Bush supports 'intelligent design'

I could imagine ID becoming scientific, but it isn't yet. The biggest problem is that science, over the course of decades, adjusts to new ideas and moves on. You cannot call an idea scientific if it doesn't contain the seeds of its own obsolescence.

" In your opinion...and people thought the world was flat a few hundred years ago... your point means nothing. "

No even halfway educated person in western civilization thought the world was flat a few hundred years ago. It was established in ancient Greek times that the world is round. Columbus didn't prove the world was round; it was a given that it was. The navigators of Columbus' time thought the world was about 25% smaller than Columbus thought. That was the disagreement. It turns out they were RIGHT and Columbus was WRONG. Columbus got saved because the Americas separated the otherwise huge ocean he didn't think existed.
Scientific opinion in Columbus's time was CORRECT about the roundness of the earth and it's size. Go find another Myth to support your creationist fantasy.

Why should we bother asking any other questions than whether God exists? Ever?

You should ask lots of questions. But the existence of God is the most important.

"The navigators of Columbus' time thought the world was about 25% smaller than Columbus thought."

That should have been 25% LARGER. Gotta stop posting so late :)

You cannot call an idea scientific if it doesn't contain the seeds of its own obsolescence.

Shakespeare would be proud...what a magnificent pronnouncement!

i'm sorry but you are mistaken. you seem to be unable to separate faith from religion. i have faith. faith in my family, my friends, my job, my future wife (whoever she might be), my country.

my belief in evolution is based on faith as well. but i also have concrete evidence in support of it. i believe in all of these things. they give me strength and the courage to soldier on, as they say.

but my faith ends at religion. that is a leap i cannot make. i give thanks every day for all that i have. but i believe that i control my own destiny. and i believe my own existence is the product of pure and utter chance. billions of events happened independently and i am one of the products. that is truly a miracle. every one of us is a walking miracle. and evolution is the proof of that.

[Southack:] Name at least two acceptable methods as I've done above for ID, and name at least one credible scientific lab experiment currently under way to falsify evolution...
[Ichneumon:] "There are dozens in the links of my recent large post. Try reading them."

[Southack:] I'll take that as a "No," you can't name at least two acceptable methods and at least one credible scientific lab experiment currently under way to falsify evolution.

Since you prefer to jump to false conclusions, rather than read a few links I've already posted in order to find exactly what you asked for and which I have truthfully informed you is indeed there if you can manage to get off your lazy butt long enough to read the links, well, then you're a complete waste of time -- not only a waste of *my* time, but a waste of your own as well.

I'm glad to point you to what you ask, but I'm not going to hold your freaking hand if you're too pig-headed to follow the directions. Enjoy your ignorance.

I don't see anything wrong with those statments. They do not, contrary to what Dr. Spetner asserts, "convey..in no uncertain terms that the origin of life is understood." In fact, Miller and Levine flat out admit, "the origin of the first true cells is uncertain." If that's not an "uncertain term," I don't know what is.

Likewise, Camp & Arms state everything in "uncertain terms." They don't say abiogenesis is a fact. They say "most scientist believe" it happened, which is true. The origin of life was "probably" inevitable. Not inevitable. But "probably." They're hedging themselves all over the place. Given the propensity of creationists to quote out of context, I'd be willing to stake a large sum on the proposition that in context, the quotations you pulled are even more guarded and hedged.

Regarding abiogensis as a fact, I think the Freeper in question meant it in the sense that life at some point arose from non-living material. That is a fact because we know that there was no life on earth for about a billion years before there was life, and that all life is composed of the same elements as non-life. What is unknown is whether non-life spontaneously evolved into life or whether God directly created the first cells out of non-living material in a supernatural act of design. Frankly, I'm more inclined to believe that God used chemical evolution to create life, just as he used biological evolution to create man, but either scenario would be an abiogensis of sorts.

"Since you prefer to jump to false conclusions, rather than read a few links I've already posted in order to find exactly what you asked for and which I have truthfully informed you is indeed there if you can manage to get off your lazy butt long enough to read the links, well, then you're a complete waste of time" - Ichneumon

Over 1,000 posts in this thread, and you call me lazy for asking you to *name* 3 things that you *claim* that you know. Making 2 posts in a row telling me to go find your links...buried somewhere.

That dog won't hunt.

I'll take that as a "No," that you can't name at least two acceptable methods and at least one credible scientific lab experiment currently under way to falsify evolution.

Telling me to go read 1,000+ posts won't suffice. Post the *specific* answers...or...since you seem unable...admit that you're stumped and in over your head.

All over the world - every team of paleontologists looking for fossils could find a fossil that would falsify evolution.

Gene sequencing of new species can potentially falsify evolution.

Here is a counter question for you - can you name a current scientific lab experiment underway that may falsify atomic theory?

"All over the world - every team of paleontologists looking for fossils could find a fossil that would falsify evolution. Gene sequencing of new species can potentially falsify evolution."

Not if the *criteria* for falsification remains undefined. While undefined, proponents of an otherwise discredited theory can simply move the goal posts with each new discovery.

What I'm doing is pinning Ichneumon down. He's got to state the specific criteria (at least two methods) that will falsify Evolution. He's also got to name at least one such serious, credible, current scientific experiment that is attempting to falsify Evolutionary Theory.

If no one can name such criteria and/or experiments, then Evolution isn't a theory, but rather, is a faith. If those answers can be provided, then we can discuss if current evidence in hand falsifies or leaves open the potential validity of Evolutionary Theory.

Such is science.

"Here is a counter question for you - can you name a current scientific lab experiment underway that may falsify atomic theory?"

