Telic 'Logic'

Doesn't IOWA stand for idiots out wandering about?

:-)

Not wanting to sound like a spoilsport, but what do Salvador's comments and their implications have to do with a general refutation of the 'theories' of ID in whatever form? I know ID is vacuous, as has been reasonably exposited here multiple times now, but arguments such as these do not really help the general cause of trying to eradicate them from underneath the science label. These arguments reek heavily of ad hominem to me... Discrediting scientists does not help in discrediting theories.

I have to agree with Edin. I'd much rather see PT entries dealing with actual news and substantive debates, rather than 'gotcha' moments like this. It just looks petty, and that's not necessary when we've got the science on our side. Leave the sniping to Dembski.

Then Hector Avalos, our outspoken village atheist, has used their names in his battle against Gonzalez."

If it's about science, not religion, why was this mentioned?

I have to add to the spoilsporting, but I feel quite strongly about this. In science, the validity of an argument has nothing to do with the background or credentials of its proponent. For example, biology benefited immensely from an influx of researchers from the physical sciences in the early days of molecular biology.

minimalist wrote: I have to agree with Edin. I'd much rather see PT entries dealing with actual news and substantive debates, rather than 'gotcha' moments like this. It just looks petty, and that's not necessary when we've got the science on our side. Leave the sniping to Dembski.

Dear freshman chemistry/biology major who is aspiring to become a doctor, physical therapist, or bio tecnologist. I commend the fact you came from a nice protestant family with a protestant medical doctor/first class heart surgeon for a dad (over 50% of protestant physcians reject Darwinism). Do you see what those Darwinists are saying about people like your daddy, the godly heart surgeon who saves peoples lives? Do you see what hard core Darwinists really are like and what they say about you and your dad on the internet. Atheistic Darwinists are out to destroy your Christian beliefs, they call your daddy an idiot and lunatic, they say they want to beat your daddy with brass knuckles and steel-toed boots. Just go over to Pharyngula and see for yourself. They want your school teacher mommy to be fired and publicly humiliated. Visit PandasThumb to hear more of the same...... I commend the fact you got a scholarship to James Madison University where the acceptance rate from chem/bio majors to medical school is 98%. I expect you'll graduate with honors and follow in your daddy's footsteps. Will you consider helping me get the message out that biology speaks of a great Designing Intelligence and show the world your daddy was right about the fact God created life?

Given the population demographics of roughly 50% creationists 38% theistic evolutionists 12% atheistic darwinists the anti-religious, anti-Christian ad hominems at PT are a valuable marketing tool for the wedge.

— Salvador T. Cordova

In regard to the content of PandasThumb, I would like to see more vitriol and anti-Christian ad hominem rants like what we see at Pharyngula and infidels.org. The last thing I want to see here is a civilized discourse.

the anti-religious, anti-Christian ad hominems at PT are a valuable marketing tool for the wedge.

hey PvM, thanks for linking to my writings here at PT, I appreciate it bud

— Sal

Not wanting to sound like a spoilsport, but what do Salvador's comments and their implications have to do with a general refutation of the 'theories' of ID in whatever form?

— Edin Najetovic

I have to add to the spoilsporting, but I feel quite strongly about this. In science, the validity of an argument has nothing to do with the background or credentials of its proponent. For example, biology benefited immensely from an influx of researchers from the physical sciences in the early days of molecular biology.

— Ricardo Azevedo

Me, I'd like to see creationists and IDers answer questions that are put to them.

— Lenny Flank

GOALS Governing Goals * To defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural and political legacies. * To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and hurnan beings are created by God. ... To see intelligent design theory as the dominant perspective in science.

Since Sal's big on numbers and percentages...

Creation/ID:
99% BS
1% Scientific Data

You have managed to convince everyone in the trailor parks but, I think you will find the rest of the world may be more difficult.

Doesn't IOWA stand for idiots out wandering about?

Actually, I had always heard it stood for I Owe the World an Apology.

And again with the demographics and marketing strategies. This is not the newest Tide Detergent - Now with active Stain Lifter Sal, or is it? Should we be informing school boards that despite protestations that ID is a legitimate science and not religion, it's really a socio-political and religious product?

I have to add to the spoilsporting, but I feel quite strongly about this. In science, the validity of an argument has nothing to do with the background or credentials of its proponent.

— Ricardo Azevedo

For Anaxagoras uses intelligence as a deus ex machina for the making of the world, and when he is at a loss to tell from what cause something necessarily is, then he drags intelligence in, but in all other cases ascribes events to anything rather than to intelligence.

Then we agree? The quote I was responding to "So Iowa State has one thing in common with unaccredited Bible colleges and medieval heresy tribunals --- our Bible scholars think they can tell our astronomers how to do their jobs." is wrong for many reasons.

— PvM

The vitriolic ad-hominem attack on creationists alone is highly valuable in as much as these are targeted to the rising number of creationist in the scientific disciplines like biology. [emphasis added]

For example, biology benefited immensely from an influx of researchers from the physical sciences in the early days of molecular biology.

I am not sure I agree 100% with you on this. Authough the logical fallacy of Appeal to Authority would disagree with your statement, I believe that the fallcy of an ad hominem attack would agree.

— Miah

I don't think it is wrong of a person unrelated in education to the field of biology to have a theory in biology, as long as this theory can hold up to biological scientific scruitiny.

— Miah

Posted by Miah on September 2, 2005 12:05 PM (e) (s)

"Steverino:

I think you are being too generous on the Scientific Data for Creation/ID.

I however don't appreciate the hasty generalization fallacy where you attribute everyone in the trailor parks as buying in to Creation/ID. It is rude, dishonest, and unwelcomed. I would kindly request an apology.

Not everyone that lives in trailer parks is stupid...as your statement implies."

My deepest apologies....How can I make it up to all those wonderfully mobile homesteaders....Perhaps a weekend pass to Kent Hovind's Dino Land!, Home of the Fire Breathing Dino!???

the rising number of creationist in the scientific disciplines like biology.

And biology will benefit as more ID leaning engineers get involved in helping elucidate biology from a systems and software perspective. And biology will have more and more researchers available as the formerly marginalized creationists join the ranks. Why, have you seen the skyrocketing enrollments in biology since the advent of the ID in the 90's? This is correlated with the de-emphais of Darwinian evolution.

— Salvador

Where the USA is struggling is in the ranks of Engineers, Physicists, Chemists, etc., not biologists. These are areas where Darwinism is nothing but a useless impediment anyway.

— Salvador

Why last night I was talking to some sophomores in computer engineering. I said, "did you know that biological systems are rich in software. You all know how hard it is to write software. Do you think the software in biology, like the 3 giga base-pairs of DNA in humans was just an accident. Do you think Darwinian evolution could do that?" They said, "No way!" Heartwarming to see that these young science students can think logically.

— Salvador

So materialistic sciences like meteorology need to shed their vile materialistic explanations and get some theistic understanding, eh? I'm game, Sal. Fill us in. What's the theologically enhanced understanding of, say, Hurricane Katrina.

— steve

Atheistic Darwinists are out to destroy your Christian beliefs

In his comments on Anaxagoras and Aristotle, Mythos actually engages in a bit of quote mining. (Just kidding.) Aristotle's objection to Anaxagoras was that he only brought in intelligence to explain the making of the world instead of being consistent and seeing it at work in everything as Aristotle himself did. Indeed, a page before the quote about God on the Machine, Aristotle wrote "When one man said that reason was present--as in animals, so throughtout nature--as the cause of the world and of all its order, he seemed like a sober man in contrast with the random talk of his predecessors. We know that Anaxagoras certainly adopted these views..."[trans. W.D. Ross]

We're always bitching about the absence of a theory of ID. Aristotle's biology shows what such a theory might be like, consistent, perceptive, but obviously wrong. On the other hand, Darwin once commented, "We're all schoolboys to old Aristotle" so he at least found something useful in the master of those who know.

I do know in a poll that many biology majors at James Madison might be interested in learning about intelligent design.

* To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and hurnan beings are created by God.... To see intelligent design theory as the dominant perspective in science.

Sal baby, if I might call you Sal... many years ago, it was a widely held belief that anyone suffering seizures was thought to be possessed or suffering the wrath of God. Today, however, we know by not giving into the "God of the Gaps" type thinking that those seizures are not the wrath of God or Deamons, but actually something medical.
Pretty cool, huh? Don't you love it when we are able to learn the truth about something...figure something out???

Now imagine if we had all given into that desire to just write if off as "God"...where would we be?

"And biology will have more and more researchers available as the formerly marginalized creationists join the ranks."

Salvador, are you saying there are actual researchers among creationists? That's good news! Maybe one of them will be kind enough to respond to Lenny's questions concering the 'theory' of intelligent design and to detail the hypotheses IDers are testing.

Here is a more recent survey. Look at the "The recent sharp, decade-long rise in biology majors"

Science Magazine

That survey was 2003, the decade rise is thus statistically correlated with the rise of ID. I think the rise of ID is the symptom of a greater knowledge of the complexity of biology. Darwinism is being run over by the Complexity Steamroller.

Of course, you all are free to believe ID's rise is because of Wedge Marketing, or you can face it, the facts are running over Darwinist peer-review comittees. They better get their act together because they are losing credebility in the public's eye and in the eyes of aspiring science students.

