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  Topic: Uncommonly Dense Thread 4, Fostering a Greater Understanding of IDC< Next Oldest | Next Newest >  
Occam's Aftershave



Posts: 5287
Joined: Feb. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: Dec. 18 2013,14:44   

Quote (REC @ Dec. 18 2013,14:20)
Wow, I mis-entered a search for UD, and ran across this blast from the past. I'd forgotten.

http://www.uncommondescent.com/darwina....ium.swf

LOL!  Dr Dr Dr is sure a piece of work, ain't he?

I hope it gnaws at his soul that "Pandamonium" and his "Farting Judge Jones" animation are the only things he ever produced that the scientific community will remember him by.

--------------
"CO2 can't re-emit any trapped heat unless all the molecules point the right way"
"All the evidence supports Creation baraminology"
"If it required a mind, planning and design, it isn't materialistic."
"Jews and Christians are Muslims."

- Joke "Sharon" Gallien, world's dumbest YEC.

  
Bob O'H



Posts: 2564
Joined: Oct. 2005

(Permalink) Posted: Dec. 18 2013,15:05   

Sal shows off his intellectual capacity. Short version: if there are lots of things that could happen, we can be sure that any one of them won't happen. But if a lot of things could happen in a complex system, we often find that some aspects of the system is still quite predictable. One set of techniques to analyse this is based on entropy methods.

So I guess information theory is useful. :-)

--------------
It is fun to dip into the various threads to watch cluelessness at work in the hands of the confident exponent. - Soapy Sam (so say we all)

   
Bob O'H



Posts: 2564
Joined: Oct. 2005

(Permalink) Posted: Dec. 18 2013,15:18   

Quote (REC @ Dec. 18 2013,14:38)
ETA: double post, but while I'm here----

Sal's again:  
Quote
When a process like a biotic soup maximizes uncertainty about possible polymer sequences that can evolve, it gives us near certainty life will not evolve by chance.


Maximizes uncertainty? Strong claim.....

There was a paper in Interface earlier this year that used entropy to show that if pre-biotic soup isn't stirred enough it'll start to create something lifelike (i.e. something that is at least approximately homeostatic).

--------------
It is fun to dip into the various threads to watch cluelessness at work in the hands of the confident exponent. - Soapy Sam (so say we all)

   
Driver



Posts: 649
Joined: June 2011

(Permalink) Posted: Dec. 18 2013,22:09   

KF:

Quote
Last, in a design context, we tend to add a wrinkle, that we measure info that is functionally specific, i.e. gibberish that does not work is not the kind of “info” we are interested in.


The corpus of Uncommon Descent must have very low FSCI.

--------------
Why would I concern myself with evidence, when IMO "evidence" is only the mind arranging thought and matter to support what one already wishes to believe? - William J Murray

[A]t this time a forum like this one is nothing less than a national security risk. - Gary Gaulin

  
REC



Posts: 638
Joined: Sep. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: Dec. 18 2013,22:33   

Lizzie's post: "But chance itself explains nothing. It is the exact reverse: Chance is what we call the part of our data we can’t explain."

Barry's Gotcha:
Quote
Don’t take my word for it. Here is a paper called What is a P-value? by Ronald A. Thisted, PhD....


In which the phrase "chance explanation" is used.

Kinda an odd source. Was this paper pulled from Barry's deep research library? A class on stats he took?

Nope: http://bit.ly/18zU3kF....18zU3kF

The very first google entry for the gotcha phrase "chance explanation" and statistics.

The second Barry cites:

Quote
Want more? Here’s a paper from Penn State on the Chi-square test. An excerpt:


And again, we have a winner: first hit off google for 'Chi-square + chance.'

http://bit.ly/1begGGe....1begGGe

Neither paper helps Barry's argument that chance is a mechanism in the least, but he's able to create an apparent contradiction with Lizzie's statement with google-fu.

  
Occam's Aftershave



Posts: 5287
Joined: Feb. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: Dec. 18 2013,23:52   

More LULZ!

Bully the 500 lb. IDiot in the room deliberately misrepresents Lizzie's argument.

The UD regulars chime in with their usual inanities.

Sal "the human shit stain" Cordova drops to his knees, sucks Bully's tiny boner, expounds about the valuable lessons in lying and equivocating he learned from Dr. Dr. Dr.

Just another day at the IDiot farm.

