers and nerve lags, salmon supposedly defending "nests full of young", and all your other claptrap.

  
GaryGaulin



Posts: 5385
Joined: Oct. 2012

(Permalink) Posted: Jan. 27 2016,01:01   

After a lull at UD in regards to the Methodist I ended up having to explain the digital chromosome banding software and other things. Then right after that it was back to bashing Methodist religious leaders, which summoned my calling as a Methodist science leader. The result was:

http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelli....-596098

--------------
The theory of intelligent design holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection.

   
GaryGaulin



Posts: 5385
Joined: Oct. 2012

(Permalink) Posted: Jan. 27 2016,01:06   

The link above was scrambled by the forum software. I made a TinyURL to get there here:

tinyurl.com/zomcjou

--------------
The theory of intelligent design holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection.

   
ChemiCat



Posts: 532
Joined: Nov. 2013

(Permalink) Posted: Jan. 27 2016,01:58   

Damn it! I put my money on a music video.

  
Woodbine



Posts: 1218
Joined: June 2007

(Permalink) Posted: Jan. 27 2016,11:35   

Quote (GaryGaulin @ Jan. 27 2016,07:01)
Then right after that it was back to bashing Methodist religious leaders, which summoned my calling as a Methodist science leader. The result was:

....they continued ignoring you.

  
N.Wells



Posts: 1836
Joined: Oct. 2005

(Permalink) Posted: Jan. 27 2016,11:52   

Quote (Woodbine @ Jan. 27 2016,11:35)
Quote (GaryGaulin @ Jan. 27 2016,07:01)
Then right after that it was back to bashing Methodist religious leaders, which summoned my calling as a Methodist science leader. The result was:

....they continued ignoring you.

Nonetheless, Gary does manage to score an Own Goal, when he said  
Quote
In all honestly claiming to have a better theory when you really only have an untested hypothesis qualifies as a scam.



Gary, have you found a source for crocodilian babies scurrying into their mothers' mouths yet?

  
NoName



Posts: 2729
Joined: Mar. 2013

(Permalink) Posted: Jan. 27 2016,12:25   

Quote (GaryGaulin @ Jan. 27 2016,02:01)
... which summoned my calling as a Methodist science ...

You?  A science leader?  ROFLMAO
The only person on earth who thinks of you as a 'science leader' is yourself.  You've convinced literally no one else in what, 9+ years?
Your work is so ill-conceived, so illogical, incoherent, badly expressed, and confused, that it barely rises to the level of wrong.  It is, in the purest sense, effluent.

You barely qualify as a science follower.  You do better as a 'Youtube follower', but you don't even excel at that.

Your "theory", which is not a theory at all, contains material that is both original and true.  Tragically for you, where it is original it is not true, where it is true it is not original.

  
ChemiCat



Posts: 532
Joined: Nov. 2013

(Permalink) Posted: Jan. 28 2016,02:54   

Quote
Your "theory", which is not a theory at all, contains material that is both original and true.  Tragically for you, where it is original it is not true, where it is true it is not original.


What are the odds being offered on a music video this time?

  
N.Wells



Posts: 1836
Joined: Oct. 2005

(Permalink) Posted: Jan. 28 2016,06:05   

Quote (ChemiCat @ Jan. 28 2016,02:54)
 
Quote
Your "theory", which is not a theory at all, contains material that is both original and true.  Tragically for you, where it is original it is not true, where it is true it is not original.


What are the odds being offered on a music video this time?

It's like an overdue earthquake: you know it's going to happen, but you don't know exactly when.

Gary, do you have a citation yet to document baby crocodilians scurrying into their mothers' mouths?

  
NoName



Posts: 2729
Joined: Mar. 2013

(Permalink) Posted: Jan. 28 2016,06:49   

Quote (N.Wells @ Jan. 28 2016,07:05)
Quote (ChemiCat @ Jan. 28 2016,02:54)
 
Quote
Your "theory", which is not a theory at all, contains material that is both original and true.  Tragically for you, where it is original it is not true, where it is true it is not original.


