What are the IDiot alternative models?

[RonO]

There is always a lot of talk about the IDiots claiming to have
something as good as what they claim isn't good enough, but when does
any IDiot ever put their alternative forward for evaluation?

It would seem that the main reason why the IDiots never put up their
alternative is the same reason Philip Johnson gave when he quit the ID
scam. He admitted that he and his fellow IDiots did not have an
alternative worth putting forward. This was the guy that supposedly got
the ID scam rolling and was called the godfather of the ID scam by the
other ID perps.

If Bill, Kalk, and Jonathan want to contest the facts why not put up
your alternative. Real science has something to compare your model to,
so why not put your model forward for comparison.

It doesn't have to be elaborate and can be bare bones such as:

The earth and moon seem to have formed around 4.5 billion years ago.

We have evidence of early life on this planet between 3.5 and 3.8
billion years ago.

Life on earth was stuck at the single cell stage for several billion
years with things like the bacterial flagellum evolving around 2 billion
years ago.

Around half a billion years ago there was a diversification of
multicellular animal life that we call the Cambrian explosion, but
before that happened we know things like the estrogen receptor gene
diversification happened. Eddie put up the paper that demonstrated that
fact. The estrogen receptor family evolved a new ability to detect a
new ligand (different type of hormone), and that happened in the
ancestor of all multicellular animals that evolved during the Cambrian
explosion. The paper even used the diversification of the new receptor
type during the Cambrian explosion to track back and determine what
mutations were the ones that occurred to make the difference.

Vertebrates evolved around the time of the Cambrian explosion from a
common ancestor that doubled it's genome (we have a tetraploid common
ancestor with other vertebrates). The descendent vertebrate lineages
did a lot with the extra copies of the genes this created.

There was a lot of evolution going on among the non vertebrate lineages,
but among vertebrates fish evolved into lobe fin fish, lobe fin fish
evolved into amphibians, and around 300 million years ago amphibians
evolved into amniotes (terrestrial tetrapods).

One branch of terrestrial tetrapods evolved into what we call the mammal
like reptiles, these evolved into mammals with egg laying mammals like
monotremes being the oldest branch, marsupials being the intermediate
branch, and eutherian mammals evolving later.

Eutherian mammals were limited to mostly rat sized animals until the
extinction of the dinos around 65 million years ago, by that time the
common ancestor of all primates already existed and primate lineage
survived the mass extinction of the dinos when a big rock fell from the
sky and hit the Americas and missed Africa where our primate ancestor lived.

Primates evolved into prosimians, prosimians into simians, simians into
apes and less than 10 million years ago the human lineage evolved among
the existing ape lineages.

Our ape lineage started to walk upright, and then their brains began to
get bigger, Homo habilis made an appearance around 2 million years ago
and the rest is pretty much history for Homo sapiens.

So what are the IDiot models? Why don't they have one up at the
Discovery Institute if they really do have something competitive?

Ron Okimoto

[Rodjk #613]

They don't need a model to keep making money.

Rodjk #613

[jillery]

Of course they have a model. It's the model of Design via
Intelligence. What's that you say? You say that's not a model? You
say it doesn't provide a detailed step-by-step explanation of how life
developed on Earth? Clearly you don't recognize the proper division
of labor. IDiots focus on Big IDeas. It's up to scientists to muck
around with petty details like evidence and reason.

--
Intelligence is never insulting.

[Mr. B1ack]

On Wed, 29 Apr 2015 12:02:44 -0400, jillery <69jp...@gmail.com>
wrote:

But The People - voters - don't have what it takes
to understand why the Big Idea is wrong ... or even
to understand the scientists when they point out
all kinds of little flaws. This means the ID people
score wins.

Eventually they'll get a string of them and build
enough momentum to sweep almost every state.
Then federal education funding will be cut to
schools who refuse to "teach the controversy"
or just plain teach some variant of ID.

Then what ?

The current model of ID/creationism worked in a
few states - Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas - at
least for awhile. That's better than they've done
before. Expect refinements.

[Ray Martinez]

Ron's major point is quite valid. That point says DI-IDists refuse to reveal their position and the evidence that supports their position. Ron summarizes the evolutionary position then asks for the DI-ID position?

The DI can't reveal their position without outing themselves as traditional Creationists.

Ray

[TomS]

"On Wed, 29 Apr 2015 15:05:23 -0700 (PDT), in article
<5c6006b2-0d7a-43c8...@googlegroups.com>, Ray Martinez stated..."

And there are only a few kinds of non-evolutionary models. There is the
"chicken or egg" problem to be addressed:

The eternal universe. The solution offered by Aristotle to Hoyle.

Non-linear time, such as repeating cycles.

The Ommphalos Hypothesis.

None of these non-evolutionary models is comfortable to traditional
theists. The ID solution, "don't ask, don't tell", is what they are
left with.


--
God is not a demiurge or a magician - Pope Francis
---Tom S.

[jonathan]

On 4/29/2015 7:55 AM, RonO wrote:



>
> The earth and moon seem to have formed around 4.5 billion years ago.
>
> We have evidence of early life on this planet between 3.5 and 3.8
> billion years ago.
>
> Life on earth was stuck at the single cell stage for several billion
> years with things like the bacterial flagellum evolving around 2 billion
> years ago.
>
>

> Our ape lineage started to walk upright, and then their brains began to
> get bigger, Homo habilis made an appearance around 2 million years ago
> and the rest is pretty much history for Homo sapiens.
>

2 billion....2 million, there are 3 orders of magnitude
between those two time spans.

Why did single-celled life take so long to make the
next evolutionary step, and why does more advanced
like appear to evolve so much more quickly?

Modern man is only 200,000 years old, that's /another/
order of magnitude difference.

How much has the planet changed in just the last
200 years? Or even the last 20 years with
The Internet? Another 3 orders of magnitude.