--------------
"CO2 can't re-emit any trapped heat unless all the molecules point the right way"
"All the evidence supports Creation baraminology"
"If it required a mind, planning and design, it isn't materialistic."
"Jews and Christians are Muslims."

- Joke "Sharon" Gallien, world's dumbest YEC.

  
Quack



Posts: 1961
Joined: May 2007

(Permalink) Posted: Dec. 19 2013,01:44   

Quote
Sal "the human shit stain" Cordova drops to his knees, sucks Bully's tiny boner, expounds about the valuable lessons in lying and equivocating he learned from Dr. Dr. Dr.

Shit is honest dirt. I'd find "the stained shit" more appropriate.

--------------
Rocks have no biology.
              Robert Byers.

  
Soapy Sam



Posts: 659
Joined: Jan. 2012

(Permalink) Posted: Dec. 19 2013,03:00   

Quote (REC @ Dec. 19 2013,04:33)
Lizzie's post: "But chance itself explains nothing. It is the exact reverse: Chance is what we call the part of our data we can’t explain."

Barry's Gotcha:    
Quote
Don’t take my word for it. Here is a paper called What is a P-value? by Ronald A. Thisted, PhD....


In which the phrase "chance explanation" is used.

Kinda an odd source. Was this paper pulled from Barry's deep research library? A class on stats he took?

Nope: http://bit.ly/18zU3kF....18zU3kF

The very first google entry for the gotcha phrase "chance explanation" and statistics.

The second Barry cites:

   
Quote
Want more? Here’s a paper from Penn State on the Chi-square test. An excerpt:


And again, we have a winner: first hit off google for 'Chi-square + chance.'

http://bit.ly/1begGGe....1begGGe

Neither paper helps Barry's argument that chance is a mechanism in the least, but he's able to create an apparent contradiction with Lizzie's statement with google-fu.

Super! A Lawyer Writes about the meaning(s) of 'random', 'chance', and 'random chance'! I'll pull up a chair.

--------------
SoapySam is a pathetic asswiper. Joe G

BTW, when you make little jabs like “I thought basic logic was one thing UDers could handle,” you come off looking especially silly when you turn out to be wrong. - Barry Arrington

  
Amadan



Posts: 1337
Joined: Jan. 2007

(Permalink) Posted: Dec. 19 2013,09:31   

Quote (Richardthughes @ Dec. 18 2013,02:26)
 
Quote (Soapy Sam @ Dec. 17 2013,18:53)
 
Quote (REC @ Dec. 17 2013,23:32)
Barry, operating as always, without evidence or decency:

     
Quote
I know nothing about Karl Pierson, the Arapahoe High School shooter.....

That said, I am going to go out on a limb and make a prediction.  I predict that if he did leave behind writings, those writings will indicate that he was a committed Darwinist.  I will predict further that in those writings he will muse about the ethical implications of atheistic materialism and/or Darwinism.

What a slimeball.

Apparently he had the Latin phrase "Alea iacta est" written on his arm. That bastard Darwin got to the Romans too..

Golly!



--------------
"People are always looking for natural selection to generate random mutations" - Densye  4-4-2011
JoeG BTW dumbass- some variations help ensure reproductive fitness so they cannot be random wrt it.

   
Richardthughes



Posts: 11178
Joined: Jan. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: Dec. 19 2013,10:44   

It would appear poker player Barry has had his bluff called by Reciprocating Bill:

Quote
22
Reciprocating BillDecember 19, 2013 at 9:39 am
BA:

RB, your assertions in 15 are wrong in every particular.

I eagerly await your rebuttal of each of those particulars.


can we see your cards, Barry?

Prediction: No.
You'll stop playing rather than be caught bluffing.

--------------
"Richardthughes, you magnificent bastard, I stand in awe of you..." : Arden Chatfield
"You magnificent bastard! " : Louis
"ATBC poster child", "I have to agree with Rich.." : DaveTard
"I bow to your superior skills" : deadman_932
"...it was Richardthughes making me lie in bed.." : Kristine

  
Richardthughes



Posts: 11178
Joined: Jan. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: Dec. 19 2013,11:04   

Quote (Richardthughes @ Dec. 19 2013,10:44)
It would appear poker player Barry has had his bluff called by Reciprocating Bill:

Quote
22
Reciprocating BillDecember 19, 2013 at 9:39 am
BA:

RB, your assertions in 15 are wrong in every particular.

