Talking the talk

[Joe Cummings]

I get the impression that sometimes our conversations here are a little
too technical for our creationist friends.

It's all very well for biologists and other scientists to write fluently
about their subject, but when you have creationists posting here on some
topics, they're reduced to cutting and pasting extracts from papers
that they only partially understand, if at all.

They become screed-mongers.They're not really able to pursue an argument
in any recognisable form, but are often reduced to abuse and name-calling.

What I propose is to discuss a puzzling topic that doesn't require any
knowledge of biochemistry, but is certainly relevant to our discussions.

It's about something that sharply marks us off from other animals, but
yet shows our relationship to them.

I'm talking about speech.

All our thoughts, good or bad, have to be communicated through the
spoken or written word. I'll concentrate on the spoken word here.

It's remarkable that, for example Ray Martinez or Steady Eddy have been
converted by some preacher or other through the persuasiveness of their
speech.

If ever there was a case for the Lord to create a special organ it would
be here. Yet what do we find?

There isn't an organ of speech. I'll repeat that: there isn't an organ
of speech. We use parts of our anatomy which have other, primary functions.

Let's look at some instances of this:

Take the word "faith." We make the "f" sound by pressing our teeth,
which we, along with other animals use for biting food, against the
lips, which we, along with other animals, use to hold food in the
mouth,and which we use when young for suckling.

We make tha "ai" sound by using our cheeks and tongue which we, along
with other animals use for holding food and tasting it.

We make the "th" sound by pressing our tongue, which we, along with
other animals use for tasting, against the roots of our teeth, which are
used for biting.

If you examine the range of sounds made in human speech, every single
sound is made by using a part of our anatomy which has a primary,
different purpose. And moreover, these parts of our anatomy will be
found to correspond to parts of the anatomy of other animals.

When Adam was created out of the dust, why didn't the lord just take a
bit more trouble and give humans a speech organ?

Have verbal fun,

Joe Cummings

[RSNorman]

On Mon, 18 Jan 2016 19:32:24 +0100, Joe Cummings
<joecumm...@gmail.com> wrote:

>I get the impression that sometimes our conversations here are a little
>too technical for our creationist friends.
>
>It's all very well for biologists and other scientists to write fluently
>about their subject, but when you have creationists posting here on some
>topics, they're reduced to cutting and pasting extracts from papers
>that they only partially understand, if at all.
>
>They become screed-mongers.They're not really able to pursue an argument
>in any recognisable form, but are often reduced to abuse and name-calling.
>
>What I propose is to discuss a puzzling topic that doesn't require any
>knowledge of biochemistry, but is certainly relevant to our discussions.

<snip the proposal>

What you propose is an excellent idea that I intend to respond to
appropriately. Here I go into your intro, above. Yes, I am a leading
offender of writing very technical pieces about arcane pieces of
biology (or mathematics or complexity or information theory). But
those screeds of my own are not to convert or convince creationists.
Rather they are intended for the other scientifically literate people
here who seem to respond appropriately and knowledgeably.

[RSNorman]

On Mon, 18 Jan 2016 19:32:24 +0100, Joe Cummings
<joecumm...@gmail.com> wrote:

It may be that the Lord did just as you describe. The human vocal
tract is highly specialized for speech. We tend to think of this as
"evolution" but our friends here claim it is more like "reuse and
repurposing of common design features."

A leading and early advocate of this notion is Philip Lieberman who
wrote some 45 years ago "the human vocal tract is inferior to the
nonhuman voccal tract with respect to the vegetative functions of
breathing, swallowing, and chewing. The only function for which the
human vocal tract, i.e., the oral cavity, pharynx, larynx, and nose,
is superior is generating the full range of sounds of human speech."
http://www.haskins.yale.edu/SR/SR028/SR028_11.pdf

Or see "Primate Functional Morphology and Evolution", p. 527: "the
anatomy necessary for producing the full range of sounds necessary for
human speech represents a particular specialization that, at the
present time, occurs only in normal adult Homo sapiens."
https://books.google.com/books?isbn=3110803801

That all sounds like special creation to me.

Of course the inferiority of our vocal tract for normal living beyond
speech is simply the result of The Fall. Before eating that fateful
apple, Adam and Eve had only to grunt, smile, or wink at each other to
obtain all the pleasures of living in Eden.

[Joe Cummings]

I'm not surprised that none of our creationist friends have joined the
thread. The facts are irrefutable, there's no speech organ.

It may well be, RSN, that our organs of digestion and respiration have
become modified as a result of our use of speech, but are these changes
the result of the Fall, or is there another process at work?

I really would like to hear from our friends if it could possibly be as
a result of what they term "microevolution?" In this case it could be
the divine agency rectifying a grave omission. We see in Genesis how
the Lord is constantly surprised at his handiwork ("He saw that it was
good..") although the Omniscient would surely have known what the
results of his activity would be. Perhaps he's trying to put things right.

There is another possibility which I'd like to throw in - I haven't
heard this but our creationist friends are welcome to it:

Could it be that the Lord was communicating to Adam by telepathy? In
this case, there would have been no need for an organ of speech.
However, this suggestion is weakened because Adam had to name the
animals, etc. Of course, Adam might have had to be able to speak if
only to communicate to Cain's in-laws in the land of Nod.

It gets more interesting.

Have fun,

Joe Cummings

[Peter Nyikos]

On Wednesday, January 20, 2016 at 2:05:28 PM UTC-5, Joe Cummings wrote:
> On 18/01/2016 21:29, RSNorman wrote:
> > On Mon, 18 Jan 2016 19:32:24 +0100, Joe Cummings
> > <joecumm...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> I get the impression that sometimes our conversations here are a little
> >> too technical for our creationist friends.
> >>
> >> It's all very well for biologists and other scientists to write fluently
> >> about their subject, but when you have creationists posting here on some
> >> topics, they're reduced to cutting and pasting extracts from papers
> >> that they only partially understand, if at all.

That's better than the response they get on some issues, like microtubules.
Over on the following thread, the OP design supporter posted a huge amount of
scientific data while his critics posted almost none, being content with
putting all burden of proof on the supporters.

Subject: The astonishing language written on microtubules, amazing evidence
of design

> >> They become screed-mongers.They're not really able to pursue an argument
> >> in any recognisable form, but are often reduced to abuse and name-calling.

Their critics are close to being reduced to that.

> >> What I propose is to discuss a puzzling topic that doesn't require any
> >> knowledge of biochemistry, but is certainly relevant to our discussions.
> >>
> >> It's about something that sharply marks us off from other animals, but
> >> yet shows our relationship to them.
> >>
> >> I'm talking about speech.
> >>
> >> All our thoughts, good or bad, have to be communicated through the
> >> spoken or written word. I'll concentrate on the spoken word here.
> >>
> >> It's remarkable that, for example Ray Martinez or Steady Eddy have been
> >> converted by some preacher or other through the persuasiveness of their
> >> speech.
> >>
> >> If ever there was a case for the Lord to create a special organ it would
> >> be here. Yet what do we find?
> >>
> >> There isn't an organ of speech. I'll repeat that: there isn't an organ
> >> of speech.

<snip for focus>

> > Of course the inferiority of our vocal tract for normal living beyond
> > speech is simply the result of The Fall. Before eating that fateful
> > apple, Adam and Eve had only to grunt, smile, or wink at each other to
> > obtain all the pleasures of living in Eden.
>
> I'm not surprised that none of our creationist friends have joined the
> thread. The facts are irrefutable, there's no speech organ.

So what? You are talking about hardware, but *language*, which is
what really excites creationists, is more like programming.

Parrots and mynah birds have speech; what they do not have is
the kind of language that enables you and me to share ideas
in a medium which does not even use speech. It uses keyboards.

You might as well ask a creationist why God did not make
a "typing organ."

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of South Carolina
http://www.math.sc.edu/~nyikos/

[Rolf]

"Joe Cummings" <joecumm...@gmail.com> skrev i melding
news:iqCdnabUatIXRALL...@giganews.com...

Yes, it would be interesting to learn what language Adam learned from God?
Eve was an afterthought to fix Adams loneliness. Did they have a navel? At
what age were they created?
How did Adam learn to speak before any language existed? How could Adam name
the animals - or anything else?

I think Adam and Eve got everything from their neighbors. Adam and Eve was
God's first creation, all other people were the result of evolution.



> Have fun,
>
> Joe Cummings
>

[RSNorman]

On Wed, 20 Jan 2016 12:40:24 -0800 (PST), Peter Nyikos
<nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote:

>On Wednesday, January 20, 2016 at 2:05:28 PM UTC-5, Joe Cummings wrote:
>> On 18/01/2016 21:29, RSNorman wrote:
>> > On Mon, 18 Jan 2016 19:32:24 +0100, Joe Cummings
>> > <joecumm...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> >> I get the impression that sometimes our conversations here are a little
>> >> too technical for our creationist friends.
>> >>
>> >> It's all very well for biologists and other scientists to write fluently
>> >> about their subject, but when you have creationists posting here on some
>> >> topics, they're reduced to cutting and pasting extracts from papers
>> >> that they only partially understand, if at all.
>
>That's better than the response they get on some issues, like microtubules.
>Over on the following thread, the OP design supporter posted a huge amount of
>scientific data while his critics posted almost none, being content with
>putting all burden of proof on the supporters.
>
>Subject: The astonishing language written on microtubules, amazing evidence
> of design
>
>> >> They become screed-mongers.They're not really able to pursue an argument
>> >> in any recognisable form, but are often reduced to abuse and name-calling.
>
>Their critics are close to being reduced to that.

What you do not seem to realize is that the person who posted that
very long piece on microtubules also has posted similar long pieces on
other topics from the same source with apparently no understanding of
the content whatsoever. At least the poster has no been able to
respond to other subjects with any demonstration of knowledge.

There is no reason to contest or argue the scientific work on
microtubules which seems to be quite correct. However the source is a
web site whose purpose is: "Rational inquiry based on scientific
evidence leads to God This is my personal virtual library, where i
collect scientific , philosophic, and religous information, which
leads in my view to the God of the bible as the creator of our
existence." The argument being made was not about the scientific data
but about the interpretation that just because something in cell
biology is complex necessarily means that it was intelligently
designed and created. In fact i pointed to many scientific papers
describing the evolution of those mysterious cellular powers but, in
response, the scientific evidence for evolution was simply rejected by
the original poster out of hand.

[Peter Nyikos]

Still, he brought a lot of data out into the open. Why didn't you quote from
any of the six sources you linked in your initial reply to him? Do you
really expect everyone to wade through the linked articles to try
and tease the nuggets of relevant information out of them?

Compare your bare-bones use of those links with my detailed
reply to Stockwell a short while ago.

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!original/talk.origins/O4LVZjK0SkM/Cgt9NBI2EwAJ

____________________________Excerpt________________________________
Microtubules in Bacteria: Ancient Tubulins Build a Five-Protofilament
Homolog of the Eukaryotic Cytoskeleton
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3232192/

That is the only evolutionary precursor, if that is what it is, that
I have found to the eukaryotic microtubule, which usually has
13 protofilaments. And the authors aren't too confident about the
designation. They write:

Since BtubA/B are true homologs of eukaryotic tubulin [11],[12],[17]
and they form closely related structures differing mainly in the
number of protofilaments, we suggest they be referred to as "bacterial
microtubules" (bMTs).

Despite the word "closely related" there is no evolutionary tree
provided, not even a speculative one. And they seem to be not
too comfortable with that assertion later on:

The lack of relatedness of BtubA/B to other tubulin families,
however, makes clear that it was not a transfer from a modern
eukaryote. Instead, it may have been from a yet-unidentified
bacterial lineage that also carries the btubAB genes.

========================end of excerpt=======================

> There is no reason to contest or argue the scientific work on
> microtubules which seems to be quite correct. However the source is a
> web site whose purpose is: "Rational inquiry based on scientific
> evidence leads to God This is my personal virtual library, where i
> collect scientific , philosophic, and religous information, which
> leads in my view to the God of the bible as the creator of our
> existence." The argument being made was not about the scientific data
> but about the interpretation that just because something in cell
> biology is complex necessarily means that it was intelligently
> designed and created.

Hardly. The OP in that thread quotes a lot of detail about the actual
nature of the complexity, including a kind of Catch-22 situation:

Not only does it have to be elucidated how this tubulin or
microtubule code allows cells to do all these tasks, but also
what explains best its arising and encoding. Most of these
enzymes are specific to tubulin and microtubule post translational
modifications. They have only use if microtubules exist.
Microtubules however require these enzymes to modify their structures.
It can therefor be concluded that they are interdependent and could
not arise independently by natural evolutionary mechanisms.

http://reasonandscience.heavenforum.org/t2096-the-cytoskeleton-microtubules-and-post-translational-modification#4033

> In fact i pointed to many scientific papers
> describing the evolution of those mysterious cellular powers but, in
> response, the scientific evidence for evolution was simply rejected by
> the original poster out of hand.

What evidence? We have plenty for evolution of the vertebrates,
where we have a great wealth of fossils and comparative anatomy,
but what do your links have to offer?

I just had a look so far at the one that looked the most promising:

Perspectives on the origin of microfilaments, microtubules, the
relevant chaperonin system and cytoskeletal motors-- a commentary on
the spirochaete origin of flagella (full text free)
http://www.nature.com/cr/journal/v13/n4/full/7290167a.html

No attempt at an actual hypothesis as to how they evolved, just
the usual thesis of homology of the microfilamenta with other proteins.

Until you can pinpoint the places where your links deal with things
like that Catch-22 situation, you and the advocates of design
will just be talking past each other.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of South Carolina

http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos/

[RSNorman]

On Wed, 20 Jan 2016 17:03:12 -0800 (PST), Peter Nyikos

This last sentence perfectly characterizes the situation; we are
talking past each other. Science uses the evidence that is available
to find explanations for phenomena; explanations that are internally
consistent and also externally fully consistent with known molecular
biophysical and biochemical mechanisms. IDers take the obvious fact
that there are obvious gaps to conclude that these gaps are "proof" of
design.

The "usual thesis" of homology is, to science, clearcut evidence for
evolution. The same homology is dismissed as "the usual suspects" by
those that disbelieve in evolution. That is talking past each other.

[Öö Tiib]

On Monday, 18 January 2016 20:35:36 UTC+2, Joe Cummings wrote:
> I get the impression that sometimes our conversations here are a little
> too technical for our creationist friends.
>
> It's all very well for biologists and other scientists to write fluently
> about their subject, but when you have creationists posting here on some
> topics, they're reduced to cutting and pasting extracts from papers
> that they only partially understand, if at all.
>
> They become screed-mongers.They're not really able to pursue an argument
> in any recognisable form, but are often reduced to abuse and name-calling.
>
> What I propose is to discuss a puzzling topic that doesn't require any
> knowledge of biochemistry, but is certainly relevant to our discussions.
>
> It's about something that sharply marks us off from other animals, but
> yet shows our relationship to them.
>
> I'm talking about speech.
>
> All our thoughts, good or bad, have to be communicated through the
> spoken or written word. I'll concentrate on the spoken word here.
>
> It's remarkable that, for example Ray Martinez or Steady Eddy have been
> converted by some preacher or other through the persuasiveness of their
> speech.
>
> If ever there was a case for the Lord to create a special organ it would
> be here. Yet what do we find?
>
> There isn't an organ of speech. I'll repeat that: there isn't an organ
> of speech. We use parts of our anatomy which have other, primary functions.

That one is perhaps simple to explain.

It is just convenience that we use voice. The mute humans among us
speak using their hands and mimic. So regardless if there are
special organs or not the intelligent beings will communicate.

>
> Let's look at some instances of this:
>
> Take the word "faith." We make the "f" sound by pressing our teeth,
> which we, along with other animals use for biting food, against the
> lips, which we, along with other animals, use to hold food in the
> mouth,and which we use when young for suckling.
>
> We make tha "ai" sound by using our cheeks and tongue which we, along
> with other animals use for holding food and tasting it.
>
> We make the "th" sound by pressing our tongue, which we, along with
> other animals use for tasting, against the roots of our teeth, which are
> used for biting.
>
> If you examine the range of sounds made in human speech, every single
> sound is made by using a part of our anatomy which has a primary,
> different purpose. And moreover, these parts of our anatomy will be
> found to correspond to parts of the anatomy of other animals.

