Posted on 12/29/2011 1:01:09 PM PST by daletoons
Atheist militant Richard Dawkins has produced a children's book entitled "The Magic of Reality" and in doing so has joined the Millstone Swim and Dive Club. Spreading his venom for God to kids under the guise of Scientism is about as putrid as it gets. Children using simple God-given logic conclude the existence of a creator. It requires an abandonment of logic to attain self omniscience and declare there is no God. The materialist's faith in the escape hatch of "there just wasn't enough evidence for me" won't wash on judgement day. Here's a book idea: The ghost of Christopher Hitchens, Jacob Marley style, appears to Richard Dawkins and sets him straight. Dickey would probably make a hash of it, too bad Hitchens isn't still around to write it.
“You believe the apostles because they’re in the Bible, and you believe the Bible because it tells you about the apostles. Circular. The fact that a handful of people claim their buddy was magic doesn’t mean he was.”
AND your skepticism isn’t proof that he wasn’t either! You refuse to allow that possibility, which shows that your so-called logical thinking isn’t logical at all...
JC
It is fear, dear betty. The fear that the thoughts they express have been uttered numerous times before, that they will be found out, and that their professed ignorance of past consequences will not serve to protect them from future consequences.
Thanks for the comebacks. In a time devoted so much to family, they are especially welcome, and (of course) always instructive.
Likewise, a blessed, happy, healthy, and prosperous New Year to you and all your loved ones.
“Yes, I know about the turtles quote. That’s why I said it that way. In the end, you believe because you want to. I don’t want to. That’s really all it boils down to.”
I finally looked up your “about page” where you claim to be a “Floating Iceberg of Doom” having some difficulty controlling your temper. Anyone who challenges you is a “creep”!
What a HOOT! A perfect description of an immature teenager rebelling against her parents and civilization in general. Just GROW UP!!
JC
To avoid confusion -- for as you can see, this thread has a LOT of people talking past one another, please cut-and-paste what you call "(a) my logical deductions" and "(b) the inquiries you posted".
I don't recall seeing your name on FR before, so if you are not familiar with using cut-and-paste to embed blocks of text in italics, let me know. I'm sorry if that appears condescending, but I'd rather that any subthread starting here show clearly which speaker said what on which post: it can get *very* confusing, *very* quickly.
Let's look at the problem presented. Per definitionem, you are looking at two single-element state matrices, i.e. we can P:={asexual} and Q:={sexual}. Also (per definitionem quaestionis) P=!Q and Q=!P. Thus, in this binary case, indeed !(!Q)=Q and !(!P)=P.
At first glance, this appears to be mixing of my post and (I think) Gourmet Dan's post.
As far as I could tell, Dan's use of P and Q was as an aid to characterizing a certain type of logical fallacy ; my reply involving
^Q-->^P
and
^(^Q) --> ^ (^P)
was my own restating of Dan's assertion.
I regarded this as separate of any consideration of transitions from asexual to sexual reproduction; and intended it to be so.
All on the same page so far?
If so, let's *begin* to respond to your post.
Let's look at the problem presented. Per definitionem, you are looking at two single-element state matrices, i.e. we can P:={asexual} and Q:={sexual}. Also (per definitionem quaestionis) P=!Q and Q=!P. Thus, in this binary case, indeed !(!Q)=Q and !(!P)=P.
For some reason, you appear to be borrowing Dirac's bra-ket notation from quantum mechanics to denote state-to-state transition probabilities for an idealization or mathematical formalism modeling or representing the existence of asexually-reproducing, and of sexually-reproducing, species.
My *immediate* response is, STOP. WTF are you DOING? And WHY?
I don't care about any abstract representation using matrix mechanics. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt.
You're going after a DIFFERENT question than the one I asked.
And in so doing, completely avoiding the actual question, and any potential difficulties posed therein.
Take the Earth as it existed x number of hundred or y number of billion years ago.
At some point in history, there WERE no multicellular creatures. And there was no sexual reproduction: internuclear transfer of genetic material among microbes doesn't count, as you don't have gametes.
Today, we have both macroscopic, multicellular creatures, and sex. (Hooray!)