What are the odds being offered on a music video this time?

It's like an overdue earthquake: you know it's going to happen, but you don't know exactly when.

Gary, do you have a citation yet to document baby crocodilians scurrying into their mothers' mouths?

Careful -- that's  the kind of talk that leads to 'the diagram'.
Another one of those "you know it's coming, you just don't know exactly when."

I'm still waiting to hear why he thinks *we* need to provide evidence of 'supernatural selection'.  If he rejects both naturalism and supernaturalism, what 'third way' is he working with?

  
GaryGaulin



Posts: 5385
Joined: Oct. 2012

(Permalink) Posted: Jan. 28 2016,23:33   

Quote (N.Wells @ Jan. 28 2016,06:05)
Gary, do you have a citation yet to document baby crocodilians scurrying into their mothers' mouths?

Working on it.

And this:
http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelli....-596237

--------------
The theory of intelligent design holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection.

   
ChemiCat



Posts: 532
Joined: Nov. 2013

(Permalink) Posted: Jan. 29 2016,01:53   

Quote
Working on it.



And they still ignore you. Apart from quoting your "certain features..." bullshit you have nothing to add to the IDiots' arguments, nothing. Your "theory" is nothing more than thinly disguised religion. Your pseudoscience is nothing more than a jumbled collection of assertions. Your "model" is a poor rendition of Pacman. When you are ignored by Uncommonly Dense you know that you have nothing.

Why not get out and study alligator behaviour yourself instead of relying on dubious articles on the internet. At least you will be out in the fresh air and not suffering brain damage cramped up inside or cluttering up the internet.

You have wasted years when you could have been supporting your family properly and getting your health problems sorted out.

  
N.Wells



Posts: 1836
Joined: Oct. 2005

(Permalink) Posted: Jan. 29 2016,06:09   

Oh, no, THE DIAGRAM (new version).  (They get it but we don't? How unfair is that?)

 
Quote
The testable theory must explain how “intelligent cause” works and/or happened. Redefining the theory to be a “scientific method for detecting design” makes it a “scientific method” not a “theory”.


And yet your nonsense doesn't do that.

 
Quote
The most likely candidate for causal forces that have the capacity to arrange matter for a purpose is the consciousness causing “behavior of matter”.
And yet you don't explain that either.

You making assertions does not constitute science.

 
Quote
And in that realm a system that cannot somehow take a guess what to do when confronted with a new situation is not really an example of “intelligence”.

Without further definition, guessing per se is not diagnostic of intelligence.  Making an educated guess and learning from experience gained from the result of guessing would seem to require intelligence, but if we include randomly chosen actions/behaviors/responses as "guessing", that does not in and of itself imply intelligence.  If we include mutations as guesses by a population, where the successful versions survive and propagate, then no intelligence need be involved.  If we find a set of burrowing organisms that typically tries to move over an obstacle and a second set that typically tries to move under an obstacle, we have not yet demonstrated that intelligence is involved in making what appear to be a choice.  

Regarding baby crocodilians scurrying into their mothers' mouths, keep working on it and let us know when you get something.  Nothing yet, though, right?

  
The whole truth



Posts: 1554
Joined: Jan. 2012

(Permalink) Posted: Jan. 29 2016,10:03   

gary, how are extirpations and extinctions explained by your so-called 'ID theory'?

Are you claiming that the behaviors (whatever they may be) of female alligators are "certain features of the universe" that were/are designed-created by your chosen, so-called god, or that female alligators design-create "certain features of the universe" (their behaviors)?

How about male alligators?

You said: "The most likely candidate for causal forces that have the capacity to arrange matter for a purpose is the consciousness causing “behavior of matter”."

As N. Wells pointed out, you don't explain that. What "consciousness" are you talking about and what causes the "consciousness"?

--------------
Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. - Jesus in Matthew 10:34

But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me. -Jesus in Luke 19:27

   
NoName



Posts: 2729
Joined: Mar. 2013

(Permalink) Posted: Jan. 29 2016,13:27   

Quote (GaryGaulin @ Jan. 23 2016,13:31)
Quote (N.Wells @ Jan. 23 2016,12:14)
Unlike you, I am not moving the goalposts - I am very specifically addressing your questions and challenges.

