Intelligent Design case decided - Dover, Pennsylvania, School Board loses [Fox News Alert]

Fox News | 12/20/05

[unlearner]

"Tell me in which of these books exists a lengthy discussion of your proposed experiment, in which, I'll remind you, every jot, whistle, and twig of a cellular creature would be created 'from scratch' in a laboratory. By actual title, if you don't mind."

I might be able check my library records for that time and get the names, but I think you misunderstood. I was pointing out how nanotechnology anticipates the possible future ability to assemble things atom by atom. I cannot recall if any book specifically discussed assembling life from non living materials. The nano tech industry is driven by profit potential based on the assumption there will be a huge demand for the life improving capabilities it can offer. Understanding the mysteries of life is not the overreaching objective.

[unlearner]

"Modern science, however, includes the investigation of gradual abiogenesis, for which there is some evidence, as I pointed out, in the relationships between the fundamentally shared genomes of all living creatures"

What does that have to do with it? All that supports is that all living creatures probably have a common origin. It says nothing about how that origin occurred. If you have one genome or many, you have life. The issue is how life can come about from non living matter.

Abiogenesis is not science. When you can put forward some falsifiability, supportability and utility of it, I am interested. Otherwise, all you have is philosophy.

[unlearner]

" Science is all about difficulty. Things that are easy and absolutely certain are done by technicians and engineers."

You missed the point. It would be as difficult to support abiogenesis scientifically as supporting the existence of God. More difficult probably. But, since difficulty is another aspect of your demarcation of science, I guess that is OK. But wait, I thought earlier you were arguing that my experiments were not practical because they would be too difficult.

[unlearner]

"Do you really think I don't understand that we evaluate, say, rocks, using our current understanding of physics and chemistry."

You seem to be arguing profusely against using observable phenomena as a tool for explaining how life forms. Sure it is OK by you to use it for other science. But it can't be used to gain an understanding of how living things are put together (in your opinion). Do I really think you believe this? No. I'm just holding up a mirror for you to look at your own arguments. You have not identified a logical flaw in my hypothesis. Your best argument is that life takes so long to form that direct observations are meaningless.

Have you ever done work on a car? Is it important in your opinion to remember the order in which you take something apart in order to remember how to put it back together? How is attempting to make similar observations about living things unscientific? The process of doing so is the most likely way to discover how a hypothetical self organizing mechanism works, if it exists at all. I just happen to think that all such observations will tend to confirm my opinion that intelligence is the exclusive organizing principle by which life is assembled from non living materials.

[unlearner]

" There is no case otherwise. Even if you hold your breath until you turn blue."

Oh. Now I see. What a persuasive point. OK. You convinced me. /s

"Should your experiment be attempted, and works, it proves that there exists at least one pathway by which natural agencies could have produced life, since laboratories and their staff are natural."

Ha ha ha. You've gone from arguing it proves nothing, to arguing it proves your view. You cannot hide behind obfuscation and ambiguity. Life is distinct from non life. Intelligence is distinct from non intelligence. If you cannot see this, it is because you don't want to.

You should try to rigorously defend intelligence being exclusively a natural process, while maintaining your position of ambiguity about the meaning of life and intelligence. You cannot explain what natural processes are required for intelligence, and how they work together, because no one has accomplished this. This again underscores how you are predisposed to reaching the conclusions you prefer without regard to evidence. That, friend, is not scientific.

"by pouting until everyone gets bored and annoyed with you, and leaves off arguing."

Are you arguing? It appears more like a personal complaint since there is no reason to your point here. I would be happy to hear you make an argument like you did for natural history earlier. One hit wonder I guess.

[unlearner]

Or not. I think making fun of your money demarcation is fair game. Considering the millions spent on scientifically researching theories which have not technically met the falsifiability demarcation, and considering the billions that are spent on scientific research, I think prohibitive cost is a very poor demarcation standard for defining science.

You still have not retracted that silly idea, nor have you clarified what you consider to be a precise definition of science which would exclude my hypothesis while including abiogenesis and ST (in its pre falsification days).

[unlearner]

"The same could be said of the relativistic theory of gravity, the theory of continental drift, and the germ theory of disease."

Correct. And as I pointed out, millions were poured into searching for super symmetry before ST made any falsifiable predictions.

[unlearner]

"If you're going to throw one off the science team for being willing to consider newly uncovered evidence as potentially capable of falsifying a theory, you have to throw them all off, and then your crackpottery becomes obvious, doesn't it?"