I eagerly await your rebuttal of each of those particulars.


can we see your cards, Barry?

Prediction: No.
You'll stop playing rather than be caught bluffing.

Prediction Fulfilled!

Quote
In the words of the man in black, “get used to disappointment.” Your assertions in 15 are so egregiously off base that they indicate one of two things: (1) someone who is invincibly stupid and incapable of understanding the issues; or (2) someone being intentionally dishonest and attempting to obscure the issue. Either way, it is pointless to engage with you. BTW, charity compels me to assume (1) is true.

For the readers, I am not going to rise to RB’s bait. If anyone has a good faith question about the nonsense he spewed in 15, post it and I will answer it, or, better yet, go read the paper for yourself.


LOL@Barry. It's wholly unreasonable for Bill to expect you to argue your case. Bluffer Barry, I hope you're better at poker. You're embarrassing yourself, and it's quite enjoyable.

--------------
"Richardthughes, you magnificent bastard, I stand in awe of you..." : Arden Chatfield
"You magnificent bastard! " : Louis
"ATBC poster child", "I have to agree with Rich.." : DaveTard
"I bow to your superior skills" : deadman_932
"...it was Richardthughes making me lie in bed.." : Kristine

  
socle



Posts: 322
Joined: July 2009

(Permalink) Posted: Dec. 19 2013,11:18   

Quote (Richardthughes @ Dec. 19 2013,10:44)
It would appear poker player Barry has had his bluff called by Reciprocating Bill:


   
Quote
In the words of the man in black, “get used to disappointment.” Your assertions in 15 are so egregiously off base that they indicate one of two things: (1) someone who is invincibly stupid and incapable of understanding the issues; or (2) someone being intentionally dishonest and attempting to obscure the issue. Either way, it is pointless to engage with you. BTW, charity compels me to assume (1) is true.

For the readers, I am not going to rise to RB’s bait. If anyone has a good faith question about the nonsense he spewed in 15, post it and I will answer it, or, better yet, go read the paper for yourself.


LOL@Barry. It's wholly unreasonable for Bill to expect you to argue your case. Bluffer Barry, I hope you're better at poker. You're embarrassing yourself, and it's quite enjoyable.

Such a fine example of Christian charity!

  
Learned Hand



Posts: 214
Joined: Oct. 2009

(Permalink) Posted: Dec. 19 2013,12:21   

Quote (Soapy Sam @ Dec. 19 2013,03:00)
Super! A Lawyer Writes about the meaning(s) of 'random', 'chance', and 'random chance'! I'll pull up a chair.


My old firm once tried a case involving a securitization of some exotic assets. (All the facts here are only alleged, the case is still pending.) One of the contested facts was whether a report about the securitization, which referred to a "Monte Carlo model," was referring to a particular model we had found in the defendants' files. The defense team said it couldn't be referring to that model, since Monte Carlo models are random and the one we found was deterministic.

Every time you hit the "simulate" button on that model, it would run thousands of scenarios and report their results. But it would run the same scenarios each time, reporting the same results, unless you changed an assumption. The fact that the scenarios were functionally randomized didn't matter, the defense argued, the fact that they don't change each time means they're deterministic and therefore not random and therefore this can't be the Monte Carlo model the report referred to.

We wound up putting on an expert witness to testify as to the theoretical nature of randomness and its application in financial modeling. She explained, patiently, that you don't want a model to return different numbers every time you run it, since you use those models to test assumptions. If the results change every time you run it, you can't tell whether those changes are down to randomness or the new assumptions. So you run one set of randomized scenarios, but you use the same seed every time so the results don't change until you start changing assumptions.

Doesn't matter, the defense said. Unless the results change every single time, it's not random. Their position was unworkable in the real world and a little silly, but it was necessary to support their case so they (appropriately, in that context) defended it with gusto.

What was interesting to me is how much trouble everyone involved in the case (other than the experts) had understanding what "random" really meant. That the results change? That they're unpredictable? That it's the result of some operation on an uncorrelated seed?

And of course, the lawyers weren't interested in the theory. We were interested in whether the experts' approach helped our case or not.

When Barry Arrington discourses about non-legal matters, he's not doing a careful analysis and looking for answers. He's finding arguments that support his case and pounding the table to support them. Consequently, he's unable or unwilling to answer detailed analyses like RB's or Dr. Liddle's. Discussion isn't the point, winning the case is the point.