When parrot talks then its enunciation is clear enough but it does not
have that anatomy, it just whistles so masterfully. Same is with talking
ousel. If cricket would gain enough intelligence to talk then it would
perhaps chirp the words. Important part is to make the sounds recognizable
not how that is achieved.

>
> When Adam was created out of the dust, why didn't the lord just take a
> bit more trouble and give humans a speech organ?

It is unsure if God did make humans from dust. It is more likely
that God did breed humans from apes, however the Jewish priests
were rightfully afraid of being stoned to death by mob if they
write such truth down and so they did lie about dust in Bible.

God didn't actually fancy the capability of humans to communicate
and collaborate. When those took to build Tower of Babel then God
confounded their speech and scattered them all over the world.
Some inbuilt WiFi organ would have made it all even more annoying
for God.

[Peter Nyikos]

<snip for focus>

> >> In fact i pointed to many scientific papers
> >> describing the evolution of those mysterious cellular powers but, in
> >> response, the scientific evidence for evolution was simply rejected by
> >> the original poster out of hand.

> >What evidence? We have plenty for evolution of the vertebrates,
> >where we have a great wealth of fossils and comparative anatomy,
> >but what do your links have to offer?
> >
> >I just had a look so far at the one that looked the most promising:
> >
> >Perspectives on the origin of microfilaments, microtubules, the
> >relevant chaperonin system and cytoskeletal motors-- a commentary on
> >the spirochaete origin of flagella (full text free)
> >http://www.nature.com/cr/journal/v13/n4/full/7290167a.html
> >
> >No attempt at an actual hypothesis as to how they evolved, just
> >the usual thesis of homology of the microfilamenta with other proteins.
> >
> >Until you can pinpoint the places where your links deal with things
> >like that Catch-22 situation, you and the advocates of design
> >will just be talking past each other.
>
>
> This last sentence perfectly characterizes the situation; we are
> talking past each other. Science uses the evidence that is available
> to find explanations for phenomena; explanations that are internally
> consistent and also externally fully consistent with known molecular
> biophysical and biochemical mechanisms.

...given enough time, or given a multiverse of perhaps infinitely
many universes, of which this is a very lucky one. Otherwise you haven't
made a case.

> IDers take the obvious fact
> that there are obvious gaps to conclude that these gaps are "proof" of
> design.

Stow that word "proof," matey. It occurs nowhere in the LONG
post by Otangelo Grasso in that other thread.

You are knocking down a straw man. Can you find either Otangelo,
or Glenn, or Eddie using the word "proof" anywhere on that thread,
or cognates like the word "prove"? I don't think you can.

> The "usual thesis" of homology is, to science, clearcut evidence for
> evolution.

You are moving the goalposts. You claimed above that your
six linked articles were "describing the evolution"; now you
are only claiming "evidence."

Were the creationists to play your game, they would falsely
accuse you of claiming that homology is "proof" of evolution.

> The same homology is dismissed as "the usual suspects" by
> those that disbelieve in evolution. That is talking past each other.

"Homology" has many meanings. Without an evolutionary tree of
the proteins involved, the word "synapomorphy", which Harshman
alleged to be completely synonymous with homology, is inapplicable.

And even with that tree, you are like a person talking to
someone who wants to know how the Great Pyramid was built,
and you tell him, "We know that the quarry where the stones
were cut is the same one where the stones for Cephren's
pyramid were cut." and let it go at that.

You disappoint me, Richard. I've seen much better from you
in the past.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Department of Math. -- standard disclaimer --
U. of S. Carolina at Columbia
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos/

[Peter Nyikos]

And we talk.origins participants "talk" to each other with fingers on
a keyboard.

> So regardless if there are
> special organs or not the intelligent beings will communicate.

Yes, I don't think any creationist would be impressed by this topic.
As I told Joe separately, what really excites creationists is our
command of *language* and the ability to communicate intricate
ideas using it.

I can do it easily in two languages, English and Magyar (Hungarian)
and with a lot of effort in German. How about you?

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics

U. of S. Carolina, Columbia -- standard disclaimer--
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos/

[RSNorman]

On Thu, 21 Jan 2016 13:54:59 -0800 (PST), Peter Nyikos

We have covered much of this ground far too often.

I already explained elsewhere that i lapsed once in using the term
"describe the evolution" in place of using the term "describe papers
that discuss the evolution." My bad.

Proposed evolutionary trees of the proteins involved are how much of
the research I describe about the evolution of the cellular mechanisms
are based on.

As to "proof", Otangelo does not use that word but phrases like this
"has to be" this way and that "had to be" that way and this way and
that way are totally incompatible with any possibility of evolution.
That does not constitute a mathematical proof but it is making
statements as if they are absolute fact and concluding that evolution
is necessarily impossible as a result. That is good enough for me to
call it a "proof."

[Ray Martinez]

On Monday, January 18, 2016 at 10:35:36 AM UTC-8, Joe Cummings wrote:
> I get the impression that sometimes our conversations here are a little
> too technical for our creationist friends.
>
> It's all very well for biologists and other scientists to write fluently
> about their subject, but when you have creationists posting here on some
> topics, they're reduced to cutting and pasting extracts from papers
> that they only partially understand, if at all.

These comments support the observation that evolutionary theory is an esoteric discipline----a private club that has its own language. Members have been known to describe themselves as "brights." Akin to nominating oneself, which isn't bright at all.

> They become screed-mongers. They're not really able to pursue an argument

> in any recognisable form, but are often reduced to abuse and name-calling.

The "brights" simply do not understand. When non-members observe moronic thinking in the arguments of "brights" the adjective isn't name calling but a factual description of their inability to think logically.

Moronic as it gets with no awareness.

Ray (anti-evolutionist)

[Peter Nyikos]

But, amusingly enough, you "explained elsewhere" that you had written
it over three months ago, whereas you had written it only a day ago,
in your third post to this thread! And if you do a word search
for "In fact i pointed to many scientific papers" right on the post
you are reading, you will find it among your preserved words,
far above!!!

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!original/talk.origins/O4LVZjK0SkM/6cl9hJuDEwAJ
Message-ID: <v3n2ab1mjm79042ao...@4ax.com>
Subject: Re: The astonishing language written on microtubules, amazing evidence of design
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 2016 15:43:36 -0700

> Proposed evolutionary trees of the proteins involved are how much of
> the research I describe about the evolution of the cellular mechanisms
> are based on.

Could you find some papers that describe these trees? Not that this
would take care of my main objection, "And even with that tree..."
but if you can do it easily, I'd be interested.

> As to "proof", Otangelo does not use that word but phrases like this
> "has to be" this way and that "had to be" that way and this way and
> that way are totally incompatible with any possibility of evolution.

I'll look for it when I have more time.

> That does not constitute a mathematical proof but it is making
> statements as if they are absolute fact and concluding that evolution
> is necessarily impossible as a result. That is good enough for me to
> call it a "proof."

In your last post to me on that other thread, only about an hour ago,
you made the all too common mistake of conflating "intelligent design"
with "supernatural design". Anti-ID zealots will never understand
ID theorists like Behe until they get over their love affair with
a misprint in an early draft of _Pandas and People_.

A lot of the evidence of "scientific creationism" and ID theory
is the same, but the conclusion the latter draws is not
supernatural design but intelligent design. Its methodology
is scientific, much as anti-ID zealots like Laurence A. Moran
of "Sandwalk" hate to face up to the fact.

Peter Nyikos
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos/
nyikos 'at' math.sc.edu

[Öö Tiib]

Exactly. Speech is likely overvalued.

>
> > So regardless if there are
> > special organs or not the intelligent beings will communicate.
>
>
> Yes, I don't think any creationist would be impressed by this topic.
> As I told Joe separately, what really excites creationists is our
> command of *language* and the ability to communicate intricate
> ideas using it.

People sometimes pay too much attention to what is said or written
and to various ways how it can't be misinterpreted and then play word
games. More important is to understand what other person actually meant.

>
> I can do it easily in two languages, English and Magyar (Hungarian)
> and with a lot of effort in German. How about you?

I trust that everybody can learn any foreign language with half a year
if they have to use it in practice every day. Estonian is my mother
tongue, second is Russian that I use slightly better than English.
Finnish I understand thanks to communicating with Finns and sometimes
watching their TV or reading news. Its similarity with Estonian
sometimes helps sometimes causes humorous misunderstandings. Magyar
is considered Uralic language with Finnish and Estonian but is rather
different in practice. For example I can understand some Ukrainian
(thanks to its similarity with Russian) but I can't understand Magyar.

[Peter Nyikos]

Of course, and in this case, Joe went to a good bit of detail
about how we use so many different parts of our head
to produce the various speech sounds, and his ideas about
the primary purposes for these parts. The relevance of
that to the purposes of speech was obscure, to say the least.

And he was so focused on eating that he forgot about the
vocal cords, which sure seem to make the larynx an organ
of producing "speech."

And he forgot all about what it is that makes speech,
persuasive, after having speculated that it was not
reading, but hearing "preachers", that converted
Martinez and Eddie to something he didn't try to specify.

By the way, the fact that I am communicating by typing,
instead of talking, an old story about
chimps being put to work at typewriters comes to mind.
Can you see the relevance?

> > I can do it easily in two languages, English and Magyar (Hungarian)
> > and with a lot of effort in German. How about you?
>
> I trust that everybody can learn any foreign language with half a year
> if they have to use it in practice every day. Estonian is my mother
> tongue, second is Russian that I use slightly better than English.
> Finnish I understand thanks to communicating with Finns and sometimes
> watching their TV or reading news. Its similarity with Estonian
> sometimes helps sometimes causes humorous misunderstandings. Magyar
> is considered Uralic language with Finnish and Estonian but is rather
> different in practice.

And English and Russian are both Indo-European, but very
different.

> For example I can understand some Ukrainian
> (thanks to its similarity with Russian) but I can't understand Magyar.

Yes, the Magyars are as distant from the Finns as Russians are from
the English. Understanding Russian doesn't help you with understanding
English, or vice versa, except for some borrowed words like "taxi"
which is also in Magyar and Finnish.

Trivia: when I was in Helsinki in 1978, the number of taxicabs
labeled "TAXI" and the number labeled "TAKSI" were about equal.

Another bit of trivia: surname comes first in Magyar, then
given name, just as in Chinese and Japanese. How is it in Estonian?

Nyikos Peter [there should be acute accents over the i and the first e]

[Earle Jones27]

On 2016-01-21 23:41:48 +0000, Ray Martinez said:

> On Monday, January 18, 2016 at 10:35:36 AM UTC-8, Joe Cummings wrote:
>> I get the impression that sometimes our conversations here are a little
>> too technical for our creationist friends.
>>
>> It's all very well for biologists and other scientists to write fluently
>> about their subject, but when you have creationists posting here on some
>> topics, they're reduced to cutting and pasting extracts from papers
>> that they only partially understand, if at all.
>
> These comments support the observation that evolutionary theory is an
> esoteric discipline----a private club that has its own language.
> Members have been known to describe themselves as "brights." Akin to
> nominating oneself, which isn't bright at all.
>
>> They become screed-mongers. They're not really able to pursue an argument
>> in any recognisable form, but are often reduced to abuse and name-calling.
>
> The "brights" simply do not understand. When non-members observe
> moronic thinking in the arguments of "brights" the adjective isn't name
> calling but a factual description of their inability to think logically.

*
Ray: St. Augusting said something very similar about Christians:

"Often a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the
heavens, and the other parts of the world, about the motions and
orbits of the stars and even their sizes and distances...and this
knowledge he holds with certainty from reason and experience. It is
thus offensive and disgraceful for an unbeliever to hear a
Christian talk nonsense about such things, claiming that what he is
saying is based in Scripture. We should do all that we can to avoid
such an embarrassing situation, lest the unbeliever see only
ignorance in the Christian and laugh to scorn."

--St. Augustine, "De Genesi ad litteram libri duodecim"
(The Literal Meaning of Genesis)

I think that St. Augustine would agree with you that when outsiders
"observe moronic thinking..." it is a description of their inability to
think logically.

[Joe Cummings]

On 18/01/2016 19:32, Joe Cummings wrote:
> I get the impression that sometimes our conversations here are a little
> too technical for our creationist friends.

Snip

>
> When Adam was created out of the dust, why didn't the lord just take a
> bit more trouble and give humans a speech organ?
>
> Have verbal fun,
>
> Joe Cummings
>

It's interesting how a simple note about the absence of a speech organ
stimulates differing responses.

Let's get really hifalutin'.


Perhaps I took it for granted that the development of speech in
primitive humans would require adaptations of the anatomy for the
purposes of communication. I was simply reprising a Darwinian scenario
for the development of speech.

My main concern was to show that communication was developed using
already existing features of the anatomy.

And it doesn't take a genius to realise that our inchoate speech would
be of a fairly limited content. But Peter Nyikos, for instance wanted to
get onto the bus well after it had left the depot (idiom). You don't
project modern ideas about communication onto the distant past.

What is at issue is the interaction of the organism with its
environment. That is about the most general consideration behind my
original posting.

Never mind for the moment the modern aspects of communication - which
have their place in some discussion consequent on this one.

Any organism interacts with its environment in a number of ways - eating
food, dealing with other species,e.g.avoiding predators, eating other
species and so on.

The most important part of an organism's environment is its own species
That's how babies come into the world. The relations within species
are many and varied, but as far as we can tell man and his predecessors
have been social animals. And a study of social animals shows that the
relationships within a species can be expressed in more or less
complicated patterns of behaviour - body language such as the baring of
teeth, growls, mews etc.

It"s interesting that another class of social animals - bees and wasps
have developed a system of communication using chemicals, or pheromones,
and fortuitously, I saw on the BBC website today a report about another
group of social animals - whales - who have a very complicated system
of communicating, also by sound. It was suggested that these whales
have dialects and different levels of language for different groups of
their conspecifics.

Of course, the use of communication is intimately connected with the
social life of the species under consideration, and that is worth a good
discussion at some stage, and I will gladly cede the initiation of such
a discussion to someone more capable than I.

I was a little disappointed to see only one creationist, Ray Martinez,
join the fray, and regret that he limited himself to some arcane ideas
about "brights," and, instead of addressing the argument, decided to
call it "moronic." His contribution made the omission by creationists to
join in a discussion about origins all the more egregious.

Let me emphasise that what I have written about the use of varying parts
of the anatomy is hypothetical, but I'm confident that speculation in
this manner stimulates further study, just as metaphysics stimulates
scientific investigation.

To coin a phrase, "Metaphysics proposes, science disposes."

I apologise if I have omitted to deal with other points raised, and also
for my snipping most of the discussion, but here I'm following Nyikos's
useful idea "Snipping for focus.

Have fun,

Joe cummings

[Öö Tiib]

On Friday, 22 January 2016 17:21:19 UTC+2, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Friday, January 22, 2016 at 2:11:20 AM UTC-5, Öö Tiib wrote:

<snip>

>
> By the way, the fact that I am communicating by typing,
> instead of talking, an old story about
> chimps being put to work at typewriters comes to mind.
> Can you see the relevance?

Do you mean infinite monkey theorem?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_monkey_theorem
I do not see its relevance so may be you did mean some other story.
It is relevant when people discuss something randomly happening
that is possible but unlikely. Typing and sending it over internet
is like cave drawings (recording) and drums (signal over distance)
merged.

...

> Trivia: when I was in Helsinki in 1978, the number of taxicabs
> labeled "TAXI" and the number labeled "TAKSI" were about equal.

In India where I was few years ago they have so lot of languages and
also number of different alphabets so most signs are doubled. Local text
and English. English is something most people seemingly can speak there
but it is sometimes hard to understand what they say because of their accent.

>
> Another bit of trivia: surname comes first in Magyar, then
> given name, just as in Chinese and Japanese. How is it in Estonian?

In Estonia both ways are correct. There is only subtle emphasizing about it.
It is considered slightly more official as family name (comma) given name
and it is considered slightly more polite as given name (space) family name.

>
> Nyikos Peter [there should be acute accents over the i and the first e]

So Nyíkos Péter. The Unicode 2.0 was standardized 20 years ago and it was
almost like it is now (current, 2015 version is 8.0). Over 90% of web
content is unicode but for some reason there are still defects in its usage.

