Posted on 09/25/2014 6:50:38 AM PDT by fishtank
Genome Scrambling and Encryption Befuddles Evolution
by Jeffrey Tomkins, Ph.D. *
One-cell creatures called ciliates are expanding our knowledge of genome dynamics and complexity. Now a newly sequenced ciliate genome reveals unimaginable levels of programmed rearrangement combined with an ingenious system of encryption.1
Contrary to the evolutionary prediction of simple-to-complex in the alleged tree of life, one-cell ciliates are exhibiting astonishing genetic complexity.2 The ciliate Oxytricha trifallax has two different genomes contained in separate nuclei. The micronucleus is dense and compact and used for reproduction while the macronucleus is dramatically rearranged, amplified, and used for the creature's standard daily living.
(Excerpt) Read more at icr.org ...
The proposition. (I take it)
The answer should be, “none whatsoever,” since the very canons of Science itself preclude an examination into the reasons or the motivations for the origin of the Universe as a subject far beyond its competence.
But, we know, in this instance, many Scientists defy a clearly stated and commonly accepted Scientific canon and use Science to deny the existence of the Judeo-Christian Tradition and of God’s creation, including many highly accomplished scientists such as Richard Dawkins, Steven Weinberg, Daniel Dennett, William B. Provine, Steven Pinker, Stephen J. Gould, Peter Sanger, Michael Tooley, Richard Lewontin, Carl Sagan (now deceased), Marc Hauser, and Victor Stenger.
When many prominent Scientists intrude into religion, to the accolades of many thousands of their less well-known colleagues and various other camp-followers (Liberals), using their science as the instrument to declare that God (any deity) does not exist and that religion is therefore useless, then, yes, I think the motivation behind their behavior is the attainment of political dominance by asserting the superiority of “Science” over any cultural influence.
All done in the most politically correct manner and secure in the knowledge that no “scientific” and quantifiably accountable number (beyond “many”) can be attached to their assertions. Of course. Thank you, betty, for the ping.
I hate you.
Welcome to the club!
Can you quantify "many" as a fraction or percentage of the total number of scientists there are?
Are you making statements that are genuinely supportable across the entire spectrum of scientists, or are you cherry picking and then painting great swaths of them with a broad brush without any real evidence that they actually do belong in that pigeonhole you've got them stuffed into?
I have no need to "examine and justify" my ideas (if any) about you — or God. Rather, He examines and justifies me — and you also (whether you like it or not).
When I said "I hardly know", etc., I was trying to be polite, to give you a little wiggle room to explain yourself without me putting words in your mouth.
RE: Your ad hominum comment that I am more interested in examining what's going on in the minds of others, jeepers tl, if that's so, it's because I don't know what's going on in your mind that I ask you questions. We humans call this sort of thing "communication," or "conversation." Maybe I could learn a thing or two from you. What's your problem with that?
Do you think I'm trying to psychoanalyze you???
I wouldn't do that. My hunch is you suffer, nor from a psychopathic disorder, but from a disease of the soul — a pneumopathic disorder. But since you won't answer any of my questions, I'll just stop asking them, effective today.
Actually, while I don't "know" where you're coming from to any degree of certainty, I do have a very strong suspicion that you have rejected the Lord — perhaps because you tried to "examine and justify" Him — which certainly your scientific method can provide you with zero help to do. God is not an "observable"; He is not in time and space. Yet without Him, there would be no time and space. Nor would there be any Truth in the universe.... No beauty, no love, no justice.
I guess if you can get along without those things in your life, then you don't "need" God.
But I do need those things. The world would lose all its meaning and intelligibility for me, were there no God. The very fact that there is a world, a creation, at all is absolutely the most obvious "evidence" of the eternal, infinite Being of the Creator God.
But I didn't reach this conclusion by direct perception, by the scientific method, by deductive logic, or analytical reasoning. None of these modes of thought can ever grasp the divine. One "knows" God in acts of the apperceptive mind, as aided by the Holy Spirit "with us." In short, by acts of contemplation:
...[C]ontemplation [is] not simply the beholding of immutables but, rather. a supremely personal theoria theou: a loving vision of the God who created all things and who became incarnate out of love for a wayward creation. — Jacob Holsinger Sherman, Partakers of the Divine: Contemplation and the Practice of Theology, 2014As Thomas Aquinas, Saint and Doctor of the Roman Church, put it:
The only-begotton Son of God, wanting to makes us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods. — Opsuculum57, 1–4Or, put more succinctly,
We are gods by participation under the effect of grace. — In Joannem 15.2.1His Spirit is with me, drawing me forth to achieve the excellence of the unique imago dei He placed in my soul from the foundation of the world — that I may become, in my mortal life, what He intended me to be when He created me in the first place.
No more questions, tacticalogic. Thanks for writing.
That does seem to be the main strategy, dear YHAOS. Thank you for your astute insights! Very well said, indeed.
The question was directed to your assumptions about the thoughts and motivations of scientists.