Then provide empirical scientific evidence for how SuperNatural Selection works.

If you cannot do that without resorting to religion then you are clearly promoting a religious/philosophical belief.

Provide empirical scientific evidence for how the behavior of matter requires intelligence rather than providing the material basis from which intelligence emerges.

That's  what your claims boil down to -- matter doesn't act the way it does on its own account, so to speak, it must be instructed to do so, it requires intelligence to make it do so.
But of course if that's true, then your "theory" is missing stage 0, wherein we get the explanation of who or what 'programs' matter with the behavior out of which emerges sufficiently complex assemblages from which intelligence can emerge.  How is it that 'intelligence' both requires a material body and yet 'emerges' from matter only after intelligence creates and "programs" matter such that intelligence can emerge from the behavior of atoms?

Your "theory" as you laid it out in material you quoted a few pages back, starts with 'the behavior of matter' out of which molecular complexes emerge.  That is trivially true and banal -- thanks to many hundreds of years of careful research by scientists who established the fields of chemistry and physics.  No 'intelligence' required by matter per se.
No one (outside of certain groups of wildly religious hysterics) is arguing that matter requires pre-ordained constraints created by intelligence to be what it is, nor that it is somehow possible 'in principle' that  matter could behave differently than it does while still remaining what it is.  Least of all in a context that simultaneously insists that intelligence as such requires a body, a material body, a 'something to control'.
So there's no place in your "theory" for suggesting that intelligence does not emerge naturally from the natural behavior of matter.  Which is to say, no intelligence required for the formation (not creation) of intelligence.

Exactly what are you proposing that is not covered by the above?

And, of course, if you cannot do that without resorting to religion then you are clearly promoting a religious/philosophical belief.  [Do please note that not all philosophical beliefs are religious.]

  
NoName



Posts: 2729
Joined: Mar. 2013

(Permalink) Posted: Jan. 30 2016,12:29   

Okay, let's unpack and evaluate this, shall we?
         
Quote (GaryGaulin @ Jan. 23 2016,11:15)
...
I am still claiming the following:

           
Quote
The theory of intelligent design holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, whereby the behavior of matter powers a coexisting trinity of systematically self-similar (in each other's image, likeness) intelligent systems at the molecular, cellular and multicellular level as follows:

This is mostly self-serving nonsense.
No one objects to the claim that there are features of the universe that are 'best explained by an intelligent cause'.  This includes such features of living things, themselves features of the universe, such as tattoos, ear piercings, singing a song, crafting a new theory, etc.
Uncontroversial but essentially vacuous.  Particularly vacuous given your refusal to specify which features nor how to pick them out from the features of the universe not best explained by intelligent cause.

Do you even admit that there are such features of the universe?  That there are things that are not best explained by intelligent cause?

         
Quote
[1] Molecular Level Intelligence: Behavior of matter causes self-assembly of molecular systems that in time become molecular level intelligence, where biological RNA and DNA memory systems learn over time by replication of their accumulated genetic knowledge through a lineage of successive offspring. This intelligence level controls basic growth and division of our cells, is a primary source of our instinctual behaviors, and causes molecular level social differentiation (i.e. speciation).

And here we see you going completely off the rails, despite the promising start.  I've bolded the portion that is true.  It is also non-controversial.  I've italicized all the portions where you insert unjustified and apparently unjustifiable verbiage, assumed your conclusions, and gone horribly wrong.

Insofar as it is meaningful, the phrase 'molecular level intelligence' can be parsed, and has been parsed by you, as "all intelligence arises from or within molecular systems."  True but noncontroversial.  In that particular parsing, it is a nice statement of the problem space.  How does intelligence emerge from the behavior of matter?