Of course, in a court of law there's a structure in place to corral combative litigants and direct their adversarial energy towards an objective result. When you give that power to one of the advocates, the process predictably goes off the rails.

  
BillB



Posts: 388
Joined: Aug. 2009

(Permalink) Posted: Dec. 19 2013,13:11   

Quote (Learned Hand @ Dec. 19 2013,18:21)
Quote (Soapy Sam @ Dec. 19 2013,03:00)
Super! A Lawyer Writes about the meaning(s) of 'random', 'chance', and 'random chance'! I'll pull up a chair.


My old firm once tried a case involving a securitization of some exotic assets. (All the facts here are only alleged, the case is still pending.) One of the contested facts was whether a report about the securitization, which referred to a "Monte Carlo model," was referring to a particular model we had found in the defendants' files. The defense team said it couldn't be referring to that model, since Monte Carlo models are random and the one we found was deterministic.

Every time you hit the "simulate" button on that model, it would run thousands of scenarios and report their results. But it would run the same scenarios each time, reporting the same results, unless you changed an assumption. The fact that the scenarios were functionally randomized didn't matter, the defense argued, the fact that they don't change each time means they're deterministic and therefore not random and therefore this can't be the Monte Carlo model the report referred to.

We wound up putting on an expert witness to testify as to the theoretical nature of randomness and its application in financial modeling. She explained, patiently, that you don't want a model to return different numbers every time you run it, since you use those models to test assumptions. If the results change every time you run it, you can't tell whether those changes are down to randomness or the new assumptions. So you run one set of randomized scenarios, but you use the same seed every time so the results don't change until you start changing assumptions.

Doesn't matter, the defense said. Unless the results change every single time, it's not random. Their position was unworkable in the real world and a little silly, but it was necessary to support their case so they (appropriately, in that context) defended it with gusto.

What was interesting to me is how much trouble everyone involved in the case (other than the experts) had understanding what "random" really meant. That the results change? That they're unpredictable? That it's the result of some operation on an uncorrelated seed?

And of course, the lawyers weren't interested in the theory. We were interested in whether the experts' approach helped our case or not.

When Barry Arrington discourses about non-legal matters, he's not doing a careful analysis and looking for answers. He's finding arguments that support his case and pounding the table to support them. Consequently, he's unable or unwilling to answer detailed analyses like RB's or Dr. Liddle's. Discussion isn't the point, winning the case is the point.

Of course, in a court of law there's a structure in place to corral combative litigants and direct their adversarial energy towards an objective result. When you give that power to one of the advocates, the process predictably goes off the rails.

Informative and insightful post of the week?

  
REC



Posts: 638
Joined: Sep. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: Dec. 19 2013,17:14   

If Barry is going to excerpt one of Lizzie's lines, google "chance explanation" and fight like that--post long explanatory comments for those that READ and THINK....but post zingers for the amen chorus.

Some opposition research:

Kemper, Kemper and Luskin:
"....chance is not an explanation. It is the absence of an explanation."
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013.......41.html

William J Murray:
"Well, it’s also “possible” for random chance to produce the features in question, but “it’s possible” is not an explanation."
http://theskepticalzone.com/wp....n....nt-9146

Edited by REC on Dec. 19 2013,18:31

  
Occam's Aftershave



Posts: 5287
Joined: Feb. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: Dec. 19 2013,17:46   

LOL!  That's a great find.  Someone needs to post Luskin's comments at UD.

IDiot vs. IDiot! :D

   
Quote
Bully the 500lb. IDiot: "Not only is Dr. Liddle’s statement ("Chance is not an explanation") false, it is the exact opposite of the truth.

Quote
Attack Gerbil and friends:  "chance is not an explanation. It is the absence of an explanation."


--------------
"CO2 can't re-emit any trapped heat unless all the molecules point the right way"
"All the evidence supports Creation baraminology"
"If it required a mind, planning and design, it isn't materialistic."
"Jews and Christians are Muslims."

- Joke "Sharon" Gallien, world's dumbest YEC.

  
Richardthughes



Posts: 11178
Joined: Jan. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: Dec. 19 2013,20:16   

Barry is in full sermon at UD. Golf clap for lord of the flies.

