Re: Kevin Myers and Darwin
Westprog
> In the Irish Independent today (14 July) Kevin Myers writes about
> "Darwinian dogmatism". This reveals his profound ignorance of science.
"How does reducing one's ability to find a mate confer any kind of genetic
advantage?
By Kevin Myers
Tuesday July 14 2009
The image of the Virgin Mary is reported to have been seen on a tree stump
in the village of Rathkeale, and thousands of people have flocked there. And
yes, this is quite absurd. But is it more preposterous to believe that that
piece of timber, and the willow tree from which it came, and the eye that
beheld the wood, arrived in this world entirely by accident? For in this,
the 150th anniversary of the publication of 'The Origin of Species', that is
what we've been endlessly told this year.
Before Darwinian dogmatists sneer the words "intelligent design" and
"creationism", let me declare that I embrace neither concept. But nor do I
reject them. I've been reading up on this subject recently, especially Ernst
Mayr, Dawkins and Darwin, and what strikes me most is the sheer act of
Darwinian faith which is required for us to accept that natural selection
was the prime engine that conjured the vast complexity of modern life from
its birthplace in the methanogenic oceans of the pre-Cambrian.
It's far too easy to look back and postulate a route to where we are today,
deducing it from whatever evidence archaeologists and palaeontologists have
found. Instead, we should be taking the teleological approach, and viewing
the problem the other way round. How can life naturally progress forward
from those evil seas to our modern world, but without having the least idea
where it is going?
Now life as we know it depends on proteins. But even a relatively simple
molecule such as insulin, consists of 51 conjoined amino-acids, with a
molecular weight of 5808: nearly 6,000 times the weight of a hydrogen atom.
And an average living cell contains 100 million protein molecules, involving
perhaps 20,000 varieties of protein. Moreover, there are several hundred
thousand types of protein, all of them impossibly complex. How were these
made by accident? To say that such order is implicit in all of nature -- as
some scientists do -- is begging the question, the equivalent of saying
matter is intrinsic to materials.
Time, you might add; time will enable these molecules to be assembled, bit
by bit. Indeed, given enough time, you will be able to explain everything
that has occurred from the first genetic trick at the dawn of existence. But
has there been enough time? Would a mathematician looking at the random
ingredients of those ancient, poisonous seas be able to propose that,
actuarially, enough molecular encounters would sooner or later result in the
first spark of life (whatever that might be) leading to us, just four
billion (or so) years later? That's not an awful lot of time, considering
all the random accidents that could not merely have started proto-life, but
also wiped it out.
This logically means that there must have been many competing proto-life
forms. Just one -- apparently the one that depends upon DNA -- survived. But
how did the dear old double helix come into existence? For DNA doesn't
function at all unless complete. It's either the final, impossibly complex
but useful article, or it's incomplete and utterly useless. So, no simple
evolution here.
But that's the way with so much of "natural selection". It often doesn't
tolerate halfway houses. The swallow that doesn't make it from Africa
toEurope simply doesn't survive to reproduce its genes. That's it: line
extinct. Or put it another way. I drop you and your family in an unpopulated
Africa, without telling you where you are, or giving you a map or a compass,
and I then tell you to find your way back to your sitting room. You couldn't
do it. You'd die on the way. Your children, neither knowing your fate, nor
what NOT to do, (because evolution is about numbers, not about learning)
would follow, to a similar fate. And their children, also.
Granted -- with enough species types, and enough genetic mutation, sooner or
later, someone will get back to the right room in Ireland, and then return
to the right desert in Africa.
But is there enough of the vital dimension, TIME, to enable the right gene
to emerge and triumph, out of all these ghastly accidents?
Or -- even more absurd -- did the complete navigation gene simply arrive out
of nowhere?
Even the title of Darwin's book hasn't been answered adequately. How do
separate species emerge, in the process of "speciation"? How do outwardly
identical, but reproductively-discrete species emerge alongside one another
in the same ecological niche, as many kinds of fish have done? This is
counter-intuitive. For how does reducing one's ability to find a mate confer
any kind of genetic advantage? Conversely, not one single species of
domesticated animal is unable to mate with its remote relatives.
Human-triggered speciation has never occurred, despite separations of
thousands of years. The dingo of the Australian desert is five millennia
removed the Arctic wolf; yet they can still interbreed. Similarly, Northern
Dancer could have bred with a Connemara.
So, is speciation naturally pre-ordained? If so, is it unreasonable to ask
how, by whom and why?
And are such questions more or less absurd than ones about the stump in
Rathkeale?"
The trouble with this approach - Just Asking Questions - is that it nearly
always involves not bothering with the Just Listening To Answers part. Yes,
there /was/ enough time to allow the swallows to develop the navigation
ability. No, we don't know how DNA developed originally, but a number of
hypotheses exist.
--
J/
SOTW: "Ready For The Floor" - Hot Chip
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AW94AEmzFhQ
Chris
Whoa, partner. Stop right there. If all proteins are impossibly
complex to you then there's no point in going any further.
The fact is that while proteins *are* complex, they're not impossibly
so. To claim they are is to limit the discussion before it even
starts. So this guy needs to not just read up on his own (although
that's a good start) he needs to get into a real biochemistry class so
he can really understand something about proteins. Just because
they're impossible for him to grasp, doesn't mean they're impossible
for everyone.
Chris
snip
Westprog
> Whoa, partner. Stop right there. If all proteins are impossibly
> complex to you then there's no point in going any further.
>
> The fact is that while proteins *are* complex, they're not impossibly
> so. To claim they are is to limit the discussion before it even
> starts. So this guy needs to not just read up on his own (although
> that's a good start) he needs to get into a real biochemistry class so
> he can really understand something about proteins. Just because
> they're impossible for him to grasp, doesn't mean they're impossible
> for everyone.
Try him at kmy...@independent.ie. You might even get published.
Steven L.
snip
The molecular dynamics of protein folding *are* very complex. So much
so that Berkeley's BOINC has farmed out the computations to millions of
computers on the Internet. I'm running one myself.
Figuring out how and why proteins will fold up into the shapes they have
is still a research problem at this stage.
Figuring out how to chain amino acids together into proteins is
relatively simple, taught in high-school biology classes. But how those
proteins curl up in three dimensions into just the right shapes in order
to function properly is still a research problem at this stage.
--
Steven L.
Email: sdli...@earthlinkNOSPAM.net
Remove the NOSPAM before replying to me.
hersheyh
> Remove the NOSPAM before replying to me.
Yet millions of them do so every day based on little more than
preferential thermodynamics and not little cellular fairies twisting
them into the right shape against their will (sorry, nando). And, of
course, like all probabilistic processes, a certain (sometimes
significant, as in kuru or Creutzfeld-Jacob) fraction of them don't
fold right. That we don't understand all the conditions that make
most proteins fold correctly is not their problem, it's ours. Or
rather, it's the problem of scientists like those at Berkley.
Ernest Major
<ba295f8f-7940-4050...@q35g2000vbi.googlegroups.com>,
hersheyh <hers...@yahoo.com> writes
>Yet millions of them do so every day based on little more than
>preferential thermodynamics and not little cellular fairies twisting
>them into the right shape against their will
Out of mild curiosity, what proportion of proteins depend on chaperonins
to achieve their normal configuration?
--
alias Ernest Major
Perplexed in Peoria
AIUI, 'normal configuration' ought to include both being in the right
shape and being in the right place. The process of transport across
membranes is intimately tied up with the process of folding - they
are really different aspects of the same process.
So, with this proviso, any protein which is not evenly distributed
through the cytoplasm depends on chaperonins. Which is a big
majority of proteins, AIUI.
Sapient Fridge
<sdli...@earthlink.net> writes
It might be hard for us to predict, but the formation of complex shapes
is not a problem for evolution. Any protein composed of a large
collection of amino acids *will* form a complex shape, without any
computation or effort involved. But will it do something useful?
Evolution's trick has been to find small proteins that do something
useful and gradually grow them into longer proteins that do something
even more useful. The complexity comes for free.
--
sapient_...@spamsights.org ICQ #17887309 * Save the net *
Grok: http://spam.abuse.net http://www.cauce.org * nuke a spammer *
Find: http://www.samspade.org http://www.netdemon.net * today *
Kill: http://spamsights.org http://spews.org http://spamhaus.org
Doc Aay
news:05ednaEnwvhtBMHX...@earthlink.com...
>> The fact is that while proteins *are* complex, they're not impossibly
>> so. To claim they are is to limit the discussion before it even
>> starts.
>
> snip
>
> The molecular dynamics of protein folding *are* very complex. So much so
> that Berkeley's BOINC has farmed out the computations to millions of
> computers on the Internet. I'm running one myself.
>
> Figuring out how and why proteins will fold up into the shapes they have
> is still a research problem at this stage.
>
> Figuring out how to chain amino acids together into proteins is relatively
> simple, taught in high-school biology classes. But how those proteins
> curl up in three dimensions into just the right shapes in order to
> function properly is still a research problem at this stage.
>
>
> --
> Steven L.
> Email: sdli...@earthlinkNOSPAM.net
> Remove the NOSPAM before replying to me.
>
And I would CERTAINLY benefit from someone, somewhere knowing exactly that.
One small genetic substitution, one giganitc world of hurt for someone
somewhere.
Doc
Sophistry Made Simple
"Westprog" <west...@hottmail.com> wrote in message
news:h3hs2o$h8p$1...@news.datemas.de...
> Cormac wrote:
>> In the Irish Independent today (14 July) Kevin Myers writes about
>> "Darwinian dogmatism". This reveals his profound ignorance of science.
>
> "How does reducing one's ability to find a mate confer any kind of genetic
> advantage?
>
> By Kevin Myers
>
> But that's the way with so much of "natural selection". It often doesn't
> tolerate halfway houses. The swallow that doesn't make it from Africa
> toEurope simply doesn't survive to reproduce its genes. That's it: line
> extinct. Or put it another way. I drop you and your family in an
> unpopulated Africa, without telling you where you are, or giving you a map
> or a compass, and I then tell you to find your way back to your sitting
> room. You couldn't do it. You'd die on the way. Your children, neither
> knowing your fate, nor what NOT to do, (because evolution is about
> numbers, not about learning) would follow, to a similar fate. And their
> children, also.