Salvador

(Ric: I know that's what the wackos say. http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=46076 . I just want to see Salvador pretend that's science. And for more amusing wacko nonsense, read this: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=46090 )

You're deluding yourself. Wait until they learn about genetic algorithms.

Anyone who can argue that the explosion of molecular data (to name one of the main developments) since the early 80s has weakened evolutionary biology must be living in an alternative reality.

I notice you still haven't gotten around to answering Lenny's questions, Sal.

Is that because you're still sucking on that shoot of, um, bamboo?

"And biology will have more and more researchers available as the formerly marginalized creationists join the ranks. Why, have you seen the skyrocketing enrollments in biology since the advent of the ID in the 90's? This is correlated with the de-emphais of Darwinian evolution."

Isn't this a same type of correlation expressed in the "Global Warming / Lack of Pirates" chart used to support the Flying Spaghetti Monster???

the anti-religious, anti-Christian ad hominems at PT are a valuable marketing tool for the wedge. The vitriolic ad-hominem attack on creationists alone is highly valuable in as much as these are targeted to the rising number of creationist in the scientific disciplines like biology. Such Pharygula/style rhetoric has been they source of inspiration on the campuses. So keep up the good work at PT, and keep fanning the flames of the wedge.... You guys don't realize how easy you make my job.

— Salvador Cordova

That survey was 2003, the decade rise is thus statistically correlated with the rise of ID.

— Salvador Cordova

And biology will have more and more researchers available as the formerly marginalized creationists join the ranks. Why, have you seen the skyrocketing enrollments in biology since the advent of the ID in the 90's? This is correlated with the de-emphais of Darwinian evolution.

And biology will have more and more researchers available as the formerly marginalized creationists join the ranks. Why, have you seen the skyrocketing enrollments in biology since the advent of the ID in the 90's? This is correlated with the de-emphais of Darwinian evolution.

— Salvador Cordova

Why last night I was talking to some sophomores in computer engineering. I said, "did you know that biological systems are rich in software. You all know how hard it is to write software. Do you think the software in biology, like the 3 giga base-pairs of DNA in humans was just an accident. Do you think Darwinian evolution could do that?" They said, "No way!" Heartwarming to see that these young science students can think logically.

Unless the enrollment rise is due only to Darwinists enrolling, then there has been a rise in the number of creationists enrolling. That makes demographic sense. It is an inference. I guess we'll see where we are a decade from now.

(I don't know if I agree 100% with anything I say...) I'm not sure how you came to your first conclusion. I was actually spelling out the "Appeal to Authority" fallacy.

— Ricardo Azevedo

(Note that Dembski routinely challenges his critics' mathematical credentials, when they raise perfectly reasonable objections to his arguments. It's that kind of behavior we should avoid.

— Ricardo Azevedo

My deepest apologies....How can I make it up to all those wonderfully mobile homesteaders....Perhaps a weekend pass to Kent Hovind's Dino Land!, Home of the Fire Breathing Dino!???

— Steverino

It's all affirmation of the consequent: We intentionally design artifacts best understood as information processing systems, many biological systems are best understood as information processing systems, therefore (fallaciously) biological systems are intentionally designed.

Heartwarming to see that these young science students can think logically.

— Salvador

That survey was 2003, the decade rise is thus statistically correlated with the rise of ID. I think the rise of ID is the symptom of a greater knowledge of the complexity of biology."

— Salvador T. Cordova

Yes, and are those algorithims implemented through a sofware engineer (a designer) where the selection forces are carefully and intelligently design to create appropreate feed back or are the selection forces the product of random undirected forces.

Are you still peddling this sloppy thinking? Because it's irrelevant to the process.

Yes, and are those algorithims implemented through a sofware engineer (a designer) where the selection forces are carefully and intelligently design to create appropreate feed back or are the selection forces the product of random undirected forces.

— Salvador Cordova

I do know in a poll that many biology majors at James Madison might be interested in learning about intelligent design. It does not mean they are creationists nor IDists, but I would consider them as potential for becoming ID sympathizers. Our sample size was too small to make a good reading on the bio majors, so a further poll would be a good idea.

The vitriolic ad-hominem attack on creationists alone is highly valuable in as much as these are targeted to the rising number of creationist in the scientific disciplines like biology. Such Pharygula/style rhetoric has been they source of inspiration on the campuses. So keep up the good work at PT, and keep fanning the flames of the wedge...

Here, here. And biology will benefit as more ID leaning engineers get involved in helping elucidate biology from a systems and software perspective.

And biology will benefit as more ID leaning engineers get involved in helping elucidate biology from a systems and software perspective.

Sal said, "You guys don't realize how easy you make my job."

I sure I would like to see you do your job, once you get out of this evil-intended swindle calling itself "creationism" and find a REAL job, and I'm simply a teacher who would like not to be angry and worried about the machinations of twisted-till-evil, fear-filled, unprincipled, utterly dishonest, conniving, backstabbing, nutcase Xian fascists (and, be honest with yourself, your vision of the USA would be fascist, viewed by any outsider) like yourself.
I'm sure scientists would very much also like to get back to their jobs, which have proven interesting and useful to all, without your interference, feeble as it is, since being slapped with the shoestring of idiocy and misrepresentation does get annoying.

Five years back, I had assumed that the great majority of Creationists were people like myself: honest people with honest reasons for their beliefs, even when wrong. You and your mental (in both senses) mafia Brotherhood have shown me that the fundamentalist movement that Creationism spearheads is not "misguided" but consciously evil, with goals as un-human and insane as any that now exist on Earth.
Dear Sal, would you and your associates (I don't believe liars or fanatics capable of friendship) please find HONEST work to do, and put that damned Bible down and do it.

That survey was 2003, the decade rise is thus statistically correlated with the rise of ID.

qetzal said: Which students were these? Certainly not the CE sophomores you described. If they could think logically, they would have spotted all the logical errors in your statements. Biological systems are not equivalent to software. Any conclusions that assume they are are fallacious.

Salvador's insightful comment: biological systems are rich in software.

PS Sal, I got NFL last night, started reading immediately, and already have lots of questions. Are you willing to give real answers to real questions. The first one being a question I already asked you. Is NFL complete, in-and-of itself, or should I have read another book first?
Paul

Sal: "Why, have you seen the skyrocketing enrollments in biology since the advent of the ID in the 90's? This is correlated with the de-emphais of Darwinian evolution."

Maybe because they see a rich future in biotechnology, but that would be a materialistic explanation.

Sal: "However, the fact 37% of physcians reject Darwinian evolution..."

...because they haven't bothered to pay attention to it because they have 60 hour work weeks.

Steve LaBonne: Here, here. And biology will benefit as more ID leaning engineers get involved in helping elucidate biology from a systems and software perspective.

Systems biology has intellectual roots in ideas that developed in the first half of the 20th century. It draws on the concepts of homeostasis, the tendency of organisms to maintain stability by constantly adjusting to their environment, and of cybernetics, which stresses the similarity between manmade and natural information-based control and feedback systems. As a practical research endeavor, it is much newer. .... the time is right for systems biology. "Biologists need engineers and engineers need biologists," he says.

PS Sal, I got NFL last night, started reading immediately, and already have lots of questions. Are you willing to give real answers to real questions. The first one being a question I already asked you. Is NFL complete, in-and-of itself, or should I have read another book first? Paul

Pricey. Your not kidding. NFL is about 50% more expensive than other books of its class and binding type. Fortunately, I work in a book store and don't actually have to buy it. Unfortunately, I have to work tonight, as in 20 mintutes from now. I'll catch you later.

Do any of you have any atheistic/Darwinistic rants that I can share with the reporter I'm seeing next Tuesday? You know, it's all part of our well-oiled public relations campaign that got a presidential endorsement recently...

— Salvador T. Cordoba

Lenny Flank wrote: Why are you in here arguing that ID/creationism is all about God and the Bible, while Discovery Institute and other creationists are currently in Kansas and Dover arguing that ID/creationism is NOT all about God and the Bible? Why are you **undercutting your own side**???????? I really truly want to know.

I think the designer is God,

The leadership of the IDEA Center are Christians, who believe that the identity of the designer is the God of the Bible. While the IDEA Center as an organization promotes intelligent design as a scientific theory, our leaders also have their own religious view that the identity of the designer is the God of the Bible. The claim that life was designed by an intelligence is a scientific claim, while the claim that the designer is the Christian God is a religious one.

Hey Sal, I'm really more interested in the actual science of ID and not the public relations spin you are focusing on i.e. "Do any of you have any atheistic/Darwinistic rants that I can share with the reporter I'm seeing next Tuesday?". Lenny has asked some very significant questions, and you don't have any answers. In fact, you and all other IDists on PT have dodged his questions for months. These are very important scientific questions and you could care less. You want to spin off into other arguments and start your discourse again in other threads to duck and hide from the scientific challenge. Where's the ID science, or are you just a religion and anti-science in schools proponent?

Salvador wrote:

I'm trying to portray you guys in the most rephrensible light possible before those who are part of the 88% majority.

Hey Sal, I'm really more interested in the actual science of ID and not the public relations spin you are focusing on i.e. "Do any of you have any atheistic/Darwinistic rants that I can share with the reporter I'm seeing next Tuesday?".

