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Life's Irreducible Structure (DEBATE THREAD)
CMI ^ | Alex Williams

Posted on 01/12/2009 7:23:26 AM PST by GodGunsGuts

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To: js1138

I remember medved for the reason you mentioned, the name. But I don’t recall anything in particular about him.


661 posted on 01/14/2009 6:51:33 AM PST by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
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To: js1138

Restating, crudely, that you don’t know what the function of something is so it has no function makes the point. Thank you.


662 posted on 01/14/2009 7:04:50 AM PST by count-your-change (You don't have be brilliant, not being stupid is enough.)
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To: tpanther
Dear Dr. drive-by, are you sure you’re not a lawyer named Micahel Newdow?

Nope.

Neither am I a lawyer named Michael Newdow.

I'm just an interested party, heavily involved in conservativism who would hate to see the movement destroyed by these evil, demented husksters and the ignoramuses who believe the crap they pump out.

663 posted on 01/14/2009 7:10:30 AM PST by DoctorMichael (Creationists on the internet: The Ignorant, amplifying the Stupid.)
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To: tpanther
Dear Dr. drive-by, are you sure you’re not a lawyer named Micahel Newdow?

Nope.

Neither am I a lawyer named Michael Newdow.

I'm just an interested party, heavily involved in conservativism who would hate to see the movement destroyed by these evil, demented husksters and the ignoramuses who believe the crap they pump out.

664 posted on 01/14/2009 7:12:25 AM PST by DoctorMichael (Creationists on the internet: The Ignorant, amplifying the Stupid.)
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To: metmom
So how does evolution explain it? If humans don't need it, why are the genes there? If they evoloved for a reason, why aren't they being used?

Here's a link to a lot of discussion on the topic.

665 posted on 01/14/2009 7:19:58 AM PST by js1138
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To: count-your-change

Stated crudely, if you can’t demonstrate a function for something you shouldn’t make wild claims for functionality.

I find it more lkely that we are descended from ancestors that had a better sense of smell than that we are the ancestors of people with a better sense of smell.


666 posted on 01/14/2009 7:26:34 AM PST by js1138
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To: metmom
The olfactory system is not just for smelling the morning coffee. It also is connected to the limbic system, influencing memory, pleasure, hormonal function, on and on.

Although a large number of the genes responsible for our sense of smell are called inactive or pseudo genes they may not be so inactive after all.

667 posted on 01/14/2009 7:31:04 AM PST by count-your-change (You don't have be brilliant, not being stupid is enough.)
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To: count-your-change

There’s another thread on this:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2164367/posts

But the genes responsible for subconscious senses are not inactive. Different thing. Different concept.


668 posted on 01/14/2009 7:35:49 AM PST by js1138
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To: YHAOS

Although I do not intend to reply to the substance of the thread, your apology and explanation deserve a response, simply out of good manners.

I remember the post WWII days a bit differently. The young folk had just seen us end two monstrously evil regimes and wanted to continue the good work of rooting out bad stuff wherever they saw it. Emulating the god example of their elders, as it were. There were no wars abroad so they looked around and found bad stuff at home to attack, and attack they did. All good and idealistic so far.

Unfortunately for them and us, their projects were thoroughly infiltrated by communists with magically appearing funding and honeyed words. The rest follows.

As for the science part, I work there and examples of recent speciation abound. And, just as the intricacies of music and advanced math elude me but are obvious to others, I have come to the conclusion that evolution is harder than it looks to those of us in the field.

As for posting here on the topic of the thread, no, I’m not about to contribute carefully worded posts to make the playing field appear even when I risk being banned for responding to insults regarding my politics and, especially, my own religion, which accepts evolution. I have other issues I like to post on, especially advocating nuclear power.

In order not to hijack the thread, I’ll respond to you further by pm.


669 posted on 01/14/2009 7:36:36 AM PST by From many - one.
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To: tacticalogic
Then if we're going to stay on topic we need to look at how politics and/or ideology may be interfering with the objectivity of the research and conclusions of this theory.

Why the sudden interest to place the emphasis on this paper when there's so many in line in front of it?

670 posted on 01/14/2009 7:39:00 AM PST by tpanther (The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing---Edmund Burke)
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To: DoctorMichael

Can you show us your history of intetrest as you put it? Because everytime I see your input it sounds alot like you’re confused about your side and conservatism.


671 posted on 01/14/2009 7:40:02 AM PST by tpanther (The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing---Edmund Burke)
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To: tpanther
Why the sudden interest to place the emphasis on this paper when there's so many in line in front of it?

Because that is the subject of this thread, and we have been asked to try and stay on topic.

672 posted on 01/14/2009 7:46:24 AM PST by tacticalogic ("Oh bother!" said Pooh, as he chambered his last round.)
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To: js1138

I made no wild claims and what claims I did make I backed up far better than this:

“I find it more lkely that we are descended from ancestors that had a better sense of smell than that we are the ancestors of people with a better sense of smell.”

