Re: Scottish verdict on accusation of a "bait and switch scam"
pnyikos
> Burkhard <b.scha...@ed.ac.uk> wrote:
> > On May 3, 9:10 am, "richardalanforr...@googlemail.com"
> > <richardalanforr...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > On May 3, 12:55 am, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
> > > > On Apr 29, 4:43 pm, Ernest Major <{$t...@meden.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
> > > > > In message
> > > > > <cdd9c0eb-1de7-4855-9801-e773fbfa9...@28g2000yqu.googlegroups.com>,
> > > > > pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> writes
>
> > > > > >On Apr 19, 2:33 am, Ernest Major <{$t...@meden.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> > > > > >> In message
> > > > > >> <490e6d64-3795-43e8-8d93-f28b41bbe...@l2g2000prg.googlegroups.com>,
> > > > > >> pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> writes
>
> > > > [Richard Forrest:]
>
> > > > > >> >> How have they established that "irreducible complexity" (which was
> > > > > >> >> incidentally predicted by evolutionary theory 90
> > > > > >> >> years ago)
>
> > > > > >> >I've only seen hints of it documented. Can you give me a quote that
> > > > > >> >clearly shows it?
>
> > > > > >> Genetic Variablity, Twin Hybrids and Constant Hybrids, in a Case of
> > > > > >> Balanced Lethal Factors", by Hermann J Muller, in Genetics, Vol
> > > > > >> 3, No 5, Sept 1918, pp 422-499
>
> > > > > Would you care to explain why your reply did not address Muller's paper
> > > > > directly,
>
> > > > The server timed out. Since I posted the article to which you are
> > > > replying, I was able to read Muller's paper, and now I am all too
> > > > happy to quote from it.
>
> > > > In fact, I started a new thread devoted to this topic, and you can
> > > > find more of Muller being quoted in one of my posts there than you
> > > > can find in the three urls you gave:http://groups.google.com/group/talk.or
>
> igins/msg/9267ad515af8e58a
>
>
>
> > > > Message-ID: <6fe84796-3fcd-4cf3-b927-
> > > > df502854f...@s4g2000yql.googlegroups.com>
>
> > > > > and why the link to the PDF of the paper disappeared from your
> > > > > reply?
>
> > > > See above. Actually it was a link to a site that included a link to
> > > > the PDF itself. Here is the url for that:
>
> > > >http://www.genetics.org/content/3/5/422.full.pdf
>
> > > > In the first of the other websites you gave, Chris Ho-Stuart posted a
> > > > statement that was false on two counts and probably misleading on
> > > > another:
> > > > Muller's definition of "interlocking complexity" is exactly the
> > > > same as the definition of "irreducible complexity" -- a system
> > > > of mutually independent parts that requires all those parts to
> > > > be present for the system to work."
>
> > > > He almost got the definition right -- he should have written
> > > > "interacting" rather than "mutually intependent" -- but "exactly the
> > > > same" is way off and should be replaced by "related to." See below.
>
> > > > > >>http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/postmonth/sep06.html
>
> > > > > >Chris Ho-Stuart is incompetent at explaining how the blood clotting
> > > > > >cascade could have arisen; it is Ken Miller's explanation, which he
> > > > > >references, that actually showed how the system could have arisen in
> > > > > >a reasonable amount of time by small Darwinian steps. Autocatalycity
> > > > > >is the key, and I know of no one posting to talk.origins besides Keith
> > > > > >Robison who saw how it was the key.
>
> > > > > >Ken Miller's website is not dated. I wonder who came up with the
> > > > > >explanation first, Miller or Robison. Robison was embarrassed at
> > > > > >being credited by me for what he called a very simple idea, but he
> > > > > >gave no hint that anyone besides him had arrived at it.
>
> > > > > That commentary is not relevant as to whether Muller predicted
> > > > > irreducibly complexity as a result of evolution.
>
> > > > As to the first part: it shows that Stuart's incompetence in handling
> > > > what Muller wrote was no fluke, but part of an article that shows how
> > > > biased and agenda-driven a lot of talk.origins must be, if they voted
> > > > such a slipshod article the "Post of the Month."
>
> > > > As to the second: I happen to be interested in lots of things. If you
> > > > are always focused on a narrow agenda, I feel sorry for you.
>
> > > > > >>http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/ICsilly.html
>
> > > > > >The Muller quotes used by Stuart, and here by Theobald, do not speak
> > > > > >of ALL parts being essential, only SOME of them. Hence Theobald is
> > > > > >hoist by his own petard of "silly" when he proposes that Muller's term
> > > > > >for what he talks about should replace Behe's term for what Behe
> > > > > >talks about.
>
> > > > > To add to the use of the word, I find your quibble "silly".
>
> > > > Do you also find the quibble between "exactly the same" and "related
> > > > to" silly?
>
> > > > Do you also find the quibble about the distinction between
> > > > "organism," and a single "system... producing a basic function" a
> > > > silly one? That's one of the things I talk about on the new thread,
> > > > in the post referenced above.
>
> > > > Or would you do a 180 degree turn, and insist that it is silly to
> > > > think that Muller's use of the words "a complicated machine" and "the
> > > > whole mechanism" could possibly refer to whole organisms, and that the
> > > > distinction is an enormous one?
>
> > > > I do believe that you would insist that it is silly to interpret the
> > > > following words by Muller as indicating that many if most mutations
> > > > are lethal, and that the overwhelming majority of mutations are
> > > > detrimental to the organism:
>
> > > > for this reason we should expect very many, if not most,
> > > > mutations to result in lethal factors, and of the rest,
> > > > the majority should be "semi-lethal" or at least
> > > > disadvantageous in the struggle for life,
> > > > and likely to set wrong any delicately balanced system,
> > > > such as the reproductive system.
> > > > --p. 464 ofhttp://www.genetics.org/content/3/5/422.full.pdf
>
> > > > I"m sure you'll insist that the distinction between Muller's concepts
> > > > and ours is ANYTHING but a quibble. After all, creationists are
> > > > regularly criticized for their ignorance in believing what looks like
> > > > a natural inference from Muller's words.
>
> > > > > If one
> > > > > grants that the process of co-adaptation can result in a previously
> > > > > non-essential part becoming essential then there one infers that it
> > > > > could result in the same happening for all parts.
>
> > > > "could result" is not the same as predicting 90 years ago that it
> > > > would be that way, would it now?
>
> > > > In fact, no one is predicting it even today, correct? After all, the
> > > > main thrust of criticism against Behe's IC is that Behe has not yet
> > > > been able to verify the irreducible complexity of ANY of the systems
> > > > he is so fond of in DBB, isn't it?
>
> > > No, it isn't. The main thrust of criticism against Behe's IC is that
> > > it is an untestable assertion that IC can be used to identify
> > > "designed" systems.
>
> > > > and that there are several
> > > > contradictory definitions of IC floating around, only one of which is
> > > > Behe's.
>
> > > ...which rather highlights the fact that IC has no value as a hallmark
> > > of "design". If ID proponents can't even agree on which they *mean* by
> > > IC, how on earth can they test for it?
>
> > I'm concerned about that type of argument - it is structurally
> > identical to the creationist nonsense that disagreement between
> > scientists shows that science is purely subjective. Or think about
> > John W's book and the different conceptions of species...
>
> I think you shouldn't be too concerned.
> Sure, scientists will always disagree,
> at the limits of their knowledge.
> OTOH every mature science had a large core of concepts,
> methods and theories that only crackpots disagree with.
>
> ID theory has been around long enough
> for such an undisputed core of knowledge to develop,
> but this apparently has not happened.
The attempt to make it purely scientific is of relatively recent
vintage, ca. 1990.
> IMHO this is a valid argument for not considering ID theory
> to be a scientific theory.
> In Lakatosian terms, if you want to consider it as science
> it is an example of a degenerating research program.
> It may have looked promising at the start,
> but nothing of value has remained.
Alchemists tried to put things on a scientific footing by running
thousands of experiments, and sulfuric acid was one of the outcomes,
but it was a long time in coming, wasn't it?
Peter Nyikos
Ron O
IDiots quit running experiments to demonstrate ID long ago. Thousands
of years of 100% failure made that a necessity for their "scientific"
beliefs to survive. Do the seasons change because some god goes on
vacation? What is the cause of thunder and lightning? Who pulls the
sun and moon across the sky? Was an intelligent designer popping
lifeforms into existence when maggots appeared in rotting meat? Who
caused disease? Who was responsible for making those complex babies?
Who made those first complex flagellum 2 billion years ago?