Keyboard usage is typically made extremely inconvenient. For example
in Windows and with US Keyboard layout you get "í" when you press left
Alt, type 0237 on numpad (numlock light must be on) and release left Alt.
Same way but typing 0233 will result with "é". With laptop, with some
other operating system and/or with some other keyboard layout there may
be some different but similarly inconvenient ways. So some perfectly
English words like "naďve" (0239) are hard to type.

[Öö Tiib]

On Sunday, 24 January 2016 00:21:14 UTC+2, Öö Tiib wrote:
>
> So some perfectly
> English words like "naďve" (0239) are hard to type.

Odd I was typing "naïve" but see "naďve" in post. That is exactly what it
is. Even most common software is screwed up and defective despite the
character encoding is 20 years old. I trust that here will be serious
argument with AI (once we make some) who should wear the pants in house.

[Earle Jones27]

> English words like "naïve" (0239) are hard to type.


*
On the Mac, "option 'u' then 'i' works.

Naïve

earle
*

[jillery]

On Sat, 23 Jan 2016 15:50:53 -0800 (PST), Öö Tiib <oot...@hot.ee>
wrote:

>On Sunday, 24 January 2016 00:21:14 UTC+2, Öö Tiib wrote:
>>
>> So some perfectly

>> English words like "na?ve" (0239) are hard to type.
>
>Odd I was typing "naīve" but see "na?ve" in post. That is exactly what it

>is. Even most common software is screwed up and defective despite the
>character encoding is 20 years old. I trust that here will be serious
>argument with AI (once we make some) who should wear the pants in house.

As the above illustrates, a complication is that not all newsgroup
software implements Unicode. Apparently some news servers are still
limited to 7-bit ASCII. That's because a lot of Usenet software was
written before Unicode and never updated. I use the most recent
version of Agent, but it doesn't even mention Unicode in its Help.
It's a legacy issue.

As an aside, for those Windows users like me who don't use Unicode
often enough to remember them, there is always Character Map
(Windows>Accessories>System Tools>Character Map). And sometimes I
copy-and-paste from Wikipedia.
--
This space is intentionally not blank.

[Robert Carnegie]

Bees communicate through dance. (Discuss?)

I think that specialised communication could be developed
without devoting an organ to the purpose, except for the
brain. But it seems also to be reasonably robust that
the human larynx is a specialised and relatively unique
communication organ. Primates can be taught sign language
but generally not to speak, although recordings of the
former "Avian Learning Experiment" known as
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_%28parrot%29>
are astonishing.

Other animal vocalisations can be highly expressive
and specific but apparently without involving
abstraction, or grammar. For instance, the monsters
on Star Trek can discriminate between crewmen wearing
gold, blue, or red-shirt uniforms. :-)

(Minus the Star Trek reference, this is something
that I think I heard on television show _QI_, but
I am having trouble tracing - including the shirt
colour. Google seems to think that I am trying to
buy a coloured shirt.)

[erik simpson]

On Sunday, January 24, 2016 at 9:21:11 AM UTC-8, Robert Carnegie wrote:
> <...>

> Bees communicate through dance. (Discuss?)
>

> <...>

"A flying saucer creature named Zog arrived on Earth to explain how wars could be prevented and how cancer could be cured. He brought the information from Margo, a planet where the natives conversed by means of farts and tap dancing.

Zog landed at night in Connecticut. He had no sooner touched down than he saw a house on fire. He rushed into the house, farting and tap dancing, warning the people about the terrible danger they were in. The head of the house brained Zog with a golf club."

-Kilgore Trout, via Kurt Vonnegut (Breakfast of Champions)

[Dana Tweedy]

Don't worry, Ray, no one will ever describe you as "bright".


DJT

[Mark Isaak]

Based on vague and probably faulty memory of an article I read over a
decade ago, the only relevant language ability possessed by humans but
not other animals is recursive syntax.

As for red shirts:
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/dc/2f/22/dc2f226269d9cc405ee3ddc94f8e1f78.jpg

--
Mark Isaak eciton (at) curioustaxonomy (dot) net
"The evil that is in the world always comes of ignorance, and good
intentions may do as much harm as malevolence, if they lack
understanding." - Albert Camus, _The Plague_

[RSNorman]

Something I heard some half-century ago from an animal behaviorist was
that no other species has the ability for individual A to tell
individual B about something that individual C did to individual D
some time in the past about something that is not relevant to the
present situation.

[eridanus]

I have often commented this question is similar to the god of the gaps.
Biological details of microbes or organs of show a great complexity that
most of us cannot fathom. Even for scientist many biological questions
are out of reach also. If our ignorance is the argument to prove the
existence of god, it can be said, that our faith in god is the result of
our ignorance. That is why I say that this argument about the complexity
of cell or a part of it, is equivalent to the gaps in evolution. If
between 1 and 2 there are infinite numbers, we can say that our ignorance
is infinite as well. Our infinite ignorance must be the argument that
proves god's existence. We have then "a god of the ignorance".

[erik simpson]

And to lie about it, to boot.

[eridanus]

you mean, Peter, that because we are unable to explain or understand any
feature whatever a microbe or the organ of a big animal, or to explain
how this thing so complex become like it is by evolution this is the prove
of an intelligent creator? This is a similar case of an argument from
ignorance. A god exist because we are unable to explain how this thing
evolved on its own by mutations and selections.
To pretend our logic is so powerful that we can guess god from our state
of ignorance, makes me recalled why the existence of a god of thunder, like
Zeus was justified by our ignorance. As we were also unable to understand
in detail how the rain occurred this was also the prove that Zeus existed.
We are ignorant, dot. And this is not new. And this explains as well
we believed in the past on so many stupid infantile gods. As we are still
rather ignorants we believe still in the gods.
eridanus

[eridanus]

of course, Peter. Birds, as well as howler monkeys are doing a lot of
noise saying each other, "here I am. Come here if you dare."

We are doing the same, howling at each other. Ones "to prove" evolution
and the others "to prove" the existence of a god.
I had for a long time a serious problem to understand the meaning of the
verb to prove. Thanks to the Oxford Dictionary I now know what if means,
to prove is to present a speech in favor of some argument or thesis.
Then, you both the evolutionists and the creationist are proving their
own favorite argument. But if a speech proves evolution neither proves
the god's existence. To solve this question we only have solve a minimal
problem. What logical exist behind a god creator? Why after an infinite
existence it decides to create the universe? If he pretended create humans
why he created such a huge universe? It makes not any sense. But as a
hoax, as a human swindle, god's existence is full of sense. If god is
simply a "human fraud is full of sense" and it explain all the myriad of
gods between past and present.
Of course, evolution is only an idea. It makes sense in such a number of
arguments that had been presented so far. But it is an incomplete theory
in the sense that we would never know all its details, not even in a
thousand years. Such high is the idea I have of human intelligence.
Then, to prove is only to present a speech, a collection of phrases in
favor of a question. In the end, what we had proved can be wrong after
a hundred years or more. But we had made some beautiful speeches to prove
some theory or other. "We had proved countless of times that god exists."
For to prove is nothing else than to speak, or to make an speech. To prove
is to push a brain to think that something is true. It is nothing more.

The scientists are going to crucify me. And the theists.
eridanus

[*Hemidactylus*]

On 01/21/2016 04:54 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:

[snip]

> "Homology" has many meanings. Without an evolutionary tree of
> the proteins involved, the word "synapomorphy", which Harshman
> alleged to be completely synonymous with homology, is inapplicable.

Homology as developed by Richard Owen referred to anatomically relevant
structures that were similar across a group due to some underlying
reason. For pre-Darwinians these themes, ironically enough given your
scare quotes, reflected an implementation of an Idea in the mind of a
Creator. Said creator could theme a forelimb archetype into flesh and
bone representations like your typing hands or a bat's flapping wings.

Darwin historicized these archetypes as stemming from common ancestry
not Ideas in a Creator's mind.

Synapomorphy of which you speak is something shared by a grouping (clade
in Harshman-speak) that can be informative if treed in relation to an
outgroup. One gets polarity or primitive-derived status from such
treatment. Synapomorphies are informative in crafting phylogenies. They
contrast with symplesiomorphies that go much deeper and say little about
a clade of interest aside from the fact that they all belong to a larger
grouping (mammals are vertebrates that have notochords, pharyngeal
arches, an a post-anal tail and pass through similar phylotypic period
where Hoxic patterning is laid down as envisioned by the mighty Ernst
Haeckel in his very adequate drawings that reflect von Baerian
divergence better than recapitulation of ancestral stages).
Symplesiomorphies are not informative. Likewise autapomorphies, being
characters that a member of a clade has on its own apart from other
clade members, are uninformative. Yet autapomorphies can eventually
become synapomorphies then symplesiomorphies, depending on how the
question is framed. The shift from jaws to mammalian ear ossicles
distinguish as homologous features mammals from ancestors that lack this
ontogenic and phylogenic shift. Yet they are useless for distinguishing
primates. Likewise somewhere in the Cambrian the characters that
distinguish chordates from echinoderms as our deuterostomic brethren
were laid down and would become informative in that frame of reference.
In the Modern Era, learning point set topology and categorization of
posters you dislike sets YOU apart from the Village Elders and you may
very well go on to form your own clade of Usenet Haunters (Gods Help
Us!!!).

At the molecular level terms like orthology and paralogy are often
preferable to homology, yet the concept remains. Duplication and
divergence helped bring about gene families. Redundancy yields
functional shifting and co-option (exaptation in SJG-speak) which shows
irreducible complexity up as the joke it is when used as a God of the
Gaps argument to shore up the desperation of ID "science".

Your buddy Jillery posted an article that chipped away at ID arguments
focused on the eye:

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2016/02/evolution-of-eyes-text

In doing so Jillery contributed more knowledge to this group in one
single post than you have since 2010 (or before that).

And going back towards the molecular bases of eyes, the existence of
eyeless, aniridia, or Pax6 as homologue across disparate groups shows
how underlying processes can linking apparent unrelated convergent
structure. In his Brick Gould talks about eyes as an instance of
parallelism and rehabilitates the notion of homoplasy (versus strict
homology).

What do your little green men say about that Fox Mulder?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reptilians

> And even with that tree, you are like a person talking to
> someone who wants to know how the Great Pyramid was built,
> and you tell him, "We know that the quarry where the stones
> were cut is the same one where the stones for Cephren's
> pyramid were cut." and let it go at that.

Richard runs circles around an axe grinding rhipidistian rhetorician
like you.

> You disappoint me, Richard. I've seen much better from you
> in the past.

Empty anti-evolutionary rhetoric.

Figure out why your little green men (or Gods) left a bunch of
pseudogenic or vestigial crap in our genome where yolk production or
olfactory genes should be due to distant ancestors and get back to me.
Neil Shubin plays these issues up in the PBS series "Your Inner Fish"
and I see this as the death knell for so-called intelligent design.

[Bob Casanova]

On Mon, 25 Jan 2016 12:14:19 -0800, the following appeared
in talk.origins, posted by Mark Isaak
<eci...@curioustax.onomy.net>:

<snip>

>Based on vague and probably faulty memory of an article I read over a
>decade ago, the only relevant language ability possessed by humans but
>not other animals is recursive syntax.
>
>As for red shirts:
>https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/dc/2f/22/dc2f226269d9cc405ee3ddc94f8e1f78.jpg

You want red shirts? I'll give you red shirts:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIPYu8RdPGbeTlaVl04UXjl4aLwahkPEn

The "language" in Episodes 2 and 4 is hard to overlook, and
I suspect only humans are programmed to respond to this
particular form of communication. ;-)
--

Bob C.

"The most exciting phrase to hear in science,
the one that heralds new discoveries, is not
'Eureka!' but 'That's funny...'"

- Isaac Asimov

[Robert Carnegie]

"Only a fool farts in a burning house." -- proverb

[Robert Carnegie]

That sounds like the <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bechdel_test>

And that, according to the unrealistically English writer
P. G. Wodehouse, "If it were not for quotations, conversations
between gentlemen would consist of an endless series of 'what-ho!'s."

[erik simpson]

That proverb is about as real as "A wet bird never flies at night".

[Peter Nyikos]

On Saturday, January 23, 2016 at 5:21:15 AM UTC-5, Joe Cummings wrote:
> On 18/01/2016 19:32, Joe Cummings wrote:
> > I get the impression that sometimes our conversations here are a little
> > too technical for our creationist friends.
> Snip
> >
> > When Adam was created out of the dust, why didn't the lord just take a
> > bit more trouble and give humans a speech organ?
> >
> > Have verbal fun,
> >
> > Joe Cummings
> >
> It's interesting how a simple note about the absence of a speech organ
> stimulates differing responses.
>
> Let's get really hifalutin'.
>
>
> Perhaps I took it for granted that the development of speech in
> primitive humans would require adaptations of the anatomy for the
> purposes of communication. I was simply reprising a Darwinian scenario
> for the development of speech.
>
> My main concern was to show that communication was developed using
> already existing features of the anatomy.

Au contraire, your main concern was to imply how much better
a creator would have been if we did not have to rely on them
for "speech" but had an organ specialized for it. But it
seems, from what you write in this post, that you had no intention
of arguing this point if a creationist had disagreed with that
implication.

> And it doesn't take a genius to realise that our inchoate speech would
> be of a fairly limited content. But Peter Nyikos, for instance wanted to
> get onto the bus well after it had left the depot (idiom). You don't
> project modern ideas about communication onto the distant past.

It doesn't take a genius to see that you are reinforcing what I said
to Mr. Tiib:

And [Joe] forgot all about what it is that makes speech

persuasive, after having speculated that it was not
reading, but hearing "preachers", that converted
Martinez and Eddie to something he didn't try to specify.

To put it another way: I'm trying to get "the bus" to somehow connect
to the destination that this teaser suggested, namely the incredible
capacity of humans to take language to heights that those inchoate
grunts gave absolutely no hint of. When did that capacity evolve?
Was it Neanderthals who first acquired that capacity? Homo erectus?
Homo habilis? Australopithecus? Ardipithecus?

You talk the talk of Darwinism, but are you prepared to walk
the walk?

> What is at issue is the interaction of the organism with its
> environment. That is about the most general consideration behind my
> original posting.

> Never mind for the moment the modern aspects of communication - which
> have their place in some discussion consequent on this one.

In that case, why even talk about an organ of speech? If the kind of
communication that present day chimps can achieve is good enough
for you, it was downright silly of you to suggest your question
posed any kind of relevance to debate with creationists.

<snip for focus>

> Of course, the use of communication is intimately connected with the
> social life of the species under consideration, and that is worth a good
> discussion at some stage, and I will gladly cede the initiation of such
> a discussion to someone more capable than I.

> I was a little disappointed to see only one creationist, Ray Martinez,
> join the fray,

You should have been glad to see anyone calling himself a creationist
join, now that you've disavowed any interest in language even on the
level of a primitive Amazon or New Guinea tribe, and aren't going
to embark on a discussion of the role of communication in social life.

> and regret that he limited himself to some arcane ideas
> about "brights," and, instead of addressing the argument, decided to
> call it "moronic." His contribution made the omission by creationists to
> join in a discussion about origins all the more egregious.

You and Ray both have an unrealistic view of the significance of
what you are doing.

> Let me emphasise that what I have written about the use of varying parts
> of the anatomy is hypothetical, but I'm confident that speculation in
> this manner stimulates further study, just as metaphysics stimulates
> scientific investigation.

Don't expect anyone to study an inchoate idea of an "organ of speech"
after the way you've waffled about it.

> To coin a phrase, "Metaphysics proposes, science disposes."

> I apologise if I have omitted to deal with other points raised, and also
> for my snipping most of the discussion, but here I'm following Nyikos's
> useful idea "Snipping for focus.

Except that you've been unfocused.

Peter Nyikos

[Peter Nyikos]

On Monday, January 25, 2016 at 8:46:07 PM UTC-5, *Hemidactylus* wrote:
> On 01/21/2016 04:54 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
> > "Homology" has many meanings. Without an evolutionary tree of
> > the proteins involved, the word "synapomorphy", which Harshman
> > alleged to be completely synonymous with homology, is inapplicable.

