Designed to deceive: Creation can't hold up to rigors of science

CONTRA COSTA TIMES ^ | 12 February 2006 | John Glennon

[101st-Eagle]

Camel J: "Are these the same scientists that accept the "scientific" studies relating to secondhand smoke?"

CarolinaGuitarmanDo you see anything here about smoking? If not, what does your post have to do with this topic? Do you actually have anything to add to the debate over ID?

From the article: But there are many established facts concerning evolution, according to R.C. Lewontin, Alexander Agassiz Professor Emeritus of Zoology at Harvard University. He, as do virtually all biological scientists, agree that it is a fact that the Earth with liquid water has been around for more than 3.6 billion years and that cellular life has been around for at least half of that period.

And I won't add anything to the ID debate either. I just want to throw in to the mix that Lewontin is an uber-Marxist who also believes the scientific community should be running the world. He's a jerk! And furthermore,. he has to live with a dichotomy of Wilson having a very viable theory evolution operating within sociobiology which conflicts with the pseudo-egalitarianism the PC at Harvard hold as a sacrament. So there. ;=P

Anyway, while I'm being annoying, I will say this whole debate has made me start to jump deeper in to science books and videos from the library, and I commend the evos for sparking my interest and helping me to learn some things-I checked out a book about John Nash and his work that is very interesting so far! I still hold open the possibility of outside forces being in play not because of the field of biology, but more from the unanswered, wonderous questions astrophysics brings forth.

[bvw]

To recoup:

Ichneumon: This is your brain on creationism.

Havoc: No, this is your brain on common sense.

King Prout: [Derisional deconstructionism of "common sense"] ... Often enough, "common sense" is actually rather stupid. [a litany of derisional examples most of which are at best 'silly'] ... Shall I continue -as I could, at great length- or will you cede the point that calling a notion "common sense" does not amount to a compelling argument in its favor?

bvw: So you say there is no such thing as common sense? Or is your example a case study of how words and terminology that have valid meaning in context can be usurped and distorted?

King Prout: as should have been clear before you asked: yes, there are concepts and notions which can be and are referred to as "common sense" - and these concepts and notions, when extended beyond the most mundane situations (good common sense: Don't stick your hand in a fire - odds are you'll get burned), are often quite erroneous (example of incorrect but REAL common sense

Findings: Reader make your own. And please use your common sense!

[tallhappy]

Your comments here are incredibly ironic.

Incredibly.

I made no errors. You did not correct any -- you were just wrong. You mixed up the number of cells exposed to vector with integration evetns. You never understood the non-random nature of the integration which resulted in the LMO2 amplication and the leukemias which led to the study being halted pre-maturely.

You also did not understand and ignored the most recent studies on molecular retroviral insertion which indicates less randomness than previously believed.

[tallhappy]

The reason for a real example is to show that, indeed, it is falsifiable.

[furball4paws]

Pah!! That is dodge. Serving a 6502 is up to you.

See you couldn't do everything you wanted to in a week, so you got new guy. Maybe that's why gummy not here for weeks. How many face this Eve had - huh? Can't keep track.

I grovel at no silicon wafer's table. Silicon taste bad

Ptui!!

[aNYCguy]

If you believe that, you are foolish. The fool has said in his heart there is no God. I have a record of straight A's in Science from grade school through college.

For some reason I couldn't resist reading this ending to your post over and over while giggling like a schoolgirl. If this is an intentional joke, you are a transendent genius.

[shuckmaster]

What I am asking is that Science stop the self-mutilation -- cutting off valid and fruitful viewpoints and lines of inquiry

Example please?

[andysandmikesmom]

Your post #305 and #307, are really nothing but wishful thinking on your part...no way does the majority of Americans reject evolution...every single trustworthy poll done on this, has reflected just about an even split on this subject....what those polls have consistently asked the participants, are two different things...The first question is usually, . do you consider yourself to be a Christian?...the majority of people answering the poll answer yes, thats true...and that is where many creationists/Ider advocates stop reading...they somehow believe that if one considers themselves to be Christians, that naturally they reject evolution...however take note of the second question..How do you believe that living beings on earth came to be in their present form? Here there is really a divide, which seems to be 50/50 at best...actually the division is divided up among three answers...1. Gods creation 2. evolution 3.either dont know or some other method...if one looks and understands and comprehends what these polls say, one must see that many of those polled, do claim to be Christian, and still support evolution...

Your remark that most Americans reject evolution is at best, wishful thinking on your part...and its incorrect...

[Ichneumon]

I made no errors.

Lie #1.

You did not correct any

Lie #2.

-- you were just wrong.

Lie #3.

You mixed up the number of cells exposed to vector with integration evetns.

Lie #4.

*You*, however, "mixed up the number" of *patients* with the number of integration events, which was hilariously stupid and revealed a complete ignorance of the most basic principles gene therapy. Clue for the clueless (that would be you); *One* integration event per patient (which is what you bone-headedly presumed when you spoke of "only nine integrations" (there were nine patients) wouldn't accomplish squat, because *one* cell in the entire body pumping out the gene's product would be like trying to cure an entire city's population of a bacterial infection by putting a single drop of antibiotic in its water supply... In order to have a hope of being effective, gene therapy involves treating a *vast* number of cells in a way designed to produce a similarly vast number of gene integrations, such that enough cells are now in the patient's body producing the desired gene product to have the desired curative effect. Gene therapy, to be effective, involves a *huge* number of integration events per patient.

