Posted on 04/29/2008 10:20:32 AM PDT by Hank Kerchief
Postmodernism At Work
The following two statements are parts of comments made on the Free Republic forum in response to Pamela Hewitt's "Problems of Evolution."
"Nothing in Science is ever “proven”, just provisionally accepted pending further data." (—allmendream)
All science is tentative, and nothing is ever proved! (—Coyoteman)
Normally, I would not bother with such mindless statements, but they just happen to perfectly exemplify the post-modernist nonsense that is being taught in today's colleges and universities. It is why we are living in the age of gullibility. Do not suppose this is just ignorance, however. These things are being taught with a purpose. The idea is, if you convince people nothing is ever certain, proved, or absolute, you can then put over just anything and call it science.
If "nothing in science is ever proven:"
I must assume these two have "living wills" specifying that cardioversion or defibrillation is not to be used on them since the principle of using electricity to convert a fibrillaing heart to a sinus rhythm has never been proved.
I am going to feel very sorry for these two if they ever need an operation, since the efficacy of anesthesia (once a great scientific controversy) has never been proved.
And they must really be missing out on all those television programs and phone calls transmitted by satellites launched into orbit around the earth's equator at a distance of about 22,300 miles which maintain a stationary position over the earth, by maintaining an orbital speed of approximately 6000 miles per hour, because, according to them, the physical principles such satellites are based on have never been proved.
They must only use electricity if it does not come from nuclear power plants, since the scientific principles describing a sustained chain nuclear reaction have never been proved. (Maybe they use no electricity at all, since they are sure the theory of combustion and Ohm's law have never been proved either.)
Nor must they use computers, or any other electronic devices that would not and could not work if the theories of electronics and quantum mechanics they are based on were not proved. They must avoid all Sky Scrapers because the laws of physics which are the basis of their engineering from the materials used to the structural design would fail if those physical principles were mere unproven hypotheses which, according to them, they are.
I do not know what planet these two live on, but on this planet the principle of an electric current being generated simply by moving a magnet in a coil of wire discovered by Michael Faraday, who was considered a charlatan by his contemporaries, has been proved. The unbelieved assertions by Nikola Tesla and Guglielmo Marconi that wireless communication is possible, has been proved.
What kind of demented mind can insist that nothing in science has been proved? One that assumes things without evidence, based on nothing more than the fact someone does not accept their particular faith. Here is the evidence (a concept totally foreign to such second-hand minds).
"Being a nurse doesn't QUALIFY one, in and of itself, to make an academic argument on Evolution or Genetics. ... Nothing better than an educated layman."
The fact that the "nurse" happens to be a degreed geneticist who has both worked in the field and lectured in it as well, these dimwits did not bother to discover. Evidence is not something they care about, since their cherished faith is being threatened by objective questions their little minds are incapable of answering.
They are dripping with hubris and patent snobbery, exactly like those "scientists" who were publishing papers proving heavier-than-air human flight was impossible while two laymen, who were obviously not educated well enough to learn what they were doing was "scientifically" impossible, were too busy flying to notice. According to these two jokers, the possibility of heavier-than-air human flight has never been proved. They're still waiting for, "further data."
If you believe nothing in science has been proved, it makes it easy to swallow totally made up stories such as the following:
"Evolutionary Biology has unequivocally established that all organisms evolved from a common ancestor over the last 3.5 billion years;" [From Rutgers University]
What's the difference between "unequivocally established" and "proved?" In normal English, even as spoken by scientists, there is no difference; but these story tellers can always say they never said it was "proved" we all came from a common ancestor. It's meant to deceive and gain unquestioned acceptance.
And it's pure fiction. There is no way such a thing could possibly be established. If evolution could happen once, there is nothing in reason or evidence that even suggests it could not happen more than once or even hundreds or thousands of times; but it's happening more than once would not fit their story, so just ignore that fact and present your story as, "unequivocally established," and all the gullible academics will swallow it whole.
“She revealed herself to be a rather ill educated laymen when she said that most mutations are deleterious and most of the rest are neutral. Over 90% of mutations in humans are neutral to selective pressure”
You see, another logical error. It is the possibility that such a thing as “selective pressure” exists in speciation. that is the topic of Ms Hewitts comments. But here you are, trying to use the topic under discussion as a fact of absolute incontrovertability and a proof of your position.
You cant use one problem to argue another.
Please quote me the paper I can read that demonstrates unequivicably that mutation and “selective pressure” led to a clear speciation change. And I’m not talking same species but cant reproduce garbage.
Please quote me the research that demonstrates which gene(s) control morphology, and how they do it, and how they change it.
When you say most mutations are neutral or benign, or you talking coding sequences, or repeat, and highly repeat non-coding sequences?
Can you explain why the highly deleterious mutation expressed as thalaessemia and sickle cell both persist in populations even without the unproven but claimed selection pressure of being unfavourable to mosquito infestation?
Can you challenge me that proteins and enzymes are dependent on their environment for the tertiary folding and therefor their activity? Name an enzyme that is effective if the cellular pH drops much below 7.4 - lets say even to 7.0, or goes above 7.9.
What causes protein denaturation? What exactly is that denaturation if not a change in tertiary structure first.
What was the major problem for the early pioneers in making human insulin from cloned genes? (It was difficulty with the disulphide bridge needed to finalise tertiary structure).