> Granted -- with enough species types, and enough genetic mutation, sooner
> or later, someone will get back to the right room in Ireland, and then
> return to the right desert in Africa.
> But is there enough of the vital dimension, TIME, to enable the right gene
> to emerge and triumph, out of all these ghastly accidents?
> Or -- even more absurd -- did the complete navigation gene simply arrive
> out of nowhere?
> The trouble with this approach - Just Asking Questions - is that it nearly
> always involves not bothering with the Just Listening To Answers part.
> Yes, there /was/ enough time to allow the swallows to develop the
> navigation ability. No, we don't know how DNA developed originally, but a
> number of hypotheses exist.
Indeed, and the thing about the swallows is that they weren't just dropped
somewhere and made to find their way 'home'. They would have begun by
ranging further and further from their original area as climate changed and
food varied.
Augustus O'Muircheartaigh
<spamala...@yourrplace.com> wrote:
> "Westprog" <westp...@hottmail.com> wrote in message
>
Just like the Irish in fact; this year, I believe, Vilnius is the new
Budapest. You should try the Smoked Sheep Heads although, thye do
cause a few problems trying to get them through customs on the way
back. They 10 year old dried Carp, you can keep though.
Cormac
Evolution is not an accident but it proceeds by random forces.
"Accidents" such as meteor strikes, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions,
tsunamis etc have affected the course of evolution.
Cormac.
Harry Merrick
> Scríobh "Westprog" <west...@hottmail.com>:
>> Chris wrote:
>>> Whoa, partner. Stop right there. If all proteins are impossibly
>>> complex to you then there's no point in going any further.
>>>
>>> The fact is that while proteins *are* complex, they're not
>>> impossibly so. To claim they are is to limit the discussion before
>>> it even starts. So this guy needs to not just read up on his own
>>> (although that's a good start) he needs to get into a real
>>> biochemistry class so he can really understand something about
>>> proteins. Just because they're impossible for him to grasp, doesn't
>>> mean they're impossible for everyone.
>>
>> Try him at kmy...@independent.ie. You might even get published.
>
> Waters, is one of those strange neoluddite snobs who believes it's a
> mark of his integrity that he doesn't know how email works.
LOL! And now it is yourself who is being elitest!
--
Harry Merrick.
Garamond Lethe
> Scríobh "Westprog" <west...@hottmail.com>:
>>jl wrote:
>>> In article <h6trss$cld$1...@news.datemas.de>, Westprog
>>> <west...@hottmail.com> wrote:
>>>> F?had?wrote:
>>>>> Scr?h "EX_OWM" <allthesp...@gmail.com>:
>>>>>> Ilas wrote:
>>>
>>>>> Science does have a conclusion. There's no evidence. As with
>>>>> everything from phlogiston to ether, science accepts that this
>>>>> doesn't prove a negative, it simply makes the likelihood of a
>>>>> positive vanishingly small.
>>>
>>>> Science says there is no evidence on the matter. That's all it says.
>>>> It does /not/ say that the likelihood of a positive is vanishingly
>>>> small. Most scientific discoveries have at some stage lacked
>>>> evidence. Science does not and should not use absence of evidence as
>>>> evidence of absence. Nor does it allocate probabilities to beliefs
>>>> based on such missing evidence.
>>>
>>> Statistical analysis and working out of probabilities is a well known
>>> scientific tool. What else is quantum mechanics if not toying with
>>> probabilities?
>>
>>I didn't say that science doesn't deal with probabilities. I said that it
>>doesn't deal with God. Nor does it.
>>
>>Find me a peer-reviewed scientific paper that hypothesises on the
>>probability of God and I'll consider it a scientific matter.
Trivially done.
"Given an unknown but nonzero probability of God's existence, and the
infinity of reward of eternal life, the rational option would be to
conduct one's earthly life as if God exists."
Henk van den Belt, "Debating the Precautionary Principle: Guilty until
proven innocent or innocent until proven guilty?". Plant Physiology v132,
n3, Jul 2003, p1122-6.
(Perhaps not what you meant, but it is what you asked for. And hey, it's
Plant Physiology.... how cool is that?)
>
> Je n'avais pas besoin de cette hypothèse-là.
>
Westprog
> On 2009-08-24, F�achad�ir <F�ach@d.�ir> wrote:
>>> Find me a peer-reviewed scientific paper that hypothesises on the
>>> probability of God and I'll consider it a scientific matter.
> Trivially done.
> "Given an unknown but nonzero probability of God's existence, and the
> infinity of reward of eternal life, the rational option would be to
> conduct one's earthly life as if God exists."
> Henk van den Belt, "Debating the Precautionary Principle: Guilty
> until proven innocent or innocent until proven guilty?". Plant
> Physiology v132, n3, Jul 2003, p1122-6.
> (Perhaps not what you meant, but it is what you asked for. And hey,
> it's Plant Physiology.... how cool is that?)
That's an interesting little variation on the famous bet, but it doesn't
actually assign a probability value to God's existence - just gives a
strategy to follow should such a value exist. I'd be interested to see that
paper in context, of course.
Westprog
> Scr�obh "Westprog" <west...@hottmail.com>:
>> F?had?wrote:
>>> Scr?h "EX_OWM" <allthesp...@gmail.com>:
>>>> Ilas wrote:
>>
>>> Science does have a conclusion. There's no evidence. As with
>>> everything from phlogiston to ether, science accepts that this
>>> doesn't prove a negative, it simply makes the likelihood of a
>>> positive vanishingly small.
>>
>> Science says there is no evidence on the matter. That's all it says.
>> It does /not/ say that the likelihood of a positive is vanishingly
>> small.
>
> pixie isn't there. Deal with it.
>
>> Most
>> scientific discoveries have at some stage lacked evidence. Science
>> does not and should not use absence of evidence as evidence of
>> absence. Nor does it allocate probabilities to beliefs based on such
>> missing evidence.
>
> offer ways they can be falsified. Godtheories predict nothing.
>
>> Science simply records and moves on. Scientists can do what they
>> like, but as soon as they mention God, they aren't doing science any
>> more.
>
> 'There is no evidence for god' is a scientific statement.
And "the likelihood of a positive vanishingly small" is not a scientific
statement.
Mitchell Coffey
> On 2009-08-24, Féachadóir <Féach@d.óir> wrote:
>
>
>
> >>jl wrote:
> >>> In article <h6trss$cl...@news.datemas.de>, Westprog
> >>> <westp...@hottmail.com> wrote:
> >>>> F?had?wrote:
> >>>>> Scr?h "EX_OWM" <allthespamyoul...@gmail.com>:
It's on line: http://www.plantphysiol.org/cgi/reprint/132/3/1122.pdf
Note that it's about the validity of the precautionary principle in
environmental policy. Pascal's Wager is only vetted as an example of
this sort of thinking.
Despite the sentence you quote from the paper, it goes on to reject
the Pascal bet, as all wise people must, due to the "many gods"
argument: worship Jehovah and you risk an /unknown but nonzero
probability/ of pissing off Odin.
Mitchell Coffey
el cid
> >> Scr?h "EX_OWM" <allthespamyoul...@gmail.com>:
> >>> Ilas wrote:
>
> >> Science does have a conclusion. There's no evidence. As with
> >> everything from phlogiston to ether, science accepts that this doesn't
> >> prove a negative, it simply makes the likelihood of a positive
> >> vanishingly small.
>
> >Science says there is no evidence on the matter. That's all it says. It does
> >/not/ say that the likelihood of a positive is vanishingly small.
>
> pixie isn't there. Deal with it.
>
> >scientific discoveries have at some stage lacked evidence. Science does not
> >and should not use absence of evidence as evidence of absence. Nor does it
> >allocate probabilities to beliefs based on such missing evidence.
>
> offer ways they can be falsified. Godtheories predict nothing.
>
> >Science simply records and moves on. Scientists can do what they like, but
> >as soon as they mention God, they aren't doing science any more.
>
> 'There is no evidence for god' is a scientific statement.
Highly misleading.
Within the realm of science, 'god' is an undefined quantity.
So is 'supernatural'. You cannot find evidence for that which
you have explicitly ruled out as not allowed, undefined.
There are those who try to expand the definition of science
to be able to claim as you do, but you give up much to
do so and frankly are cheating to call what you do 'science'.
Garamond Lethe
>>>> Find me a peer-reviewed scientific paper that hypothesises on the
>>>> probability of God and I'll consider it a scientific matter.
>
>> Trivially done.
>
>> "Given an unknown but nonzero probability of God's existence, and the
>> infinity of reward of eternal life, the rational option would be to
>> conduct one's earthly life as if God exists."
>
>> Henk van den Belt, "Debating the Precautionary Principle: Guilty
>> until proven innocent or innocent until proven guilty?". Plant
>> Physiology v132, n3, Jul 2003, p1122-6.
>
>> (Perhaps not what you meant, but it is what you asked for. And hey,
>> it's Plant Physiology.... how cool is that?)
>
> That's an interesting little variation on the famous bet, but it doesn't
> actually assign a probability value to God's existence
But it does "hypothesize on that probability", and that's what you asked for.
I'm doing this tongue firmly in cheek, but I also want to point out that
the distinction you'd like to make is not a trivial one to accomplish.
Give a god a set of attributes that can be reasoned about and people will
set about reasoning about 'em. In the case of the PP paper, that reasoning
has proved useful enough to illustrate a point in a completely unrelated
field.
> - just gives a
> strategy to follow should such a value exist.
> I'd be interested to see that
> paper in context, of course.
I've sent the pdf along to your hot[t]mail account.
>
>
Steven L.
> ScrÃobh "Westprog" <west...@hottmail.com>:
>> F?had?wrote:
>>> Scr?h "EX_OWM" <allthesp...@gmail.com>:
>>>> Ilas wrote:
>>> Science does have a conclusion. There's no evidence. As with
>>> everything from phlogiston to ether, science accepts that this doesn't
>>> prove a negative, it simply makes the likelihood of a positive
>>> vanishingly small.
>> Science says there is no evidence on the matter. That's all it says. It does
>> /not/ say that the likelihood of a positive is vanishingly small.
