Talk.origins article CB121 misrepresents its opponents
Creationist...@yahoo.com
http://SaintPaulScience.com/talk_origins.htm
http://SaintPaulScience.com/Robert_Williams.htm
Creationist By Science
Bodega
As the author said, some may find it boring.
-- Mike Palmer
Ron O
Is this ReMine?
It looks pretty pathetic when someone has to pretend to be someone else
to support his junk.
Have you landed any other moderator jobs at any other creationist
blogs? I'd like to check out any bogus web site that would let you
moderate knowing your history.
You could try to be upfront and honest. Maybe the article should be
changed. Have you ever thought of rewriting it and submit it for
evaluation?
Ron Okimoto
Rodjk #613
Mark Isaak
Everything ever written misrepresents Walter ReMine. It is impossible
*not* to misrepresent him. "ReMine" and "misrepresent" are inseparable;
in fact, the word "misrepresentation" was formed from "O! Is ReMine's
pattern." The web pages above are only to be expected. Since they, also,
must misprepresent ReMine, they should be given no undue credence.
--
Mark Isaak eciton (at) earthlink (dot) net
"Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of
the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are
being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and
exposing the country to danger." -- Hermann Goering
Kent Paul Dolan
> Talk.origins article CB121 misrepresents its
> opponents. See:
> http://SaintPaulScience.com/talk_origins.htm
> http://SaintPaulScience.com/Robert_Williams.htm
The more often you flog your webpages, deceitfully
pretending to be someone you are not, the more
completely hilariously nonsensical math I find
there, like this little piece of cretinism that
pretends only one gene allele is being fixed at a
time in the entire population, and that the fixing
is done sequentially rather than in parallel, and
that the effects of fixing progress are not
synergistic between them for helpful mutations:
: The math is easy: 1,667 substitutions = 10,000,000 / (20 * 300)
: Substitutions = (Years) / [(Years / Generation) * (Generations /
Substitution)].
But what I'm most interested in is this jewel, from the
talk.origins web page:
: Since humans and apes differ in 4.8 в 10^7 genes...
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB121.html
Just out of curiosity, how do two organisms with a
total of 30,000 or so genes each, manage to differ
in _48 million_ of them?
xanthian.
It's also interesting to notice that while you are
screaming in public about how unfair the criticism
of your work from talk.origins is, at the very same
time in private you are incorporating the corrections
you provoke into your webpage on a practically
hourly basis, so that what is in fact going on here
is that you are trying to get the denizens of
talk.origins to do your homework for you, still more
massive intellectual dishonesty on your part.
John Wilkins
> > Talk.origins article CB121 misrepresents its opponents. See:
> >
> > http://SaintPaulScience.com/talk_origins.htm
> >
> > http://SaintPaulScience.com/Robert_Williams.htm
> >
> > Creationist By Science
>
> Everything ever written misrepresents Walter ReMine. It is impossible
> *not* to misrepresent him. "ReMine" and "misrepresent" are inseparable;
> in fact, the word "misrepresentation" was formed from "O! Is ReMine's
> pattern." The web pages above are only to be expected. Since they, also,
> must misprepresent ReMine, they should be given no undue credence.
--
John S. Wilkins, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Biohumanities Project
University of Queensland - Blog: scienceblogs.com/evolvingthoughts
"He used... sarcasm. He knew all the tricks, dramatic irony, metaphor,
bathos, puns, parody, litotes and... satire. He was vicious."
Richard Clayton
His constant use of "misrepresented" made me suspect as much.
If creationists are, as they claim, the guardians of divinely appointed
morality, why are nearly all of the t.o creationists conspicuously
dishonest?
--
[The address listed is a spam trap. To reply, take off every zig.]
Richard Clayton
"During wars laws are silent." -- Cicero
The Last Conformist
Richard Clayton wrote:
> Rodjk #613 wrote:
> > Ron O wrote:
> >> Creationist...@yahoo.com wrote:
> >>> Talk.origins article CB121 misrepresents its opponents. See:
> >>>
> >>> http://SaintPaulScience.com/talk_origins.htm
> >>>
> >>> http://SaintPaulScience.com/Robert_Williams.htm
> >>>
> >>> Creationist By Science
> >> Is this ReMine?
> >>
> >> It looks pretty pathetic when someone has to pretend to be someone else
> >> to support his junk.
> >>
> >> Have you landed any other moderator jobs at any other creationist
> >> blogs? I'd like to check out any bogus web site that would let you
> >> moderate knowing your history.
> >>
> >> You could try to be upfront and honest. Maybe the article should be
> >> changed. Have you ever thought of rewriting it and submit it for
> >> evaluation?
> >>
> >> Ron Okimoto
> >
> > Yeah, its ReMine. The bio page makes it clear:
> > http://saintpaulscience.com/biography.htm
>
> His constant use of "misrepresented" made me suspect as much.
>
> If creationists are, as they claim, the guardians of divinely appointed
> morality, why are nearly all of the t.o creationists conspicuously
> dishonest?
Like Churchill with truth, they feel morality is so valuable it should
be used sparingly.
The Last Conformist
Kent Paul Dolan skrev:
[snip]
> But what I'm most interested in is this jewel, from the
> talk.origins web page:
>
> : Since humans and apes differ in 4.8 в 10^7 genes...
>
> http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB121.html
>
> Just out of curiosity, how do two organisms with a
> total of 30,000 or so genes each, manage to differ
> in _48 million_ of them?
At a guess, he's confusing genes and basepairs. 48 Mbp is roughly 1.5%
of the human genome, and thus in the right ballpark for the human~chimp
distance.
[snip]
Ron O
It is kind of strange the type of mentality that it takes to be one of
the creationist scam artists. You'd think that any sane person would
second guess himself once it became clear that it was nearly always the
guys that they side with that are running the dishonest scams and get
caught doing dishonest bullpucky to support their beliefs. ReMine just
has to sit down and run a check list of his own shenanigans and pretend
that someone else had done those things. Would he want to be that
person?
Ron Okimoto
T Pagano
One should realize that Isaak's index (of which CB121 is a part) is
replete with mistakes and misrepresentations. The index is not a
collection of actual misunderstandings or mistakes of creationism but
a collection of misteps of some strawman that Isaak has deluded
himself into believing.
I have demonstrated over (at least) a 10 year period that Isaak is
largely and grossly ignorant of creationism and ID theory and doesn't
give a hoot about changing that condition. In fact its not really
clear that Isaak has a very good grasp of neoDarwinism.
Regards,
T Pagano
bullpup
"T Pagano" <not....@address.net> wrote in message
news:apagano-ghgbm29k7v3qe...@4ax.com...
The real point is not if someone understands creationism or ID, but that
creationists and IDiots do not understand science.
HAND, HTH.
Boikat
wf3h
T Pagano wrote:
> >
> I have demonstrated over (at least) a 10 year period that Isaak is
> largely and grossly ignorant of creationism and ID theory and doesn't
> give a hoot about changing that condition. In fact its not really
> clear that Isaak has a very good grasp of neoDarwinism.
>
even if true, you've demonstrated the same facts about yourself, yet
you still post.
Augray
wrote in <apagano-ghgbm29k7v3qe...@4ax.com> :
Can you be more specific?
Bobby Bryant
T Pagano <not....@address.net> writes:
> On 22 Nov 2006 00:43:41 -0800, Creationist...@yahoo.com wrote:
>
>>Talk.origins article CB121 misrepresents its opponents. See:
>>
>>http://SaintPaulScience.com/talk_origins.htm
>>
>>http://SaintPaulScience.com/Robert_Williams.htm
>>
>>Creationist By Science
>
> One should realize that Isaak's index (of which CB121 is a part) is
> replete with mistakes and misrepresentations. The index is not a
> collection of actual misunderstandings or mistakes of creationism but
> a collection of misteps of some strawman that Isaak has deluded
> himself into believing.
Your claim would be more convincing if you would cite specific examples.
--
Bobby Bryant
Reno, Nevada
Remove your hat to reply by e-mail.
Perplexed in Peoria
"Bobby Bryant" <bdbr...@wherever.ur> wrote in message news:Khm9h.2862$yf7...@newssvr21.news.prodigy.net...
Er... This thread began with a complaint (by a ReMine sockpuppet) which DID
cite specific examples. Then everybody jumped in criticizing ReMine for
complaining too much. The most absurd posting was the one by Xanthian who
repeats the misrepresentations (48 million genes, the math presumes
sequential - not parallel - replacement) as evidence for ReMine's ignorance.
Uh, EXCUUUUSE ME. ReMine didn't say those ignorant things; or if he once
said something close to those things, he has since clarified them.
And now Bobby Bryant wants specific examples. Sheesh.
There is a double standard in this newsgroup in that whenever a creationist
says something, all the evolutionists automatically assume he is lying.
But when the t.o. FAQ says something, it must be the truth. CB121 attacks
a straw-man version of ReMine's current position. So does the Robert Williams
web site. I haven't read "Biotic Message", so I don't know for sure whether
Remine used to hold views like those being attacked, or whether he shares
responsibility for some of the confusion. But, having read ReMine's more
recent stuff, and having corresponded with him, I do know that CB121 is
wrong - both on what ReMine's position currently is, and on the population
genetics arguments to refute him.
The double standard works both ways. Creationists automatically assume that
evilutionists are lying, and that any information that appears on the web
that casts doubt on evolution must be the truth. The most ridiculous examples
of this distrust of evolutionists is the interpretation of recent newsstories
about copy-number variation in the genome as proof that the evilutionists
were lying about the genetic similarity between man and chimp.
Hey guys. Cool it. We are all human, and we make mistakes. We are trying
to discuss technically difficult subjects without using technical language,
so misinterptetations are inevitable. So could we please just assume,
when we see an assertion that seems dubious to us, that the problem is
some kind of confusion (perhaps our own) and not further evidence of
mendacity, ignorance, or devious intent.
And, Tony, it might not be a bad idea to provide some specific examples. I
strongly doubt that finding them will be at all difficult. But be fair.
The whole point of the FAQ is that it responds to arguments that creationists
sometimes make. If it attacks a strawman version of Irreducible Complexity,
for example, rather than the version that Behe proposes, please assume that
some creationist has at some time or another actually made that strawman-version
argument. But if the FAQ misquotes or misrepresents Behe by name, or if it
fails to even address Behe's version of the IC argument, then we would like to
see the example.
Kent Paul Dolan
> Kent Paul Dolan skrev:
>> Just out of curiosity, how do two organisms with a
>> total of 30,000 or so genes each, manage to differ
>> in _48 million_ of them?
> At a guess, he's confusing genes and basepairs. 48 Mbp is roughly 1.5%
> of the human genome, and thus in the right ballpark for the human~chimp
> distance.
Well, except that the genes that differ between chimp
and human don't have to differ in every base pair to
"differ", one base pair different per gene would do (but
surely doesn't), so the number is still utter creationist
nonsense.
xanthian.
Kent Paul Dolan
> The most absurd posting was the one by Xanthian
> who repeats the misrepresentations (48 million
> genes, the math presumes sequential - not parallel
> - replacement) as evidence for ReMine's ignorance.
> Uh, EXCUUUUSE ME. ReMine didn't say those
> ignorant things; or if he once said something
> close to those things, he has since clarified
> them.
Oh really? Absurd, is it? Since when have you
been a creationism apologist?
I quoted the part to which I am objecting that he's
claiming natural selection is "sequential - not
parallel" right off one of ReMine's _current web
pages_ from/about the book he wrote:
http://saintpaulscience.com/Haldane.htm
See the 4th footnote, first "page".
Don't bother telling me he claims to intend to "fix
it later"; that beginning is an example of the well
known truth of deduction in classical logic: from
false premises, anything at all may be "proved".
So, it seems you have joined the creationists in
their persistent lying.
Not that you hadn't been throwing off that perfume
for quite a while anyway.
FWIW
xanthian.
Perplexed in Peoria
"Kent Paul Dolan" <xant...@well.com> wrote in message news:1164341105.5...@m7g2000cwm.googlegroups.com...
> Perplexed in Peoria wrote:
>
> > The most absurd posting was the one by Xanthian
> > who repeats the misrepresentations (48 million
> > genes, the math presumes sequential - not parallel
> > - replacement) as evidence for ReMine's ignorance.
>
> > Uh, EXCUUUUSE ME. ReMine didn't say those
> > ignorant things; or if he once said something
> > close to those things, he has since clarified
> > them.
>
> Oh really? Absurd, is it? Since when have you
> been a creationism apologist?
>
> I quoted the part to which I am objecting that he's
> claiming natural selection is "sequential - not
> parallel" right off one of ReMine's _current web
> pages_ from/about the book he wrote:
>
> http://saintpaulscience.com/Haldane.htm
> See the 4th footnote, first "page".
Right. You quote the footnote accurately. Then you INFER that
"this little piece of cretinism ...pretends only one gene allele
is being fixed at a time in the entire population, and that the
fixing is done sequentially rather than in parallel,..."