--------------
"Richardthughes, you magnificent bastard, I stand in awe of you..." : Arden Chatfield
"You magnificent bastard! " : Louis
"ATBC poster child", "I have to agree with Rich.." : DaveTard
"I bow to your superior skills" : deadman_932
"...it was Richardthughes making me lie in bed.." : Kristine

  
Occam's Aftershave



Posts: 5287
Joined: Feb. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: Dec. 19 2013,20:36   

Quote (Richardthughes @ Dec. 19 2013,20:16)
Barry is in full sermon at UD. Golf clap for lord of the flies.

If fawning toady Shitstain Sal sucks up to Bully any harder he's going to turn himself inside out.

--------------
"CO2 can't re-emit any trapped heat unless all the molecules point the right way"
"All the evidence supports Creation baraminology"
"If it required a mind, planning and design, it isn't materialistic."
"Jews and Christians are Muslims."

- Joke "Sharon" Gallien, world's dumbest YEC.

  
dhogaza



Posts: 525
Joined: Feb. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: Dec. 19 2013,23:22   

Learned Hand doesn't actually understand how Monte Carlo models work …

"She explained, patiently, that you don't want a model to return different numbers every time you run it, since you use those models to test assumptions. If the results change every time you run it, you can't tell whether those changes are down to randomness or the new assumptions. So you run one set of randomized scenarios, but you use the same seed every time so the results don't change until you start changing assumptions."

Tell that to Johnny Von Neuman, who developed Monte Carlo techniques.

Or modern climate modelers, or those who model new airplane designs.

  
Driver



Posts: 649
Joined: June 2011

(Permalink) Posted: Dec. 19 2013,23:42   

Barry and Sal have declared victory over Nick Matzke, Mark Frank, and Lizzie.

Now, just to get to the part where they publish a paper that shows that the theory of evolution is wrong because reasons.
The demise of Darwinism is imminent.

--------------
Why would I concern myself with evidence, when IMO "evidence" is only the mind arranging thought and matter to support what one already wishes to believe? - William J Murray

[A]t this time a forum like this one is nothing less than a national security risk. - Gary Gaulin

  
Occam's Aftershave



Posts: 5287
Joined: Feb. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: Dec. 19 2013,23:57   

Quote (Driver @ Dec. 19 2013,23:42)
Barry and Sal have declared victory over Nick Matzke, Mark Frank, and Lizzie.

Now, just to get to the part where they publish a paper that shows that the theory of evolution is wrong because reasons.
The demise of Darwinism is imminent.

Shitstain Sal has made at least half a dozen posts in the last two days bragging about how he "destroyed" Dr. Matzke.   :D  :D  :D



You're DA MAN Sal!

--------------
"CO2 can't re-emit any trapped heat unless all the molecules point the right way"
"All the evidence supports Creation baraminology"
"If it required a mind, planning and design, it isn't materialistic."
"Jews and Christians are Muslims."

- Joke "Sharon" Gallien, world's dumbest YEC.

  
keiths



Posts: 2195
Joined: Jan. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: Dec. 19 2013,23:59   

Quote (dhogaza @ Dec. 19 2013,21:22)
Learned Hand doesn't actually understand how Monte Carlo models work …

"She explained, patiently, that you don't want a model to return different numbers every time you run it, since you use those models to test assumptions. If the results change every time you run it, you can't tell whether those changes are down to randomness or the new assumptions. So you run one set of randomized scenarios, but you use the same seed every time so the results don't change until you start changing assumptions."

Tell that to Johnny Von Neuman, who developed Monte Carlo techniques.

Or modern climate modelers, or those who model new airplane designs.

LH's expert witness is correct.  

Some models are sensitive to the choice of random seed, and users of those models often choose the same seed in subsequent runs, just as the witness stated.  They do this to determine whether differing behavior is due to changes in the model vs. changes in the seed.

The financial models she mentions are one example. Another comes from my own field of computer engineering,  in which we use constrained random stimulus to test our (simulated) designs.  When a bug is detected and fixed, standard practice is to rerun the simulation using the same seed.  If the simulation passes with no errors, our confidence in the correctness of the fix is bolstered.

--------------
And the set of natural numbers is also the set that starts at 0 and goes to the largest number. -- Joe G

Please stop putting words into my mouth that don't belong there and thoughts into my mind that don't belong there. -- KF

  
Learned Hand



Posts: 214
Joined: Oct. 2009

(Permalink) Posted: Dec. 20 2013,00:47   

I'm glad to hear it, keiths. But dhogaza isn't wrong about whether I understand Monte Carlo models. I don't, in comparison to someone who's trained to use them or has studied the theory.