>
> Science generally says if it can't see your magic pixie, your magic
> pixie isn't there. Deal with it.
No, it does not say that.
Science says that if there is no evidence for a god, then there is as
yet no scientific reason to accept the existence of that god. It does
not mean that the god is nonexistent.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
Deal with THAT.
> 'There is no evidence for god' is a scientific statement.
But "your magic pixie isn't there" is not.
John Harshman
> Féachadóir wrote:
>> ScrÃobh "Westprog" <west...@hottmail.com>:
>>> F?had?wrote:
>>>> Scr?h "EX_OWM" <allthesp...@gmail.com>:
>>>>> Ilas wrote:
>>>> Science does have a conclusion. There's no evidence. As with
>>>> everything from phlogiston to ether, science accepts that this doesn't
>>>> prove a negative, it simply makes the likelihood of a positive
>>>> vanishingly small.
>>> Science says there is no evidence on the matter. That's all it says.
>>> It does /not/ say that the likelihood of a positive is vanishingly
>>> small.
>>
>> Science generally says if it can't see your magic pixie, your magic
>> pixie isn't there. Deal with it.
>
> No, it does not say that.
>
> Science says that if there is no evidence for a god, then there is as
> yet no scientific reason to accept the existence of that god. It does
> not mean that the god is nonexistent.
>
> Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
Sure it is, under the proper circumstances. There is an absence of
evidence for the elephant in my bedroom closet. Therefore I conclude
that there is no elephant in that closet. The question to ask is
whether, if god existed, we would see evidence of his existence (and
what sort of evidence it would be). Now if you want to hypothesize a god
whose existence would leave no detectable traces, there is of course no
way to rule out such an entity. But why bother?
heekster
<jharshman....@pacbell.net> wrote:
>Steven L. wrote:
>> F�achad�ir wrote:
>>> Scríobh "Westprog" <west...@hottmail.com>:
You'd have to ask this question of a creationist, but then again, why
bother?
John S. Wilkins
> Scr�obh "Westprog" <west...@hottmail.com>:
> >jl wrote:
> >> In article <h6trss$cld$1...@news.datemas.de>, Westprog
> >> <west...@hottmail.com> wrote:
> >>> F?had?wrote:
> >>>> Scr?h "EX_OWM" <allthesp...@gmail.com>:
> >>>>> Ilas wrote:
> >>
> >>>> Science does have a conclusion. There's no evidence. As with
> >>>> everything from phlogiston to ether, science accepts that this
> >>>> doesn't prove a negative, it simply makes the likelihood of a
> >>>> positive vanishingly small.
> >>
> >>> Science says there is no evidence on the matter. That's all it says.
> >>> It does /not/ say that the likelihood of a positive is vanishingly
> >>> small. Most scientific discoveries have at some stage lacked
> >>> evidence. Science does not and should not use absence of evidence as
> >>> evidence of absence. Nor does it allocate probabilities to beliefs
> >>> based on such missing evidence.
> >>
> >> Statistical analysis and working out of probabilities is a well known
> >> scientific tool. What else is quantum mechanics if not toying with
> >> probabilities?
> >
> >I didn't say that science doesn't deal with probabilities. I said that it
> >doesn't deal with God. Nor does it.
> >
> >Find me a peer-reviewed scientific paper that hypothesises on the
> >probability of God and I'll consider it a scientific matter.
>
> Je n'avais pas besoin de cette hypoth�se-l�.
... Sire.
--
John S. Wilkins, Philosophy, University of Sydney
http://evolvingthoughts.net
But al be that he was a philosophre,
Yet hadde he but litel gold in cofre
John S. Wilkins
> On Aug 24, 4:38 pm, Garamond Lethe <cartographi...@liamg.com> wrote:
> > On 2009-08-24, F锟絘chad锟絠r <F锟絘ch@d.锟絠r> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > > Scr锟給bh "Westprog" <westp...@hottmail.com>:
Suppose we've chosen the wrong god. Every time we go to church we're
just making him madder and madder.
EX_OWM
> Scr�obh "EX_OWM" <allthesp...@gmail.com>:
>> JStewart wrote:
>>> On Aug 19, 3:14 am, "EX_OWM" <allthespamyoul...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> What Ilas was saying is more or less the mirror image of some
>>>> fundie trying to dismiss the whole of the Theory of Evolution
>>>> because abiogenesis has never been reproduced in the lab.
>>>
>>> Except for:
>>> 1. Abiogenesis has been reproduced in a lab. Abiogenesis is the
>>> synthesis of organic matter from inorganic matter, and was first
>>> performed in the early 1800s (urea was synthesised from inorganic
>>> material).
>>
>> Are you being serious or are you just trying to take the piss? ;)
>
> He's being a bit silly about it, but not excessively so. Two hundred
> years ago, the godbotherers were claiming that organic molecules
> couldn't be created in a lab, so god must have done it.
Which "godbotherers" were claiming that?
>Then urea was
> synthesised, and the goalposts moved. We've come a long time Wohler,
> and the believers are running out of places to hide. No abiogenesis
> yet, but there are some cool lab experiments going on
> http://www.livescience.com/strangenews/090111-creating-life.html
>
>>> 2. Abiogenesis has nothing to do with evolution.
>>
>> Just as the launch pad at Cape Canaveral had nothing to do with men
>> walking on the moon.
>>
>> When people say that "abiogenesis has nothing to do with evolution",
>> what they really mean is "we don't really want to talk about the
>> elephant in the room called abiogenesis because all the explanations
>> and hypotheses put forward are pure speculation, despite all the
>> effort and research into this area, there is no scientific evidence
>> of any sort to actually back any of them up."
>
> Well, no, what they mean is evolution is the science of what happens
> to life, and abiogenesis is the science of how molecules learn how to
> replicate imperfectly in the first place. They're related, but
> evolution doesn't address life's origin, and never has. That's some
> other guy's job.
>
> And it's not true there's no scientific evidence of any sort. Are you
> lying or handwaving? Remember, your godperson has rules about bearing
> false witness.
So where is this evidence? Has science been hiding its light under a bushel?
> And I can't help but notice this thread is no longer posted to
> talk.origins. Are you hiding from something? I've added it back.
Check again, this thread was never posted to talk.origins, a separate
sub-thread was cross posted there by Westie. I won't ask for sackcloth and
ashes but a public recantation will do and say 5 Hail Mary's for your
penance.
Having said that, I'd love to know what you thought I might be hiding from.
Ilas
news:7fhh19F...@mid.individual.net:
> F�achad�ir wrote:
>> Well, no, what they mean is evolution is the science of what happens
>> to life, and abiogenesis is the science of how molecules learn how to
>> replicate imperfectly in the first place. They're related, but
>> evolution doesn't address life's origin, and never has. That's some
>> other guy's job.
>>
>> And it's not true there's no scientific evidence of any sort. Are you
>> lying or handwaving? Remember, your godperson has rules about bearing
>> false witness.
>
> So where is this evidence? Has science been hiding its light under a
> bushel?
I'm sure you've asked this before in TO and been told before (perhaps it
wasn't you, but I have a feeling it was). Google is good place to start
looking for evidence. It's a search engine that you can find at
www.google.com. I'm surprised you haven't come across it before, it's
become quite popular of late. Try entering "abiogenesis research".
EX_OWM
>>> "EX_OWM" <allthesp...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>>> news:7fdr3oF...@mid.individual.net...
>>>> jl wrote:
>>>>> In article <7fdjrjF...@mid.individual.net>,
>>>>> EX_OWM <allthesp...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> BTW, I might let you off the hook if you can give me other
>>>>>> examples of a significant ability that has evolved in only one
>>>>>> species.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> The 'hook' is entirely in your own mind.
>>>>>
>>>>> Jochen
>>>>
>>>> In other words, you can't explain how we alone have the ability to
>>>> rebel against our genes nor can give me other examples of a
>>>> significant ability that has evolved in only one species.
>>>
>>> All our abilities have been acquired in the same way.
>>
>> And so the handwaving starts.
>
> Feel free to demonstrate what makes selective pressure for big brains
> any less likely that, for example, selection for binocular vision.
It has nothing to do with big brains - there are plenty of species with far
bigger brains than Man - it *may* have something to do with brain size
relative to body mass but attempts at investigating the relationship have
generally come up with a correlation of about 20% to 30% which puts it into
the "mildly interesting but far form conclusive" category.
Even if there were more conclusive evidence, there remains the 'chicken and
egg' element to this - did intelligence increase due to increased brain size
or did brain size increase because of the benefits of increased
intelligence?
BTW, did you know that Einstein's brain was very small by human standards?
EX_OWM
>> Find me a peer-reviewed scientific paper that hypothesises on the
>> probability of God and I'll consider it a scientific matter.
>
> Je n'avais pas besoin de cette hypoth�se-l�.
Straight from the Guinness Book of Records in the "Shortest ever
peer-reviewed scientific paper" category.
EX_OWM
> 'There is no evidence for god' is a scientific statement.
No, it's not.
'Science has found no evidence for God' may be a scientific statement.
Ilas
news:7fhkaiF...@mid.individual.net:
> F�achad�ir wrote:
>> Feel free to demonstrate what makes selective pressure for big brains
>> any less likely that, for example, selection for binocular vision.
>
> It has nothing to do with big brains
I don't think he meant "big brains" literally. So to rephrase, what makes
selective pressure for high relative intelligence (because for all we know,
in Universal terms we may be a byword for stupidity) and less likely that,
for example, selection for binocular vision?
Ilas
EX_OWM
> "EX_OWM" <allthesp...@gmail.com> wrote in
> news:7fhkaiF...@mid.individual.net:
>
>> F�achad�ir wrote:
>
>>> Feel free to demonstrate what makes selective pressure for big
>>> brains any less likely that, for example, selection for binocular
>>> vision.
>>
>> It has nothing to do with big brains
>
> I don't think he meant "big brains" literally. So to rephrase, what
> makes selective pressure for high relative intelligence (because for
> all we know, in Universal terms we may be a byword for stupidity) and
> corrected)
You seem to be suggesting that science is a matter of guessing at some scale
of likelhood, that's not science as I understand it.
The Stig Baasvik Project
>No, scientific theories predict what will happen it they are true, and
>offer ways they can be falsified. Godtheories predict nothing.