Why the stunning differences, acceleration in rates
of change and increase in ability between simple
and advanced life?

Your post doesn't distinguish between start and finish
in terms of evolutionary processes, just one for all.
Natural selection doesn't account for the difference.

What does?


The difference is in the ability to...choose, or having
some level of intelligence that allows the future
....to be designed...by each and every one.

The more 'complex' the better able to evolve to the
ideal solution.




> Ron Okimoto
>

[John Vreeland]

So they have no position other than "God did it; mysterious are His
ways."

Curiously, they do not actually discover anything. Actually their
mission seems to be standard ostrich apologetics: stick your head in
the sand and ignore what everyone else has discovered. I guess in a
more accurately descriptive world it should really be called
"Discovery Ignorance".

[jillery]

On Wed, 29 Apr 2015 17:00:32 -0400, "Mr. B1ack" <now...@nada.net>

I suppose. It's always possible that a future Supreme Court will
refute precedent wrt teaching religion in public schools, or that a
future amendment to the Constitution will revoke Establishment of
Religion. It's also possible that the U.S. will turn its collective
back on public education generally, thus making moot these
Constitutional issues. Short of that, Idiot victories will remain
short-lived.

[TomS]

"On Thu, 30 Apr 2015 00:07:36 -0400, in article
<6993kah6q7jalvjc8...@4ax.com>, jillery stated..."
[[...snip...]]

>I suppose. It's always possible that a future Supreme Court will
>refute precedent wrt teaching religion in public schools, or that a
>future amendment to the Constitution will revoke Establishment of
>Religion. It's also possible that the U.S. will turn its collective
>back on public education generally, thus making moot these
>Constitutional issues. Short of that, Idiot victories will remain
>short-lived.

>The

Societies have stepped back from exploring and understanding the world,
and eventually others have taken the lead. It is not easy to pursue.
Obscurantism has its attractions.

[TomS]

"On Thu, 30 Apr 2015 00:07:36 -0400, in article
<6993kah6q7jalvjc8...@4ax.com>, jillery stated..."
[[...snip...]]

>I suppose. It's always possible that a future Supreme Court will
>refute precedent wrt teaching religion in public schools, or that a
>future amendment to the Constitution will revoke Establishment of
>Religion. It's also possible that the U.S. will turn its collective
>back on public education generally, thus making moot these
>Constitutional issues. Short of that, Idiot victories will remain
>short-lived.

[TomS]

"On Thu, 30 Apr 2015 00:07:36 -0400, in article
<6993kah6q7jalvjc8...@4ax.com>, jillery stated..."
[[...snip...]]

>I suppose. It's always possible that a future Supreme Court will
>refute precedent wrt teaching religion in public schools, or that a
>future amendment to the Constitution will revoke Establishment of
>Religion. It's also possible that the U.S. will turn its collective
>back on public education generally, thus making moot these
>Constitutional issues. Short of that, Idiot victories will remain
>short-lived.

[TomS]

"On Thu, 30 Apr 2015 00:07:36 -0400, in article
<6993kah6q7jalvjc8...@4ax.com>, jillery stated..."
[[...snip...]]

>I suppose. It's always possible that a future Supreme Court will
>refute precedent wrt teaching religion in public schools, or that a
>future amendment to the Constitution will revoke Establishment of
>Religion. It's also possible that the U.S. will turn its collective
>back on public education generally, thus making moot these
>Constitutional issues. Short of that, Idiot victories will remain
>short-lived.

[Ernest Major]

You could have taken the opportunity to present your alternative model.

At one point I thought you were an occasionalist evolutionist
(everything happens as scientists think it does, but at God's behest).
Since you have subsequently claimed that God creates new species from a
"clay like ground" I have concluded that hypothesis was incorrect, and
my current hypothesis is that you are a omphalic progressive creationist
(God created species, but in such fashion as to make it appear that
things happened as scientists think they did).

--
alias Ernest Major

[RonO]

On 4/29/2015 7:11 PM, jonathan wrote:
> On 4/29/2015 7:55 AM, RonO wrote:
>
>
>
>>
>> The earth and moon seem to have formed around 4.5 billion years ago.
>>
>> We have evidence of early life on this planet between 3.5 and 3.8
>> billion years ago.
>>
>> Life on earth was stuck at the single cell stage for several billion
>> years with things like the bacterial flagellum evolving around 2 billion
>> years ago.
>>
>>
>> Our ape lineage started to walk upright, and then their brains began to
>> get bigger, Homo habilis made an appearance around 2 million years ago
>> and the rest is pretty much history for Homo sapiens.
>>
>

So you do not have any type of alternative model to put forward?

>
> 2 billion....2 million, there are 3 orders of magnitude
> between those two time spans.
>
> Why did single-celled life take so long to make the
> next evolutionary step, and why does more advanced
> like appear to evolve so much more quickly?

What is the explanation in your model? With the current science model
that is just how long it took. Science does not have all the answers,
but it tends to look like a lot of evolution had to go on before
multicellular animals could evolve.

>
> Modern man is only 200,000 years old, that's /another/
> order of magnitude difference.

What is your model?

>
> How much has the planet changed in just the last
> 200 years? Or even the last 20 years with
> The Internet? Another 3 orders of magnitude.
>
> Why the stunning differences, acceleration in rates
> of change and increase in ability between simple
> and advanced life?
>
> Your post doesn't distinguish between start and finish
> in terms of evolutionary processes, just one for all.
> Natural selection doesn't account for the difference.
>
> What does?

What does? What is your alternative?

It looks like you are just obfuscating over some issue that there is an
acceleration of change over time, but the vast majority of life on earth
is still single celled organisms. You have more microbial cells in and
on your body than there are human cells that make up your body.