The current crop of ID perps at the Discovery Institute didn't even
start the Biologic Institute until after Dover when their own members
admitted that they hadn't been doing any experiments to test ID. Who
did they get to populate the Biologic Institute? Scientific
creationists. The guys that the ID perps kept claiming that they were
not the same as. Sad but true.
With that history and the fact that the ID perps have been running the
bait and switch scam on any IDiot rube stupid enough to have believed
them for the last 9 years, the only IDiots left are the ignorant,
incompetent and or dishonest. Has a single IDiot rube ever gotten the
ID science to teach to school kids? How long have the current
generation of ID perps been selling ID? Should you start with Panda's
and People after the court defeat of the scientific creationists in
the late 1980s? Should you go back to the guys that were the 15th
century alchemists?
I had thought that Nyikos was MIA, but he seems to have returned. Are
you going to get back to all the posts that you are running from?
Your own limit was three days, and that was for a post that you had
posted to someone else and there was no reason for me to have known
that you had posted it. I realize that for some IDiots 3 days is the
same as 3 months or 3 billion years, but you are pretty pathetic in
living up to your own expectations.
Not a single success for ID in the entire history of science. It
doesn't take a genius to understand why Behe claimed that he didn't
have to test his junk, but all he had to rely on was induction or why
Minnich admitted that he hadn't gotten around to testing any of the ID
junk in their testimony in the Dover court case. Any rational person
understands what the 100% failure rate means to any attempt to test
the notion if they have nothing more than the unreliable inductive
evidence that they have been stuck with in the past. Induction is an
important tool in science, but everyone knows the limits of it. When
the same god of the gaps induction is used to propose the same things
that have never been verifiable, what should that tell any rational
person? Shouldn't they be looking for something else?
Ron Okimoto
Nashton
<snip>
> Not a single success for ID in the entire history of science.
Liar.
> Ron Okimoto
>
http://www.ideacenter.org/contentmgr/showdetails.php/id/1163
Excellent treatise on ID and it multifaceted implications.
Read it and get off your high horse. The best you can do is spread
vitriol and bitterness.
Chill.
pnyikos
> On May 17, 4:53 pm, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
>
>
> > This is a "twofer": after responding to Forrest's comments, I respond
> > to some by Burkhard that he let go without comment.
>
> > On May 3, 9:37 am, "richardalanforr...@googlemail.com"
> <snip>
>
> > > > As long as every individual one of them explains what he means by it,
> > > > and what theoretical role it is supposed to play, that's fin, no
> > > > agreement between them necessary.
>
> > Exactly.
>
> > > >My own take is that Behe has a
> > > > sufficiently precise and content rich concept which he could use for a
> > > > strong empirical claim - which unfortunately then turned out to be
> > > > wrong, as such claims often do.
>
> > In the case of the clotting cascade, I agree as far as the wrongness
> > of his claim that it could not have evolved by gradual steps is
> > concerned. However, he makes a good case for it being irreducibly
> > complex in its present form.
>
> Well yes, but that's exactly why it is more or less the end for his
> idea - it is IC as defined by him, yet it can have evolved by gradual
> steps, which pretty much takes any interest out of the concept of IC
>
> > The same is true of the other cascade involving the immune system.
> > But I don't think any of his other claims have been proven wrong.
>
> I'd say pretty much all of them, by showing _possible_ evolutionary
> pathways.
"possible" in the sense of "could have happened in a trillion, or
maybe more, or maybe less years." What we lack is a step by step
pathway in which almost all the steps can plausibly be claimed to be
favored by natural selection, and not requiring astronomical amounts
of time. I looked at a 2007 PNAS article on the bacterial flagellum
last night, and it merely produces a cladogram and announces that this
is the probable order in which the various genes for it came to be.
Unfortunately, the post I did on that has not yet appeared, while more
recent ones have, so I'll cut this response a bit short in case it
suffers the same fate.
> that was all that is needed of the interesting version of
> his claim.
False, see above.
>
>
> > > > What is more sad n a way was his inability to see this, or for the
> > > > purpose of this board, the attempts by amongst others Ray or Peter to
> > > > "rescue" it - and in the process transforming it into something
> > > > utterly meaningless (Ray) or pretty uninteresting and weak (Peter)
>
> > I don't know whether this is supposed to refer to IC, or to ID. These
> > are two very different concepts, although people with an anti-Behe
> > agenda often blur the distinction between them.
>
> IC, as far as I can see. The empirically interesting and strong claim
> was: Here is a definition of IC. Then there is the strong empirical
> claim : If IC -> not possibly evolved.
Never in such an unequivocal form.
> Since your one example above is be sufficient to show that there are
> IC systems that can have evolved, the claim collapses.
yes, that particular strawman collapses.
[...]
> Your rescue attempt is less absurd, but it seems to be to change the
> strong modal expressions ("can not have possibly") into a much
> weaker :"is unlikely to have"
So? unless you can meet the real challenge, I am the one eyed king in
the land of the blind.
> with all the problems that entails, in
> particular becoming essentially an argument from ignorance.
So? What is the alternative? People who use your last line usually
have nothing better to offer than:
Mother Earth did it, this I know
For Ockham's Razor tells me so.
Are you an exception? If so, here is Rhodes, now jump!
Peter Nyikos
Burkhard
Nothing above renders my claim false, as far as I can see.
>
>
> > > > > What is more sad n a way was his inability to see this, or for the
> > > > > purpose of this board, the attempts by amongst others Ray or Peter to
> > > > > "rescue" it - and in the process transforming it into something
> > > > > utterly meaningless (Ray) or pretty uninteresting and weak (Peter)
>
> > > I don't know whether this is supposed to refer to IC, or to ID. These
> > > are two very different concepts, although people with an anti-Behe
> > > agenda often blur the distinction between them.
>
> > IC, as far as I can see. The empirically interesting and strong claim
> > was: Here is a definition of IC. Then there is the strong empirical
> > claim : If IC -> not possibly evolved.
>
> Never in such an unequivocal form.
>
The more the pity. So you agree with Ron Okimoto that Behe is
essentially waffling and equivocating?
> > Since your one example above is be sufficient to show that there are
> > IC systems that can have evolved, the claim collapses.
>
> yes, that particular strawman collapses.
>
The "strawman" is an empirically meaningful and interesting statement.
If you prefer empty waffle, yes, that still stands.
> [...]
>
> > Your rescue attempt is less absurd, but it seems to be to change the
> > strong modal expressions ("can not have possibly") into a much
> > weaker :"is unlikely to have"
>
> So? unless you can meet the real challenge, I am the one eyed king in
> the land of the blind.
>
Which challenge?
> > with all the problems that entails, in
> > particular becoming essentially an argument from ignorance.
>
> So? What is the alternative? People who use your last line usually
> have nothing better to offer than:
>
> Mother Earth did it, this I know
> For Ockham's Razor tells me so.
>
> Are you an exception? If so, here is Rhodes, now jump!
I have no idea what you are talking about. I did not mention either
Ockham's razor not mother earth, and as far as I recall, neither does
Behe.
>
> Peter Nyikos
pnyikos
behind this.
On May 18, 4:45 pm, Burkhard <b.scha...@ed.ac.uk> wrote:
> On May 18, 9:35 pm, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
>
>
> > On May 17, 3:08 pm, Burkhard <b.scha...@ed.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> > > On May 17, 4:53 pm, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
[Burkhard:]
His assertion that we lack anything remotely like a favored-by-natural-
selection scenario for evolving the flagellum in a billion years or
less should be very meaningful and interesting to a scientist *qua*
scientist.
A scientist *qua* anti-Behe fanatic is a completely different case, of
course. This newsgroup has far too many of them, IMO.
> > > > > > What is more sad n a way was his inability to see this, or for the
> > > > > > purpose of this board, the attempts by amongst others Ray or Peter to
> > > > > > "rescue" it - and in the process transforming it into something
> > > > > > utterly meaningless (Ray) or pretty uninteresting and weak (Peter)
>
> > > > I don't know whether this is supposed to refer to IC, or to ID. These
> > > > are two very different concepts, although people with an anti-Behe
> > > > agenda often blur the distinction between them.
>
> > > IC, as far as I can see. The empirically interesting and strong claim
> > > was: Here is a definition of IC. Then there is the strong empirical
> > > claim : If IC -> not possibly evolved.
>
> > Never in such an unequivocal form.
>
> The more the pity. So you agree with Ron Okimoto that Behe is
> essentially waffling and equivocating?
No. Behe was behaving like a responsible scientist, carefully
explaining that the implication from IC to ID is not absolute, but
allows for exceptions.
"What goes up must come down, provided it does not go up too fast."
Would you say that by thus adding a subordinate clause to a well known
saying wrongly attributed by some to Newton, I am waffling and
equivocating?