Just like economics, Marxism and social science.
Gavin Bailey
--
'One thing which I particularly admired about the Soviet Union when
I visited it was the almost complete absence of propaganda.'
- J. B. S. Haldane.
Mitchell Coffey
> Mitchell Coffey <m.cof...@starpower.net> wrote:
> > On Aug 24, 4:38 pm, Garamond Lethe <cartographi...@liamg.com> wrote:
>
> > > > Scríobh "Westprog" <westp...@hottmail.com>:
Right. And if we get him mad enough he just might decide to kill
every one but a few he really likes. Whew! Good think my forefathers
chose to worship the right god!
Mitchell
el cid
> Féachadóir wrote:
> > Scríobh "EX_OWM" <allthespamyoul...@gmail.com>:
> >> JStewart wrote:
> >>> On Aug 19, 3:14 am, "EX_OWM" <allthespamyoul...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >>>> What Ilas was saying is more or less the mirror image of some
> >>>> fundie trying to dismiss the whole of the Theory of Evolution
> >>>> because abiogenesis has never been reproduced in the lab.
>
> >>> Except for:
> >>> 1. Abiogenesis has been reproduced in a lab. Abiogenesis is the
> >>> synthesis of organic matter from inorganic matter, and was first
> >>> performed in the early 1800s (urea was synthesised from inorganic
> >>> material).
>
> >> Are you being serious or are you just trying to take the piss? ;)
>
> > He's being a bit silly about it, but not excessively so. Two hundred
> > years ago, the godbotherers were claiming that organic molecules
> > couldn't be created in a lab, so god must have done it.
>
> Which "godbotherers" were claiming that?
The reference seems to be to vitalism. Vitalism is not
very strongly connected to any particular religious tradition
that I'm familiar with, though it could be considered akin
to religious traditions. Féachadóir's complain is rather
incoherent on this.
> >Then urea was
> > synthesised, and the goalposts moved. We've come a long time Wohler,
> > and the believers are running out of places to hide. No abiogenesis
> > yet, but there are some cool lab experiments going on
> >http://www.livescience.com/strangenews/090111-creating-life.html
The problem with all these experiments is that they they really
don't show that abiogenesis was particularly probable or
improbable. For a true believer, they may seem much better
but there's not that much there.
I'm rather convinced abiogenesis happened readily on a sterile
earth but it's that's 99% intuition. (and I understand the
chemistry rather well).
> >>> 2. Abiogenesis has nothing to do with evolution.
>
> >> Just as the launch pad at Cape Canaveral had nothing to do with men
> >> walking on the moon.
>
> >> When people say that "abiogenesis has nothing to do with evolution",
> >> what they really mean is "we don't really want to talk about the
> >> elephant in the room called abiogenesis because all the explanations
> >> and hypotheses put forward are pure speculation, despite all the
> >> effort and research into this area, there is no scientific evidence
> >> of any sort to actually back any of them up."
> > Well, no, what they mean is evolution is the science of what happens
> > to life, and abiogenesis is the science of how molecules learn how to
> > replicate imperfectly in the first place. They're related, but
> > evolution doesn't address life's origin, and never has. That's some
> > other guy's job.
It does depend on the context though.
There is the occasionally glib shite who will claim that evolution
itself is some sort of proof of the non existence of gods. The
facthood of biological evolution does not explain how the first
few cells got there.
There is every appearance that similar mechanisms of heredity
and natural selection were likely operating on replicating
polymers controlling chemical hypercycles. Yet this is the art
of the possible rather than the inevitable (from current knowledge).
> > And it's not true there's no scientific evidence of any sort. Are you
> > lying or handwaving? Remember, your godperson has rules about bearing
> > false witness.
>
> So where is this evidence? Has science been hiding its light under a bushel?
It seems to me that debaters often make overzealous claims about
the current state of abiogenesis research. It is very incomplete.
It does come down to the operating definition of evidence. The
prebiotic
chemistry people can reference can be repeated but is it evidence of
abiogenesis? That's a stretch. There are no highly compelling
arguments
that abiogenesis is too implausible to believe but you have to believe
in some added tricks of chemistry we've not come to understand yet.
Not radical new processes, just some synthetic combinations that
are currently beyond understanding. By the same token, this has to
be admited to be an extrapolation well beyond current knowledge.
The missing chemistry is a very significant hole in the understanding
of how humans may have come to be. We are far better at understanding
the origins of the universe from a quantum fluctuation, through
condensation of the solar nebula contaminated with the detritus
of supernovas. We have a very solid grasp of our evolution from
primitive eukaryotes and reasonable data going back to the last
common ancestor. Abiogenesis is probably the biggest black box
left. For those inclined to believe in interventions, it would
be the best place for one, based on current knowledge.
Mitchell Coffey
> > Scríobh "Westprog" <westp...@hottmail.com>:
> > >jl wrote:
> > >> In article <h6trss$cl...@news.datemas.de>, Westprog
> > >> <westp...@hottmail.com> wrote:
> > >>> F?had?wrote:
> > >>>> Scr?h "EX_OWM" <allthespamyoul...@gmail.com>:
>
> > >>>> Science does have a conclusion. There's no evidence. As with
> > >>>> everything from phlogiston to ether, science accepts that this
> > >>>> doesn't prove a negative, it simply makes the likelihood of a
> > >>>> positive vanishingly small.
>
> > >>> Science says there is no evidence on the matter. That's all it says.
> > >>> It does /not/ say that the likelihood of a positive is vanishingly
> > >>> small. Most scientific discoveries have at some stage lacked
> > >>> evidence. Science does not and should not use absence of evidence as
> > >>> evidence of absence. Nor does it allocate probabilities to beliefs
> > >>> based on such missing evidence.
>
> > >> Statistical analysis and working out of probabilities is a well known
> > >> scientific tool. What else is quantum mechanics if not toying with
> > >> probabilities?
>
> > >I didn't say that science doesn't deal with probabilities. I said that it
> > >doesn't deal with God. Nor does it.
>
> > >Find me a peer-reviewed scientific paper that hypothesises on the
> > >probability of God and I'll consider it a scientific matter.
>
>
> ... Sire.
Ah! C’est une belle hypothèse; ça explique beaucoup de choses!
Mitchell
Mitchell Coffey
<g.j.bai...@delete.me.dundee.ac.uk> wrote:
> On Mon, 24 Aug 2009 21:14:22 +0100, Féachadóir <Féach@d.óir> wrote:
> >No, scientific theories predict what will happen it they are true, and
> >offer ways they can be falsified. Godtheories predict nothing.
>
An unexpected discovery of a new and readily assessable source of tin
ore will depress the price of tin.
Mitchell Coffey
Mitchell Coffey
> Scríobh Mitchell Coffey <m.cof...@starpower.net>:
Die, heretic!
Mitchell Coffey
Mitchell Coffey
> Féachadóir wrote:
> >> Find me a peer-reviewed scientific paper that hypothesises on the
> >> probability of God and I'll consider it a scientific matter.
>
>
> Straight from the Guinness Book of Records in the "Shortest ever
> peer-reviewed scientific paper" category.
True, I don't read French either; but, you see, when face-to-face with
the chill visage of my ignorance, I attempt to defeat it through
research. Try Google.
Mitchell Coffey
John S. Wilkins
> On Aug 24, 9:17 pm, j...@wilkins.id.au (John S. Wilkins) wrote:
> > Mitchell Coffey <m.cof...@starpower.net> wrote:
...
> > > Despite the sentence you quote from the paper, it goes on to reject
> > > the Pascal bet, as all wise people must, due to the "many gods"
> > > argument: worship Jehovah and you risk an /unknown but nonzero
> > > probability/ of pissing off Odin.
> >
> > Suppose we've chosen the wrong god. Every time we go to church we're
> > just making him madder and madder.
>
> Right. And if we get him mad enough he just might decide to kill
> every one but a few he really likes. Whew! Good think my forefathers
> chose to worship the right god!
>
El, or YHWH?
Kermit
> >> Sophistry Made Simple wrote:
> >>> "EX_OWM" <allthespamyoul...@gmail.com> wrote in message
> >>>news:7fdr3oF...@mid.individual.net...
> >>>> jl wrote:
> >>>>> In article <7fdjrjF2klm1...@mid.individual.net>,
> >>>>> EX_OWM <allthespamyoul...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >>>>>> BTW, I might let you off the hook if you can give me other
> >>>>>> examples of a significant ability that has evolved in only one
> >>>>>> species.
>
> >>>>> The 'hook' is entirely in your own mind.
>
> >>>>> Jochen
>
> >>>> In other words, you can't explain how we alone have the ability to
> >>>> rebel against our genes nor can give me other examples of a
> >>>> significant ability that has evolved in only one species.
>
> >>> All our abilities have been acquired in the same way.
>
> >> And so the handwaving starts.
>
> > Feel free to demonstrate what makes selective pressure for big brains
> > any less likely that, for example, selection for binocular vision.
>
> It has nothing to do with big brains - there are plenty of species with far
> bigger brains than Man - it *may* have something to do with brain size
> relative to body mass but attempts at investigating the relationship have
> generally come up with a correlation of about 20% to 30% which puts it into
> the "mildly interesting but far form conclusive" category.
At least some of that seems to be involved with maintain the bigger
body - more sensory input (tactile, proprioceptors, pain, and such).
The animals with bigger brains - cetaceans and elephants - all all big
critters.
On the other hand, parrots and crows are pretty smart, especially in
light of their brain size. But being flying animals, they have a
strong evolutionary pressure to minimize body mass.
>
> Even if there were more conclusive evidence, there remains the 'chicken and
> egg' element to this - did intelligence increase due to increased brain size
> or did brain size increase because of the benefits of increased
> intelligence?
The brain is costly - it is subject to injury, it often "goes
wrong" (perhaps because it is so recently evolved), and it uses up a
lot of energy - perhaps one third of the calories of a couch potato
goes to the brain. We can make a reasonable conclusion that it is
doing *something important. It's hard to imagine what, if it's not
thinking as we normally , um, think of it. We don't do especially
complicated flying maneuvers of anything like that.
>
> BTW, did you know that Einstein's brain was very small by human standards?
