Posted on 12/21/2004 7:59:02 PM PST by postitnews.com
Genetic programming is very interesting. There is a freeper actively involved with artificial intelligence, and he has gone of in another direction, but I think AI will eventually have to incorporate some such process.
LOL! Wow = Woe
Whoops!
"I knew a guy who practiced in Animal Husbandry, until they caught him at it...."
bada-bing, bada-boom!
"Dude, relax a bit."
I do get a little worked up over this. I haven't participated in these sorts of threads long. I have already noticed the same arguments again and again. I never took anti-evolutionists seriously until a friend of mine started teaching grade school. She would go on about how much she loved teaching science, but she did not believe in evolution! This really bothered me. Our education system had obviously failed her, so what do we do? Recycle her back into the education system! What happens when kids ask good questions? She can neither answer them, nor get them interested in science since she does not understand it herself.
My own mother asks me questions like "if we evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys." What do you say to that? Where do you start? That is why I don't like arguing specifics of evolution. Besides my micro biology not being up to snuff, I feel no need since the scientific community does a good job of stating its position. If we could just get people to go read it...
Thank-you though, i need to take a break. Do some christmas shopping, that'll reduce my stress level, ha!
LOL. Uh, no.
The "scientific community" is self-creditionaled and made up of human beings. Why would anyone with a shred of dignity submit their intellecutal autonomy to them or agree that their prouncements should be accepted uncritically?
Anyway, the way you are using the phrase is basically undefiable. Why shouldn't anti-evoltutionists such as Dembski or Behe be considered part of the "scientific community?" They have credentials and have been published in peer reviewed journals.
Others with creds have said their work meets standards for publication but have been rejected due to the subject matter -- which frankly does not appear to be very scientific.
Applause!
:-)
Behe doesn't consider himself an anti-evolutionist.
Fair enough but neither do I in many contexts. I think, however, that anyone who insists that biodiversity is due solely to accident is expressing a faith not a theory.
By the way, I just ran a Scifinder search on Dembski and did not turn up a single peer-reviewed scientific paper. Perhaps Tribune7 can prove me wrong by citing one? Behe did publish one theoretical paper in 2004, after a gap of many years, questioning the efficacy of gene duplication as a means of producing new functions.
Yours is a solitary grandeur.
It comes up often around here, so we have developed a few snappy answers. You could answer:
* If I came from you, why are you still around?
* If the US came from England, why is there still an England?
'Salright! :-) Have fun with your dinner.
I think there is a need to clarify terms (and thus perhaps
understanding). Evolution is NOT a theory, it is a fact.
What best explains the fact is Darwin's Theory of Natural
Selection. The overwhelming majority of serious scientists
accept this. I suggest that all who would like the details
elaborated in a scientific (but in language for the layman)
manner read the Nov. issue of National Geographic -- on
the cover: WAS DARWIN RIGHT? Let's not waste time fighting
yesterday's battles. I have a religious faith and have no
problem with evolution.
It's not cited in any scientific search engine I can find. His argument about Library of Congress designatons notwithstanding, it's not considered a scientific work.
I see you're another creationist who doesn't understand science.
Ditto for the many millions of years of supposed evolution and the alleged millions of accumulating random mutations.
Amazing how you can't see the difference - this statement can be disproven by, for example, that the universe is actually much younger.
BTW, your ignorance of science is again showing - it's thought that life has been on earth for several billions of years.
Note how much evolutionists adore all the trappings of intellect, they even pretend to worship the intellect of other men, of whom they approve, while secretly believing there is none so smart as they.It's always amusing to see a creationist pontificate on what's really going on in our minds to make us accept the theory of evolution. Personally I'm more amused by the claim that it's because we want permission to engage in our drunken sex orgies. Surely it can't be because we're persuaded by mountains of evidence for it!
It's like a lefty trying to explain our opposition to the minimum wage or our support of Social Security privatization, or our support of capitalism itself. Surely we're conservatives because we are cold, heartless bastards who rejoice at the suffering of the poor. And, um, Halliburton! Halliburton! Halliburton!