The numerous current "tunneling" experiments are attempting to do precisely that, or to show that current atomic thought is valid.

AARRGGHH!! As I was wrapping up a reply to this post of yours, I was using some additional IE windows to look up a few references, when IE crashed on me and all windows vanished, including the reply it had taken me about 40 minutes to compose. Dammit. This rewrite will be much shorter and sketchier than the original, my apologies.

[When people run away from an invitation to put some money on the line, it becomes clear to all that the person's original claim was an overstated bluff.]

On the contrary, when someone on an anonymous online message board, rather than posting an argument or citing sources, instead says "I bet you $1000!" it makes them look like an unserious armchair arguer.

I do not issue such challenges *instead* of "posting an argument or citing sources", I post them in *addition* to the mega-amounts of argument and citations which I have posted (to the point of getting close to a dozen whines about the volume).

To suggest that life began through purely naturalistic mechanisms,

EERRNNT!! You are trying to move the goalposts. Fifteen yard penalty. The original point of discussion involved only whether there's evidence that the transition from "nonlife" to "life" involved autocatalytic cycles or not. Here you're suddenly trying to expand it to include the *entire* process, from the very start to the very end, *and* suddenly insisting upon seeing evidence that the process was "purely" naturalistic, something I never touched upon, and which is probably impossible to prove even in theory (in the same sense as the impossibility of proving that Santa Claus doesn't exist, somewhere).

Sorry, I don't play that game. If you want to discuss the original point, fine, but don't try to change it now.

I think the discovery of incredibly complicated non-living organisms and the laboratory production of amino acids is incredibly important if that's what you're trying to prove, and I find it impossible to believe that you really consider the Miller experiment to be "irrelevant."

What I mean is that it doesn't matter where amino acids came from if we're discussing the particular point of how "life" formed from "almost but not quite living" systems -- the existence of organic compounds is a given under that scenario.

Exactly what are you arguing?

What I've always been arguing: 1) Southack's mental image of what the transition from "nonliving" to "living" might have looked like is cartoonishly oversimplistic, and 2) contrary to your repeated claims, there *is* evidence suggesting that autocatalytic processes were predecessors to what we would consider to be "life".

As for citations -- the literature is incredibly broad.

Yes it is, which is why it is quite amazing that you would be able to maintain that there is "absolutely no" evidence in the field.

Tell me what else you need,

I need you to stop making uninformed false claims about the evidence.

but also do provide the evidence you have. What evidence actually suggests that this DID happen -- rather than being just a reasonable possibility?

Seriously, why bother? You've *already* admitted that nothing you could see would change your mind.

Even so, if I had the citations at hand, I'd post them. But I don't -- they're papers I've read over the past five years, and most of them are not available online without a subscription. It would take me well upwards of six hours, at the least, to track them down and write enough introductory material in order to make their relevance clear -- this is a highly technical topic, much more so than evolutionary biology itself. And unlike the time I've spent writing various expositions on evolutionary biology, this one would have very little value to other discussions, or interest many readers even on this one.

As for your question about the nature of the evidence, it includes but is not limited to the manner in which the biochemical and procedural properties of the most basal processes of life match to a striking degree those of the chemical cycles which take place naturally at hydrothermal vents. That doesn't sound like much when written out as a superficial summary like that, but when you look at the actual chemistry, it's incredibly conspicuous.

These aren't among the papers I had read previously, and aren't as conclusive, but they turned up in a quick search just now and indicate the flavor of the research I've been reading:

Universality in intermediary metabolism
The origin of intermediary metabolism

The criteria for falsification are defined. Take this page for example: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/

Almost every section gives the criteria for a potential falsification.

He's also got to name at least one such serious, credible, current scientific experiment that is attempting to falsify Evolutionary Theory.

Studies don't tend to attempt to falsify a theory, they tend to falsify it by accident by the normal process of research.

I don't know all the studies going on at the moment. I can certainly see the literature of studies that have occured recently though and see potential ways evolution could have been falsified.

As I have already mentioned one of the simplest ways evolution could be falsified is by paleontologists discovering a fossil in the wrong place. A rabbit in the cambrian for example. So everyday the theory is being tested.

The numerous current "tunneling" experiments are attempting to do precisely that, or to show that current atomic thought is valid.

I believe that has the potential to falsify general relativity and not atomic theory.

...And the evo once again tries to makes bogus evidence fit ridiculous ass theories

Do you actually have an actual rebuttal to evidence presented for evolution, or do you just insult people who try to demonstrate that the theory is backed by evidence without actually addressing the presented evidebnce because you're too stupid, lazy or dishonest to address reality?

just as long as it revolves around their ludicrous agenda.

And what, exactly, is that agenda?

My guess is that were an atomic bomb or two to go off in America there would be a few million more evolutionists praying to the Great Designer.

What does that have to do with the validity of the theory of evolution or the fact that intelligent design is not science? And why would you make this "guess"? What evidence do you have to support the claim?

"As I have already mentioned one of the simplest ways evolution could be falsified is by paleontologists discovering a fossil in the wrong place."

The Evolutionary Tree has been re-written several times because of precisely such finds...none of those have been accepted as having falsified Evolutionary Theory, however.

I cannot prove Gods existence, but there is plenty of empirical evidence to suggest there is.

Example?

The Evolutionary Tree has been re-written several times because of precisely such finds...none of those have been accepted as having falsified Evolutionary Theory, however.

Obviously it depends on the level of discrepancy. A rabbit, or any other mammal in the cambrian would be a severe contradiction of evolution. Nothing like this has been found. Why not?