But differently structured.
www.physorg.com/pdf159536686.pdf
Kermit, from T.O.
Mitchell Coffey
> MitchellCoffey<m.cof...@starpower.net> wrote:
> > On Aug 24, 9:17 pm, j...@wilkins.id.au (John S. Wilkins) wrote:
> ...
> > > > Despite the sentence you quote from the paper, it goes on to reject
> > > > the Pascal bet, as all wise people must, due to the "many gods"
> > > > argument: worship Jehovah and you risk an /unknown but nonzero
> > > > probability/ of pissing off Odin.
>
> > > Suppose we've chosen the wrong god. Every time we go to church we're
> > > just making him madder and madder.
>
> > Right. And if we get him mad enough he just might decide to kill
> > every one but a few he really likes. Whew! Good think my forefathers
> > chose to worship the right god!
>
> El, or YHWH?
No way I'm falling for that ploy: you just want to get me stoned!
Mitchell
J. J. Lodder
> Scríobh "Westprog" <west...@hottmail.com>:
> >jl wrote:
> >> In article <h6trss$cld$1...@news.datemas.de>, Westprog
> >> <west...@hottmail.com> wrote:
> >>> F?had?wrote:
> >>>> Scr?h "EX_OWM" <allthesp...@gmail.com>:
> >>>>> Ilas wrote:
> >>
> >>>> Science does have a conclusion. There's no evidence. As with
> >>>> everything from phlogiston to ether, science accepts that this
> >>>> doesn't prove a negative, it simply makes the likelihood of a
> >>>> positive vanishingly small.
> >>
> >>> Science says there is no evidence on the matter. That's all it says.
> >>> It does /not/ say that the likelihood of a positive is vanishingly
> >>> small. Most scientific discoveries have at some stage lacked
> >>> evidence. Science does not and should not use absence of evidence as
> >>> evidence of absence. Nor does it allocate probabilities to beliefs
> >>> based on such missing evidence.
> >>
> >> Statistical analysis and working out of probabilities is a well known
> >> scientific tool. What else is quantum mechanics if not toying with
> >> probabilities?
> >
> >I didn't say that science doesn't deal with probabilities. I said that it
> >doesn't deal with God. Nor does it.
> >
> >Find me a peer-reviewed scientific paper that hypothesises on the
> >probability of God and I'll consider it a scientific matter.
>
> Je n'avais pas besoin de cette hypothèse-là.
The good Marquis only said it,
and perhaps not even that,
Jan
J. J. Lodder
> Féachadóir wrote:
>
> >> Find me a peer-reviewed scientific paper that hypothesises on the
> >> probability of God and I'll consider it a scientific matter.
> >
> > Je n'avais pas besoin de cette hypothèse-là.
>
> Straight from the Guinness Book of Records in the "Shortest ever
> peer-reviewed scientific paper" category.
Wrong of course.
"E pur si muove!" is much shorter,
Jan
J. J. Lodder
> On 2009-08-24, Féachadóir <Féach@d.óir> wrote:
> > Scríobh "Westprog" <west...@hottmail.com>:
> >>jl wrote:
> >>> In article <h6trss$cld$1...@news.datemas.de>, Westprog
> >>> <west...@hottmail.com> wrote:
> >>>> F?had?wrote:
> >>>>> Scr?h "EX_OWM" <allthesp...@gmail.com>:
> >>>>>> Ilas wrote:
> >>>
> >>>>> Science does have a conclusion. There's no evidence. As with
> >>>>> everything from phlogiston to ether, science accepts that this
> >>>>> doesn't prove a negative, it simply makes the likelihood of a
> >>>>> positive vanishingly small.
> >>>
> >>>> Science says there is no evidence on the matter. That's all it says.
> >>>> It does /not/ say that the likelihood of a positive is vanishingly
> >>>> small. Most scientific discoveries have at some stage lacked
> >>>> evidence. Science does not and should not use absence of evidence as
> >>>> evidence of absence. Nor does it allocate probabilities to beliefs
> >>>> based on such missing evidence.
> >>>
> >>> Statistical analysis and working out of probabilities is a well known
> >>> scientific tool. What else is quantum mechanics if not toying with
> >>> probabilities?
> >>
> >>I didn't say that science doesn't deal with probabilities. I said that it
> >>doesn't deal with God. Nor does it.
> >>
> >>Find me a peer-reviewed scientific paper that hypothesises on the
> >>probability of God and I'll consider it a scientific matter.
>
> Trivially done.
>
> "Given an unknown but nonzero probability of God's existence, and the
> infinity of reward of eternal life, the rational option would be to
> conduct one's earthly life as if God exists."
>
> Henk van den Belt, "Debating the Precautionary Principle: Guilty until
> proven innocent or innocent until proven guilty?". Plant Physiology v132,
> n3, Jul 2003, p1122-6.
>
> (Perhaps not what you meant, but it is what you asked for. And hey, it's
> Plant Physiology.... how cool is that?)
Quoted text doesn't count,
Jan
John S. Wilkins
Now I don't want anyone to stone anyone, until *I* say so, even if, and
I want to make myself perfectly clear, even if they *do* say
"Jehovah"...
Steven L.
> Féachadóir wrote:
>> Scríobh "EX_OWM" <allthesp...@gmail.com>:
>>> JStewart wrote:
>>>> On Aug 19, 3:14 am, "EX_OWM" <allthespamyoul...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> What Ilas was saying is more or less the mirror image of some
>>>>> fundie trying to dismiss the whole of the Theory of Evolution
>>>>> because abiogenesis has never been reproduced in the lab.
>>>> Except for:
>>>> 1. Abiogenesis has been reproduced in a lab. Abiogenesis is the
>>>> synthesis of organic matter from inorganic matter, and was first
>>>> performed in the early 1800s (urea was synthesised from inorganic
>>>> material).
>>> Are you being serious or are you just trying to take the piss? ;)
>> He's being a bit silly about it, but not excessively so. Two hundred
>> years ago, the godbotherers were claiming that organic molecules
>> couldn't be created in a lab, so god must have done it.
>
> Which "godbotherers" were claiming that?
There used to be a belief, Vitalism, that organic compounds (those you
find in a living organism) could not be artificially synthesized in a
laboratory, because organic compounds were supposed to have some kind of
"living force" that inorganic compounds did not.
This idea goes all the way back to the ancient Egyptians, that the
substances of which a human body is made are special.
Then in 1828, Frederich Wohler managed to synthesize urea in his
laboratory, and that was the end of Vitalism.
--
Steven L.
Email: sdli...@earthlinkNOSPAM.net
Remove the NOSPAM before replying to me.
Steven L.
> Steven L. wrote:
>> Féachadóir wrote:
>>> ScrÃobh "Westprog" <west...@hottmail.com>:
>>>> F?had?wrote:
>>>>> Scr?h "EX_OWM" <allthesp...@gmail.com>:
>>>>>> Ilas wrote:
>>>>> Science does have a conclusion. There's no evidence. As with
>>>>> everything from phlogiston to ether, science accepts that this doesn't
>>>>> prove a negative, it simply makes the likelihood of a positive
>>>>> vanishingly small.
>>>> Science says there is no evidence on the matter. That's all it says.
>>>> It does /not/ say that the likelihood of a positive is vanishingly
>>>> small.
>>>
>>> pixie isn't there. Deal with it.
>>
>> No, it does not say that.
>>
>> Science says that if there is no evidence for a god, then there is as
>> yet no scientific reason to accept the existence of that god. It does
>> not mean that the god is nonexistent.
>>
>> Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
>
> Sure it is, under the proper circumstances. There is an absence of
> evidence for the elephant in my bedroom closet. Therefore I conclude
> that there is no elephant in that closet. The question to ask is
> whether, if god existed, we would see evidence of his existence (and
> what sort of evidence it would be). Now if you want to hypothesize a god
> whose existence would leave no detectable traces, there is of course no
> way to rule out such an entity. But why bother?
For many people of faith, God also exists to welcome our souls home
after death. Belief in an afterlife, Heaven, hell, etc., are tied up
with the question of God's existence.
You can disbelieve in intercessory prayer while still believing in life
after death. Many persons of faith do.
Steven L.
> On Aug 24, 4:38 pm, Garamond Lethe <cartographi...@liamg.com> wrote:
>> On 2009-08-24, Féachadóir <Féach@d.óir> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>> jl wrote:
>>>>> In article <h6trss$cl...@news.datemas.de>, Westprog
>>>>> <westp...@hottmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>> F?had?wrote:
>>>>>>> Scr?h "EX_OWM" <allthespamyoul...@gmail.com>:
>>>>>>> Science does have a conclusion. There's no evidence. As with
>>>>>>> everything from phlogiston to ether, science accepts that this
>>>>>>> doesn't prove a negative, it simply makes the likelihood of a
>>>>>>> positive vanishingly small.
>>>>>> Science says there is no evidence on the matter. That's all it says.
>>>>>> It does /not/ say that the likelihood of a positive is vanishingly
>>>>>> evidence. Science does not and should not use absence of evidence as
>>>>>> evidence of absence. Nor does it allocate probabilities to beliefs
>>>>>> based on such missing evidence.
>>>>> Statistical analysis and working out of probabilities is a well known
>>>>> scientific tool. What else is quantum mechanics if not toying with
>>>>> probabilities?
>>>> I didn't say that science doesn't deal with probabilities. I said that it
>>>> doesn't deal with God. Nor does it.
>>>> Find me a peer-reviewed scientific paper that hypothesises on the
>>>> probability of God and I'll consider it a scientific matter.
>> Trivially done.
>>
>> "Given an unknown but nonzero probability of God's existence, and the
>> infinity of reward of eternal life, the rational option would be to
>> conduct one's earthly life as if God exists."
>>
>> Henk van den Belt, "Debating the Precautionary Principle: Guilty until
>> proven innocent or innocent until proven guilty?". Plant Physiology v132,
>> n3, Jul 2003, p1122-6.
>>
>> (Perhaps not what you meant, but it is what you asked for. And hey, it's
>> Plant Physiology.... how cool is that?)
>
>
> Note that it's about the validity of the precautionary principle in
> environmental policy. Pascal's Wager is only vetted as an example of
> this sort of thinking.