Not only that, but just take embryo development. Why isn't it
instantaneous. How many cells have to form before you get a
recognizable fetus?

Why was our lineage stuck in the stone age for millions of years when we
can develop nuclear weapons?

Life was stuck at basically the single cell stage for around 3 billion
years. The vast majority of the mass of life on earth is still
microbes. Evolution was happening during that time. The estrogen
receptor example demonstrates that. Genes essential to the later
diversification and evolution had to first evolve before something else
could occur. There is no mystery. There doesn't seem to be any magic
poofing worth mentioning during that time except Behe claims that
poofing was required to evolve the flagellum a couple billion years ago.

>
>
> The difference is in the ability to...choose, or having
> some level of intelligence that allows the future
> ....to be designed...by each and every one.
>
> The more 'complex' the better able to evolve to the
> ideal solution.

So all you can do is blow smoke, and you are too embarrassed by your
alternative to put it forward. Why did your designer take so long to do
everything? What is your alternative?

Ron Okimoto

>
>> Ron Okimoto
>>
>

[broger...@gmail.com]

......

> The DI can't reveal their position without outing themselves as traditional Creationists.

Ray, like I've said, I think you're nuts, but I do appreciate the fact that you are entirely up front about what you believe (unlike the DI). You don't come here pretending to be just some guy with some theoretical questions about evolution and no religious agenda. You are clear about what you believe and unashamed to state it and try to defend it.

>
> Ray

[jillery]

On 29 Apr 2015 23:02:14 -0700, TomS <TomS_...@newsguy.com> wrote:

>"On Thu, 30 Apr 2015 00:07:36 -0400, in article
><6993kah6q7jalvjc8...@4ax.com>, jillery stated..."
>[[...snip...]]
>>I suppose. It's always possible that a future Supreme Court will
>>refute precedent wrt teaching religion in public schools, or that a
>>future amendment to the Constitution will revoke Establishment of
>>Religion. It's also possible that the U.S. will turn its collective
>>back on public education generally, thus making moot these
>>Constitutional issues. Short of that, Idiot victories will remain
>>short-lived.
>

>Societies have stepped back from exploring and understanding the world,
>and eventually others have taken the lead. It is not easy to pursue.
>Obscurantism has its attractions.

Yeppers. My impression is the necessary political shift would be on
the order of the collapse of the Weimar Republic. In that case, the
return of religion to public schools in the U.S. would be but one
result among many others with far more serious and far-reaching
consequences. Worrying about it then would be like arranging deck
chairs on the Titanic.

[jonathan]

It's a fact that natural selection doesn't explain.
I'm asking for you to explain it, but you can't.

< but the vast majority of life on earth
> is still single celled organisms. You have more microbial cells in and
> on your body than there are human cells that make up your body.
>

So what? That has nothing at all to do with the question
I'm asking.

> Not only that, but just take embryo development. Why isn't it
> instantaneous. How many cells have to form before you get a
> recognizable fetus?
>
> Why was our lineage stuck in the stone age for millions of years when we
> can develop nuclear weapons?
>
> Life was stuck at basically the single cell stage for around 3 billion
> years. The vast majority of the mass of life on earth is still
> microbes. Evolution was happening during that time. The estrogen
> receptor example demonstrates that. Genes essential to the later
> diversification and evolution had to first evolve before something else
> could occur. There is no mystery. There doesn't seem to be any magic
> poofing worth mentioning during that time except Behe claims that
> poofing was required to evolve the flagellum a couple billion years ago.
>
>>
>>
>> The difference is in the ability to...choose, or having
>> some level of intelligence that allows the future
>> ....to be designed...by each and every one.
>>
>> The more 'complex' the better able to evolve to the
>> ideal solution.
>
> So all you can do is blow smoke, and you are too embarrassed by your
> alternative to put it forward. Why did your designer take so long to do
> everything? What is your alternative?
>

If you can't reply directly to the question, why do you
respond? Why does single celled life take so long to
evolve the next higher step compared to intelligent life?


You're the one that's dodging.




> Ron Okimoto
>
>>
>>> Ron Okimoto
>>>
>>
>

[Ernest Major]

When demanding an explanation for a feature one should first demonstrate
that the feature is real. Your claim of an acceleration is based on an
assertion that the steps are equivalent; you have to make a case that
the assertion is true.

>
>
> You're the one that's dodging.
>

--
alias Ernest Major

[Earle Jones27]

*
Jonathan: This thread raises the question: What model(s) do the
Intelligent Design thinkers offer?

Attacking your adversary's model does not answer the question.

What exactly is YOUR model that accounts for the observed diversity of
living beings?

Thanks,

earle
*

[rmat...@macomb.com]

I laughed. It is a great metaphor and humorous, while at the same time it's an accurate descriptor.

It can also be archived under DI.

[jillery]

On Thu, 30 Apr 2015 12:16:08 -0400, jonathan <WriteI...@gmail.com>
wrote:

You're sowing the same kind of confusion in this thread that you did
in the "Mimicry" thread, and for the same reasons. Your meanings of
"design" and "intelligence" have nothing to do with ID as described by
DI. So your meanings are completely irrelevant to the post you're
allegedly replying to. And then you have the gall to blame others for
the resulting rhetorical chaos.

[Ray Martinez]

> Ray, like I've said, I think you're nuts....

Likewise.

>
but I do appreciate the fact that you are entirely up front about what you believe (unlike the DI). You don't come here pretending to be just some guy with some theoretical questions about evolution and no religious agenda. You are clear about what you believe and unashamed to state it and try to defend it.
>

My agenda is entirely scientific. At any rate, thanks.

Ray

[jonathan]

Fair enough.

Keep in mind my hobby is a distinctly holistic or
an where the outward behavior is the source of information
for what is going on inside.

