Cubist
Posts: 558
Joined: Oct. 2007
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| Quote (bjray @ April 16 2010,00:57) | | Quote (Cubist @ Mar. 18 2010,19:35) | | Quote (bjray @ Mar. 16 2010,13:58) | | I thought I'd make a quick post this afternoon just as a way of letting those who care to know that I have read all of the posts up until now and will work to respond in a timely fashion. However, you must realize that to my (somewhat) surprise, my inbox was filled with about 25 alerts from this forum regarding your replies. So, I have my work cut out for me. |
Emphasis added, and timestamp noted without comment... |
Hello my fellow acquaintances. My has it been a while. I could continue to give my rationale for it, but it's of no consequence. |
Thanks for coming back, bjray. In truth, I didn't expect you to show up again, and I definitely didn't expect that you'd even attempt to address any of the points that had been raised in the many responses to your posts here; these expectations of mine have nothing to do with you, personally, but with my past online encounters with other Creationists. It's altogether too damned common for Creationists to come on strong with an opening salvo of unsupported anti-evolution assertions, and then, after receiving the customary volley of "oh, yeah? how 'bout you support your assertions?" and "actually, your statement that [insert Creationist statement here] is flatly wrong -- see [insert scientific paper here] for details" responses, to either ( a ) softly and suddenly vanish away, or else ( b ) continue the 'conversation' with however-many responses that never actually get around to addressing the points that the non-Creationists raised. It is not at all rare that Creationists who go the latter, evasive, route, make noise about how they "don't have time" to formulate a proper response to their critics... which tends to invoke, in me at least, the incredulous reaction, Hey, jackass, you had plenty of time to post that 2,000-word lump of Creationist propaganda in the first place, so where do you get off whining about how you're too busy now to actually, like, support your assertions with evidence and valid reasoning and like that? Apparently, Creationists expect their assertions to be accepted on first contact, and they can't quite figure out what to do when they fail to receive the instant acceptance they expect... or maybe they just figure the initial bout of testimony/preaching is sufficient for their purposes, and therefore further interaction with those godless evilutionists would serve no useful purpose. I dunno.
The point of the above BIG CHUNK OF TEXT... and it has a point... is that you are not exploring virgin territory here. Most/all of the regulars hereabouts have had extensive previous interactions with Creationists, and those previous interactions will tend to influence the way we respond to Creationists in the present. So when a Creationist replies to a bunch of "support your position"/"such-and-such proves you wrong" messages with anything in the general vicinity of "I don't have time to for a proper reply right now, but I'll get back to you as soon as I can," we look at that and think, Yeah, right. The last 57 Creationists who made noise about 'no time to reply now' just plain didn't reply, but this Creationist is gonna be different. SUUURE he is, uh-huh, you betcha, and we respond accordingly.
| Quote | | So where were we...I think it was something along the lines of people expressing their honest feelings about Dembski and also wanting proof for how to calculate CSI for things. |
Right. If this CSI stuff really is the sure-fire Design Detector which Dembski claims it is, you should be able to use it to actually, like, detect Design. And that's why some ID critics like to ask ID-pushers how much CSI there is in known-to-be-Designed entities like bowling balls and chocolate cake and so on. If the CSI thingie is everything ID-pushers claim it is, then it should be possible to determine how much CSI a bowling ball has, and there should no more be different CSI values for any one (Designed) object than there are different mass values for any one object. If CSI lives up to ID-pushers' press releases, then it should be very possible, perhaps even easy, for ID-pushers to answer questions like "what's the CSI of this bowling ball here?" But if CSI is actually a pile of crap -- if there is, in fact, no way to determine how much CSI an object has -- then it should be impossible for ID-pushers to answer questions like "what's the CSI of this bowling ball here?"
If CSI is the genuine article, ID-pushers should have real answers to questions about the CSI of arbitrary objects, and when asked for CSI values of arbitrary objects, they should therefore have little reluctance to share that information. Is that how Dembski acts when asked how much CSI such-and-such object has?
| Quote | | Well, unfortunately, I can offer you no good advice on how to calculate such readings of an object using his CSI theory (if you will). Thing is, I have not in my spare time (the little there is), nor as a part of class, actually read his work on CSI. |
Why not?