If so, you have the makings of a Ron Okimoto style polemicist. But I
hope you never come across like a madman, the way he does.
> > > Since your one example above is be sufficient to show that there are
> > > IC systems that can have evolved, the claim collapses.
>
> > yes, that particular strawman collapses.
>
> The "strawman" is an empirically meaningful and interesting statement.
Meaningful, yes. Corresponding to anything except hearsay due to
propagandists ripping Behe's words out of context, no.
> If you prefer empty waffle, yes, that still stands.
I take it you've never cracked open a copy of _Darwin's Black Box_.
Please do so before pontificating like this again.
> > [...]
>
> > > Your rescue attempt is less absurd, but it seems to be to change the
> > > strong modal expressions ("can not have possibly") into a much
> > > weaker :"is unlikely to have"
>
> > So? unless you can meet the real challenge, I am the one eyed king in
> > the land of the blind.
>
> Which challenge?
The challenge to produce a step by step scenario as described above
for the evolution of the bacterial flagellum, making it plausible that
it could happen in less than four billion years.
Please note, I do NOT claim that no such scenario is possible; I just
point out that no one has, to my knowledge, come within a country mile
of even TRYING to produce one.
> > > with all the problems that entails, in
> > > particular becoming essentially an argument from ignorance.
>
> > So? What is the alternative? People who use your last line usually
> > have nothing better to offer than:
>
> > Mother Earth did it, this I know
> > For Ockham's Razor tells me so.
>
> > Are you an exception? If so, here is Rhodes, now jump!
>
> I have no idea what you are talking about. I did not mention either
> Ockham's razor not mother earth, and as far as I recall, neither does
> Behe.
Missing the point. I asked you if you have something *better* to
offer.
And so far, you have not shown that you do.
Peter Nyikos
Burkhard
Really, why? We also don't have a step-by step account of Private
Stropps at the Battle of Waterloo. I'm nonetheless convinced Napoleon
lost
>
> A scientist *qua* anti-Behe fanatic is a completely different case, of
> course. This newsgroup has far too many of them, IMO.
>
>
> >
> > > > > > > What is more sad n a way was his inability to see this, or for the
> > > > > > > purpose of this board, the attempts by amongst others Ray or Peter to
> > > > > > > "rescue" it - and in the process transforming it into something
> > > > > > > utterly meaningless (Ray) or pretty uninteresting and weak (Peter)
>
> > > > > I don't know whether this is supposed to refer to IC, or to ID. These
> > > > > are two very different concepts, although people with an anti-Behe
> > > > > agenda often blur the distinction between them.
>
> > > > IC, as far as I can see. The empirically interesting and strong claim
> > > > was: Here is a definition of IC. Then there is the strong empirical
> > > > claim : If IC -> not possibly evolved.
>
> > > Never in such an unequivocal form.
>
> > The more the pity. So you agree with Ron Okimoto that Behe is
> > essentially waffling and equivocating?
>
> No. Behe was behaving like a responsible scientist, carefully
> explaining that the implication from IC to ID is not absolute, but
> allows for exceptions.
How does ID suddenly come into this? Surely in nothing I said
>
> "What goes up must come down, provided it does not go up too fast."
>
> Would you say that by thus adding a subordinate clause to a well known
> saying wrongly attributed by some to Newton, I am waffling and
> equivocating?
>
No idea what you are talking about
> If so, you have the makings of a Ron Okimoto style polemicist. But I
> hope you never come across like a madman, the way he does.
>
> > > > Since your one example above is be sufficient to show that there are
> > > > IC systems that can have evolved, the claim collapses.
>
> > > yes, that particular strawman collapses.
>
> > The "strawman" is an empirically meaningful and interesting statement.
>
> Meaningful, yes. Corresponding to anything except hearsay due to
> propagandists ripping Behe's words out of context, no.
It is the _most favourable reading of Behe that I can give you. You
seem to be missing my point. i much prefer the strong claim I
attribute to Behe to your rendition of it
>
> > If you prefer empty waffle, yes, that still stands.
>
> I take it you've never cracked open a copy of _Darwin's Black Box_.
> Please do so before pontificating like this again.
I did Which is why I try to defend it against your attempts to "kiss
it better"
>
> > > [...]
>
> > > > Your rescue attempt is less absurd, but it seems to be to change the
> > > > strong modal expressions ("can not have possibly") into a much
> > > > weaker :"is unlikely to have"
>
> > > So? unless you can meet the real challenge, I am the one eyed king in
> > > the land of the blind.
>
> > Which challenge?
>
> The challenge to produce a step by step scenario as described above
> for the evolution of the bacterial flagellum, making it plausible that
> it could happen in less than four billion years.
>
> Please note, I do NOT claim that no such scenario is possible; I just
> point out that no one has, to my knowledge, come within a country mile
> of even TRYING to produce one.
>
The what is the point, exactly? And why chose an IC system in the
first place, and not any old system that is very complex (IC systems
will tend ot eb comparatively simple) ? Because it would then be too
obvious how meaningless the challenge" is?
> > > > with all the problems that entails, in
> > > > particular becoming essentially an argument from ignorance.
>
> > > So? What is the alternative? People who use your last line usually
> > > have nothing better to offer than:
>
> > > Mother Earth did it, this I know
> > > For Ockham's Razor tells me so.
>
> > > Are you an exception? If so, here is Rhodes, now jump!
>
> > I have no idea what you are talking about. I did not mention either
> > Ockham's razor not mother earth, and as far as I recall, neither does
> > Behe.
>
> Missing the point. I asked you if you have something *better* to
> offer.
>
No, you are missing the point we were debating the meaning of
_Behe's_ concept of IC. I have no idea why you bring Occam in, you
seem to run off a tangent of your rown making which has nothing to do
with the point under discussion.
pnyikos
> > Alchemists tried to put things on a scientific footing by running
> > thousands of experiments, and sulfuric acid was one of the outcomes,
> > but it was a long time in coming, wasn't it?
>
> > Peter Nyikos
>
> IDiots quit running experiments to demonstrate ID long ago.
Longer ago than the time it took for alchemists to come up with
sulfuric acid? I don't think so. I do believe alchemists were very
busy for far more than 7 years before sulfuric acid was discovered.
[See below.]
[snip talk about classical Argument from Design stuff which never
pretended to be on a scientific footing in our sense of the word
"scientific"]
> Who made those first complex flagellum 2 billion years ago?
Only so recently? Do you have a cite for that?
> The current crop of ID perps at the Discovery Institute didn't even
> start the Biologic Institute until after Dover when their own members
> admitted that they hadn't been doing any experiments to test ID.
You mean IC, don't you?
Dover was less than seven years ago. That is why I wrote what I did
about sulfuric acid just now.
> I had thought that Nyikos was MIA, but he seems to have returned.
Are you really oblivious to what I've been doing here in talk.origins
for the last month??
A month ago, I got into the spirit of preparation for Holy Week and
Easter in my responses to you, resolutely sticking to the theme of
whether there is enough evidence for what you call "the bait" in what
you call "the bait and switch scam." This despite your relentless
attempts at misdirection to talk of "the switch" and about my alleged
moral failings. I got a big boost in my morale from one of the
readings on Palm Sunday:
I gave my back to those who beat me,
my cheeks to those who plucked my beard;
My face I did not shield from buffets and spitting.
The Lord God is my help, therefore I am not disgraced;
I have set my face like flint,
knowing that I will not be put to shame.
Isaiah 50:6-7, New American Bible
And so, I resolutely deleted without comment all your calumnies
against me, continuing to respond to you until the end of April.
After that, I decided to concern myself with other things in
talk.origins and elsewhere.
And even if you assert that you told the truth about me, you cannot
credibly deny that you were indulging in one misdirection ploy after
another with your *ad hominems*. And you certainly cannot deny that
you are on record as saying misdirection ploys are dishonest.
But rest assured: I will return to detailed responses to what you have
to say. Right now I am more interested in doing detailed responses to
someone who, if unchecked, could become another hate-crazed madman
like yourself. Perhaps he is young enough and sufficiently open-
minded to eventually see how far off base he is.
His name is Richard Alan Forrest, and if that name means nothing to
you, you are really out of touch.
Peter Nyikos
pnyikos
> On May 18, 10:14 pm, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
>
>
> > Strange--the original thread has been split in two. I wonder what's
> > behind this.