Lenny has asked some very significant questions, and you don't have any answers. In fact, you and all other IDists on PT have dodged his questions for months.

These are very important scientific questions and you could care less. You want to spin off into other arguments and start your discourse again in other threads to duck and hide from the scientific challenge. Where's the ID science, or are you just a religion and anti-science in schools proponent?

Why can't science be left to scientists?

Perhaps we are going about this the wrong way...How about we start debunking the Bible using hard scientific data in public forum. Pointing out the inconsistencies and the gaps. Pointing out the there seems to be a "controversy" ravaging the country between the Faithful..."ID or Creation....how do you get two variations from the same Book?"

Make them explain the numbers:

40% Creationist
30% ID
30% NASCAR

YEAH!...That's the ticket!

Sal, you are a stupid person who desires others to bow before your pigheadedness, not a Chrisiamn God.

You also, on this forum, are ONLY a troll, with no value, even as a foil given your passion for evasion and lies. You, as you present yourself here, are an intellectual and moral coward: a person trying to, and clearly delighting in, deceiving others by any means necessary.

Until you find the courage at least to argue your position forthrightly I will allow you to connive and lie outside my field of vision, though may your God save you if you ever somehow interfere with anyone I myself know.
You are a disgrace to every honest Christian or conservative with whom I have ever disagreed.

In hopes you will pull the beam imbedded by both your eye and your conscience.

Sal sez:

Us lowly YECs have the worst reputation in the world

Do any of you have any atheistic/Darwinistic rants that I can share with the reporter I'm seeing next Tuesday?

Why don't you start off by telling the reporter you're a young Earth creationist? That will help put the whole ID thing into perspective at the start of your interview.

no, no, no... Sal is here for the comedy. As a general health advisory I must recommend that you swallow your beer and perhaps set it down before reading from Sal's comically minded "smartaxes" website. I nearly choked on mine when I read the bits on "Laws of Physics and Intelligent Design". Where to start... try reading the physics book first. Any physics book. Keep up the howlers, Sal, I'll leave the Comedy Channel off for the night! Thanks.

"ID science can be formulated as an interpretation of existing, accepted physical law, especially quantum mechanics. It can also be formulated in terms of forensic science (as the Discovery Institute has)."

Accepted 'physical law' is based on observation which ID serves to undermine. I don't think ID can work off of physical sciences because it is not constrained by the physical world. We would never have enough information in an experiment to fully justify an experimental conclusion; because, we cannot quantify the supernatural nature of a test environment. We can certainly determine the physical nature, but that is only an insignificant environmental factor compared to omniscience and omnipotence occupying every cubic nanometer of the universe. So, how can we trust any information ID proposes without accounting for the supernatural variable. The supernatural would be weighted infinitely against the meager portion of space time we are observing. I think ID will have to incorporate some form of supernatural constant or something to all 'physical laws' or actually rewrite all of the current 'physical laws' before it can comandeer anything we pitiful humans have concluded from our meager observations.

I have ignored Lenny for the most part, that's true.

PS Do any of you have any atheistic/Darwinistic rants that I can share with the reporter I'm seeing next Tuesday?

ID theory does not identify the designer, anymore the Gravitational theory identifies the name of the planet generating the gravitational field. We look to other sources outside of gravitational theory to identify the gravitational source. Same with the identity of the Designer.

Salvador continues the ID argument from analogy:

'Why last night I was talking to some sophomores in computer engineering. I said, "did you know that biological systems are rich in software. You all know how hard it is to write software. Do you think the software in biology, like the 3 giga base-pairs of DNA in humans was just an accident. Do you think Darwinian evolution could do that?"'

Do you know how hard it is to manipulate history so that Salvador is one of the results? History must have been designed so that he came along.

Now we're told that because things in nature are even harder to create than designed things that they must also be designed. Gosh, maybe the problem here is that intelligence is not as creative as natural processes.

Walks away shaking head and wonders if IDers realise just how limited intelligence can be.

Walks away shaking head and wonders if IDers realise just how limited intelligence can be.

— Dene Bebbington

I tried discussing specified complexity with Sal on ISCID a month or two back. In the end, his position was that for something to be labelled as having specified complexity, one needed elusive "conceptual information". Where does that come from? Why, from the Designer making his object look designed, of course!. People like Sal talking about biological systems being rich in software shows that tose systems are designed! Ta-daaa!.

That whirring sound you hear is KArl Popper spinning in his grave.

James commented: Accepted 'physical law' is based on observation which ID serves to undermine. I don't think ID can work off of physical sciences because it is not constrained by the physical world.

The views of a large number of contemporary physcal scientists are summed up in the essay "remarks on the Mind-Body Question" written by Nobel laureate Eugene Wigner. Wigner begins by pointing out that most physical scientists have returned to the recognition that thought--meaning the mind--is primary. he goes on to state: "It was not possible to formulate the laws of quantum mechanics in a fully consistent way without reference to the consciousness." And he concludes by noting how remarkable it is that the scientific study of the world led to the content of consciousness as the ultimate reality. A further development in yet another field of physics reinforces Wigner's viewpoint. The introduction of information theory and its application to thermodynamics has led to the conclusion that entropy, a basic concept of that science, is a measure of the observer's ignorance of the atomic details of the system. When we measure the pressure, volume, and temperature of an object, we have a residual lack of knowledge of the exact position and velocity of the component atoms and molecules. The numerical value of the amount of information we are missing is proportional to the entropy. In earlier thermodynamics, entorpy had represented, in an engineering sense, the energy of the system unavailable to perform external work. In the modern view, the human mind enters once again, and entropy relates not just to the state of the system but to our knowledge of that state. The founders of modern atomic theory did not start out to impose a "mentalist" picture of the world. Rather, they began with the opposite point of view and were forced to the present-day position in order to explain experimental results. We are now in a position to integrate the perspectives of three large fields: psychology, biology, physics..... First the human mind, including consciousness and reflective thought, can be explained by activities of the central nervous system, which in turn, can be reduced to the biological structure and function of that physiological system. Second, biological phenomena at all levels can be totally understood in terms of atomic physics, that is, through the action and interaction of the component atoms of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and so forth. Third and last, atomic physics, which is now understood most fully by means of quantum mechanics, must be formulated with the mind as a primitive component of the system.

Salvador continues the ID argument from analogy

To grasp the reality of life as it has been revealed by molecular biology, we must magnify a cell a thousand million times until it is twenty kilometers in diameter and resembles a giant airship large enough to cover a great city like London or New York. What we would then see would be an object of unparalleled complexity and adaptive design. On the surface of the cell we would see millions of openings, like port holes of a vast space ship, opening and closing to allow a continual stream of materials to flow in and out. If we were to enter one these openings we would find ourselves in a world of supreme technology and bewildering complexity. We would see endless highly organized corridors and conduits branching in every direction away from the perimeter of the cell The nucleus itself would be a vast spherical chamber more than a kilometer in diameter, resembling a geodesic dome inside of which we would see, all neatly stacked together in ordered arrays, the miles of coiled chains of the DNA molecules. We would see all around us in every direction we looked all sorts of robot-like machines. We would wonder even more as we watch the strangely purposeful activities of the weird molecular machines, particularly when we realized that, despite all our accumulated knowledge of physics and chemistry, the task of designing one such molecular machine would be completely beyond our capacity. We would see that nearly every feature of our own advanced machines had its analogue in the cell: artificial languages and the decoding systems, memory banks for information storage and retrieval, elegant control systems regulating the automated assembly of parts and components, error fail-safe and proof-reading devices utilized for quality control, assembly process involving the principle of prefabrication and modular construction. In fact so deep would be the feeling of deja-vu, so persuasive the analogy, that much of the terminology we would use to describe this fascinating molecular reality would be borrowed from the world of late twentieth-century technology.

Yes, and are those algorithims implemented through a sofware engineer (a designer) where the selection forces are carefully and intelligently design to create appropreate feed back or are the selection forces the product of random undirected forces.

— Adam Marczyk

So you're saying that God intelligently designed the physical laws that would make it possible for evolution to occur?

Sal, you never got round to asnwering this question on ISCID, so I'll ask it again. Why is your argument (and your presentation of Dembski's ideas) any different from Paley's?

That was precisely my point, Ved. Salvator is a young-earth creationist, and yet his sole argument against genetic algorithms establishes, at best, theistic evolution. Probably not the conclusion he wanted to reach.

It's little surprise that he's assiduously avoiding answering me, just as he avoids answering anyone who asks a genuine scientific question or poses a criticism. Instead, he capers about taunting people, egging them on to insult him, and then acts shocked, just shocked, when that happens. Then he promises to go tell the whole world about how those nasty ol' Darwinists are picking on him. (Reminds me of the peasant from Monty Python and the Holy Grail: "Help help, I'm being repressed!")

The one thing we can safely say is that his tactics offer an insight into the workings of ID and creationism in general. His comments have made it abundantly obvious that he views science not as a study of the evidence to determine what the truth is, but as a kind of public-relations game where you win if you can make the other guy look bad. This sort of all-spin-no-substance approach is typical among advocates of pseudoscience.

Sal, you never got round to asnwering this question on ISCID, so I'll ask it again. Why is your argument (and your presentation of Dembski's ideas) any different from Paley's?

Paley's argument is very simple: Life is designed because it looks designed to him.