Seriously: Why haven't you read Dembski's work on CSI? If he's teaching ID, surely his own work on CSI would be very relevant to what you guys are supposed to be learning in class, wouldn't it? So how come Dembski hasn't assigned any CSI-related classwork? Why is he leaving it out?
later edit: After posting this, it occurred to me that since the class you're taking is "Christian Faith and Science" rather than, say, "Intelligent Design 101", it actually could make sense for Dembski to leave CSI out of the course syllabus, if he's not actually teaching about ID in the course. So... does this course cover ID, or not?
| Quote | | At any rate, I've been reading more material, etc. I think I have more questions now than before. But what I've read from your response are things about Dembski and things about how Behe and other ID'ers offer no "real" theories worth looking into. |
This is mostly because Behe, and ID-pushers in general, don't have any real theories worth looking into. If you disagree, feel free to bring up any one of those "real theories" which you believe any ID-pusher to have, and let's see how well that 'real theory' stands up on its own.
| Quote | | Well, I think that ID'ers, evolutionists, old earth, young earth, all have some interesting points worth taking into consideration (some more than others, yes). |
That's nice. If you ever get the urge to discuss any of those "interesting points" you think Creationists have, by all means bring up that point here and we'll see if it's got anything resembling scientific validity.
| Quote | | What I'm interested in is going back to Darwin and his thought of evolution. For instance, what was his purpose in thinking up his theory of evolution (and survival of the fittest)? |
That's easy: He was trying to explain the diversity of Life on Earth. Creationists do tend to assume that Darwin's theory of evolution is supposed to cover all kinds of shit which have nothing to do with the diversity of life on Earth, but they're just wrong.
| Quote | | I think he was trying to make sense of the world (in essence a "theological" framework). |
Not the whole world, but, rather, that subset of the world which has to do with the diversity of Life on Earth. Since Darwin was only trying to make sense of part of the world, are you sure "theological" is an appropriate word to apply to what he was doing?
| Quote | | Maybe I have not read as much as I should, but it appears that he did not have much to say about things like how the earth was created using his theory of evolution, etc. |
Dude. Darwin wasn't even trying to explain how the Earth was created. His theory of evolution is all about the diversity of Life on Earth, not where the Earth came from. I have no idea where you're getting your ideas about Darwin, but if this is any indication, you really need some better sources, because the sources you got this stuff from are pretty much total garbage.
| Quote | | Rather, it seems to me that he was instead, trying to put the pieces of science together based on his findings of fossils, etc spread around the globe. |
No shit, Sherlock. What's your point?
| Quote | | What I am getting at/what I am working out in my head is how can evolutionary proponents praise the man for starting something that he (Charles Darwin) never intended for his "theory" to do? |
They don't. Next question?
| Quote | | Now, I obviously cannot tell his intentions, but it he was not even so sure about everything he said! |
First: Says who, and how do they know? If you're getting this from the same sources which told you that the theory of evolution is somehow supposed to have something to do with the formation of the Earth, well, it's just one more piece of evidence that those sources are full of bullshit.
Second: It doesn't matter what Darwin's opinion of his theory may have been. What does matter is ( a ) the theory itself, and ( b ) how well said theory is supported by the empirical data. If your sources are telling you that "look! Darwin doubted himself!" is a valid reason to dismiss his theory, that's one more piece of evidence to support the proposition that your sources are full of shit.
| Quote | Another thing I'm working on trying to understand from my evolutionary friends is their rationale for recent developments in molecular biology. My best friend has a Ph.D in molecular biology for Cornell U. and he too wonders similar things.
For example (and back to Behe and his irreducible complexity), we know (today) that the cell has plenty of irreducibly complex systems on the cellular level. Such that without one of the pieces, it would fail to operate as it was designed. It's just what has been discovered, that's all. |
That's IC according to Behe. Dembski came up with his own version of 'irreducible complexity' which is rather different from Behe's; you might want to ask Dembski about his version of IC. His response could be interesting.
First: "Plenty" of IC systems? Fine: Name five of those "plenty" of systems. I ask because I want to know if you're actually familiar with the specifics of this claim, or if you are, instead, just parroting a claim that someone else put in your head. Also, I'm curious to know if you're going to cite any of the anointed-as-IC-by-Behe systems which have, in fact, been demonstrated to not be IC...