>
> > On May 18, 4:45 pm, Burkhard <b.scha...@ed.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> > > On May 18, 9:35 pm, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
[about the bacterial flagellum:]
> > > > "possible" in the sense of "could have happened in a trillion, or
> > > > maybe more, or maybe less years." What we lack is a step by step
> > > > pathway in which almost all the steps can plausibly be claimed to be
> > > > favored by natural selection, and not requiring astronomical amounts
> > > > of time. I looked at a 2007 PNAS article on the bacterial flagellum
> > > > last night, and it merely produces a cladogram and announces that this
> > > > is the probable order in which the various genes for it came to be.
>
> > > > Unfortunately, the post I did on that has not yet appeared, while more
> > > > recent ones have, so I'll cut this response a bit short in case it
> > > > suffers the same fate.
> > [Behe's] assertion that we lack anything remotely like a
> >favored-by-natural-selection scenario for evolving
> >the flagellum in a billion years or
> > less should be very meaningful and interesting to a scientist *qua*
> > scientist.
>
> Really, why? We also don't have a step-by step account of Private
> Stropps at the Battle of Waterloo. I'm nonetheless convinced Napoleon
> lost
False analogy. You have lots of evidence that Napoleon lost. You
have none that the bacterial flagellum was NOT designed by an
intelligent species that arose on another planet ca. 4 billion years
ago and seeded earth with some prokaryotes and perhaps some primitive
eukaryotes ca. 3.9 billion years ago.
> > A scientist *qua* anti-Behe fanatic is a completely different case, of
> > course. This newsgroup has far too many of them, IMO.
>
> > > > > > > > What is more sad n a way was his inability to see this, or for the
> > > > > > > > purpose of this board, the attempts by amongst others Ray or Peter to
> > > > > > > > "rescue" it - and in the process transforming it into something
> > > > > > > > utterly meaningless (Ray) or pretty uninteresting and weak (Peter)
>
> > > > > > I don't know whether this is supposed to refer to IC, or to ID. These
> > > > > > are two very different concepts, although people with an anti-Behe
> > > > > > agenda often blur the distinction between them.
>
> > > > > IC, as far as I can see. The empirically interesting and strong claim
> > > > > was: Here is a definition of IC. Then there is the strong empirical
> > > > > claim : If IC -> not possibly evolved.
>
> > > > Never in such an unequivocal form.
Now you asked a question which seems *intimately* connected with the
three sentences that went before (one from you, one from me, one from
you)....
> > > The more the pity. So you agree with Ron Okimoto that Behe is
> > > essentially waffling and equivocating?
...and yet, this time around, you seem to run like a man possessed
from the connection.
> > No. Behe was behaving like a responsible scientist, carefully
> > explaining that the implication from IC to ID is not absolute, but
> > allows for exceptions.
>
> How does ID suddenly come into this? Surely in nothing I said
"If IC -> not possibly evolved."
Do you have a third alternative that is so blindingly obvious that you
could make the comment you did just now?
> > "What goes up must come down, provided it does not go up too fast."
>
> > Would you say that by thus adding a subordinate clause to a well known
> > saying wrongly attributed by some to Newton, I am waffling and
> > equivocating?
>
> No idea what you are talking about
You seem to think any statement by Behe that falls short of the
unequivocal statement "If IC -> not possibly evolved." is waffling and
equivocating.
If you still say you have no idea what I am talking about, then you
are either a troll or you are the victim of one senior moment after
another.
> > > > > Since your one example above is be sufficient to show that there are
> > > > > IC systems that can have evolved, the claim collapses.
>
> > > > yes, that particular strawman collapses.
>
> > > The "strawman" is an empirically meaningful and interesting statement.
>
> > Meaningful, yes. Corresponding to anything except hearsay due to
> > propagandists ripping Behe's words out of context, no.
>
> It is the _most favourable reading of Behe that I can give you.
Favourable to whom? the anti-Behe fanatics?
> You
> seem to be missing my point. i much prefer the strong claim I
> attribute to Behe to your rendition of it
But you seem absolutely certain it is false. Why prefer a false
statement to something that has a chance of being true, unless you
want to discredit Behe?
>
> > > If you prefer empty waffle, yes, that still stands.
>
> > I take it you've never cracked open a copy of _Darwin's Black Box_.
> > Please do so before pontificating like this again.
>
> I did Which is why I try to defend it against your attempts to "kiss
> it better"
Thereby doing violence to statements in the book whose import even a
cursory reading should make clear.
"Even if a system is irreducibly complex...
one cannot definitively rule out the possibility
of an indirect, circuitous route.
As the complexity of an interacting
system increases, though, the likelihood
of such an indirect route drops precipitously."
You never read _Darwin's Black Box_ this far, did you? It's at the
top of page 40.
I think I've given your polemics enough of my time for today. If you
think you had something non-polemical to say below [deleted] please
quote it and I'll give it the attention it deserves.
Peter Nyikos
Burkhard
Correct analogy: Explanation of the detail are uninteresting and
irrelevant
You
> have none that the bacterial flagellum was NOT designed by an
> intelligent species that arose on another planet ca. 4 billion years
> ago and seeded earth with some prokaryotes and perhaps some primitive
> eukaryotes ca. 3.9 billion years ago.
Which is why I have not made such a statement. again, your inability
to stick to the point under discussion makes communication rather
difficult
Yes: "We don't know."
> > > "What goes up must come down, provided it does not go up too fast."
>
> > > Would you say that by thus adding a subordinate clause to a well known
> > > saying wrongly attributed by some to Newton, I am waffling and
> > > equivocating?
>
> > No idea what you are talking about
>
> You seem to think any statement by Behe that falls short of the
> unequivocal statement "If IC -> not possibly evolved." is waffling and
> equivocating.
>
> If you still say you have no idea what I am talking about, then you
> are either a troll or you are the victim of one senior moment after
> another.
Strangely enough I seem not be the only one with persistent problems
of understanding you. When hundreds of cars com your way on "your"
side of the road, you might ant to consider tat it is you, not them,
who are driving on the wrong side
>
> > > > > > Since your one example above is be sufficient to show that there are
> > > > > > IC systems that can have evolved, the claim collapses.
>
> > > > > yes, that particular strawman collapses.
>
> > > > The "strawman" is an empirically meaningful and interesting statement.
>
> > > Meaningful, yes. Corresponding to anything except hearsay due to
> > > propagandists ripping Behe's words out of context, no.
>
> > It is the _most favourable reading of Behe that I can give you.
>
> Favourable to whom? the anti-Behe fanatics?
>
> > You
> > seem to be missing my point. i much prefer the strong claim I
> > attribute to Behe to your rendition of it
>
> But you seem absolutely certain it is false. Why prefer a false
> statement to something that has a chance of being true, unless you
> want to discredit Behe?
While not a Popperian, a bold conjecture tells us something
interesting even if refuted a diluted
"might just be true" from which nothing else interesting follows
doesn't. I prefer the former.
>
>
> > > > If you prefer empty waffle, yes, that still stands.
>
> > > I take it you've never cracked open a copy of _Darwin's Black Box_.
> > > Please do so before pontificating like this again.
>
> > I did Which is why I try to defend it against your attempts to "kiss
> > it better"
>
> Thereby doing violence to statements in the book whose import even a
> cursory reading should make clear.
>
> "Even if a system is irreducibly complex...
> one cannot definitively rule out the possibility
> of an indirect, circuitous route.
> As the complexity of an interacting
> system increases, though, the likelihood
> of such an indirect route drops precipitously."
>
> You never read _Darwin's Black Box_ this far, did you? It's at the
> top of page 40.
>
> I think I've given your polemics enough of my time for today. If you
> think you had something non-polemical to say below [deleted] please
> quote it and I'll give it the attention it deserves.
Funny, coming from the person calling everyone else a troll and
resorts to personal attacks in discussions with pretty much every
other poster here. But don;t bother, I decided your posts are really
not worth looking at., so I'll safe you the hassle
>
> Peter Nyikos
Ron O
Bullshit.
Put forward a single example of the ID perp's designer ever being
found to have done anything in nature. You can even put forward any
verified instances of space alien designers if you want since some of
the ID perps have admitted that space aliens are their most scientific
option.
Go for it.
100% failure for the claim is just that. If the ID perps had any
verifiable examples we would already be teaching the junk.
Ron Okimoto
Ron O
> On May 18, 7:46 am, Ron O <rokim...@cox.net> wrote:
>
> > > Alchemists tried to put things on a scientific footing by running
> > > thousands of experiments, and sulfuric acid was one of the outcomes,
> > > but it was a long time in coming, wasn't it?
>
> > > Peter Nyikos
>
> > IDiots quit running experiments to demonstrate ID long ago.
>
> Longer ago than the time it took for alchemists to come up with
> sulfuric acid? I don't think so. I do believe alchemists were very
> busy for far more than 7 years before sulfuric acid was discovered.
