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Antievolution.org Discussion Board > From the Panda's Thumb > After the Bar Closes... > Uncommonly Dense Thread 2

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Zachriel Posts: 2723 Joined: Sep. 2006 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 11 2008,07:06    Quote (Amadan @ Sep. 11 2008,04:07) The Discovery Institute today unveiled a multi-million dollar PR apparatus known as the Logicless Harangue Collider (LHC). The LHC is described as “an infinite echo-chamber” in which super-dense articles are debated in a circular manner until being smashed together. Leading scientists, ranging from undistinguished statistical theologians to refrigerator maintenance engineers, will study the ejecta to confirm some of their most fundamental preconceptions. It's known colloquially as The Awesome Reaction Device. And now for something completely different. Quote sheldonr: Most of the players in Astrobiology get their funding through NASA (or its poor sister ESA). And within NASA, the politics have been against finding or looking for life outside of Earth since at least the 1976 Viking mission to Mars. So the true believers, who know that NASA found life but won’t report it, come to this meeting. Rob Sheldon is apparently a research scientist working with the Marshall Space Flight Center in plasma theory and geophysics. Doesn't think much of his colleagues if he believes they are willfully suppressing the truth. -------------- You never step on the same tard twice—for it's not the same tard and you're not the same person.

Jkrebs Posts: 590 Joined: Sep. 2004 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 11 2008,07:09    Dave starts a new thread here.:   Quote 11 September 2008 Scientists Evolved to be Ignorant DaveScot I can’t make stuff like this up. New Scientist reports:   Quote Superstitions evolved to help us survive    Darwin never warned against crossing black cats, walking under ladders or stepping on cracks in the pavement, but his theory of natural selection explains why people believe in such nonsense. Typical chance worshipper bore-me-to-tears opening. But this gets really good at the end:     Quote However, Wolfgang Forstmeier, an evolutionary biologist at the Max Planck Institute of Ornithology in Starnberg, Germany, argues that by linking cause and effect – often falsely – science is a simply dogmatic form of superstition.    “You have to find the trade off between being superstitious and being ignorant,” he says. By ignoring building evidence that contradicts their long-held ideas, “quite a lot of scientists tend to be ignorant quite often,” he says. I repeat, I can’t make up stuff this good. Actually parts of this is very solid, in my opinion.  My original college degree, long ago, was in anthropology, and one of my main interests has always been the role of religion, and belief in general.  I think that a central aspect of human nature is that we can ask more questions than we can answer.  Early people's ability to formalize their understanding about cause-and-effect relationships was a powerful new tool, but of course it was bound to be wrong about a whole bunch of stuff.  However, believing something, especially when it is communally shared and helps structure activity, is much better than not believing anything and not having any idea what to do. It would be fun to think and write about this some more, but I'm off to work.  For a nice literary exposition about this problem of belief, check out the Electric Monk in Douglas Adam's "Dirk Gently and the Holistic Detective Agency" - one of the more unique characters in literature.

Spottedwind Posts: 83 Joined: Aug. 2008 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 11 2008,07:17    Quote (midwifetoad @ Sep. 10 2008,14:39) Political tricks are both old and common. I suspect the Republican strategy is simply to extract a price for the attacks on palin. I could have told the democrats that such attacks would backfire. ... Attacks on Palin, even if some turn out to be justified, have negative utility for Democrats. But the thing is...it wasn't an attack.  I'm not saying that they haven't and I agree with the rest of your post.  Just that it bothers me that this is a manufactroversy and it's got legs. I do think attacks on Palin will be a problem.  But if they want to win, they do need to challenge her.  The catch is how to challenge without attacking and being able to counter smear tatics that label challenges as attacks. Neither side is clean, and I would have been just as dumbstruck if Clinton had gotten upset over it.  Either side being outraged over stuff like this is just a waste. Whatever the case, I digress from UD.  Not necessarily a more intelligent subject but at least of a different flavor