Looking at the outward behavior of evolution in terms of
rates of change and hierarchy, it's plainly obvious there's
a relationship between complexity and rate of change.

Please compare the following two graphics, and tell me
if the timeline of the evolution of life appears
as a linear or exponential rate of change?
And roughly when it made the transition from
one to the other, if it did?

The next question would be why, or the mechanism
behind the changing rate, if any.


Visual representation of the history of life on Earth
as a spiral

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_evolutionary_history_of_life#/media/File:Geological_time_spiral.png


The natural exponential function
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exponential_function#/media/File:Exp.svg



Basic timeline
From Wiki


for the last 3.6 billion years, simple cells (prokaryotes);
for the last 3.4 billion years, cyanobacteria performing photosynthesis;
for the last 2 billion years, complex cells (eukaryotes);
for the last 1.2 billion years, eukaryotes which sexually reproduce
for the last 1 billion years, multicellular life;
for the last 600 million years, simple animals;
for the last 550 million years, bilaterians, water life forms
with a front and a back;
for the last 500 million years, fish and proto-amphibians;
for the last 475 million years, land plants;
for the last 400 million years, insects and seeds;
for the last 360 million years, amphibians;
for the last 300 million years, reptiles;
for the last 200 million years, mammals;
for the last 150 million years, birds;
for the last 130 million years, flowers;
for the last 60 million years, the primates,
for the last 20 million years, the family Hominidae (great apes);
for the last 2.5 million years, the genus Homo (including humans
and their predecessors);
for the last 250,000 years, anatomically modern humans.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_evolutionary_history_of_life



It's certainly not a linear progression, but has the
outward form of an exponential rate of increase.

And the changes in just the last couple of centuries
to life on Earth, and just the last twenty, are easily
as significant evolutionary steps as any of the others
listed above.

Maybe even more world-changing than any of them.



Jonathan



"Of Nature I shall have enough
When I have entered these
Entitled to a Bumble bee's
Familiarities.'




s

[RSNorman]

On Thu, 30 Apr 2015 19:05:42 -0400, jonathan <WriteI...@gmail.com>
wrote:

An exponential growth curve is absolutely no surprise to anybody
familiar with science. Most processes obey differential equations in
their dynamics where the rate at which something happens depends on
the value of some other parameter. The simplest differential
equation, one involving rates, produces exponential growth (or decay).
It is part of just about every dynamic system. No woo-woo waving of
hands is necessary. No special complex system theory. Only first term
calculus.

On the other hand, there is a really distinct quantum leap (to borrow
a metaphor rather than use a scientific analysis) between complexity
of single cells and the development of multicellularity. Once you
have the ability to produce alternate cell types and produce the
intercellular signaling mechanisms to coordinate them, you can
suddenly produce all sorts of new variations. The example I used in
teaching is the development of Lego blocks. With Tinkertoys or
Erector Sets or Lincoln Logs you can produce all sorts of various
structures of complex shape. But each toy is rather limited in what
it can build. With Lego blocks, however, you can just arrange them in
different patterns to produce almost anything you want. That was the
trick in making multicellularity. The "Lego" transition enables cells
to be reorganized into virtually any arrangment and still retain
integration and functionality. So, of course, there was an enormous
leap in the rate of evolutionary change.

[RonO]

So you really do not have an alternative worth putting forward. That
isn't a question at this point it is a statement of fact.

Why can't natural selection explain what you claim that it can't
explain? Why should natural selection explain everything when we know
that it isn't the only factor in the evolution of life on earth?

>
>
>
> < but the vast majority of life on earth
>> is still single celled organisms. You have more microbial cells in and
>> on your body than there are human cells that make up your body.
>>
>
>
> So what? That has nothing at all to do with the question
> I'm asking.

Where is the acceleration? It looks like evolution just happens and
sometimes new things evolve, and most of the time it isn't so noticable.

>
>
>
>
>> Not only that, but just take embryo development. Why isn't it
>> instantaneous. How many cells have to form before you get a
>> recognizable fetus?
>>
>> Why was our lineage stuck in the stone age for millions of years when we
>> can develop nuclear weapons?
>>
>> Life was stuck at basically the single cell stage for around 3 billion
>> years. The vast majority of the mass of life on earth is still
>> microbes. Evolution was happening during that time. The estrogen
>> receptor example demonstrates that. Genes essential to the later
>> diversification and evolution had to first evolve before something else
>> could occur. There is no mystery. There doesn't seem to be any magic
>> poofing worth mentioning during that time except Behe claims that
>> poofing was required to evolve the flagellum a couple billion years ago.
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> The difference is in the ability to...choose, or having
>>> some level of intelligence that allows the future
>>> ....to be designed...by each and every one.
>>>
>>> The more 'complex' the better able to evolve to the
>>> ideal solution.
>>
>> So all you can do is blow smoke, and you are too embarrassed by your
>> alternative to put it forward. Why did your designer take so long to do
>> everything? What is your alternative?
>>
>
>
>
> If you can't reply directly to the question, why do you
> respond? Why does single celled life take so long to
> evolve the next higher step compared to intelligent life?

So you have no alternative and all you can do is blow smoke?

What is there to explain? Look what you ignored above. Evolution
builds on what came before. It looks like a lot of evolution of genes
had to happen before multicellular life was able to evolve. How can
your model ignore that? Biological evolution is dependent on previous
evolution. Life evolves as it is, not as what it was. How could we
have complex animals before SOX genes evolved? What about the HOX
duplication and diversification. What about the estrogen receptor
diversification that has already been put forward. These all had to
evolve in single celled organisms before they got coopted to do new things.