> [See below.]
Pretty much over a century ago. If you know of any counter examples
you should put them forward.
The antics of the current ID perps don't seem to count do they?
>
> [snip talk about classical Argument from Design stuff which never
> pretended to be on a scientific footing in our sense of the word
> "scientific"]
You are just snipping the same arguments that the current ID perps are
using. What is the difference between who makes those complex babies
and who makes flagellum or who made the first one?
>
> > Who made those first complex flagellum 2 billion years ago?
>
> Only so recently? Do you have a cite for that?
The estimate from a paper that I read. You aren't worth looking it up
because the only thing it has to do with this exchange is that there
has been a lot of change in the flagellum since it first evolved. So
much change that the ID perps can't even tell you what the first one
looked like. The range was from 1.7 to over 2 billion years ago. It
is pretty much a guess based on sequence differences. A lot of
information is lost over 2 billion years. Proteins like hemoglobin
only have useful information out to the 100 million year range and not
much information left then. Once the same position is mutated twice
you start having problems. After only 10% of the sites are hit the
error starts to become significant with subsequent mutations.
>
> > The current crop of ID perps at the Discovery Institute didn't even
> > start the Biologic Institute until after Dover when their own members
> > admitted that they hadn't been doing any experiments to test ID.
>
> You mean IC, don't you?
Does it matter. No successful experiments had been done to test any
of the ID claptrap or they would have been published by now. Dembski
claimed that he was going to publish a test for his crap, but when the
book came out all it was, was the tornado through a junkyard
probability argument that he admitted was not biologically relevant.
You never saw it published in a scientific journal did you?
>
> Dover was less than seven years ago. That is why I wrote what I did
> about sulfuric acid just now.
IDiots from the past have been making claims about ID since before
alchemy. What a bonehead.
When was Pandas and People published? We are in a period of rapid
scientific advancements and ID perps are going backwards. The ID perp
junk isn't new. Johnson dropped the scam back in 2006 and hasn't
supported the ID scam since. He was called the godfather of the ID
movement by the other ID perps for his efforts to get the scam rolling
in the early 1990's. Since then the cost of DNA sequencing has fallen
at a rate that exceeds Moore's law and we can't keep up with the data
influx. It took 3 billion dollars to sequence the human genome and 10
years later Illumina just announced that it will give you a break on
sequencing cost so that if you sequence 10 human genomes it will only
cost $5,000 per genome or $50,000 dollars. The NIH goal is to get the
cost down to $1,000 per genome. To sequence 10 genomes they are
talking about producing around a terabase of sequence information for
$50,000.
I am currently involved in a project where we are sequencing 2
terabases of DNA sequence. As a graduate student I managed to produce
around 30,000 base-pairs of DNA sequence and our lab was the first to
publish two complete mitochondrial genomes in one paper. We published
in the early 1990's. From projects of 30,000 base-pairs to terabases
in the same time that the ID perps have managed to run the bait and
switch on their own IDiot supporters for the last 9 years without
making any advance that I have noticed. Claiming that you have a new
law of thermodynamics isn't any type of advance unless you can
demonstrate that such a new law even exists. Laws of thermodynamics
are not created to prop up a failed assertion, you have to have real
data to back up and verify that such a new law actually exists.
The ID perps can actually use the new DNA sequence technology to try
to figure out what the first flagellum looked like. Bacterial genomes
are usually less than 5,000 kb and you can now sequence hundreds of
bacterial genomes and put together a phylogeny of the flagellar parts
and try to get some idea of what has been gained and lost over the
history of the flagellum. Really, how can Behe claim that the
flagellum is IC when he can't tell anyone what the first one looked
like? He only has what the existing ones look like after 2 billion
years of change. Such an analysis has the chance of identifying where
the parts came from. 2 billion years is stretching the analytical
techniques, but it is the only shot that they have.
>
> > I had thought that Nyikos was MIA, but he seems to have returned.
>
> Are you really oblivious to what I've been doing here in talk.origins
> for the last month??
You've been running from me.
What was that claim about my running from you? Three days running
from a post that was posted to someone else? There are posts that you
haven't responded to in months. The vast majority of posts that you
are running from aren't new posts from me, but responses to your
responses to my posts.
I wouldn't even bring up your other posts with that kind of record.
>
> A month ago, I got into the spirit of preparation for Holy Week and
> Easter in my responses to you, resolutely sticking to the theme of
> whether there is enough evidence for what you call "the bait" in what
> you call "the bait and switch scam." This despite your relentless
> attempts at misdirection to talk of "the switch" and about my alleged
> moral failings. I got a big boost in my morale from one of the
> readings on Palm Sunday:
Lying is just a way of life for you. Religion shouldn't be a crutch
or a place to hide from what you are.
>
> I gave my back to those who beat me,
> my cheeks to those who plucked my beard;
> My face I did not shield from buffets and spitting.
>
> The Lord God is my help, therefore I am not disgraced;
> I have set my face like flint,
> knowing that I will not be put to shame.
> Isaiah 50:6-7, New American Bible
>
> And so, I resolutely deleted without comment all your calumnies
> against me, continuing to respond to you until the end of April.
> After that, I decided to concern myself with other things in
> talk.origins and elsewhere.
>
> And even if you assert that you told the truth about me, you cannot
> credibly deny that you were indulging in one misdirection ploy after
> another with your *ad hominems*. And you certainly cannot deny that
> you are on record as saying misdirection ploys are dishonest.
The one caught running misdirection ploys was you. Heck, you even
started a whole thread to continue one of your bonehead misdirection
ploys. Compared to you I stayed on topic. You can't deny that. I
was the one that kept bringing the discussion back to what you were
running from. All you pretty much did was lie about junk.
>
> But rest assured: I will return to detailed responses to what you have
> to say. Right now I am more interested in doing detailed responses to
> someone who, if unchecked, could become another hate-crazed madman
> like yourself. Perhaps he is young enough and sufficiently open-
> minded to eventually see how far off base he is.
>
> His name is Richard Alan Forrest, and if that name means nothing to
> you, you are really out of touch.
>
> Peter Nyikos
The posts won't go away. Do you need me to post the thread addresses?
The saddest fact is that the ID perps don't care about you at all.
All your bogus antics in support of the ID scam are likely only what
they require to keep cashing their paychecks. They require their
supporters to be ignorant, incompetent and or dishonest. You know
that to be a fact. As long as a sucker is born every minute and for
their suckers they can be reborn constantly they will continue to
perpetrate the bait and switch and run the ID scam. They likely laugh
all the way to the bank and what do you do? Lie to yourself about
reality. Can you name a single thing that the ID perps have done that
would justify your sick loyalty? Has the bait and switch been going
down for 9 years? Did they ever have the ID science to teach to
school kids? Not only that, but you know that the ringleaders like
Johnson knew that the ID movement was just a scam. There was never
any ID science to back it up. At best all they had was hope, and at
best, that is all that they still have.
Ron Okimoto
richardal...@gmail.com
We don't have any evidence that there isn't a small blue teapot in
orbit around Saturn either. That doesn't make the existence of such a
teapot a valid scientific theory.
If you think that the earth was seeded by some alien intelligent
species, show us some evidence that the earth was seeded by some alien
intelligent species. Asserting that some biological systems could not
have evolved, and that therefore we should turn to an explanation for
which there is not the slightest scrap of evidence (and which,
incidentally, begs the question of the origin of that intelligent
species) isn't much of an argument.
RF
pnyikos
An analogy has two sides. You've only dealt with one so far.
> You
> > have none that the bacterial flagellum was NOT designed by an
> > intelligent species that arose on another planet ca. 4 billion years
> > ago and seeded earth with some prokaryotes and perhaps some primitive
> > eukaryotes ca. 3.9 billion years ago.
>
> Which is why I have not made such a statement.
And also why you think the whole topic of the origins of the bacterial
flagellum is uninteresting, eh? There is a lovely piece of sarcasm in
"Inherit the Wind" which contains the words "driving curiosity". The
irony is that it is directed against the leading creationist, whereas
in t.o. I find the lack of scientific curiosity to be rampant among
the anti-creationists.
> again, your inability
> to stick to the point under discussion makes communication rather
> difficult
A cute bit of polemic, which ignores the whole issue of whether the
bacterial flagellum evolved thru mutation and natural selection, or
was designed.
> > > > A scientist *qua* anti-Behe fanatic is a completely different case, of
> > > > course. This newsgroup has far too many of them, IMO.
