A useful link to use when confronted with the circularity argument

Science isn't circular.. its helical!
You don't end up back where you started once the predictions are verified..

Circularity was always a dumb argument against evolution. You can make a circular statement from any two related things.

Hot dogs are sold at baseball games.
What are baseball games?
The places where hot dogs are sold.

I suppose this means that in order for Michael Behe to believe in hot dogs, he'd have to know how many innings are in a game, how runs are scored, what a designated hitter is, an exhaustive description of a 'foul', ....

Out of curiosity, why aren't plate tectonics an "unprovable theory from the 1960's?" I had a professor say that to me. (computer science)

If the bible said that god made the continents fixed in place, it would be considered unprovable theory from the 1960s.

rewrite for clarity:

If the bible said that god made the continents fixed in place, half the population would consider plate tectonics unprovable atheist theory from the 1960s.

If the bible said that god made the continents fixed in place, half the population would consider plate tectonics unprovable atheist theory from the 1960s.

Plus, there's that whole 6000 year old earth thing. Creationists do reject plate tectonics.

No, no, see, Eden was on Pangea. During The Flood, the continents all floated around to their new positions.

Anyway, Plate Tectonics is Just a Theory. Where's the proof? really accurate GPS measurements? GPS depends on Special Relativity, and according to IDtheFuture, that's all crap. Einstein was confused.

Anyway, Plate Tectonics is Just a Theory. Where's the proof? really accurate GPS measurements? GPS depends on Special Relativity, and according to IDtheFuture, that's all crap. Einstein was confused.

Yes, plate tectonics are a theory...falsifiable...definition of theory. So even though plate tectonics indeed are an "unprovable theory from the 1960's" there has to be some line of reasoning people use to justify the negative implication of that statement. Does anyone have any good links to writings by tectonic deniers? I'm pretty sure it is mentioned in a few talk.origins articles, I really want to hear what rhetorical doubletalk can do with plate tectonics.

AIG supports research via plate tectonic theory, but only if you have your Bible glasses on. AiG on continental drift I am only posting this because I noticed that the definition they use of plate tectonics (reference 3) comes from a book edited by Dr. Gish. How do you like them strawed men? Wouldn't anyone writing an article about plate tectonics use an earth science textbook or something for a basic definition of plate tectonics?

When asked why the earth appears round from outer space, he replied that, according to Einstein, mass bends light, therefore the mass of the earth bends the light from the edges of the flat disc and makes it LOOK like it's round.

Bill Dembski saying that such and such was going to be evolution's Waterloo? Some dunce comparing Dembski to Isaac Newton? That's funnier than The Daily Show.

Didn't Dr. Dembski go into a spiel about how his career was in the tank a few weeks ago, so when he's talking about the Waterloo(s) for evolution, he's saying this on ID's deathbed from St. Helena island.

If I'm remembering Dembski's Waterloo comment correctly I think he was saying, quite excitedly, that all the impending real trials with real judges and lawyers and real subpoenas where Darwinists would have to "come clean", would be evolution's Waterloo(s).

The same real trials where, uhhh, he himself won't be testifying, uhh, after all.

"Uhhh, I wanted my own lawyer so they fired me. Yeah, that's the ticket. I can't testify! But I really want to! Next time!! See you at Waterloooooooooooo!"

H. Humbert quotes,

Psalm 93:1: "Thou hast fixed the earth immovable and firm . . . "

Psalm 96:10: "He has fixed the earth firm, immovable . . . "

Psalm 104:5: "Thou didst fix the earth on its foundation so that it never can be shaken."

Isaiah 45:18: " . . . who made the earth and fashioned it, and himself fixed it fast . . . "
Comment #36146

But see here, that's not about plate tectonics. You're confusing it with an unprovable theory of 1543, that the Earth itself moves.

False and contrary to philosophy, that is. (Papal commission of philosophers, 1616)

ID on it's deathbed? I beg to differ:
http://watchtower.org/library/g/2004/6/22/article_01.htm

Re: comment 36153

Didn't you know Paul, Gish is an expert on plate tectonics. Just like he's an expert on the fossil record.

To be fair to YECs (not easy for me to say that), Gish maybe mentioned in relation to plate tectonics but their approach to it isn't quite as mind numblingly bad as you might upon seeing his name. Their expert (John Baumgardner) on plate tectonics is one of the few credible YECs out there - he has designed one of the more sophisticated plate tectonic models there is and it is fairly widely used in the geophysics community.

He gets his name the literature a fair bit (mainly as a co-author), particularly in papers concerning modelling the core and the mantle. I just mention all this because I think its a mistake to lump all creationists in with the likes of Gish. I in no way endorse the YEC view of the world, I just think we need to recognise that some of their arguments are more sophisticated than we often might think.

Here, for those who are interested, is a paper in which he is a co-author. Note the dates in the abstract and the consequent intellectual dishonesty on the part of Baumgardne:

Stegman DR, Jellinek AM, Zatman SA, Baumgardner JR, Richards MA. (2003) An early lunar core dynamo driven by thermochemical mantle convection. Nature, 421, 143-146.

Although the Moon currently has no internally generated magnetic field, palaeomagnetic data, combined with radiometric ages of Apollo samples, provide evidence for such a magnetic field from similar to3.9 to 3.6 billion years (Gyr) ago(1), possibly owing to an ancient lunar dynamo(1,2). But the presence of a lunar dynamo during this time period is difficult to explain(1-4), because thermal evolution models for the Moon 5 yield insufficient core heat flux to power a dynamo after similar to4.2 Gyr ago. Here we show that a transient increase in core heat flux after an overturn of an initially stratified lunar mantle might explain the existence and timing of an early lunar dynamo. Using a three-dimensional spherical convection model(6), we show that a dense layer, enriched in radioactive elements (a 'thermal blanket'), at the base of the lunar mantle can initially prevent core cooling, thereby inhibiting core convection and magnetic field generation. Subsequent radioactive heating progressively increases the buoyancy of the thermal blanket, ultimately causing it to rise back into the mantle. The removal of the thermal blanket, proposed to explain the eruption of thorium- and titanium-rich lunar mare basalts(7), plausibly results in a core heat flux sufficient to power a short-lived lunar dynamo.