Would you mind sketching the logic leading you to the conclusion
that that pretense is being made? Especially since you had to
read past footnote 2 to get to footnote 4.
Anyone who is at all familiar with the Haldane Dilemma subject
would know that the whole point of the argument is to wonder
whether too many alleles proceeding to fixation in parallel
might interfere with each other in some way. Haldane concluded
that they would interfere because they are all 'competing' for
the same limiting resource - selective deaths.
But clearly you know nothing about the Haldane controversy. But
you do know creationists, you think, and you know that they always
lie, are always stupid, and always distort. So you figured you
would show off your knowlege. With friends like you, evolution
doesn't need enemies.
> Don't bother telling me he claims to intend to "fix
> it later"; that beginning is an example of the well
> known truth of deduction in classical logic: from
> false premises, anything at all may be "proved".
>
> So, it seems you have joined the creationists in
> their persistent lying.
>
> Not that you hadn't been throwing off that perfume
> for quite a while anyway.
Wonderful. Lets have a chorus of that old organizing song:
which side are you on boys?
which side are you on?
they say in Harlan County
there are no neutrals there
you'll either be a union man
or a thug for J. H. Claire
Our side is pure, the other side is lying, and "don't you dare
call me mistaken when I invent some lies to put in their mouths".
Perplexed in Peoria
"The Last Conformist" <andr...@gmail.com> wrote in message news:1164277173.6...@k70g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
That is certainly what happened. But who is this "he" doing the
confusing here? Is it the author of CB121, Remine, or some generic
creationist who the author of CB121 wishes to refute?
Michael Siemon
Well, if ReMine is involved, I'm pretty sure that confusion can
be attributed in his direction!
Kent Paul Dolan
> Right. You quote the footnote accurately. Then
> you INFER that "this little piece of cretinism
> ...pretends only one gene allele is being fixed at
> a time in the entire population, and that the
> fixing is done sequentially rather than in
> parallel,..."
> Would you mind sketching the logic leading you to
> the conclusion that that pretense is being made?
> Especially since you had to read past footnote 2
> to get to footnote 4.
"Infer"? If you haven't the math skills to see that
part of the calculation jumping off the page at you,
why are you wasting your time and everyone else's
participating here?
Saying I "inferred" what is plain and obvious is
like claiming I pasted in the alphabet and then
"inferred" that the letter "e" was in there
somewhere.
That's not "inference", that's "literacy". If you
aren't math literate by now, nothing I do is ever
going to fix that for you, nor will I waste my time
interpreting simple math to you.
HTH
xanthian.
I used to read for the blind, because they had a
_really_ good excuse for needing my help. You don't.
Rodjk #613
That really is unfair.
You know Tony is never specific...
;)
Rodjk #613
Mark Isaak
>[...] CB121 attacks a straw-man version of ReMine's current
> position. So does the Robert Williams web site.
CB121 says nothing whatsoever about ReMine's current position, nor does it
claim to. It speaks to the fairly common creationsist argument about
Haldane's Dilemma, one prominent example of which is presented in ReMine's
_Biotic Message_.
> I haven't read "Biotic Message", so I don't know for sure whether Remine
> used to hold views like those being attacked, or whether he shares
> responsibility for some of the confusion.
I *have* read _Biotic Message_. I admit to the possibility that I have
misread part of it, but I am confident that I got the gist correct. And
since ReMine accuses everyone who criticizes his work of misrepresenting
him (and I mean literally everyone; I know of no exception), his
accusations are just so much noise.
> But, having read ReMine's
> more recent stuff, and having corresponded with him, I do know that
> CB121 is wrong - both on what ReMine's position currently is, and on the
> population genetics arguments to refute him.
I don't give a damn what his current position is. CB121 is addressed to
the claim that Haldane's Dilemma is a problem for evolution.
ges...@boundvortex.com
on a practically hourly basis, so that what is in fact going on here is
that you are trying to get the denizens of talk.origins to do your
homework for you, still more massive intellectual dishonesty on your
part. >>
So we complain when they fix their errors and complain when they don't?
That hardly seems fair. ;-)
Perplexed in Peoria
"Mark Isaak" <eci...@earthlink.net> wrote in message news:pan.2006.11.24....@earthlink.net...
> On Thu, 23 Nov 2006 22:01:57 +0000, Perplexed in Peoria wrote:
>
> >[...] CB121 attacks a straw-man version of ReMine's current
> > position. So does the Robert Williams web site.
>
> CB121 says nothing whatsoever about ReMine's current position, nor does it
> claim to. It speaks to the fairly common creationsist argument about
> Haldane's Dilemma, one prominent example of which is presented in ReMine's
> _Biotic Message_.
Fair enough. So it doesn't misrepresent ReMine's position. It doesn't
even address ReMine's position, except in the places where it quotes him
directly. I wonder whether that response satisfies Creation_By_Science. ;-)
So, you are saying then that nothing in CB121, except maybe direct quotes,
reflects what ReMine has said. In particular, ReMine is not claimed to
have said that there are 48 million gene differences between man and chimp.
That ridiculous figure appears in "common creationist arguments", not necessarily
in anything ReMine has written. I'm glad that is cleared up.
> > I haven't read "Biotic Message", so I don't know for sure whether Remine
> > used to hold views like those being attacked, or whether he shares
> > responsibility for some of the confusion.
>
> I *have* read _Biotic Message_. I admit to the possibility that I have
> misread part of it, but I am confident that I got the gist correct. And
> since ReMine accuses everyone who criticizes his work of misrepresenting
> him (and I mean literally everyone; I know of no exception), his
> accusations are just so much noise.
I can't dispute that. ;-)
> > But, having read ReMine's
> > more recent stuff, and having corresponded with him, I do know that
> > CB121 is wrong - both on what ReMine's position currently is, and on the
> > population genetics arguments to refute him.
>
> I don't give a damn what his current position is. CB121 is addressed to
> the claim that Haldane's Dilemma is a problem for evolution.
And, as far as I know, this is still ReMine's claim. Which claim rests
ultimately on the argument from credulity that 1667 is not enough. That
is why the argument is wrong. Not subtle mistakes in Haldane's or ReMine's
population genetics calculations.
Augray
wrote in <pan.2006.11.24....@earthlink.net> :
>On Thu, 23 Nov 2006 22:01:57 +0000, Perplexed in Peoria wrote:
>
>>[...] CB121 attacks a straw-man version of ReMine's current
>> position. So does the Robert Williams web site.
>
>CB121 says nothing whatsoever about ReMine's current position, nor does it
>claim to. It speaks to the fairly common creationsist argument about
>Haldane's Dilemma, one prominent example of which is presented in ReMine's
>_Biotic Message_.
>
>> I haven't read "Biotic Message", so I don't know for sure whether Remine
>> used to hold views like those being attacked, or whether he shares
>> responsibility for some of the confusion.
>
>I *have* read _Biotic Message_. I admit to the possibility that I have
>misread part of it, but I am confident that I got the gist correct. And
>since ReMine accuses everyone who criticizes his work of misrepresenting
>him (and I mean literally everyone; I know of no exception), his
>accusations are just so much noise.
Good old Walter "I didn't say that" ReMine.
[snip]
Kent Paul Dolan
> xanthian wrote:
No, the complaint is that "ReMine as the
sock-puppet" is complaining about how unfair the
criticisms of his work are while at the very same
time incorporating the corrections those criticisms
imply into that work.
> That hardly seems fair. ;-)
You are right, that hardly seems fair.
Since ReMine is also an avowed creationist, the best
use for his work is as an object of ridicule, so it
is puzzling why, having labored so hard at it, he
objects to his work being put to its one best use.
It is certain that neither ReMine nor any other
creationist will _ever_ bring a study of the odds
favoring evolution into line with reality; the
"party line" of creationism on that question is
exactly opposite to reality.
ReMine would first require and infusion of sanity,
and a cursory glance at the documents he has online
at SaintPaulPress shows just how unlikely such an
infusion is through the existing barriers of
ignorance and intemperance.
xanthian.
David Wilson
in talk.origins Mark Isaak <eci...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> On Thu, 23 Nov 2006 22:01:57 +0000, Perplexed in Peoria wrote:
>
> >[...] CB121 attacks a straw-man version of ReMine's current
> > position. So does the Robert Williams web site.
>
> CB121 says nothing whatsoever about ReMine's current position, nor does it
> claim to. It speaks to the fairly common creationsist argument about
> Haldane's Dilemma, one prominent example of which is presented in ReMine's
> _Biotic Message_.
>
> > used to hold views like those being attacked, or whether he shares
> > responsibility for some of the confusion.
>
>I *have* read _Biotic Message_. I admit to the possibility that I have
I believe your confidence is misplaced. I have recently read _The Biotic
Message_. Since I have been interested in the arguments about Haldane's
dilemma for some time, I paid very close and careful attention to those
parts of the book which deal with it. In my opinion the current version
of CB121 is _not_ an accurate paraphrase of the argument ReMine makes in
_The Biotic Message_ (or anywhere else as far as I know), and his complaints
about it seem to me to be largely justified.
But regardless of whether you consider CB121 as having the "gist" of ReMine's
argument correct, it nevertheless currently misattributes to him several
silly errors which he does _not_ make in _The Biotic Message_, and which I
have never seen him make anywhere else either:
1. "Since humans and apes differ in 4.8 x 10^7 genes, ..."
This claim has already misled at least one talk.origins poster to ridicule
ReMine for making such a silly blunder. But the blunder here is entirely the
fault of whoever wrote CB121. ReMine does not make this claim in _The Biotic
Message_ (or anywhere else as far as I know).
2. "Only 1,667 nucleotide substitutions in genes could have occurred if their
divergence was ten million years ago."
....
"The vast majority of differences would probably be due to genetic drift,
not selection."
This falsely implies that ReMine has ignored substitutions attributable
to genetic drift. However, his figure of 1,667 nucleotide substitutions
is for _"selectively significant" substitutions only_, which he makes
perfectly clear in _The Biotic Message_ (and in many other places). He
also quite clearly acknowledges in _The Biotic Message_ that a much much
larger number of neutral substitutions could have occurred during the same
period.
3. "Human and ape genes both would be diverging from the common ancestor,
doubling the difference."
Again this falsely attributes to ReMine a silly blunder which he does
not make. In _The Biotic Message_ (p.217) he makes it quite clear
that what he is claiming is that 1,667 is the maximum number of selectively
significant nucleotides that Haldane's limit will allow to be substituted
in a human-like population over a period of 10 million years. _Nowhere_
in _The Biotic Message_ (or anywhere else as far as I know) does he claim
that the number of 1,667 is a limit that applies to some difference between
the genomes of modern humans and a modern ape.
The criticisms which CB121 makes of Haldane's "Cost of Natural Selection" are
also erroneous in my opinion:
1. "Haldane's "cost of natural selection" stemmed from an invalid
simplifying assumption in his calculations. He divided by a fitness constant
in a way that invalidated his assumption of constant population size, and
his cost of selection is an artifact of the changed population size."
I have read Haldane's "Cost of Natural Selection" now many times very
carefully, and believe I fully understand all his assumptions and mathematical
arguments. I know of nowhere in the paper where he "divided by a fitness
constant in a way that invalidated his assumption of constant population
size".
It is also irrelevant whether or not his cost of selection is "an artifact
of the changed population size". In deriving his limit on the rate of
substitution he only ever uses his formulae for the cost of selection as
intermediate quantities in chains of inequalities. Under his assumptions
these inequalities, and hence his conclusions, remain valid regardless of
what biological meaning (if any) his "cost of selection" has.
The criticisms of Haldane's arguments by Feller, Wallace and Moran,
cited with approval by Robert Williams on his website, are all based
on similar misunderstandings of the role which the cost of selection plays
in those arguments, and are worthless as rebuttals, in my opinion.
2. "He also assumed that two mutations would take twice as long to reach
fixation as one, but because of sexual recombination, the two can be
selected simultaneously and both reach fixation sooner."
This is nonsense. Haldane did _not_ _assume_ this. He _derived_ it from
his other assumptions. The derivation is given at the bottom of page
20 of _The Cost of Selection_". It does _not_ assume that the mutations
only become fixed one at a time, and it _does_ take full account of the
role of sexual recombination. Contrary to the specious conclusions which
at least one talk.origins poster has tried to draw from a calculation given
on ReMine's web-site, _he_ does not assume this either. It would
appear that he has read Haldane's paper a little more carefully than
some of his critics, since he says explicitly on page 216 of _The Biotic
Message_:
"This does not mean these substitutions occur sequentially, one
by one. Several genes can undergo substitution simultaneously
at various speeds. If you average all these speeds, then the
total rate can be one per 300 generations."
And this is an accurate description of what Haldane showed (given his
assumptions).
Haldane's arguments, and hence his conclusions, are, however, limited to
sets of genes which have _independent effects on fitness_. His apparent
assumption that most simultaneously selected sets of genes will satisfy
this condition has been much criticised (quite justifiably in my opinion),
and it's not difficult to show that sets of genes which _don't_ satisfy
the condition could well achieve much greater rates of substitution than
his estimated limit, even when all his other assumptions were satisfied.