>
> > > > > > > > > > What is more sad n a way was his inability to see this, or for the
> > > > > > > > > > purpose of this board, the attempts by amongst others Ray or Peter to
> > > > > > > > > > "rescue" it - and in the process transforming it into something
> > > > > > > > > > utterly meaningless (Ray) or pretty uninteresting and weak (Peter)
>
> > > > > > > > I don't know whether this is supposed to refer to IC, or to ID. These
> > > > > > > > are two very different concepts, although people with an anti-Behe
> > > > > > > > agenda often blur the distinction between them.
>
> > > > > > > IC, as far as I can see. The empirically interesting and strong claim
> > > > > > > was: Here is a definition of IC. Then there is the strong empirical
> > > > > > > claim : If IC -> not possibly evolved.
I wonder whether Burkhart is such a dyed-in-the wool polemicist that
he considers the only possible opposite of "unequivocal" to be
"equivocating and waffling. Watch the sequel to this, folks:
> > > > > > Never in such an unequivocal form.
>
> > Now you asked a question which seems *intimately* connected with the
> > three sentences that went before (one from you, one from me, one from
> > you)....
>
> > > > > The more the pity. So you agree with Ron Okimoto that Behe is
> > > > > essentially waffling and equivocating?
>
> > ...and yet, this time around, you seem to run like a man possessed
> > from the connection.
And this time around, he seems to have completed his flight and is
safely ensconced in pure polemic.
> > > > No. Behe was behaving like a responsible scientist, carefully
> > > > explaining that the implication from IC to ID is not absolute, but
> > > > allows for exceptions.
>
> > > How does ID suddenly come into this? Surely in nothing I said
>
> > "If IC -> not possibly evolved."
>
> > Do you have a third alternative that is so blindingly obvious that you
> > could make the comment you did just now?
>
> Yes: "We don't know."
+++++++++++++ sarcasm on
Lovely. Let's subject all myserious phenomena to that answer, thereby
abandoning scientific research, and concentrate on agenda-driven
polemics.
+++++++++++++ sarcasm off
> > > > "What goes up must come down, provided it does not go up too fast."
>
> > > > Would you say that by thus adding a subordinate clause to a well known
> > > > saying wrongly attributed by some to Newton, I am waffling and
> > > > equivocating?
>
> > > No idea what you are talking about
>
> > You seem to think any statement by Behe that falls short of the
> > unequivocal statement "If IC -> not possibly evolved." is waffling and
> > equivocating.
>
> > If you still say you have no idea what I am talking about, then you
> > are either a troll or you are the victim of one senior moment after
> > another.
Burkhart runs away from the whole issue, smelling another chance to
score debating points against me:
> Strangely enough I seem not be the only one with persistent problems
> of understanding you.
Strangely enough, John Harshman is the only other person who
*frequently* claims to have recurring problems in understanding me.
Once it got so bad that I asked him, "What do you think the next
sentence was talking about? Chopped liver?"
I could have done it several times earlier, but he is very thin-
skinned and tends to get all in a tizzy if I even say something mild
like "You are rather slow in the uptake below, John." His response to
that one was a real doozy.
>When hundreds of cars com your way on "your"
> side of the road,
...instead of two, I will long ago have crossed over.
Continued in next reply.
Peter Nyikos
pnyikos
> On May 18, 11:22 pm, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> > On May 18, 5:46 pm, Burkhard <b.scha...@ed.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> > > On May 18, 10:14 pm, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
Here, in my second reply to this post, we are discussing the
unqualified and simple-minded "IC -> not possibly evolved" which
Burkhard falsely attributes to Behe.
> > > > > > > Since your one example above is be sufficient to show that there are
> > > > > > > IC systems that can have evolved, the claim collapses.
>
> > > > > > yes, that particular strawman collapses.
>
> > > > > The "strawman" is an empirically meaningful and interesting statement.
>
> > > > Meaningful, yes. Corresponding to anything except hearsay due to
> > > > propagandists ripping Behe's words out of context, no.
>
> > > It is the _most favourable reading of Behe that I can give you.
>
> > Favourable to whom? the anti-Behe fanatics?
<crickets chirping>
> > > You
> > > seem to be missing my point. i much prefer the strong claim I
> > > attribute to Behe to your rendition of it
>
> > But you seem absolutely certain it is false. Why prefer a false
> > statement to something that has a chance of being true, unless you
> > want to discredit Behe?
>
> While not a Popperian, a bold conjecture tells us something
> interesting even if refuted a diluted
> "might just be true"
...is far to the opposite extreme. Like saying, "What goes up just
might come down" instead of the unequivocal "What goes up must come
down" or the scientifically informed and sensible statement in the
middle "What goes up must come down, provided it does not go up too
fast."
[Note that a lot of other statements occupy the big middle ground
between the two extremes, but this is THE best statement that doesn't
get into technical details.]
Burkhard, you are different from most propagandists in talk.origins.
You seem to specialize in "The Black and White Meltdown" whereas the
more usual tactic is "The One Shade of Gray Meltdown".
Yes, I know these terms are not exactly self-explanatory, and I'll be
glad to explain them if you are curious.
> from which nothing else interesting follows
> doesn't. I prefer the former.
You prefer Black to White. Pardon me if I don't adhere to either
extreme.
> > > > > If you prefer empty waffle, yes, that still stands.
>
> > > > I take it you've never cracked open a copy of _Darwin's Black Box_.
> > > > Please do so before pontificating like this again.
>
> > > I did Which is why I try to defend it against your attempts to "kiss
> > > it better"
>
> > Thereby doing violence to statements in the book whose import even a
> > cursory reading should make clear.
>
> > "Even if a system is irreducibly complex...
> > one cannot definitively rule out the possibility
> > of an indirect, circuitous route.
> > As the complexity of an interacting
> > system increases, though, the likelihood
> > of such an indirect route drops precipitously."
>
> > You never read _Darwin's Black Box_ this far, did you? It's at the
> > top of page 40.
<crickets chirping>
> > I think I've given your polemics enough of my time for today. If you
> > think you had something non-polemical to say below [deleted] please
> > quote it and I'll give it the attention it deserves.
>
> Funny, coming from the person calling everyone else a troll
You can count "everyone else" on the fingers of one hand if you don't
count a very short-lived pair of invaders from the abortion
newsgroups.
Meanwhile, others have accused me of trolling, most notably (and
dishonestly) jillery.
> and
> resorts to personal attacks in discussions with pretty much every
> other poster here.
...because the other posters either resort to personal attacks (e.g.
"You are trolling again"--jillery) or resort to masses of flamebait.
You take the latter course.
> But don;t bother, I decided your posts are really
> not worth looking at., so I'll safe you the hassle
Yes, you only care about people who either agree with you or remain
genteel while you resort to one dirty debating tactic after another.
Oh. Wait. There's a third category: people you can easily best in
argument.
Too bad I don't fall into any of these categories, eh?
Peter Nyikos
pnyikos
> On May 18, 2:25 pm, Nashton <n...@no.ca> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On 18/05/11 8:46 AM, Ron O wrote:
> > <snip>> Not a single success for ID in the entire history of science.
>
> > <snip>
>
> > Liar.
>
> > > Ron Okimoto
>
> >http://www.ideacenter.org/contentmgr/showdetails.php/id/1163
>
> > Excellent treatise on ID and it multifaceted implications.
>
> > Read it and get off your high horse. The best you can do is spread
> > vitriol and bitterness.
>
> > Chill.
>
> Bullshit.
Is this statement directed at the contents of the website for which he
gave the url? If so, don't you think you ought to address its
contents in a little more detail?
> Put forward a single example of the ID perp's designer ever being
> found to have done anything in nature. You can even put forward any
> verified instances of space alien designers if you want since some of
> the ID perps have admitted that space aliens are their most scientific
> option.
Finally, a weak acknowledgement from Ron O. of the existence of my
posts on directed panspermists.
> Go for it.
>
> 100% failure for the claim is just that.
There is also 100% failure to explain how, say, the bacterial
flagellum could have evolved in a mere four billion years by a pathway
that has useful intermediates almost all the way.
I've pointed that out to Burkhard, but he is way too uninterested in
the issue to even discuss it in a coherent manner.
Are you interested enough in biological evolution to try and provide
one?
Go for it.
Peter Nyikos
Burkhard
I would take a slightly different take, and demand less. There are
situations where it is quite valid to follow an idea for which there
is little or even no evidence at the time.
A good scientific programme is one that creates new problems that can
eventually be addressed by the methods of that programme. Abandoning
one line of research to "try out something totally different" can be
a good move, even there is no evidence initially for the "something
different". The inference from: "we don't know the evolutionary
mechanism for X" to "therefore X was (probably) designed", while
logically fallacious, could still be a legitimate heuristic move if it
would at least lead to interesting new research questions about the
designer that had some chance of being addressed at some point. But
that is of course not something Behe does, and when I asked some time
ago Peter how his ideal research into the origins of life would
differ from what we do anyway, answers there were none.