For those interested about Baumgardner, the following NCSE report is enlightening:

http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/rncse_content/vol17/4787_miracles_in_creationism_out__12_30_1899.asp

Just thought I'd share this one with you. I like to think it's the undiluted state of the creationist mindset...

John Baumgardner seems to be a very versatile innovator in various fields. A few months ago I met him at a meeting of SDARI (San Diego Association for Rational Inquiry) where Genie Scott gave a presentation. I did not know who he was and had never heard his name hitherto. We exchanged a few words wherein I biefly commented on some statement he made related to information theory. A few days later he sent me an email where he urged me to study his theory of... language. It sounded preposterous and I tried to avoid its discussion. For a while he continued pestering me with emals. I did not read all of his linguistic exercises where, among other things, he somehow seemed to utilize Maxwell's equations to prove the divine origin of human languages. All that looked like an illustration of Gardner's definition of a crank, so finally I requested to be left alone. He complied but threatened me with eternal damnation for not listening to his warning. Altogether a depressing experience. As Gardner wrote, a crank is not necessarily a dunderhead. He may be very convincing, use sophisticated arguments, use some good science, show erudition etc, but still be a hopeless crank. That was my impression of Baumgardner, but of course it is just IMHO.

Gee -

Those damn scientists are just full of circular arguments. How about the Circular Theory of Gravity?

You throw a rock into the air, it comes back. It's Gravity!

Projectiles travel along parabolic trajectories - it's Gravity!

The planets orbit the Sun - Gravity again!

How convenient that this Gravity stuff just so happens to explain all these things.

I was "blinded by science", but now I see circles everywhere!

And in totally unrelated news...
If you didn't see this yesterday in the papers, it's worth it. I laughed my ass off for a good couple of minutes.

Those damn scientists are just full of circular arguments. How about the Circular Theory of Gravity? The planets orbit the Sun - Gravity again!

It appears, Steve F, that when Baumgardner wants to be published he accepts modern scientific assumptions, but when he puts his YEC hat on he starts lying for Jesus.

Or hyperbolic reasoning if something's moving too fast to be captured into an orbit... ;)

Interesting comments Mark. I think Baumgardner is probably the most interesting example of the YEC species - an obviously highly intelligent chap, capable of producing excellent research, sadly blinded on occasion into irrationality by an insistence on a particular translation of a very old book.

As a result, the specific examples that Doug brings up are not circular, but rather are particular cases of well-studied patterns in evolution.

— Carl

Thank goodness we don't need to resort to God to explain the world around. Now we have Evolution! Its the all-encompassing answer to the ultimate question (I always thought it was 42).

— Doug

A creationist said: "You would be forced to say that "death" was produced by Darwinian evolution."

Like I said. You can't make this stuff up.

Blast:

You raise an interesting question. Can we just assume that since death happens, it is selected for? Would it be more correct to say that evolution hasn't found any better solution to death than procreation, so that new generations replace those that die off? Might it be the case that some life forms might have (or might still) live indefinitely barring disease or predation? I admit I'm not comfortable guessing about the "purpose" of death. Recent evidence suggests that even bacteria age and die of advanced age if nothing more immediate comes along.

Now, let's say that we currently lack the answers to these questions. If this is the case (to the best of my knowledge it is), we can hardly say evolution "explains" what is not explained right now. But I'd suppose these questions aren't totally ineffable; they have answers we can discover with enough investigation. Perhaps evolutionary theory can eventually supply specific answers: Of X investigated possibilities, THIS one turns out to be most highly indicated. I think it would be possible to construct some experiments to determine what ecological functions death serves, evaluate what ecological advantage or disadvantage eliminating some causes of death would have, etc. My own guess would be that death is inherent in the way biology happens to have developed, and evolution has pushed it back as much as physically possible.

And this is generally how it works. Evolutionary theory distinguishes what seem to be right answers from what seem to be wrong answers. This is what theories are supposed to do. It seems perverse to blame a theory for what it explains. But then, you seem to complain that it "doesn't give us the answers we want." I don't know how to interpret this. Do you mean the theory gives wrong answers? Do you mean that you don't LIKE accurate explanations because you find them uncongenial? Do you intend to imply that evolution does NOT explain what it actually DOES explain, because admitting that it does what it does requires that you accept conclusions you don't like?

And sure enough, since evolution doesn't say what you want, you decide it's not science. It must be poor philosophy instead. You are of course welcome to look wherever you think you can find the answers you want. It's not the fault of evolution that it fails to fill your needs. Evolution can only provide physical answers, not theological answers.

(And I think it's amusing that after centuries of biology study, you reject it on the grounds that life "completely transcends analysis along the lines that science provides." I imagine biologists generally would be surprised by this evaluation. No amount of investigation can trump a policy position, of course. "Life cannot be analyzed by science." There! BlastfromthePast has spoken.)

I'm not comfortable guessing about the "purpose" of death.

— Flint

While I agree with Flint that Blast's "death" comments raise fascinating questions, as usual Blast instead sees the issue as some sort of ultimate stumbling block for evolutionary explanation.

It's at least arguable that the original successful biological replicators haven't succumbed to "death" at all and are STILL HERE--in many-times replicated and much-mutated form, of course.

It's only the physical phenotypes "built" by the replicators that are discarded over the course of time (along with, of course, all those replicators who don't manage to replicate--the essence of natural selection).

Apoptosis may have been an essential innovation which enabled the evolution of multicellular life. There is a good deal of information available on this if one searches the relevant terms. Indeed, PZ's timely post about the Urmetazoa would be one place to start. But, predictably, Blast would prefer to stop thinking, rather than start...

A question: If I told you that I thought there was life out there in the universe that had evolved billions of years ago and that is now able to travel at faster than the speed of light (so great is their technology), and that it was they who brought their life to this planet billions of years ago, and that the life they left behind was designed by them to contain the immense diversity of life we now see, would Intelligent Design be more palatable?

a species where individuals die and are replaced has an opportunity to evolve faster than one which stagnates. If an environment changes the inclusion of death and high turn-over could allow a strain to out-compete a more conservative one.