Since I am a great fan of the Index I was very disappointed when I read
CB121. Any article as inaccurate as it is, on a subject which I happen
to know something about, makes me wonder how much confidence I can have
in the vast majority of other articles on subjects about which I am
profoundly ignorant.
Here is a suggested replacement. Please feel free to make whatever use
of it you wish. It certainly could do with some editing to make it read
more smoothly and perhaps make it clearer.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Claim CB121:
In the 1950s Haldane calculated the maximum rate at which genes could
be replaced through differential reproduction and survival. He
concluded that it posed a serious problem for evolution. His conclusion
was that the long-term average rate at which beneficial alleles become
fixed in a population can be no greater than one every 300 generations.
This means that over 10 million years of alleged human evolution from an
ape-like ancestor, with an average generation time of 20 years, at most
1,667 nucleotides could be selectively replaced in the population. This is
insufficient to account for the difference between modern humans and any
such alleged ancestor.
Source:
ReMine, W., _The Biotic Message_, St Paul Science, Minn, 1993.
Response:
1. Haldane did _not_ conclude that his calculations posed any problem
for evolution. The claim [1, p. 208] that he did so is a blatant falsehood.
When discussing the implications of his calculations, Haldane made it
quite clear that he thought they agreed very well with what he believed
to be the extremely slow rate of most evolution. [2, pp.22-24]
2. Haldane also acknowledged that under certain conditions the intensity
of selection could be much larger than the 10% which he had considered as its
normal upper limit when deriving his limit on the rate of substitution.
During periods when these conditions prevail, evolution could occur much
faster than would otherwise have been allowed by his limit. He stated
that such episodes of rapid evolution "have doubtless been important" but
"are probably exceptional". [2, p.23]
If the Out-of-Africa hypothesis of human origins is correct, then the
conditions which Haldane considered favorable for such exceptional
episodes of more rapid evolution, could well have prevailed for significant
periods of human evolution. The claim that his limit can be rigidly applied
to that evolution is therefore unwarranted.
3. Haldane derived his limit under the assumptions that the population was
very large, and that any simultaneously substituting alleles would have
independent effects on the fitness of their carriers. In real populations,
the first assumption would quite often not be satisfied, while the second
is unlikely except when the number of substituting alleles is fairly small.
Warren Ewens [3] has shown that when either of these assumptions is not
satisfied, the rates of selectively advantageous substitution can be much
larger than the limit Haldane had estimated for the case when they hold.
Links:
Haldane, J.B.S., _The Cost of Natural Selection_
http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/ridley/classictexts/haldane2.pdf
References:
[1] ReMine, W., _The Biotic Message_, St Paul Science, Minn, 1993.
[2] Haldane, J.B.S., _The Cost of Natural Selection_, Genetics, 55 (1957)
511-524.
[2] Ewens, W.J., _Remarks on the Substitutional Load_, Theoretical Population
Biology, 1 (1970), 129-139.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
David Wilson
SPAMMERS_fingers@WILL_BE_fwi_PROSECUTED_.net.au
(Remove underlines and upper case letters to obtain my email address.
Mark Isaak
> I believe your confidence is misplaced. I have recently read _The
> Biotic Message_. Since I have been interested in the arguments about
> Haldane's dilemma for some time, I paid very close and careful attention
> to those parts of the book which deal with it. In my opinion the
> current version of CB121 is _not_ an accurate paraphrase of the argument
> ReMine makes in _The Biotic Message_ (or anywhere else as far as I
> know), and his complaints about it seem to me to be largely justified.
> [...]
Thank you for your clear explanations. I cannot think of how to make the
above substantially clearer. The editing I would do would be minor,
almost entirely for consistency of format. Only two changes I would make
would go beyond trivial, and the first of these is still minor, changing
the last sentence to: "When either of these assumptions is not satisfied,
the rates of selectively advantageous substitution can be much larger than
the limit Haldane had estimated (Ewens 1970).")
The other change I think is needed is that the Out-of-Africa hypothesis
should either be explained or not mentioned. In this context, I think one
can get away with simply not mentioning it and beginning the paragraph
with, "The conditions which Haldane considered . . ." Really, though,
there should be a reference to go with it. Any suggestions?
Barring other suggestions or complaints, I will make the formatting edits
and place your version in the Index.
Perplexed in Peoria
"David Wilson" <see_sig@for_my.address> wrote in message news:200611281326...@fwi.net.au...
Nice. Two comments:
1. The 'claim' finishes with:
> 1,667 nucleotides could be selectively replaced in the population. This is
> insufficient to account for the difference between modern humans and any
> such alleged ancestor.
But, your response deals only with the validity of the 1667. To my mind,
the real problem with ReMine's argument is the "argument from incredulity"
at the very end, which asserts without evidence that 1667 would be insufficient.
2. I don't understand your argument regarding the Out-of-Africa hypothesis.
Surely, that hypothesis deals only with conditions during the past 200K years
of human evolution and on the evolution of only some lines of descent. It
would seem to tell us little about the 9800K years that preceeded this.
ErikW
David Wilson wrote:
If you take it this far it also needs to be written explicitly what
Haldane's result actually was and under what assumptions they were
made.
Talking about assumptions, surely there must have been limits to
reproductive excess in these calculations. That, or something related,
is probably what the cost would consist of anyway, right? So if you can
pay the cost you can increase the rate of selective substitution in the
calculations.
Kent Paul Dolan
>>> The most absurd posting was the one by Xanthian
>>> who repeats the misrepresentations (48 million
>>> genes, the math presumes sequential - not
>>> parallel - replacement) as evidence for ReMine's
>>> ignorance.
>>> Uh, EXCUUUUSE ME. ReMine didn't say those
>>> ignorant things; or if he once said something
>>> close to those things, he has since clarified
>>> them.
Above, we find you simply and straightforwardly
lying.
Next, I document that you are lying:
>> Oh really? Absurd, is it? Since when have you
>> been a creationism apologist?
>> I quoted the part to which I am objecting that
>> he's claiming natural selection is "sequential -
>> not parallel" right off one of ReMine's _current
>> web pages_ from/about the book he wrote:
>> http://saintpaulscience.com/Haldane.htm See the
>> 4th footnote, first "page".
Next, you try to defend your lie with yet another
lie, that you are too ignorant of mathematics to
read the simple line of multiplications and
divisions there with understanding, even though
ReMine helpfully spelled out every constants'
meaning.
> Right. You quote the footnote accurately. Then
> you INFER that "this little piece of cretinism
> ...pretends only one gene allele is being fixed at
> a time in the entire population, and that the
> fixing is done sequentially rather than in
> parallel,..."
> Would you mind sketching the logic leading you to
> the conclusion that that pretense is being made?
> Especially since you had to read past footnote 2
> to get to footnote 4.
Now just how far do you think your game of
pretending to be "perplexed == ignorant" is suppose
to carry you in your litany of lies before you get
nailed?
: IGNORANCE
: 1.a. INVINCIBLE IGNORANCE - a person does not :
something, and he could not have reasonably been :
expected to know it under the circumstances. If :
a person is invincibly ignorant of a fact, he is :
not responsible.
This scam has been going on for over a millennium,
since Saint Thomas Aquinas put it forth as an excuse
for someone not to be condemned to Hell by God for
the non-sin of never having heard of God and of the
Holy Roman Catholic Church.
Today, on Usenet, and for our purposes, we pretty
much reverse the meaning.
We define "invincible ignorance", to mean "ignorance
originating in a deliberate and stubborn refusal to
learn, usually to defend some belief which factual
input would destroy" rather than "ignorance which it
is not possible for the sufferer to overcome by any
means at his/her disposal" as Aquinas defined it.
Sometimes, also, the Usenet version is interpreted
as "a debate tactic involving repeatedly faking
abject ignorance to win an argument by exhausting
all of those trying to teach one a facet of
reality". The Usenet lackwits playing the game that
way number in legions.
Talk.origins has _many_ practitioners of that
tactic.
[It's worth noting that the Saint Thomas Aquinas
interpretation was turned around 180 degrees, in
horror, by the next commentator for the HRC
Church, because the political situation had
changed with an upsurge of new heresies, and it
became necessary for the Church to claim that God
condemned even the innocently ignorant to Hell,
to convince the heritics that by rebelling
against the HRCC they were condemning their
children to Hellfire. Funnier yet is that the
next commentator did this while claiming to be
agreeing entirely with and merely "clarifying"
what Aquinas had said.]
When you claim to be unable to read simple math,
this looks a lot like your flavor of ignorance in
action: deliberate ignorance, deliberately
undertaken to support an overt or covert agenda, in
this case, support for creationism.
But maybe you're further along the scale of
culpability.
: b. VINCIBLE IGNORANCE - a person has not made :
adequate effort under the circumstance to find :
out necessary information.
Yeah, pretending to have flunked sixth grade math is
probably "inadequate effort".
: c. CRASS IGNORANCE - a person has not made ANY :
effort to find out the truth.
That's even a better match for your posting; both
ReMine and I spelled out the answer, and you _still_
pretend that you don't get it.
: In the legal world, IGNORANCE OF THE LAW does :
not diminish responsibility before the courts. :
Lawmen consider it the duty of everyone to know :
the law.
We only consider it to be incumbant upon you to be
able to read simple math in talk.origins IF you are
going to COMMENT ON, oh, say, someone else's
interpretation of simple math. If you can keep your
innumeracy out of site, nobody cares.
: IGNORANCE of FACT may excuse one before a court
of law.
How lucky for the rest of us that rules of fair play
don't apply here when outing a creationist troll
like you.
http://vaxxine.com/hyoomik/ethics/ethics1993.html
> Anyone who is at all familiar with the Haldane
> Dilemma subject would know that the whole point of
> the argument is to wonder whether too many alleles
> proceeding to fixation in parallel might interfere
> with each other in some way. Haldane concluded
> that they would interfere because they are all
> 'competing' for the same limiting resource -
> selective deaths.
Which is nonsense, the deaths are happening anyway,
since pretty much every species saturates its
habitat in one way or other, and produces far more
offspring than can possibly survive in a resource
limited environment, often thousands of times more.
This makes the species a huge part of its own
environment, and of its selective pressure, and so
if some other environmental change occurs that
selects preferentially (not absolutely, the
catastrophic environmental changes usually cause
extinctions, the survivable environmental changes
are normally gradual) against all but the few
population members bearing a coveted allele, the
pressure in comparison to the species against itself
pressure will be minor, there will be lots of time
for evolution (which works on tiny fitness
differences) to work.
If the population continues to drop due to this
external environmental change, the first drop in
population below the carrying capacity of the rest
of the environment provides a _huge_ boost in
fitness even to the members not bearing the coveted
allele: the resources just got more plentiful per
population member.
How long ago did Haldane's thesis start being
deconstructed? Long enough ago that creationists,
were "intelligent creationists" not an oxymoron,
ought to know better than still to be defending it:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v219/n5159/abs/2191114a0.html
> But clearly you know nothing about the Haldane
> controversy.
You got your degree in extra-sensory perception
then?
Since you can't even read the math, it is sure hard
to believe you are learning anything about my
knowledge of the Haldane "controversy" from reading
my interpretation of a single line of math,
That "controversy"'s like talking about "the
evolution 'controversy'"; there's only a controversy
if you reject science: evolution is right, it works,
it is seen to work in the field.
Haldane was wrong, the reasons he was wrong were
long ago spelled out, only the those with the
creationist mindset that finds itself still clinging
to Piltdown Man as the killer bad example to
discredit _all_ fossil evidence of human evolution
are those clinging to Haldane's simplistic and
superseded calculation as "controversial".
Better minds have long since dismissed it.
For me, I prove in my computer that Haldane was
wrong, wrong in my case because his hypothesizing
failed to consider the Schema Theory viewpoint
computer scientists use to explain the speed of
evolution.
Abstract: In the light of a recently derived
evolution equation for genetic algorithms we
consider the schema theorem and the building
block hypothesis. We derive a schema theorem
based on the concept of effective fitness
showing that schemata of higher than average
effective fitness receive an exponentially
increasing number of trials over time. The
equation makes manifest the content of the
building block hypothesis showing how fit
schemata are constructed from fit sub-schemata.
In easy words, what the above is saying is that as
fitter genes accumulate several at a time into
genomes, the rate at which they are selected
by fitness increases exponentially. Exponential
growth always drowns any linear variable, like
"time" or "generations". QED, Haldane was wrong.
Since at any time a population will normally have
_lots_ of fitness-enhancing genes competing for
expression chances as phenotypes, normally
_every_ newly mutated fitness enhancing gene
will quickly join other such genes and segue
into that demesne of being subject to
exponentially increasing selection pressure.
[The same reference _may_ help explain the
prevalence of "junk DNA"; the abstract goes on
to say: "However, we show that, generically,
there is no preference for short, low-order
schemata. In the case where schema
reconstruction is favored over schema
destruction, large schemata tend to be favored."
which may or may not be the same thing as "long
genomes tend to be favored" but has that
flavor.]