It's little surprise that he's assiduously avoiding answering me, just as he avoids answering anyone who asks a genuine scientific question or poses a criticism.

ID science can be formulated as an interpretation of existing, accepted physical law, especially quantum mechanics. It can also be formulated in terms of forensic science (as the Discovery Institute has).

The one thing we have going for ID is Quantum Theory.

If you're sincere I will try to answer.

Sal please continue posting. Is this the kookiest you can get or are there any there sites on the www where you have gone completely - you know. I am conducting a camp for kids next week about quacks and cranks. I have plenty of Bill D's material - that would help explain how figures of authority like Bill D can bluff fluently. The other type of quack/crank I want to showcase is the authority figure's apprentice who bleats in resonance. So far you have been outdoing yourself with every post; but I think your best is yet to come. And BTW Lenny's questions remain unanswered as they will be till the cows come home. As for the blather about QM and consciousness where's the paper you are referring to? You know Sal this is not some tent revival where you can get away thumping the table. Here you are tangling with scientists not some quack or crank who is going to be taken in easily. If you want to argue about QM you are most welcome. Knowing the way you guys work we can expect the discussion to be conducted without any reference whatsoever to the scientific literature. Go ahead it's a long weekend and with gas prices being what they are we are going to stuck at home and we need laughs by the tonne.

It occurred to me that Sal may actually believe in what he is saying. Of course, he may also be the best troll ever. Think about it.

It occurred to me that Sal may actually believe in what he is saying. Of course, he may also be the best troll ever. Think about it.

Comment #46210 Posted by Salvador T. Cordova on September 2, 2005 12:25 PM (e) (s) Here, here. And biology will benefit as more ID leaning engineers get involved in helping elucidate biology from a systems and software perspective.

And biology will have more and more researchers available as the formerly marginalized creationists join the ranks.

Why, have you seen the skyrocketing enrollments in biology since the advent of the ID in the 90's? This is correlated with the de-emphais of Darwinian evolution.

Where the USA is struggling is in the ranks of Engineers, Physicists, Chemists, etc., not biologists. These are areas where Darwinism is nothing but a useless impediment anyway.

Why last night I was talking to some sophomores in computer engineering. I said, "did you know that biological systems are rich in software. You all know how hard it is to write software. Do you think the software in biology, like the 3 giga base-pairs of DNA in humans was just an accident. Do you think Darwinian evolution could do that?"

They said, "No way!"

It's not software.

As someone who has been writing and studying software for 38 years, I would say that DNA does look a lot like software, a type of microcode. And yes, I do know how hard it is to write software, but even I don't take billions of years to write my programs. And there are lots of things that are difficult to do, like manually digging the Grand Canyon, but that doesn't mean that the Grand Canyon was intentionally designed --- nor is it "just an accident". Do I think Darwinian evolution could have produced DNA? Yes, because unlike Sal I'm not an ignorant moron who thinks that such dependence on incredulity is a substitute for knowledge and rational thought.

— ts

Your assertion is not true.

Where the USA is struggling is in the ranks of Engineers, Physicists, Chemists, etc., not biologists. These are areas where Darwinism is nothing but a useless impediment anyway.

— Salvador

Salvador quotes an un-named source:

"In fact so deep would be the feeling of deja-vu, so persuasive the analogy, that much of the terminology we would use to describe this fascinating molecular reality would be borrowed from the world of late twentieth-century technology."

Gee, let's use analogies for something else in nature and dmonstrate that it must have been designed. Imagine the moon shrunk to a couple of meters in diameter. It's a rough sphere and we know that humans make spheres, just look at those globes of the world in some people's homes. Those craters look like the result of firing various sized projectiles into it, and we know that humans are good at making projectiles. And all the moon dust, well isn't that like sprinkling icing on a cake. And the hills on the moon, that's just artistic sculpturing.

All Salvador's claims about analogies show is that humans are good at creating analogies. And as nature came first it would make more sense to argue that intelligence sometimes comes up with analogous solutions to natural processes, not that there must be design in nature.

Ts wrote: As someone who has been writing and studying software for 38 years, I would say that DNA does look a lot like software, a type of microcode.

And yes, I do know how hard it is to write software, but even I don't take billions of years to write my programs.

Sal, have you forgotten my simple questions already?

No problem, I'm happy to repeat them for you. After all, we wouldn't want all the lurkers here to think that you CAN'T answer them, right?

*ahem*

1. What is the scientific theory of intelligent design, and how do we test it using the scientific method?

2. According to this scientific theory of intelligent design, how old is the earth, and did humans descend from apelike primates or did they not?

3. what, precisely, about "evolution" is any more "materialistic" than weather forecasting, accident investigation, or medicine?

4. do you repudiate the extremist views of the primary funder of the Center for (the Renewal of) Science and Culture, Howard Ahmanson, and if so, why do you keep taking his money anyway? And if you, unlike most other IDers, are not sucking at Ahmanson's teats, I'd still like to know if you repudiate his extremist views.

5. Why are you undermining your own side by proclaiming here that ID is all about defeating "atheism" and "anti-religion", while your side is desperately trying to argue in court that ID has nothing at all whatsoever to do with religion or religious apologetics? Are your fellow IDers just lying under oath when they testify to that, Sal?

Louis wrote: I am however a chemist, a synthetic organic chemist to be precise,

Louis wrote: Far from being an impediment, a proper understanding of evolutionary biology allows us to explain why certain secondary metabolites are prevalent in nature, their origins, and why they have the biological functions they do.

Louis wrote: Not only that, if that area of study is too esoteric for you, but an understanding of evolutionary biology is vital in elucidating how to manipulate the biological activity of molecules by engineering organisms to produce different secondary metabolites.

Louis wrote: Should you whine that this is a matter for the future I suggest you look up drugs derived from the secondary metabolites like taxol, epothilone, discodermolide, penicillin...the list is vast. Just for a quick reference, roughly 61% of the 877 new chemical entities produced in the pharmaceutical industry world wide from 1981 to 2002 can be traced to natural products. 78% of antibacterials and 74% of anticancer compounds from that set of chemical entities are either natural products themselves or inspired by a natural product.

Despite this and other difficulties, the modern form of Darwin's theory has been raised to its present high status because it's said to be the cornerstone of modern experimental biology. But is that correct? "While the great majority of biologists would probably agree with Theodosius Dobzhansky's dictum that 'nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution,' most can conduct their work quite happily without particular reference to evolutionary ideas," A.S. Wilkins, editor of the journal BioEssays, wrote in 2000.1 "Evolution would appear to be the indispensable unifying idea and, at the same time, a highly superfluous one." I would tend to agree. Certainly, my own research with antibiotics during World War II received no guidance from insights provided by Darwinian evolution. Nor did Alexander Fleming's discovery of bacterial inhibition by penicillin. I recently asked more than 70 eminent researchers if they would have done their work differently if they had thought Darwin's theory was wrong. The responses were all the same: No. I also examined the outstanding biodiscoveries of the past century: the discovery of the double helix; the characterization of the ribosome; the mapping of genomes; research on medications and drug reactions; improvements in food production and sanitation; the development of new surgeries; and others. I even queried biologists working in areas where one would expect the Darwinian paradigm to have most benefited research, such as the emergence of resistance to antibiotics and pesticides. Here, as elsewhere, I found that Darwin's theory had provided no discernible guidance, but was brought in, after the breakthroughs, as an interesting narrative gloss. In the peer-reviewed literature, the word "evolution" often occurs as a sort of coda to academic papers in experimental biology. Is the term integral or superfluous to the substance of these papers? To find out, I substituted for "evolution" some other word - "Buddhism," "Aztec cosmology," or even "creationism." I found that the substitution never touched the paper's core. This did not surprise me. From my conversations with leading researchers it had became clear that modern experimental biology gains its strength from the availability of new instruments and methodologies, not from an immersion in historical biology.

To postulate that the development and survival of the fittest is entirely a consequence of chance mutations seems to me a hypothesis based on no evidence and irreconcilable with the facts. These classical evolutionary theories are a gross over-simplification of an immensely complex and intricate mass of facts, and it amazes me that they are swallowed so uncritically and so readily, by so many scientist without a murmur of protest. Sir Ernest Chain

Sal, the overwhelming body of scientific evidence points to Evolution. Even what gaps may exist in no way point to a creator.

It's fun, however, to watch you try to patch tiny ideas together. I believe the actual term is "Grapsing at straws">

Comment #46273 Posted by Salvador T. Cordova on September 2, 2005 05:17 PM (e) (s) I have ignored Lenny for the most part, that's true. I apologize (cough) that it seems he's so unimportant to me...

Here is an essay by an American Chemist who is the program manager in the Medical Sciences Division of the Office of Biological and Environmental Research at the US Department of Energy.

(snip more of Sal's hand-waving)

That's nice, Sal.

Are you gonna answer my questions, or aren't you. Forget thema lready? No problem:

*ahem*

1. What is the scientific theory of intelligent design, and how do we test it using the scientific method?

2. According to this scientific theory of intelligent design, how old is the earth, and did humans descend from apelike primates or did they not?

3. what, precisely, about "evolution" is any more "materialistic" than weather forecasting, accident investigation, or medicine?