Once you make the "design inference" even a purely secular one,
research seems to stop - maybe until such a time where we have
intergalactic travel or they came around to visit us.
In one of his replies to me (somewhere amongst his usual tirade of now
nasty everyone else is) , he came up with the strange notion that my
statement that we "don't have an answer at the moment" implies
abandoning scientific research into the matter. Truly bizarre even by
his standards, after all _only_ if we don't have an answer (yet),
scientific research makes sense. But more ironic is that his solution
is of course just that, abandoning all future research, at least pro
tem and possibly forever. (how do you start to investigate a race of
aliens that lived billions of years ago in some unknown part of the
universe?)
Much more sensible, _even if_ one accepted the claim that the
traditional model is unlikely, is to continue with it and see what it
brings up.
> Asserting that some biological systems could not
> have evolved, and that therefore we should turn to an explanation for
> which there is not the slightest scrap of evidence (and which,
> incidentally, begs the question of the origin of that intelligent
> species) isn't much of an argument.
I'm not sure about the question begging part. That would only be of
concern if you want the type of comprehensive answer typical for
religions systems. As I said before, we may soon start sending
biological material out into space, just because we can and it is good
PR. Should against all odds intelligent life evolve from this, and
were they one day to discover Mr Venter's signature in their DNA and
start to learn about our civilisation in the 21 century, that would be
(for them) a valid and interesting insight - even if they could not
figure out how life arose on earth.
<snip>
pnyikos
False analogy. The "evolved naturally on earth" hypothesis is even
MORE devoid of evidence than the directed panspermy hypothesis. That
at least has some evidence that Crick and Orgel mentioned in their
seminal paper on the subject, plus some mathematical reasoning based
on the dearth of evidence that abiogenesis is anything more than a
once-in-a-universe event.
Actually, I can put it more strongly: there is a dearth of evidence
that one can expect a technological species like ourselves to arise
from prebiotic soup more than once in the lifetime of a universe like
ours.
On the other hand, the little blue teacup hypothesis has one of its
scenarios the utterly gratuitous notion that aliens would come up with
the concept of a little blue teacup [here "teacup" is a geometric
concept, what with real teacups often used for coffee, milk, etc.] and
bother to send one all the way from their solar system to Saturn, with
no apparent reason for wanting to do so.
The alternatives are hardly any better: the odds against a little blue
teacup having been smuggled aboard the Huygens space probe are
astronomical, and so are the odds against the human race having
conquered space before our era and invented teacups before and going
to all that bother.
> If you think that the earth was seeded by some alien intelligent
> species, show us some evidence that the earth was seeded by some alien
> intelligent species.
See above for an introduction. I have expounded on the mathematical
reasoning before. Here is a good introductory post on that subject:
http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/654389f8509bb9a2
My first post to that thread deals with some objections to the theory,
not having to do with the mathematical reasoning:
http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/a3f67b2251d84e5a
My first post to another thread, earlier, also dealt with various
objections but also gave a way that one feature of my hypothesis could
be scientifically falsified:
http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/7b9d5beb6815caab
You can also find me expounding on other things related to directed
panspermy on both threads, especially the later thread (the one whose
lead post was mentioned first).
> Asserting that some biological systems could not
> have evolved,
It isn't that cut and dried. The real issue is whether the usually
accepted time frame is adequate. If I am right about intelligent life
being a once-in-a-universe (or even rarer) event, then it is a matter
of there being enough worlds for this hugely unlikely event to take
place in a time frame of a few billion years instead of the
quadrillions of years of expected waiting time.
> and that therefore we should turn to an explanation for
> which there is not the slightest scrap of evidence
The playing field is level on this one.
>(and which,
> incidentally, begs the question of the origin of that intelligent
> species)
No, it does not. It hypothesizes that it happened against enormous
odds on ONE planet in our universe; the quadrillions of other planets
with similarly favorable conditions could not beat the odds, so great
were they.
Why do I think the odds were so great? Because the protein
translation mechanism is such an intricate thing, nobody in
talk.origins has been able to even BEGIN to explain why it is likely
to have evolved within the time frame of even a quintillion years,
given an environment like the prebiotic earth.
I wish I could say it was not for want of trying, but the plain fact
is that very few people even were interested in trying to explain it.
"el cid" seemed to be interested, but he died before I could really
get him going on the topic.
It seems, in fact, that only "el cid" had the requisite background in
biochemistry. A few others pointed me to a couple of helpful
articles, but the gaps those articles left were still inconceivably
formidable.
Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of South Carolina
http://www.math.sc.edu/~nyikos/
The standard disclaimer is that I am writing purely on my own and not
representing the organization whose name appears in my work address.
pnyikos
> On May 19, 7:41 pm, "richardalanforr...@googlemail.com"
>
>
>
>
>
> <richardalanforr...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On May 18, 11:22 pm, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
> > > On May 18, 5:46 pm, Burkhard <b.scha...@ed.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> > > > On May 18, 10:14 pm, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> > > > > [Behe's] assertion that we lack anything remotely like a
> > > > >favored-by-natural-selection scenario for evolving
> > > > >the flagellum in a billion years or
> > > > > less should be very meaningful and interesting to a scientist *qua*
> > > > > scientist.
>
> > > > Really, why? We also don't have a step-by step account of Private
> > > > Stropps at the Battle of Waterloo. I'm nonetheless convinced Napoleon
> > > > lost
>
> > > False analogy. You have lots of evidence that Napoleon lost. You
> > > have none that the bacterial flagellum was NOT designed by an
> > > intelligent species that arose on another planet ca. 4 billion years
> > > ago and seeded earth with some prokaryotes and perhaps some primitive
> > > eukaryotes ca. 3.9 billion years ago.
>
> > We don't have any evidence that there isn't a small blue teapot in
> > orbit around Saturn either.
See my reply to Richard a few minutes ago.
> >That doesn't make the existence of such a
> > teapot a valid scientific theory.
>
> > If you think that the earth was seeded by some alien intelligent
> > species, show us some evidence that the earth was seeded by some alien
> > intelligent species.
>
> I would take a slightly different take, and demand less. There are
> situations where it is quite valid to follow an idea for which there
> is little or even no evidence at the time.
>
> A good scientific programme is one that creates new problems that can
> eventually be addressed by the methods of that programme. Abandoning
> one line of research to "try out something totally different" can be
> a good move, even there is no evidence initially for the "something
> different". The inference from: "we don't know the evolutionary
> mechanism for X" to "therefore X was (probably) designed", while
> logically fallacious, could still be a legitimate heuristic move if it
> would at least lead to interesting new research questions about the
> designer that had some chance of being addressed at some point. But
> that is of course not something Behe does, and when I asked some time
> ago Peter how his ideal research into the origins of life would
> differ from what we do anyway, answers there were none.
Was that also a time you announced that my posts are not worth looking
at? [or words to that effect]
I don't waste time answering questions asked by people who aren't
interested in the answers.
Richard finally seemed to show some interest, and so you can see my
reply to him for the details.
> Once you make the "design inference" even a purely secular one,
> research seems to stop -
Utterly false. There are quite a few ways my hypothesis could be
supported, and also falsified. Show some interest yourself, and I'll
take the trouble to explain a few of them.
> In one of his replies to me (somewhere amongst his usual tirade of now
> nasty everyone else is) , he came up with the strange notion that my
> statement that we "don't have an answer at the moment" implies
> abandoning scientific research into the matter.
If that were true, your charge of bizarreness [deleted] might hold
water. But go back to a few posts ago, and see that your statement
was utterly different, and you showed NO interest anywhere in the
post for finding out the answer. In fact, you indulged in several
bits of flamebait to show your contempt for the whole question.
And so, you have unwittingly shown some of the dynamics of just WHY I
attack so many people (though far from a majority of the people I
respond to): You have flagrantly rewritten Usenet history and used
your rewrite as the "garbage in" to produce the "garbage out" of
"bizarre" behavior.
You even conveniently neglected to mention that I put the whole
statement between sarcasm markers. Truly, a perfect illustration of
those dynamics.
Remainder deleted, to be responded to later.
Peter Nyikos
Ron O
> On May 19, 7:31 am, Ron O <rokim...@cox.net> wrote:
>
> > On May 18, 2:25 pm, Nashton <n...@no.ca> wrote:
>
> > > On 18/05/11 8:46 AM, Ron O wrote:
> > > <snip>> Not a single success for ID in the entire history of science.
>
> > > <snip>
>
> > > Liar.