ReMine is evidently, as an avowed creationist, not
quite willing to let Haldane go yet, despite that
his Haldane "lifesaver for creationism" is just
another boat-anchor dragging creationism down.
> But you do know creationists, you think, and you
> know that they always lie, are always stupid, and
> always distort.
I can't really say that about all creationists, just
all of the ones posting to talk.origins. That's
probably only a modest sample of the millions of
deluded victims brainwashed to ignore science in
favor of creationism while still too young to defend
themselves.
The need for the decision of the Dover court shows
as clearly as it is possible to depict that this
game of brainwashing the very young as a top goal of
creationism is still ongoing today.
> So you figured you would show off your
> knowlege(sic).
Let's see, I made a statement about ReMine's
writing, you called me a liar, I proved my statement
to be correct with a URL to the source in ReMine's
writing, you continued to call me a liar.
You came to this newsgroup on the short bus, right?
For sure, with your currently displayed learning
capacity, you'll be leaving the same way.
> With friends like you, evolution doesn't need
> enemies.
Oh, right, what evolution needs is what creationism
already has, people who prefer to show off their
_ignorance_ -- NOT.
>> Don't bother telling me he claims to intend to
>> "fix it later"; that beginning is an example of
>> the well known truth of deduction in classical
>> logic: from false premises, anything at all may
>> be "proved".
>> So, it seems you have joined the creationists in
>> their persistent lying.
>> Not that you hadn't been throwing off that
>> perfume for quite a while anyway.
> Wonderful. Lets have a chorus of that old
> organizing song:
Funny thing, where sock-puppets and trolls abound,
and killfiles are just itching to be populated, the
membership of Usenet finds it quite important to
pick out the scam artists in the crowd for
appropriate handling. If you don't care for labels,
don't behave like a stereotype.
> Our side is pure, the other side is lying, and
> "don't you dare call me mistaken when I invent
> some lies to put in their mouths".
As you did. Repeatedly. And have yet to apologize
for doing. Keep digging, China is further down yet.
xanthian.
Bobby Bryant
>
>>Talk.origins article CB121 misrepresents its opponents. See:
>>
>>http://SaintPaulScience.com/talk_origins.htm
>>
>>http://SaintPaulScience.com/Robert_Williams.htm
>>
>>Creationist By Science
>
> One should realize that Isaak's index (of which CB121 is a part) is
> replete with mistakes and misrepresentations.
Feel free to post specific examples.
> I have demonstrated over (at least) a 10 year period that Isaak is
> largely and grossly ignorant of creationism and ID theory and
> doesn't give a hoot about changing that condition.
I've read hundreds of your posts here, and the only think I've ever
seen you demonstrate is that you're a dishonest propagandist who
keeps repeating claims long after they've been refuted. (Along
with other claims that are so weasely that they are too content-free
to refute.)
Bobby Bryant
Bobby Bryant
"Perplexed in Peoria" <jimme...@sbcglobal.net> writes:
>
> "Bobby Bryant" <bdbr...@wherever.ur> wrote in message news:Khm9h.2862$yf7...@newssvr21.news.prodigy.net...
>> In article <apagano-ghgbm29k7v3qe...@4ax.com>,
>> T Pagano <not....@address.net> writes:
>> > On 22 Nov 2006 00:43:41 -0800, Creationist...@yahoo.com wrote:
>> >
>> >>Talk.origins article CB121 misrepresents its opponents. See:
>> >>
>> >>http://SaintPaulScience.com/talk_origins.htm
>> >>
>> >>http://SaintPaulScience.com/Robert_Williams.htm
>> >>
>> >>Creationist By Science
>> >
>> > One should realize that Isaak's index (of which CB121 is a part) is
>> > replete with mistakes and misrepresentations. The index is not a
>> > collection of actual misunderstandings or mistakes of creationism but
>> > a collection of misteps of some strawman that Isaak has deluded
>> > himself into believing.
>>
>> Your claim would be more convincing if you would cite specific examples.
>
> Er... This thread began with a complaint (by a ReMine sockpuppet)
> which DID cite specific examples. Then everybody jumped in
> criticizing ReMine for complaining too much.
I wasn't talking about ReMine; I merely asked Tony MacBlowhard to put
up or shut up.
If you want to chide me, chide me for wasting the bandwidth, since we
already know that he will do neither.
T Pagano
wrote:
>In article <apagano-ghgbm29k7v3qe...@4ax.com>,
> T Pagano <not....@address.net> writes:
>> On 22 Nov 2006 00:43:41 -0800, Creationist...@yahoo.com wrote:
>>
>>>Talk.origins article CB121 misrepresents its opponents. See:
>>>
>>>http://SaintPaulScience.com/talk_origins.htm
>>>
>>>http://SaintPaulScience.com/Robert_Williams.htm
>>>
>>>Creationist By Science
>>
>> One should realize that Isaak's index (of which CB121 is a part) is
>> replete with mistakes and misrepresentations.
>
>Feel free to post specific examples.
Isaak is so prone to misrepresentation and ignorance of the facts that
even his fellow evolutes are correcting him. In the recent thread,
"Haldane's dilemma and recent human evolution," Harshman is forced to
correct Isaak's obvious misrepresentation of Remine's position. Go to
the link:
http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/browse_thread/thread/5abc46d39f25bd98/68a84f831c0a8252?lnk=st&q=&rnum=1&hl=en#68a84f831c0a8252
>
>
>> I have demonstrated over (at least) a 10 year period that Isaak is
>> largely and grossly ignorant of creationism and ID theory and
>> doesn't give a hoot about changing that condition.
>
>I've read hundreds of your posts here, and the only think I've ever
>seen you demonstrate is that you're a dishonest propagandist who
>keeps repeating claims long after they've been refuted. (Along
>with other claims that are so weasely that they are too content-free
>to refute.)
Roughly 98 percent of my posts are corrections to atheist and
evolutionist misrepresentations of creationist and ID positions. One
could hardly characterize these as propaganda.
The claim that I have been refuted has been made so often by my
detractors in the forum as to be almost a mantra. Nonetheless it is
an unsubstantiated mantra. Everytime I've asked for just a single
link pointing to a refutation the atheists either cut and ran, or
produced a link that had nothing to do with the issue at hand, or in
rare cases actually supported my position.
I'll ask Bryant to produce a single link to a thread posted in the
last 5 years, in which I was a party wherein I was refuted. I would
be happy to concede if necessary.
I leave to the judgement of my fellow readers whether my posts are
content-free or worthy of criticism.
Regards,
T Pagano
wf3h
T Pagano wrote:
> >
> Roughly 98 percent of my posts are corrections to atheist and
> evolutionist
no connection here...
misrepresentations of creationist and ID positions.
definite connection here, according to the 'dover' decision
>
> The claim that I have been refuted has been made so often by my
> detractors in the forum as to be almost a mantra. Nonetheless it is
> an unsubstantiated mantra. Everytime I've asked for just a single
> link pointing to a refutation the atheists either cut and ran, or
> produced a link that had nothing to do with the issue at hand, or in
> rare cases actually supported my position.
well let's see. you used to scream how eyewitnesses at fatima could not
be dismissed, and were proof of miracles....so 'evolutionists' were
wrong...until i pointed out that protestant creationists don't accept
fatima, either. haven't seen you use that argument for awhile
so, yes, you have been refuted.
>
John Harshman
> On Tue, 23 Jan 2007 23:39:33 GMT, bdbr...@wherever.ur (Bobby Bryant)
> wrote:
>
>
>>In article <apagano-ghgbm29k7v3qe...@4ax.com>,
>> T Pagano <not....@address.net> writes:
>>
>>>On 22 Nov 2006 00:43:41 -0800, Creationist...@yahoo.com wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>Talk.origins article CB121 misrepresents its opponents. See:
>>>>
>>>>http://SaintPaulScience.com/talk_origins.htm
>>>>
>>>>http://SaintPaulScience.com/Robert_Williams.htm
>>>>
>>>>Creationist By Science
>>>
>>>One should realize that Isaak's index (of which CB121 is a part) is
>>>replete with mistakes and misrepresentations.
>>
>>Feel free to post specific examples.
>
> Isaak is so prone to misrepresentation and ignorance of the facts that
> even his fellow evolutes are correcting him. In the recent thread,
> "Haldane's dilemma and recent human evolution," Harshman is forced to
> correct Isaak's obvious misrepresentation of Remine's position. Go to
> the link:
> http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/browse_thread/thread/5abc46d39f25bd98/68a84f831c0a8252?lnk=st&q=&rnum=1&hl=en#68a84f831c0a8252
Isaak being wrong seems like quite a rare event to me, in contrast to
your performance, where you're wrong in just about every post.
You were invited to explain in detail why the Index is "replete with
mistakes and misrepresentations". Now in my book "replete" would require
that a large fraction of the entries are like that. But so far we only
know of one. Why have you declined your opportunity to list more examples?
>>>I have demonstrated over (at least) a 10 year period that Isaak is
>>>largely and grossly ignorant of creationism and ID theory and
>>>doesn't give a hoot about changing that condition.
>>
>>I've read hundreds of your posts here, and the only think I've ever
>>seen you demonstrate is that you're a dishonest propagandist who
>>keeps repeating claims long after they've been refuted. (Along
>>with other claims that are so weasely that they are too content-free
>>to refute.)
>
> Roughly 98 percent of my posts are corrections to atheist and
> evolutionist misrepresentations of creationist and ID positions. One
> could hardly characterize these as propaganda.
I've read many of them. One could hardly characterize them as
corrections. To do so is...propaganda.
> The claim that I have been refuted has been made so often by my
> detractors in the forum as to be almost a mantra. Nonetheless it is
> an unsubstantiated mantra. Everytime I've asked for just a single
> link pointing to a refutation the atheists either cut and ran, or
> produced a link that had nothing to do with the issue at hand, or in
> rare cases actually supported my position.
Notice that Pagano equates opposition to his claims with atheism, just
one of the errors he makes continually. Face it, Tony. You're the one
who cuts and runs. If you were sincere about contesting issues, you
would go back and search for unanswered replies to your posts, of which
there are many. Even if you limit yourself to responses to my posts,
there are plenty to keep you busy.
> I'll ask Bryant to produce a single link to a thread posted in the
> last 5 years, in which I was a party wherein I was refuted. I would
> be happy to concede if necessary.
>
> I leave to the judgement of my fellow readers whether my posts are
> content-free or worthy of criticism.
I'm a fellow reader, and I agree with Bryant.
Bobby Bryant
T Pagano <not....@address.net> writes:
> I'll ask Bryant to produce a single link to a thread posted in the
> last 5 years, in which I was a party wherein I was refuted.
Gee, this took about a second longer than it took to type in the search
terms:
<http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/f44553537dd01a7e>
You misrepresent the NFLT almost every time you mention it.
> I would be happy to concede if necessary.
I advise lurkers not to hold their breaths.
Let the weaselry begin!
Lee Oswald Ving
> On Tue, 23 Jan 2007 23:39:33 GMT, bdbr...@wherever.ur (Bobby Bryant)
> wrote:
>
>>In article <apagano-ghgbm29k7v3qe...@4ax.com>,
>> T Pagano <not....@address.net> writes:
>>> On 22 Nov 2006 00:43:41 -0800, Creationist...@yahoo.com
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>>Talk.origins article CB121 misrepresents its opponents. See:
>>>>
>>>>http://SaintPaulScience.com/talk_origins.htm
>>>>
>>>>http://SaintPaulScience.com/Robert_Williams.htm
>>>>
>>>>Creationist By Science
>>>
>>> One should realize that Isaak's index (of which CB121 is a part) is
>>> replete with mistakes and misrepresentations.
>>
>>Feel free to post specific examples.
>
> Isaak is so prone to misrepresentation and ignorance of the facts that
> even his fellow evolutes are correcting him. In the recent thread,
> "Haldane's dilemma and recent human evolution," Harshman is forced to
> correct Isaak's obvious misrepresentation of Remine's position. Go to
> the link:
> http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/browse_thread/thread/5abc46
> d39f25bd98/68a84f831c0a8252?lnk=st&q=&rnum=1&hl=en#68a84f831c0a8252
And the "misrepresentations" that Tony Tony Pagano found are where,
exactly?
>>> I have demonstrated over (at least) a 10 year period that Isaak is
>>> largely and grossly ignorant of creationism and ID theory and
>>> doesn't give a hoot about changing that condition.
>>
>>I've read hundreds of your posts here, and the only think I've ever
>>seen you demonstrate is that you're a dishonest propagandist who
>>keeps repeating claims long after they've been refuted. (Along
>>with other claims that are so weasely that they are too content-free
>>to refute.)
>
> Roughly 98 percent of my posts are corrections to atheist and
> evolutionist misrepresentations of creationist and ID positions.
...yet when we re-examine those positions, we find that Pagano's claims
are so far off in left field I doubt prominent Creationists would
appreciate the "support."