>
> the Pascal bet, as all wise people must, due to the "many gods"
> argument: worship Jehovah and you risk an /unknown but nonzero
> probability/ of pissing off Odin.
That may be,
but the "many gods" argument does NOT rule out betting on the existence
of SOME form of the supernatural. It just makes it impossible to bet on
any particular form.
John S. Wilkins
> EX_OWM wrote:
> > F�achad�ir wrote:
> >> Scr�obh "EX_OWM" <allthesp...@gmail.com>:
Well we would like to think so, but as late as the 1950s there were
still vitalists, and I think in some ways modern systems theorists are a
kind of vitalists.
Why is soc.culture.irish involved here?
Burkhard
How considerate of him! I always thought that that's the best state of
mind to read TO
EX_OWM
"John S. Wilkins" <jo...@wilkins.id.au> wrote in message
news:1j51ag8.1vy3hz5g8nan5N%jo...@wilkins.id.au...
> Steven L. <sdli...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> Why is soc.culture.irish involved here?
The thread started there - Kevin Myers is a columnist in one of Ireland's
leading dailies. There are several regulars in soc.culture.irish who also
frequent TO and one of them seemed to think the article and ensuing
discussion would be of interest to people here.
EX_OWM
> EX_OWM wrote:
>> F�achad�ir wrote:
>>>> JStewart wrote:
>>>>> On Aug 19, 3:14 am, "EX_OWM" <allthespamyoul...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> What Ilas was saying is more or less the mirror image of some
>>>>>> fundie trying to dismiss the whole of the Theory of Evolution
>>>>>> because abiogenesis has never been reproduced in the lab.
>>>>> Except for:
>>>>> 1. Abiogenesis has been reproduced in a lab. Abiogenesis is the
>>>>> synthesis of organic matter from inorganic matter, and was first
>>>>> performed in the early 1800s (urea was synthesised from inorganic
>>>>> material).
>>>> Are you being serious or are you just trying to take the piss? ;)
>>> He's being a bit silly about it, but not excessively so. Two hundred
>>> years ago, the godbotherers were claiming that organic molecules
>>> couldn't be created in a lab, so god must have done it.
>>
>> Which "godbotherers" were claiming that?
>
> There used to be a belief, Vitalism, that organic compounds (those you
> find in a living organism) could not be artificially synthesized in a
> laboratory, because organic compounds were supposed to have some kind
> of "living force" that inorganic compounds did not.
>
> This idea goes all the way back to the ancient Egyptians, that the
> substances of which a human body is made are special.
So it's not particularly a Christian thing as F�achad�ir seemed to be
implying.
EX_OWM
> EX_OWM <allthesp...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> F�achad�ir wrote:
>>
>>>> Find me a peer-reviewed scientific paper that hypothesises on the
>>>> probability of God and I'll consider it a scientific matter.
>>>
>>
>> Straight from the Guinness Book of Records in the "Shortest ever
>> peer-reviewed scientific paper" category.
>
> Wrong of course.
>
> "E pur si muove!" is much shorter,
If only he had actually said it.
John S. Wilkins
Mitchell Coffey
It can't rule out the existence of some God or Gods; in fact, it would
invalidate itself if it could, since it states by definition that
there is a nonzero probability of the existence of one or more Gods.
It does however rule out, as a rational activity, betting on the
existence of one or more Gods, as betting requires some kind of action
that constitutes a wager, and a definable payout. What exactly can
one wager on the existence of one or more Gods whose attributes and
individual probabilities of existence are unknown, and what postmortem
result constitutes winning or losing the bet?
Mitchell Coffey
Steven L.
> just making him madder and madder.
Well, yeah. That's part of why radical Islamists insist on
assassinating any Muslim who converts to Christianity.
Even though for both those religions, it's the same Abrahamic god, but
with different laws for Man.
Steven L.
> Steven L. wrote:
>> EX_OWM wrote:
>>>> Scríobh "EX_OWM" <allthesp...@gmail.com>:
> implying.
No.
But Féachadóir seizes on Christianity only because like most militant
American atheists, he's paranoid about being surrounded by Christians
everywhere.
I'm sure he wouldn't have kinder words to say about Islam, for example.
(Islam's contempt for empirical science has survived to this day.)
It's just that he sees Christians, not Muslims, in every closet and
under his bed.
Burkhard
>
> > >> Féachadóir wrote:
>
> > >>>> Find me a peer-reviewed scientific paper that hypothesises on the
> > >>>> probability of God and I'll consider it a scientific matter.
>
>
> > >> Straight from the Guinness Book of Records in the "Shortest ever
> > >> peer-reviewed scientific paper" category.
>
> > > Wrong of course.
>
> > > "E pur si muove!" is much shorter,
>
> > If only he had actually said it.
>
> Hier stehe ich, ich kann nicht anders...
> --
> But al be that he was a philosophre,
> Yet hadde he but litel gold in cofre
That was just his haemorrhoids playing up
Steven L.
>>>> Scríobh "EX_OWM" <allthesp...@gmail.com>:
You could argue that the mathematics of self-organizing living systems
(cf. Kauffman's speculations) are a modern kind of "vitalism"--except
that these principles don't just animate living systems, but any system
that arises from simple components.
I find the spontaneous order resulting from autocatalytic reactions and
self-organizing networks to be spooky, even after I understand the
theory and math behind them. It gives me a real "Twilight Zone" type
feeling.
But this stuff follows from thermodynamics and probability, not
mysticism as the original "elan vital" disproved by Wohler.
John S. Wilkins
> On Aug 25, 5:47 pm, j...@wilkins.id.au (John S. Wilkins) wrote:
> > EX_OWM <allthespamyoul...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > J. J. Lodder wrote:
> > > > EX_OWM <allthespamyoul...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > >> F�achad�ir wrote:
> >
> > > >>>> Find me a peer-reviewed scientific paper that hypothesises on the
> > > >>>> probability of God and I'll consider it a scientific matter.
> >
> > > >>> Je n'avais pas besoin de cette hypoth�se-l�.
> >
> > > >> Straight from the Guinness Book of Records in the "Shortest ever
> > > >> peer-reviewed scientific paper" category.
> >
> > > > Wrong of course.
> >
> > > > "E pur si muove!" is much shorter,
> >
> > > If only he had actually said it.
> >
> > Hier stehe ich, ich kann nicht anders...
>
> That was just his haemorrhoids playing up
If only he had actually said it.
Mitchell Coffey
>
> > >> Féachadóir wrote:
>
> > >>>> Find me a peer-reviewed scientific paper that hypothesises on the
> > >>>> probability of God and I'll consider it a scientific matter.
>
>
> > >> Straight from the Guinness Book of Records in the "Shortest ever
> > >> peer-reviewed scientific paper" category.
>
> > > Wrong of course.
>
> > > "E pur si muove!" is much shorter,
>
> > If only he had actually said it.
>
> Hier stehe ich, ich kann nicht anders...
Regarding locative statements by great thinkers, I prefer Diogenes'
"Move out of my light."
Mitchell
The Stig Baasvik Project
<m.co...@starpower.net> wrote:
>> Just like economics [...]
>
>An unexpected discovery of a new and readily assessable source of tin
>ore will depress the price of tin.
Assuming demand remains static and the market responds as expected.
Luckily all this is foreseen by the perspicacity of the economists,
and boom and bust economics are now a thing of the past [(c) Robert
Walpole, 1720].
Gavin Bailey
--
Solution elegant. Yes. Minor problem, use 25000 CPU cycle for 1
instruction, this why all need overclock Pentium. Dumbass.
- Bart Kwan En
Mitchell Coffey
> Mitchell Coffey <m.cof...@starpower.net> wrote:
> > On Aug 25, 10:46 am, j...@wilkins.id.au (John S. Wilkins) wrote:
> > > MitchellCoffey<m.cof...@starpower.net> wrote:
> > > > On Aug 24, 9:17 pm, j...@wilkins.id.au (John S. Wilkins) wrote:
> > > > > MitchellCoffey<m.cof...@starpower.net> wrote:
> > > ...
> > > > > > Despite the sentence you quote from the paper, it goes on to reject
> > > > > > the Pascal bet, as all wise people must, due to the "many gods"
> > > > > > argument: worship Jehovah and you risk an /unknown but nonzero
> > > > > > probability/ of pissing off Odin.
>
> > > > > Suppose we've chosen the wrong god. Every time we go to church we're
> > > > > just making him madder and madder.
>
> > > > Right. And if we get him mad enough he just might decide to kill
> > > > every one but a few he really likes. Whew! Good think my forefathers
> > > > chose to worship the right god!
>
> > > El, or YHWH?
>
> > No way I'm falling for that ploy: you just want to get me stoned!
>
> Now I don't want anyone to stone anyone, until *I* say so, even if, and
> I want to make myself perfectly clear, even if they *do* say
> "Jehovah"...
See, here's the thing: what counts in traditional Judaism is obedience
to God, not the effect or intent. And this makes sense, too, since
[1] we frequently have so little control over the actual effects of
our actions that rewarding effect is downright dangerous, and [2] once
you start considering good intent you have to accept all sorts of
bizarre ideation under the excuse "he meant well."
What I'm getting around to, it doesn't matter what contingencies led
you to vocalize the Tetragrammaton, you're screwed. I mean, duck. Or
don't: the rock will steer your way whatever.
Mitchell
Mitchell Coffey
> Mitchell Coffey <m.cof...@starpower.net> wrote:
> > On Aug 25, 10:46 am, j...@wilkins.id.au (John S. Wilkins) wrote:
> > > MitchellCoffey<m.cof...@starpower.net> wrote:
> > > > On Aug 24, 9:17 pm, j...@wilkins.id.au (John S. Wilkins) wrote:
> > > > > MitchellCoffey<m.cof...@starpower.net> wrote:
> > > ...
> > > > > > Despite the sentence you quote from the paper, it goes on to reject
> > > > > > the Pascal bet, as all wise people must, due to the "many gods"
> > > > > > argument: worship Jehovah and you risk an /unknown but nonzero
> > > > > > probability/ of pissing off Odin.
>
> > > > > Suppose we've chosen the wrong god. Every time we go to church we're
> > > > > just making him madder and madder.