4. do you repudiate the extremist views of the primary funder of the Center for (the Renewal of) Science and Culture, Howard Ahmanson, and if so, why do you keep taking his money anyway? And if you, unlike most other IDers, are not sucking at Ahmanson's teats, I'd still like to know if you repudiate his extremist views.

5. Why are you undermining your own side by proclaiming here that ID is all about defeating "atheism" and "anti-religion", while your side is desperately trying to argue in court that ID has nothing at all whatsoever to do with religion or religious apologetics? Are your fellow IDers just lying under oath when they testify to that, Sal?

Take your time, Sal. It's not like anyone is watching you avoid ansswering them, or anything.

ts wrote: As someone who has been writing and studying software for 38 years, I would say that DNA does look a lot like software, a type of microcode.

Software is a generic term for organized collections of computer data and instructions, often broken into two major categories: system software that provides the basic non-task-specific functions of the computer, and application software which is used by users to accomplish specific tasks.

Sal,

The essay you link to is predictably to be found on the website of the disclaimery institute and has also been published in that wad of raddi edited by Bill D. You and your dear leader can bleat and blare as much as you want. Unless there is a theory that is available to be examined (which isn't ever going to be available) and questioned your writings are just so much trash. You know that and so do your dear leaders. Now be good and keep the laughs coming!

Watching the discussion in this thread I have noticed that it is filled with numerous pieces of self-parodizing escapades posted regularly by some malfunctioning entity pretending to be a real person and using the name of Salvador, while the site maintained by the brave Great information theorist Bill D. of the barbecue fame contains not a single comment that is short on admiration of its owner. Why is that?

One day back when I was a surveyor I was working in the back of a property that bordered on a small creek. My crew chief was admonishing the land owners (to me) for disturbing the creek bed and the wetlands by digging themselves a nice swimming hole directly adjacent to the water. I was totally surprised that he had never heard of an "oxbow" and the orderly patterns that water can leave on the landscape. I wasn't able to convince him that what we were looking at was natural.

...pretending to be a real person and using the name of Salvador

Being rich in software is not the same as "being equivalent to software" any more than a man being rich with money is the same as a man being money!

It is pure fantasy that selective forces existed which in the past created features of life including secondary metabolites. The fact that secondary metabolites exist in nature is no proof that Darwinian evolution was the mechanism that created it. Such an assertion is based circular reasoning where the assumption of Darwinian evolution is essentially used as proof of Darwinian evolution. It is a circular "proof" and is thus invalid.

There is no theoretical reason to believe natural selection can build such constructs from primordial goo, and further there is not a shred of empirical evidence for it, and in actually quite a bit against it.

— Sal

Ah yes, the behavior of the elementary school yard. Pick a fight with your betters, then run away from them while making faces at them from behind the teacher's skirts while they can do nothing.

— Moses

Comment #46345 Posted by Salvador T. Cordova on September 3, 2005 06:09 AM (e) (s) Ts wrote: As someone who has been writing and studying software for 38 years, I would say that DNA does look a lot like software, a type of microcode.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is getting flak as a conservative Seattle-based think tank that received a $10 million from the philanthropy organization appears to have promoted the "intelligent design" theory of evolution backed by some conservative Christians. The hullabaloo, mostly confined to the blogosphere, stems from a 10-year grant the foundation awarded the Discovery Institute in August 2003 to develop transportation systems among the states of Washington, Oregon, and Canada's British Columbia province.... The foundation essentially refuted The Times report and denied any support for the idea of intelligent design. Instead, foundation officials said they have only supported some of the institute's ideas such as improving transportation. Greg Shaw, director of the foundation's Pacific Northwest program, said its funding was exclusively for the long-term initiative to develop better transportation that the institute has been working on. "We did not offer funding for any other purposes but the transportation system called Cascadia that the Institute has been working on," said Mr. Shaw, adding that the foundation did not take a stand on the theory of intelligent design. http://www.redherring.com/Article.aspx?a=13361&hed=Gates+Charity+Grant+Under+Fire§or=Industries&subsector=Computing

adding that the foundation did not take a stand on the theory of intelligent design.

Salvador,

Nice attempt at argument from authority. Sadly your poorly referenced, partially contexted quote mining means nothing. Which is amusing. I actually read your reply expecting a serious effort, more fool me. Sadly what I got was a reply from someone with simply no clue about secondary metabolism or natural products chemistry. Let me clarify things for you:

First of all, evolutionary biology does explain secondary metabolism. Here are a few lead references for you:

1 S. D. Bentley, K. F. Chater, A. M. Cerdeno-Tarraga, G. L. Challis, N. R. Thomson, K. D. James, D. E. Harris, M. A. Quail, H. Kieser, D. Harper, A. Bateman, S. Brown, G. Chandra, C. W. Chen, M. Collins, A. Cronin, A. Fraser, A. Goble, J. Hidalgo, T. Hornsby, S. Howarth, C. H. Huang, T. Kieser, L. Larke, L. Murphy, K. Oliver, S. O'Neil, E. Rabbinowitsch, M. A. Rajandream, K. Rutherford, S. Rutter, K. Seeger, D. Saunders, S. Sharp, R. Squares, S. Squares, K. Taylor, T. Warren, A. Wietzorrek, J. Woodward, B. G. Barrell, J. Parkhill, and D. A. Hopwood, Nature, 2002, 417, 141-147.

2 G. L. Challis and D. A. Hopwood, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2003, 100, 14555-14561.

3 G. Cimono and Ghiselin M.T., Marine Natural Products As and Evolutionary Narrative, in Marine Chemical Ecology, CRC, 2001, pp. 115-155.

4 L. H. Du, C. Sanchez, and B. Shen, Metabolic Engineering, 2001, 3, 78-95.

5 R. D. Firn and C. G. Jones, Molecular Microbiology, 2000, 37, 989-994.

6 R. D. Firn and C. G. Jones, Natural Product Reports, 2003, 20, 382-391.

7 B. B. Jarvis, The Role of Natural Products in Evolution, in Evolution of Metabolic Pathways, ed. J. T. e. a. Romeo, Elsevier, 2000, pp. 1-24.

8 B. B. Jarvis and J. D. Miller, Natural Products, Complexity and Evolution, in Phytochemical Diversity and Redundancy in Ecological Interactions, ed. Romeo et al, Plenum Press, New York, 1996, pp. 265-293.

9 C. G. Jones and R. D. Firn, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London Series B-Biological Sciences, 1991, 333, 273-280.

10 R. A. Maplestone, M. J. Stone, and D. H. Williams, Gene, 1992, 115, 151-157.

11 B. S. Moore and C. Hertweck, Natural Product Reports, 2002, 19, 70-99.

12 J. Staunton and K. J. Weissman, Natural Product Reports, 2001, 18, 380-416.

13 M. J. Stone and D. H. Williams, Molecular Microbiology, 1992, 6, 29-34.

14 C. J. Thompson, D. Fink, and L. D. Nguyen, Genome Biol., 2002, 3, REVIEWS1020.
15 L. C. Vining, Annual Review of Microbiology, 1990, 44, 395-427.

16 J. P. Waltho, J. Cavanagh, and D. H. Williams, Journal of the Chemical Society-Chemical Communications, 1988, 707-709.

17 J. P. Waltho, D. H. Williams, D. J. M. Stone, and N. J. Skelton, Journal of the American Chemical Society, 1988, 110, 5638-5643.

18 D. H. Williams, M. J. Stone, P. R. Hauck, and S. K. Rahman, Journal of Natural Products, 1989, 52, 1189-1208.

19 D. H. Williams and J. P. Waltho, Biochemical Pharmacology, 1988, 37, 133-141.

Forgive me for focusing primarily on Streptomyces derived natural products, but these are what I am most familiar with. I can provide more references on chemical ecology, phytochemistry and pheromone chemistry if required.

Of course there are literally thousands more refernces, but I suggest you start there. The papers will illustrate just some of the wide diversity of chemical structures and biological activities associated with natural products. Pay particular attention to several key facts, for example, the jobs that these natural products do and for which organisms, the structural homologies and structure activity relationships of the natural products in question, the redundancy of function and biogenesis in the case of certain natural products, the precise biosyntheses of the natural product and which part of primary metabolism has been coopted for its biosynthesis, the level of biological activity shown as compared to designed drug molecules....oh the list of actual facts which show the evolution of natural products from a chemical perspective is huge, I could continue.

If chemistry is not your thing then please feel free to examine the enzyme homologies and biochemistry of secondary metabolism. A few books I recommend as a starting place:

The Organic Chemistry of Biological Pathways, T P Begley and J McMurray
Secondary Metabolism , J Mann
Biochemistry, Stryer

They are all suitably basic, intended for the graduate student, or advanced undergraduate. I hope you enjoy them as much as I have.

If it is fantasy that selective forces acted in the past then you have an awful lot of data to explain! Mind you, since you have thoroughly failed to answer Lenny's very easy and thoroughly sensible questions, forgive me if I doubt you will be capable of answering the more technical challenge by explaining away the entirity of biological chemistry with a hand wave. Since we have a simply vast amount of observations which confirm that selective pressures do produce the kinds of changes required for natural product biosynthesis (again demonstrated by the study of natural product producing organisms and the biosyntheses of natrual products). Please feel free to actaully show me how these things don't work, that is instead of quoting Discovery Institute shills and scientists who were productive decades prior to the advent of molecular biology.