>
> > > > Ron Okimoto
>
> > >http://www.ideacenter.org/contentmgr/showdetails.php/id/1163
>
> > > Excellent treatise on ID and it multifaceted implications.
>
> > > Read it and get off your high horse. The best you can do is spread
> > > vitriol and bitterness.
>
> > > Chill.
>
> > Bullshit.
>
> Is this statement directed at the contents of the website for which he
> gave the url? If so, don't you think you ought to address its
> contents in a little more detail?
I went to the site. Tell me what is worth commenting on?
>
> > Put forward a single example of the ID perp's designer ever being
> > found to have done anything in nature. You can even put forward any
> > verified instances of space alien designers if you want since some of
> > the ID perps have admitted that space aliens are their most scientific
> > option.
>
> Finally, a weak acknowledgement from Ron O. of the existence of my
> posts on directed panspermists.
Beats me what you gain from it. Most scientific is still so bad that
not even the ID perps want to put it forward when they have to give
the rubes something worth teaching about ID.
>
> > Go for it.
>
> > 100% failure for the claim is just that.
>
> There is also 100% failure to explain how, say, the bacterial
> flagellum could have evolved in a mere four billion years by a pathway
> that has useful intermediates almost all the way.
Tell me why that is necessary?
Really, biological evolution isn't going to fall due to unanswered
questions. It stands on what has already been answered. If we knew
everything there would be no science. That is what verified means.
ID has a 100% failure rate. Not a single ID explanation is part of
what we know about nature. It isn't the unknown that makes IDiots
stupid followers of a scam. It is the fact that there is nothing to
ID worth commenting on. Not a single ID success in the entire history
of science.
>
> I've pointed that out to Burkhard, but he is way too uninterested in
> the issue to even discuss it in a coherent manner.
>
> Are you interested enough in biological evolution to try and provide
> one?
>
> Go for it.
Like I said it is the ID perps that need to explain the flagellum. I
make no claims about it. Mainly due to the fact that it evolved so
long ago that there isn't any good way to study how it evolved. We
only have the extant representations. If we study enough of them we
can dig deeper, but until we get that information it is all guessing,
and even after we sequence every bacteria with a flagellum in
existence the fact remains that the flagellum evolved so long ago that
the molecular information could have been lost to multiple mutations
and replacements of parts over time. Only time and more data will
tell if some semblance of a story can be constructed about the
flagellum's evolution.
Don't you find it strange that the ID perps have to concentrate on
things that have evolved so long ago that it is difficult to get any
idea of how they evolved. Our blood clotting and the immune system
probably evolved with vertebrates around 400 million years ago.
Flagellum 2 billion years ago. Isn't that why Behe made the statement
that the designer could no longer exist? People made fun of that part
of his Dover comments. Do you recall the claims that Behe admitted
that his designer could be dead? Hundreds of millions of years of no
evidence for the designer doing anything. There isn't any current
evidence for the designer doing anything, but plenty of evidence that
things are still changing the way that they have changed for billions
of years. Descent with modification is a fact. Even most of the
cells in your body do not have the same DNA sequence that was in the
original single celled zygote. Every cell division new mutations
happen.
What does unanswered questions have going for them compared to that?
What about all the unanswered questions about ID? It really is the
answers that we already have that matter. IDiots have no such
answers. Demonstrate that they do. Isn't that far more important to
your position than some unanswered question about something that
evolved billions of years ago?
Ron Okimoto
>
> Peter Nyikos
richardal...@gmail.com
However, the "evolved by naturalistic methods" hypothesis is the only
one which can be tested using the tools of science.
> That
> at least has some evidence that Crick and Orgel mentioned in their
> seminal paper on the subject, plus some mathematical reasoning based
> on the dearth of evidence that abiogenesis is anything more than a
> once-in-a-universe event.
We know vastly more both about abiogenesis, the early history of the
earth, and the presences of organic molecules in extraterrestrial
locations than we did in 1973.
We still don't have any evidence that aliens landed on earth three and
a half billion years ago and created living organisms, or that they
landed at some later time to create irreducibly complex structures
such as the bacterial flagellum.
>
> Actually, I can put it more strongly: there is a dearth of evidence
> that one can expect a technological species like ourselves to arise
> from prebiotic soup more than once in the lifetime of a universe like
> ours.
So what?
There is no evidence for advanced life anywhere else in the universe
at the moment, and no evidence for advanced life on earth three and a
half billion years ago.
>
> On the other hand, the little blue teacup hypothesis has one of its
> scenarios the utterly gratuitous notion that aliens would come up with
> the concept of a little blue teacup [here "teacup" is a geometric
> concept, what with real teacups often used for coffee, milk, etc.] and
> bother to send one all the way from their solar system to Saturn, with
> no apparent reason for wanting to do so.
>
> The alternatives are hardly any better: the odds against a little blue
> teacup having been smuggled aboard the Huygens space probe are
> astronomical, and so are the odds against the human race having
> conquered space before our era and invented teacups before and going
> to all that bother.
>
> > If you think that the earth was seeded by some alien intelligent
> > species, show us some evidence that the earth was seeded by some alien
> > intelligent species.
>
> See above for an introduction.
Empty assertion and questionable statistics are not induction.
They are empty assertion and questionable statistics.
> I have expounded on the mathematical
> reasoning before. Here is a good introductory post on that subject:http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/654389f8509bb9a2
Frankly, I don't care.
RF
> University of South Carolinahttp://www.math.sc.edu/~nyikos/
pnyikos
The fact that this statement of yours is false is something about
which you "Frankly...don't care."
Below your "sig," you left in the place where I talk about a post
where one aspect of my theory could be falsified. There are others
which give ways of falsifying whole versions, but you "Frankly...don't
care."
> > That
> > at least has some evidence that Crick and Orgel mentioned in their
> > seminal paper on the subject, plus some mathematical reasoning based
> > on the dearth of evidence that abiogenesis is anything more than a
> > once-in-a-universe event.
>
> We know vastly more both about abiogenesis, the early history of the
> earth, and the presences of organic molecules in extraterrestrial
> locations than we did in 1973.
Organic molecules are so far from where the abiogenesis problems are,
it isn't even funny. So is the extra knowledge about the early
history of life on earth.
Even if we knew hundreds of times more than what we know, the evidence
would still be very scanty that it could have been expected to happen
more than once in a galaxy. See the last two paragraphs I left in
below from the last time around.
> We still don't have any evidence that aliens landed on earth three and
> a half billion years ago
That is so far from my directed panspermy hypotheses, it isn't even
funny.
But you "Frankly...don't care," right?
>and created living organisms, or that they
> landed at some later time to create irreducibly complex structures
> such as the bacterial flagellum.
More of the same.
>
>
> > Actually, I can put it more strongly: there is a dearth of evidence
> > that one can expect a technological species like ourselves to arise
> > from prebiotic soup more than once in the lifetime of a universe like
> > ours.
>
> So what?
So, if you took the trouble to click on the first url I posted, you
would see how this ties in with my mathematical reasoning.
But you "Frankly...don't care."
> There is no evidence for advanced life anywhere else in the universe
> at the moment,
I'm glad to see you sort of agree with me. It plays right into my
mathematical reasoning.
> and no evidence for advanced life on earth three and a
> half billion years ago.
...isn't even funny..."Frankly..."
> > On the other hand, the little blue teacup hypothesis has one of its
> > scenarios the utterly gratuitous notion that aliens would come up with
> > the concept of a little blue teacup [here "teacup" is a geometric
> > concept, what with real teacups often used for coffee, milk, etc.] and
> > bother to send one all the way from their solar system to Saturn, with
> > no apparent reason for wanting to do so.
>
> > The alternatives are hardly any better: the odds against a little blue
> > teacup having been smuggled aboard the Huygens space probe are
> > astronomical, and so are the odds against the human race having
> > conquered space before our era and invented teacups before and going
> > to all that bother.
>
> > > If you think that the earth was seeded by some alien intelligent
> > > species, show us some evidence that the earth was seeded by some alien
> > > intelligent species.
>
> > See above for an introduction.
>
> Empty assertion and questionable statistics are not induction.
introduction, doofus. I posted a lot more in the threads about which
you "Frankly...don't care," and in other threads as well. So an
introduction is all you get here.
> They are empty assertion and questionable statistics.
It is you who are making empty assertions on the basis of ignorance of
which you are evidently quite proud:
> > I have expounded on the mathematical
> > reasoning before. Here is a good introductory post on that subject:
> >http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/654389f8509bb9a2
>
> Frankly, I don't care.
>
> RF
I left in most of the rest just so readers who may care a bit more can
see what Richard is missing out on (or should I say running away
from?)
Peter Nyikos