>
> > > > Right. And if we get him mad enough he just might decide to kill
> > > > every one but a few he really likes. Whew! Good think my forefathers
> > > > chose to worship the right god!
>
> > > El, or YHWH?
>
> > No way I'm falling for that ploy: you just want to get me stoned!
>
> Now I don't want anyone to stone anyone, until *I* say so, even if, and
> I want to make myself perfectly clear, even if they *do* say
> "Jehovah"...
See, here's the thing: what counts in traditional Judaism is obedience
Mitchell Coffey
<g.j.bai...@delete.me.dundee.ac.uk> wrote:
> On Tue, 25 Aug 2009 07:13:07 -0700 (PDT), Mitchell Coffey
>
> >> Just like economics [...]
>
> >An unexpected discovery of a new and readily assessable source of tin
> >ore will depress the price of tin.
>
> Assuming demand remains static and the market responds as expected.
> Luckily all this is foreseen by the perspicacity of the economists,
> and boom and bust economics are now a thing of the past [(c) Robert
> Walpole, 1720].
You seem to have lost track of the fact that you had claimed that
economics predicts nothing, which is trivially untrue.
By the way, the reason I didn't add boilerplate, like "assuming demand
remains static" ("the market responds as expected" wouldn't apply), is
that that would have obscured exactly how trivially wrong your remark
was. Yes, I could have fashioned my response such that it was a more
useful prediction, but if it still escapes you, a claim that a field
of study makes no prediction is not the same as a claim that it makes
no predictions that are particularly useful. I figured if I included
boilerplate, or used a more rigorous and helpful example, you'd come
back with some sophomoric non sequiter. Of course, you did that
anyway, but this way it's more obvious.
Also the fact that economics is famously unable accurately to predict
or necessarily to prevent business cycles does not overcome the fact
that economics does indubitably make predictions. In point of fact,
anticipating your follow-on, it undermines your overall argument,
because it demonstrates how economists routinely make testable and
nontrivial predictions (n.b.: a prediction tested and proved wrong had
to have been a testable prediction).
Mitchell Coffey
J. J. Lodder
> J. J. Lodder wrote:
> > EX_OWM <allthesp...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Féachadóir wrote:
> >>
> >>>> Find me a peer-reviewed scientific paper that hypothesises on the
> >>>> probability of God and I'll consider it a scientific matter.
> >>>
> >>> Je n'avais pas besoin de cette hypothèse-là.
> >>
> >> Straight from the Guinness Book of Records in the "Shortest ever
> >> peer-reviewed scientific paper" category.
> >
> > Wrong of course.
> >
> > "E pur si muove!" is much shorter,
>
> If only he had actually said it.
He may well have done.
The oldest source for it is 1643 (or 1645)
only ten years after the trial,
only one year after his death,
Jan
Matt Silberstein
jo...@wilkins.id.au (John S. Wilkins) in
<1j5164k.xh9kwv1hzz77kN%jo...@wilkins.id.au> wrote:
>Mitchell Coffey <m.co...@starpower.net> wrote:
>
>> On Aug 24, 9:17 pm, j...@wilkins.id.au (John S. Wilkins) wrote:
>> > Mitchell Coffey <m.cof...@starpower.net> wrote:
>...
>> > > Despite the sentence you quote from the paper, it goes on to reject
>> > > the Pascal bet, as all wise people must, due to the "many gods"
>> > > argument: worship Jehovah and you risk an /unknown but nonzero
>> > > probability/ of pissing off Odin.
>> >
>> > Suppose we've chosen the wrong god. Every time we go to church we're
>> > just making him madder and madder.
>>
>> Right. And if we get him mad enough he just might decide to kill
>> every one but a few he really likes. Whew! Good think my forefathers
>> chose to worship the right god!
>>
>El, or YHWH?
Yes.
Or, if your prefer, no.
--
Matt Silberstein
Do something today about the Darfur Genocide
http://www.beawitness.org
http://www.darfurgenocide.org
http://www.savedarfur.org
"Darfur: A Genocide We can Stop"
Walter Bushell
<da55883f-8527-4870...@v20g2000yqm.googlegroups.com>,
Mitchell Coffey <m.co...@starpower.net> wrote:
That's just a canard.
Walter Bushell
jo...@wilkins.id.au (John S. Wilkins) wrote:
> Now I don't want anyone to stone anyone, until *I* say so, even if, and
> I want to make myself perfectly clear, even if they *do* say
> "Jehovah"...
Which is not the NAME anyway. Just take them to Starbucks and put them
in the comfy chair. (An acutal ad in on the Subway said that 'if you
come to StarBucks (*$) you just might get a comfy chair.' Subversion
from the ad agency?
Walter Bushell
<fc4ada8f-7750-4652...@w41g2000yqb.googlegroups.com>,
Burkhard <b.sc...@ed.ac.uk> wrote:
> On Aug 25, 5:47�pm, j...@wilkins.id.au (John S. Wilkins) wrote:
> > EX_OWM <allthespamyoul...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > J. J. Lodder wrote:
> > > > EX_OWM <allthespamyoul...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > >> F�achad�ir wrote:
> >
> > > >>>> Find me a peer-reviewed scientific paper that hypothesises on the
> > > >>>> probability of God and I'll consider it a scientific matter.
> >
> > > >>> Je n'avais pas besoin de cette hypoth�se-l�.
> >
> > > >> Straight from the Guinness Book of Records in the "Shortest ever
> > > >> peer-reviewed scientific paper" category.
> >
> > > > Wrong of course.
> >
> > > > "E pur si muove!" is much shorter,
> >
> > > If only he had actually said it.
> >
> > Hier stehe ich, ich kann nicht anders...
> > --
> > John S. Wilkins, Philosophy, University of Sydneyhttp://evolvingthoughts.net
> > But al be that he was a philosophre,
> > Yet hadde he but litel gold in cofre
>
> That was just his haemorrhoids playing up
And it was not a scientific position.
Walter Bushell
"EX_OWM" <allthesp...@gmail.com> wrote:
Christianity probably owes as much to the Egyptians as to the Jews or
even the Greeks.
Desertphile
Wilkins) wrote:
> EX_OWM <allthesp...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > J. J. Lodder wrote:
> > > EX_OWM <allthesp...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > >> Féachadóir wrote:
> > >>
> > >>>> Find me a peer-reviewed scientific paper that hypothesises on the
> > >>>> probability of God and I'll consider it a scientific matter.
> > >>>
> > >>> Je n'avais pas besoin de cette hypothèse-là.
> > >>
> > >> Straight from the Guinness Book of Records in the "Shortest ever
> > >> peer-reviewed scientific paper" category.
> > >
> > > Wrong of course.
> > >
> > > "E pur si muove!" is much shorter,
> >
> > If only he had actually said it.
> Hier stehe ich, ich kann nicht anders...
I am a jelly doughnut!
--
http://desertphile.org
Desertphile's Desert Soliloquy. WARNING: view with plenty of water
"Why aren't resurrections from the dead noteworthy?" -- Jim Rutz
Desertphile
Christianity has different gods than Islam does.
John S. Wilkins
> On Wed, 26 Aug 2009 02:47:07 +1000, jo...@wilkins.id.au (John S.
> Wilkins) wrote:
>
> > EX_OWM <allthesp...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > J. J. Lodder wrote:
> > > > EX_OWM <allthesp...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > >
> > > >> F�achad�ir wrote:
> > > >>
> > > >>>> Find me a peer-reviewed scientific paper that hypothesises on the
> > > >>>> probability of God and I'll consider it a scientific matter.
> > > >>>
> > > >>> Je n'avais pas besoin de cette hypoth�se-l�.
> > > >>
> > > >> Straight from the Guinness Book of Records in the "Shortest ever
> > > >> peer-reviewed scientific paper" category.
> > > >
> > > > Wrong of course.
> > > >
> > > > "E pur si muove!" is much shorter,
> > >
> > > If only he had actually said it.
>
> > Hier stehe ich, ich kann nicht anders...
>
> I am a jelly doughnut!
Try saying that in Berlin and see how far it gets you.
Ilas
news:mYednTyC3PowignX...@earthlink.com:
> EX_OWM wrote:
>> Steven L. wrote:
>> So it's not particularly a Christian thing as F�achad�ir seemed to
> be
>> implying.
>
> No.
>
> But F�achad�ir seizes on Christianity only because like most militant
> American atheists,
More likely, because he knows Christianity rather better than any other
religion. Specifically, if I had to guess, Catholicism, what with him being
one of those Americans who was born, bred and live in Ireland.
> he's paranoid about being surrounded by Christians
> everywhere.
To an extent, in the Irish part of America (that's the island just off
England), he is.
> I'm sure he wouldn't have kinder words to say about Islam, for example.
I;d be surprised. It's just another cult that got lucky and that helps
those who think "pleeeeeease, I don't want to die, please tell me I won't
die" to sleep at night.
Ilas
@news.panix.com:
Quite a bit of the legend of Jesus Christ himself, for a start.
The Stig Baasvik Project
<m.co...@starpower.net> wrote:
>> Assuming demand remains static and the market responds as expected.
>> Luckily all this is foreseen by the perspicacity of the economists,
>> and boom and bust economics are now a thing of the past [(c) Robert
>> Walpole, 1720].
>
>You seem to have lost track of the fact that you had claimed that
>economics predicts nothing, which is trivially untrue.
You seem to have lost track of what I actually wrote and what I wrote
it in response to. Refresh your memory before implementing a surge in
demand at Bingo Bob's Summer Discount Straw Man Sale and causing a
temporary crisis in supply.
>of study makes no prediction is not the same as a claim that it makes
>no predictions that are particularly useful.
So what you're saying is that economics has no useful predictive
value.
>Also the fact that economics is famously unable accurately to predict
>or necessarily to prevent business cycles does not overcome the fact
>that economics does indubitably make predictions.
So do Roman soothsayers, spirit mediums, Tarot card readers and voodoo
witchdoctors. Where do they sign up for their ESRC grant?
Gavin Bailey
--
"We went to Beccles for the weekend. Just before luncheon the butler
blew his brains out which was rather distressing. We came back to London
in the afternoon." - The Duff Cooper Diaries, 15 May 1933.