Again what is your alternative and how does it this issue? The current
model has a simple explanation. Biological evolution is dependent on
what has already evolved. Existing lifeforms are what are changing by
descent with modification. Evolution is limited by the material that it
is working with. Assuming that you have an IDiot type model why would
the intelligent designer wait so long to start the ball rolling faster?
Why did the intelligent designer wait a billion and a half years
before evolving the bacterial flagellum and then wait another billion
and a half years before evolving multicellular animals. Our model just
contends that evolution depends on what has already evolved. Until you
have the basis to evolve something new it isn't going to evolve.
Multicellular life apparently required new steroid receptors and things
like HOX genes. They likely evolved to do certain things in single
celled organisms before they were used to allow colonies of cells to
interact with each other. There is no mystery of what you are calling
an acceleration. Evolution simply builds on what is already around, but
you have to wait until there is something to build on.

What is your alternative?

Why did your designer accelerate the changes? I don't even know if it
is an acceleration. How do you measure it when the vast majority of
lifeforms are still single celled organisms? Is evolution really
accelerating or is it slowing down with some minor blips around the edges?

>
>
> You're the one that's dodging.

You are the one that dodged from the beginning and why you have to lie
about it is really the worst thing about the ID scam.

You were supposed to give your alternative, and what did you do instead,
and what has it amounted to?

Nothing but IDiocy and dishonesty.

Were you ever going to put forward an alternative or just blow smoke
forever?

Why not try to do something honest and straight forward. It would be a
change, and would demonstrate that you can do something as simple as
that. Just put forward your alternative and make sure that you account
for the "acceleration" that you think is happening.

Ron Okimoto

>
>
>
>
>> Ron Okimoto
>>
>>>
>>>> Ron Okimoto
>>>>
>>>
>>
>

[Dana Tweedy]

Ray, if your agenda were entirely scientific, you'd be able to state a
hypothesis that does not depend on the action of a supernatural being.

Your entire position is based on the assumption that work of a
supernatural designer can be correctly inferred (even if you don't like
that word) from the mere resemblance of living things with objects
designed by non supernatural beings.

You have not provided a testable mechanism to explain how that
supernatural being carried out his/her/their/its design, nor have you
been able to produce any logical reason to rule out natural processes as
producing the resemblance to design.

So, where, exactly does anything scientific enter into your "agenda" in
the first place? (what religious beliefs scientists in the past may
have held is not relevant here)


DJT

[Mr. B1ack]

On Thu, 30 Apr 2015 00:07:36 -0400, jillery <69jp...@gmail.com>

What, exactly, *constitutes* "establishment" is NOT spelled
out in the constitution. I think it was on purpose ... the Founders
knew there had to be a fair amount of wiggle-room on such an
issue to dilute present and future stresses that might develop.
Smart guys.

However it's exactly the sort of thing the ID/Creationist crowd
can make use of. You don't remove the "establishment clause",
you re-define "establishment" instead. MUCH easier.

And if you think "clear" constitutional meanings can't be
re-defined, consider what the "Patriot Act" did to the
constitution ... all legal and court approved.

And you're right about the other thing ... the way things have
been going - for reasons of quality AND political tampering -
expect to see public ed continue to shrink. While most
private ed is now handled by churches (in the 20s private
ed was more often socialist/Marxist) if the sector grows
just a little more it will become worth some private
companys trouble .... "American Education Corporation"
or whatever.

Such a commercial concern could educate 'better' and
be free of most political/ideological tampering plus be
quite affordable. I'd expect a slight theoright bias - since
that's where most of the initial customer base comes
from. Public schools would be reduced to "welfare
schools" ... just babysitters for the poorest of the poor.

In any case, as I've said before in other threads, there
are a few countries - like the USA - where nearly half
the population really doesn't believe in Darwin for
whatever reasons. It won't take much to push things
in favor of the ID/Creationist agenda. Darwin *barely*
got into US schools in the first place, he'll be fairly
easy to dislodge once the proper point of leverage is
discovered.

So then what ?

[jillery]

On Fri, 01 May 2015 21:26:34 -0400, "Mr. B1ack" <now...@nada.net>

Neil Tyson makes a point that might be relevant here. A lot of
Conservative types fear dying poor. If they are shown that quality
public education is a good investment, that helps to prevent the U.S.
from becoming a technological backwater, they might realize that their
support of the Fundie fringe isn't in their best interest after all.

[RonO]

> Ron Okimoto
>

So it looks like no IDiots want to put forward their alternative and all
they ever want to do is make believe that they are accomplishing
something by bad mouthing the current model while understanding that
they have nothing as good as their own "not good enough." When your
alternative isn't even as good as not good enough what does that mean?

I expected that we might have gotten the directed panspermic alternative
where the Throopadorks from Ork seeded our planet with their intelligent
designs. Since it took over 3.5 billion years after life got it's start
on this planet and the evolution of humans with the assistance of the
Dorks, the Dork planet likely evolved life soon after the Big Bang (13.8
billion years ago) so the Dorks could eventually evolve to a level where
they could start messing with our planet 3.5 billion years ago. No one
knows what Dork life was like, but since they supposedly seeded our
planet, they likely had life forms similar to what they were playing
with on earth. The Dorks were patient and persistent. It may have
taken over a million years after launch for their first probes to get to
Earth, and for some reason it took them billions of years to evolve
humans on this planet. About 1.5 billion years after they seeded our
planet with life they finally got around to giving us the design for the
bacterial flagellum. No one knows why it took so long, but maybe
photosynthesis was a higher priority. If their star was similar to ours
they likely died out when their star became a red giant after around 10
billion years of existence, so they likely were not around to see the
Cambrian explosion, but it may have taken their probes a couple hundred
million years to get to Earth by that time (our stars would be separated
by billions of years of traveling their separate ways), so the evolution
of the blood clotting system and immmune system, half a billion years
ago, could have been their last blessing upon this planet. The Dork
designers may have been extinct for on the order of a billion years, so
we don't see their probes raining down on us anymore. Somewhere we
might get lucky and find a Dork probe in pre Cambrian rock.