Blast is trying to say that science cannot explain life, so we must look elsewhere (goddidit, of course). But the claim that science can't explain life is a statement of preference, divorced from what science actually accomplishes. In other words, no matter how thoroughly, deeply, or comprehensively science explains everything about life (including its history), Blast's statement is unaffected. All science has is evidence. And mere evidence, being nothing more than the "philosophy of materialism", can't speak to Blast's faith.

— Flint

No, I wasn't saying Death (big D) was "required," only that programmed somatic cell death (small d) MAY have been required as part of the evolutionary step from one-celled to colonial to multicelled animals.

Blast seems to mean the death of phenotypes (aka "the worst thing that could happen to anyone" aka "the worst kind of evil"), which is only one of several biological kinds of "death," and perhaps not the most interesting one. THIS may be difficult to avoid as a practical matter, but I doubt it's "required." As you note, the longevity of a given phenotype does not necessarily guarantee that its genotype will come to predominate in a given population or will most successfully adapt to changing environments.

In any event, if Blast thinks that phenotypic death is the worst thing that could happen to anyone and the worst kind of evil, he needs to get out and live a little.

Behe is a micro-biologist. (Emphasis original)

I am interested in the evolution of complex biochemical systems.

Creationist said: It took 25 to 30 years to accept the breakdown of the "classical" world in physics.

...what we see in life forms: a structure that completely transcends analysis along the lines that science provides.

We need both. And I'm not saying that "faith" should be part of our scientific program---each has its own special provenance. My acceptance of ID is simply because it makes sense.

Behe is a micro-biologist. His postulation of IC comes from his study of the minute, of the cell.

I personally believe that ID will never be able to "convince" a given person that God is the single author of life---I believe that God always leaves enough room for us to be able to NOT believe. I simply happen to think that ID will provide a more "fruitful" approach to scientific advance.

given the coplanar stability of GDP/GTP-tubulin, and the way that a "wave" of energy is released starting at one end and traveling to the other end, you simply can't believe it was anything other than designed. It would simply be just too incredibly improbable for any non-teleological explanation to convince.

it would seem we have another 15 to 20 years to go before ID will gain its begrudging acceptance. Time will tell---no doubt. But I must admit, I do thoroughly enjoy being at the vanguard!

Blast: ... When reading how microtubules form, given the coplanar stability of GDP/GTP-tubulin, and the way that a "wave" of energy is released starting at one end and traveling to the other end, you simply can't believe it was anything other than designed. It would simply be just too incredibly improbable for any non-teleological explanation to convince.

Science doesn't require faith as you intend the word, it requires evidence and replicability and falsifiability, etc. ID doesn't "make sense" from any scientific perspective.

— Flint

Here, we simply have a failure to communicate. Behe (a biochemist. Please do not confuse a chemist with a biolgist. It makes you sound dishonest) STARTS with the assumption that goddidit. Now, given this absolutely non-negotiable requirement, he sets forth to "find" some rationalization for it. He comes up with "irreducible complexity"

— Flint

But that turns out not to be sufficient: had he understood evolution, he'd realize that IC as he initially described it is not only predicted by evolutionary theory, it is basically required.

— Flint

But biologists demonstrated in full 4-part harmony that every one of his IC structures and systems could easily evolve.

— Flint

I'm well aware there is ABSOLUTELY NO EVIDENCE for any gods.

— Flint

Well, I admit I see no fruits: not even ONE SINGLE hypothesis, suggestion, prediction, study, publication, theory, test, etc. What are you calling a "scientific fruit"?

— Flint

The real world holds marvels our simple models could never have predicted. Do we have here a suitable question for research? Well, some people think the answer is obviously yes. How COULD this work? What COULD be the causes and processes and mechanisms involved? Reality sure does specialize in the unexpected.

— Flint

Once upon a time I read about Adrian Thompson using evolutionary algorithms to evolve a gate configuration in an FPGA . . . I think this experiment (especially the analysis) might help people understand why evolutionists simply do not see biological forms as being designed.

— EB

Re "Can we just assume that since death happens, it is selected for?"

I think it might be more accurate to say that various causes of death weren't selected against.

Henry

I'm trying to say, it's very easy for me to "compartamentalize" these two spheres.

— BlastfromthePast

Regarding Behe, I think you have things backwards:

— BlastfromthePast

Miracles, documented miracles, happen quite often. It takes two of them---after a saint dies---to canonize a saint.

— BlastfromthePast

Here's "ONE SINGLE hypothesis": genetic information was not randomly created.

— BlastfromthePast

In plain language: it's not a one-man job (which Darwinism could possibly handle), it's a "five-man" job. To me, this smacks of design.

— BlastfromthePast

Maybe this is true to your satisfaction. But I don't find the arguments I've looked at to be persuasive. Sorry.

Hey Blast, I am *still* waiting for you to answer the simple questions I asked of you. Forget them already? No problem:

*ahem*

Please tell us precisely what you think happens during speciation, and precisely why it indicates that there is a designer at work in any stage of the process. Please be as precise, detailed and complete as possible.

What does the designer do, precisely, in your view.

What mechanisms does it use to do whatever the heck you think it does.

Where can we see these mechanisms in action today.

I've been asking for DAYS now to see a scientific theory of ID. here's your chance. Right in front of the whole world.

The floor is all yours.

Time to put up or shut up, Blast. And TRY not to cite any "ecological saviors and philosophers" as "experts", OK?

Hey Blast, I'm still waiting for you to tell me where we can see a gene for chlorophyll production in any animal. Or a gene for cobra venom production in any rattlesnake. Where's all this "frontloading" that you seem so fond of? Where can we see it?

What seems to be the problem, Blast?

It is important that the evaluation method -- here embodied in the analogue integrator and the fitness function Eqn. 1 -- facilitates an evolutionary pathway of very small incremental improvements. Earlier experiments, where the evaluation method only paid attention to whether the output voltage was above or below the logic threshold, met with failure. It should be recognised that to evolve non-trivial behaviours, the development of an appropriate evaluation technique can also be a non-trivial task.