I've underlined the particularly specious bits.
It is incorrect, and question-begging, to assert that DNA/RNA possess 'knowledge' or to assert that they 'learn' in any fashion other than faintly analogous to genuine learning as such.  But in particular, it is false.  Flat-out false.  Unsupported by any evidence and refuted by all the evidence available.  It is, in skilled and knowledgable hands, acceptable as metaphorical or analogical usage.  It is questionable even there, but for the early years of K-12 education, it might be allowed to slip past.

The final bit that's italicized violates Occam's Razor, amongst its many flaws.  It asserts facts not in evidence and superfluous to any explanation.  The basic growth and division of our cells is fully explained by chemistry and physics.  There is no 'intelligence' involved.  There is nothing here that is different in kind from the behavior of matter that self-assembles into molecules and molecular structures or systems.  There is no dividing line.

It is false to claim or imply that at some level of molecular complexity -- but still at the level of individual molecules -- 'intelligence' emerges.  Even were it true, the claim would not be explanatory.  It would be a statement of the problem -- when and how, under what conditions, does 'intelligence' emerge?  How do we know?  Questions you suppress in service of the pretense that you have an explanation.  You don't.

Inserting some fantasized 'intelligence' adds nothing but error.  It is in no way explanatory nor is it correctly descriptive of the facts on the ground.
So much for point 1.  It asserts the non-controversial facts of chemistry.  In all else, it is wrong and pernicious.
         
Quote
[2] Cellular Level Intelligence: Molecular level intelligence is the intelligent cause of cellular level intelligence. This intelligence level controls moment to moment cellular responses such as locomotion/migration and cellular level social differentiation (i.e. neural plasticity). At our conception we were only at the cellular intelligence level. Two molecular intelligence systems (egg and sperm) which are on their own unable to self-replicate combined into a single self-replicating cell, a zygote. The zygote then divided to become a colony of cells, an embryo. Later during fetal development we made it to the multicellular intelligence level which requires a self-learning neural brain to control motor muscle movements1 (also sweat gland motor muscles).

Well, this is all simply nonsense.  Where it is meaningful, it is false.  There is no such thing as 'molecular intelligence' -- except in the trivial, banal, and uncontroversial sense that all intelligence is embodied in molecular structures that are composed of molecular subsystems.  All intelligence is bodily.  Not all bodies are intelligence.
Another perspective on the problem space -- what's the difference, and why the difference between bodies that display intelligence and those that do not?

If we replace that pseudo-concept with what really is going on, 'chemistry and physics', we see that there is nothing here but a further elaboration of the self-assembly of molecular structures into compound structures.  From subsystems to systems.  Rather than describing the problem space or clarifying the issues, this point simply obscures the problem.  It has no explanatory power because it contains nothing but error.  Demonstrably so.
So much for point 2.  There is no there, there.
         
Quote
[3] Multicellular Level Intelligence: Cellular level intelligence is the intelligent cause of multicellular level intelligence. In this case a multicellular body is controlled by an intelligent neural brain expressing all three intelligence levels at once, resulting in our complex and powerful paternal (fatherly), maternal (motherly) and other behaviors. This intelligence level controls our moment to moment multicellular responses, locomotion/migration and multicellular level social differentiation (i.e. occupation). Successful designs remain in the biosphere’s interconnected collective (RNA/DNA) memory to help keep going the billions year old cycle of life, where in our case not all individuals must reproduce for the human lineage to benefit from all in society.

Still more tedious nonsense.  Liberally dosed with errors, both careless and fundamental.

One might be gracious and grant that you are simply bypassing the intermediate stages between multi-cellular life that does not possess neurons and the forms of life that are multi-cellular and posses neurons and ultimately even brains.  But given your generally slip-shod approach, the blatant question-begging and reliance on fantasy and falsehood, one is inclined not to be so generous.  On that interpretation, this fails due to blatant falsehood.  It is simply not the case that all multi-cellular entities possess neurons nor is it correct to assert that all multi-cellular entities that possess neurons also posses brains.

