Posted on 12/07/2009 8:33:19 AM PST by GodGunsGuts
Dr. Henry M. Morris founded the Institute for Creation Research in 1970 with a vision to uncover and present evidence for the accuracy and authority of the Bible. For almost 40 years, ICR has distinguished itself as the leader in creation science research and education, ably assisted by the many fine scientists whom God has led to work here. These men and women have dedicated their training and skills to raising the banner for the truth of our Creator God. We would like you to meet our current on-site scientists and hear their thoughts on the purpose, significance, and importance of the creation science research they do...
(Excerpt) Read more at icr.org ...
I have been ignoring them for some time, BB. In fact, they make a point of the fact that I have been ignoring them to make it seem like I post and run away. This has only made them even more brazen. And the mods won’t do anything about it. As you say yourself, you mostly ignore these threads because of what they turn into. But as someone who posts Creationist and ID articles on a regular basis, I can tell you that the evos cross the line every single day on a non-stop basis, to the point of PMing me and making personal threats.
After reading the personal attacks and anti-FR posts over at the other site, I also decided not to bother reading it much less joining.
People only use spit-wads when they have no ammunition, so it was obvious we could not have a fruitful dialogue with them.
Most deplorable and unfortunate situation!!! No question about that!
But still I have to think that as long as you're giving them what they want, they will never leave you alone. You have to figure out what that is, and then figure out how to stop doing it.
Sigh. I know it's a miserable problem, GGG.
You have all my personal sympathy, believe me.
So that it was you call ignoring the questions that you can’t answer?
"After reading ... I also decided not to bother reading ..."
Having your cake and improperly digesting it too, I see. When you view the entire world through the loupe of your own familiar circle of acquaintances, you miss a lot of the big picture.
There are more interesting things to read about than the neighbor's gossip, but it all depends on whether you take an interest in a wider world.
FR contains a MUCH BIGGER slice of the “wider world” than the rejects over at Darwin Central. Indeed, about the only thing your fellow Creation Opposition Groupies (COGs) do over at DC is gossip and fulminate about what’s happening on FR.
Even that may be regarded as high, I would agree. We have a plethora of interesting subjects to discuss, including politics, astronomy and space travel, and the spiritual aspects of man's place in the cosmos.
The talk about FR over there is more in line with a discussion about a multi-car accident on the freeway. A lot of "too bad", and "those poor souls", and such. Which is perhaps natural, if not forgivable, considering some of them are still nursing their bruises from having been "tossed" out.
Oh, that? That's nothing!
You should be there for the parties!
Oh, Goodie! We can have a "Who's got the 'Wider World' Contest!!!" Seems there are two camps here:
Camp 1: Proponents of dogmatic Darwinism
Camp 2: Proponents of the Creation story told in Genesis 1–3 and the Gospel of Saint John 1–5.
Which is the "wider" — did you mean "larger?" — world?
Anyhoot, I'd be glad to speak on behalf of Camp 2. Would you like to speak for Camp 1? It could be fun. Who knows, you might even enjoy yourself! :^)
Just to get the ball rolling, a preliminary offering from Camp 2:
...in all the sciences I studied, information comes first, and regulates the flesh and the world, not the other way around. The pattern seemed to echo some familiar wisdom. Could it be, I asked myself one day in astonishment, that the opening of St. John’s Gospel, In the beginning was the Word, is a central dogma of modern science?Hope to hear from you soon, NicknamedBob!In raising this question I was not affirming a religious stance. At the time it first occurred to me, I was still a mostly secular intellectual. But after some 35 years of writing and study in science and technology, I can now affirm the principle empirically. Salient in virtually every technical field – from quantum theory and molecular biology to computer science and economics – is an increasing concern with the word. It passes by many names: logos, logic, bits, bytes, mathematics, software, knowledge, syntax, semantics, code, plan, program, design, algorithm, as well as the ubiquitous “information.” In every case, the information is independent of its physical embodiment or carrier.
Biologists commonly blur the information into the slippery synecdoche of DNA, a material molecule, and imply that life is biochemistry rather than information processing. But even here, the deoxyribonucleic acid that bears the word is not itself the word. Like a sheet of paper or a computer memory chip, DNA bears messages but its chemistry is irrelevant to its content. The alphabet’s nucleotide “bases” form “words” without help from their bonds with the helical sugar-phosphate backbone that frames them. The genetic words are no more dictated by the chemistry of their frame than the words in Scrabble are determined by the chemistry of their wooden racks or by the force of gravity that holds them. — George Gilder, "Evolution and Me," National Review, July 17, 2006.