J-Dog Posts: 4402 Joined: Dec. 2006 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 11 2008,07:18    Quote (Amadan @ Sep. 11 2008,04:07) The Discovery Institute today unveiled a multi-million dollar PR apparatus known as the Logicless Harangue Collider (LHC). The LHC is described as “an infinite echo-chamber” in which super-dense articles are debated in a circular manner until being smashed together. Leading scientists, ranging from undistinguished statistical theologians to refrigerator maintenance engineers, will study the ejecta to confirm some of their most fundamental preconceptions. One of the most highly anticipated results of the LHC is the so-called ‘Hick’s Bozon’. The project’s project’s leader leader, Dr Dr W. A. Dembski, explained: “The Hick’s Bozon is a particle of no scientific weight, I mean, mass. However, it does exhibit a very high quantity of what we call spin. It’s name is a tribute to the Southern Baptist Convention, which has been praying for it as a sciencey sounding thingie they can use to dazzle the red-state rubes. I should add that as I have predicted it theoretically, this experiment is a superfluous detail which is rather pathetic.” Asked whether the LHC will help confirm his Big Bank Theory, Dr Dr Dembski was non-committal. But he gave a sly wink. There has been some public concern as to whether the LHC could generate a black hole of inanity such that all intelligence could be sucked out of the Earth. In response, the LHC’s engineering janitor Mr Dave Tard, was reassuring. Speaking through a loudspeaker in the ceiling, he confirmed that intelligence was “very very unlikely” to be attracted to anything generated by the LHC. “That would require a critical mass, and anyone critical is by definition out of here”. He later qualified his statement, adding “homo -ds”. The LHC’s publicity spokes-entity is Densye O’Bleary. He, she, or it is the author of several leading academic and popular colouring books on scientific-sounding stuff. Asked to explain the technical working of the LHC, O’Bleary responded “Buy my book. They all say the same thing, so buy any of them. Or all of them. Please.” During calibration, the LHC will initially run at a lower level of operation. It is expected the Vice-President-to-be Palin will have an important role in government oversight of the project, so increasing acceleration is expected in the period leading up to November, generating a froth of fundamentalist articles. These are expected to be published in peer-reviewed journals, or at least, to be published in journals and reviewed by people who pee. Edit: Thought of a better last line POTW for at least an actual entire week*! * There is some discussion I believe about whether the "entire week" consists of 6 days or 7 days, and whether Amadan rested on Sunday, right after he created this. ps:  It is also worth noting that a Professor Beatme, a mild-mannered, be-speckled wack-job from a small college in PA, has stated that Amadan's post is irreducibly complex, in that if even one snarky comment is removed, the entire funniness collapses. -------------- Come on Tough Guy, do the little dance of ID impotence you do so well. - Louis to Joe G 2/10 Gullibility is not a virtue - Quidam on Dembski's belief in the Bible Code Faith Healers & ID 7/08 UD is an Unnatural Douchemagnet. - richardthughes 7/11

dvunkannon Posts: 1377 Joined: June 2008 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 11 2008,09:08    Scooter's curiosity about peer-review doesn't extend to this fish wrap. Sheldon seems to think Von Neumann flitted over to Bletchley Park from Los Alamos to help out Alan Turing. It's downhill from there. -------------- I’m referring to evolution, not changes in allele frequencies. - Cornelius Hunter I’m not an evolutionist, I’m a change in allele frequentist! - Nakashima