I'm interested, not in a supposed phylogenetic progression showing "this species has hermaphrodites, that genus has hermaphroditic capabilities but generally engages in fertilization of another individual, this species began having female orgasms, there's Monica Lewinsky"...I'm interested in the details of the following:
1) What is the largest, or most "advanced", (yes I know evolution isn't about that, but that's how PBS and Nova present it, cf. "The Ascent of Man" and note the increasing sophistication of later species including first eyes, the binocular vision, then voting for Obaama) known multicellular creature to have reproduced entirely asexually?
2) Going from that creature, what specific genetic changes had to be made in a single leap, in order to begin sexual reproduction...?
Examples of the kind of thing that would occur to a layman might be:
1) specialized cells which produce proto-sperm and proto-eggs (e.g. I'm guessing the first sperm didn't have tails?)
2) changes to the cells in order to allow the complex, hitherto unknown process of "fertilization" to occur? (at what point in EVOLUTIONARY TIME did the change to the egg occur, so that the first sperm which penetrated, caused immediate changes to the lining of the egg, to prevent subsequent sperm from joining in the act and making either a chimera or an early "molar pregnancy" or teratoma?)
3) detailed changes to the chromosomes and to the epigenetic material to support the hitherto unknown process of *gestation*
4) information on if any of the above necessitated the presence of hitherto unknown genes, and if so, whether a) the presence of the new genes would by definition make a new species (kind of a sui generis since the definition of a species is the ability to breed, and nobody would have been breeding before this by the grounds of the question)
b) how this mutation would represent a "survival advantage" since the purported advantage of sexual reproduction is a faster combination/turnover of genes -- but the first cases of hermaphroditism would necessarily be Mother Nature telling an animal to go f*ck itself (and therefore representing even more inbreeding than incest!)
And, now that I come to think of it, the presence or development of any structures necessary to
a) propel the proto-sperm and/or proto eggs to a place where they could meet
b) development of any nerves, blood vessels, etc. to nourish the new structures
c) any genetic changes necessary to make those nerves, etc. appear at the right place?
You are postulating that , i.e. both states exist because some imaginary being decided that (for no apparent reason) it would be a good thing to have the same specie occur in both states.
No. As noted above, I am worrying about specific physiochemical DETAILS of the mechanism by which sexual reproduction first appeared.
My concern here is the molecular mechanism by which these changes took place.
Conversely, evolution postulates while the inverse is not true as Q apparently is a desirable state and u is a "gradient".
This is an oversimplification of the position, and thefore risks grave inaccuracy.
Thus, Dan's claim that This is the fallacy of 'begging the question' for assuming that what exists has 'evolved' and can be organized into 'transitional stages' is non-sensical. It forces u=0 without giving a justification. In layman's terms, Dan is saying "any exploration into u by observing P, Q is moot because it is based on the assumption that u<>0 but I demand u=0 a priori". In other words, "don't show me proofs of Evolution because by doing so you are postulating that Evolution is true".
No, what he's saying is that some of the required changes require large enough changes to the genome, and specific sets of changes to the genome, such that the odds of their spontaneous occurence are for all practical purposes zero, particularly given the small size. We're not dealing with any set large enough to be called an ensemble from statistical mechanics once we go to large enough creatures.
But so that this is not a unidirectional debate, what I would like to ask is this: "Show me that u MUST be 0". I.e., in our particular case, show me why P and Q NEED to coexist without a transition between the two.
All we have to do is observe: if there are cases (as I seem to recall upthread) that there exist yeasts which go back and forth between sexual and asexual reproduction, we *know* they coexist. What we are trying to flesh out is the mechanism by how this form of reproduction itself developed among more complex species -- and while we're at to find out why (if sexual reproduction confers such advantages) more unicellular creatures haven't tripped over it besides yeast.
This would provide valuable insight into the rate of major mutations -- subject of course to the proviso that we cannot accurately stipulate from the outside which factors might mitigate survival and thus provide a mini punk-eek cascade; and subject also to the note that even major external cladistic changes might not create true speciation, ring species not withstanding (a turkey baster of a chihuahua sperm into a Great Dane might allow breeding that way without the indignity of proffering the little gent a stepladder, whereas a turkey baster the other way would likely lead to maternal death late in gestation).
This isn't "ha ha gotcha I disproved evolution"; it's "let's comb out the tangles so we can discover just what predictive capabilities we have."