— Adrian Thompson

I think this experiment (especially the analysis) might help people understand why evolutionists simply do not see biological forms as being designed.

— EB

And no one cares what your uneducated opinion on the matter is.

— RDLF

Hey Blast, I'm still waiting for you to tell me where we can see a gene for chlorophyll production in any animal. Or a gene for cobra venom production in any rattlesnake. Where's all this "frontloading" that you seem so fond of? Where can we see it?

— RDLF

Hi Blast, following your citation of St. Januarius' miracle
"If you're interested in scientific type proof, then there's the powdered blood of St. Januarius in Naples, Italy, that liquifies almost each year at the time of his feast day"
this is how science explains it, in a letter published on "Nature", vol.353, 10 oct 1991:

http://www.cicap.org/articoli/at100063.htm

Please take notice of the last remark:
"The chemical nature of the Naples relic can be established only by opening the vial, but a complete analysis is forbidden by the Catholic Church. Our replication of the phenomenon seems to render this sacrifice unnecessary."

Hey, Lenny, have you ever heard of gene-silencing?

Lenny, being educated and being intelligent are not the same thing. For example, you're educated.

Miracles are easy to arrange since the human propensity to believe in them is limitless and the organizations that use them for propaganda purposes have so few scruples about the truth when it comes to matters of faith and morals.

The devil's advocate bit in the Catholic church is a mummery on a par with the various official church investigations of clerical pederasty. If the hierarchy wants to canonize somebody, the necessary miracles will turn out to have taken place. If a political faction opposes canonization, the devil's advocate process can be used as an excuse.

The humorless Protestants decided that the age of miracles ended with the apostles or shortly thereafter. Since they didn't expect signs and wonders or actively fabricate them, miracles stopped occurring. Of course you might conclude that this cessation only means that the Roman church is the true religion. By that logic,however, lots of other traditional religions---Hinduism, Voodoo, various tribal beliefs---are equally validated by the strange manifestations they report. In that case, what we have is a competition between the Star and the National Inquirer to corner the market in human credulity.

Please take notice of the last remark: "The chemical nature of the Naples relic can be established only by opening the vial, but a complete analysis is forbidden by the Catholic Church. Our replication of the phenomenon seems to render this sacrifice unnecessary."

— andrea giordano

Show me where we can find the gene for chlorophyll in animals, Blast. Show me where we can find the gene for cobra venom in rattlesnakes, Blast. Show me where these genes are before they get "silenced", Blast.

— RDLF

Considering the track record of the Roman Church, the most likely explanation for the Naples miracle is fraud. Scientists have a hard time dealing with active deception since nature isn't in the business of practicing on the simplicity of the faithful.

Dear Jim: No need to be insulting and petty. Why don't you do some reading on the Miracle of the Sun that happened in Fatima, Portugal on October 13th, 1917. Please explain to me what the secular journalists of the day described that day.

Also, please explain to me how the image on the tilma of Juan Diego came about. And, of course, if you can explain it, I expect you can reproduce it. So, please do that for me too. I would be suitably impressed, and would never call it a miraculous image again.

why doesn't it happen elsewhere in the world?

— BlastfromthePast

why does it always happen in conjunction with his feast day?

— BlastfromthePast

Blast wrote: If this miracle can be explained by science---therefore implying that what happens is completely within the bounds of accepted science---then tell me, why doesn't it happen elsewhere in the world?

and why does it always happen in conjunction with his feast day?

A vial of the blood of Saint Januarius (San Gennaro), for example, has been liquefied every few months since 1389 in Naples.

a successful performance of the rite does not involve any conscious cheating. Indeed, inadvertent liquefaction events have been observed many times over the centuries during handling for repairs to the case that contains the sealed vial

Blast again: These are simple questions.

Considering the track record of the Roman Church, the most likely explanation for the Naples miracle is fraud.

— Jim Harrison

Blast: As I suspected, the fitness function is basically a teleological device. Formula (1) evaluates fitness alright, but with the "end" in sight, i.e., with the difference between the 1.0 MHz and the 10.0 Mhz. signal outputs being set at 5 V. This is the same problem that Dawkins admits to in his chapter 3 of the Blind Watchmaker. It's the same thing as having monkeys typing Hamlet, but selecting and maintaining the "correct" letters typed in the correct position.

Blast: We should also note that the "circuit" so developed ends up being a kind of "Rube Goldberg" contraption. Notice that the removal of a "cell" in which there are no connections to other cells significantly effects the output voltage. And, if one simply looks at the design of the circuit, it certainly is inelegant. (One ordinarily associates elegance with design.)

Show me your proof that they're NOT there. Where's your proof?

— BlastfromthePast

Since the Church doesn't allow an independent investigation of the Naples business---and never will, if it knows what's good for it!--- we're stuck with arguments from probabilities. Cross-cultural studies of magical practice show how easy it is for religious practitioners to fool themselves and others with parlor tricks. Since this sort of fraud is hardly mysterious or rare, it is a far more likely explanation for liquifying blood than the intervention of some sort of ghostly spirit.

To a solution of 25 g FeCl3.6H2O in 100 ml of water we slowly added 10 g CaCO3, and dialysed this solution for four days against distilled water from a Spectra/por tubing (parchment or animal gut works as well; a simple procedure (4) even allows us to avoid this dialysis step). The resulting solution was allowed to evaporate from a crystallization disk to a volume of 100 ml (containing about 7.5 % FeO(OH) ). Addition of 1.7 g NaCl yielded a dark brownish thixotropic sol which set in about 1 hour to a gel. The gel could be easily liquefied by gentle shaking and the liquefaction - solidification cycle was highly repeatable (5) .

— The Authors of the Article

It is entirely not the same thing as having monkeys type Hamlet and picking letters that fit in the correct position, because the solution (Hamlet) is known.