Zachriel Posts: 2723 Joined: Sep. 2006 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 11 2008,10:00    Quote DaveScot: Cosmological Evolution: Spatial Relativity and the Speed of Life Robert B. Sheldon (a) and Richard B. Hoover (b) (a) USRA/NSSTC, 320 Sparkman Dr., Huntsville, AL, USA; (b) NASA/MSFC/NSSTC, 320 Sparkman Dr., Huntsville, AL, USA Wow. And Sheldon is a physicist. But let's start with his understanding of orthodox evolutionary theory. Quote Sheldon & Hoover: Now when Darwin suggested that random mutations combined with natural selection would provide a chaotic explanation for apparent design and order in biology, he was making a mathematical statement about longrange correlations Darwin didn't "suggest" random mutation. This is a much later development. Darwin suggested the source of variation was non-random and Larmarckian. Quote Sheldon & Hoover: That is, the appearance of progress is driven by random, local processes, much as frost flowers form on a window, without any information beyond a local, undirected interaction (e.g., diffusion-limited growth). The "appearance of progress" is not thought to be random, but highly non-random due to natural selection. For instance, many terrestrial plants grow towards the sky. There's a reason for that. Quote Sheldon & Hoover: Neo-Darwinists argue that the order, which is visible in living things, is much like that of a crystal, a long-range spatial order slowly, and randomly, accumulated over time. No. Accumulation is not random. Adaptation occurs when variations are *selected* by environmental conditions. Quote Sheldon & Hoover: if we ignore long-range order, and plug in a simple mathematical model of evolution as the accumulation of random mutation steps, the diffusion of information (or progress) has no "arrow of time", no "progress rectifer", no "success ratchet" that accepts only progress and rejects regress. If organisms compete with one another, they can create a ratchet-effect—without any long-range ordering. This is called the Red Queen Effect, "It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place." Quote Sheldon & Hoover: That is, rather than finding many organisms spanning the reptilian to amphibian transition, or the mammalian to marsupial transition, we find non-Gaussian distributed clusters of species. This is sort of a zeroth-order approximation. It's as if Sheldon thinks life evolves randomly on a perfectly flat environmental landscape. The environment is not only highly non-random and changing, but includes other organisms. Darwin discusses one mechanism of clustering and divergence in Origin of Species. If two closely related species are in competition, either one will be forced to extinction, or they will tend to diverge. The Red Queen Effect is another. Quote Sheldon & Hoover: That is, with lifecycles shorter than a bacteria, with a multiplication factor of 200, with replication errors much higher than a bacterium, natural selection should be brutal and swift for these phages, making them ruthlessly effient. Yet despite this evolutionary pressure, phages have enormous DNA variation, even containing DNA that has no useful purpose to the virus {44}. Reading the cite, the authors suggest that these genes *do* have a function for the virus saying, " Are these genes that have been accidentally acquired from the host and confer no fitness benefit on the phage, or do they indicate important features of how the phage interacts with its host? ... during infection a common phage strategy is to switch off host gene expression, which could impair photosynthesis and thereby deplete the energy required for viral replication. The provision of a viral D1 protein would permit the repair cycle to continue until the cell lysed to release the phage progeny." Quote Sheldon & Hoover: Therefore the thesis of this paper, is that the punctuated equilibria observed by Eldredge is not due to some long-range modulation of the point-mutation rate caused by geographically isolated communities, but rather by the sporadic transport of new genes through cometary transport. Okay, so now we know what they're getting at. It would be easier to take their speculations seriously if they at least expressed some basic understanding of orthodox evolutionary theory. -------------- You never step on the same tard twice—for it's not the same tard and you're not the same person.

Zachriel Posts: 2723 Joined: Sep. 2006 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 11 2008,10:29    Hoover has claimed to discover microfossils of indigenous life in cometary meteorites, though the consensus is that the evidence is not definitive at this point. Quote Richard B. Hoover: Microfossils of cyanobacteria in carbonaceous meteorites Here's an interesting comment by Sheldon. Quote Rob Sheldon: I work in the same building as Richard Hoover, who presented his results on bio-fossils at the Aug 4 meeting you reported... Now let me deal with panspermia a bit. I'm a big Intelligent Design fan, since, as you state, the support for Darwinian evolution is pretty out-of-date and self-contradictory. I think Hoyle's estimate of 1:10^40,000 is as reasonable as anyone's guess as to the likelihood of spontaneous generation. -------------- You never step on the same tard twice—for it's not the same tard and you're not the same person.