I've left in a lot of preaching to the choir, which may be
due to Harshman's frequent innuendo having conned you into
thinking I am any less convinced of biological evolution than
he is.

And the only difference between you and me is that I am curious
about big gaps in our knowledge which don't excite your curiosity.

Good luck on finding gene families that show how the enzymes that
organize microtubules evolved. Now you are beginning to come
to grips with the three liner of mine that stimulated this
burst of verbiage from you...

...but now you shift away from both it and from your preaching to
the choir:

> Redundancy yields
> functional shifting and co-option (exaptation in SJG-speak) which shows
> irreducible complexity up as the joke it is when used as a God of the
> Gaps argument to shore up the desperation of ID "science".

The real joke here is that you are using a pair of analogues to
deaden your interest in riddles of science which excite my
interest:

Extrapolator of the Gaps: "Evolution of organisms has
been shown to produce amazing things such as ourselves in highly un-
random ways. Doubtless, biochemical evolution is capable of such
things by a similar process."

Exaptor of the Gaps: "The ____________[enzyme, structure, system] you are
skeptical about was exapted from another, which was exapted from another, ..."

...but no effort is ever made to try and give the details of these
alleged exaptations, by you or anyone else, where microtubules
are concerned.

> Your buddy Jillery posted an article that chipped away at ID arguments
> focused on the eye:
>
> http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2016/02/evolution-of-eyes-text

+++++++++++++++++++++++ Hemidactlus posting mode on

And your buddy Ray Martinez probably thumbed his nose at it.

> In doing so Jillery contributed more knowledge to this group in one
> single post than you have since 2010 (or before that).

And you contributed more knowledge to this group with
your link to an exploding head video than Jillery
has since 2010 (or before that).

+++++++++++++++++++++++ Hemidactylus posting mode off

Concluded in next reply to this post

Peter Nyikos

[Sneaky O. Possum]

RSNorman <r_s_n...@comcast.net> wrote in
news:v22dabh2nfuqd14jq...@4ax.com:

One of the linguists who regularly posts to the Language Log blog noted
that while people keep making claims that nonhuman animals have been
taught to use speech, no nonhuman animal ever seems to use speech to
refer to anyone who isn't immediately present. Such speech need not
involve gossiping: I note that one of the first speech-related things
that people learn to do is to scream out a word for 'mother' any time
they require their mother's presence and can't determine her location.
--
S.O.P.

[RSNorman]

That last one seems common to many social animals with parental care.
You can easily hear chicks making cries in nesting colonies which
summon specifically their own parent. Calling for "my mother" is not
reference to an arbitrary other individual. There might also well be
cries or calls alerting to danger that would be responded to by the
dominant male responsible for his harem even though he is not present.
That would be like yelling "help, police!"

[Peter Nyikos]

Also some more or less solitary ones like house cats, except that
it seems to be when the parent's location is known. The kittens
that we had were silent until their mother returned from an absence.
More below.

> You can easily hear chicks making cries in nesting colonies which
> summon specifically their own parent. Calling for "my mother" is not
> reference to an arbitrary other individual.

I don't know whether the mewing cries kittens make when their
mother returns from an absence ever are used for any other cat.
They certainly didn't mew at us.

In contrast, their mother meowed at US, and a long time ago
I actually had a letter to the editor printed by _National
Review_ [which claimed "meow" was cat-speak for "massah" or "boss"]
that meowing [which cats never use with each other] actually
is a continuation of these mewing cries and so a better translation
is "mama!" The change in vocal cords would account for the
change in the sound.

Perhaps the best translation of those mews was "Me first, mama!"
They were part of a litter; our female cat had two litters.

> There might also well be
> cries or calls alerting to danger that would be responded to by the
> dominant male responsible for his harem even though he is not present.
> That would be like yelling "help, police!"

There are also translations of the non-meowing sounds adult cats
make to each other. I think you can figure some out for yourself.

Peter Nyikos

[RSNorman]

Cats most definitely make different sounds to communicate with
different significance as well as using other means of signalling.
See, for example,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_communication

The question, though, is whether any of these signs or signals is
capable of representing a situation that is not immediately at hand.
Ordinarily these mean things like "this is my current emotional state"
which can include aspects of reproductive behavior, territoriality,
social status, aggression, comfort level, etc. Can any animal "say"
something like "a funny thing happened to me the other day..."?

[Sneaky O. Possum]

RSNorman <r_s_n...@comcast.net> wrote in
news:j93iabtnjuk3tg2jo...@4ax.com:

That's a good point. If the nonhuman animals were actually learning
human speech, then using it for the same purposes they're already using
communication ought to come naturally to them - yet it never seems to.
Curious, that.
--
S.O.P.

[RSNorman]

On Wed, 27 Jan 2016 21:32:01 -0000 (UTC), "Sneaky O. Possum"

On this topic I am relying on my (probably faulty) memory of actual
research and not simply speculating. My impression is that generally
everybody involved on the evolution of speech argues that it is
definitely an outgrowth of the calls and songs and other vocalizations
used by other social species to help consolidate and coordinate the
activities of individuals in the community. As humans developed my
skilled use of hands to produce artifacts and more sophisiticated
methods of organizing their lives more and more sophisticated
languages developed including means to produce more complex sounds and
detect them into patterns. There must have been a lot of positive
feedback between the evolution of larger brains and brains with more
specific language abilities and specialized organs of speech and the
culture. In particular, human language as we now see in every group
of humans examined has the abiity to express extremely complex and
abstract ideas.

My impression is that "teaching language" to non-humans is pretty well
restricted to immediate circumstances. You don't simply teach animals
to do things for which our brains have evolved specific processing
centers with specific abilities.

[Robert Carnegie]

I think that people who invest so much effort in finding
ways in which humans are different from other animals
are motivated by insecurity. I mean, I wouldn't hire
a gorilla to file my tax return unless he had good
references, but... we're family.

[Peter Nyikos]

I don't do that; the differences jump out at me. Already at
the age of seven I realized that I was terribly lucky to be
a human and not an (other) animal. f

I also had a good grasp of probability by then, because
I realized I was *especially* terribly lucky not to be an
ant, inasmuch as there are many times more ants than humans.

> I mean, I wouldn't hire
> a gorilla to file my tax return unless he had good
> references, but... we're family.

Yeah, and we are far more closely related to Adolf Hitler, but
that doesn't bother me. Nor should it bother you.

Peter Nyikos

[Öö Tiib]

May be I misunderstand some nuance of the question but I try to
give two examples and you tell if those answer your question.

1) Animals do indicate past events:
I have experienced that when there are multiple pets alone and
some "crime" has been committed some time ago by some
of these and you express disappointment with the outcome then
the innocents sometimes indicate the offenders and offenders
look sorry.

2) Animals do indicate likely future events:
Most have perhaps heard awful urban legend involving apes,
ladder and bananas. That is unlikely, if there are any tricks to get
bananas then primates will work it out. However there likely are
(lot less extreme) experiments actually made:
"Stephenson (1967) trained adult male and female rhesus monkeys
to avoid manipulating an object and then placed individual naļve
animals in a cage with a trained individual of the same age and sex
and the object in question. In one case, a trained male actually pulled
his naļve partner away from the previously punished manipulandum
during their period of interaction, whereas the other two trained
males exhibited what were described as "threat facial expressions
while in a fear posture" when a naļve animal approached the
manipulandum."
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/games-primates-play/201203/what-monkeys-can-teach-us-about-human-behavior-facts-fiction

[Joe Cummings]

It's touching to read Peter's eagerness to be seen as the brightest boy
in the class, the sharpest knife in the box. Touching, but also a
little wearing. I'm not an avid reader of his posts, because he has the
habit of correcting what people say. He shows them what they are really
meaning, and I'm sure many, many people will be grateful for his
correction of their writing when it doesn't come up to his own - not
standards, but expectations. (Here I expect there to be a rush of
people coming to his defence.)

In fact, if I were forced to choose between reading his posts and
sitting through an hour of Vogon poetry reading I'd cheerfully
choose the latter.

Here he is again, telling my what I should be writing - something that
he has conjured up from his genius-like mind. He seems to think that
I'm talking about the qualities of some creator or other, yet he is
responding to something completely different.

Now I'm always prepared to help someone in difficulties, so I'll repeat
what I said, and to help Peter, I"ll put it between asterisks:

* my main concern was to show that communication was developed using
already existing features of the anatomy *

Now, Peter, when you get to the second asterisk, go back to the first
one and read the passage again. When you get to the second asterisk for
the second time, don't read straight on, but I urge you to pause and
think about what was written - not what you thought was written.

After this little misunderstanding he continues on the tramlines of his
own special interests; modern communication. And, of course, he asks me
the question how did the much more complicated level of speech "evolve?"

Of course he asks this in pursuit of his own train of thought, he thinks
that when I mentioned a bus I had in mind a "destination." I hadn't; I
had in mind a journey, and in fact a journey whose destination we wot
not of, because it's still ongoing.

He shows his limitations again when he asks why talk about an organ of
speech at all? Well there are some of us, possibly benighted souls,
here who wish to have an understanding of our origins and the
development of our abilities. I think this idea is lost on Peter
because of his need to "shine" at something else.

One last point that the discerning reader will have picked up is that
Peter is only interested in primitive and modern speech and, of course
not at all in my points about the anatomy of speaking.

Now if my assessment is correct, Peter will come back and will continue
to come back to every post I make, so therefore if people are expecting
a long thread , a bladderwhacking thread, they're going to be disappointed.

I may come back if Peter makes any more egregious errors, but I doubt if
I'll do otherwise.

Have fun,

Joe Cummings

[*Hemidactylus*]

On 01/25/2016 08:43 PM, *Hemidactylus* wrote:
> On 01/21/2016 04:54 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:

[snip to Peter's evasion]

>> You disappoint me, Richard. I've seen much better from you
>> in the past.
>
> Empty anti-evolutionary rhetoric.
>
> Figure out why your little green men (or Gods) left a bunch of
> pseudogenic or vestigial crap in our genome where yolk production or
> olfactory genes should be due to distant ancestors and get back to me.
> Neil Shubin plays these issues up in the PBS series "Your Inner Fish"
> and I see this as the death knell for so-called intelligent design.

Cat got your tongue Peter? You chose to "address" other parts of my post
but tellingly avoided this gem. Wonder why. Steady Eddie and Ray also
evaded (=inability to refute).

I just got to a really juicy part of Jerry Coyne's _Why Evolution is
True_ that details the genic vestiges of yolk production and olfaction
in humans. Shubin may have derived some of his PBS material from Coyne
just as Coyne borrowed Tiktaalik from Shubin to highlight the transition
from lobe-finned state to full tetrapody in this book.

Anyway why would an intelligent deity (or little green man from Zordax)
saddle us with these pseudogenes? You wanna rely on your silly little IC
gaps argument? Well these pesky little yolk and olfaction pseudogenes
make the designer look like a flaming moron.

[*Hemidactylus*]

On 01/26/2016 11:06 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Monday, January 25, 2016 at 8:46:07 PM UTC-5, *Hemidactylus* wrote:
>> On 01/21/2016 04:54 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>
>> [snip]
>>
>>> "Homology" has many meanings. Without an evolutionary tree of
>>> the proteins involved, the word "synapomorphy", which Harshman
>>> alleged to be completely synonymous with homology, is inapplicable.
>
> I've left in a lot of preaching to the choir, which may be
> due to Harshman's frequent innuendo having conned you into
> thinking I am any less convinced of biological evolution than
> he is.

Long standing familiarity with your cunningly rascally ways. Contrary to
your bizarre belief system, me and Harshman have no secret channels of
communication and beyond his status as hall monitor he has no Svengali
like spell over me.

> And the only difference between you and me is that I am curious
> about big gaps in our knowledge which don't excite your curiosity.

Your "curiosity" is a convenient cover for yoyr cryptocreationism. Vince
seemed to be sniffing this rat out too, but seemed to backpedal from his
reasonable take on you recently. Give him time and he will come around.

Amazing that the guy who likes to talk shop with his pal Harshman left
the above uncommented. Some of the most on topic and deep stuff yet and
Peter totally passes it by so he can engage in his typical fare.

>> At the molecular level terms like orthology and paralogy are often
>> preferable to homology, yet the concept remains. Duplication and
>> divergence helped bring about gene families.
>
> Good luck on finding gene families that show how the enzymes that
> organize microtubules evolved. Now you are beginning to come
> to grips with the three liner of mine that stimulated this
> burst of verbiage from you...

I'm not a biochemist. Just a gap in my knowledge that you'd prefer be a
calling card left by your alien gods.

Which never came, perhaps because you were evading the awkward points
about yolk and olfaction pseudogenes I gleaned from rewatching Neil
Shubin's "Your Inner Fish", but that I just realized Jerry Coyne does an
outstanding job fleshing out in _Why Evolution is True_.

I am doubting your sincere interest in evolutionary (versus
interpersonal) topics.

[RSNorman]

Have you been following the thread about argument from "bad design"?
What makes you think panspermia event produced pseudogenes in humans
when the theory says it produced inital, almost certainly prokaryotic,
cellular organisms? Even if it did seed eukaryotes, the current
status of the human genome with is entirely the product of biological
evolution.

If you want to make effective arguments agains directed panspecmia
then don't make ridiculous extrapolations about what it says.

[*Hemidactylus*]

For sanity sake please remain that way :-)

> because he has the
> habit of correcting what people say. He shows them what they are really
> meaning, and I'm sure many, many people will be grateful for his
> correction of their writing when it doesn't come up to his own - not
> standards, but expectations.

Ummm, I'm not thinking many people are grateful for his "corrections".
Sarcasm (Sheldon Cooper to Penny mode)?

> (Here I expect there to be a rush of
> people coming to his defence.)

Don't hold your breath. We won't exactly be seeing a stampede of defenders.

I hope you realize Peter should not be taken seriously.

[*Hemidactylus*]

Yeah and I think focusing on bad design is a very rewarding pasttime,
just like its kissing cousin theodicy. Besides the critique is against
ID in general. DP is an oddball offshoot of that and was intended as a
minor digression from the main point above.

> What makes you think panspermia event produced pseudogenes in humans
> when the theory says it produced inital, almost certainly prokaryotic,
> cellular organisms? Even if it did seed eukaryotes, the current
> status of the human genome with is entirely the product of biological
> evolution.

What benefit did some far away alien civilization obtain via excessively
costly effort to seed our relatively unimportant planet so bacteria or
eukaryotes could get a jump start here? Talk about boondoggles and
bridges to nowhere. One could imagine the Throomian World Senate
filibustering such a budget measure all to hell when the Throomian
children are starving and the defense budget must be upped to defend
against the evil Xordaxians reinvading. That war nearly ended Throom.
And Throom Trump's excessive spending on that stupid interplanetary wall
required enough tax increases, especially when a big chunk broke off and
landed in the Adhocian sea, sending tidal waves into the Mines of
Hypnary destroying a currency source that facilitated a removal from the
Hypnary Standard.

> If you want to make effective arguments agains directed panspecmia
> then don't make ridiculous extrapolations about what it says.

Even if it is nothing more than a ridiculous ruse? I can abide by the
possibility of panspermic input to life on Earth (comets and stuff).
It's the directed part that's far fetched and blatantly invoking the
genetic fallacy and all its consequences...consider the source.

And yet again those pesky little pseudogenes get overlooked. Steady
Eddie, Peter, Ray, and now you. Et Tu, Brute?

[RSNorman]

On Fri, 29 Jan 2016 21:57:20 -0500, *Hemidactylus*

You revel in arguments where "consider the source" is a major theme. I
am simply saying that is not an effective argument against the notion
no matter how good you feel getting in a good shot. You say those
pesky pseudogenes get overlooked. I just told you that the
pseudogenes have absolutely nothing to do with the panspermia,
directed or not, argument. You say it might be a ridiculous ruse.
Maybe so. You say you can't imagine why some far off agency might want
to seed a distant planet with microorganisms. That is simply an
argument from ignorance, something ordinarily laughted at here.

If your goal is simply to goad and ridicule Peter, then fire away. I
simply ignore his posts that do similar. In other words I simply
ignore virtually everything he writes. It seems I should apply the
same tactic to you.