I think YHAOS nailed that pretty well, in his Post #61. I have nothing much to add, except that my "assumptions" are based on very well documented evidence. If you take e.g., Richard Dawkins or Daniel Dennett for a scientist, their public statements and books make it very clear that they believe — and state — that God, Christianity, souls, etc., etc., are fictions constructed by what they call "The Dims" — knuckle-dragging, superstitious morons (who are defined by them as such simply because the latter believe in God). But Dawkins and Dennett are the self-empowered vanguard of "The Brights." Evidently, Only The Brights are rational beings, and they must act to prevent the irrational Dims from having any power or influence in society.... The Dims are a herd to be ruled by the Brights, dontcha know.
I don't think he "nailed it".
I think your "evidence" is from a handful of individuals, out of hundreds of thousands of scientists, who's opinions are published and pushed by the MSM because it fits their agenda.
I think you know them and their tactics well enough to realize that, but choose to ignore those facts.
At one point during the crevo wars, the attacks on scientists and science in general got so bad that JR had to state that, as a matter of policy, FR was not an "anti-science" site. Now you and YHAOS hold up a handful of liberal atheist individuals out of the hundreds of thousands of scientists out there as being representative of all of them, and the scientific method itself as being intentionally formulated to advance that agenda. All of the scientists, the scientific method, the practice and pursuit of science in general, all defined by the personal opinions of those few hand-picked individuals.
But you're not being "anti-science".
It's a display of intellectual dishonesty as blatant and in-your-face as the IRS commissioner testifying that they shredded the hard drives and erased all the backup tapes, but they didn't "destroy evidence".
If I were anti-science, I would not be an avid student of the history of science (which I am), from its inception in ancient times, right up through the spectacular revolutions of the last century, principally relativity and quantum theory. Against that background, I'd say that some very prominent and influential scientists — the two I cited plus, as other exemplars, Michael Mann and his cohorts — aren't doing "science." They're doing ideology under color of science.
You have to be pretty blind not to notice that they have to corrupt science to make it fit their ideological ends. And "Mr. Hockey Stick," with his "tree-ring circus," has done precisely that. And then Professor Mann has the nerve to go to court — which of all places, is probably the least qualified venue to weigh in on scientific disputes — to seek monetary sanctions against people who do not agree with him.
'Nuff said.
Why do you hold up the abusers as representative of all scientists, and science itself?
But I don't do that, tacticalogic. Why do you impute that to me? I could come up with a looooong list of scientists for whom I have the greatest respect — and gratitude.
You deride the scientific method at every opportunity, and implicitly those who practice it.
The scientific method is an absolutely tremendous multi-millennial achievement of humankind. I do not "deride" it so long as it is applied to fields of inquiry where it clearly has competence — i.e., the physical/material/tangible aspects of total reality that are susceptible to direct observation and falsification tests.
But when it presumes to enter fields where it has no competence, I am going to complain.
But when it presumes to enter fields where it has no competence, I am going to complain.
You complain that it refuses to allow for the possibility of supernatural causes, even though they aren't susceptible to direct observation and falsification tests.
You seem to continue to miss my point. Because science — or more to the point, the scientific method — cannot deal, in principle, with non-material aspects of Reality doesn't mean that there are NO immaterial aspects of Reality (i.e., what you call "supernatural causes" do not exist in principle. You START with a CONCLUSION. That is not "science").
Any such expectation is a reduction of the world to direct observables. But it seems perfectly clear to me that such critically important things as biological organization, consciousness, even life itself, are irreducible to purely material/mechanical explanations.
Any such expectation is a reduction of the world to direct observables. But it seems perfectly clear to me that such critically important things as biological organization, consciousness, even life itself, are irreducible to purely material/mechanical explanations.
Then you've painted them into a corner. They can only investigate through material/mechanical means. To even begin an investigation requires an assumption that there are going to be material/mechanical processes at work that can be observed and measured. To assume that there are forces at work that are not observable and measurable immediately puts the investigation outside the competence of the scientific method, and you'd complain about that.
Asked and answered (see #61, 2nd and 3rd paragraphs this topic). Surely not, of course, an answer pleasing to you, but, as we all know, I’m not here to please you.
However . . . can you (quantify “many” as a fraction or percentage of the total number of scientists there are)? You’ve assumed the mantle of the Great Scientist. Show us all how it’s done. Even if you can (quantify “many” as a fraction or percentage of the total number of scientists there are), or deny the existence of any meaningful percentage, what is your point?
Are you making statements that are genuinely supportable across the entire spectrum of scientists, or are you cherry picking and then painting great swaths of them with a broad brush without any real evidence that they actually do belong in that pigeonhole you've got them stuffed into?
An accusation under the guise of a question. A typical political tactic (of which everyone on this forum is aware), exposing your motivation, and confirming my “statements.” The “expert” opinions of prominent “scientists” (with the agreement of their many acolytes, the politically inclined included), into areas obviously outside their competence, have become so widespread and public that it could be genuinely said they have entered the public domain.
Bye the bye: the citation of any fact or “expert” statement can be politically attacked as “cherry picking.”
If it was answered, then the answer was that you cannot quantify it. All you have is a subjective determination of "many".
An accusation under the guise of a question. A typical political tactic (of which everyone on this forum is aware), exposing your motivation, and confirming my “statements.”
So I'm that bad guy for asking, and you're righteous for avoiding the answer. You do know how to stack a deck.
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