Well done, as usual.
Thanks.
Excellent. Thanks for the ping.
What’s interesting to consider is that when someone dies, until decay (that pesky 2nd law) sets in, the body is identical in composition to the living body, and yet its dead.
Clearly there’s something more to life than just the biochemical structure. That *something* is something that I have not really seen addressed by science, and yet, it IS real and part of the natural world in which we live.
First, as a practicing Christian who is also a practicing scientist (and not an "evo"), I'd like to address GGG's parenthetical addition to the title:
"(according to the evos, these men and women aren't scientists)"
1) No genuine scientist believes in and dedicates himself to a premise and sets out to "uncover evidence" to "PROVE" it. (That is precisely the problem uncovered with the "Climategate" files: men who claimed to be "scientists" prostituted themselves on the altar of "PROVING" that "AGW" is real and a threat to humankind.) By their dedication to "PROVING", rather than "investigating", both the CRU/IPCC and "Creation Scientists" have surrendered any claim to being true scientists.
2) No scientific branch has a sub-discipline with accredited courses in "Apologetics". It is theology -- not science -- that is dedicated to "PROVING" its premises.
~~~~~~~~~
BB, you left out the pitifully confined world of
"Camp 3": Proponents of the ego/anthro/geocentric drivel of Bishop Ussher -- who confine and constrain the majesty of the truths told in Genesis 1-3 and John 1-5 and struggle to PROVE they can cram them into the infantile prison fashioned by Ussher's medieval mind-barfs.
Intended to address #214 to those addressed by Betty Boop...
Premise not accepted. I do not consider myself a spokesperson for any one camp. I am a poet, with the eyes of a fly. I see, or seek to see, all sides of everything.
I see your side. I see Darwin's side. I see from the outside and the inside. I see from our species' perspective, and I see from the viewpoint of the Galactic Center.
I will play this game; that a mind can examine information dispassionately, rejecting erroneous conclusions presented as facts, yet building from one step of logic to the next, until a world view can be presented, which will constitute a wider view.
"Camp 1: Proponents of dogmatic Darwinism "
Premise rejected. The word "dogmatic" in this construction is a poison pill, coloring the perception of the gentle reader with a negative connotation.
Charles Darwin was an admirably competent observer, carrying no preconceived notions into the field, but simply observing closely and with astonishing skill.
Darwin's turn of mind was encyclopedically visual, relentlessly explanatory -- he asked a why question about everything he looked at, but his answer to every why question that he asked was to look again at exactly what. -- (Adam Gopnik)"...in all the sciences I studied, information comes first, and regulates the flesh and the world, not the other way around."
Wherever you happen to be going with this, I reject it. My studies, like every person able to think and converse, began with noting things, then relationships.
Like our educational system, we begin with learning letters. When the alphabet is mastered, we start to assemble words with our newly learned letters.
With words we form sentences, and are celebrated by our doting parents. From those sentences, and the ones we study, we begin forming ideas. As ideas find accommodation in our minds, we form concepts, and from the concepts, social relationships and philosophies.
But you will note that we start from very humble beginnings, both in the workings of our minds, and with all the other aspects of what we are.
Information, that is, the description of those things that have become familiar to us, is the last thing we learn about them.
--
"... I can now affirm the principle empirically. Salient in virtually every technical field – from quantum theory and molecular biology to computer science and economics – is an increasing concern with the word."
Premise not accepted. You are arguing from your conclusion.
Yes, it is true that information technology can be employed to describe certain aspects of bio-chemistry. It is also true that bio-chemical organisms can be organized into a type of search function to focus on curious aspects of mathematical operations.
This does not make them interchangeable in any way, any more than statistical analysis of human behavior could be used to randomly scatter individuals into different homes at the end of the day. I assure you that the individuals would notice. Their behavior in a group can be predicted, but they remain individuals.
Essentially, you are forcing the first of erroneous concepts onto your observation. The map is not the territory.
Simply being able to describe events and probabilities, outcomes and behaviors with some kind of mathematical rigor does not mean that formulae can be devised that will bring about a behavior that is not intrinsic to the phenomenon observed. Your words can not command your subjects, regardless of the volume of your shout.