J.J. O'Shea
(in article <mYednTyC3PowignX...@earthlink.com>):
> But Féachadóir seizes on Christianity only because like most militant
> American atheists, he's paranoid about being surrounded by Christians
> everywhere.
He's a _Yank_? Bloody hell. Next you'll be saying that _I_ am a Yank, and
I'll have to get rather cross with you.
--
email to oshea dot j dot j at gmail dot com.
J.J. O'Shea
(in article <pbg895tpii35crr8c...@4ax.com>):
> ScrÃobh "Steven L." <sdli...@earthlink.net>:
>>
>> But Féachadóir seizes on Christianity only because like most militant
>> American atheists, he's paranoid about being surrounded by Christians
>> everywhere.
>
> American? My libel lawyers will be contacting you shortly Sir!
>
>
I recommend Dewey, Cheatham, and Howe. They have offices in the City, Dublin,
Belfast, Glasgow, and Bristol.
Nick Keighley
> On Aug 24, 4:14 pm, Féachadóir <Féach@d.óir> wrote:
> > Scríobh "Westprog" <westp...@hottmail.com>:
<snip>
> > >> Science does have a conclusion. There's no evidence. As with
> > >> everything from phlogiston to ether, science accepts that this doesn't
> > >> prove a negative, it simply makes the likelihood of a positive
> > >> vanishingly small.
actually I could argue that phlogiston is a useful model of the real
world.
You could relag your house based on phlogiston and get
useful results. Just as Apollo could get to the moon using Newtonian
physics which crazily assumes gravity is a force with an infinite
propagation speed! I'll have to think about the luminiferous aether.
> > >Science says there is no evidence on the matter. That's all it says. It does
> > >/not/ say that the likelihood of a positive is vanishingly small.
>
> > Science generally says if it can't see your magic pixie, your magic
> > pixie isn't there. Deal with it.
>
> > >Most
> > >scientific discoveries have at some stage lacked evidence.
yes but there usually was some in-principal observable.
Neutrinos were predicted on the basis of conservation of energy.
It took ages before they were detected. Can god in principle be
observed? You have a problem with either yes or no. And with po and
mu.
> > >Science does not
> > >and should not use absence of evidence as evidence of absence.
if you've searched hard enough you should. There is no plesiosaur
in Loch Ness. This is virtually a certainty. Is god more believable?
We've got photos of nessie.
> > >Nor does it
> > >allocate probabilities to beliefs based on such missing evidence.
>
> > No, scientific theories predict what will happen it they are true, and
> > offer ways they can be falsified. Godtheories predict nothing.
>
> > >Science simply records and moves on. Scientists can do what they like, but
> > >as soon as they mention God, they aren't doing science any more.
>
> > 'There is no evidence for god' is a scientific statement.
>
> Highly misleading.
> Within the realm of science, 'god' is an undefined quantity.
this depends how slippery you want to be. If god cannot be observed
then why postualte his existence? Occam's razor and all that.
And if he *can* be observed then he can be
the subject of science. Think ghosts and ESP.
> So is 'supernatural'. You cannot find evidence for that which
> you have explicitly ruled out as not allowed, undefined.
it was *you* that ruled it out.
> There are those who try to expand the definition of science
> to be able to claim as you do, but you give up much to
> do so and frankly are cheating to call what you do 'science'
Do you claim god has real world effects? If so he is not
disqualified from scientific observation and investigation.
Did the biblical miracles happen? Could they still happen?
Do they still happen? Is creationism true or false?
You are just trying to be wooly.
--
Nick Keighley
Aetheist: someone who believes the Michaelson-Morley experiments were
wrong.
"An atheist doesn't have to be someone who thinks he has a
proof that
there can't be a god. He only has to be someone who believes that
the
evidence on the God question is at a similar level to the evidence on
the werewolf question." [John McCarthy]
Ilas
news:h7367...@news7.newsguy.com:
> On Tue, 25 Aug 2009 15:54:56 -0400, Féachadóir wrote
> (in article <pbg895tpii35crr8c...@4ax.com>):
>
>> Scríobh "Steven L." <sdli...@earthlink.net>:
>>>
>>> But Féachadóir seizes on Christianity only because like most
> militant
>>> American atheists, he's paranoid about being surrounded by
>>> Christians everywhere.
>>
>> American? My libel lawyers will be contacting you shortly Sir!
>>
>>
>
> I recommend Dewey, Cheatham, and Howe. They have offices in the City,
> Dublin, Belfast, Glasgow, and Bristol.
There's a (genuine) law firm called Wright Hassell and Company in the UK
Midlands (does that work in the US though?).
rmacfarl
"Walter Bushell" <pr...@panix.com> wrote in message
news:proto-186170....@news.panix.com...
You just had to swan in with that didn't you?
John S. Wilkins
J.J. O'Shea
(in article <Xns9C73826D...@195.188.240.200>):
> "J.J. O'Shea" <try.n...@but.see.sig> wrote in
> news:h7367...@news7.newsguy.com:
>
>> On Tue, 25 Aug 2009 15:54:56 -0400, Féachadóir wrote
>> (in article <pbg895tpii35crr8c...@4ax.com>):
>>
>>> ScrÃobh "Steven L." <sdli...@earthlink.net>:
>>>>
>>>> But Féachadóir seizes on Christianity only because like most
>> militant
>>>> American atheists, he's paranoid about being surrounded by
>>>> Christians everywhere.
>>>
>>> American? My libel lawyers will be contacting you shortly Sir!
>>>
>>>
>>
>> I recommend Dewey, Cheatham, and Howe. They have offices in the City,
>> Dublin, Belfast, Glasgow, and Bristol.
>
> There's a (genuine) law firm called Wright Hassell and Company in the UK
> Midlands (does that work in the US though?).
>
Works for me...
el cid
wrote:
> On 24 Aug, 22:33, el cid <elcidbi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On Aug 24, 4:14 pm, Féachadóir <Féach@d.óir> wrote:
>
> > > 'There is no evidence for god' is a scientific statement.
>
> > Highly misleading.
> > Within the realm of science, 'god' is an undefined quantity.
>
> this depends how slippery you want to be. If god cannot be observed
> then why postualte his existence? Occam's razor and all that.
> And if he *can* be observed then he can be
> the subject of science. Think ghosts and ESP.
>
> > So is 'supernatural'. You cannot find evidence for that which
> > you have explicitly ruled out as not allowed, undefined.
>
> it was *you* that ruled it out.
It's called methodological naturalism.
Look it up. It's a root assumption of science.
Thus using science to directly show there is no
god and nothing supernatural is circular reasoning.
You can stand outside of science as a skeptic and
say that the success of science in providing
explanations for what we observe has made invoking
the supernatural to be unnecessary. This is a
very respectable statement but you're tail over
teakettle if you make it a claim of science.
> > There are those who try to expand the definition of science
> > to be able to claim as you do, but you give up much to
> > do so and frankly are cheating to call what you do 'science'
> Do you claim god has real world effects?
Do you know how to read?
> If so he is not
> disqualified from scientific observation and investigation.
Look up methodological naturalism me boy. It is, and has been,
at the root of science. Your ignorance of this fact does not
change that.
> Did the biblical miracles happen? Could they still happen?
> Do they still happen? Is creationism true or false?
Science is particularly bad at investigating one time
events that do not have lasting implications. A global
flood would have unless one adds miracles to clean it
all up and make things looks like the flood never
happened. Science can tell you that there are good
explanations for currently observable geology that
show no evidence of a global flood some few thousand
years ago. It is rather silent on the topic of water
in some jars having or not having been turned into
wine. If you think science does say something about
the water into wine claims, you have a warped definition
of science.
> You are just trying to be wooly.
Far from it. I'm opposing the redefinition of science
that is being attempted by the 'new atheists'. Atheism
has gotten along fine without the need for
misrepresentation of what science is.
Mitchell Coffey
<g.j.bai...@delete.me.dundee.ac.uk> wrote:
> On Tue, 25 Aug 2009 11:41:28 -0700 (PDT), Mitchell Coffey
>
> >> Assuming demand remains static and the market responds as expected.
> >> Luckily all this is foreseen by the perspicacity of the economists,
> >> and boom and bust economics are now a thing of the past [(c) Robert
> >> Walpole, 1720].
>
> >You seem to have lost track of the fact that you had claimed that
> >economics predicts nothing, which is trivially untrue.
>
> You seem to have lost track of what I actually wrote and what I wrote
> it in response to. Refresh your memory before implementing a surge in
> demand at Bingo Bob's Summer Discount Straw Man Sale and causing a
> temporary crisis in supply.
You wrote this: "Just like economics, Marxism and social science"
In response to this: "No, scientific theories predict what will
happen it they are true, and
offer ways they can be falsified. Godtheories predict nothing."
> >of study makes no prediction is not the same as a claim that it makes
> >no predictions that are particularly useful.
>
> So what you're saying is that economics has no useful predictive
> value.
OK, clearly you're illiterate. If anyone cares what you and I have
written they can inspect the thread.
> >Also the fact that economics is famously unable accurately to predict
> >or necessarily to prevent business cycles does not overcome the fact
> >that economics does indubitably make predictions.
>
> So do Roman soothsayers, spirit mediums, Tarot card readers and voodoo
> witchdoctors. Where do they sign up for their ESRC grant?
Your claim was that economics predicts nothing, which is trivially
untrue.
Mitchell Coffey
Mitchell Coffey
> In article <1j518oa.3z0a8jf8656iN%j...@wilkins.id.au>,
> j...@wilkins.id.au (John S. Wilkins) wrote:
>
> > Now I don't want anyone to stone anyone, until *I* say so, even if, and
> > I want to make myself perfectly clear, even if they *do* say
> > "Jehovah"...
>
> Which is not the NAME anyway.
Nobody knows was the actual name was. The issue is, if you think
you're breaking God's command does it matter matter whether or not you
really are? It could go either way. It is, for instance, still
breaking the command if you do so by accident. It would seem to
follow that you wouldn't be breaking the command if you thought you
were but didn't by accident. Yet under traditional Jewish law there's
no reason to expect God's enforcement of His commands to be logically
balanced like that. I'm sure this is settled law somewhere in the
Talmud, but one cannot assume what the right answer would be.
Mitchell Coffey