[*Hemidactylus*]

All DP does is take things backward a few notches from traditional
creationism, since the standard creationist line is untenable given age
of the earth and the numerous gaps in our knowledge that have been
filled in the years since Paley. IC is just dropping Paley down to the
molecular level and hiding God there (see Behe). The pseudogene argument
addresses a difficulty for design at this level, showing laziness on
part of a designer. I'd rather focus my energies on real science that
closes than baseless speculation that hides behind gaps, however
sophistic (IC).

And going over to the "Bad Design" thread where this dovetails, Jerry
Coyne has a section in his book called "Bad Design" which I'm finding
relevant. He even brings up the bowling ball through a garden hose
argument I alluded to on that other thread and the trade-off of
childbirth (noggins vs. bipedal pelvis). He also quotes Robin Williams
on putting a waste treatment facility so near a recreational facility.

Does this touch DP and seeding? Probably not. But where's the nearest
seeding planet and how near the speed of light could they hurl their
expensive boondoggle? Who benefits? Not them. Too altruistic to make sense.

I'd rather critique Coyne's book than these silly DP arguments like when
he says of genetic drift: "The influence of this process on important
evolutionary change, though, is probably minor, because it does not have
the molding power of natural selection." That passage makes me violently
ill. Do you know why? Or do you care? Probably not.

He does discuss some interesting stuff on development, but flirts too
much with Haeckel for my taste. He seems trying to revive terminal
addition ("adding new stuff onto old"). Yipes! That can't be good. Do we
delete or accelerate those awkward ancestral stages to accommodate?

> You say it might be a ridiculous ruse.
> Maybe so. You say you can't imagine why some far off agency might want
> to seed a distant planet with microorganisms. That is simply an
> argument from ignorance, something ordinarily laughted at here.

What's the speed of light? How far did such a seeding project have to
plan to send the probes over that distance at what speed? How much
energy to accelerate? How good was their aim? What exactly was their aim
in spending so many Throomian dollars? Throomian tax payers want(ed) to
know!

> If your goal is simply to goad and ridicule Peter, then fire away. I
> simply ignore his posts that do similar. In other words I simply
> ignore virtually everything he writes. It seems I should apply the
> same tactic to you.

Well you aren't exactly trying to understand my points, especially given
my deeper understanding of Peter's gist from way back when, and if
aiding and abetting Peter with his pet project Ron O might just have
some extra space on his monthly "By Their Fruits" list ;-)

[RSNorman]

On Sat, 30 Jan 2016 00:09:31 -0500, *Hemidactylus*

No I am not trying to understand your points. I have zero interest in
your deeper understanding of Peter's gist from way back when just as I
have zero interest in Peter's long storehouse of posts from way back
when.

If DP or a Creator seeded the earth with microorganisms and evolution
did the rest, what in the world does that have to do with pseudogenes?
That is the specific point I called you on and you have yet to say
anything about that.

[*Hemidactylus*]

If you're going to take *that* crap seriously then all bets are off and
I'm free to speculate at will. The DPists live on that Planet X that
they've been talking about in the news recently and didn't just seed
Earth with prokaryotes but have been intervening ever since. Can you or
your protected charge Peter refute me? No I didn't think so. You see
these DPists are the Reptilians the nutjob conspiracy theorists have
warned us about. They are seeding Earth then engineering us continuously
so they can harvest our organs. Still can't refute me? Hah! And why did
*they* put those frickin' pseudogenes in our genomes? At least Planet X
is close enough to allow continuous intervention and refutes the
Throomian/Xordaxian hypotheses out of existence due to constraints on
reasonableness of hypotheses that are way out in loonyville. Planet X's
Senate would approve such a measure because they want our organs. That's
why they do the butt probes and stuff. People wake up in tubs of ice in
New Orleans. I bet you can't refute that either can you?

You see, now DP is working in my favor as I just made it more believable
than some distant system like Throom with benevolent intent.

Pseudogenes are on the table again and there's NOTHING you can argue now
to take them off the table. I now own DP on this NG. It's Reptiloids and
they want our precious body fluids. Roswell. Crop circles. Yadda yadda
doo. Sciency.

[Burkhard]

No, it doesn't, no matter how often you repeat it. That's the point
Richard keeps making. At least in Peter's version of DP, Pseudogenes
evolved on earth, just like standard evolutionary theory says, long long
after the DP seeding

I'd rather focus my energies on real science that
> closes than baseless speculation that hides behind gaps, however
> sophistic (IC).

Which is fair enough - just don't then attack it with arguments that are
obviously flawed. Ignore it, or find goo scientific arguments against
it, but don't attack it with bad arguments.

I'd say these counter arguments again are rather like bad versions of
the bad design argument. They assume that a pretty contingent way of
running an economy, which even on earth has only been around for mere
centuries, is the inevitable outcome of evolution, so that we'd predict
to find it not only on other planets, wit potentially radically
different life forms, but also present at a specific point in time -when
they have the technology and the desire to seed other planets.

I'd say we have no reason t believe that that sort of system will be
around even here in a few hundred years, let alone that it is a
pan-galactic universal. Maybe they are like Iain Banks "Culture", found
a way to turn energy directly into matter and have long left
scarcity-driven economics behind.

Same with questioning their reason. That assumes that they not only have
a BDI form of the mind like we do - and there is no reason to belief
this - but also that they have highly anthropomorphic desires, similar
to that of humans in 21th earth. No reason to believe this either. Maybe
seeing planets with life is for them part of war, to make planets in
strategic locations uninhabitable for their methane breathing foes - we
are a biological weapon. Or it is a form of art. Or we are just one
letter in a gigantic Morse code - our type of life being on earth spells
the letter "S", the totally different form of life they put on HD
219134b spells "U", and if you stand away far enough, and have their
type of sensory capacity, you see a big "Surprise" spelled out over the
galaxy. Or it is an instinctive and perfectly natural side effect of
them scratching their wings, we are some sort of dandruff for them, etc
etc

The problem with DB is that any speculation about the DPists is
pointless and only limited by your imagination. That Peter's DPists
think, behave and plan pretty much like a white middle aged academic on
21th century US says more about him than the DPists. But any critical
argument of the form "why would they do it", "how did they pay for it"
makes just the same mistake, that is suffers simply from an abysmal
failure of the imagination.

[Burkhard]

In that case pseudogenes would be a problem. So IF someone makes that
claim, you have an argument. As nobody here did, that leaves it hanging
in thin air.

Generally, and criticism or testing of a theory needs t determine first
what the theory as stated implies, and then observe if these
implications come true.

What you can't do is start with observations, then build a theory that
prohibits these observations, and then call the theory refuted. Well,
you can, of course, but it is pretty pointless.

[jillery]

On Sat, 30 Jan 2016 00:09:31 -0500, *Hemidactylus*

A fundamental question, which... TO THE BEST OF MY RECOLLECTION...
rockhead has not addressed, is the period of time between when life
could have first started on Earth, and evidence of first life on
Earth. Depending on what evidence one accepts, that could be as short
as less than a few tens of million years, a cosmological eyeblink. And
it's plausible that life started on Earth repeatedly, only to be
smothered by events every time but the last one.

Given that, any rational DP hypothesis is obliged to address the
challenge of explaining how a civilization, many light years away,
managed to seed life on Earth within that cosmological eyeblink.

There are many possible hypotheses. Identifying which are the best
inference depends on the capabilities of the DPists, which... TO THE
BEST OF MY RECOLLECTION... is something rockhead has not identified.
It is his failure to constrain the nature and abilities of his
presumptive DPists which IMO makes his DP narrative similar to that of
ID.
--
This space is intentionally not blank.

[jillery]

On Sat, 30 Jan 2016 10:50:07 +0000, Burkhard <b.sc...@ed.ac.uk>
wrote:

Correct on all points. To the degree that DPists just happen to
behave like we think technologically advanced humans would behave is
philosophically analogous to how gods just happen to behave like
overindulged human tyrants. And reacting to DP with a strawman gives
DP more credibility, not less. And "why would they do it" is a poor
"bad design" argument, as it assumes DPists must have the same motives
and priorities as humans.

That said, just as SETI assumes that alien intelligences have some
characteristics in common with humans, it's reasonable to assume that
any technological toolmaking intelligence shares some cognitive
characteristics with humans. If one is going to discuss DPists, some
unproved axiom is necessary to start that line of reasoning. So it's
back to looking for things where the light is.

Finally, I feel it's necessary to point out here there are good "bad
design" arguments. They refute the veracity of "good design"
arguments and not the motives of a presumptive Designer or their
advocates. Noting bad "bad design" arguments says nothing about good
"bad design" arguments. Unless, of course, one assumes that all "bad
design" arguments are bad. Which is not to suggest that you do. Or
did. Just sayin'.

>>> If your goal is simply to goad and ridicule Peter, then fire away. I
>>> simply ignore his posts that do similar. In other words I simply
>>> ignore virtually everything he writes. It seems I should apply the
>>> same tactic to you.
>>
>> Well you aren't exactly trying to understand my points, especially given
>> my deeper understanding of Peter's gist from way back when, and if
>> aiding and abetting Peter with his pet project Ron O might just have
>> some extra space on his monthly "By Their Fruits" list ;-)

[RSNorman]

On Sat, 30 Jan 2016 03:24:01 -0500, *Hemidactylus*

Sorry, but you simply are ignorant of the facts.

The Throomians are not reptilians. They do have the highest degree of
intelligence but are quite malevolent. What you call a "pseudogene"
for yolk sac can be activated by a focussed gamma ray beam and renders
the subject docile for probing. And those pseudogenes supposedly for
olfaction are molecular probes like the gene for fluorescent green
protein we earthly genetic engineers insert into whatever cell we
tinker with. It is not to produce pretty pictures of glowing plants
and animals but rather the fluorescence signals important details of
cellular function. All that is a necessary for the probing to be
successful.

The harvesting of organs is quite incidental. When I used to do
research on lobsters, I only used a very tiny part of the nervous
system. Of course I ate the remainder of the carcass when the
experiment was over. What else was I to do, just throw it out?

[*Hemidactylus*]

The Planet Xers are Reptilian. Who knows what Throomians are. I've been
warned off by you and others about speculating on Throomians any further
(because abiogenesis). You, jillery, Burkhard and Peter are from now on
to be referred to as the "Non-Fab Four" for harping on my lapse of focus
(on abiogenesis). I will carry this grudge for at least three or four
more posts.

> They do have the highest degree of
> intelligence but are quite malevolent. What you call a "pseudogene"
> for yolk sac can be activated by a focussed gamma ray beam and renders
> the subject docile for probing.

The pseudogenes are formerly vitellogenic, not "for" a yolk sac. Jeez.
Think more carefully please. Human embryos still have a yolk sac that
kinda sits there like a foreclosed beach house, while we bask in
amniotic fluid like beached fish developing our gill slits.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yolk_sac#In_humans

But has it minor function?:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8549844

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18985616

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11495698

If memory serves your fellow Non-Fab Four member Peter was once snipped
for focus on extraembryonic membranes and germ layers. Anyhow, evodevo
guru Brian Hall has put forward a tetrablastic theory that elevates
neural crest to the level of full fledged germ layer in vertebrates.

> And those pseudogenes supposedly for
> olfaction are molecular probes like the gene for fluorescent green
> protein we earthly genetic engineers insert into whatever cell we
> tinker with. It is not to produce pretty pictures of glowing plants
> and animals but rather the fluorescence signals important details of
> cellular function. All that is a necessary for the probing to be
> successful.

Shouldn't we be able to find these signatures (genetic markers) of the
designers in the genome then? Would the Reptilians we that stupid? They
do have a Reptilian brain BTW.

> The harvesting of organs is quite incidental. When I used to do
> research on lobsters, I only used a very tiny part of the nervous
> system. Of course I ate the remainder of the carcass when the
> experiment was over. What else was I to do, just throw it out?

You are free to speculate that Planet Xers eat us after the probe, but
why would there be so many catch and release victims with alien
abduction stories? I fear when we discover the location of Planet X they
will send Gort and Miss Klaatu (a hologram of Patricia Neal because they
enjoyed that movie, but not the remake starring Keanu) to warn us off.

[RSNorman]

On Sat, 30 Jan 2016 11:21:24 -0500, *Hemidactylus*

I happen to be fully familiar with the human yolk sac which is fully
functional. Yes, I did miswrite. But human embryos don't have
functioning placentas for some time and do have to eat in the interim.
How do you think they are able to build a placenta before they have
one?
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8549844

The neural crest is indeed a wondrous thing but your (and Brian
Hall's) notion is subphylo-centric with that totally nonPC focus
exclusively on one minor branch of one minor phylum of deuterostomes.

And the Kabbalists have quite successfuly decoded the signature of the
designers, copyright notices and lists of patents included, in what we
naively call "junk DNA".

The lucky people surviving to tell of their abduction turn out to have
the barada allele on the nikto gene.

[*Hemidactylus*]

PZ Myers does an excellent job IMO of talking up the vitellogenic
pseudogenes on his other blog:

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/03/19/reproductive-history-writ-in-t/

He draws comparison between the coding genome and rundown neighborhoods.
Come to think of it my comparison of the yolk sac to a foreclosed beach
house could have been a subconscious transformation of his genic
comparison towards the morphology of the yolk sac. If so that's how
memory works. "Creativity" is reassembly of pieces. I was also relying
on Shubin's imagery of the inner fish for the basking in fluid part,
however silly.

But Myers does look at the yolk sac as useless in that post. In _Why
Evolution is True_ Coyne refers to it as vestigial. Elsewhere Coyne
talks of uses for vestigial ostrich wings, but doesn't consider uses for
our yolk sac. Yet it seems there might be secondary functions in that
foreclosed beach house. Maybe the bank renovated it after the crash.

> The neural crest is indeed a wondrous thing but your (and Brian
> Hall's) notion is subphylo-centric with that totally nonPC focus
> exclusively on one minor branch of one minor phylum of deuterostomes.

That's more Hall's notion than mine. I find it interesting, but don't
necessarily subscribe to it.

[RSNorman]

On Sat, 30 Jan 2016 13:01:48 -0500, *Hemidactylus*
<ecph...@allspamis.invalid> wrote:

>On 01/30/2016 12:02 PM, RSNorman wrote:

<snip to leave just yolk sac, but see below>

>>
>> I happen to be fully familiar with the human yolk sac which is fully
>> functional. Yes, I did miswrite. But human embryos don't have
>> functioning placentas for some time and do have to eat in the interim.
>> How do you think they are able to build a placenta before they have
>> one?
>> http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8549844
>
>PZ Myers does an excellent job IMO of talking up the vitellogenic
>pseudogenes on his other blog:
>
>http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/03/19/reproductive-history-writ-in-t/
>
>He draws comparison between the coding genome and rundown neighborhoods.
>Come to think of it my comparison of the yolk sac to a foreclosed beach
>house could have been a subconscious transformation of his genic
>comparison towards the morphology of the yolk sac. If so that's how
>memory works. "Creativity" is reassembly of pieces. I was also relying
>on Shubin's imagery of the inner fish for the basking in fluid part,
>however silly.
>
>But Myers does look at the yolk sac as useless in that post. In _Why
>Evolution is True_ Coyne refers to it as vestigial. Elsewhere Coyne
>talks of uses for vestigial ostrich wings, but doesn't consider uses for
>our yolk sac. Yet it seems there might be secondary functions in that
>foreclosed beach house. Maybe the bank renovated it after the crash.
>

If you read the paper I cited it says "The Human yolk sac has long
been considered a vestigial organ, an evolutionary remnant. In the
last decade, however, it has been discovered that the human yolk sac
plays an active and crucial role during organogenesis" Of course all
that is very new -- the paper was published in 1995 so "the last
decade" means stuff that was discovered since 1985. Maybe Myers and
Coyne were not quite up to date on this issue.

The functions are not at all secondary; they are essential for
providing nutrition to the embryo. More important, they are important
for developing blood cells and a circulatory system that is necessary
to nourish the embryo. Exactly the same happens in the yolk sac of
other vertebrates.

Yes, I know I snipped all the rest, but the embryo and fetus as
aquatic life stages is not at all "bad" design or some vestigial
trait. The fact is that it is very difficult to live in a dry
terrestrial environment without a specialized skin or other outer
lining. Embryos do not yet have the ability to produce all the
necessary equipment to survive so providing an aquatic environment is
critical. It is fun and sort of clever in a way to make fun of
different aspects of human anatomy, physiology, and development but
often those aspects really are quite clever ways to solve problems.