So much for the Dorks.

Are we going to see any other IDiot alternatives?

Ron Okimoto

[Mr. B1ack]

On Fri, 01 May 2015 23:03:36 -0400, jillery <69jp...@gmail.com>
wrote:

>On Fri, 01 May 2015 21:26:34 -0400, "Mr. B1ack" <now...@nada.net>
>wrote:
>
>
>

>> In any case, as I've said before in other threads, there
>> are a few countries - like the USA - where nearly half
>> the population really doesn't believe in Darwin for
>> whatever reasons. It won't take much to push things
>> in favor of the ID/Creationist agenda. Darwin *barely*
>> got into US schools in the first place, he'll be fairly
>> easy to dislodge once the proper point of leverage is
>> discovered.
>>
>> So then what ?
>
>
>Neil Tyson makes a point that might be relevant here. A lot of
>Conservative types fear dying poor. If they are shown that quality
>public education is a good investment, that helps to prevent the U.S.
>from becoming a technological backwater, they might realize that their
>support of the Fundie fringe isn't in their best interest after all.

Blessed be those who don't add "de Grasse" :-)

There are "regular conservatives" and then there are
the "Big Money conservatives" - the ones who buy
senators and presidents - supercapitalists.

The Big Money sector cares less about what happens
in the USA because their interests are usually global.
So long as *somebody* is smart *somewhere* ... hey,
who cares if Johnny can't read ........... can't even
spell "evolution" ? Too expensive to hire Johnny anyway,
cheaper to hire Chen instead.

So, the target audience has to be those "regular
conservatives", the ones who still want to take
pride in America. There are a lot of them, so,
collectively, they're potentially as influential as
their Big Money cousins. Unfortunately they're
less likely to believe in, much less understand,
Darwin. The ID/Creationists have already gotten
to them so in their minds "education" includes
everything BUT Darwin.

So how to snatch them away from the IDiots ? If
it were easy it'd have already been done. The only
route I see is sort of a new Ronald Reagan, a
conservative they all respect, who just happens
to grok evolution.

Oh, and another barrier is the "liberals" ... who are
far more concerned with kids "self esteem" than they
are with them actually LEARNING anything. One
factoid to emerge from the recent Baltimore riots
was that only about 10% of EIGHTH GRADERS
in the poorer half of the city can actually be called
"literate". In short, they're unusually old 2nd-graders.
Do the "liberals" care ? Nope. All they want is a
"free-money"-addicted voter bloc.

American science ed peaked during the 50s and 60s.
This was when the cold war was still pretty hot and
we felt we had to out-compete the Soviets on every
level, including sci/tech. Sputnik spooked everybody
and we were playing catch-up for a long time. Our
sense of superiority and invulnerability had been
damaged.

But who's the competition now ? Islamists ? Sorry, but
no reason to worry about THEIR tech. Yea, commercially
there's always China ... but they kinda OWN us at this
point, can't generate the same kind of scary Us/Them
psychology we had with the Soviets.

Quality sci/tech education requires a lot of effort and a
lot of money and something to provide a lot of motivation.
We haven't been motivated for a long time now ... and
the money and effort went elsewhere.

We now have a generation being taught by a generation
that wasn't very motivated. It'd be a long road back. Not
impossible, but rather unlikely unless something in the
world changes very drastically. The USA may have shot
its wad during the cold war and the future of sci/tech
now lies with others. So ... should things like "Cosmos"
be in Mandarin instead ? Hindi ?

[jillery]

On Sat, 02 May 2015 21:02:04 -0400, "Mr. B1ack" <now...@nada.net>

My impression is that globalization doesn't matter as long as it isn't
mitigated by global democracy.

I understand your pessimism. But there was a time when "everyone" was
convinced the Japanese would own the U.S. Now everyone is convinced
the Chinese own the U.S. I'm not convinced that owning the U.S. is
such a good investment.

[Mr. B1ack]

On Sun, 03 May 2015 01:40:45 -0400, jillery <69jp...@gmail.com>

I'm plenty old enough to remember "Japan Owns
The World" .... but, bad investments ....... oops ...

China is a bit different. They're working through a
more abstract mechanism ... debt and refinance
of debt. This is more insidious. At this point we HAVE
to have their money, our preferred lifestyle and our
actual income potential don't jibe - ergo they own us.

But I'm not mad at China for being better capitalists
than Americans.

If anything, China is one of the places where Darwin
can prevail. It is not inflicted with the kind of religion
the US suffers under. China still wants to be the best,
and Darwin is part of that.

So, my advice ... forget the USA. It's going to fall to
the IDiots sooner or later - probably sooner. Instead
put time and money into east asian science. It will be
the lifeboat.

Of course Darwin WOULD eventually be rediscovered
by US science - facts can't be ignored forever. But if
things are kept alive elsewhere as the USA implodes
it'll mean a much faster revivial.

So talk to Tyson - or his nearest Chinese doppleganger -
and insert 'Cosmos'-style material into the eastern
experience. It will do more good there than here.

[RonO]

Well, so much for the Dork from Ork example. I will note that space
alien design has been acknowledged to be the most scientific of the
IDiot alternatives, so proclaimed by the IDiots themselves. Of course
"most scientific" is relative and still doesn't mean much in terms of
actually being scientific.

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/talk.origins/Jp8NXxBTtv4/0QK126O2SLkJ

What about the YEC (young earth creationism) Biblical model? This model
is held by the most vocal and persistent of the IDiots. It is laid out
in Genesis with some additions by the creationist IDiots. There are
various versions of this model, but most of the IDiots go for Ussher's
estimate that the creation happened less than 10,000 years ago. There
are two versions of creation in the Bible with the second version
involving the Garden of Eden written in the more archaic text and
thought to be the initial creation mythology, but that doesn't mean that
it is the most viable version of YEC. Most YEC tend to use the first
creation myth as the basis of their beliefs in terms of the order of
creation noted in the Bible, with the second creation myth relegated to
a sub story of creation.