But even on the gracious and generous interpretation, this fails because we have shown that there is nothing meaningful nor useful in the phrase 'cellular intelligence'.  It neither describes a problem space nor offers a solution to a problem.  It is verbal masturbatory gymnastics to allow you to pretend to have "discovered" a layered structure where 'intelligence' arises at some early level that is no more complex than the individual molecule.
All without ever defining 'intelligence' nor fully or precisely qualifying the lines of demarcation between your alleged layers.  You have proposed, but not defended, a layered structure that is only vaguely correct but is entirely used to make perniciously false claims.  Worse, the claims are not supported by the faint ghosts of the pale shadows of evidence that somehow leak through.  Yes, there is the behavior of matter, at the very lowest levels of granularity.  Yes, out of that arise atoms and out of atoms, molecules.  Molecules assemble ['self-assemble' in this context is redundant] and behave according to the laws of chemistry and physics.  Molecules and assemblies of molecules build up systems that themselves are aggregated into more complex structures, they become sub-systems.  Interesting behavior of matter emerges at all these levels.

At various levels of complexity we begin to see processes.  As complexity increases we see the processes take on identity of their own, such that the process proceeds even in the face of changes in the specific atoms or molecules that make up the entity that 'contains' or 'hosts' the process.  At still higher levels of complexity, we eventually see emerging that phenomenon or set of phenomena that we call 'intelligent'.  You have barely comprehended this structure of growing complexity.  You have added nothing to it but confusion and falsehoods.  You have provided no explanations of any sort, nor have you raised the understanding humanity has of the problem space.  

Overall, it is clear you don't really understand the problem space.  You certainly have not expressed the problem clearly nor have you shown any new or useful insights into the problems.  Still less have you proposed any solution nor even a promising research topic or approach that might lead towards a solution.

tl;dr -- you got nothin.

  
N.Wells



Posts: 1836
Joined: Oct. 2005

(Permalink) Posted: Jan. 30 2016,14:54   

Quote
This intelligence level controls ..... causes molecular level social differentiation (i.e. speciation).
 Speaking of fatuous statements that show how muddled Gary is, besides not having documented that intelligence level or showing that it can cause anything, Gary ignores the problems that molecules don't have societies or social differentiation, nothing else in that size range has societies either ("molecular-level" societies), very little social differentiation equates with speciation, and molecular/chemical species have absolutely nothing to do with biological species or speciation or social differentiation.  However, Gary sees the word "species" and explodes into multiple directions of incorrect analogizing.

  
GaryGaulin



Posts: 5385
Joined: Oct. 2012

(Permalink) Posted: Jan. 30 2016,18:17   

Quote (N.Wells @ Jan. 30 2016,14:54)
However, Gary sees the word "species" and explodes into multiple directions of incorrect analogizing.

Yawn.......

I did though find something motherly love exciting at a farm that I recently electronically visited:


www.alligatorfarm.com/

What I currently say about scurrying back into her mouth is true enough, though after their ride to the water they only have to call for mom and she will be right there to (better yet) let them ride on her head or whatever. So you can say that what I now have was a great start, but with help it can be much improved.

Due to it being impossible to ask crocodiles and alligators why they did something the part that (to make room for improvements) should go is why they put sticks on their head. Since that example is not exactly of motherly love it's best to connect together all that happens after their ride from the nest to the water, where after that they normally do not want or need to (though they occasionally do). A mention of dad's sacrifice (seems to mostly his loss of their mom's attention) might also be possible.

More later..

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The theory of intelligent design holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection.

   
N.Wells



Posts: 1836
Joined: Oct. 2005

(Permalink) Posted: Jan. 30 2016,19:24   

Quote (GaryGaulin @ Jan. 30 2016,18:17)
 
Quote (N.Wells @ Jan. 30 2016,14:54)
However, Gary sees the word "species" and explodes into multiple directions of incorrect analogizing.

Yawn.......

I did though find something motherly love exciting at a farm that I recently electronically visited:


www.alligatorfarm.com/

What I currently say about scurrying back into her mouth is true enough, though after their ride to the water they only have to call for mom and she will be right there to (better yet) let them ride on her head or whatever. So you can say that what I now have was a great start, but with help it can be much improved.