Ignorance of the function of some of genes in the olfactory system is a poor reason to assume evolution to be fact.
But as you will.

Remember my example of your computer?


673 posted on 01/14/2009 7:47:30 AM PST by count-your-change (You don't have be brilliant, not being stupid is enough.)
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To: betty boop; tacticalogic
It seems to me whenever one is dealing with universals, one has already touched upon the problem of the “Eternal Now.” For the physical laws are universals: they are (theoretically) the same for all observers in whatever spatiotemporal locations, any and every “time” whatever (in quantum physics, time is usually defined in terms of Planck time, or “the most-infinitesimal unit of time that the human mind can detect.”) — which is sort of a rough approximation of a “something” within the meaning of the Eternal Now. So to the extent that we apply the physical laws to the data of Nature, we are already “participants” in the Eternal Now.

There is only a universal now for for things which are at rest relative to us, i.e. in our frame of reference. Events (time) are different for different observers in different frames of reference. If I give a group of observers each a synchronized clock and send them off at different velocities so that they are at different distances and speeds from an event, they will all record different times for the event. There is no universal now for all reference frames.

About your AP hierarchy, it seems eerily similar to Drakes Equation or Global Climate Models. A bunch of guesses is a bunch of guesses even if they are dressed up nicely in an equation format : )

Special creations would require that absolutely everything that exists has to be uniquely fashioned, one at a time. But what a spectacular redundancy of principle would be involved! Why would God (say; or any designer in general) want to make everything from “scratch,” every single time??? I mean, when He’s (its) already loaded all the “ingredients” He would need in the very fabric of Nature itself? And that “load” consists of: Information — as indicated by our old friends (i)–(v).

Not everything, simply everything that is not identical.

674 posted on 01/14/2009 8:00:27 AM PST by LeGrande (I once heard a smart man say that you canÂ’t reason someone out of something that they didnÂ’t reaso)
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To: LeGrande
Not everything, simply everything that is not identical.

I think that leaves us back at disagreements over the semantics of taxonomy (species/kinds, etc.).

675 posted on 01/14/2009 8:03:42 AM PST by tacticalogic ("Oh bother!" said Pooh, as he chambered his last round.)
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To: tpanther
I am troubled by the influx of Cretoids and IDiacs to this website, its infrastructure, and elsewhere within the bounds of Conservatism over the last few years. More importantly, I am also troubled by the influx of their delusional Anti-Science, Anti-Enlightement, and Anti-Western Civilization ideas into Conservatism. Just because their own Faith is pitifully weak enough to cause such loathing does not give them the right to spread their weakness and destroy Conservatism because they refuse to accept a Fact.

Much the same as anyone one else here with a 'Ping List' I have an interest in a specific subject and have neither the time nor the interest to justify my existence to a nOOb.

Hope this helps.

(See my ***Tagline***)

676 posted on 01/14/2009 8:04:16 AM PST by DoctorMichael (Creationists on the internet: The Ignorant, amplifying the Stupid.)
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To: tacticalogic

That always occurs...perhaps you can come up with what’s “injecting religion into science” we’re always hearing about from this article?


677 posted on 01/14/2009 8:06:54 AM PST by tpanther (The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing---Edmund Burke)
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To: count-your-change
Ignorance of the function of some of genes in the olfactory system is a poor reason to assume evolution to be fact.

That's true, but the similatities and differences in genes form a nested hierarchy, which just one of dozens of lines of evidence supporting evolution.

Meanwhile, mainstream science continues to look for functions, even while I doubt that much will be found.

Not much rides on my being correct or wrong about this.

678 posted on 01/14/2009 8:07:10 AM PST by js1138
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To: tpanther
It baffles me to no end you're still asking for "evidence that supports it", when throughout this thread evidence is all around you.

I think the question for many of us now is: "How can one NOT see the evidence"!

An argument is not evidence. Logic is based on assumptions. Assumptions not based on facts (evidence) are worthless. Logic based on worthless assumptions are worthless.

But it gets worse : ) Even if the assumptions are correct and logic is properly applied, the conclusions may not be correct. In the end, evidence rules supreme : )

Where is the evidence (not the arguments) that supports ID?

679 posted on 01/14/2009 8:11:00 AM PST by LeGrande (I once heard a smart man say that you canÂ’t reason someone out of something that they didnÂ’t reaso)
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To: tpanther
That always occurs...perhaps you can come up with what’s “injecting religion into science” we’re always hearing about from this article?

What is it that "always occurs", staying on topic, or being asked to?

Perhaps looking at the politics or ideology of the researchers would yield some clues about what's injecting religion into science.

680 posted on 01/14/2009 8:13:13 AM PST by tacticalogic ("Oh bother!" said Pooh, as he chambered his last round.)
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