> One
> could hardly characterize these as propaganda.
One could hardly characterize them as anything else - without lying.
> The claim that I have been refuted has been made so often by my
> detractors in the forum as to be almost a mantra.
Do I sense an attempt to shift the blame of your classicly poor
performance from your own unesteemed self?
Why, I believe I do.
> Nonetheless it is
> an unsubstantiated mantra.
Tell me, Pagano - have you *ever* made an effort to correct you jaw-
dropping ignorance of the history of christian scripture?
> Everytime I've asked for just a single
> link pointing to a refutation the atheists either cut and ran,
That's a pretty sordid lie for the creator of the Pagano Mercy Rule(TM).
(AKA the hybridized Sir Robin/Black Knight Defense).
> or
> produced a link that had nothing to do with the issue at hand, or in
> rare cases actually supported my position.
http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/browse_frm/thread/3c0e7783a3f
619a5/6102fb1df2f2729c?lnk=st&q=&rnum=6&hl=en#6102fb1df2f2729c
> I'll ask Bryant to produce a single link to a thread posted in the
> last 5 years, in which I was a party wherein I was refuted.
Well, that was obscenely simple.
Here's another one, with suitably hypocritical title:
"As suspected Carnegie, who is little more than a cheerleader, FOLDED."
Of course, Pagano "folded" in the face of Carnegie, Harshman, Casanova
and Linthompson - just to name the thread participants he actually
responded to but 'mysteriously' dropped - but, hey, reality has never
really stood in his way, has it?
> I would be happy to concede if necessary.
I've got money on shouts of "atheist" and "mercy rule".
Faintly, from the distance.
> I leave to the judgement of my fellow readers whether my posts are
> content-free or worthy of criticism.
Were that true, you would have either shifted tactics or stopped posting
long ago, saving yourself a metric tonne of embarrassment.
Bobby Bryant
Lee Oswald Ving <leeo...@yahoo.com> writes:
> T Pagano <not....@address.net> wrote in
> news:apagano-kd9dr29dt11qj...@4ax.com:
>> I would be happy to concede if necessary.
>
> I've got money on shouts of "atheist" and "mercy rule".
I'll be surprised if he answers at all.
If he does, he'll probably just deny that the examples actually refute
him. (That about the usual relation between his claims and reality.)
T Pagano
wrote:
>In article <apagano-kd9dr29dt11qj...@4ax.com>,
> T Pagano <not....@address.net> writes:
>
>> I'll ask Bryant to produce a single link to a thread posted in the
>> last 5 years, in which I was a party wherein I was refuted.
>
>Gee, this took about a second longer than it took to type in the search
>terms:
>
><http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/f44553537dd01a7e>
>
>You misrepresent the NFLT almost every time you mention it.
I applaud Bryant for quickly producing a link since many of his
cronies, like Harshman, Thompson, Casanova, and Carnegie all lacked
the confidence to produce anything but hot air. However nowhere here
does Bryant state what my position was nor where that position was
mistaken. It's not clear that he does any better in his 08-23-03 post
to which his above link points.
I've quoted Bryant's 08-23-03 post in its entirety below and offered
some observations. In responding I'm referring to "No Free Lunch
Theorems for Opimization," David H Wolpert, William G Macready, Dec
31, 1996.
>
>
>> I would be happy to concede if necessary.
>
>I advise lurkers not to hold their breaths.
>
>Let the weaselry begin!
****************************************************************************************
[BEGIN QUOTE OF BRYANTS 08-23-03 POST]*******************************
>On Wed, 13 Aug 2003 01:56:57 +0000, A Pagano wrote:
>>Otherwise, the fundamental claim of these theorems is that when averaged
>>across fitness functions, evolutionary algorithms cannot outperform a
>>blind search. The NFL theorems provide a best case senario; that is,
>>the neoDarwian mechanism can be no better than a blind search.
>>"Revisiting" the same possibilities (if that's what Stockwell means by
>>"revisiting") within the space of possible solutions for a complex
>>specified target could make the situation worse for the neoDarwinian
>>mechanism not better.
><snip>
>> Actually Dawkins clearly implied----with his computer model of a
>> evolutionary algorithm (the "Weasel" algorithm)----that the neoDarwinian
>> mechanism "is" intrinsically more efficient. The NFL theorems prove
>> that the neoDarwinian mechanism can be no better than a blind search.
>> The NFL theorems dashed Dawkins's position. A position which he and
>> other evolutionists attempted to carve out because they were well aware
>> of the magnitude of the possibilities the evolutionary algorithm had to
>> search and the finite time available to conduct the search.
>> Compounding the problem of the magnitude of the search is that nature
>> does not allow infinite free play but places constraints on the search
>> of the possibilities. For example: Mutations are not equally probable
>> for all loci. And the error correction mechanism is highly effective in
>> attenuating the possibilities (that is, the mutations) that can occur to
>> even be acted upon by natural selection.
><snip>
>The No Free Lunch Theorem (NFLT) is based on a peculiar definition of
>"problem" and an even more peculiar definition of "performs well", which
>makes it of dubious interest to computer scientists, let alone to
>biologists.
From Wolpert's Abstract section (to "No Free Lunch Theorems for
Optimization") he wrote: "A framework is developed to explore the
connection between effective optimization algorithms and the problems
they are solving." There's nothing pecular about the label "problem"
here. Wolpert is referring to a broad class of problems for which
some set of optimization algorithms may be brought to bear.
In Wolpert's Preliminaries section to the referenced report he defines
optimization problems "f" in mathematical terms in preparation for his
analysis. If there is anything peculiar I don't see it nor does
Bryant illuminate the peculiarity.
>Very importantly, your "cannot outperform a blind search" is a crude
>misrepresentation of the actual theorem, which actually states that the
>_expected value_ of a randomly selected algorithm on a randomly selected
>problem is equal to the _expected value_ for a blind search. The theorem
>does *not* say -- and if you had read the papers you'd know that Wolpert
>and McReady take the trouble to point this out explicitly -- does *not*
>say that _no_ algorithm can perform better than a blind search on _any_
>problem. Not only does the theorem neither say nor imply any such thing,
>but simple experiments can demonstrate the falsity of that kind of claim
>as well. See e.g.
>http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/bdbryant/talk-origins/ga-on-tsp/index....
>for a simple counterexample.
Since Bryant never provided a citation or quotes from Wolpert's works
neither I nor anyone else can fact check this claim. I on the other
hand will quote from Wolpert's Dec 31, 1996, "No Free Lunch Theorems
for Optimization."
From Wolpert's Introduction to his report: "Roughly speaking, we show
that for both static and time dependent optimization problems, the
average performance of any pair of algorithms across all possible
problems is exactly identical......This is true even if one of the
algorithms is random; any algorithm a1 performs worse than randomly
just as readitly (over the set of all optimization problems) as it
performs better than randomly."
From Wolpert's Theorem 10 section: ( With regard to search algorithms)
"In this sense, just as there are no universally efficacious search
algorithms, there are no universally benign f [optimization problems]
which can be assured of resulting in better than random performance
regardless of one's algorithm."
>Dembski's invocation of the NFLT is like calculating that the expected
>value of a roll of a fair die is 3.5 and then crying "goddidit" when you
>roll a 3 instead of the "expected" 3.5.
Bryant pretty much misses the boat, and his quote here demonstrates
that he has never read Wolpert's report and has no idea what it
entails.
Generalizing, the NFL theorems show conclusively that how effectively
an algorithm locates a target within a finite number of steps is
independent of the algorithm----in other words it is the same for all
algorithms. And since blind and random searches always constitute
perfectly valid algorithms this means that the average performance of
any algorithm is no better than these.
Responding to the rest is waste of time. Bryant's misunderstanding
here and his gross misunderstandings of the scientific enterprise in
general as demonstrated by his "window washer" thought experiment will
always leave Bryant on the wrong end of the stick.
Better luck next time buckoo.
>And remember, _that_ misrepresentation is layered on top of the more
>complex problem of mapping biology onto the definitions of "problem" and
>"performs well" that the theorem is built on to begin with. Tell us,
>please, what _is_ the nature of the fitness function of the "problem"
>represented by biological evolution, and how "well" has biological
>evolution actually performed on that problem historically?
>Hint: I don't feel like writing a technical essay tonight, but the
>performance measure of the NFLT is a histogram of all attempted solutions
>so far -- *attempted* solutions, catastrophic failures included. So once
>you figure out what fitness function you're trying to score biological
>evolution on, you have to count in not only the wonderful successes, but
>also all the fertilizations that didn't take, all the spontaneous
>abortions, all the stillborns, all the species that have gone extinct,
>etc., to get the histogram of "goodness" of performance so far. And even
>if you take the trouble to do all that and discover that evolution really
>has beat the odds, all you've done is the equivalent of showing that you
>rolled a 4 instead of the "expected" 3.5 on a die. The NFLT doesn't
>disallow the equivalent of rolling fours, ones, sixes, or any other
>possible value.
>There simply isn't any evolution denial argument to be made by invoking
>the NFLT except another tired old fine tuning argument, and even if that's
>all you're hoping for you're going to disappointed to find out how much
>more work it's going to take than the traditional fine tuning arguments,
>and how undazzling the argument is going to be even if you do go through
>the trouble of making it.
--
>Bobby Bryant
>Austin, Texas
[END QUOTE OF BRYANT'S 08-23-03 POST]*********************************
*****************************************************************************************
Regards,
T Pagano
RAM
On Jan 26, 8:18 pm, T Pagano <not.va...@address.net> wrote:
> On Wed, 24 Jan 2007 03:19:31 GMT, bdbry...@wherever.ur (Bobby Bryant)
> wrote:
>
> >In article <apagano-kd9dr29dt11qjdsnjnjs4qfqu5htbf5...@4ax.com>,
> > T Pagano <not.va...@address.net> writes:
>
> >> I'll ask Bryant to produce a single link to a thread posted in the
> >> last 5 years, in which I was a party wherein I was refuted.
>
> >Gee, this took about a second longer than it took to type in the search
> >terms:
>
> ><http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/f44553537dd01a7e>
>
> >You misrepresent the NFLT almost every time you mention it.I applaud Bryant for quickly producing a link since many of his
> >biologists.From Wolpert's Abstract section (to "No Free Lunch Theorems forOptimization") he wrote: "A framework is developed to explore theconnection between effective optimization algorithms and the problems
> they are solving." There's nothing pecular about the label "problem"
> here. Wolpert is referring to a broad class of problems for which
> some set of optimization algorithms may be brought to bear.
>
> In Wolpert's Preliminaries section to the referenced report he defines
> optimization problems "f" in mathematical terms in preparation for his
> analysis. If there is anything peculiar I don't see it nor does
> Bryant illuminate the peculiarity.
>
> >Very importantly, your "cannot outperform a blind search" is a crude
> >misrepresentation of the actual theorem, which actually states that the
> >_expected value_ of a randomly selected algorithm on a randomly selected
> >problem is equal to the _expected value_ for a blind search. The theorem
> >does *not* say -- and if you had read the papers you'd know that Wolpert
> >and McReady take the trouble to point this out explicitly -- does *not*
> >say that _no_ algorithm can perform better than a blind search on _any_
> >problem. Not only does the theorem neither say nor imply any such thing,
> >but simple experiments can demonstrate the falsity of that kind of claim
> >as well. See e.g.
> >http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/bdbryant/talk-origins/ga-on-tsp/index....
> >for a simple counterexample.Since Bryant never provided a citation or quotes from Wolpert's works
> neither I nor anyone else can fact check this claim. I on the other
> hand will quote from Wolpert's Dec 31, 1996, "No Free Lunch Theorems
> for Optimization."
>
> From Wolpert's Introduction to his report: "Roughly speaking, we show
> that for both static and time dependent optimization problems, the
> average performance of any pair of algorithms across all possible
> problems is exactly identical......This is true even if one of the
> algorithms is random; any algorithm a1 performs worse than randomly
> just as readitly (over the set of all optimization problems) as it
> performs better than randomly."
>
> From Wolpert's Theorem 10 section: ( With regard to search algorithms)
> "In this sense, just as there are no universally efficacious search
> algorithms, there are no universally benign f [optimization problems]
> which can be assured of resulting in better than random performance
> regardless of one's algorithm."
>
> >Dembski's invocation of the NFLT is like calculating that the expected
> >value of a roll of a fair die is 3.5 and then crying "goddidit" when you
> >roll a 3 instead of the "expected" 3.5.Bryant pretty much misses the boat, and his quote here demonstrates
> that he has never read Wolpert's report and has no idea what it
> entails.
>
> Generalizing, the NFL theorems show conclusively that how effectively
> an algorithm locates a target within a finite number of steps is
> independent of the algorithm----in other words it is the same for all
> algorithms. And since blind and random searches always constitute
> perfectly valid algorithms this means that the average performance of
> any algorithm is no better than these.