The basic Biblical model is geocentric and flat-earth cosmology, but
that aspect of the model is mostly ignored by YEC after Newton, though
the geocentric aspect was religiously held until the Newton era. Newton
was born in the same year that Galileo died under house arrest, in part,
for his heretical heliocentric beliefs.

After Newton geocentrism was effectively dead, and we were no longer
thought to be at the center of the universe and a special creation in
that way. This was one of the biggest blows that science has ever
delivered to Christian theology in recorded history, but current YEC
minimize the effects and instead tend to concentrate on the
insignificant left overs. There remains a geocentric creationist
believer base, but most YEC just want them to go away. There was a
resurgence of flat-earth creationism right after Darwin published the
Origin of Species in a sort of back to basics theological revolution,
but it didn't last, although there was a "legitimate" flat-earth
creationist organization that coexisted with the YEC Scientific
Creationists and descendant YEC IDiots until the turn of the last
century (2000).

The basic YEC cosmology is about the same as real science has figured
out except the time table is still dependent on the Bible for some weird
reason even after the geocentric and flat-earth concessions. According
to the AIG (Answers in Genesis) the universe is really as big as science
thinks and light would take billions of years to cross the huge
distances. We are a part of a single star system (one of around 100
billion other stars in our galaxy) that sits on the edge of one arm of a
spiral galaxy that is one of hundreds of billions of other galaxies.
The Hubble telescope can observe galaxies so far away that it would have
taken their light over 10 billion years to get to the earth. The
Andromeda galaxy is visible to the naked eye and it would take light
around 2 million years to get from Andromeda to your eye. As they do
with the failure of geocentrism, the YEC tend to ignore the apparent age
of the universe around them, and it is one of the other aspects of
science that they want to remove from the public school education
system. There really isn't any need for the denial because we can
observe nova and super nova that have occurred in galaxies millions of
light years away, and these stars obviously died after the initial
creation and it would have taken the light of their deaths millions of
years to get to us and let us know that those stars had blown up.

For some reason the earth and universe had to have been created as it is
within the last 10,000 years in spite of everything observable today.
We need to skip to the third day of creation for the creation of life on
earth. There is no mention of life before there was life on land, but
the thread on phylogeny tells the progression of life on earth and most
of it was in the water for the most part until less than half a billion
years ago.

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/talk.origins/U6UZ-EaIFUs/jGFxaiASI0oJ

So there was quite a bit of creation of life in the water that isn't
mentioned.

On the third day plants did come before animals on land, but the fruit
trees were a much later addition. Angiosperm plants did not evolve
until around 100 million years ago, so they were not the first plants on
land. Angiosperms account for everything from wheat to cherry trees and
potatoes to walnuts. Animals were on land long before angiosperms
existed. Look it up. It does seem strange that the plants were created
before the light that they need for photosynthesis, and the surface of
the earth was very hot (molten) when the moon formed on the fourth day
after plants were created. Let's ignore that and move on.

On the fifth day multicellular animals did evolve in the water, but long
before there were land plants on earth and fruit trees. Biblical birds
were created as the first terrestrial tetrapods and were flying around
before reptiles and mammals existed. So apparently the basic tetrapod
body plan was created for birds before less derived tetrapods like
reptiles and dinos existed.

Reptiles and mammals including man are created on the sixth day.

All of this happened around 6,000 years ago. Possibly as soon as 4,500
years ago the intelligent designer got upset with his creation and
wanted to start over. It took poor Noah around 100 years to build an
ark to save all the "kinds" of land animals on earth. He may have
needed huge water tanks to preserve the whales, other sea mammals,
mosasaurs and icthyosaurs that had the "breath of life" in them from the
flood. He was tasked to keep all the animals fed and taken care of for
around a year that the ark was drifting around after the initial flood.
All the land animals that we observe on the earth today and even
extinct ones like the mammal like reptiles, dinos, and Eocene mammalian
megafauna were preserved on the ark. Many kinds obviously went extinct
soon after being let off the ark onto dry land. Some how all the kinds
got back to the continents where the fossils of their ancestors got
preserved by the flood. This was an heroic effort because continental
drift had occurred during the flood and the continents got separated by
thousands of miles of ocean in a single year. How this happened without
boiling off the oceans and pulverizing the land masses is a mystery.
All the kinds that tried to make it back to Antarctica were disappointed
and likely froze to death upon arrival. So that is why we find fossils
of weird kinds of animals like dinos and marsupial mammals in Antarctica
that no longer exist today.

The strangest thing is that we do not see genetic evidence of a
population bottle neck for all species that should have occurred within
the last few thousand years. The vast majority of species should have
been limited to a single pair, but what we observe is that most species
have around 5 times the genetic variation found in the human population
that was represented by 8 pairs of people. There is also the strange
notion that evolution was so much faster after the flood than observed
today. All the millions of extant species evolved from a few thousand
kinds on the ark, and a lot of the kinds that were on the ark are now
extinct.

The rapid evolution is problematic because it indicates that humans,
chimps, and gorillas are the same kind. To fit all the kinds on the ark
the AIG has to claim that all dogs from foxes to wolves evolved from a
single pair kept on the ark. Foxes are more than twice the genetic
distance from fido as humans are from chimps and gorillas. All cats
from tabby to the saber toothed monsters that evolved during the cold
period (ice age) after the flood were evolved from one pair of cat kind.
We can get DNA from fossils of saber toothed kitties that existed at
the end of the ice age around 10,000 years ago (oops, soon after the
flood) and they are around 3 times the genetic distance from tabby as
humans are from chimps and gorillas. Just go to the AIG's creation
museum and check out the claims.