You seem to be under the illusion that Darwinian evolution was assumed as the explanation of certain phenomena and thus, as those phenomena are observed this confirms darwinian evolution. Far from it my sadly deluded chum. The best explanation of the diversity and biological activity of natural products is Darwinian because simply claiming them to be accidental ougrowths of primary metabolism fails to explain their prevalence, activity and use in nature. Of course there is vastly more to it that just that, but it is a simple beginning. It has been demonstrated,for example, that the genes that are responsible for generating resistance to antibiotics in Streptomyces species are closely linked to genes that produce antibiotic natural products in the same organism. In the soil environment for example there are examples of resistance to antibiotic natural products that are produced by organisms which share the same soil environment, in both organisms with and without the ability to produce such natural products themselves.

As for the development of more potent natural products by altering the organism producing them, I wasn't intending to use that as a demonstration of evolution you silly goose. What I said was that to accomplish this type of thing one needs to be aware of the evolutionary origins and consequences of the natural product one is trying to improve. Tut tut Salvador, what a poor attempt at a strawman. I need sya no more on that egregious piece of falsity and misdirection.

Next we come to your most illuminating howler, your complaint at my use of the term "natural product". Your whine about this is truly laughable and shows you up for being as vacuous as you really are. The term natural product is exaclty what it says on the tin, a chemical product derived from a natural rather than human synthetic source. It is what is know as a "term of art" and is the standard term for referring to biologically active secondary metabolites isolated from nature. It is in no way intended to imply an evolutionary origin or subtext,in fact the term was in use before(key word there bucko) BEFORE darwin published "On the Origin of Species", so I am afraid you are wrong again. Not only does your complaint show a total lack of honesty and intellectual ability, but it also demonstrates a profound lack of knowledge regarding the actual subject.

Last,and by every possible means least, your quote mines. You are quoting people who did not have the benefit of the last 40 odd years of research on the evolution of natural products. The work on antibiotics in WWII was BEFORE the molecular biology revolution, whence that majority of this evdience comes, as indeed was the work on penicillin. Not only that but the diversity and types of natural products known up to the 1950s was VASTLY less than it now because of the advent of new analytical techniques (particularly NMR), screening techniques, and THE ENTIRITY OF MOLECULAR BIOLOGY. The last part is in caps because it really does illustrate just how fucking dishonest you are being. Sorry for the profanity, but there simply is not excuse for being as scurrilously vile as you are being. Ignorance is an insufficent excuse.

Honestly, to even come out with the "they might be designed products" guff shows your woeful ignorance of chemistry. Don't you know that the biosynthesis of these molecules is well known and has been for decades? Don't you know that labelling studies have proven the co-option of primary metabolism in the biosynthesis of natural products? Don;t you in fact, know anything?

If I was as ignorant as you, I'd open a book.

Luckily for me, I open them anyway, and read 'em too!

And biology will have more and more researchers available as the formerly marginalized creationists join the ranks. Why, have you seen the skyrocketing enrollments in biology since the advent of the ID in the 90's? This is correlated with the de-emphais of Darwinian evolution.

— Salvador T. Cordova

Heartwarming to see so many physicians (like Senate Majority Leader Frist of Harvard Medical School) survived the attempted brainwashing and indoctrination.

— Salvador T. Cordova

Yeah, DNA is not really software, I mean it's not a series of binary words that causes AND and OR gates to fire, but it's a pretty handy analogy. I've often though that Object Oriented Programming is a good analogy for evolution. In OOP we have parent classes that have properties and functions that its child classes inherit. The children have these properties and functions as soon as they are instantiated (born so to speak.) plus any new features the programmer has added. Of course, mutations in programming are often caused by fat fingering or fuzzy thinking. Sometimes the complier catches them because they're fatal, sometimes they slip through to runtime and sometimes they're an improvement. That's about as far as I would care to stretch the analogy because programming is an activity of intelligent (we hope) design. It doesn't follow that the DNA "software" was designed by anything but natural forces. Of course all of these analogies are used by humans to understand nature, nature itself is totally unconnected with them and functions just the same whether we analogize or not.

Lenny - PvM has discovered the force behind TD - Wilber Force - dnncha love it!

But it really seems to me that everyone here is really preaching to the choir. The rational people who come here already know that that the theories and evidence for evolution are sound. With those trolls who come here like Sal, neurode, BlastFromThePast, Creationist Troll, etc its like shoveling s**t against the tide trying to introduce reason to them. Their willful disregard for reality and the blatant lies are virtually criminal. I have yet to hear any sensible explanation from any of them to back up any of what they say, and I doubt we ever will. If this is an ad hominem attack, sorry, but they are the ones that are always coming here insulting the intelligence and integrity of all of those concerned with real science and real education

Opps, that's the force behind ID not TD. Fat fingers, bad eyes and bad light.

Sal's Proof By Contradiction: "We first assume that all of nature is attributable to natural law alone. If this leads to a contradiction somewhere, then we know the assumption is wrong"

What kind of dum-dum proof is this, other than the lack of an understanding of what an argument from ignorance is. Unless, of course, you really do know all of nature.

Sal, again: "ID science can be formulated as an interpretation of existing, accepted physical law, especially quantum mechanics."

Ahhh, invoking the scary demon QM. All those evil evos are quaking like characters confronted with [ta-da " not the Spanish Inquisition"]. And speaking of the formulation of ID science, it seems a bit like a mildly toxic, but annoying, natural product from a parasite on the scientific body. ID produces nothing other than annoyance, occupying too much of the consciousness of the host. Gee, analogies do work!

It's easy to tell that software, and not animals, are intelligently designed. Nature doesn't do entire code rewrites, it builds on what came before. Intelligent Designers of software occasionally do complete rewrites. For instance, Linux. On the surface, it may behave 99% identically to Unix. It can look the same, run the same programs, work the same hardware. But if you examine the underlying code, it's a complete rewrite from the ground up. It's not just a modified version of the Unix code. By comparison, pick two species which look and act 99% alike, for instance, the American red squirrel, and the Douglas squirrel. If you examine their underlying code, it's 99% alike.

If the IDers ever want to convince me that they have anything, all they have to do is find a Code Rewrite animal. Just find an elephant, shark, ostrich, fruit fly, whatever, anything, which looks and acts like its buddies, but has a completely different genetic code. Since nothing in ID theory prohibits an animal rewrite, and since the code engineers we know about occasionally do total rewrites, and since evolution implies that you won't find such rewrites, this seems like a fine experiment for the IDers.

This armchair nonsense where they incorrectly assume an arbitrarily small target and then brilliantly conclude it's hard to find, is horsesh*t, and that's why they have lousy reputations.

If I was as ignorant as you, I'd open a book.

I'd think that recipe would be a better analogy than software code, given what genes are typically used for.

Henry

(Repost with format code correction)

I'd think that recipe would be a better analogy than software code, given what genes are typically used for.

Henry

Sal bloviates "Yes, and are those algorithims implemented through a sofware engineer (a designer) where the selection forces are carefully and intelligently design to create appropreate feed back or are the selection forces the product of random undirected forces."

Can you repat that in English this time?

Sal bloviates "Yes, and are those algorithims implemented through a sofware engineer (a designer) where the selection forces are carefully and intelligently design to create appropreate feed back or are the selection forces the product of random undirected forces."

Can you repeat that in English this time?

Moreover, please explain how one designs something when they don't understand how the results of the genetic Algorithm work?

Here's an example. I hope the rest of youa ren't getting sick of my repeating it; but I'd like Sal to address the problem of designing something whose workings you don't understand.

No armwaves, Sal.

Stochastic hill climbing methods are a class of mathematical methods which harness randomness to find solutions to equations. It's called hill climbing in an analogy with Sewall Wrights concept of fitness landscapes. Such landscapes have peaks, where organisms have much greater fitness than organisms in the plains and valleys below. The trick is getting up the peak. Darwin discovered the first such algorithm. Its called Natural Selection or descent via modification. As Dan Dennett distilled it, its quite simple, move up the hill when you can, don't move back down it. THe simplest method is the Monte Carlo method. In the monte carlo method (5pts for anyone who can figure out why its called that, -25 pts for anyone who can't) solutions are chosen at random, inserted into the equations and we compute a "cost"; a measure of how well it satisfies the equations. You keep trying randomly derived solutions (guesses) until you have a population of solutions that satisfies your criteria for goodness of fit. Usually this is a value of the cost which is chosen as a threshold. Below such a value you keep the solutions, above you reject. Once you have a population of *good* solutions you can then perform other sorts of statistical analyses to learn more about the properties that the hypothetical *ideal* solution has.

Genetic algorithms are more complex than the Monte-Carlo method. Indeed, they are quite analogous to NS. You have a population of solutions (sans organisms), you breed a new generation via x-fertilization and then see how well these new solutions actually satisy the equations. THose solutions which exceed your cost criteria are *killed* off. With each generation you can lower your cost threshold. This is quite like *selection*. Indeed these terms, pepper the stochastic hill climbing method literature.

In February's Scientific American (2003), there is an article written by engineers and computer scientists who used GA's to create novel electronic circuit deisgns. They were able to duplicate or better 15 previously patented designs using GA's.