>
> Responding to the rest is waste of time. Bryant's misunderstanding
> here and his gross misunderstandings of the scientific enterprise in
> general as demonstrated by his "window washer" thought experiment will
> always leave Bryant on the wrong end of the stick.
JUMPING IN AND ON
Bluffing and bloviation is your forte. You are correct to not
responding to the rest of his post since it will be more of the same.
You are the Dick "Distortion" Cheney of talk origins. Your religious
commitments make you look like a fool when it comes to science.
Below is a post I wrote in reponse to your silly posturing when
responding to Steven J's excellent critique of your attempts to
"distort" science.
See my comments at the end of this insertion.
RAM
"LONG INSERT:"
BEGIN POST
Rich
Mathers
View profile
More options Aug 25 2004, 10:27 am
- Hide quoted text -
T Pagano wrote:
> On Sun, 22 Aug 2004 22:20:25 +0000 (UTC), "Steven J."
> <sjt1957NOS...@nts.link.net.INVALID> wrote:
>>"T Pagano" <not.va...@address.net> wrote in message
>>news:apagano-10jhi0l6396fr...@4ax.com...
>>>On Sun, 22 Aug 2004 03:45:29 +0000 (UTC), "Fencingsax"
>>><christo...@aol.com> wrote:
>>>>I'm sure that the majority of people on t.o would have no problems at
>>>>all if creationism were taught in a RELIGION class. That is, a class
>>>>on comparative religion. (Hell, we did creation myths in 9th grade
>>>>English).
>>>Pagano replies:
>>>The central myth of modern secular science is that matter and its
>>>properties are sufficient to explain all events in space-time. This
>>>is NOT a first order claim of science but an UNSCIENTIFIC metaphysical
>>>claim about nature. If there are scientific tests of this claim no
>>>one has produced them.
>>You are mistaken here. In _Consilience_, a book by professed atheist Edward
>>O. Wilson, Wilson contemplates, and indeed opines for the probable truth of,
>>the possibility that there are aspects of "events in space-time" that
>>science will *never* enable us to understand. This is not a particularly
>>exotic or controversial view among "modern secularists." Pretty obviously,
>>it's hard to insist that "matter and its properties" account for all
>>phenomena, if we're simultaneously insisting that we don't know and may
>>never know what accounts for *all* phenomena.
>>Rather, the question is, what sort of causes can actually *explain* any sort
>>of phenomenon?
> Pagano replies:
> Modern secularists have decided a priori that they will limit what
> causes can be considered in accordance with the guidance provided by
> the unscientific philosophy of Naturalism.
Oxymoron. All philosophy is unscientific. If you think not
demonstrate
otherwise.
> There is nothing
> necessarily devious about this decision; scientists have always
> employed their metaphyscial world views to guide their search for
> answers.
Document this "have always." You can't because it's another one of
your
empty rhetorical pontifications. Your numerous assertions about
science
are orthogonal to scientific practice.
> However, they must be prepared to accept criticism of this
> world view (Naturalism) and show that it is superior to others.
It's your straw man. You fail at several levels to understand science.
- Hide quoted text -
>>To "explain" a phenomenon -- to say why it is one way rather
>>than some other conceivable way
> Pagano replies:
> To explain an event is to show that given a set of intial conditions
> conjoined to some causitive action (forces, chemical reactions,
> introduction of energy, etc.) that "only" that event will occur.
>>-- a cause has to have some sort of
>>discoverable, regular nature according to which it acts.
> Pagano replies:
> This is a metaphysical claim about nature not a first order claim of
> science.
Pontificating without insight into the practice of science reveals you
to be less than the amateur you claim to be.
> In fact our background knowledge contains very few
> regularities.
> While there may be some regularities in nature Steven
> J's metaphysical notion that every event in space-time is the result
> of some regularity of nature is uniformitarianism which is also a
> metaphysical claim about nature not a first order testable claim of
> science.
Silly comment on uniformatarianism again reveals ignorance of the
practice of science. Your philosophical whinings are also irrelevant
to
the practice of science.
> It is also a very weak metaphysical view which secularists employ
> heavily but (like Naturalism) deny once its isolated from their
> theories.
You are thoroughly confused!
>>One must be able
>>to detect and predict regularities in the empirical consequences of that
>>particular cause.
> Pagano replies:
> An "empirical consequence" is an observable state of affairs left
> after an event has occurred.
Bloviation!
> "Empirical consequences" will be found
> only if our theory about the event is correct
That is a really stupid statement. "Empirical consequences" are found
whether the theory is correct or not.
> and gives us a clue
> where to look.
Correct but there is much more to it than this. And your failure to
understand this leads to a hackneyed view of science.
> Unfortunately if our metaphysical world view about nature arbitrarily
> limits where we may look for theories (that is, what theories we will
> permit to be considered) then we may well not predict the correct
> consequences and not look in the right place.
Prolixity is not profundity. Science has limits but it is not due to
some preconcieved metaphysical problems that you make up.
> This is precisely the
> problem. Naturalism excludes a whole class of possibilities and
> secularists have yet to offer much of a rebuttal for the criticism of
> this unscientific philosophy.
Straw man. Demontrate where it has these scientific limitations in the
literature or be seen as "the pontificator par excellence!"
>Things are even a little more sticky
> for Steven J.
Just the opposite. It is you who misunderstands the practice of
science.
> Origins investigations; that is, Big Bang, Cosmogonies, abiogenesis
> and evolutionary biology are historical investigations involving
> unique, non recurring, unobservable and experimentally unreproducible
> events not the search for regularities.
Blovating. Regularities can be found from the "empirical consequences"
of unique events.
> As a result
> secularists/atheists have relied even more heavily on naturalism,
> uniformitarianism, the Copernican principle, and the anthropic
> principle. All are unscientific metaphysical claims about nature.
The above are straw man distortions about the practice of science.
> But so is supernaturalism.
True "supernaturalism" is "unscientific."
On this we agree.
>>Acting in space-time with predictable effects is what
>>*makes* something, for scientific purposes, a "methodologically natural"
>>cause.
> Pagano replies:
> What on earth is a "methodologically natural" cause?
If you understood the practice of science as Steve J does you would not
write the three irrelevent paragraphs below. They again reveal your
ignorance of the practice of science.
This could be corrected of course but then you would have no amateur
"straw man' arguments to pose as scientific problems.
- Hide quoted text -
> As used recently by secularists "methodological naturalism" is the
> doctrine of restricting our investigations, theories and tests to
> those events, initial conditions, and forces which are "directly"
> observable. This is the ostensible "sword" used to eliminate
> supernaturalism, but unfortunately it eliminates a whole host of
> theories which secularists/atheists hold sacrosanct.
> Once backed into this corner "methodological naturalism" is then
> modified to include unobservable forces which have empirical
> consequences. Unfortunately this includes supernatural action which
> can have empirical consequences. Backed into another corner.
> In philsophy "methodological naturalism" is the metaphysical child of
> Naturalism. It is the doctrine wherein knowledge can only be obtained
> by investigating natural objects. Of course this throws mathematics
> and other disciplines out the window. Steven J really has nowhere to
> hide.
> snip
> Regards,
> T Pagano
END LONG QUOTE
Well BUCKEROO you failed to respond to these criticisms. Let me guess
the excuses you will come up with: 1) I did not see it. 2) I am far
to busy to post something that requires me to justify my
pontifications. Oops not that one for sure. Oh well, I'm sure you
have one. 3) Is it the one where you declare science assumptions are
all wrong and even as an amateur it is so obviously true. I like this
one. It makes amateur status equivalent to a PhD. That seems to be
the one employed in the reproduced post above. See what you can do to
demonstrate I'm incorrect in my critique of your pontifications.
I look forward to your idiocies (well not really).
Regards
RAM
> >the trouble of making it.-->Bobby Bryant
Bobby Bryant
T Pagano <not....@address.net> writes:
> Responding to the rest is waste of time. Bryant's misunderstanding
> here and his gross misunderstandings of the scientific enterprise in
> general as demonstrated by his "window washer" thought experiment will
> always leave Bryant on the wrong end of the stick.
BTW, it was "windshield wipers", and it wasn't a thought experiment.
It was a simple observation that despite all your rants about how
scientists err by failing to consider supernatural explanations, you
wouldn't pause for a moment to consider a supernatural explanation
when your windshield wipers quit working. Rather, you would go about
troubleshooting them by applying naturalistic methods guided by
naturalistic assumptions, or by paying someone else to do the same
thing.
And you confirmed my point with a blanket claim that miracles don't
happen to automobiles.
(Is it hard to read t.o. with that beam in your eye?)
T Pagano
wrote:
>In article <apagano-jb3lr2tqeooaf...@4ax.com>,
> T Pagano <not....@address.net> writes:
>
>> Responding to the rest is waste of time. Bryant's misunderstanding
>> here and his gross misunderstandings of the scientific enterprise in
>> general as demonstrated by his "window washer" thought experiment will
>> always leave Bryant on the wrong end of the stick.
>
>BTW, it was "windshield wipers", and it wasn't a thought experiment.
>It was a simple observation that despite all your rants about how
>scientists err by failing to consider supernatural explanations, you
>wouldn't pause for a moment to consider a supernatural explanation
>when your windshield wipers quit working. Rather, you would go about
>troubleshooting them by applying naturalistic methods guided by
>naturalistic assumptions, or by paying someone else to do the same
>thing.
It was a thought experiment.
BACKGROUND
Bryant suggested on 01-21-2004 that Goodrich and Pagano offer
suggestions about how one might troubleshoot a failed window washer
system on an automobile. Bryant thought that if we went through the
mental exercise it would show that the secularist practice of
excluding all non naturalistic presuppositions for "every" event in
space-time was both intuitive and correct.
Problem was the troubleshooting of a machine (vehicle window washer
system) and attempting to reconstruct unique historical events (like
the emergence of biological diversity over time) which were never
observed are almost mutually exclusive tasks. Bryant was disabused of
this 3 years ago, but I'd love to rub his nose in the gross
misunderstanding yet again.
WHERE BRYANT WENT WRONG
1. Bryant's window washer thought experiment indicates that he
incorrectly makes no distinction between or incorrectly conflates:
a. technology (by intelligent design of which the window
washer is a product) ,
b. the scientific search for regularities in nature
(discovering the properties of matter which will occur by
necessity), and
c. conducting a scientific historical investigation of a
unique causal history (like the orgin of the solar system, life, and
biological diversity where there is no scientific reason for
excluding intelligent design)
2. Bryant incorrectly assumes that creationists make his mistake in
(1) and fail to draw any distinction between the three.
3. No one would exclude intelligent design in (1a) and the
presumption to exclude intelligent design in (1c) is not a scientific
one.
>
>And you confirmed my point with a blanket claim that miracles don't
>happen to automobiles.
Of course Bryant fails to produce a single quote from a single one of
my 1600+ posts available at the Google archive to substantiate this
conclusion. Christians never exclude the posibility of miracles, we
simply don't, a priori, conclude a miracle has occurred for every
event.
>
>(Is it hard to read t.o. with that beam in your eye?)
Since Bryant fails to defend his understanding of the NFL Theorems
(more like his bluff about those theorems) I'll take his lack of
response as a concession. As usual I stand undefeated.
At least Bryant makes some effort and doesn't resort to name calling
like the child Ving and those of his ilk. On the other hand Harshman
is still terrified that I'll turn my attention back to him.
Regards,
T Pagano
T Pagano
<jharshman....@pacbell.net> wrote:
>T Pagano wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 23 Jan 2007 23:39:33 GMT, bdbr...@wherever.ur (Bobby Bryant)
>> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>In article <apagano-ghgbm29k7v3qe...@4ax.com>,
>>> T Pagano <not....@address.net> writes:
>>>
>>>>On 22 Nov 2006 00:43:41 -0800, Creationist...@yahoo.com wrote:
>>>>
snip
>> Isaak is so prone to misrepresentation and ignorance of the facts that
>> even his fellow evolutes are correcting him. In the recent thread,
>> "Haldane's dilemma and recent human evolution," Harshman is forced to
>> correct Isaak's obvious misrepresentation of Remine's position. Go to
>> the link:
>> http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/browse_thread/thread/5abc46d39f25bd98/68a84f831c0a8252?lnk=st&q=&rnum=1&hl=en#68a84f831c0a8252
>
>Isaak being wrong seems like quite a rare event to me, in contrast to
>your performance, where you're wrong in just about every post.
Harshman has blustered this claim several times in the last few
months, but he has been completely impotent to produce a single post
of mine in recent history (the last 5 years) that has been "refuted"
by a follow up of his or anyone elses.
Anyone wishing to see a summary of Harshman's empty claims (and his
CUT & RUN) need only go to this link:
http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/browse_thread/thread/c9413c86ab4ac85d/a0f51ed447ec4820?lnk=st&q=&rnum=1&hl=en#a0f51ed447ec4820
>You were invited to explain in detail why the Index is "replete with
>mistakes and misrepresentations". Now in my book "replete" would require
>that a large fraction of the entries are like that. But so far we only
>know of one. Why have you declined your opportunity to list more examples?