So you believe in a man-invented comically preposterous theory of consciousness produced by unawareness. Order from Chaos. Life from unlife. Purpose from negation. The universe is hard on the arrogant.Let me ask you something: If oxygen is a flammable gas, and hydrogen is an explosive gas, and if you combine them to make water you get an flame-retardant, non-explosive liquid, then where did the flammability, explosiveness, & gaseousness "go"? Or to put it another way, where did the fire-retardance & liquidity "come from"?
By your logic, only a godless materialist would say that water's properties are an emergent property that comes from the interaction of its constituent parts. To be consistent with your argument against the natural origin of consciousness, you have to believe that God (or an angel) "pulls out" the flammability & explosiveness from the oxygen & hydrogen atoms, and "injects" liquidity into the newly-created water molecule.
Proving that the universe is much younger wouldn't disprove evolution at all. Evolutionists would simply announce that evolution took place faster than they previously thought. There are no problems that can't be glossed over when the area of study is as murky as this is.
Many people don't buy evolution because it stretches credulity without providing any alternative setting. Many astronomical or quantum theories sound bizarre but people are willing to consider them and often accept them because it's understood that things work differently at the sub-atomic level or under unearthly temperature or gravity extremes, etc.
But people perceive evolution as a wild extrapolation. We see different dog breeds, or read about a virus mutating. We can easily accept that. And we can accept natural selection. But it doesn't follow from that that the variation we see within life on earth is the result of a chain of mutations that started with a single cell. People see that as an extrapolation with nothing of substance to support it.
Evolutionists don't help themselves by bullying, censoring, and ridiculing the intellect of anyone who disagrees with them. Nor do they help themselves by pushing a definition of science that is conveniently structured to prevent alternatives to the theory of evolution from being considered.
People are wisely suspicious of someone who demands a monopoly. Telling people they must accept evolution or be considered stupid is nothing but bullying and will work only with the shallowest of people. Perceptive people recognize a closed perceptual field when they see one, and evolution is promoted within just such a field.
Many of the people in this debate are excellent proponents of evolutionary theory. Perhaps they could be likened to the proverbial good diplomat with a bad portfolio. If evolution after all this time still isn't being universally accepted, maybe the problem isn't the customer, or the salesman, but instead is the product. After all, it isn't as if it hasn't been force-fed to people under the threat of a lawsuit for nearly a century, if not longer in some areas.
I'm not against evolutionary theory being presented. It may even be true, though as I've said before I doubt very seriously that random mutations could produce the millions of life forms we see on earth.
There are many types of fundamentalists. One of them is the fundamentalist evolutionist. Just look at the religious fervor with which even political conservatives will defend evolution once they latch onto it. Imagine the ferocity critics of evolution would face from irrational leftist evolutionists.
My humble suggestion would be that you smart fellows who believe in evolution (and yes, it is only a belief that evolution has occurred at the scale we are discussing) should continue presenting your case. Ignore any abusive anti-evolutionist who comes along, such as the guy who was posting insulting comments earlier in this thread. I ignore abusive posts. If anyone on either side gets too abusive, I hope the moderator dumps them. But much of the ridicule of Christians and the belittling of those who don't accept evolutionary theory is unjustified.
Most people who lurk around here are good, honest people who wish to learn something or to present an argument, or even just to state what they believe. I'm tempted to say this isn't rocket science, not in the sense that it isn't difficult, but in the sense that it isn't exact. We truthfully don't know where the first spark of life on earth came from (and, yes, I know that evolution doesn't concern itself with that). Nor do we know that single celled organisms gave rise to higher life forms. We really have little more than a few clues about those things. We can theorize. We can extrapolate. We can seek revelation in sources such as the Bible. We can keep searching. We can do some or all of those things but none of us are in any position to declare that we know what happened and that anyone disagreeing with us is a fool.
Bull. A much younger earth, say several thousands or even millions of years, would kill Darwinian evolution. This was one of the earliest arguments against Darwin.
Many astronomical or quantum theories sound bizarre but people are willing to consider them and often accept them because it's understood that things work differently at the sub-atomic level or under unearthly temperature or gravity extremes, etc.
Well, some of us understand that "things work differently" (from what we intuitively expect) over time scales of billions of years. The only reason evolution is singled out for extra skepticism is because it differs from some folks religious beliefs.
Sorry, I can't muster the interest to read the rest of your post.
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