— EB

Either everone else is missing the point about this Naples business, or I am. The vial has been declared a holy artifact. Even if the Church were to permit analysis, and it were to be discovered to have nothing to do with blood, and was a common apothecary concoction for the amusement of children of the day, this should not diminish Blast's reverence for it. Because what is being revered is the IDEA behind it, rather than the substance itself. Even if it liquefies (sounds like ketsup) whenever it's handled, this shouldn't hurt Blast's faith either.

It is a matter of pure faith that miracles happen. Granted, the only ones who attest to physical miracles are those obligated by their faith to see them, but it's the faith that matters and not the miracle. Blast's position on miracles is much like Behe's on non-evolvability. Neither is in fact true, but both are declared to be true anyway as matters of faith.

I can only pray that sooner or later, Blast will see that reality need not be denied or perverted to support a faith that doesn't require any such thing.

You are the one making extraordinary claims. It's down to you to show us your allegedly silenced gene and, while you're at it, show us where your allegedly intelligent designer is hiding or doing anything at all.

— SEF

Granted, the only ones who attest to physical miracles are those obligated by their faith to see them, but it's the faith that matters and not the miracle. Blast's position on miracles is much like Behe's on non-evolvability. Neither is in fact true, but both are declared to be true anyway as matters of faith.

— Flint

So, you admit you don't know what's there and not there in the genome. The theory is plausible; perhaps probable. It therefore represents a scientific program of research for anyone so interested.

Blast:

You're starting to sound like our old friend Davison: Divine creation is obvious, but only to the objective observer! I'm neither arguing nor projecting, only observing. What ought to strike you abut Catholic "miracles" is that they are believed in by Catholics. Nobody else. Now, I suppose you could claim that only Catholics are, uh, spiritually equipped to notice these things or believe in them (and of course the Pope is equipped to prohibit close examination!). We also notice that "intelligent design" generally is accepted as valid ONLY by those whose faith insists in Divine Creation.

My position is, these are not coincidences. I'm trying to get you to understand that evidence does not apply to matters of faith. You believe or you do not. Behe, poor soul, was last seen heading for the heliopause with the goalposts strapped to his back. He looked like a total idiot, but the alternative was to admit that his position is based on faith and not evidence. Instead, he decided to take the position that evidence matters, but even infinite evidence would never been sufficient to change his mind! And (predictably), only those who share his FAITH (not his knowledge, nor his specialty nor his evidence) think he's acting rationally.

The remarkable thing about Blast is the credulity with which he accepts the "miracles" of the catholic church - the evidence for which is withheld from scrutiny - coupled with the incredulity he reserves for evolution, the evidence for which is freely available and deemed incontrovertible by virtually every biological scientist alive today.

BlastFromThePast writes, "Without the "fitness function", the experiment fails!!! What is the "fitness function"? It's a program that tests the configuration stored on the PC for the 10x10 block of cells for its output voltage, and is "designed" in such a way that the "endpoint" is being actively searched for. Take away the endpoint information from that circuit, and it fails; it does NOTHING."

Similarly, if you take away the part of the genetic algorithm that supplies the mutations, the experiment will fail. It does nothing. So, maybe your point is also that mutations are intelligent?

You are misreading the conclusions of the article. Indeed, fine-tuning the fitness function for a specific end, as the author noted, is hard! This difficulty rather supports the observation that Darwinian evolution does not work on teleological principles. If fitness functions can so readily specify an end product, then evolution would cease to work. Once a product satisfies a single fitness function globally, it would cease to evolve.

This is the problem of teleological thinking. It presupposes that abstract "information" can easily lead to concrete mechanisms and implementation. Nothing in reality is ever so simple. Especially evolution.

So let's try again. The author was trying to demonstrate that a circuit satisfying a fitness function shares similar behavior to known circuits. He observes that the circuit is sensitive to the definition of the fitness function. In other words, it is quite difficult to have GAs target the specific product that the researcher has in mind. But does the GA care? No. The virtual organisms are quite oblivious to the fact that the researcher didn't like any of them. Yet, the GA continues to churn out evolving designs!

This is BlastFromThePast's chief confusion. That the researcher's input may not give expected result does not mean a failure of Darwinian principles. It is a failure of teleological input. Indeed, one could almost argue that evolution produces results that are often random with respect to design.

We also notice that "intelligent design" generally is accepted as valid ONLY by those whose faith insists in Divine Creation.

— Flint

Blast: I propose that a "gel" is not "poweder";

Some of these relics become liquefied from their usual clotted state on specific occasions when their containers are handled by religious leaders

nor is FeCO3, or whatever is formed, blood.

And did they know about chemical elements 1700 years ago to be able to pull off such a stunt?

Blast: Without the "fitness function", the experiment fails!!! What is the "fitness function"? It's a program that tests the configuration stored on the PC for the 10x10 block of cells for its output voltage, and is "designed" in such a way that the "endpoint" is being actively searched for. Take away the endpoint information from that circuit, and it fails; it does NOTHING.

The remarkable thing about Blast is the credulity with which he accepts the "miracles" of the catholic church - the evidence for which is withheld from scrutiny - coupled with the incredulity he reserves for evolution, the evidence for which is freely available and deemed incontrovertible by virtually every biological scientist alive today.

— Russell

So let's try again. The author was trying to demonstrate that a circuit satisfying a fitness function shares similar behavior to known circuits. He observes that the circuit is sensitive to the definition of the fitness function. In other words, it is quite difficult to have GAs target the specific product that the researcher has in mind. But does the GA care? No. The virtual organisms are quite oblivious to the fact that the researcher didn't like any of them. Yet, the GA continues to churn out evolving designs!

— Lurker

A "clotted state" is a pretty good description of a gel. So who is it that describes it as a powder? Whom should we believe?

— Russell

What reason is there to believe that it is blood?

— Russell

Nitpick: Gerlaschelli et al say the "miracle" has been occurring since 1389; not 1700 years ago.

— Russell

And Darwinism is only believed in by those who have "faith" in Darwinism.

you don't have to be educated scientist to know what blood is, who it belonged to, and what a liquid or a powder is

BlastFromThePast,

You almost got my point. So close.