--
... imply that life is biochemistry rather than information processing. But even here, the deoxyribonucleic acid that bears the word is not itself the word. Like a sheet of paper or a computer memory chip, DNA bears messages but its chemistry is irrelevant to its content. The alphabet’s nucleotide “bases” form “words” without help from their bonds with the helical sugar-phosphate backbone that frames them.Far be it from me to infer that life is one and not the other, in any manner of describing it. Life is clearly both. It is information processing through bio-chemical means.
The chemistry of DNA is not irrelevant to its content. Only certain information can be conveyed regardless of the length of the message. The description of how to form feathers, or hair, or teeth or eyes, can be written into the database. These, all of them, are simply modifications of things that came before.
How will we write our cell-phones into our DNA?
How will we write the instructions for how we may fly, like Superman, using our will-power alone? How will we write into our DNA those powers that will make us gods?
In all likelihood, we will not. The medium, you must accept, limits the message that can be conveyed.
So true.. In the beginning was the Word, humans used them, and words became silly..<<— Super thrifty history lesson..
==1) No genuine scientist believes in and dedicates himself to a premise and sets out to “uncover evidence” to “PROVE” it.
Absolutely not true. All kinds of scientists “believe” in hypothesis. Some find out that their belief is confirmed by the scientific method, some find out that their belief has been falsified. The key is to make sure that entrenched interests don’t develop that are capable of putting protective hedge around certain beliefs, thus making them unfalsifiable. Hunan caused global warming would be one recent example of this...Darwin’s evo-atheist creation myth would be another.
==No scientific branch has a sub-discipline with accredited courses in “Apologetics”. It is theology — not science — that is dedicated to “PROVING” its premises.
Sure they do, it’s called Creation Science. And btw, science is based on a number of assumptions that cannot be themselves proven by empirical science. They must be taken on faith. Should we then toss out the scientific method because it rests on faith-based assumptions?
PS And speaking of “drivel”, I can find no greater example of drivel than nature selecting from random processes to create a complex, specified, super-sophisticated, digital DNA code, when the only known cause of digital codes fitting this description are intelligent designers...and those codes pale in comparison to DNA. Now that’s drivel!
In a sense, your observation is accurate. Totally random processes have a generally negative result.
It is as if this version of "life" is a zombie life-form, heedlessly trundling forward in a mindless quest for an unnamed goal. And sustaining injuries and bodily insults which it can not heal.
Eventually, this pitiable creature is seen dragging its disintegrating corpse across a meaningless last measure.
Sad.
And inaccurate, of course. What you are missing is the other aspects of randomness. Randomly, reproducing animals get insertions and deletions of the normal gene sequences. Deletions are almost always deleterious, (it's possible there's a pun in there, but that's not my purpose).
Insertions, on the other hand, are a playground of opportunity for randomness. Many consequences are not beneficial, but some few are. In this is the power of change.
I have previously used the analogy of getting extra instructions for making light-sensitive pigment for the eye. As a consequence of having additional pigments, some individuals may have a useful way to distinguish ripe fruit from fruit that is not yet edible. This could help this slightly changed creature survive.
Other possibilities include changes in the size of legs, or ears, or variations in color of fur or feathers. Remember that I am postulating that this is occurring in an area of genetic information that was initially copied to a repetitive location, and then subsequently changed in a random way.
These individuals would have a slightly longer genome, having a few hundreds or thousands of base pairs in addition to the regular information. Initially, it would confer no advantage or disadvantage. It would just be there.
Fortuitously, it might change in a way that provides an advantage to the animal. If it does so, then this form of the genome might advantageously pass on to its descendants.
Do you see that in this manner, entirely random events can work out to the advantage of some progeny, at the expense of others?
This is one of the most important manners in which animals change slowly, over the course of many generations.
It is this slow, relentless tendency to change that is called evolution, as the progeny of beneficial changes compete against their not-as-blest cousins.
Evolution is not dependent on random deletion events alone. It is the nature of sexual reproduction that gives rise to the opportunity for change to be occasionally beneficial.
I would think you would be willing to join me in saying, "Thank God for sex!"
What you’re proposing, however, sounds like apologetics itself.
There is an awful lot of speculation about the consequences of gene insertion and deletion. It *may* lead to this, or *could* cause that.
While that’s interesting thinking and worth pursuing in genetics, *may*’s and *could*’s are not a real substantial supports for the ToE
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