Wesley R. Elsberry Posts: 4991 Joined: May 2002 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 11 2008,10:52    Quote Sheldon & Hoover: Therefore the thesis of this paper, is that the punctuated equilibria observed by Eldredge is not due to some long-range modulation of the point-mutation rate caused by geographically isolated communities [...] What a pair of maroons Sheldon and Hoover are. Neither Eldredge nor Gould said any such thing. -------------- "You can't teach an old dogma new tricks." - Dorothy Parker

dogdidit Posts: 315 Joined: Mar. 2008 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 11 2008,11:20    Quote 3 sheldonr 09/11/2008 10:42 am Correction: to be published in “Instruments, Missions and Methods for Astrobiology XI” (2008) Proc. of the SPIE, eds. Hoover, R.B. et al. link SPIE = The International Society for Optical Engineering (the acronym is defunct). The proceedings of an engineering conference is not quite the same as a peer-reviewed science journal. Still, this will raise some eyebrows. And, uh, note the name of the editor(s) of the Proceedings. -------------- "Humans carry plants and animals all over the globe, thus introducing them to places they could never have reached on their own. That certainly increases biodiversity." - D'OL

Zachriel Posts: 2723 Joined: Sep. 2006 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 11 2008,11:26    Quote (Wesley R. Elsberry @ Sep. 11 2008,10:52)   Quote Sheldon & Hoover: Therefore the thesis of this paper, is that the punctuated equilibria observed by Eldredge is not due to some long-range modulation of the point-mutation rate caused by geographically isolated communities [...] What a pair of maroons Sheldon and Hoover are. Neither Eldredge nor Gould said any such thing. Not even close. If they can't get Darwin right, it's unlikely they could get Eldredge right. I'm reading Sheldon's thoughts on information. You could spend a day just listing the problems with this paper. Sheldon says it best, Quote sheldonr: There’s nothing mysterious about the rigors of peer review. I have read some of the most abominable papers in obscure fields of physics with no connection to political correctness. I agree. Especially those papers that misrepresent well-established theories suggesting that the author didn't do a basic search of the literature. Quote sheldonr: to be published in “Instruments, Missions and Methods for Astrobiology XI” (2008) Proc. of the SPIE, eds. Hoover, R.B. et al. So Hoover is the editor. There's some interesting titles in the last volume, Instruments, Methods, and Missions for Astrobiology X . Hope they're better written. I've already read Hoyle's Big Number Handwaving Calculation. Quote Sheldon & Hoover: The mystery of life's origins is tied up with the huge improbability of the chance organization of a reproducing cell or proto-cell. Many scientists put the present odds at 10^-100 or more, well beyond the probabilistic resources of the entire big-bang universe, with or without comets Ah, the Universal Probability Bound. Like an old friend (that moves in and always sits in your favorite chair). -------------- You never step on the same tard twice—for it's not the same tard and you're not the same person.

sparc Posts: 2088 Joined: April 2007 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 11 2008,11:28    Quote What a pair of maroons Sheldon and Hoover are. Neither Eldredge nor Gould said any such thing. I'm afraid that's not what will appear in their correction: Quote 3 sheldonr 09/11/2008 10:42 am Correction: to be published in “Instruments, Missions and Methods for Astrobiology XI” (2008) Proc. of the SPIE, eds. Hoover, R.B. et al. -------------- "[...] the type of information we find in living systems is beyond the creative means of purely material processes [...] Who or what is such an ultimate source of information? [...] from a theistic perspective, such an information source would presumably have to be God." - William Dembski -

sparc Posts: 2088 Joined: April 2007 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 11 2008,11:40    Although astrobiology may be a legitimate field of research it seems to attract guys with ideas that have been rebutted before. E.g.. in 2002 Christian Schwabe (re-)published his Genomic Potential Hypothesis in an Astrobiology Special Issue of the Anatomical Record. -------------- "[...] the type of information we find in living systems is beyond the creative means of purely material processes [...] Who or what is such an ultimate source of information? [...] from a theistic perspective, such an information source would presumably have to be God." - William Dembski -