[jillery]

On Sat, 30 Jan 2016 08:33:11 -0700, RSNorman <r_s_n...@comcast.net>
wrote:

>The harvesting of organs is quite incidental. When I used to do
>research on lobsters, I only used a very tiny part of the nervous
>system. Of course I ate the remainder of the carcass when the
>experiment was over. What else was I to do, just throw it out?

And so the inspiration for "To Serve Man".

[RSNorman]

On Sat, 30 Jan 2016 16:03:00 -0500, jillery <69jp...@gmail.com>
wrote:

>On Sat, 30 Jan 2016 08:33:11 -0700, RSNorman <r_s_n...@comcast.net>
>wrote:
>
>>The harvesting of organs is quite incidental. When I used to do
>>research on lobsters, I only used a very tiny part of the nervous
>>system. Of course I ate the remainder of the carcass when the
>>experiment was over. What else was I to do, just throw it out?
>
>
>And so the inspiration for "To Serve Man".

The Wagyu cattle, the real ones from Kobe, are quite well treated
throughout their life. Isn't that something to be commended?

[*Hemidactylus*]

On 01/30/2016 04:03 PM, jillery wrote:
> On Sat, 30 Jan 2016 08:33:11 -0700, RSNorman <r_s_n...@comcast.net>
> wrote:
>
>> The harvesting of organs is quite incidental. When I used to do
>> research on lobsters, I only used a very tiny part of the nervous
>> system. Of course I ate the remainder of the carcass when the
>> experiment was over. What else was I to do, just throw it out?
>
>
> And so the inspiration for "To Serve Man".

I found it amazing how quickly I was able to turn Richard towards the
interventionist Planet X DP hypothesis. Sure we had disagreements. He
proposed that the Reptilians ate the harvestees. I didn't see the
evidence that way as I thought people waking up in bathtubs full of ice
in New Orleans supported my side, but now that you are supporting
Richard I am rethinking and concede my error. I am now on board with the
Reptilians Harvest Our Organs and Eat Us hypothesis. At least *we* don't
have to assume a long distance between seeder and seed target and can
accommodate evidence for multiple interventions such as Cambrian
Explosion, bolide impact, and human split from apes. The designers
clearly have an agenda. Peter should show up on Monday to demonstrate
with ample evidence where we are wrong, but for now I think we are the
True Voice of DPist Theory. Interventionist Planet X (IPXDP) makes more
sense than distant Throom (dTDP).

[*Hemidactylus*]

Yes I guess. Is that why *they* advertize wine and beer in "our" media?
And they want us to be more sedentary, thus the internets. Fattens us up
and makes us more tasty.

The Illuminati were freethinkers who got wise to *their* agenda. That's
why the Illuminati were eradicated and then later portrayed as the
master conspirators. History is written by the victors. The so-called
conspiracy theorists thus far are actually propagandists for the
conspirators. We know better.

[RSNorman]

This interlude has been oodles of fun but it really doesn't address
the issue of life on earth initially having been seeded from elsewhere
and subsequently developing purely by biological evolution. You,
hemi, think it a ridiculous notion. Others think abiogenesis by
natural physical processes on earth in the available time a ridiculous
notion. Arguing ridicularity (or whatever it might be called) is not
an effective argument. We have no direct evidence for abiogenesis,
either.

[jillery]

On Sat, 30 Jan 2016 17:01:39 -0700, RSNorman <r_s_n...@comcast.net>

wrote:

>On Sat, 30 Jan 2016 16:03:00 -0500, jillery <69jp...@gmail.com>
>wrote:
>
>>On Sat, 30 Jan 2016 08:33:11 -0700, RSNorman <r_s_n...@comcast.net>
>>wrote:
>>
>>>The harvesting of organs is quite incidental. When I used to do
>>>research on lobsters, I only used a very tiny part of the nervous
>>>system. Of course I ate the remainder of the carcass when the
>>>experiment was over. What else was I to do, just throw it out?
>>
>>
>>And so the inspiration for "To Serve Man".
>
>The Wagyu cattle, the real ones from Kobe, are quite well treated
>throughout their life. Isn't that something to be commended?

A question a relevant answer should come from the Wagyu cattle. If
only they weren't so busy swizzling beer and getting massaged.

Perhaps that's a cautionary tale for those who propose a benevolent
deity, that a truly benevolent deity would support evil, as that would
prove he's not out to fatten us.

[jillery]

On Sat, 30 Jan 2016 20:50:15 -0500, *Hemidactylus*
<ecph...@allspamis.invalid> wrote:

Egad. T.O. politics are as Byzantine as any from the Levant or the
Balkans.

But I like the strategy of providing an alternate DP hypothesis. I
leave it as an exercise who is its seminal source.

[*Hemidactylus*]

Wow you guys adopting Peter's narrow focus on one or two IC systems
(bacterial flagellum or eukaryotic cilium with microtubules) for his pet
DP "theory", made me blunder and forget the wider issue at hand here.
Peter uses a few (???) of the systems Behe makes a case for in _Darwin's
Black Box_. Behe used other cases for irreducible complexity: molecular
components of human vision, molecular components involved in generation
of antibody diversity of human immune system, and the human clotting
cascade. The pseudogenes argument has impact on the broader view of
"intelligent" design. If Peter thinks some aliens seeded the earth long
ago covering the issues of abiogenesis and the bacterial flagellum or
eukaryotic microtubules and the influence of the directed panspermists
ended there (or then?), he inherits the problems his mentor lobs at him
with other irreducible systems that emerge later in evolution, like
after the Cambrian explosion in vertebrates such as us. Peter must one
the one hand praise Behe for the irreducible systems that correspond to
his DP theory and on the other either explain the subsequent evolution
of Behe's other irreducible systems...or sweep them under the rug as
being very awkward for his theory.

And if Peter focuses on either the bacterial flagellum or the eukaryotic
cilium exclusively, the leaves the other problem. Did the panspermists
solve both problems or just the bacterial flagellum, leaving the cilium
to chance and selective sifting of beneficial variation? Is DP an early
life package deal that excluded Behe's other systems?

Will Peter have his IC cake and eat it too? This is an awkward dilemma
for him to address. Behe poses difficulties for DP theory. The seeders
may explain the prokarytotic flagellum, but not the molecular aspects of
the human eye, immune system, nor the clotting cascade.

But to me an intelligent agent capable of designing these sophisticated
systems would not have saddled the human genome with pseudogenic slop in
the genome like the vitellogenin and olfactory receptor fragments.

My original argument is thus restored before the Unfab Four confused me.
Plus I now have a handy alternative DP theory, whereby Reptilian organ
harvesters living on Planet X have intervened in human evolution
multiple times. Peter cannot refute* this alternative. Thus the angels
herald doom for Throom.

*-The harvesters knew we would eventually discover DNA and genome. They
put junk DNA and pseudogenes there to simulate "evolution" and throw us
off their track. Not difficulty for theory.

[*Hemidactylus*]

Peter's argument for DP relies on Behe's irreducible complexity. But
Behe is not Peter's ally beyond this. Peter must explain Behe's
non-panspermy consistent IC systems for DP to be taken seriously, if
evolution took over after initial seeding. He's squeezing his God of
gaps into a very tiny space (functional attributes of early prokaryotes
and eukaryotes*), but I just expanded it for him.

*-that's if his discussion of tubulin on this thread means he thinks
cilia are problematic (sensu Behe)

[RSNorman]

On Sun, 31 Jan 2016 16:30:18 -0500, *Hemidactylus*

I admit to not reading a lot of Peter's stuff but it seems like you
are putting words and ideas into what he does write. And what you put
in I totally discount, not coming from Peter.

[RSNorman]

On Sun, 31 Jan 2016 16:23:19 -0500, *Hemidactylus*

Again with the pseudogenes, now with the addition of junk DNA! And
again with your personal opinion about what an intelligent agent
elsewhere is likely or not likely to do. And, worse, it is all about
detesting Peter and anything and everything he says, no matter how
distorted your view of it. And where did IC and Behe come from except
you trying to tar what you dislike with whatever bad things come to
mind?

Forget Peter. Directed panspermia is mostly about seeding planets
with "some" form of life and generally it is single celled. It is not
even necessary that eukaryotes be included. In other words,
essentially all 'junk' DNA that we have and certainly any and all
pseudogenes we have are completely the responsibility of ordinary
biological evolution. Nothing you write here deals with the general
notion of directed panspermia except that you seem to somewhat dislike
the notion.

[Mark Isaak]

As best I recall, Peter's panspermia FAQ never mentions irreducible
complexity. I believe that much of the positive evidence he gives in
his FAQ has been discredited, but IC was not part of that set.

--
Mark Isaak eciton (at) curioustaxonomy (dot) net
"The evil that is in the world always comes of ignorance, and good
intentions may do as much harm as malevolence, if they lack
understanding." - Albert Camus, _The Plague_

[*Hemidactylus*]

Has he eschewed IC then, backing away from this document of many years ago?

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/talk.origins/sJhBe0-8QjQ/LnKNmY9rQ5oJ

[quote]
This is a post featuring excerpts from a draft for a FAQ proposal,
which I hope to complete before the end of this year.


Q1.1 What is an irreducibly complex system?

A1.1 As defined by Michael Behe in _Darwin's Black Box_,
it is a system with several distinct parts, producing
a certain effect, such that if ANY ONE of the parts
is eliminated, the system effectively ceases to function.
To put it more succinctly: each and every part is indispensible
to the function.


Q1.2 What is meant by "a part"?

A1.2 This depends on the system. Some of the simpler systems
looked at by Behe, such as the flagellum, have some individual
molecules whose removal causes the system to cease functioning
effectively. But in most cases, it is all molecules with a
given molecular structure: for instance, in the blood clotting
system, the set of all thrombin molecules is treated as a
single part of the system.


Q1.3 Isn't "X is irreducibly complex" just a fancy way
of saying "I cannot imagine how X could have evolved"?

A1.3 No, Behe does not consider irreducible complexity either
necessary or sufficient for the system not being evolvable.
As to necessity, he even devotes a chapter to AMP synthesis
while seeming to deny that it is irreducibly complex, yet
at the same time claiming that it poses much the same
problems as the irreducibly complex ones. In either case,
the main problem is explaining how the systems could
have evolved in Darwinian fashion in a reasonable amount of time.

As to sufficiency, consider the following two quotes from
Behe's book _Darwin's Black Box_.

Even if a system is irreducibly complex (and
thus cannot have been produced directly), however, one cannot
definitively rule out the possibility of an indirect, circuitous
route. As the complexity of an interacting system increases, though,
the likelihood of such an indirect route drops precipitously. [p. 40]

There is no magic point of irreducible complexity at
which Darwinism is logically impossible. But the
hurdles for gradualism become higher and higher as
structures are more complex, more interdependent. [p. 203]


Q1.4 Doesn't all this mean that irreducible complexity is
irrelevant to the question of whether something could have evolved?

A1.4 Not necessarily. It throws certain issues into sharper relief.
It throws out the challenge of how the system could have evolved
in Darwinian fashion from one with *fewer* parts. This problem
does not arise for systems with some dispensible parts.


Q1.5 Why meet the challenge at all? How about the system coming
from one that is not irreducibly complex and has more parts?

A1.5 This is an indirect method, sanctioned by the first quote
given in A1.3, but it still requires a plausible scenario for
evolving gradually in Darwinian fashion from simpler systems.
Where the systems proposed by Julie Thomas so far are concerned,
no one has attempted to provide such a scenario. In fact,
to paraphrase Q3.1 below, all that has been done in t.o. so
far in this direction has been to move the problem one or
more steps further back. Whatever prcursor of the bacterial
flagellum or F-ATPase rotors one tries to imagine (and nobody
seems to have even tried so far), there still remains
the heretofore unsolved problem of imagining
how it *might* have evolved in gradual fashion to acquire rotary torque
and control over it.


Q2.1 So this is all just an Argument from Personal Incredulity,
isn't it? You can't imagine how it might have evolved, so you
say "It must have been designed," right?

A2.1 In the first place, it isn't just a few people who cannot
imagine how the bacterial flagellum, the eukaryotic undulipodia
(flagellae and cilia), the F-ATPase rotor, and various other
IC systems might have evolved. Nobody in talk.origins has
ever attempted to even imagine more than one or two of many
hypothetical steps along even an alleged evolutionary path.
Moreover, the alleged path is not even outlined; its existence
is simply *postulated* and a few little highlights are then
hypothesized to be part of this non-imagined path.

Secondly, there has never been a claim by either Michael Behe,
Julie Thomas, or Peter Nyikos that these systems *must* have
been designed. Only Michael Behe has come close to saying
it, and he was speaking to the general audience of people
everywhere, rather than primarily to scientifically and/or polemically
sophisticated people, just as Nobel Laureate biochemist
Christian de Duve was in the Quote of the Week [see below].

It is the opponents of Behe who are using an Argument from
Personal Credulity, saying in effect:

You can't prove it didn't evolve, so Ockham's Razor
makes it the default assumption that it did evolve.
And, Voila! here is one of the steps by which it
might have evolved!

Thomas and Nyikos have contented themselves with the hypothesis
that design is a BETTER (more likely) explanation for these select
systems; in the case of Nyikos, design by an advanced technological
civilization that "seeded" earth over 3 billion years ago with
prokaryotes and perhaps primitive eukaryotes. This process,
known as "directed panspermy", was elaborated into a scientific
hypothesis by Nobel Laureate Francis Crick and by Leslie Orgel
about two decades ago.


Q3.1 Doesn't directed panspermy merely move the problem of
life's origins further back?

A3.1 Taken by itself, yes. But if we further hypothesize that
this earlier civilization had a biochemistry simpler than ours,
with all organisms of their world lacking such remarkably
artifact-like structures as the ones mentioned in A2.1,
then this hypothesis goes part of the way
towards solving the basic problem. The construction of these
structures can be hypothesized to be due to the skill, intelligence,
ingenuity, and persistence of that technological civilization
rather than to the blind workings of chance and natural selection.

Peter Nyikos -- standard disclaimer --
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics
University of South Carolina
Columbia, SC 29208

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

It is quite impossible that a structure as complex
as a eukaryotic flagellum could have arisen independently
twice by convergent evolution.
--Christian de Duve, _Vital Dust: Life as a Cosmic
Imperative_ BasicBooks [A division of HarperCollins
Publishers], 1995, p.139.
[/quote]


More recently:
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/talk.origins/XoQKmWjG1f4/DwZs9nwv5BQJ

[quote]
Here we have one datum: it apparently happened here on earth, in ca.
3.9 American billion years starting with the first prokaryotes. I
don't think the odds are as terrible as those against abiogenesis. As
long as the expected number of attempts to seed promising planets is
several times as much as the odds against such a species arising in
less than 5 bilion years from the first prokaryote, simple reasoning
would dictate that we are more likely to be the result of seeding,
than we are to be the result of "Mother Earth did it" abiogenesis.

Other than that, the only additional evidence is a number of features
of organisms that look like they were intelligently designed: the
prokaryotic flagellae, the eukaryotic cilia, and the biggie: the
protein translation mechanism.
[/quote]

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/talk.origins/XoQKmWjG1f4/ormbUPiJQ2UJ

[quote]
There are others, but these are among the best known. Michael Behe
mentions the cilia, the flagella, and a few others in _Darwin's Black
Box_. I always thought it a huge deficiency not to mention the
translation apparatus.[/quote]

[*Hemidactylus*]

Well from 2011:
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/talk.origins/DyT9mKRekQY/RblM33cuCDcJ

[quote]
> You appear to be defending the concept of "irreducible complexity" as
> indicating "design". Or aren't you?

I am not. The most I've ever said along those lines is that, *given*
the hypothesis that panspermists altered or designed some organisms,
*some* irreducibly complex structures, most notably the bacterial
flagellum and the eukaryotic cilium, are very promising candidates for
what they *did* design.