Your comment about watching DNA form its helix is priceless. Thanks, you confirm what I said. But you dont mention the constituents it’s in. And that still doesnt change the fact that chromosomes - which are the active form of DNA - are’nt just DNA, but associated with protein - chromatin - and need an exact environment. Nor that unravelling is a very specific operation needing very specific enzymes - topoisomerases - and that all this supports the contention that active cellular components only operate under very tight, specified conditions.
Why dont you discuss science, mr allmendream, who does theory work in a Pharmaceutical company.?
Try and be a little different young man. Try not to be offensive and obnoxious just because someone has trodden on your toes.
Ms. Hewitts piece, incidentally, was put here with neither her knowledge nor consent. It was a private posting in an e-zine, and the descriptions of her there were not hers but the site owners. The piece was a response to a number of comments on a forum thread, not a thesis, nor even an assignment. It also contains a couple of sophistacated jokes which you’ve missed.
Her views are the sum of more than 20 years reading, studying and thinking and discussing in the area of molecular evolution, after doing molecular research of her own.
And she is not alone in her views that Darwinism and selective pressure as an explanation for speciation are wrong.
Perhaps you’d better do a little reading around yourself.
Oh, and try a recent Nature publication regarding an experimentally based theory on how deleterious mutations might be protected in D. melanogaster.
See, they do exist as well.
Scroll to the bottom for more info.
Cheers!
“I appreciate reading your reasoned and calm comments. They do come as a breath of fresh air.
thankyou.”
Oh yes. Very unusual around here these days.
It’s a shame to see so many minds (if that’s what their using) wasted.
Hank
No, it’s a hurried, and therefore poorly written attempt to indicate that science is not done by debate or facts established by consensus.
Scientists, being human beings, argue as much as any others, but their science, when it is science, is about facts and principles, not opinions.
By the way, you are on the list.
Hank
“Do you consider the possibility that living things, as Designed, did not initially kill each other?”
It wouldn’t really matter. If I design a machine that immediately goes bad on its, it’s a bad design.
Hank
“It depends upon what your definition of ‘is’ is.” Bill Clinton impeached former President and Postmodernist.
“It depends upon what your definition of ‘mutation’ is.” grey_whiskers FR poster and Postmodernist.
Give me a break.
Glad you like my screen name.
“All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible.”
Thomas E. Lawrence
If two populations cannot interbreed they are, by definition, two different species. So your “not talking same species but can't reproduce garbage” is exactly that, nonsensical garbage.
Hox genes. Look them up on Pubmed.
Mutations can take place anywhere in the genome, and I did not say that most mutations are neutral or benign; I said they are by far mostly neutral and most of the rest are detrimental. Pleas try to keep up.
Sickle cell anemia heterozygous is not about mosquito infestation except tangentially; it has a demonstrated effect of protection against malaria - which is carried by mosquitoes.
The proteases in the stomach operate at a pH of around 2. Also many digestive enzymes within the cell only operate in localized low pH vesicles called lysozomes.
You are confusing me with another poster about DNA annealing. Once again (as with your ranting post #62)you are very confused, please try to keep up.
Sophisticated jokes? Oh if it is all a joke then GOOD ONE! You got me. I figured the only way someone could pack that many errors in so few words was if it was a joke.
It's just that Descartes jumped out of his epoche and most every scientist since has followed suit. Galileo was the most recent one to get it right. Mathematicians are the one group that can define their own substances.
You really are just like every brainwashed product of universities.
Also snotty and rude, with no real argument.
http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Evolution
I really have nothing to say to you
I’d have thought it was obvious I was talking about cellular enzymes.
Fred says it better than I could.
Now, just answer the problems he poses. Go on, answer them like a sensible, grown up scientist.
http://theautonomist.com/home/index.php?/static_ext/article/fr_evolution_1/
And my argument was that the article was fundamentally incorrect in practically every specific instance.
Being convinced by evidence is hardly being “brainwashed”.
But I suppose it might be difficult for a Ron Paul supporter to tell the difference.
You still didn’t answer my questions.’
What did you research in your Masters?
What have you published?
Where have you published?
How much lab research have you done?
On what questions
How many lectures in molecular genetics have you given?
And I mean at University level.
Say, I cannot find where you answered weatherwax’s question.
Would you mind telling us again, what your topic of research for your Masters was?
Thanks!
Hank
But I am not making an argument by appeal to authority (as the author attempted by being sufficiently vague about her qualifications that one might assume she was a M.D. with a Ph.D.). I am making the argument that her contentions are contrary to the evidence. Can you address any of those in post #114 or is ad hominem and appeal to authority all you have?
Care to cite the authors actual publication?
Here are a couple more from Fred:
http://theautonomist.com/home/index.php?/static_ext/article/fr_evolution_2/
http://theautonomist.com/home/index.php?/autonomist/article/circling_the_paradigm/
Now I have a question.
Why do you care that anyone doesn’t accept the evolutionary hypothesis, especially if they also do not accept creationism or ID? What does it matter to you? What are you afraid of. You sound hysterical!
Hank
Oops, edited out the part of my response where I mentioned the journal my (one so far) publication was in. It was published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC). It isn’t “Nature” but it is one of the ‘biggies’.
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