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Intelligent design’s long march to nowhere
Science & Theology News ^
| 05 December 2005
| Karl Giberson
Posted on 12/05/2005 4:06:56 AM PST by PatrickHenry
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To: bobdsmith
It would be astonishing to think chemistry could have dealt such an extraordinary hand if chemistry was random. But it isn't, so there is no necessary reason to be astonished by it. Right. Especially when organic compounds form so readily, thus before very long, the oceans are full of sub-assemblies that don't need to be "invented" all over again from ground zero.
Additionally, all these "the odds are against DNA" computations totally ignore the powerful effect of what me might call parallel processing. Each cubic meter of ocean has millions (billions?) of "experiments" going on all the time. So in a few hundred million years, an amazingly large number of combinations is possible.
121
posted on
12/05/2005 7:55:31 AM PST
by
PatrickHenry
(Virtual Ignore for trolls, lunatics, dotards, common scolds, & incurable ignoramuses.)
To: oblomov; TheGhostOfTomPaine
You'd be amazed how many people can't figure that one out.
To: Clemenza
They will morph into something else. I'm anticipating "Designed Macroevolution".
123
posted on
12/05/2005 8:01:07 AM PST
by
furball4paws
(The new elixir of life - dehydrated toad urine.)
To: TheGhostOfTomPaine
OK, but the point is that while there are many (in fact an infinite number of ) theoretical circumstances in which the mean and median are the same, this is not true in general, and it shouldn't be assumed to be so.
To: Snowbelt Man
if evolution is true and homosexuality is genetic - why are there still homosexuals? wouldn't this non reproductive gene have been eliminated from the gene pool at some point?Not if the gene is recessive.
To: TheGhostOfTomPaine
More precisely, if the probability of an event is more than zero, it will occur with probability approaching one as the number of repeated trials increases without limit. You need to add, "If the events are independent."
This is one of the Borel-Cantelli lemmas. (Wikipedia's entry is correct here; I checked.)
126
posted on
12/05/2005 8:04:55 AM PST
by
Doctor Stochastic
(Vegetabilisch = chaotisch ist der Charakter der Modernen. - Friedrich Schlegel)
To: js1138
Lots of people have tried to make unbiased, but it's pretty futile.
I would suppose that any test, opinion, or thought could be deemed biased based on pc and the persons history and background. It is a good way to make Charlie, who cannot count to ten feel good.
127
posted on
12/05/2005 8:05:06 AM PST
by
jec41
(Screaming Eagle)
To: PatrickHenry
When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong. -- Arthur C. Clarke (Clarke's First Law)When, however, the lay public rallies round an idea that is denounced by distinguished but elderly scientists and supports that idea with great fervor and emotion the distinguished but elderly scientists are then, after all, probably right.
-- Isaac Asimov's Corollary to Clarke's First Law
Terry Goodkind's 'Wizard's First Rule' seems appropriate here, too...
People are stupid. They will believe anything they want to be true or fear to be true.
To: Snowbelt Man
if evolution is true and homosexuality is genetic - why are there still homosexuals? wouldn't this non reproductive gene have been eliminated from the gene pool at some point? when it comes to science, i'm one of those ignoramuses who believes that God created man in His own image and homosexuality is a choice that people make.
Presuming for a moment that homosexuality is in fact genetically determined (a hypothesis far from demonstrated), I'd have two responses:
- Genetic homosexuality might be a recessive trait, passed along by a parent in whom the trait did not actually express itself.
- Do you think that there are no homosexuals in this world who choose to marry and have children?
129
posted on
12/05/2005 8:06:28 AM PST
by
highball
("I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have." -- Thomas Jefferson)
To: jec41
Darwin wasn't a Doctor. He received a degree from Cambridge.
"His freethinking father wanted him in a profession, and what better for a wastrel naturalist than the Church? So Darwin was bounced back again to conventional Anglicanism - three years of high living and divinity at Christ's College, Cambridge (1828-31). Darwin had little calling (not that much was needed!), but his collateral education continued, as the beetling fanatic learned a conservative botany from Revd J.S.Henslow and strata mapping with geologist Revd Adam Sedgwick. He received his B.A. degree, but, as Henslow placed him at the captain's table aboard a surveying ship, HMS Beagle, the parsonage faded away."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/darwin/leghist/desmond.htm
He learned geology and had extensive training as a naturalist though it was mostly extracurricular. Up until he published the Origin of Species in 1859, we was mostly known as a geologist. You have to remember, he came along right at the end of the era of the gentleman naturalist. There was no biology profession until the second half of the century.