Dr.GH Posts: 2333 Joined: May 2002 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 11 2008,14:00    Quote (Amadan @ Sep. 11 2008,02:07) The Discovery Institute today unveiled a multi-million dollar PR apparatus known as the Logicless Harangue Collider ... Bravo! -------------- "Science is the horse that pulls the cart of philosophy." L. Susskind, 2004 "SMOLIN VS. SUSSKIND: THE ANTHROPIC PRINCIPLE"

Reciprocating Bill Posts: 4265 Joined: Oct. 2006 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 11 2008,16:57    Quote (Dr.GH @ Sep. 11 2008,15:00) Quote (Amadan @ Sep. 11 2008,02:07) The Discovery Institute today unveiled a multi-million dollar PR apparatus known as the Logicless Harangue Collider ... Bravo! Agreed. -------------- Myth: Something that never was true, and always will be. "The truth will set you free. But not until it is finished with you." - David Foster Wallace "Here’s a clue. Snarky banalities are not a substitute for saying something intelligent. Write that down." - Barry Arrington

Jkrebs Posts: 590 Joined: Sep. 2004 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 11 2008,19:53    Here StephenB says,   Quote The point is that science is not needed to determine is something is logically impossible. You stated,-“But the bacterial flagellum could still be the result of design even if such a pathway could be found.” It is not logically possible that a Darwinian pathway to evolution could be designed, because a Darwinian evolutionary pathway by definition is one that was not associated with an intelligent agency. If a Darwinian pathway to an organism was found, then that organism could not have been designed. That is why finding one would falsify claims about “irreducible complexity” I press the issue not to be irksome, which I fear is happening, but because this is what all the fuss is about. Don't you just love arguing with tautologies.  Things which are IC are "by definition" designed, so if something were to arise by an evolutionary pathway it would not by IC, again by definition. So "finding one would falsify claims about “irreducible complexity.” How the hell can you falsify a definition? I'm sorry Stephen, but you are being irksome.

Reciprocating Bill Posts: 4265 Joined: Oct. 2006 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 11 2008,20:13    Quote (Jkrebs @ Sep. 11 2008,20:53) <a href=""http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/spin-flagellum-spin/#comment-295488" target="_blank">Here</a> StephenB says, Quote The point is that science is not needed to determine is something is logically impossible. You stated,-“But the bacterial flagellum could still be the result of design even if such a pathway could be found.” It is not logically possible that a Darwinian pathway to evolution could be designed, because a Darwinian evolutionary pathway by definition is one that was not associated with an intelligent agency. If a Darwinian pathway to an organism was found, then that organism could not have been designed. That is why finding one would falsify claims about “irreducible complexity” I press the issue not to be irksome, which I fear is happening, but because this is what all the fuss is about. Don't you just love arguing with tautologies.  Things which are IC are "by definition" designed, so if something were to arise by an evolutionary pathway it would not by IC, again by definition. So "finding one would falsify claims about “irreducible complexity.” How the hell can you falsify a definition? I'm sorry Stephen, but you are being irksome. Pressing your point is what got me banned at UD: Quote 176 Reciprocating Bill 10/05/2006 7:49 am ...It is obviously an empirical question whether IC structures as defined by Behe and Dembski (quoted above) can arise by stepwise means. Karl’s assertions were on point (although open to debate vis correctness) vis these definitions. In contrast, the sacred cow definition of IC in 170 - essentially, “complex structures that cannot be built step-wise” places the possibility of IC structures built by NS out of reach by definitional fiat. As the Church Lady said, “How conveeeeenient.” It would be helpful if ID would settle on one definition or the other. A bit later: Quote 181 Reciprocating Bill 10/05/2006 11:44 am DS said: “Both Behe and Dembski have conceded that exaptation may produce what otherwise appears to be irreducible complexity.” I want to parse what you are saying correctly in the context of this exchange. So what follows is a real (not rhetorical) question: Is it correct to express their concession as, “We concede that stepwise processes (exaptation, scaffolding, etc.) can create structures that are indistinguishable from true IC structures, when evaluated in terms of the Behe/Demski definitions quoted above. However, these structures are not, by definition, truly IC because they were created by stepwise processes.” Is that correct? Dave became irritable: Quote 185 DaveScot 10/05/2006 1:07 pm recip No, that’s putting words in their mouths. What I said requires no parsing into other words. Shortly thereafter I was liberated. -------------- Myth: Something that never was true, and always will be. "The truth will set you free. But not until it is finished with you." - David Foster Wallace "Here’s a clue. Snarky banalities are not a substitute for saying something intelligent. Write that down." - Barry Arrington