Cheers!
If so, please remove the former.
See posts #262 and #332 this thread.
Hope you had a pleasant pheasant.
Cheers!
“I’d rather just think for myself”
We all think for ourselves....but having the courage to be accountable for our actions is what builds life and character into the marrow of a human being. Many would take what they can get and dodge the consequences if they could. So thinking for one’s self isn’t the issue, it is the willingness to say ,”Okay I’m accountable for my life and my actions, so I’ve had a few boo hoos that weren’t my fault. But for now on I am accountable to God.” One can say one is accountable only to oneself but where is the growth in that? Yet if I see an injured man that no one has helped, my belief in God encourages me to be a help to that person in what ever way that I can help even if it is only to call an ambulance and hold the man’s hand until help arrives. Christ has said that if I do for the least of men I do it for him, so suddenly my accountability for myself has extended not only to being accountable in the helping of this poor injured man but I become accountable in extending the Grace of God to this man and all men.
I take a chance when I say to God , okay “I believe you hold me accountable, I accept that for my self as truth” for such a statement of faith may lead me into areas of growth, suffering, pain, and hardship, literally falling into the hands of God...though the truth comes like dawning reason; I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN THERE!
A Happy New Year to you metmom, and to all my many FRiends (hope I beeped everyone).
No. I am saying that the fact that life exhibits a certain mechanism or behavior is not proof of evolution unless you engage in logical fallacy. You beg the question by assuming that you are showing a 'proof of evolution'. All you have really done is offer a simple fact of life. Nothing more.
The easiest way to legitimate "professed ignorance of past consequences" is simply to erase all History (at least of the personal, social, political, and geostrategic kinds) — a kind of "sweeping and clearing of the crime scene before the cops can get there"....
Darwinism, of course, gets a pass from this "pruning." For Darwinism ultimately rests, not on "physical science/direct evidence" but on a "theory of history." All its primary "evidence" is historical. And the very idea of "evolution" entails a "movement in time"; i.e., a movement from past to present to future — which means that Darwinism is a great natural candidate for explication in the "new" historical terms.
To lose history is to lose memory....
Which, of course, is exactly what has been done.
I had a wonderfully illustrated book about the natural world when I was a child, in which I found the most glorious drawings of my very favorite animal — the horse — at various stages of its "evolutionary development." In this same book were the most wonderful drawings of the "evolutionary development" of what we now call the great apes — to learn that Man stands at the summit of the ape hierarchy, as if by happenstance, or some kind of blind cosmic sorting.
Whatever. Even as a child I sensed there had to be some difference between development within a species, and development of one species from another. It wasn't till I got to be a whole lot older that I realized that the difference between the one and the other type of "evolution" or "development" is categorical in nature. Which is to say, one can neither conflate them, nor treat them "on equal terms" without committing a crashing "category error"....
Thank you, dear YHAOS, for letting me rant about this — may God ever bless you!
No. I'm saying that it is a mistake to believe that the existence of any mechanism or behavior that life may exhibit is a 'proof of evolution' because that begs the question by assuming that it 'evolved' in the first place.
Consider that even if life could generate 'hopeful monsters' at an observable rate, this would still not be 'proof of evolution' because the fact that life did that says nothing about the origins of such a mechanism.
The old P-->Q implies that Q-->P as well. :-)
The atheists claim Christians have an invisible magic friend in the sky; but they forget their invisible cat in the chair. (Let us prey).
Signing off now for New Years!
Cheap bubbly, here I come.
Obligatory old Mad Magazine joke:
Frankenstein: We're going to give this man life immortal!
Assistant: Wine, women, song...
Frankenstein: I said immortal, not immoral, you dirty old gnome!
Cheers!
FO nOOb, erh, dead nOOb..
Have a Happy New Year contemplating...Well, nothing....
You DUmmies have claimed for years that everything on the planet came from melted rock. Well n00b, looks like you got melted by the ZOT.
You seem to be confusing my posts w/ grey-whiskers.
"In response, I showed that sexuality is in fact compatible with an evolutionary context."
Again, the point is that the existence of biological systems, mechanisms, behaviors, etc is not evidence of 'compatibility' with evolution without engaging in logical fallacy.
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