No. You still have not articulated a solid argument against my point. I distinguished the theory from the data resulting from testing. You can falsify a theory (or should be able to if the theory is scientific), but you cannot falsify a historical event (without relying on other non falsifiable history to do so).

Your earlier point which you reiterated here about when data is found is a good one, but it fails to address the distinction I raised.

You need to do two things. Give an example of how a historical event can be falsified without relying on some other historical event to do so. And explain how abiogenesis as a whole can be falsified.

[unlearner]

" Was this, or was it not your claim?"

My body was not designed to lift cars directly.

"[a change holder] is also NOT a biological system."

Well even my hands hold change better than a jack.

The point is that attempts to duplicate the functionality of living systems usually falls far short due to how well living things work. A rare exception might be things that are designed to kill. I think it is debatable that living things were designed to kill, even if they are capable of it.

[unlearner]

"What, pray tell, are the failures of abiogenesis"?

Lack of falsifiable predictions. Lack of falsifiability of the whole concept of abiogenesis.

[donh]

You need to do two things. Give an example of how a historical event can be falsified without relying on some other historical event to do so. And explain how abiogenesis as a whole can be falsified.

Science cranks are always holding up hoops of their own devising for science to jump thru, and then raising a ruckus when science pays them scant heed. We'll get over your problems with historical data. Kindly tell me what data astonomers look at, that's contemporaneous, that tells them the story of the Big Bang?

[donh]

The point is that attempts to duplicate the functionality of living systems usually falls far short due to how well living things work.

How many counter-examples do I need to find to flush out this idiocy? Explain to me the extreme utility of the veriform appendix. Explain to me the extreme utility of legs on a snake. Explain to me the extreme utility of a vestigial tail on a human.

A rare exception might be things that are designed to kill. I think it is debatable that living things were designed to kill, even if they are capable of it.

What? What are tiger's enormously oversized claws and teeth for? Opening beer cans?

[donh]

Well even my hands hold change better than a jack.

Painfully incorrect.

[donh]

Are you arguing? It appears more like a personal complaint since there is no reason to your point here. I would be happy to hear you make an argument like you did for natural history earlier. One hit wonder I guess.

I have been carried along quite a ways here because your particular form of obituseness and avoidance gives the impression of genuine conversation, but even my string runs out eventually. I have had enough, thank you for your occasional courtesy, much as it now seems to resemble sucker bait. Have a good day.

[donh]

"Modern science, however, includes the investigation of gradual abiogenesis, for which there is some evidence, as I pointed out, in the relationships between the fundamentally shared genomes of all living creatures"

What does that have to do with it? All that supports is that all living creatures probably have a common origin.

All living creatures probably have neither a common origin, nor a common ancester, unless you count the entire pre-biotic universe as the common origin. You don't know what you are talking about; you are making up your own version of science as you go along, and you don't appear determined to repair that. The three of life does not terminate in a single node--it branches like the roots of real tree. Please leave me alone until you show some sign that you know at least something about the science you think you are attacking. Natural abiogensis stands on a similar sort of evidence of gradual change, evaluated in the same inductive manner, as natural evolution--or do you, unlike Behe and Dembski, the stars of the ID movement, deny evolutionary theory as well?

[donh]

"Should your experiment be attempted, and works, it proves that there exists at least one pathway by which natural agencies could have produced life, since laboratories and their staff are natural."

Ha ha ha. You've gone from arguing it proves nothing, to arguing it proves your view.

I see you studied at the mickey mouse school of logic. This is not a "proof" of my view. Do you deny that laboratories and their staffs are natural phenomenon?

[donh]

The point is that attempts to duplicate the functionality of living systems usually falls far short due to how well living things work.

Cite me an example. When did anyone ever "attempt to duplicate the functionality of a living system"? And what was the nature of the supposed failure?

[donh]

Or not. I think making fun of your money demarcation is fair game.

This thread is about ID being legit enough of a science to be stood up to evolutionary theory in a high school textbook.

Cite me a major scientific hypothesis, so important as to be taught in secondary public schools, whose demonstration is entirely predicated on an enormously expensive experiment that has has never been performed, and is not scheduled to be performed any time in the near future.

[donh]

I think it is debatable that living things were designed to kill

I presume this is a science as well, in your book. What is it called? Quaker-shark-ism?

[donh]

My body was not designed to lift cars directly.

Was your body designed to change tires? Do you think the ability to change tires is not a survival trait? Was your body designed to lift and hurl small objects? Do you do it as well as an automatic pitching machine?