"Now, leaving in place the computer the analogue integrator, the tone generator, the oscilliscope, and the cells themselves, when you remove the "fitness function" the damn thing doesn't work!!!!! "

The damn thing doesn't work according to the researcher's perspective. But there's no reason to think that's the only way to evaluate the various configurations generated by the GA. Evolutionary principles do not guarantee that they generate things that "work" for the researcher, us, or anybody else. This is the problem of teleological thinking. And the researcher clearly documented this problem. He expressed frustration trying to fine tune the fitness function to get a specific end-product. That does not mean all the previous trials did not produce virtual organisms. They likely did. In other words, the GAs implemented Darwinian principles perfectly well.

By the way. I noted that if you remove the (random) mutation generator from the GA, and the program stops working. You did not address whether you conclude mutations are therefore intelligent.

Russell: A "clotted state" is a pretty good description of a gel. So who is it that describes it as a powder? Whom should we believe?

Blast: Gels "congeal"; blood "clots."
and powders... do what? And what difference between "clotting" and "congealing" is discernible by examining a sealed vial?

Russell: What reason is there to believe that it is blood?

Blast: Because it is "clotted."

Huh? I thought it was "powdered" in your version.

And your "humble people, committed to the truth" - are they more credible than the humble people committed to the truths of Zeus and Apollo?

— Russell

Educated scientist or not, are you telling me you know the stuff in that vial is blood, and you know who(m) it belonged to?

— Russell

Huh? I thought it was "powdered" in your version.

— Russell

So, you admit you don't know what's there and not there in the genome.

— BlastfromthePast

Of course it would fail. In biology, evolution would fail too if there wasn't a fitness function, i.e. natural selection. One difference between Adrian's FPGA world and the biological world is that determining fitness (natural selection) doesn't require intelligent guidance as an explanation. Sure, intelligent guidance is satisfactory explanation for some, but for many others the explanation where there are no more entities than necessary is the preferred explanation.

— EB

I conclude that Blast has more than adequately demonstrated the complete incoherence of his position. Bye bye.

As it happens, I do know that people have been investigating the origins of chlorophyll. Since they've deliberately been busy building up a phylogeny of the various types of component and which life-forms have which of them and the probabilities of how each evolved and from what precursor, I think they would have noticed by now if the gene was present in all animals but just switched off! It would have had a big impact on their research after all.

— SEF

What evidence do you have at all for your fairy-tale version of events? It looks like wishful thinking is all you have in lieu of anything real and worthwhile.

— SEF

I conclude that Blast has more than adequately demonstrated the complete incoherence of his position. Bye bye.

— Russell

blood that was actually shed

I ask you, where is the evidence for intermediate forms, and all you can answer is, "somewhere, I'm sure."

How do you know that all those people who speculated about evolution, long before you were born, had real "evidence" of what they taught you to believe?

In fact, when you ask for evidence of intermediate forms, we can point you to countless fossil specimens. Most impressive are those of the whale evolution, hominid evolution and of course good old Archaeopteryx, but they are hardly the only ones.

— Grey Wolf

Blast, you have no imagination, no new argument and no proof to stand on. That makes you like every other creationist, ever. Sincerely, stop kidding yourself thinking that ID is anything else but lies told for religion.

— Grey Wolf

Russell,
here's a link:

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08295a.htm

Please explain to me how this "thixotropic gel" managed to bubble up. Thank you for your explanation in advance.

Blast, have you ever seen the St. Januarius ampoule ?
You say "I propose that a "gel" is not "poweder"; nor is FeCO3, or whatever is formed, blood. And did they know about chemical elements 1700 years ago to be able to pull off such a stunt?"

The foto in (Fig.1)
http://www.luigigarlaschelli.it/Altrepubblicazioni/SProd.Ch.Ind.html
clearly shows that the content of the ampoule is not powder, but a dark clotted mass.

And about the chemical elements and expertise, please see
http://www.chemistry.org/portal/a/c/s/1/acsdisplay.html?DOC=vc2%5C2my%5Cmy2_blood.html
In the cited page, is reported that
"after St. Januarius' blood miraculously liquefied in the 1300s, a number of similar miracles occurred in or around Naples",
one of the few zones in which the kind of iron necessary to form thixotropic substances can be easily found (near active volcanoes).

Show me where we can find the gene for chlorophyll in animals, Blast. Show me where we can find the gene for cobra venom in rattlesnakes, Blast. Show me where these genes are before they get "silenced", Blast.

Show me your proof that they're NOT there. Where's your proof?

So, you admit you don't know what's there and not there in the genome. The theory is plausible; perhaps probable. It therefore represents a scientific program of research for anyone so interested.

Do you know how controverted the Archeopteryx phylogeny is?

And only a fool would make this kind of statement as well.

And, by the way, when is someone going to explain to me how the image on the tilma of Juan Diego came about?

I studied the "scientific" explanation of this miracle

And, un-"silenced" genes is likely the only way to explain humans growing tails.

— BlastfromthePast

I think Blast can probably be safely ignored from now on.

Looking past all his utterly fanciful "scientific" reasoning, it's sufficient simply to compare his dismissal of any rational explanation for his favorite "miracle" with his dismissal of the overwhelming evidence for transitional fossils.

Despite his claim to be able to easily "compartmentalize" science and religion, for him they are plainly one and the same. In both cases he has a pre-existing faith-based belief--the liquefying "blood" is a real miracle; nature was somehow designed by the same miraculous agent--and in both cases no amount of evidence to the contrary will ever shake his belief system.

This is what one expects of a religion, but Blast can't seem to get it through his head that it's not how science is done. So much for compartmentalization.

And, of course, as with simon and other recent troll-god-lites, it's perfectly acceptable to brew up one far-fetched "theory" after another, no matter how entirely lacking in evidence, so long as it offers some comfort to his view of things. If it's Blast's latest off-the-cuff "theory" in the balance, it's fine to splay a heavy thumb all over the scales. If it's science in the balance, however, those same sealed and certified scales must be wrong: local gravity is out of whack; a wandering cosmic string must be supplying a strange attractor; some other scale in another galaxy far far away was once out of adjustment, so that explains why Blast is getting the wrong reading here.