Due to it being impossible to ask crocodiles and alligators why they did something the part that (to make room for improvements) should go is why they put sticks on their head. Since that example is not exactly of motherly love it's best to connect together all that happens after their ride from the nest to the water, where after that they normally do not want or need to (though they occasionally do). A mention of dad's sacrifice (seems to mostly his loss of their mom's attention) might also be possible.

More later..


 
Quote
What I currently say about scurrying back into her mouth is true enough
No, it's not.  I don't see anything on that website that supports your claim of young crocodilians scurrying into their mothers' mouths in the face of danger.

The babies do not climb into their mothers' mouths for the trip from the nest to the water - in the species where the mother MAY transport the babies to the water she picks them up, using her jaws.  Infant crocodilians do have a generic call that brings the mother over, and babies may well clamber onto their mother, who may move around with one or more babies on her, but I'm not finding any reports that she ever actively transports the entire pod of young after the trips from nest to water, and never does so to protect them from danger - she charges the threat and attacks it.

So, yes, if you consider that making up BS is a great start, as you usually do, then by your definition alone, you have made a great start.  However, by more standard definitions, not so much.

 
Quote
Due to it being impossible to ask crocodiles and alligators why they did something the part that (to make room for improvements) should go is why they put sticks on their head.
 Obviously, one cannot ask a crocodile about its reasons.  However, it is not difficult to determine whether a behavior is learned or instinctive - for example, take a baby reared in isolation, and if it performs the behavior, then the behavior was not learned.  This is scientific child's-play, Gary.

However, yes, that should go.  If you really want to improve things, though, also delete everything preceding that section, and then everything following it.

 
Quote
Since that example is not exactly of motherly love it's best to connect together all that happens after their ride from the nest to the water, where after that they normally do not want or need to (though they occasionally do).
You lost me completely on that one.  Perhaps try it again in English?

 
Quote
A mention of dad's sacrifice (seems to mostly his loss of their mom's attention) might also be possible.
You are just determined to smuggle in rubbish that makes you feel good, aren't you.  The father crocodile's primary interaction with his offspring after the initial delivery of sperm consists primarily of occasionally eating young who happen to come too close, which is why the mothers tend to chase off the fathers once the young are around.  Unless in your version of the story Abraham was planning on eating Isaac after slitting his throat, you might want to avoid referring to "sacrifices" by crocodilian fathers.

  
GaryGaulin



Posts: 5385
Joined: Oct. 2012

(Permalink) Posted: Jan. 30 2016,19:32   

Quote (The whole truth @ Jan. 29 2016,10:03)
gary, how are extirpations and extinctions explained by your so-called 'ID theory'?

Are you claiming that the behaviors (whatever they may be) of female alligators are "certain features of the universe" that were/are designed-created by your chosen, so-called god, or that female alligators design-create "certain features of the universe" (their behaviors)?

How about male alligators?

You said: "The most likely candidate for causal forces that have the capacity to arrange matter for a purpose is the consciousness causing “behavior of matter”."

As N. Wells pointed out, you don't explain that. What "consciousness" are you talking about and what causes the "consciousness"?

The scientific fields that study extinctions are in in the area of paleontology and geology, where extinction events are used to pinpoint a specific geological time where all around the planet new species suddenly appear in the strata above that geological layer.

I am only obliged to explain how to from the behavior of matter on up model the "intelligent cause" that would likewise experience crashes followed by relatively fast recovery (by new biological designs) after an equal magnitude environmental catastrophe happening in the model's virtual world.

The way the model has to go from one emergent intelligence level to the next likewise makes consciousness emergent from the "behavior of matter". That alone does not explain how consciousness works, but it's a valuable clue as to where to start in search for more answers.

For modeling purposes it is not necessary for intelligence to be consciously aware of its internal signals such as those for shock and pain. The virtual critters will still respond as though they were conscious.

And in regards to other things you might like the rant I just posted at UD that someone named Donald took note of:
http://www.uncommondescent.com/evoluti....-596364

I'm working on a response back,

--------------
The theory of intelligent design holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection.

   
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