In the case of the most complicated task, designing a "cubic signal generator", the GA evolved a design which out perfoms a recently patented design that performs the same task. GA's don't think. They have no cognitive ability. Yet this GA *designed* such a good circuit. Its even more interesting than that. TO quote the authors, "The evolved circuit performs with better accuracy than the designed one, but how it functions is not understood. The evolved circuit is clearly more complicated, but also contains redundant parts, such as the purple transistor that contrbutes nothing to the functioning." (You'll have to see the article). (Page 58, Feb 2003 issue of Sci-Am)

So here is a mindless computer algorithm besting intelligent designers with designs that contain sub-optimal or unneeded parts. How scary is that?

How will the creationists and ID *theorists* respond?

1. Well the algorithm was designed by humans, therefore by the transitive property of whatever, anything resulting from a GA is also designed by humans.

Of course the fact that the authors still have no idea how the circuit works will not deter creationists from using the above. How one designs something while not knowing how it works, even after it is *designed* is a contradiction that will not bother creationists or ID theorists.

2. Well so what if the circuit has an unneeded part. Perhaps in the future they will find it does have a function.

While not stated in the article, it would be a simple matter for them to remove that transistor and verify that the cost value and the performance of the circuit remains unchanged.

3. Perhaps the SOL or some dieletric constants will change in the future, at which point, unneeded parts will have a function.

LOL. But no doubt Bill Dembski and others will take that route.

4. Well its not irreducibly complex.

Sorry, Dr. Behe, you remove something besides the unneeded transistor, and you no longer have a cubic signal generator. Of course, it is likely that transitor was used in a past generation, and is fixed in the *design* as a result of an historical contingency (RIP, SJG).

5. The circuit was originally perfect, but it was ruined after the Fall.

Umm.. not unless the fall occurred a few months ago.

6. This project was rooted in naturalist assumptions. Therefore its not valid. Neener-Neener

No Comment.

7. All of the above.

That survey was 2003, the decade rise [in biology majors] is thus statistically correlated with the rise of ID. I think the rise of ID is the symptom of a greater knowledge of the complexity of biology. Darwinism is being run over by the Complexity Steamroller.

I'd think that recipe would be a better analogy than software code, given what genes are typically used for.

Didn't Dembski calculate the universal probability bound by taking into account an old universe? So why do YECs like this guy defend it?

Didn't Dembski calculate the universal probability bound by taking into account an old universe? So why do YECs like this guy defend it?

Hey, Paul Nelson is apparently a YEC and writes about the Cambrian Explosion. Cognitive dissonance affects people differently.......

Hey, Paul Nelson is apparently a YEC and writes about the Cambrian Explosion. Cognitive dissonance affects people differently.......

First of all, evolutionary biology does explain secondary metabolism. Here are a few lead references for you:

Evolution has just been dealt its death blow. After reading Origins of Life with my background in chemistry and physics, it is clear that biological evolution could not have occurred. ... Genesis was right, and there was creation Richard Smalley, 1996 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry

(snip more of Sal's arm-waving)

Hey Sal, if you're THAT much in love with "empirical facts", then why do you run away from my simple empirical questions? I bet it's looking to the lurkers as if you don't HAVE any answers to my simple questions, Sal. Heck, Sal, they may even begin to think that IDers like you are just LYING to us when you make unsupported claims like "ID isn't religion" and "Id has a scientific theory".

As promised, I'll repeat them again. And again and again and again. As many times as I need to, until you either answer them or run away (again).

*ahem*

1. What is the scientific theory of intelligent design, and how do we test it using the scientific method?

2. According to this scientific theory of intelligent design, how old is the earth, and did humans descend from apelike primates or did they not?

3. what, precisely, about "evolution" is any more "materialistic" than weather forecasting, accident investigation, or medicine?

4. do you repudiate the extremist views of the primary funder of the Center for (the Renewal of) Science and Culture, Howard Ahmanson, and if so, why do you keep taking his money anyway? And if you, unlike most other IDers, are not sucking at Ahmanson's teats, I'd still like to know if you repudiate his extremist views.

5. Why are you undermining your own side by proclaiming here that ID is all about defeating "atheism" and "anti-religion", while your side is desperately trying to argue in court that ID has nothing at all whatsoever to do with religion or religious apologetics? Are your fellow IDers just lying under oath when they testify to that, Sal?

Crocker believed in Darwinism all her life until she began to review the evidence (or lack thereof) 5 years ago. She paid the price for having an open mind and encouraging her students to do the same. Same with Rick Sternberg who has 2 PhD's in evolutionary biology: Victim of Darwinist Inquisition. In addition to her, 2 other ID leaning PhD biologists thankfully managed to elude the inquisition at GMU by keeping quiet until they graduated.

Sal wrote: Verbose peer-reviewed speculations are not the same as empirical facts. If the aerospace industry used the same kind of handwaving as found in those papers, there would be no aerospace industry. .

Sal wrote: Crocker believed in Darwinism all her life until she began to review the evidence (or lack thereof) 5 years ago. She paid the price for having an open mind and encouraging her students to do the same. Same with Rick Sternberg who has 2 PhD's in evolutionary biology: Victim of Darwinist Inquisition.

Sal, your ignorance of evolutionary biology does not seem to stop you from making silly comments. Keep up the good work my friend, continue your efforts to show us why ID is truly scientifically vacuous.

Please, oh please, where are the empirical facts for ID you keep talking about? Please produce some so Lenny will shut up.

First of all, evolutionary biology does explain secondary metabolism. Here are a few lead references for you:

To which Sal replied:

Verbose peer-reviewed speculations are not the same as empirical facts.

Translation: I am not going to read the references.

If the aerospace industry used the same kind of handwaving as found in those papers, there would be no aerospace industry.

Sal, would you be willing to give us a few isntances of handwaving in those papers?

Well, Sal did have 27 hours to check out all the references Louis gave him. And, of course he did look up all the terms in the texts reccommended. But then he might not be prepared for his big interview. And what kind of mining technology did he say he was employed in?

Salvador,

Once more for the hell of it, I am finding your gross lack of scholarship and dishonesty extremely tiresome, amazingly I have much better things to do. Forgive me this might be long. Here we go:

1.These people are (mostly) not evolutionary biologists, they are (mostly) chemists and biochemists. Although what field they are in has no bearing on the actual facts.

2. Indeed some few of those papers DO include speculations, speculations which are based on the available evidence. You will also note that the authors have explicitly stated where they have made speculations and why. You will also note which items in the papers are not speculations and are empirical facts. Again, I am sure we would agree that someone's speculations have no bearing on the facts, but then since a few of the facts are presented in those papers, we don't have to rely on speculation. I've even given you the reference to the recently sequenced genome of Streptomyces coelicolor so you can actually see for yourself the hard, plain facts about the locations of the genes responsible for natural product biosynthesis and antibiotic resistance. This might involve some work on your part however.

3.You will also note that, as I mentioned, these are LEAD REFERENCES. I cannot stress that enough. I hope you are aware that this term means that they are a very brief introductory series of references which you are meant to read in order to get a brief understanding of a topic. You are then meant to read the references section of the papers, pull out the primary literature, and work backwards to more data. This is part of what we call DOING ACTUAL RESEARCH, something I realise you ID creationists are unfamiliar with. The purpose of following the literature trail back from a lead reference is to get a greater understanding of the topic being studied. For example from those lead references you can work your way back in a few simple staps to topics as diverse as molecular biology, chemical ecology, population genetics, synthetic chemistry, dammit even the quantum mechanics of NMR if you had a mind to do so! The purpose of those papers is to provide an interested party with a STARTING POINT for their research.

4. Since, based on your clearly demonstrated lack of understanding of the relevant chemistry in your previous post (you have what would appear to be a woeful and enormous gulf in your knowledge of these matters) it would behoove you to actually read those papers, and perhaps the few more basic texts I suggested besides. This way you could actually understand the points being made. Instead of this I fear that you have utterly failed to do even the most basic research. Forgive me if I note your unmitigated and unwarranted arrogance at attempting to handwave away an entire field of VERY empirical science because you wish to cover your ears and sing "LALALALA" every time some one brings up evidence contrary to your ridiculous relgious dogma (ID).

5. Your attempts to avoid the actual discussion are noted. You are STILL trying to argue from authority, which astounds me. If you are so averse to "speculations", why then do you crow about "speculations" from a tiny minority component of the scientific community that agree with your religious dogma (ID) whilst at the same time decry "speculations" of the vast majority of the scientific community that don't agree with your religious dogma (ID)? If, and I am sure we will agree on this, it is the facts, the data, the evidence that matters (and it is you know), then the "speculations" of individuals no matter how lofty are irrelevant in the face of the evidence. If you had the facts to support your speculations, and you don't, then you might be correct in dismissing the rest of the scientific community as a tiresome irrelevance. Sadly you aren't in that position. Remember, they laughed a Galileo, they laughed at Einstein, but the also laughed at Bozo the clown.

I could provide you with hundreds of Nobel Laureates (all from chemistry, physics and medicine in fact) who have accepted that evolutionary biology is the best explanation science has developed to date for the phenomena we observe. They accept this in exactly the same manner they accept the theory of gravity or quantum electrodynamics etc etc. But I simply don't need to do so. Why? Because argument from authority is a logical fallacy, authorities can be wrong as well as right. What matters is the data. Data you don't have and won't provide, but data that I have in spades and can provide at will.