But what difference does that make? You don't hire a lawyer to pontificate on the nature of randomness or Monte Carloness. You hire a lawyer to protect your interests. We're trained and incentivized to defend a preordained conclusion: the client is (almost) always right. Understanding the facts is for the experts. The lawyer's job is to use experts to defend the preordained conclusion and attack whoever is challenging it. I'm smart and well-trained and an experienced litigator. I can learn enough about just about anything to make a damn good case for or against it, I can do it quickly, and I can make it persuasive. That's what law school and law practice teaches you to do.

It doesn't train you to run a deliberative process or understand technical details. The only way adversarial advocacy gets to accurate factfinding is if it takes place in a system designed to harness those energies. That's why our courts work despite being adversarial--the rules are designed to extract some objective truth from each side's push. (At least, as much as possible.) Without that kind of structure, the adversarial style of litigation is a terrible way to try to have a conversation.

Dr. Liddle's blog is a good example of a private institution with the same effect. By being gracious and accommodating, she's letting people hash out complex and heated discussions. She's not putting her thumb on the scales because she's more interested in the discussion than in achieving a particular result.

What we're seeing at UD is what happens when people who want to have a conversation run up against someone who wants to win a conversation. One side keeps asking, "But why don't you respond to these arguments? What's wrong about this, and how do you think that works?" The other side arms itself with a few useful quotations it can fire like bullets, without regard for context or substance. When the clip is empty, they declare absolute victory--after all, didn't you hear all those gunshots? We smoked 'em!

But how often in the real world does someone end a conversation by saying, "We totally destroyed you! You had no comeback and you are so wrong and stupid and evil!" Does that sound like someone who's just had a thoughtful and deliberative discussion? It's not. It's the sound of someone trying to "make a record," as lawyers say. If it's down in black and white, it feels true. Especially if you silence anyone who might disagree.

  
Richardthughes



Posts: 11178
Joined: Jan. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: Dec. 20 2013,01:16   

I find their respective moderation policies to be the big giveaway.

--------------
"Richardthughes, you magnificent bastard, I stand in awe of you..." : Arden Chatfield
"You magnificent bastard! " : Louis
"ATBC poster child", "I have to agree with Rich.." : DaveTard
"I bow to your superior skills" : deadman_932
"...it was Richardthughes making me lie in bed.." : Kristine

  
Driver



Posts: 649
Joined: June 2011

(Permalink) Posted: Dec. 20 2013,02:53   

Quote (Richardthughes @ Dec. 20 2013,07:16)
I find their respective moderation policies to be the big giveaway.

I find their posts to be a big giveaway.

--------------
Why would I concern myself with evidence, when IMO "evidence" is only the mind arranging thought and matter to support what one already wishes to believe? - William J Murray

[A]t this time a forum like this one is nothing less than a national security risk. - Gary Gaulin

  
socle



Posts: 322
Joined: July 2009

(Permalink) Posted: Dec. 20 2013,10:53   

I like this statement that KN posted a few days ago at TSZ:
Quote
And once again, Arrington and his band of Merry Men demonstrate that the "science" of intelligent design relies on simplistic answers to poorly-formulated questions.

IDers like to keep their arguments sloppy and their definitions nebulous*.  They thrive in the absence of rigor.  That's their niche.

*This might be a paraphrase of something I've read, but I can't find it at the moment.

  
Alan Fox



Posts: 1556
Joined: Aug. 2005

(Permalink) Posted: Dec. 20 2013,15:44   

Louis Savain:

       
Quote
It’s a pity that Professor Shapiro passed away. He was only 76. What a courageous man. It’s a sure bet the atheist/materialist religious community is not enamored with Dr. Shapiro’s work on OOL. He developed a passion for rubbing their collective nose in their own feces. LOL. I love it.


Oh how they love to rewrite history, those IDiots! Professor Shapiro was a lovely, gentle guy, totally bemused by the venom some ID critics unleashed over his lukewarm book review of "Darwin's Black Box". Somewhere in these annals can be found his views on creationism (he was certainly not a creationist sympathiser in 2005 at least) and a declared agnostic as I recall.link

In fact, looking at this video of Professor Shapiro in 2008, I don't think the Guy in the UD video is that Robert Shapiro.