But you would have known this already if you had bothered to read and understand the research exerpt I had previously quoted for you on that thread:

Taken together, our data suggest that the following scenario might account for occurrence of the lymphocyte proliferations observed in these patients. LMO2 targeting suggests either that there is a "physical hotspot" of integration at this locus, or more likely, that random, activating, LMO2 integrants are selected simply by the growth advantage conferred on them. The chance of integration of any active gene is assumed to be 1 x 10^–5 (a rough estimate of a random hit within 10 kbp among the estimated transcriptionally active 1 x 10⁹ base pairs. It is likely that each patient received at least 1 to 10 LMO2-targeted cells, because the patients received 1 x 10⁶ or more transduced T lymphocyte precursors (estimating that at least 1% of the total number of injected transduced cells—92 x 10⁶ and 133 x 10⁶ for patients P4 and P5, respectively — could give rise to T cells).

In case you're *really* bad at math (and that seems a safe bet since you've demonstrated incompetence at far easier tasks such as basic reading comprehension), note that the above analysis and conclusion by the AUTHORS OF THE PAPER THEMSELVES presumes on the order of a 10⁶ (that's "a million" for you creationists out there) actual integration events (out of roughly a hundred million treated cells per patient, as mentioned in the same excerpt). So if *I'm* "mixing up" anything, as you allege, the researchers did too, and somehow I'll take *their* word over *yours* on this matter.

If you wish to issue any further lies about who here is "mixing up" the number of integrations (you say "nine" in nine patients, I say on the order of a million in each of nine patients), I suggest that you go take it up with S. Hacein-Bey-Abina, C. Von Kalle, M. Schmidt, M. P. McCormack, N. Wulffraat, P. Leboulch, A. Lim, C. S. Osborne, R. Pawliuk, E. Morillon, R. Sorensen, A. Forster, P. Fraser, J. I. Cohen, G. de Saint Basile, I. Alexander, U. Wintergerst, T. Frebourg, A. Aurias, D. Stoppa-Lyonnet, S. Romana, I. Radford-Weiss, F. Gross, F. Valensi, E. Delabesse, E. Macintyre, F. Sigaux, J. Soulier, L. E. Leiva, M. Wissler, C. Prinz, T. H. Rabbitts, F. Le Deist, A. Fischer, and M. Cavazzana-Calvo, the authors of the paper, who are under the impression that there really *are* on the order of a million integration events per patient, and not the "one" you hilariously claimed in your vast ignorance.

You never understood the non-random nature of the integration which resulted in the LMO2 amplication and the leukemias which led to the study being halted pre-maturely.

Lie #5.

You also did not understand and ignored the most recent studies on molecular retroviral insertion which indicates less randomness than previously believed.

Lie #6, in fact I specifically acknowledged it, while still showing that it does nothing to rescue your bogus position.

Are you *trying* to torpedoe your own credibility? If so, it sure is working. If not... Quit digging.

[Ichneumon]

Intelligient Design overall is a much better theory than evolution.

So... Did you not bother to even read the article which started this thread, or did you just utterly fail to understand it?

Not only is "Intelligient [sic] Design" NOT a "much better theory" than evolution, it doesn't even qualify *as* a theory...

Read the essay in post #1 again -- I'm not going to waste my time going over the same material with you when it has already been posted at the very top of the thread. The whole freaking essay already covered this subject, and in fact that was its entire focus.

No one has proved that everything came naturally from nothing.

Sigh -- where to start:

1. Science does not deal in proof. "Proof" is an impossible standard in this real world. Proof is only possible in artificial realms like mathematics.

2. There is absolutely nothing in evolutionary biology which asserts that anything, much less "everything", came "from nothing". Not even physics asserts this, for that matter. Are you sure you have any idea what in the hell you're talking about?

If you believe that, you are foolish.

If you believe anyone *has* made any such claim, *you're* the foolish one. And if you don't believe that anyone has made that claim, why are you babbling on about it?

The fool has said in his heart there is no God.

Unfortunately, quite a few fools maintain there is a God as well. You don't even need to leave this thread to find several examples. The atheists have no monopoly on fools.

I have a record of straight A's in Science from grade school through college.

If so, then how in the heck did you manage to say so many stupid and inaccurate things about science in so short a post?

[bvw]

Five.

(1) Design. (2) Purpose. (3) Benevolence. (4) Love. (5) Duty.

[PatrickHenry]

Good idea. Let's open up a "love lab."

[shuckmaster]

(1) Design. (2) Purpose. (3) Benevolence. (4) Love. (5) Duty.

I thought we were talking science and now you want to get all mushy with me?

[shuckmaster]

A purposeful benevolent love lab full of designed duty!

[longshadow]

.... and now you want to get all mushy with me?

Check your calendar.....

;-)

[bvw]

Carry natural selection to its conclusion and you have not one of those five. Yet we do. And that's my "metaphysical research programme" for tonight, 13 February 2006. bvw out.

[PatrickHenry]

Maybe Jimmy Swaggart was conducting "love science" research when he was dating hookers in motels and alleys. Scientists could learn a lot from that guy.

[RightWingNilla]

Sorry for the "internal duplciate".

[bvw]

PS Yes, I see it is a full moon tonight.