I was so confident that Isaak wouldn't disappoint me that I didn't
even bother to go to the t.o archive when I saw Bryant's post. I did
a search of the current headers on my news server and wasn't
disappointed. Not only did I find Isaak misrepresenting Remine
(CB121) but Harshman found the misrepresentation egregious enough that
it warranted correction.
However I would be happy to go through Isaak's index available at the
t.o archive and identify a sampling of his misrepresentations. If
Harshman really wants me to embarrass Isaak in a public way then let
him reply that he would like me to produce. I'll await his reply
>
>>>>I have demonstrated over (at least) a 10 year period that Isaak is
>>>>largely and grossly ignorant of creationism and ID theory and
>>>>doesn't give a hoot about changing that condition.
>>>
>>>I've read hundreds of your posts here, and the only think I've ever
>>>seen you demonstrate is that you're a dishonest propagandist who
>>>keeps repeating claims long after they've been refuted. (Along
>>>with other claims that are so weasely that they are too content-free
>>>to refute.)
>>
>> Roughly 98 percent of my posts are corrections to atheist and
>> evolutionist misrepresentations of creationist and ID positions. One
>> could hardly characterize these as propaganda.
>
>I've read many of them. One could hardly characterize them as
>corrections. To do so is...propaganda.
But since Harshman fails to produce quotes or links to his follow-ups
its hard to take more of his empty claims seriously. Harshman is
terrified of producing a substantive claim. I've drubbed him more
than once.
>
>> The claim that I have been refuted has been made so often by my
>> detractors in the forum as to be almost a mantra. Nonetheless it is
>> an unsubstantiated mantra. Everytime I've asked for just a single
>> link pointing to a refutation the atheists either cut and ran, or
>> produced a link that had nothing to do with the issue at hand, or in
>> rare cases actually supported my position.
>
>Notice that Pagano equates opposition to his claims with atheism, just
>one of the errors he makes continually.
I do suggest that my opponents are atheists or their positions are
indistinguishable from the positions held by atheists. In other words
I calls 'em the way I sees 'em. By the way very few of them correct
me. Harshman has yet to claim he is not an atheist.
I could take Harshman's empty claim of this error more seriously if he
could produce a link to a post where my presumption that my opponent
was an atheist did not hold.
>Face it, Tony. You're the one
>who cuts and runs. If you were sincere about contesting issues, you
>would go back and search for unanswered replies to your posts, of which
>there are many.
I repeatedly gave Harshman the opportunity to show me even one link to
a follow-up which refuted my position. I agreed to concede if
necessary. Yet each time Harshman cut and ran hard. See the link:
http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/browse_thread/thread/c9413c86ab4ac85d/a0f51ed447ec4820?lnk=st&q=&rnum=1&hl=en#a0f51ed447ec4820
May I suggest that if a particularly good follow-up occurs and I
ignore it; bring it to my attention in a new post with my name so I'm
sure not to miss it.
> Even if you limit yourself to responses to my posts,
>there are plenty to keep you busy.
You mean like this post with empty claims.
>
>> I'll ask Bryant to produce a single link to a thread posted in the
>> last 5 years, in which I was a party wherein I was refuted. I would
>> be happy to concede if necessary.
>>
>> I leave to the judgement of my fellow readers whether my posts are
>> content-free or worthy of criticism.
>
>I'm a fellow reader, and I agree with Bryant.
Since Bryant never gets anything right this isn't saying much. But
you did correct Isaak in a public way who has been around awhile and
made many substantive but incorrect claims. This confirms my
generalization of Isaak's Index Thanks.
I should point out that we learn more from our mistakes than from our
successes. I've made numerous errors, however, Harshman has just been
too lazy to find them.
Regards,
T Pagano
Lee Oswald Ving
>>Isaak being wrong seems like quite a rare event to me, in contrast to
>>your performance, where you're wrong in just about every post.
>
> Harshman has blustered this claim several times in the last few
> months, but he has been completely impotent to produce a single post
> of mine in recent history (the last 5 years) that has been "refuted"
> by a follow up of his or anyone elses.
*ahem*
Bobby Bryant
T Pagano <not....@address.net> writes:
> On Sat, 27 Jan 2007 06:08:08 GMT, bdbr...@wherever.ur (Bobby Bryant)
> wrote:
>
>>In article <apagano-jb3lr2tqeooaf...@4ax.com>,
>> T Pagano <not....@address.net> writes:
>>
>>> Responding to the rest is waste of time. Bryant's misunderstanding
>>> here and his gross misunderstandings of the scientific enterprise in
>>> general as demonstrated by his "window washer" thought experiment will
>>> always leave Bryant on the wrong end of the stick.
>>
>>BTW, it was "windshield wipers", and it wasn't a thought experiment.
>>It was a simple observation that despite all your rants about how
>>scientists err by failing to consider supernatural explanations, you
>>wouldn't pause for a moment to consider a supernatural explanation
>>when your windshield wipers quit working. Rather, you would go about
>>troubleshooting them by applying naturalistic methods guided by
>>naturalistic assumptions, or by paying someone else to do the same
>>thing.
>
> It was a thought experiment.
Here's the original post:
<http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/21320ebe203ceb43>
Maybe we have different notions of what a thought experiment is.
Dejagoogle turns up the post I have in mind, in the thread mentioned
above, at the point where you changed the subject line to
"Evolutionists make one unjustified extropolation after another".
Unfortunately, I can't figure out how to make the current Google
interface show me the posts in the renamed thread. All I can see is
the search engine's snippet, "Pagano replies: Christian theology
doesn't address man-made objects and during recorded history the
christian world has ..."
> Christians never exclude the posibility of miracles, we simply
> don't, a priori, conclude a miracle has occurred for every event.
Indeed, you don't even *consider* the possibility of a miracle, unless
you need it to support your mythology in the face of facts that refute
it.
>>(Is it hard to read t.o. with that beam in your eye?)
>
> Since Bryant fails to defend his understanding of the NFL Theorems
> (more like his bluff about those theorems) I'll take his lack of
> response as a concession. As usual I stand undefeated.
Don't get your hopes up. My reply to your latest NFL claims was one
of about a dozen of my posts that have gone missing. I'll post it
again later. (And this one again as well, if it doesn't go through.)
> At least Bryant makes some effort and doesn't resort to name calling
> like the child Ving and those of his ilk. On the other hand Harshman
> is still terrified that I'll turn my attention back to him.
Meanwhile, you're being merciful, right?
Ernest Major
Pagano <not....@address.net> writes
>
>Harshman has blustered this claim several times in the last few months,
>but he has been completely impotent to produce a single post of mine in
>recent history (the last 5 years) that has been "refuted" by a follow
>up of his or anyone elses.
>
of belief in eternal life?
--
alias Ernest Major
Lee Oswald Ving
<snip>
> At least Bryant makes some effort and doesn't resort to name calling
> like the child Ving and those of his ilk.
Pagano, if you act like a lying, hypocritical ass, whining that your game
is called is pretty juvenile in itself. And continuing to call attention to
your jaw-dropping mistakes is simply stupid.
Did you ever find a denomination of Christianity that doesn't have eternal
life as a main doctrine, or are you ready to grow up and ask the group to
forgive you for that insultingly-obvious lie?
<snip>
Perplexed in Peoria
"T Pagano" <not....@address.net> wrote in message news:apagano-rqspr2167s0mh...@4ax.com...
> On Wed, 24 Jan 2007 02:05:26 GMT, John Harshman
> <jharshman....@pacbell.net> wrote:
> >T Pagano wrote:
> >
> >> On Tue, 23 Jan 2007 23:39:33 GMT, bdbr...@wherever.ur (Bobby Bryant)
> >> wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>>In article <apagano-ghgbm29k7v3qe...@4ax.com>,
> >>> T Pagano <not....@address.net> writes:
> >> Isaak is so prone to misrepresentation and ignorance of the facts that
> >> even his fellow evolutes are correcting him. In the recent thread,
> >> "Haldane's dilemma and recent human evolution," Harshman is forced to
> >> correct Isaak's obvious misrepresentation of Remine's position.
> >
> >your performance, where you're wrong in just about every post.
>
> Harshman has blustered this claim several times in the last few
>
> >You were invited to explain in detail why the Index is "replete with
> >mistakes and misrepresentations". Now in my book "replete" would require
> >that a large fraction of the entries are like that. But so far we only
> >know of one. Why have you declined your opportunity to list more examples?
>
> I was so confident that Isaak wouldn't disappoint me that I didn't
> even bother to go to the t.o archive when I saw Bryant's post. I did
> a search of the current headers on my news server and wasn't
> disappointed. Not only did I find Isaak misrepresenting Remine
> (CB121) but Harshman found the misrepresentation egregious enough that
> it warranted correction.
All misrepresentations warrant correction.
> However I would be happy to go through Isaak's index available at the
> t.o archive and identify a sampling of his misrepresentations.
Please do. It may expose additional misrepresentations that warrant
correction. I won't speculate on how many there might be.
> If
> Harshman really wants me to embarrass Isaak in a public way then let
> him reply that he would like me to produce. I'll await his reply.
What a crock. Isaak, of course, was not publicly embarrassed when
Pagano wrote "Isaak is so prone to misrepresentations and ignorance
of the facts ..." because everyone in the public understands just
how much credibility Pagano has. He will not be publicly embarassed
when Pagano comes up with a specific list of 'misrepresentations'
either, because Pagano probably doesn't even understand the arguments
of creationists like ReMine and wouldn't recognize a misrepresentation
if he saw it.
Nevertheless, Pagano's list, if it ever appears, will be scrutinized
by many meticulous people here with too much time on their hands;
the results of their investigations will be publicly discussed; and
perhaps a few misrepresentations and weak arguments in the index will
be corrected.
That is the great thing about honest public discussion by knowledgeable
people. It is self correcting. And even complete idiots like Pagano
can play a role in the process.
John Vreeland
opined:
Did he really claim that or are you exaggerating?
During the Carolingian Renaissance there was an attempt to create
standardized testing for priests. These tests included questions like
"Do you believe in the possibility of eternal life?" I thought they
were hilariously indicative of the low state of education in the early
medieval period, but now you say that Pagano still lives in it?
--
John.Vreeland (IEEE.orc) IEEE/AAAS/NSCE
Two Creation Scientists can hold an intelligent conversation, if one of them is a sock puppet.
Lee Oswald Ving
news:1ljqr2pkc5e1p5tek...@4ax.com:
> On Sun, 28 Jan 2007 23:35:48 GMT, Lee Oswald Ving <leeo...@yahoo.com>
> opined:
>
>>T Pagano <not....@address.net> wrote in news:apagano-
>>clfnr293q5a5c4q8p...@4ax.com:
>>
>><snip>
>>
>>> At least Bryant makes some effort and doesn't resort to name calling
>>> like the child Ving and those of his ilk.
>>
>>Pagano, if you act like a lying, hypocritical ass, whining that your
>>game is called is pretty juvenile in itself. And continuing to call
>>attention to your jaw-dropping mistakes is simply stupid.
>>
>>Did you ever find a denomination of Christianity that doesn't have
>>eternal life as a main doctrine, or are you ready to grow up and ask
>>the group to forgive you for that insultingly-obvious lie?
>>
>
>
> Did he really claim that or are you exaggerating?
Unbelieveable, isn't it? I wouldn't have thought even Pagano that stupid
if I hadn't seen it myself.
It's so new I'm not seeing in Google yet, thread title "Creationist
brain-lock" (which he immediately mutated to invoke the Mercy On Pagano
Rule to announce he was running away):
news:apagano-0lenr2tve643j...@4ax.com
Relevant quote:
>>T Pagano <not....@address.net> wrote in news:apagano-
>>4qelr2l44mmoknrt4...@4ax.com:
>>
>>> On 26 Jan 2007 18:32:04 -0800, "Jesus Christ Supermodel"
>>> <Kelley....@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>>I'm afraid of dying, I don't want to.
>>>
>>>> -> Church says God can keep it from happening
>>>
>>> I'm not aware of any christian Church creed saying any such thing.
End quote.
> During the Carolingian Renaissance there was an attempt to create
> standardized testing for priests. These tests included questions like
> "Do you believe in the possibility of eternal life?" I thought they
> were hilariously indicative of the low state of education in the early
> medieval period, but now you say that Pagano still lives in it?
It's hard to tell just what is going on with Pagano. I was floored by his
misrepresentation of the history of Chritian scripture in much the same
way. Is he so used to lying that he cannot even utter the truth on a
subject so obvious?