"Although he is credited with a lot his ideas were not that new. Aristotle, the father of science speculated much of the same ideas centuries before the bible and its new ideas was written."
While the idea of the transmutation of species was not new with Darwin, his presentation and explanation for the causative agent (Natural selection) WAS new. Aristotle did not speculate about natural selection. The main Aristotelian contribution to the *species problem* as it was called in Darwin's day was negative; a rigid essentialism (That Aristotle probably did not share) that made the idea of a species changing impossible.
130
posted on
12/05/2005 8:08:27 AM PST
by
CarolinaGuitarman
("There is a grandeur in this view of life...")
To: liliesgrandpa
"Each protein molecule requires a minimum of 410 amino acids. All formed in left handed spirals. (Protein molecules do not have right handed spirals for some unknown reason.)"
I read somewhere that left handed molecules are more stable against ultraviolet light than right handed ones. Can anybody provide a source for that statement. I can't remember my source.
131
posted on
12/05/2005 8:09:10 AM PST
by
MHalblaub
(Tell me in four more years (No, I did not vote for Kerry))
To: Rudder
132
posted on
12/05/2005 8:09:35 AM PST
by
furball4paws
(The new elixir of life - dehydrated toad urine.)
To: antiRepublicrat
cancel(a-b) a+b = b Sorry, no "canceling" after junior high. And no dividing by zero before or after junior high.
To: pby
I knew that the John Templeton Foundation and Dr. Karl Giberson did not support ID.
I don't support or adhere to ID either...but I would never quote Giberson and/or The John Templeton Foundation in defense of my objection to ID.
In your case, I believe that it is must be an instance of...my enemy's enemy is my friend.
BTW, when creationists do that...you guys call it quote-mining.
Nice try, but that's not quote mining.
Quote mining is taking parts of a quote out of context to try and make the quote appear as though the person was saying the opposite of what they were actually saying.
For example, Darwin in his writings anticipated a series of objections to his ideas, and then answered them, demonstrating why those objections were baseless. Several creationist websites have listed those objections without his answers, making it appear that Darwin knew his theories were flawed. That's quote mining.
This may be a case of strange bedfellows, or a broken clock being right twice a day (as in the case of Pat Robertson and radical feminists agreeing on pornography or the ACLU supporting Rush Limbaugh's case in Florida), but so long as Patrick Henry isn't misrepresenting their views on this subject it isn't quote mining.
134
posted on
12/05/2005 8:12:40 AM PST
by
highball
("I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have." -- Thomas Jefferson)
To: PatrickHenry
"...........After more than a decade of listening to ID proponents claim that ID is good science, dont we deserve better than this?..........""Intelligent design" may be interesting as theology, but as science it is a fraud.
~Charles Krauthammer
135
posted on
12/05/2005 8:20:30 AM PST
by
DoctorMichael
(The Fourth-Estate is a Fifth-Column!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
To: highball
i don't presume that homosexuality is genetic. in fact, like all other behavior, i believe that it's chosen. thanks for the explanation. it seems this recessive trait is becoming more and more prevalent - at least in post Christian europe and america. it'll be very interesting to see where america is in 50 years. my guess is we're about a half century "behind" europe. the only hope for america is if the evangelical church can withstand the stampede toward secularism both inside and outside of the church. based on the rest of western civilization's track record, i wouldn't bet on it.
136
posted on
12/05/2005 8:22:02 AM PST
by
Snowbelt Man
(ideas have consequences)
To: DoctorMichael
Who is Charles Krauthammer?
To: Doc Savage; PatrickHenry
Your puerile attempts to suppress other points of view are useless.Huh? PH possibly posts more articles on ID than anyone here. Posting articles on a subject and pinging people to them is a strange way to "suppress" something!
Or when you write "suppress," should we read "disagree with"? (Easily done if so, as we're used to the same decoding when reading whining rants from leftists.)
138
posted on
12/05/2005 8:27:24 AM PST
by
Stultis
(I don't worry about the war turning into "Vietnam" in Iraq; I worry about it doing so in Congress.)
To: Snowbelt Man
It's still not clear how homosexuality is relevant to the evolution vs ID debate.
To: VadeRetro
The story has a hint for the ID crowd. The Big Bang made a prediction of something that 1) we hadn't seen or guessed before, and 2) came true. So, IDers, tell us something we didn't know, based on your theory. Then go find it.
They can't, because it makes NO useful (meaning testable) predictions; hence the reason why IDers are so determined to try to change the very definition of science itself to include the supernatural.
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