Second: "Recent"? Wrong. A gent named Muller came up with the concept of irreducible complexity -- he named that concept "interlocking complexity", but under either name, it's still it stops working if any one of the parts ain't there -- back in 1918. If you're interesting in getting it 'straight from the horse's mouth', try Genetic Variablity, Twin Hybrids and Constant Hybrids, in a Case of Balanced Lethal Factors, by Hermann J Muller, in Genetics, Vol 3, No 5, Sept 1918, pp 422-499.
Third: Engineers have a term for a part of a system whose absence or breakage causes the entire system to stop working. This term is "critical failure point", and the more of them a system has, the less robust it is. We puny humans try to avoid putting critical failure points into our systems... but an IC system is one for which every part is a critical failure point! What sort of Designer would do that?
Fourth: Behe argues that IC systems cannot evolve, on the grounds that there is no possible evolutionary precursor to a system which requires all of its parts to be present and functional in order for the system itself to work. Behe's argument has a big, screaming, ugly hole in it, and that hole is his implicit assumption that every step in an evolutionary process must necessarily be 'add a new part to what was already there'. In reality, evolutionary processes can and do include two other kinds of steps, those being 'remove a part that was already in place', and 'modify a part that was already in place'. Therefore, the evolutionary precursor to an IC system can fall into one of three classes, depending on the last step of that evolutionary process:
If the last step was 'add a new part', the evolutionary precursor is the IC system, minus one part. This, of course, would necessarily have to be nonfunctional, by the definition of IC.
If the last step was 'remove an existing part', the evolutionary precursor is the IC system, plus an additional part. Is there anything in the definition of IC which requires that as IC system fail to work when a new part is added? No. Therefore, Behe's 'there cannot be any evolutionary precursor' argument crashes and burns here.
If the last step was 'modify an existing part', the evolutionary precursor is the IC system, except with one of its parts modified. Now, it must be admitted that in some cases, modifying one part of an IC system will end up breaking the system... but Behe is making a universal argument, which cannot be valid unless all physically possible modifications, to any of the IC system's parts, must necessarily break the system.
See any problems with Behe's argument?
| Quote | | Cubist, I think your post here is a little too reductionistic (if you will). |
That's nice. It's a cop-out, but it's nice. What the hell is "reductionistic' about asking IDists to bloody well define that bleeding 'theory' they keep on claiming to bloody have?
| Quote | | My opinion on it is that ID'ers are not merely trying to provide answers to question like someone, somewhere, did something... |
And my opinion is that ID-pushers are not trying to provide answers, period. They're not trying to provide answers to questions of how much CSI [insert Designed object here] has; they're not trying to provide answers to questions of what the hell this "theory of Intelligent Design" actually is and actually says; they're not trying to provide any answers. Feel free to bring up anything you regard as a counterexample to my assertion here.
| Quote | | ...but are also attempting to show the stepping stones of how to get to those answers. For example: the thought that maybe intelligent design is a feasible option with supporting evidence. |
Oh, please. Dude, you do not get to play the 'dem eevil Darwinismists HATE TEH IJNTELLIJINT DEEZYNE!!1!" card. It may come as a shock to you, but there are entire fields of scientific study -- archaeology and forensics are the first two which come to mind -- which are all about 'intelligent design'. The difference between 'intelligent design' as practiced by real scientists, and Intelligent Design as practiced by the likes of Dembski and Behe, is that real scientists think somehow, somewhere, somewhen, somebody intelligent did something is a mindlessly vague chunk of verbiage rather than a cutting-edge hypothesis. And if you think somehow, somewhere, somewhen, somebody intelligent did something is not an accurate summary of Intelligent Design 'theory', by all means feel free to clue us all in to how real ID 'theory' differs from my seven-word summary.
Or, you know, whine about "eeew, reductionism!" and avoid the question.
| Quote | | (you may say, what supporting evidence...but I would submit that they have provided it, people just don't accept it as "good" evidence, or what they think is "evidence.") |
And I would submit that somehow, somewhere, somewhen, somebody intelligent did something is so damned vague that it isn't even possible for ID-pushers to have evidence for it.
| Quote | p.s. "I think" many people miss the two words at the top left of this picture...
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Yes, Darwin wrote "I think" in one of his notebooks. What's your point (if any)?
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