So there may have been an ape kind on the ark that included humans and
Noah's son's may have married some pretty interesting specimens. The
strange thing is that even as decimated as their current populations are
chimps and gorillas still retain around 3 times the genetic variation
found in humans. They do not show the same evidence of a genetic bottle
neck as humans do. The AIG has no explanation for how this massive
amount of evolution could occur and what would have stopped it, so we
didn't observe it during recorded history.

So that seems to be the YEC model. A weird order of creation of the
universe and life on earth, and some type of world wide flood that is
supposed to account for the diversity of life that we see on this
planet. There really isn't much doubt as to why it isn't taught as
science in the public schools.

Ron Okimoto

[RonO]

Oops. There were not 8 pairs of people on the ark, but 8 people.

[RonO]

Since no IDiots have been brave and or honest enough to put forward
their alternatives I've put some forward for them. The two so far have
been ones that everyone has already heard the IDiots talk about, but
they tend to never put them forward in a coherent fashion. The one
thing that all the IDiot models have in common is that they are not
scientific. Back in 2002 when the ID perps first ran the bait and
switch on the Ohio State Board of Education, the board found out that
intelligent design was not scientific. That understanding resulted in
one board member putting forward the motion that the Board change the
definition of science in order for it to be legal to teach ID in their
public schools.

The most scientific IDiot option is the Dork from Ork space alien
designers option, but most of the people that put this forward have
religious motives. They either put it up as a smoke screen in order to
sound halfway scientific, but they really have another IDiot model that
they believe or they have some god making the space aliens and us, with
this god using space aliens as a vector or more directly creating our
essence (immortal souls) to fit into the space alien plans.

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/talk.origins/Jp8NXxBTtv4/0QK126O2SLkJ

I have also put up the more blatantly Biblical IDiot model, of which
there are multiple versions. No one group seems to be able to convince
the others that they have the correct literal interpretation of the two
creation stories preserved in the Bible. IDiots of other religions like
Kalk would likely have a different version based on their interpretation
of the Vedas, or some other creation mythology. For some reason Kalk
completely ignores the fact that his version would never be presented in
our public schools, because the ID perps that he supports only want
their version taught. The Vedas creation mythology can already be
taught in the public schools as part of a comparative religion class,
but that isn't what the Christian IDiots want. They only want their
religious beliefs taught. If they had wanted their kids to be exposed
to other religious views they could have already been teaching their
religious perspective since the 1987 supreme court ruling.

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/talk.origins/Jp8NXxBTtv4/T4lbKDNk47YJ

There is really only one more IDiot model left. It does have many
alternative forms, but basically it is the Tweeker model. Just about
everything is as science has discovered, but the designer tweeks things
every once in a while to create our reality. About the only difference
in the models is how much the intelligent designer is involved in the
creation. They range from the Ken Miller types (yes, the Miller that is
against the intelligent design creationist scam) who believe in an
interactive God that literally surrounds and infuses creation to
minimalist tweekers represented by Behe's alternatives.

For Behe's models the intelligent designer's tweeking may have been
limited to the creation of a universe where biological evolution of
beings such as us was preordained. Behe has also proposed that the
designer front loaded all the information required into the first
lifeform and let life unfold into all the forms we have today. Behe has
also claimed that the designer may be tweeking life at certain times
during the evolution of life on earth. His examples are the bacterial
flagellum that evolved a couple billion years ago and the immune system
and blood clotting system that evolved around a half billion years ago.
Essentially the designer may drop by every few billion years, and
since there is no current evidence that the designer is doing something
today the designer may be as dead as the space alien Dorks whose sun may
have become a red giant by now.

Tweekers can all be lumped together as theistic evolutionists because
they do not contest that life evolved on this planet and diversified
over a very long period of time. They only claim that their designer
had something to do with it even if they do not know exactly what their
designer did. They essentially accept what science has discovered, but
want to add their religious beliefs into the mix. As Ken Miller
acknowledges this is not scientific.

My guess is that the thousands of clergy that signed the letter that in
no uncertain terms denounces the intelligent design creationist
political scam are Tweekers of one sort or another. They all just admit
that their religious beliefs are not scientific.

http://www.theclergyletterproject.org/

The religious beliefs of most of those against the creationist ID scam
are likely the reason why the Discovery Institute claims that theistic
evolution is as bad as atheism in their more recent religiously related
material that they have up on their web site. The scam was that ID had
nothing to do with religion, but now the ID perps are making claims as
to what religious beliefs are OK, sad but true. The reason why tweekers
like Behe are claimed to be the IDiots worst enemies, according to the
Discovery Institute, is because they acknowledge that the science is
simply correct. They have nothing to add to the existing science except
their claims that some intelligent designer messed with things in some
unknown way. This approach will never become part of science until the
IDiots break the 100% failure rate barrier. 100% failure of the IDiot
option in the entire history of science is just that, 100%. Even IDiots
as lost as Bill understand that there has been 100% failure. The IDiots
have no excuse for this reality because they know that IDiocy was the
default explanation for Western science for centuries and amounted to
nothing. Tweekers and other types of theistic evolutionists make that
perfectly clear to anyone with a functioning brain that is competent
enough to understand the situation.

So if any IDiots want to contest the three types of IDiot models that I
have put up, you have your chance to put your own forward. Why is that
so difficult? The real tragedy is that the ID perps at the Discovery
Institute have never even tried to put up their best IDiotic model on
their web page, and all the IDiots just keep lapping up the swill that
they deliver instead. This is just sad but obviously true. The ID
perps have never stated what they would have taught in the public
schools and they have never put up the ID science when they have needed
it. What do they do instead?

Ron Okimoto