Jkrebs Posts: 590 Joined: Sep. 2004 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 11 2008,21:56    Ridiculing StephenB's point: I define a "gorkle" to be "a green creature." I challenge you to find a red gorkle and prove me wrong.

Jkrebs Posts: 590 Joined: Sep. 2004 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 11 2008,22:03    On a more serious note, I'd like to pass on my congratulations to nullasalus for the way he's handled the discussion with StephenB.  I like a lot of what nullasalus has had to say, the skill with which he's said it, and the civil yet firm tone in which he has made his disagreements with StephenB known.

Badger3k Posts: 861 Joined: Mar. 2008 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 11 2008,23:49    Quote (Zachriel @ Sep. 11 2008,10:00) Quote DaveScot: Cosmological Evolution: Spatial Relativity and the Speed of Life Robert B. Sheldon (a) and Richard B. Hoover (b) (a) USRA/NSSTC, 320 Sparkman Dr., Huntsville, AL, USA; (b) NASA/MSFC/NSSTC, 320 Sparkman Dr., Huntsville, AL, USA Wow. And Sheldon is a physicist. But let's start with his understanding of orthodox evolutionary theory.   Quote Sheldon & Hoover: Now when Darwin suggested that random mutations combined with natural selection would provide a chaotic explanation for apparent design and order in biology, he was making a mathematical statement about longrange correlations Darwin didn't "suggest" random mutation. This is a much later development. Darwin suggested the source of variation was non-random and Larmarckian.   Quote Sheldon & Hoover: That is, the appearance of progress is driven by random, local processes, much as frost flowers form on a window, without any information beyond a local, undirected interaction (e.g., diffusion-limited growth). The "appearance of progress" is not thought to be random, but highly non-random due to natural selection. For instance, many terrestrial plants grow towards the sky. There's a reason for that.   Quote Sheldon & Hoover: Neo-Darwinists argue that the order, which is visible in living things, is much like that of a crystal, a long-range spatial order slowly, and randomly, accumulated over time. No. Accumulation is not random. Adaptation occurs when variations are *selected* by environmental conditions.   Quote Sheldon & Hoover: if we ignore long-range order, and plug in a simple mathematical model of evolution as the accumulation of random mutation steps, the diffusion of information (or progress) has no "arrow of time", no "progress rectifer", no "success ratchet" that accepts only progress and rejects regress. If organisms compete with one another, they can create a ratchet-effect—without any long-range ordering. This is called the Red Queen Effect, "It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place."   Quote Sheldon & Hoover: That is, rather than finding many organisms spanning the reptilian to amphibian transition, or the mammalian to marsupial transition, we find non-Gaussian distributed clusters of species. This is sort of a zeroth-order approximation. It's as if Sheldon thinks life evolves randomly on a perfectly flat environmental landscape. The environment is not only highly non-random and changing, but includes other organisms. Darwin discusses one mechanism of clustering and divergence in Origin of Species. If two closely related species are in competition, either one will be forced to extinction, or they will tend to diverge. The Red Queen Effect is another.   Quote Sheldon & Hoover: That is, with lifecycles shorter than a bacteria, with a multiplication factor of 200, with replication errors much higher than a bacterium, natural selection should be brutal and swift for these phages, making them ruthlessly effient. Yet despite this evolutionary pressure, phages have enormous DNA variation, even containing DNA that has no useful purpose to the virus {44}. Reading the cite, the authors suggest that these genes *do* have a function for the virus saying, " Are these genes that have been accidentally acquired from the host and confer no fitness benefit on the phage, or do they indicate important features of how the phage interacts with its host? ... during infection a common phage strategy is to switch off host gene expression, which could impair photosynthesis and thereby deplete the energy required for viral replication. The provision of a viral D1 protein would permit the repair cycle to continue until the cell lysed to release the phage progeny."   Quote Sheldon & Hoover: Therefore the thesis of this paper, is that the punctuated equilibria observed by Eldredge is not due to some long-range modulation of the point-mutation rate caused by geographically isolated communities, but rather by the sporadic transport of new genes through cometary transport. Okay, so now we know what they're getting at. It would be easier to take their speculations seriously if they at least expressed some basic understanding of orthodox evolutionary theory. Wait a minute - species do not change due to natural processes, but because they are infected from space?  Seriously?  ??? -------------- "Just think if every species had a different genetic code We would have to eat other humans to survive.." : Joe G