John Harshman
> On Wed, 24 Jan 2007 02:05:26 GMT, John Harshman
> <jharshman....@pacbell.net> wrote:
>
>>T Pagano wrote:
>>
>>
>>>On Tue, 23 Jan 2007 23:39:33 GMT, bdbr...@wherever.ur (Bobby Bryant)
>>>wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>In article <apagano-ghgbm29k7v3qe...@4ax.com>,
>>>> T Pagano <not....@address.net> writes:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>On 22 Nov 2006 00:43:41 -0800, Creationist...@yahoo.com wrote:
>>>>>
>
>
> snip
>
>
>>>Isaak is so prone to misrepresentation and ignorance of the facts that
>>>even his fellow evolutes are correcting him. In the recent thread,
>>>"Haldane's dilemma and recent human evolution," Harshman is forced to
>>>correct Isaak's obvious misrepresentation of Remine's position. Go to
>>>the link:
>>>http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/browse_thread/thread/5abc46d39f25bd98/68a84f831c0a8252?lnk=st&q=&rnum=1&hl=en#68a84f831c0a8252
>>
>>Isaak being wrong seems like quite a rare event to me, in contrast to
>>your performance, where you're wrong in just about every post.
>
>
> Harshman has blustered this claim several times in the last few
> months, but he has been completely impotent to produce a single post
> of mine in recent history (the last 5 years) that has been "refuted"
> by a follow up of his or anyone elses.
And I have merely asked you to respond to any of my posts to which you
haven't responded. There are many. Why can't you do the work of finding
them?
> Anyone wishing to see a summary of Harshman's empty claims (and his
> CUT & RUN) need only go to this link:
> http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/browse_thread/thread/c9413c86ab4ac85d/a0f51ed447ec4820?lnk=st&q=&rnum=1&hl=en#a0f51ed447ec4820
Yawn.
>>You were invited to explain in detail why the Index is "replete with
>>mistakes and misrepresentations". Now in my book "replete" would require
>>that a large fraction of the entries are like that. But so far we only
>>know of one. Why have you declined your opportunity to list more examples?
>
>
> I was so confident that Isaak wouldn't disappoint me that I didn't
> even bother to go to the t.o archive when I saw Bryant's post. I did
> a search of the current headers on my news server and wasn't
> disappointed. Not only did I find Isaak misrepresenting Remine
> (CB121) but Harshman found the misrepresentation egregious enough that
> it warranted correction.
>
> However I would be happy to go through Isaak's index available at the
> t.o archive and identify a sampling of his misrepresentations. If
> Harshman really wants me to embarrass Isaak in a public way then let
> him reply that he would like me to produce. I'll await his reply
Here is is. Go ahead. I predict your usual performance.
>>>>>I have demonstrated over (at least) a 10 year period that Isaak is
>>>>>largely and grossly ignorant of creationism and ID theory and
>>>>>doesn't give a hoot about changing that condition.
>>>>
>>>>I've read hundreds of your posts here, and the only think I've ever
>>>>seen you demonstrate is that you're a dishonest propagandist who
>>>>keeps repeating claims long after they've been refuted. (Along
>>>>with other claims that are so weasely that they are too content-free
>>>>to refute.)
>>>
>>>Roughly 98 percent of my posts are corrections to atheist and
>>>evolutionist misrepresentations of creationist and ID positions. One
>>>could hardly characterize these as propaganda.
>>
>>I've read many of them. One could hardly characterize them as
>>corrections. To do so is...propaganda.
>
>
> But since Harshman fails to produce quotes or links to his follow-ups
> its hard to take more of his empty claims seriously. Harshman is
> terrified of producing a substantive claim. I've drubbed him more
> than once.
Talk about empty claims.
>>>The claim that I have been refuted has been made so often by my
>>>detractors in the forum as to be almost a mantra. Nonetheless it is
>>>an unsubstantiated mantra. Everytime I've asked for just a single
>>>link pointing to a refutation the atheists either cut and ran, or
>>>produced a link that had nothing to do with the issue at hand, or in
>>>rare cases actually supported my position.
>>
>>Notice that Pagano equates opposition to his claims with atheism, just
>>one of the errors he makes continually.
>
> I do suggest that my opponents are atheists or their positions are
> indistinguishable from the positions held by atheists. In other words
> I calls 'em the way I sees 'em. By the way very few of them correct
> me. Harshman has yet to claim he is not an atheist.
>
> I could take Harshman's empty claim of this error more seriously if he
> could produce a link to a post where my presumption that my opponent
> was an atheist did not hold.
I'm too lazy to look. Sorry. But that's not the point. The point is
calling evolution "the atheist position". I bet most Christians, if they
think of it, hold positions on van der Waals forces that are
"indistinguishible from the positions held by atheists" too. And on
arithmetic, the proper way to cook spaghetti, and all manner of things.
Yet none of these can be considered "the atheist position". Lots of
Christians accept all of evolution, and you are only displaying your "no
true Scotsman" fallacy here. Your presumption is irrelevant and
pointless, but you are incapable of learning.
>>Face it, Tony. You're the one
>>who cuts and runs. If you were sincere about contesting issues, you
>>would go back and search for unanswered replies to your posts, of which
>>there are many.
>
> I repeatedly gave Harshman the opportunity to show me even one link to
> a follow-up which refuted my position. I agreed to concede if
> necessary. Yet each time Harshman cut and ran hard. See the link:
> http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/browse_thread/thread/c9413c86ab4ac85d/a0f51ed447ec4820?lnk=st&q=&rnum=1&hl=en#a0f51ed447ec4820
>
> May I suggest that if a particularly good follow-up occurs and I
> ignore it; bring it to my attention in a new post with my name so I'm
> sure not to miss it.
Is that your excuse? That you missed it? You are pathetially transparent.
>>Even if you limit yourself to responses to my posts,
>>there are plenty to keep you busy.
>
> You mean like this post with empty claims.
No.
>>>I'll ask Bryant to produce a single link to a thread posted in the
>>>last 5 years, in which I was a party wherein I was refuted. I would
>>>be happy to concede if necessary.
>>>
>>>I leave to the judgement of my fellow readers whether my posts are
>>>content-free or worthy of criticism.
>>
>>I'm a fellow reader, and I agree with Bryant.
>
> Since Bryant never gets anything right this isn't saying much. But
> you did correct Isaak in a public way who has been around awhile and
> made many substantive but incorrect claims. This confirms my
> generalization of Isaak's Index Thanks.
And this shows the quality of your reasoning. Isaak gets one thing
wrong, and that allows you to generalize about everything he says. And
this from a person who rejects the validity of induction!
> I should point out that we learn more from our mistakes than from our
> successes. I've made numerous errors, however, Harshman has just been
> too lazy to find them.
No, I'm too lazy to search for them a second time, when you ignored them
the first time.
Bobby Bryant
Possibly redundant; my first reply to this never came through on my server.
In article <apagano-jb3lr2tqeooaf...@4ax.com>,
You're right; I didn't illuminate it in that post, but merely called
it to your attention.
If you understand the definitions as well as you claim to, you'll
immediately see that the type of "problem" the theorem addresses
includes games of the sort, "guess a number between 1 and n".
Well and good, if that's what they want to address, but no one working
in the field of computational search and optimization would waste a
microsecond trying to solve a problem of that sort.
Ultimately the NFLT is a formal proof that induction doesn't work in
an unconstrained world. We've already known this for a few centuries.
We also know that in the real world, induction often does work on
various phenomena of interest.
Yes, I didn't provide a citation in that post: I merely pointed out your
misunderstanding (or misrepresentation).
From that same paper, observe the first sentence in the last paragraph
of the Introduction:
"Finally, we cannot emphasize enough that *no claims whatsoever* are
being made in this paper concerning how well various search algorithms
work in practice." [Emphasis theirs.]
Well, it looks like they _didn't_ emphasize it enough. Maybe you would
have noticed it if they had used ALL-CAPS?
It seems that your notion of reading a paper is to filter out anything
in it that doesn't support your beliefs (or propaganda, as the case
may be).
>>Dembski's invocation of the NFLT is like calculating that the expected
>>value of a roll of a fair die is 3.5 and then crying "goddidit" when you
>>roll a 3 instead of the "expected" 3.5.
>
> Bryant pretty much misses the boat, and his quote here demonstrates
> that he has never read Wolpert's report and has no idea what it
> entails.
>
> Generalizing, the NFL theorems show conclusively that how effectively
> an algorithm locates a target within a finite number of steps is
> independent of the algorithm----in other words it is the same for all
> algorithms. And since blind and random searches always constitute
> perfectly valid algorithms this means that the average performance of
> any algorithm is no better than these.
No, the theorem talks about the performance when averaged over _all_
possible fitness functions. From that you cannot conclude _anything_
a priori about how a given algorithm will perform on a given fitness
function.
In fact, for deterministic algorithms you can easily construct fitness
landscapes that make them do arbitrarily good or bad. (Let me know if
you can't figure out how.)
> Responding to the rest is waste of time.
I stopped reading here the first time, and thus did not correct your
misrepresentation of the "window washer" issue, until I saw someone
else reply to it later. My reply is thus in a different post, which
did go through.
> Bryant's misunderstanding here and his gross misunderstandings of
> the scientific enterprise in general as demonstrated by his "window
> washer" thought experiment will always leave Bryant on the wrong end
> of the stick.
>
> Better luck next time buckoo.
Are you threatening to have mercy on me, and run away?
--
Bobby Bryant
Bobby Bryant
OK, done. Expect to see it on a server near you soon. (All my posts
seem to be making it through now.)
Bobby Bryant
Ask forgiveness??? He was planning on having mercy on us!
Bobby Bryant
Lee Oswald Ving <leeo...@yahoo.com> writes:
> It's hard to tell just what is going on with Pagano. I was floored
> by his misrepresentation of the history of Chritian scripture in
> much the same way. Is he so used to lying that he cannot even utter
> the truth on a subject so obvious?
I think he really is a creationist, but I also think he knows that he's
just spewing propagandistic misrepresentations of almost any topic he
addresses.
If you want to see how he acts when he's not just spewing, watch
him when someone challenges a point of Roman Catholic doctrine, or
challenges the reality of the Fatima hoax.
Shane
> At least Bryant makes some effort and doesn't resort to name calling
> like the child Ving and those of his ilk. On the other hand Harshman
> is still terrified that I'll turn my attention back to him.
Perhaps John, and others, are waiting for a mercy rule you are under to
time out. Of course you may think mercy rules are just a cowards way of
avoiding facing an issue that they are bound to lose, and you may very
well be right, as that was certainly the case for the mercy rule that
was displayed here on t.o. some months ago.
T Pagano
<jharshman....@pacbell.net> wrote:
>T Pagano wrote:
>
>> On Wed, 24 Jan 2007 02:05:26 GMT, John Harshman
>> <jharshman....@pacbell.net> wrote:
>>
>>>T Pagano wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>On Tue, 23 Jan 2007 23:39:33 GMT, bdbr...@wherever.ur (Bobby Bryant)
>>>>wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>In article <apagano-ghgbm29k7v3qe...@4ax.com>,
>>>>> T Pagano <not....@address.net> writes:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>On 22 Nov 2006 00:43:41 -0800, Creationist...@yahoo.com wrote:
>>>>>>
snip
>>>You were invited to explain in detail why the Index is "replete with
>>>mistakes and misrepresentations". Now in my book "replete" would require
>>>that a large fraction of the entries are like that. But so far we only
>>>know of one. Why have you declined your opportunity to list more examples?
>>
>>
>> I was so confident that Isaak wouldn't disappoint me that I didn't
>> even bother to go to the t.o archive when I saw Bryant's post. I did
>> a search of the current headers on my news server and wasn't
>> disappointed. Not only did I find Isaak misrepresenting Remine
>> (CB121) but Harshman found the misrepresentation egregious enough that
>> it warranted correction.
>>
>> However I would be happy to go through Isaak's index available at the
>> t.o archive and identify a sampling of his misrepresentations. If
>> Harshman really wants me to embarrass Isaak in a public way then let
>> him reply that he would like me to produce. I'll await his reply
>
>Here is is. Go ahead. I predict your usual performance.
Done.
snip
Regards,
T Pagano
John Harshman
All right, then.
Lee Oswald Ving
@newssvr29.news.prodigy.net:
A number of us have been asking for him to "have mercy" on all of T.O., if
not the entire usenet.
Alas, no such luck.
Lee Oswald Ving
@newssvr29.news.prodigy.net:
> In article <Xns98C6CA58CA35C...@208.49.80.188>,
> Lee Oswald Ving <leeo...@yahoo.com> writes:
>
>> It's hard to tell just what is going on with Pagano. I was floored
>> by his misrepresentation of the history of Chritian scripture in
>> much the same way. Is he so used to lying that he cannot even utter
>> the truth on a subject so obvious?
>
> I think he really is a creationist, but I also think he knows that he's
> just spewing propagandistic misrepresentations of almost any topic he
> addresses.
Right.
> If you want to see how he acts when he's not just spewing, watch
> him when someone challenges a point of Roman Catholic doctrine, or
> challenges the reality of the Fatima hoax.
I realized he was some fanatical, weird variation of Catholic. I work with
a number of Catholic clergy on a regular basis, and they seem embarrassed
by these whacks.
I attended a Catholic High School. Can you imagine how weird it is to hear
this gasbag rail against evolution after having classes covering it both in
Biology and Theology from Jesuits and nuns?