Posted on 07/05/2003 4:20:08 PM PDT by betty boop
You are in opposition to just about everyone working on biological autonomous self-organizing complexity and those working on the origin of master control genes such as the Pax-6 to explain the enormous similarities of the genetic mechanism across phyla!
PAX 6 is a small protein that forms part of the mechanism of the differentiation of eyes. It does not control the evolution of PAX 6.
In the first place, you just pulled a ”guilt by association” argument by judging Yockey because he is a board advisor on a Christian non-profit journal called “Truth.
I posted a one-sentence abstract of Yockey's contribution to a journal. If it's like any journal I've ever seen, Yockey saw and likely wrote the abstract. Judging someone by his own words is not 'guilt by association'.
That you accuse me of guilt by association with regard to Darwinism and Marxism shows that you did not catch my argument. But I’ll let the Lurkers decide. Here it the argument I posted on the other thread. The contributors had been discussing Marxism v Darwinism and I had earlier given them this link from Marxists.Org: Marxism and Darwinism. Here's what I posted at 501:
I think you guys need to emphasize the current ideological consequence of evolution theory. Looking at history is interesting, but, IMHO, Lurkers are more apt to be interested in what it means to them, today.
Because some Marxist or other claims a Darwinian justification for Marxism, is not a condemnation of Darwinism. And attempting such condemnation is guilt by association; the theory of evolution is not a social or political philosophy, and does not favor any such. Claiming there is an ideological consequence of Darwinism that forms no part of Darwinism and that most Darwinists reject is not a valid argument against Darwinism. It's a smear.
As a Southern Baptist, I would have thought you were a little more alert to this particular fallacy. The Christian religion was frequently used in the South as part of the ideological underpinnings of slavery. Of course, no objective analysis of Christianity as a whole would support the thesis that slavery is a Christian idea, and Christianity was also the ideological underpinning of much of the abolitionist movement, but just pull a couple of quotes from this page (and I'm sure I can find a few dozen similar) and you can construct a lovely web page linking the two.
Now, suppose some anti-Christian FReeper made such a page, and I told him that more pertinent to the lurkers out there might be the modern Christian Identity movement. Would that be an argument on the merits of the case?
Please note, in case it's not completely clear, that I don't claim Christianity justifies slavery. I'm simply noting an analogous logical argument to yours that I hope will have some impact.
As far as locality; it's my understanding that entanglement experiments don't contradict relativity, in that they fail to allow transmission of matter or information faster than the speed of light. 'Local realism' is not a physical law; it's a particular property of macroscopic matter which doesn't always hold in the quantum regime.
You said: An axiom is not a demonstration. You are trying to take a pass on something that is the very thing in dispute here as "self-evidently true."
That is correct, an axiom is not a demonstration becasue it is primary. It is not derived from any other concepts, but it necessary to all other concepts in its category. An axiom is not an assumption, and it is not "self-evident." It is a truth that may be very difficult to first realize, but once it is discovered, it is impossible to deny without being self-contradictory, and all concepts dependent on it, imply its truth, whether explicitly recognized or not.
Existence is such an axiomatic concept. Existence is primary and precedes all other things. Since you did not bother to address the very clear (most third graders could understand it) explication of why existence must be before there can be consciousness, I assume you either misunderstood it, or just don't care about the truth.
We aren't dealing with the issue of concept formation here.
Really!? That explains a lot.
They hypothesize consciousness as a general principle and, as such, something distributed throughout nature, from the micro world of QM through the macro world of classical physics.
Yes, I know. Not exactly a new idea. A very old one, in fact, in another version it is called animism. A superstition remains a superstition regardless of the name you give it.
I asked you before, please give me one example of life independent of a living organism. I can show you countless examples of life, all exhibited as that qualitey that differentiates living entities (organisms) from non-living ones. Can you show even one example of life, not as a quality of a living organism?
If you think this conjecture is fallacious, then please show me why I should agree with you and not these other gentlemen.
I do not care if you agree with me or not. I would know I was making a great mistake if more than a very few agreed with me. Besides, if you agreed with me, what would we talk about.
Hank
... and willing to attempt to invalidate reality ...
I'm not. Color is only a concept for all the colors. Have I invalidated the reality of the colors? Don't be absurd. (Well, of course you can be absurd if you choose, it's just an expression.)
And you've asked why one would label your tactics Fabianistic?
What tactics? Are we at war?
Based upon your tactics and the conflicting positions and expressions you've made, one wonders if and when you are sincere.
Don't worry about it. It's only a forum. You'll never have to do business with me. Then you would have to worry about sincerity.
(Jesus told parables with the intention of obfuscating the truth to hide his meaning from the Pharisees. Was Jesus insincere?)
Hank
PAX 6 is related to a lot of other developmental genes; the homeobox is a common motif in most such. They probably all have a common ancestor. The development of 'eyeness' as you put it, is probably a result of duplication and divergence of another developmental pathway. For example, in C. elegans, which has no eyes but has PAX-6, the gene is involved in two other differentiation processes; that of the tail, and of the sense organ.
Since eyes undoubtedly evolved from some other primitive organ, this makes perfect sense.
The bottom line is that there is strong evidence for genetic programming in the presumptive ancestral genes. Whether that programming arose by God’s design, by alien seeding (panspermia) or through self-organizing complexity of physical processes --- is the big question.