themartu Posts: 28 Joined: Oct. 2007 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 12 2008,05:04    Dave complains about the religious again Stop with the Bible Talk which has an interesting comment: Quote DaveScott: Let’s get the conversation back on things that can be weighed and measured. Unless you can put the God of Abraham on a scale and tell me how much He weighs take it offline or move it to another forum. On a thread where the calculation of 'functionally specified complex information' is being talked about as a quantity we see no numbers, no calculations, no weights Dave so that one could compare finding 'SOS' in the sand and a paragraph of prose. The Bible quotes are about as useful as talking about a quantity you can’t define or calculate.

dogdidit Posts: 315 Joined: Mar. 2008 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 12 2008,07:12    Quote (Badger3k @ Sep. 11 2008,23:49) Wait a minute - species do not change due to natural processes, but because they are infected from space?  Seriously?  ??? Seriously! I'm waiting for the people who run SPIE to wake up and realize that a couple of nutballs - Sheldon and Hoover - have hijacked one of their technical forums and are using it as a vehicle to promulgate bizarro panspermian creationism. Keep popcorn handy. -------------- "Humans carry plants and animals all over the globe, thus introducing them to places they could never have reached on their own. That certainly increases biodiversity." - D'OL

keiths Posts: 2195 Joined: Jan. 2006 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 12 2008,07:14    Denyse is experiencing cleavage envy: Quote Then all we need is more useless pundettes who flunked Grade Six math freaking out over why anyone supposes that the universe shows evidence of design. Pundette cannot get through her own day without sixteen image assistants/consultants, so that proves her point conclusively, right? Yuh. Camera Two, dolly in to cleavage. -------------- 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

Wesley R. Elsberry Posts: 4991 Joined: May 2002 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 12 2008,08:20    There are some people for whom diffusion filters and anamorphic lenses simply are not enough. -------------- "You can't teach an old dogma new tricks." - Dorothy Parker

deadman_932 Posts: 3094 Joined: May 2006 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 12 2008,09:12    Quote (keiths @ Sep. 12 2008,07:14) Denyse is experiencing cleavage envy:   Quote Then all we need is more useless pundettes who flunked Grade Six math freaking out over why anyone supposes that the universe shows evidence of design. Pundette cannot get through her own day without sixteen image assistants/consultants, so that proves her point conclusively, right? Yuh. Camera Two, dolly in to cleavage. Densey: zoom lenses were in movie use in the 1930's -- in television, by the early 60's. Very few people use dollies for anything but tracking and some limited special shots. Paying extra (the dolly grip and his best boy) for one "smash shot" is (a) stupid -- particularly on cleavage, which has no background for a vertigo effect. Either that or you're (b) just dating yourself, or (c ) both. I'll pick "c." -------------- AtBC Award for Thoroughness in the Face of Creationism