I should qualify that: I don't recall saying anything more along the
lines of "indicating design" in the 1990's and 2000-1, and I know I
haven't said more since I returned in late 2010.
[/quote]

From 1997:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/talk.origins/sJhBe0-8QjQ/LnKNmY9rQ5oJ

[quote]

A2.1 In the first place, it isn't just a few people who cannot
imagine how the bacterial flagellum, the eukaryotic undulipodia
(flagellae and cilia), the F-ATPase rotor, and various other
IC systems might have evolved. Nobody in talk.origins has
ever attempted to even imagine more than one or two of many
hypothetical steps along even an alleged evolutionary path.
Moreover, the alleged path is not even outlined; its existence
is simply *postulated* and a few little highlights are then
hypothesized to be part of this non-imagined path.

[...]

Thomas and Nyikos have contented themselves with the hypothesis
that design is a BETTER (more likely) explanation for these select
systems; in the case of Nyikos, design by an advanced technological
civilization that "seeded" earth over 3 billion years ago with
prokaryotes and perhaps primitive eukaryotes. This process,
known as "directed panspermy", was elaborated into a scientific
hypothesis by Nobel Laureate Francis Crick and by Leslie Orgel
about two decades ago.

[/quote]

[RSNorman]

On Sun, 31 Jan 2016 19:03:45 -0500, *Hemidactylus*

Dredging up pasts from 20 years puts you on a par with Peter who also
seems to keep scrupulous records of exactly who said what when. And
didn't his statement of six years ago repudiate your notion that he
adheres to IC?

Please tell me how Peter's ideas indicate that the initial seed
contained pseudo-genes or junk DNA? That is pretty much the substance
of your current ridicule.

[*Hemidactylus*]

I was defending myself from your ridicule by providing supporting
documentation. You weren't here nearly 20 years ago. I was. My memory
hasn't failed me that Peter has gone to bat for Behe on this issue of IC
and not only has, but as above even more recently appears to be
incorporating IC into his DP theory.

If I was on par with Peter I would have added play by play commentary
every step of the way (instead of letting him speak for himself) and
brought irrelevant references to what others in the Nofab Four have been
saying lately with copious message ids and urls and intercalated
personal stuff. I did what I needed to do and was done with it.
Sufficient factual detail for my case.

> And
> didn't his statement of six years ago repudiate your notion that he
> adheres to IC?

Not all all. He refers to the bacterial flagellum in the context of IC
('irreducibly complex structure' and 'very promising candidates for what
they *did* design'.)

> Please tell me how Peter's ideas indicate that the initial seed
> contained pseudo-genes or junk DNA? That is pretty much the substance
> of your current ridicule.

See you are willfully misreading me now. I have narrowed my focus on the
relevant IC systems for DP (bacterial flagella and cilia). In a broader
based view of Behe's IC systems, I pointed out that these (vision
molecules, immune system, clotting cascade) are problematic for narrow
focused IC/DP and I attack the broader non-DP IC/ID approach with
pseudogenes. Read more carefully next time.

I have provided ample support for my more narrowly focused contentions.

Now the issue is whether Nyikos thinks Behe's broader focused IC systems
are still cogent. If so he has an consistency problem with DP followed
by evolution on Earth.

Now is any of this narrowed focus DP chatter a personal attack on
Peter...or a very topic discussion of topics relevant to talk.origins?
Do I have a humorous way of addressing stuff (like the Norman-Hemi
Planet X DP alternative to Throom)? Sure. I'm having a blast.

[RSNorman]

On Sun, 31 Jan 2016 20:06:54 -0500, *Hemidactylus*

From the very beginning of this business I have asked you to explain
just what pseudogenes, and later junk DNA, have to do with DP which
according to most accounts seeded earth with rather early
microorganisms. Now you say that your argument was only to the
broader non-DP story. I did read carefully how you consistently
merged everything into one.

[*Hemidactylus*]

As Heraclitus opined all is flux. My focus changed as I realized
pseudogenes are not relevant to narrow focus IC/DP. Do keep up. I was
rusty and needed to tune up a bit along the way.

You are the Ringo of the Non-Fab Four. Isaak suddenly showed up drumming
a similar rhythm much like the forgotten Pete Best. Jillery is Paul.
Nyikos is George and the more capable and talented Burkhard is John. If
the infinitely more talented Harshman shows up to chime in he is Clapton
with the characteristically Slowhand who is there to shore up George/Nyikos.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/While_My_Guitar_Gently_Weeps

Non-Fab Four are Nyikos, Norman, jillery, Burkhard, Isaak and Harshman
(pending). Toying with Unfab as alternative name. Could open to a vote
of members.

[RSNorman]

On Sun, 31 Jan 2016 23:19:57 -0500, *Hemidactylus*
<ecph...@allspamis.invalid> wrote:


>
>You are the Ringo of the Non-Fab Four. Isaak suddenly showed up drumming
>a similar rhythm much like the forgotten Pete Best. Jillery is Paul.
>Nyikos is George and the more capable and talented Burkhard is John. If
>the infinitely more talented Harshman shows up to chime in he is Clapton
>with the characteristically Slowhand who is there to shore up George/Nyikos.
>
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/While_My_Guitar_Gently_Weeps
>
>Non-Fab Four are Nyikos, Norman, jillery, Burkhard, Isaak and Harshman
>(pending). Toying with Unfab as alternative name. Could open to a vote
>of members.

At least you recognize me as a starr.

My own quartet tastes run more to Dusinberre, Schranz, Walther, and
Fejer.

[*Hemidactylus*]

Given y'all are vested in his notion of aliens seeding the Earth with an
irreducibly complex feature such as the bacterial flagellum I am
changing the band's name to the Prefab Four. It's settled then.

[RSNorman]

Irreducibility has nothing whatsoever to do with it. It's just damned
difficult to get it all done in the alloted time.

If a significant part of early earth's water and carbonaceous matter
arrived from extraterrestrial sources, then just expand that notion a
little. I am not terribly vested in the idea. I just want to know
why it is completely out of the question. I have seen people here
seriously discussing the notion of humans exploring other solar
systems. I don't see pangenesis as any more ludicrous.

[jillery]

On Sun, 31 Jan 2016 23:19:57 -0500, *Hemidactylus*
<ecph...@allspamis.invalid> wrote:

[...]

You never said how is it I qualify as a nonfab. My contribution here
is to argue for good "bad design" arguments and criticize bad "bad
design" arguments.

AIUI your current narrative is about rockhead's DP, which explicitly
asserts a presumptive purpose, to seed life across some segment of the
Universe, and on that basis any presumptive Design is reasonably
evaluated, ie a good "bad design" argument. As far as I can figure
out what you really believe, and assuming what you really believe has
any relevance to your narrative, I agree with it.

Besides, I don't play guitar worth a lick. Of course, one might argue
that neither does Paul, but that's an entirely different subject and
off-topic to T.O.

[Glenn]

"jillery" <69jp...@gmail.com> wrote in message news:9trtablr60oqil8df...@4ax.com...

"The illusion of purpose is so powerful that biologists themselves use the assumption of good design as a working tool."
http://bevets.com/equotesd3.htm

[RSNorman]

In case any could be deceived by the fact that, for once, you wrote
something sensible (even though it is merely a Dawkins quote), it
should be pointed out that the "illusion" of purpose is just another
way of saying "appearance". Biologists who use the notion of purpose
are fully aware that it is, indeed, an illusion and not a reality.
Biologists are not at all deluded by the illusion.

The statement is quite true as is the statement that we biologists use
bad design and, most especially, really weird design as a working
tool. That different organisms, distantly related, use very different
"designs" to solve the same problem is important. That different
organisms, relatively closely related, use one design framework to
solve different problems is the other side of that very important
notion.

[Robert Carnegie]

I think the quoted statement is also wrong, which for me
counts against it being the genuine stated opinion of
Richard Dawkins. Specifically, I object to "assumption",
since there is biology that is "bad design", but works.
"Presumption" instead of "assumption" is more reasonable
IMO and I think that Dawkins would be careful of that.

It is qualified "as a working tool" but that isn't enough
for me. F think that "assumption" gives up ground to the
enemy, needlessly.

By "enemy", I mean "lying thieving cowards who deny their god",
which is to say - in this case - the intelligent-design
creation proponentists.

[Burkhard]

who has been talking about IC? most certainly not me

for his pet
> DP "theory", made me blunder and forget the wider issue at hand here.
> Peter uses a few (???) of the systems Behe makes a case for in _Darwin's
> Black Box_. Behe used other cases for irreducible complexity: molecular
> components of human vision, molecular components involved in generation
> of antibody diversity of human immune system, and the human clotting
> cascade. The pseudogenes argument has impact on the broader view of
> "intelligent" design. If Peter thinks some aliens seeded the earth long
> ago covering the issues of abiogenesis and the bacterial flagellum or
> eukaryotic microtubules and the influence of the directed panspermists
> ended there (or then?), he inherits the problems his mentor lobs at him
> with other irreducible systems that emerge later in evolution, like
> after the Cambrian explosion in vertebrates such as us. Peter must one
> the one hand praise Behe for the irreducible systems that correspond to
> his DP theory and on the other either explain the subsequent evolution
> of Behe's other irreducible systems...or sweep them under the rug as
> being very awkward for his theory.

Why would there be a problem? He'd simply has to say that these later IC
systems are not really IC - which is what everyone else here would be
saying anyway.

>
> And if Peter focuses on either the bacterial flagellum or the eukaryotic
> cilium exclusively, the leaves the other problem. Did the panspermists
> solve both problems or just the bacterial flagellum, leaving the cilium
> to chance and selective sifting of beneficial variation? Is DP an early
> life package deal that excluded Behe's other systems?

You'd have to ask Peter, but I don't see how Behe comes into any of this

>
> Will Peter have his IC cake and eat it too? This is an awkward dilemma
> for him to address. Behe poses difficulties for DP theory. The seeders
> may explain the prokarytotic flagellum, but not the molecular aspects of
> the human eye, immune system, nor the clotting cascade.
>
> But to me an intelligent agent capable of designing these sophisticated
> systems would not have saddled the human genome with pseudogenic slop in
> the genome like the vitellogenin and olfactory receptor fragments.
>
> My original argument is thus restored before the Unfab Four confused me.
> Plus I now have a handy alternative DP theory, whereby Reptilian organ
> harvesters living on Planet X have intervened in human evolution
> multiple times. Peter cannot refute* this alternative.

Why would he need to? You give yourself some good arguments why this is
probably not the case.

Thus the angels
> herald doom for Throom.


>
> *-The harvesters knew we would eventually discover DNA and genome. They
> put junk DNA and pseudogenes there to simulate "evolution" and throw us
> off their track. Not difficulty for theory.

So that would show that your pseudogene argument is not conclusive, but
as the rebuttal invokes deception, no evidence against it would be,
rendering it empirically empty. Normal rules of deciding betwween
competing theories apply, ceteris paribus go to the one with content.
>

[Peter Nyikos]

Only to Scott ("Hemidactylus") Chase, who may have conned Vincent
Maycock with a milder version of this utterly grotesque misrepresentation
of DP. The really interesting question is whether (1) it was Ron O who conned
Scott, or (2) Scott who conned Ron O, or

(3) neither is a common ancestor for this "little green men" style
of misrepresentation, or

(4) this is a case of homoplasy -- both Ron O and Scott independently
coming up with it.

I think (4) is the explanation, but I could be wrong.

> >> This interlude has been oodles of fun but it really doesn't address
> >> the issue of life on earth initially having been seeded from elsewhere
> >> and subsequently developing purely by biological evolution. You,
> >> hemi, think it a ridiculous notion. Others think abiogenesis by
> >> natural physical processes on earth in the available time a ridiculous
> >> notion. Arguing ridicularity (or whatever it might be called) is not
> >> an effective argument. We have no direct evidence for abiogenesis,
> >> either.
> >
> >Peter's argument for DP relies on Behe's irreducible complexity.

Completely false. Scott gets even the idea of DP relying
on the bacterial flagellum backwards. The quotes he subsequently
produced from 2011 and 1997 actually show that. The business of
IC is another false lead on top of that.

I should add, in fairness, that the interpretation of the 1997 quote
might have been an honest misunderstanding on Scott's part:
my estimates, back then, of the probability of DP being
true were at the top of my current range of estimates, which actually
goes mildly against DP on the lower end.

And so, I concluded back then that the probability of the
bacterial flagellum being designed was rather higher than the
probability of it being the result of abiogenesis.

<snip rest of Scott's GIGO, along with his blather about "God of gaps">

>
> I admit to not reading a lot of Peter's stuff but it seems like you
> are putting words and ideas into what he does write. And what you put
> in I totally discount, not coming from Peter.

He is indeed putting words into my mouth. Thanks for being so prudent.

Peter Nyikos

[Glenn]

"RSNorman" <r_s_n...@comcast.net> wrote in message news:tavuabtkdbn0l78ov...@4ax.com...

LOL!

[Peter Nyikos]

On Friday, January 29, 2016 at 12:40:57 PM UTC-5, Joe Cummings wrote:
> On 27/01/2016 03:35, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > On Saturday, January 23, 2016 at 5:21:15 AM UTC-5, Joe Cummings wrote:
> >> On 18/01/2016 19:32, Joe Cummings wrote:
> >>> I get the impression that sometimes our conversations here are a little
> >>> too technical for our creationist friends.

And for you too, judging from your performance on this thread.

> >> Snip
> >>>
> >>> When Adam was created out of the dust, why didn't the lord just take a
> >>> bit more trouble and give humans a speech organ?
> >>>
> >>> Have verbal fun,
> >>>
> >>> Joe Cummings
> >>>
> >> It's interesting how a simple note about the absence of a speech organ
> >> stimulates differing responses.
> >>
> >> Let's get really hifalutin'.
> >>
> >>
> >> Perhaps I took it for granted that the development of speech in
> >> primitive humans would require adaptations of the anatomy for the
> >> purposes of communication. I was simply reprising a Darwinian scenario
> >> for the development of speech.
> >>
> >> My main concern was to show that communication was developed using
> >> already existing features of the anatomy.
> >
> > Au contraire, your main concern was to imply how much better
> > a creator would have been if we did not have to rely on them
> > for "speech" but had an organ specialized for it. But it
> > seems, from what you write in this post, that you had no intention
> > of arguing this point if a creationist had disagreed with that
> > implication.
> >
> >> And it doesn't take a genius to realise that our inchoate speech would
> >> be of a fairly limited content. But Peter Nyikos, for instance wanted to
> >> get onto the bus well after it had left the depot (idiom). You don't
> >> project modern ideas about communication onto the distant past.
> >
> > It doesn't take a genius to see that you are reinforcing what I said
> > to Mr. Tiib:
> >
> > And [Joe] forgot all about what it is that makes speech
> > persuasive, after having speculated that it was not
> > reading, but hearing "preachers", that converted
> > Martinez and Eddie to something he didn't try to specify.
> >
> > To put it another way: I'm trying to get "the bus" to somehow connect
> > to the destination that this teaser suggested, namely the incredible
> > capacity of humans to take language to heights that those inchoate
> > grunts gave absolutely no hint of. When did that capacity evolve?
> > Was it Neanderthals who first acquired that capacity? Homo erectus?
> > Homo habilis? Australopithecus? Ardipithecus?
> >
> > You talk the talk of Darwinism, but are you prepared to walk
> > the walk?
> >
> >> What is at issue is the interaction of the organism with its
> >> environment. That is about the most general consideration behind my
> >> original posting.
> >
> >> Never mind for the moment the modern aspects of communication - which
> >> have their place in some discussion consequent on this one.
> >
> > In that case, why even talk about an organ of speech? If the kind of
> > communication that present day chimps can achieve is good enough
> > for you, it was downright silly of you to suggest your question
> > posed any kind of relevance to debate with creationists.
> >
> > <snip for focus>
> >
> >> Of course, the use of communication is intimately connected with the
> >> social life of the species under consideration, and that is worth a good
> >> discussion at some stage, and I will gladly cede the initiation of such
> >> a discussion to someone more capable than I.
> >
> >> I was a little disappointed to see only one creationist, Ray Martinez,
> >> join the fray,
> >
> > You should have been glad to see anyone calling himself a creationist
> > join, now that you've disavowed any interest in language even on the
> > level of a primitive Amazon or New Guinea tribe, and aren't going
> > to embark on a discussion of the role of communication in social life.