Blah, blah, blah. Wake up the pizza boy, all this drooling is making me hungry.

And why the heck is some gunk's shifting back and forth between liquid and not-so-liquid any kind of guarantee of sainthood?

Why wouldn't a real saint have done something worthwhile--abolished hunger, brokered world peace, or at least have blinked into existence a functioning sewer system? What's so saintly, moral, or virtuous about leaving behind a bodily fluid that won't behave itself?

Regarldless of any phylogeny, there is no doubt that Archy is a half dinosaur half bird, which means it is a transitional fossil, which is what you asked for.

— Grey Wolf

You forget their disguised obsession with cannibalism. Flesh and blood miracles hit their fetish points. Another one is sex of course - hence the virgin issue.

The day after you show us a gene for chlorophyll in an animal.

— RDLF

And who the hell are YOU, again . . . . . . ?

— RDLF

You're the one yammering about "frontloading", Blast. It's not MY fault if you can't support it.

— RDLF

Looking past all his utterly fanciful "scientific" reasoning, it's sufficient simply to compare his dismissal of any rational explanation for his favorite "miracle" with his dismissal of the overwhelming evidence for transitional fossils.

— Steviepinhead

In your utter brilliance, you overlooked the fact that what we're looking for are graduated intermediate forms.  "Half" dinosaur and "half" bird?  That's not sufficient. Where is "three-quarters" dinosaur and "one-quarter" bird? And I have to spend time pointing things like this out!

And I have to spend time pointing things like this out!

Humans have tails because they evolved from a lineage with tails - tetrapods, mammals, primates. So show us the tree with a tail as a result of an un-silenced gene (which it would have had to have in your front-loaded scheme).

— SEF

You forget their disguised obsession with cannibalism. Flesh and blood miracles hit their fetish points. Another one is sex of course - hence the virgin issue.

— SEF

Ee-yikes!

It snapped! Ick, I never realized how MUCH, uh, biological matter was packed into one of those little trolls!

Almost like an object lesson for Lenny's Maxim: however much they start out spouting the silly "scientific" jargon, quote-mining, superficially miming an evidentiary discussion, in the end they all break down into wild-eyed theorizing, right before they start pulling saints and miracles and the evils of death out of (one inconsistent version or another of) the Sky Pilot's Big Book of Fabulous Fables.

And yet HE feels no need to provide any evidence for 'design', and is happy to reject every rational explanation for some bleeding religious relic that no one is allowed to examine.

— Arden Chatfield

There is "evidence" for design: it's called "irreducible complexity."

— Blast

Does the particular phylogeny detract in the least from the fact that the genes involved for the tail are both present and have been silenced?

— Blast

Oh, Blast, really! I have no animosity against religion at all, as long as the more extreme religionists keep their more extreme practices to themselves, and don't push them on me.

But YOU were the one who claimed to be able to successfully uh, "compartmentalize." When push came to shove, you really couldn't quite bring it off, could you? You stooped to the old chestnust about gaps between the gaps, and then you melted down completely.

Lenny's Maxim isn't always pretty to watch, but it's amazingly powerful.

Toodle-oo!

DAMN! Blast never told us how many transitional fossils we need!

Re "Once a product satisfies a single fitness function globally, it would cease to evolve."

Which would be why once a species becomes highly successful in its current environment, it tends to stay put until the environment changes again.

Henry

In your utter brilliance, you overlooked the fact that what we're looking for are graduated intermediate forms. "Half" dinosaur and "half" bird? That's not sufficient. Where is "three-quarters" dinosaur and "one-quarter" bird?

Am I to understand you to believe that the gene for chlorophyll is to be found in nuclear DNA?

You're the one yammering about "frontloading", Blast. It's not MY fault if you can't support it.

If you disagree, then contradict the hypothesis. If you can't contradict the hypothesis, then admit that science is not yet in a position to either confirm or disprove. "Show me the gene." That's stupidity.

It seems you're having trouble compartamentalizing your animosity towards religion.

Why should I accept every rational explanation you give. If it falls of its own weight, then why should I be obliged to accept it? If anyone is guilty of not accepting a rational explanation, it is the Darwinist who swears off even the possibility that "irreducible complexity" exists. Intelligent design is a rational explanation for what we find---actually find---in nature. Why deny the obvious? Isn't the Blind Watchmakera(n) (unsuccessful) effort to explain away what common sense is telling us? Are we to be told---and accept---that we shouldn't believe our "lying eyes"? Isn't that exactly what you're doing with St. Januarius' relic? You're saying don't believe what you SEE. It's not really clotted blood that becomes liquid, it's some sort of thixotropic iron gel. Oh, excuse me. Why didn't I know that the entire time? I'll see you boys later on another post. Tata.

Re "Most impressive are those of the whale evolution, hominid evolution and of course good old Archaeopteryx, but they are hardly the only ones. Talkorigins.org is positively full of examples of every kind of intermediate creatures you could wish for."

Of course, (and at the risk of stating the obvious) the evidence for a generalization (such as common ancestry) has to be based on an observed pattern* in a large amount of data - no one piece of evidence would by itself prove anything. Nor would discrediting one piece of evidence disprove the general case.

*Later species being modified copies of earlier ones, similar species being modified copies of the same earlier speces, lack of significant sharing of derived features across separate lineages, the later species being within geographic reach of their predecessors, the usability of a nested hierarchy classification system for species living at the same time (fairly unambiguous where sufficient data is available).

Henry

Someone here asked who Blast was. It looks to me like Blast has several things in common with Charlie Wagner, but the comments aren't identical. Blast, like Charlie, fakes a kind of detatched viewpoint typical of science.

Soundbitewise, if you wanted to make this argument to a creationist, wouldn´t meteorology be a better science example than plate tectonics, since it´s something everybody knows? "Sun's shining, it´s meteorology..." The one drawback that I can think of is that meteorologists are often wrong ;)

If that is so, then the original living organism would have ALL of the known genetic material in it. So, that would include chlorophyll.