This is I think the fundamental issue at stake here. You have no data, you know you have no data, you know you don't have a leg to stand on, so you present the issue as one of equally supported conflicting dogmas. This is fundamentally disingenuous because it does not represent two key things at all honestly. First, there is no reproducible reliable evidence to support your religious dogma (ID). Evolutionary biology on the other hand is a branch of science with a simply staggeringly vast wealth of supporting data. Second, you present the conflict as a clash of dogmas because it suits your public relations needs to do so. Evolutionary biology is not a dogma, it is a science, and as such is completely open to being overurned on the basis of evidence. In fact I would have no problem at all if this occured. However, the key problem for you is that to do this you have to come up with new relevant facts that are inexplicable by evolutionary biology and you then have to come up with a new relevant theory that not only explains all these new facts, but also explains all the old ones. This is the crux of the matter.

It may be that evolutionary biology IS wrong (forgive me if I doubt it) but it certainly isn't wrong based on your unsupported say so. Appeals to authority don't suffice. Hand waving doesn't suffice. Appeals to common prejudice don't suffice. Rehashes of poorly obscure and well refuted religious ideologies like Paley's work, teleological "proofs" of god and appeals to ignorance don't suffice.

This is why I think you are behaving as you are. You view this as a conflict, "your team versus my team", and so you feel justified in lying, dismissing, obfuscating and hand waving. I am afraid this could not be further from the truth. Science is in part about finding the best possible, reliable, reproducible explantion for observed phenomena. You are attempting to avoid and subvert the process to fit in with your religious ideology, which is a shame, because you are cheapening your religion, attemtping to pervert science and being scurrillously dishonest in the process.

As an aside, I have to say I am disappointed in Prof Smalley, I've met him, and had no idea he harboured such foolish ideas. Perhaps he should have a chat to one of the other chaps he shared that prize with, Prof Harry Kroto, who I can assure you does not share his opinion. Mind you I am assuming that this quote of yours is honestly reported. I couldn't find any reliable source with a brief Google. I admit that might be due to the briefness of the search, I only found an article about an honorary doctorate from Tuskegee, which didn't have the quote in it, and various referrals to Dembski's blog. Not the best providence. Anyway, why on earth do you think that Prof Smalley would be an apporpriate expert? I very much doubt he has any interest in biological chemistry and the origins of natural products, he is after all a physical chemist. Perhaps you fail to appreciate how staggeringly huge a subject chemistry is. Don't worry, the poorly educated often do.

6. I have made a gross mistake. I assumed, wrongly, that you are actually interested in understanding the topic at hand. I also assumed, apparently wrongly, that you were a serious and honest scholar genuinely attempting to provide a coherent theoretical picture of the operation of the universe. You are clearly neither attempting to understand this topic, nor a serious and honest scholar. I am sorry that I have wasted my time.

Since I am in a Cromwellian mood, and you are fond of quotes, here is one for you:

"A few honest men are better than numbers."
Oliver Cromwell. Letter to Sir William Spring (September 1643)

If overturning a well established scientific theory is your aim then the only way to do it to have the data on the honesty on your side. We know you don't have the data (you relentlessly fail to show it), and you have demonstrated you don't have the honesty. Thus you are naught but a distraction, an annoyance. Go away.

If they had substance to them, NAS scientists like Skell, or chemist like Roland Hirsh would have felt them worthy.

— Salvador

I'm still waiting to hear Sal explian why molecular hierarchies would be erased over time:

http://www.kcfs.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=3;t=000303;p=6

He keeps relying on kiddie analogies and 'toy' examples, but he won't provide any real data or legitimate rationale...

I'm so .... surprised...

"...or chemist like Roland Hirsh would have felt them worthy."

Hirsch got intellectually smacked down at ARN a while back when he yammered on about phylogenetics, and in classic creationist style, he simply refused to acknowledge error.

What a hero...

http://www.arn.org/ubb/ultimatebb.php/ubb/get_topic/f/1/t/001915.html#000016

I would like to add that not only is "appeal to authority" definitely short for "appeal to inappropriate authority" in many cases, but it also pays us to bear in mind that appeals to authority are logical fallacies when they are used instead of data, as Salvador is attempting. I would also disagree that appeals to authority, while certainly practically sound on a decision making basis, still constitute a logical fallacy, and are thus poor argumentation. However, one cannot know everything, so at some point one has to defer to an authority to some degree. Again, this is a practical point, and does not alter that such appeals are fallacious. The crux being to realise and be honest about their possibly fallacious nature and thus treat conclusions based on them accordingly.

This is a recognition of the simple observable fact that authorities can and frequently in the past have been wrong. This does not mean that they are wrong, or even often wrong, nor is it an excuse for the seriously deluded (waves at Brave Sir Sally) to baselessly question the informed, evidence based, opinion of relevant authorities.

The standard fallacy runs often thus: "Albert Einstein was very smart. Albert Einstein said claim X. Therefore claim X is demonstrated". Even though old Einstein was no slouch in the brain dept, and a genuine authority on many things, his unsupported (in the framework of the fallacy described) is insufficient to demonstrate claim X. What is needed is some form of evidence which corroborates Einstein's claim X.

Basically we have a hierarchy of appeals:

Piss Poor: appeal to irrelevant or relevant authority in ignorance or contradiction to the evidence.

Poor: appeal to irrelevant authority with little evidence.

Pretty Poor: appeal to relevant authority with littrle evidence.

Mediocre: appeal to irrelevant authority with some evidence.

Warm: appeal to relevant authority with some evidence.

Warmer: appeal to relevant authority with good evidence.

Hot: appeal to relevant authorities with stupendous evidence.

G'mornin'!: Sod appealing to authorities, go and get the sodding evidence your self you slacker, then you become the authority!

ARGH Teach me not to preview, third forth and fifth lines should read:

"I would also state that appeals to authority, while certainly practically sound on a decision making basis, still constitute a logical fallacy, and are thus poor argumentation."

Dear Paul Flocken,

I recall you said you had questions about NFL. I've dropped by a few times on this thread, but it's about time the thread will go to the back pages.

So, if you have any more questions about NFL please feel free to visit ARN where I can help you further. Though Andy Groves and I have different views, he'll tell you that I do make an effort to treat sincere inquirers respectfully. I will make an effort to do so with you if you're interested in at least understand Dembski's claims.

The questions you ask will be of value to others, so I'm happy to entertain them.

regards,
Salvador

Though Andy Groves and I have different views, he'll tell you that I do make an effort to treat sincere inquirers respectfully.

Salvador certainly treated me politely on ISCID. However, he could have saved me a great deal of time if instead of going through a series of thought experiments involving dice, he had simply cut to the chase and said that Dembski's concept of specified complexity can be shorn of all its mathematical ten guinea words and simply be replaced with warmed over Paleyism.

BTW Sal, are you really a YEC? What is your evidence for the earth being "young"?

I agree with Louis. The Appeal to Authority is a logical fallacy, even if the Authority is an appropriate authority. What is being confused here is practical decision-making (where appeal to authority is very useful) and logical argumentation (where it is a fallacy). You can mention the authority figures who agree with you to add weight to your argument, but as soon as you insert those authority figures as part of the chain of logic, then you've committed a fallacy regardless of how appropriate they are.

Let's not water down a perfectly good fallacy. "Appropriateness" is a value judgement, and besides, it would have been a very good way of excluding the work of a certain unknown Swiss patent clerk.

As for Sal, it is worth pointing out that the real scientific literature (with which he is clearly unfamiliar), arguments from authority are not acceptable in papers. When authoritative opinions are mentioned, they are balanced with the views of authority figures of different opinions and their arguments are described. For example, "Bernard Bloggs has argued that the red-eyed octopus's feeding habits coincide with the phases of the moon. Herman Hoo, however, has postulated that this is an artefact of the way the data were collected. This paper examines both arguments in the light of new evidence..."

If Sal's mental universe applied to the scientific literature, we would see papers like this: "Bernard Bloggs is the Isaac Newton of Lunarian Feeding Habits. He has 13 diplomas in fields as diverse as catering and gambling policy, so naturally when he states that the red-eyed octopus feeds according to moon phase, he is correct. Herman Hoo is a biologist who has studied the red-eyed octopus for 30 years, but because he insists on naturalistic explanations, he is a materialist atheist by inference, and this throws doubt upon anything he says on any subject whatsoever. This paper examines the intellectual brilliance of Bloggs while rightfully ignoring Hoo and his petty objections. This paper will also state many times that there is empirical evidence for Bloggs Lunarianism without providing references, while the hundreds of papers in support of Hoo will be excluded from analysis by a series of inventively spurious objections."

The questions you ask will be of value to others, so I'm happy to entertain them.

I will make an effort to do so with you if you're interested in at least understand Dembski's claims.

Re "I would also state that appeals to authority, while certainly practically sound on a decision making basis, still constitute a logical fallacy, and are thus poor argumentation."

Yeah, I reckon that in a deductive argument an appeal to authority is like adding an assumption.

Henry

Salvador has his function on this blog as any court jester has. However, when a thread has too much of him, it ceases to be funny and becomes nauseating. Please, do not engage him that much in exchange of comments. The impudent ignoramus has many other sites to show his mettle and lack of shame.