Amadan Posts: 1337 Joined: Jan. 2007 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 12 2008,09:24    Andrew Sibley gets excited by Michael Reiss's suggestion that the best way to stimulate mental growth among those with sh*t for brains is to fertilise it with manure. The only surprise there is that they linked to the the bleeding-heart Guardian as well as the ideologically-correct Torygraph. Jerry protesteth:             Quote Now I understand how creationism could be set aside as an alternative explanation of life but Intelligent Design is completely in sync with the development of life over 4.5 billion years and the origin of new species at various times during that period and much of it due to natural processes. Creationism is not. That ripping sound is the seams in the Big Tent.             Quote If you are a believer in front loading then the intelligent input may have been only once. (That certainly explains the intellectual vigour of the ID movement, Jerry.) To summarise: Creationism is out because it ignores natural processes ID is OK because it just loves natural processes, except for a teeny-weeny little poof at the beginning That the aforementioned poof is not the subject of the kind of science them folks in white coats use to look at, ummm, natural processes, is irrelevant     Quote None of this has anything to do with a belief of when God may have infused a soul in his image into man. But Jerry, didn't you know that Denyse has blazed the scientific trail into that question? Pretty soon now she'll be publishing MRI pictures of our body thetans! -------------- "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.

Amadan Posts: 1337 Joined: Jan. 2007 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 12 2008,11:02    Omigod, that was my Gross Post!!!! Do I get a Doctorate from Patriot University? Or lunch in the cafeteria? -------------- "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.

J-Dog Posts: 4402 Joined: Dec. 2006 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 12 2008,11:20    Quote (Amadan @ Sep. 12 2008,11:02) Omigod, that was my Gross Post!!!! Do I get a Doctorate from Patriot University? Or lunch in the cafeteria? Congratulations!   I was going to tie in a "Gross Post"  link to a picture of Tub Girl, or reference br^own smel^ly stuff but then realized that I might just want to come back to this board some day, so think of your OWN damn gross stuff. You sir, unlike me, are clearly going for the quality over quantity theory.  Just remember - It's only a theory... However, to put it in perspective, DaveScot, Dr. Dr. Willy D and of course Denyse win Gross Posts Of The Week Every Damn Day. -------------- Come on Tough Guy, do the little dance of ID impotence you do so well. - Louis to Joe G 2/10 Gullibility is not a virtue - Quidam on Dembski's belief in the Bible Code Faith Healers & ID 7/08 UD is an Unnatural Douchemagnet. - richardthughes 7/11

dvunkannon Posts: 1377 Joined: June 2008 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 12 2008,13:29    The best thing about the Sheldon paper, IMHO, was "contra Berlinski". Finally, a woo merchant not willing to go along to get along with another woo merchant. The camel's nose of reality slips into the Big Tent. -------------- I’m referring to evolution, not changes in allele frequencies. - Cornelius Hunter I’m not an evolutionist, I’m a change in allele frequentist! - Nakashima

dvunkannon Posts: 1377 Joined: June 2008 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 12 2008,13:36    Quote (deadman_932 @ Sep. 12 2008,10:12) (b) just dating yourself What she does in the privacy of her own home is her business. Dolly in on Hitachi Magic Wand. -------------- I’m referring to evolution, not changes in allele frequencies. - Cornelius Hunter I’m not an evolutionist, I’m a change in allele frequentist! - Nakashima

Louis Posts: 6436 Joined: Jan. 2006 (Permalink) Posted: Sep. 12 2008,14:16    Quote (dvunkannon @ Sep. 12 2008,19:36) Quote (deadman_932 @ Sep. 12 2008,10:12) (b) just dating yourself What she does in the privacy of her own home is her business. Dolly in on Hitachi Magic Wand. Now I *was* going to say something along those lines but I am FAR too tactful. Yup, that's me, restrained and tactful. Restraaaaaaaained and tactful. Uh huh. I was not in any way going to mention Rampant Rabbits or Ann Summers. Louis -------------- Bye.

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