<snip for focus>

> >> Let me emphasise that what I have written about the use of varying parts
> >> of the anatomy is hypothetical, but I'm confident that speculation in
> >> this manner stimulates further study, just as metaphysics stimulates
> >> scientific investigation.
> >
> > Don't expect anyone to study an inchoate idea of an "organ of speech"
> > after the way you've waffled about it.
> >
> >> To coin a phrase, "Metaphysics proposes, science disposes."
> >
> >> I apologise if I have omitted to deal with other points raised, and also
> >> for my snipping most of the discussion, but here I'm following Nyikos's
> >> useful idea "Snipping for focus.
> >
> > Except that you've been unfocused.
> >
> > Peter Nyikos
> >
> It's touching to read Peter's eagerness to be seen as the brightest boy
> in the class, the sharpest knife in the box.

It would be touching to see how completely clueless you are
about my role in talk.origins, were it not for the way
you seem to treat it as an asset rather than a handicap.

Or perhaps you are not as clueless as you are pretending to be.
See urls posted below at the appropriate place.

> Touching, but also a
> little wearing. I'm not an avid reader of his posts, because he has the
> habit of correcting what people say. He shows them what they are really
> meaning,

What formulaic bilge! You act as though you've seen me behave in this way
towards many other people in this newsgroup, whereas I do it so seldom
[because most participants don't make such asinine claims about their
main purposes] that I don't think you can find a single other instance.

I think you are just another pure polemicist who came here from other
forums with a big bag of polemical tricks that you love to try
out on others.

You've tried some of them out on me before, in two of the relative handful
of posts you've done to talk.origins. See here:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!original/talk.origins/v4Eq1G0N0Mk/CVmJb4OES98J

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!original/talk.origins/v4Eq1G0N0Mk/82cmLuDnu8kJ

One thing you REALLY don't seem to realize is that there is a
tremendous amount of continuity here in talk.origins. Except for
yourself, all the participants on this thread have put in a huge
number of posts in the last two years, while you post only very
sporadically. Moreover, most of the people on this thread are regulars
with many years of experience in talk.origins behind them.


> and I'm sure many, many people will be grateful for his
> correction of their writing when it doesn't come up to his own - not
> standards, but expectations. (Here I expect there to be a rush of
> people coming to his defence.)

Sarcasm noted.

> In fact, if I were forced to choose between reading his posts and
> sitting through an hour of Vogon poetry reading I'd cheerfully
> choose the latter.
>
> Here he is again, telling my what I should be writing - something that
> he has conjured up from his genius-like mind. He seems to think that
> I'm talking about the qualities of some creator or other,

Disingenuous use of present tense noted. Anyone who goes back and looks
at your OP will see why this description is apt.

> yet he is
> responding to something completely different.
>
> Now I'm always prepared to help someone in difficulties, so I'll repeat
> what I said, and to help Peter, I"ll put it between asterisks:
>
> * my main concern was to show that communication was developed using
> already existing features of the anatomy *

Too bad you didn't make that clear in your OP. Your cock and bull story
about wanting to challenge creationists was just a big cover story, eh?
You even embellished it with bilge about a creator and an "organ of speech."

By the way, if you are really leveling with us about this being
your main concern, you are insulting the intelligence of everyone here,
including the creationists. It's as if everyone but you knows about
the huge role of the larynx (an existing feature of the anatomy, y'know)
in human speech. As for the parts you did name, I doubt that anything
you wrote struck anyone but you as being of interest.

> Now, Peter, when you get to the second asterisk, go back to the first
> one and read the passage again. When you get to the second asterisk for
> the second time, don't read straight on, but I urge you to pause and
> think about what was written - not what you thought was written.
>
> After this little misunderstanding he continues on the tramlines of his
> own special interests; modern communication. And, of course, he asks me
> the question how did the much more complicated level of speech "evolve?"
>
> Of course he asks this in pursuit of his own train of thought, he thinks
> that when I mentioned a bus I had in mind a "destination." I hadn't; I
> had in mind a journey, and in fact a journey whose destination we wot
> not of, because it's still ongoing.

A journey too elementary to be worth the attention of anyone here.

> He shows his limitations again when he asks why talk about an organ of
> speech at all? Well there are some of us, possibly benighted souls,
> here who wish to have an understanding of our origins and the
> development of our abilities.

Any time you really want to talk about the evolution of these things,
let us know, huh?

>I think this idea is lost on Peter
> because of his need to "shine" at something else.
>
> One last point that the discerning reader will have picked up is that
> Peter is only interested in primitive and modern speech and, of course
> not at all in my points about the anatomy of speaking.
>
> Now if my assessment is correct, Peter will come back and will continue
> to come back to every post I make, so therefore if people are expecting
> a long thread , a bladderwhacking thread, they're going to be disappointed.
>
> I may come back if Peter makes any more egregious errors, but I doubt if
> I'll do otherwise.
>
> Have fun,
>
> Joe Cummings

There is only one other person in this newsgroup who drips with polemically
inspired condescension the way you do. Can you guess who I am talking about?

If not, you should really learn more about this newsgroup before
posting here again.

Peter Nyikos

[Peter Nyikos]

On Sunday, January 31, 2016 at 6:00:48 PM UTC-5, Mark Isaak wrote:

> As best I recall, Peter's panspermia FAQ never mentions irreducible
> complexity.

I believe you are right about that; it's hard to think of where it
might even have been relevant.

> I believe that much of the positive evidence he gives in
> his FAQ has been discredited, but IC was not part of that set.

What do you mean by "positive evidence"? In any event, I haven't
seen anything in the FAQ discredited. If you know of any exceptions,
I'd like to see them.

> --
> Mark Isaak eciton (at) curioustaxonomy (dot) net
> "The evil that is in the world always comes of ignorance, and good
> intentions may do as much harm as malevolence, if they lack
> understanding." - Albert Camus, _The Plague_

Did he put that in the mouth of one of his characters? If so, is
there any reason to think Camus endorsed it? I note, for instance,
how the first sentence seems to discount the concept of malevolence,
while the second seems to imply its widespread existence.

Peter Nyikos

[Mark Isaak]

On 2/1/16 2:23 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Sunday, January 31, 2016 at 6:00:48 PM UTC-5, Mark Isaak wrote:
>
>> As best I recall, Peter's panspermia FAQ never mentions irreducible
>> complexity.
>
> I believe you are right about that; it's hard to think of where it
> might even have been relevant.
>
>> I believe that much of the positive evidence he gives in
>> his FAQ has been discredited, but IC was not part of that set.
>
> What do you mean by "positive evidence"?

Something about molybdenum, as best I recall. It was rebutted somewhere
in the thread where you first presented your FAQ. I think there was
something else, too, but I don't remember.

[Nor do I remember about the Camus quote.]

[*Hemidactylus*]

Funny how you address your fellow Prefab Four member Richard on a post
not even remotely related to anything other than my Planet X alternative
to your Throomian theory. And you're calling *that* a "grotesque
misrepresentation of DP" instead of acknowledging a competing viable
theory (=inability to refute).

And if I did *anythin* wrong it was that my initial aim was off until I
recalibrated and focused on the relevant Behe IC systems, most
importantly the bacterial flagellum as a key part of your IC/DP theory.
Recall the "D" in DP is for *directed*. What directs, but a designer.
Why is the bacterial flagellum key to your theory aside from the problem
of it evolving in the "mother earth did it" scenario, an "extrapolation
of the gaps". Who is best known for pointing this problem out from a
molecular perspective? Behe. Are you kicking him to the curb now?

>>>> This interlude has been oodles of fun but it really doesn't address
>>>> the issue of life on earth initially having been seeded from elsewhere
>>>> and subsequently developing purely by biological evolution. You,
>>>> hemi, think it a ridiculous notion. Others think abiogenesis by
>>>> natural physical processes on earth in the available time a ridiculous
>>>> notion. Arguing ridicularity (or whatever it might be called) is not
>>>> an effective argument. We have no direct evidence for abiogenesis,
>>>> either.
>>>
>>> Peter's argument for DP relies on Behe's irreducible complexity.
>
> Completely false. Scott gets even the idea of DP relying
> on the bacterial flagellum backwards. The quotes he subsequently
> produced from 2011 and 1997 actually show that. The business of
> IC is another false lead on top of that.

Um nope. Why haven't you addressed those quote directly. You've followed
up to fellow Prefab Four accomplice Isaak, but not my rebuttal of him
replete with quote of you.

> I should add, in fairness, that the interpretation of the 1997 quote
> might have been an honest misunderstanding on Scott's part:
> my estimates, back then, of the probability of DP being
> true were at the top of my current range of estimates, which actually
> goes mildly against DP on the lower end.

Not fair. I had you dead to rights as ID/IC supporter with Julie Thomas
AND appending your DP speculations to that FAQ (ca 1997).

> And so, I concluded back then that the probability of the
> bacterial flagellum being designed was rather higher than the
> probability of it being the result of abiogenesis.

Designed the keyword here and in the context of Behe's IC. Jonathan
Stone (IIRC) had a phrase back then, either "squid ink" or "squink"(?)
that applies here. You are in full nailing jello to a wall mode.

> <snip rest of Scott's GIGO, along with his blather about "God of gaps">
>
>>
>> I admit to not reading a lot of Peter's stuff but it seems like you
>> are putting words and ideas into what he does write. And what you put
>> in I totally discount, not coming from Peter.
>
> He is indeed putting words into my mouth. Thanks for being so prudent.

PN ca 1997 (the ur-document called "Irreducible complexity and directed
panspermy"):
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/talk.origins/sJhBe0-8QjQ/LnKNmY9rQ5oJ

First why was it called "Irreducible complexity and directed panspermy"
if you weren't connecting the two concepts unless you were deliberately
trying to confuse people?

You said (snipped for focus):
[quote]

"Whatever prcursor of the bacterial flagellum or F-ATPase rotors one
tries to imagine (and nobody seems to have even tried so far), there
still remains the heretofore unsolved problem of imagining
how it *might* have evolved in gradual fashion to acquire rotary torque
and control over it.

[...]

In the first place, it isn't just a few people who cannot
imagine how the bacterial flagellum, the eukaryotic undulipodia
(flagellae and cilia), the F-ATPase rotor, and various other
IC systems might have evolved. Nobody in talk.origins has
ever attempted to even imagine more than one or two of many
hypothetical steps along even an alleged evolutionary path.
Moreover, the alleged path is not even outlined; its existence
is simply *postulated* and a few little highlights are then
hypothesized to be part of this non-imagined path.

Secondly, there has never been a claim by either Michael Behe,
Julie Thomas, or Peter Nyikos that these systems *must* have
been designed. Only Michael Behe has come close to saying
it, and he was speaking to the general audience of people
everywhere, rather than primarily to scientifically and/or polemically
sophisticated people, just as Nobel Laureate biochemist
Christian de Duve was in the Quote of the Week [see below].

[...]
Thomas and Nyikos have contented themselves with the hypothesis
that design is a BETTER (more likely) explanation for these select
systems; in the case of Nyikos, design by an advanced technological
civilization that "seeded" earth over 3 billion years ago with
prokaryotes and perhaps primitive eukaryotes. This process,
known as "directed panspermy", was elaborated into a scientific
hypothesis by Nobel Laureate Francis Crick and by Leslie Orgel
about two decades ago.
[/quote]

So I would say back in 1997 you, in the context of a rough draft FAQ for
IC and DP, were harping on the problematic nature of the bacterial
flagellum for evolutionary explanations and transitioned then to add
your speculations for *directed* panspermy.

"Thomas and Nyikos have contented themselves with the hypothesis
that design is a BETTER (more likely) explanation for these select

systems;".

Which systems were those? The bacterial flagellum (being irreducibly
complex sensu Behe)?

"in the case of Nyikos, design by an advanced technological
civilization that "seeded" earth over 3 billion years ago with
prokaryotes and perhaps primitive eukaryotes. This process,
known as "directed panspermy", was elaborated into a scientific
hypothesis by Nobel Laureate Francis Crick and by Leslie Orgel
about two decades ago."

This is you incorporating Behe's IC rhetoric into your DP theory plain
and simple. No ifs, ands, or buts.

Here is you in a couple posts from 2011:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/talk.origins/XoQKmWjG1f4/DwZs9nwv5BQJ

[quote]
Right now the evidence is mostly that advanced by Crick and Orgel,
combined with the fact that nobody, including them, seems to have come
up with a scenario of how abiogenesis MIGHT be expected to happen in
the scant 500 million years available on earth--or indeed more than
once in a googol of universes with the same physical constants and
roughly the same number of stars as ours.

If the odds are that astronomical against abiogenesis, then we have to
try and assess the odds on whether a few billion years are enough to
have a life form as simple as a prokaryote to evolve an intelligent
life form, intelligent enough to produce a level of technology that
makes them capable of space travel.

Here we have one datum: it apparently happened here on earth, in ca.
3.9 American billion years starting with the first prokaryotes. I
don't think the odds are as terrible as those against abiogenesis. As
long as the expected number of attempts to seed promising planets is
several times as much as the odds against such a species arising in
less than 5 bilion years from the first prokaryote, simple reasoning
would dictate that we are more likely to be the result of seeding,
than we are to be the result of "Mother Earth did it" abiogenesis.

Other than that, the only additional evidence is a number of features
of organisms that look like they were intelligently designed: the
prokaryotic flagellae, the eukaryotic cilia, and the biggie: the
protein translation mechanism.

One of the possible scenarios I have been advancing is that an
intelligent life form with a biochemistry much less hard to evolve
(say, with enzymes RNA based) developed nanotechnology to produce
various proteins, and one of them got the bright idea to design a
bunch of protein enzymes using this technology, thereby producing
"life as we know it."
[/quote]

Now the most relevant part for me is: "Other than that, the only

additional evidence is a number of features
of organisms that look like they were intelligently designed: the
prokaryotic flagellae, the eukaryotic cilia, and the biggie: the
protein translation mechanism."

Again this quirky bacterial flagellum is a problem for evolution and a
data point for DP. Wherever could you have gotten your idea about the
flagellum? I wonder:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/talk.origins/XoQKmWjG1f4/ormbUPiJQ2UJ

[quote you following up to Inez again as above]:

PN:

Other than that, the only additional evidence is a number of features
of organisms that look like they were intelligently designed: the
prokaryotic flagellae, the eukaryotic cilia, and the biggie: the
protein translation mechanism.

Inez?:
Why do those and only those look like they were designed?

PN:

There are others, but these are among the best known. Michael Behe
mentions the cilia, the flagella, and a few others in _Darwin's Black
Box_. I always thought it a huge deficiency not to mention the
translation apparatus.
[/quote]

So why did you bring Behe into this discussion of DP if you weren't
invoking his irreducible complexity?

You continued on in above post:

Someone (Inez?):
What is so special about those systems?

PN:
Hard to evolve, especially the translation mechanism.
[/quote]

Hard to evolve. Isn't that what Behe focused upon. Hard to evolve equals
irreducibly complex.

Another post from 2011:

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/talk.origins/DyT9mKRekQY/RblM33cuCDcJ

[quote]
> You appear to be defending the concept of "irreducible complexity" as
> indicating "design". Or aren't you?

I am not. The most I've ever said along those lines is that, *given*
the hypothesis that panspermists altered or designed some organisms,
*some* irreducibly complex structures, most notably the bacterial
flagellum and the eukaryotic cilium, are very promising candidates for
what they *did* design.

I should qualify that: I don't recall saying anything more along the
lines of "indicating design" in the 1990's and 2000-1, and I know I
haven't said more since I returned in late 2010.
[/quote]

How can I not read this and see you invoking IC in the context of DP?
The paragraph is layers of an onion nuanced to absurdity, especially the
bold "I am not" followed by:"*given*

the hypothesis that panspermists altered or designed some organisms,
*some* irreducibly complex structures, most notably the bacterial
flagellum and the eukaryotic cilium, are very promising candidates for
what they *did* design."

I see "irreducibly complex structures", "most notably the bacterial
flagellum" and "are very promising candidates for
what they *did* design." and think you most definitely have made my case
for me.

Now it is entirely possible that since then you have kicked Behe to the
curb on the bacterial flagellum, but the only way you can do that is if
you concede it was a product of mother earth did it evolution. Then you
lose a data point for DP.

Your call.

[*Hemidactylus*]

Grooming a new potential adversary again I see. Why does Joe have to
worry what *you* think about his postings here?