Making the likely conjecture that the eye developed from another sensory organ, possibly a chemo-sensory one, the gene which controlled differentiation of that sensory organ then took over differntiation of the eye. The further evolution of PAX-6, including the patterns of conservative single amino acid mutations seen between organisms, exactly follows that of other highly conserved proteins, and the pattern predicted by evolution.
But by all means show some common feature in the genes of C. elegans and Hydra PAX-6 (both eyeless) that suggests that PAX-6 was 'designed' to control the differentiation of eyes. That feature would have of course have to be specific to PAX-6 and absent from other similar proteins such as the other PAXes.
My claim is that science is being abused today by these Marxists and Metaphysical Naturalists being in so great authority that they direct not only what is being done but how it is read (theory and “meaning”) in science publications.
I am asserting that the science community has dropped the ball.
Scientists (I imagine being aware of the Galileo incident) – have been very careful to make sure that traditional religion does not influence the work done and is not factored into the theories and “meaning” derived from that work in the science publications.
But, IMHO, science has failed to recognize that it is being likewise used by the ideology/religion of Marxism and Metaphysical Naturalism. My specific recommendation was that science ought to either:
allow all ideologies/religions a seat at the science publication table.
Then maybe you would like to begin again and this time start with reality instead of construct.
What tactics? Are we at war?
I am, spiritually. You seem to be too, whether or not you accede to it, expecially in your attempts to attack and deconstruct Christian understanding
Don't worry about it. It's only a forum. You'll never have to do business with me. Then you would have to worry about sincerity.
"Time is money." - B. Franklin. I invest both in FR. All users invest at lest the former.
(Jesus told parables with the intention of obfuscating the truth to hide his meaning from the Pharisees. Was Jesus insincere?)
It was an attempt from one who knew who would believe and who would not, in order to pass along revelation from God to believers while putting off the unbelievers. We wouldn't suggest you are the Messiah, would we?
No one disagrees PAX-6 is a developmental regulatory gene. Weiss makes the point that PAX-6 controls some (but varied) aspects of eye differentiation in some (but not all) animals; He seems to ignore the fact it also controls development of two other functions, one sensory, in Caenorhabditis, and some unknown function in Hydra and the coelenterates. But his case - that development of complex organs is likely to be complex and messy and anything but a 'just so story' - would suggest a process, the primary origin of whose variability is randomness rather than design, no?
Since you posted that before I posted the corrected link to the Weiss article, I must presume you haven't read it yet and thus do not know what he says the various hypotheses are.
In a nutshell, one has to imagine that all of the ancestors in these phylas happened to use pretty much the same selection of resources when faced with the need to see light. That does not speak to random mutation but genetic pre-programming.
There are only so many excellent solutions to the survive and multiply movement of lifeforms. The less than excellent solutions disappear because they are eaten. It might be noted that sensitivity to light is not restricted to eye constructions. Transistors have this sensitivity, as to diazo dyes and in fact any chemical bonds.
I believe that mathematics will eventually answer the question whether it is even possible that such variability (I call it genetic programming) could have arisen from non-living conditions in the timeline as hypothesized.
The possibility of the eye was already present at the critical juncture when complex moleculaes made the leap to cell structure. It was present before then, in simple molecules, in single atoms, and in subatomic particles. We should worry no more about this than about the rise of consciousness. All that was latent, awaiting sufficient complexity for expression. All phyla trace back to the first gigantic upheaval of which no trace except in our imagination remains. The capability of the eye was already present and the various expressions of the eye are due to different phyla emerging from the original peduncle.
He knew who would believe before they believed but did not know there would not be fruit on the tree until He actually saw it. (Mark 11:13) As for my own insight, one never knows. (Heb. 13:2)
By the way, what is, "Christian understanding." The Bible makes no reference to any such concept. In fact, there is not one verse of Scripture that says a person ought to be a Christian.
The word "Christian," (in any form) only appears in the Bible three times. Not once is it used as a term for what a child of God is supposed to be. In today's world, there is no majority of people who call themselve's Christian who agree on what that means. Most of those who believe they are, "Christains," ought to call themselves "Augustinians," since most of the doctrines they believe were invented by that Pagan arch-Catholic.
Since it is you who brought up the subject, I submit the majority of doctrines you call, "Christian," are contrary to Biblical teaching.
Oh yes, I an not at war. (James 4:1)
(Spiritual warfare is not fought on forums. It is fought on one's knees.)
Hank
I just came back from a much needed vacation and… well, wondering if I should roll up my sleeves and dive in again. --- Well, why not…
It seems to me that five senses without consciousness of some sort is meaningless. C.S. Lewis I believe captured this in his story of trying to explain lights’ existence to a culture of the blind. How would one explain logic or anything for that matter to those who refuse to see?
We know light does exist and we know logic does exist; can the two exist separately? If one states that all that exists is energy, is all that exists equal to MC 2 – – LOL!
Light and logic… Many have postulated that mathematics existed before its’ discovery. Obviously light did but what about logic? If logic is not a universal given but something invented by mankind than logic is an illusion much like the way a blind society would ‘see’ light as described by one who sees light. But can logic exist outside of time, space, and matter? Can light?
Mathematical formulas can exist beyond our existence as light and I would ‘think’ logic can and does. If one were to ponder this, which one of the five senses would they use? How do we describe light as a given or logic as a given to the blind to either? The blind can be blind to the existence of light and logic. It does not negate the existence of either.
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