First contact

ETA On watching the video, it is indeed Professor Robert Shapiro. The glasses fooled me!

  
REC



Posts: 638
Joined: Sep. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: Dec. 20 2013,16:47   

Quote (Alan Fox @ Dec. 20 2013,15:44)
Louis Savain:

       
Quote
It’s a pity that Professor Shapiro passed away. He was only 76. What a courageous man. It’s a sure bet the atheist/materialist religious community is not enamored with Dr. Shapiro’s work on OOL. He developed a passion for rubbing their collective nose in their own feces. LOL. I love it.


Oh how they love to rewrite history, those IDiots! Professor Shapiro was a lovely, gentle guy, totally bemused by the venom some ID critics unleashed over his lukewarm book review of "Darwin's Black Box". Somewhere in these annals can be found his views on creationism (he was certainly not a creationist sympathiser in 2005 at least) and a declared agnostic as I recall.link

In fact, looking at this video of Professor Shapiro in 2008, I don't think the Guy in the UD video is that Robert Shapiro.

First contact

Well, it certainly isn't that Robert Shapiro if the video is: "From 2012....What events in the past year might shed light on that question?"" as news states. Journalism! Facts!?!

Hell, does anyone actually invite Dembski to debates any more? I'd guess 2003 on the video.

I, for one, am somewhat "enamored with Dr. Shapiro’s work on OOL." A boundary+metabolism+small-molecule inheritance preceding the RNA world is an interesting idea. Blows away ID 'big big number' OOL games of guessing at a minimal genome or complex structured RNAs.  Small (3-5) peptides are catalysts. And the roles of ribonucleotides as energy stores, and RNAs as peptidlytransferases in all life is interesting.

From his 2007 article (worth a read):
"Once independent units were established, they could evolve in different ways and compete with one another for raw materials; we would have made the transition from life that emerges from nonliving matter through the action of an available energy source to life that adapts to its environment by Darwinian evolution"

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article....or-life

Edited by REC on Dec. 20 2013,16:50

  
Learned Hand



Posts: 214
Joined: Oct. 2009

(Permalink) Posted: Dec. 21 2013,12:05   

I saw a legal issue on UD, which perked my interest. I saw that it’s a lengthy quote presented by Barry Arrington, which made me think it was probably being misrepresented. I was right.

BA titled his piece, “United States Supreme Court Holds that Life is Based on Information”. But the quote he plops down isn’t a holding, it’s dicta.  The difference may seem slight, but in a legal context it’s sort of a big deal. Holdings are pronouncements by the court that are necessary to the ultimate ruling, and are binding on lower courts. Dicta are pretty much anything else.

Here, Thomas is just setting out the Court’s understanding of the background facts. It’s not a ruling. Elsewhere in the same excerpt, the Thomas wrote that Watson and Crick “first described [the helix] in 1953.” That’s not a ruling either. It’s all just dicta.

The difference is significant because a “holding” would be binding on lower courts going forward. Dicta can be persuasive, since lawyers think every eructation of the Court is significant, but they’re hardly binding. And no one called upon to actually determine whether DNA carries “information” in a meaningful context would consider the use of the word in this opinion binding or persuasive.

This, of course, sets aside a more fundamental problem with the article, which is that the Court is not thinking of “information” in any way that would be particularly useful to ID creationists. I doubt Thomas considered the broader implications of the word “information.” The same excerpt refers to the “sugar-phosphate backbone” of the helix, after all, and the Court hasn’t “ruled” that DNA has a spine. “Information” as used in the opinion refers to nothing more than the arrangement of nucleotides, whether in the molecule itself or as abstracted by humans. (At least as far as I’ve seen, I haven’t scrutinized the opinion.)

Another misleading use of quoted material.

  
Seversky



Posts: 442
Joined: June 2010

(Permalink) Posted: Dec. 22 2013,07:14   

Quote (Learned Hand @ Dec. 21 2013,12:05)
Another misleading use of quoted material.

I am shocked, shocked to find misrepresentation going on at UD.

The question is, are we entitled to assume that BA, as a lawyer, understands the difference between dicta and holdings?  If he does, but has failed to make it clear, then it suggests a deliberate attempt to mislead and is reprehensible.  If he doesn't then it raises questions about his competence.

  
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