— 'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank

It occurs to me that, in line with his nickname, BlastfromthePast may be one of those really old-fashioned ignoramus types who don't believe plants are alive. In which case for him it doesn't follow at all that front-loading means animals have to share plant genes. Perhaps only metazoans were supposed to be intelligently designed.

Ah, but snakes are satanic and cursed by the fall etc etc.

Carl,
Like the theory of evolution, the theory of plate tectonics is really made up of two components. One component is the process, and the other is the mechanism. In both cases, the process has been confirmed. Living organisms have changed over time and those that are extant today are different from those that lived in the past.
There are also significant similarities in the morphological and molecular structure of all organisms demonstrating a profound relatedness. No reasonable person denies this.
In plate tectonics, the process has also been confirmed. The earth is made up of huge plates that move slowly and this movement has caused the sea floor to spread and the continents to change their relative positions. No reasonable person denies this.
But in both cases, the mechanism is in question and has not been clearly established. Those who promote "evolution" are really defending a well supported process and a less well supported mechanism. The same is true in plate tectonics. While we can state with certainty that it occurs, details of the mechanism are still under debate.
So, would you be correct to pose the question to a geologist "do you believe in plate tectonics?" He would probably reply "I believe that it has occurred, but I'm unsure of the exact mechanism." The same is true for evolution. The question "do you believe in evolution"? depends on whether you're talking about the process of evolution or the mechanism. I believe that the process has occurred but I question the currently popular mechanism.
Intelligent design is perfectly compatible with evolution because it is a mechanism, not a process. It is one of many possible explanations of how evolution has proceeded. No one mechanism has been clearly established as the correct mechanism. Certainly, Darwin's explanation (and the modern synthesis) require a huge leap of faith that connects the trivial changes in gene frequency that occur under natural selection with the emergence of highly organized, complex processes, systems and adaptations.
I have noticed a distinct trend in recent times to de-emphasize the role of natural selection in evolution and concentrate more on the notion of common descent. That's a good trend and I welcome it. Common descent is readily supported by a large body of molecular and physiological data and I would find few arguments against the idea that all organisms share a common origin.
On the other hand, the advocacy of the theory of mutation and natural selection as the mechanism of evolution remains what it always has been, a just-so story fabricated by Darwin and disseminated by his successors. It lacks any kind of empirical (read "scientific") support and should be recognized as the fairy tale that it is.

"in the bitter contests of values and political rhetoric that characterize our times, 90% of the uproar is noise and 10% is what the scientists call "signal" or solid, substantive information that will reward study and interpretation. If we could eliminate much of the noise, we might find that actual, meaningful disagreements are on a scale we can manage." -Jeff Limerick

Ah, notice the shift in the last day or so, both on idthefuture.com (e.g., the interview with Townes) and in comments like #36463 - Intelligent Design is compatible with the process of evolution.

So, presumably, now there is no case to teach ID as an alternative to the theory of evolution, it is merely one of the mechanisms?

On the other hand, the advocacy of the theory of mutation and natural selection as the mechanism of evolution remains what it always has been, a just-so story fabricated by Darwin and disseminated by his successors. It lacks any kind of empirical (read "scientific") support and should be recognized as the fairy tale that it is.

— Charlie Wagner

Nobody cares what you think, Charlie.

You keep saying that but I doubt it's true. I'd say it was highly likely that at least one person does care :- Charlie himself.

You keep saying that but I doubt it's true. I'd say it was highly likely that at least one person does care :- Charlie himself.

Charlie's already so much as admitted no one cares. He sends his manifesto off to professors, and they ignore him. Which is what professors do all the time. Even the ID community ignores him. when's the last time Dembski, Behe, or the like mentioned Nelson's Law? Lenny is right. No one cares.

Re "So, presumably, now there is no case to teach ID as an alternative to the theory of evolution, it is merely one of the mechanisms?"

Well, that is consistent with all the details they've provided so far, AFAIK. :)

Henry

"Flint, I'm Catholic. Miracles, documented miracles, happen quite often. It takes two of them---after a saint dies---to canonize a saint. If you're interested in scientific type proof, then there's the powdered blood of St. Januarius in Naples, Italy, that liquifies almost each year at the time of his feast day. There's the tilma of Juan Diego in Mexico City, upon which is the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the pupil of which contains the reflection of Juan Diego!! How might science explain that? And, of course, there are personal experiences. Suffice it to say, I have good reason to believe in God. But . . . .. we digress."

Dear Blast....

You REALLY need to start reading the "Skpetical Inquirer". These kinds of phenomena have been investigated and have always been found to be trickery, charlatanism, or misinterpreted natural phenomena.

These "miracles" prove nothing more than human gullibility and the desire to believe in something, ANYTHING.

There's the tilma of Juan Diego in Mexico City, upon which is the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the pupil of which contains the reflection of Juan Diego!! How might science explain that?

— BftP

Everyone -

Please excuse me if I am beating a dead horse here. I only recently came across this blog and haven't read through all the comments thoroughly, but there is a simple question I just have to ask.

Can ID tell us where to draw the line between "designed" and "evolved"???

If a complex system, deemed to be "designed", has X number of interacting components, does that mean that a system with X-1 components is not designed? Or X-10?

Just how complex does a system have to be in order to qualify for "designed" status?

Is there any type of metric, other than personal whim, that tells us when we have crossed from the "evolved" realm to the "designed"?

Or am I missing something??

OOPS!

Of course that's "Skeptical Inquirer". I'm not that bad of a speller!

My bad, I was trying to type too fast!

Re "Just how complex does a system have to be in order to qualify for "designed" status?"

Dunno, but as a general rule, as long as requirements are satisfied, simpler is better than more complex. Another general rule is modularity is better than a "design" in which everything affects almost everything else, because that makes maintenance and modifications much easier to implement.

Whatever "designed" known life forms flunked both of those tests.

Henry

Psalm 104:5: "Thou didst fix the earth on its foundation so that it never can be shaken."

— H.Humbert

About having a solid liquify at specific times: there is at least one metal that's solid at room temperature but will melt in the palm of a person's hand. That makes me suspect that it wouldn't be too hard to arrange the described event.

Henry